The Rancher's Redemption

by Melinda Curtis

  Zoe was so lost in her own universe, she didn’t see Ben.

  This was not how he’d envisioned their first meeting after she dumped him. “Where’s Big E?” Ben asked gruffly.

  Only then did his former fiancée, now step-grandmother, notice Ben’s existence. She scowled. “Of all the... Big E couldn’t even wait until I got home? I only stopped here because I couldn’t convince the truck driver to take me to the ranch. You Blackwells. Heartless, the lot of you.” She picked up her broken shoe and threw it at Ben.

  “Hey.” Ben swatted the shoe harmlessly aside.

  Zoe was livid. Cursing, she threw her other shoe at him.

  Ben dodged another pink leather bullet. “Knock it off. Where is my grandfather?”

  Zoe pressed her lips together and glared at him.

  Rachel set Poppy down on her blanket, in the midst of her blocks, and handed her a bottle. Poppy accepted the distraction, taking a drink and banging one block against another.

  A Blackwell Family Ranch truck came to a halt out front. The truck bed was full of pink suitcases and brown cardboard boxes. Katie got out and went to the tailgate, wisps of red hair floating around her head.

  “No.” Zoe marched outside. “You take all that back, Katie Montgomery. You take it back right now.”

  “Sorry, Zoe.” Katie hefted a suitcase to the sidewalk. Then another. And another. She climbed into the truck bed to reach more.

  “It’s Mrs. Blackwell to you,” Zoe shrieked.

  “Not anymore.” Katie sounded almost gleeful. She hopped out of the truck bed and reached in the open window for a sheaf of legal-size papers. “Consider yourself served.”

  “Served with what?” Rachel asked, looking as perplexed as Ben felt.

  “He wouldn’t dare divorce me.” Zoe whirled to face Ben. “He’s lost his mind. He left me at a roadside shop in Dutch country after he swiped my wallet from my bag. I had to hitchhike all the way here.”

  Ben supposed there was some justice in that.

  “It’s your prenup. In case you’d forgotten the terms.” Katie came far enough up the walk to toss papers onto the front step. Then she returned to the truck and the job of unloading Zoe’s stuff. “And divorce papers.”

  Zoe’s eyes narrowed, and she swept the assembled with a chilly glare. When she noticed the crowd across the street in front of the feed store, she glared at them, too. Even Pops Brewster had stopped playing chess with a pigtailed girl wearing a cowboy hat to witness the action.

  Rachel plucked up the paperwork.

  Zoe leaped toward Ben. “Is that why you’re here? To serve my divorce papers?”

  “No.” Ben held his ground. “That was all Katie.” But he might have enjoyed doing the honors. Witnessing Zoe’s comeuppance was the next best thing.

  Zoe poked Ben in the chest. “You can tell your grandfather that I’m not giving up that easily.”

  Ben wanted to grab the papers Rachel was perusing. But the prenup and impending divorce were only the short game. Ben had to think beyond this immediate fiasco. “You know where my grandfather is.” It wasn’t a question.

  “You aren’t going to trick me into talking.” Zoe backed away and leaned against the receptionist’s desk. “You know every secret I spill costs me money.”

  Ben had no idea what Zoe was babbling about.

  “She’s right.” Rachel set the documents down. “Zoe gets money for every year they were married and subtracts money for every secret about Big E and the Blackwell Ranch she divulges.”

  Ben was so shocked by the terms of the prenup and so worried about his grandfather, that he didn’t take time to relish his grandfather’s savvy. After all, Ben hadn’t drawn up a prenup for his own marriage to Zoe. “My brothers and I have been looking for Big E.” Jon and Ethan thought the ranch was near bankruptcy. If that was true, Zoe wasn’t getting anything. “I repeat, where is he?”

  Zoe laughed. “You’ve got your villains all wrong, Ben.”

  “You should go.” Rachel laid a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Let’s meet at four at the Misty Whistle.”

  The last time Rachel had touched his shoulder, she’d brought him close for a kiss. It didn’t look like she was going to send him off with one now that Zoe was here.

  “We’ll talk later.” Ben grabbed his briefcase, said goodbye to Poppy and left.

  * * *

  “WHAT HAPPENED?” Rachel demanded of Zoe when Ben had driven off. “You took off out of Falcon Creek happily married.”

  Zoe’s normally creamy complexion was pink and her arms peeling as if they’d recently suffered sunburn. Her shoulder-length blond hair lacked volume and bounce, just like the rest of her.

  “What happened? One minute we were having a good time at the...” Zoe’s gaze turned calculating and she shook her finger at Rachel. “And the next minute Big E was speeding off in the motorhome.”

  “Zoe, I’m your lawyer.” Rachel held up Zoe’s prenup. “I’m bound by attorney-client privilege. You can tell me everything.”

  “Can I?” There was enough suspicion in Zoe’s voice to accuse Rachel of murder. Clearly, she didn’t trust anyone, not even her best friend. “What were you doing with Ben?”

  What was I doing with Ben? I was kissing him!

  A twinge of guilt swirled in Rachel’s belly, along with a dash of regret and a hint of rebellion. “Ben and I—”

  Hearing one of her favorite people’s names, Poppy chimed in. “Ba-ba-ba-bahhh!” She crawled toward Rachel, a block in one fist and her bottle in the other.

  Rachel walked over and scooped her darling and her bottle up. Poppy glanced around, as if she were searching for Ben. Rachel looked as well, missing his steady, butt-into-your-business presence, too.

  “Rachel.” Her friend pinned Rachel with a stare that was hard, even for Zoe. “What were you doing with my fiancé?”

  “Ex-fiancé.” A correction was definitely in order. Zoe had a tendency to get overdramatic. And no matter what had happened to her on the road, Rachel wasn’t going to be baited into an argument. She rubbed Poppy’s back, more to settle herself than her baby.

  “Ex... That’s just semantics.” Zoe rolled her eyes, fluttering lashes that were thin and entirely her own. “What could Ben be doing here?”

  The truth seemed the best course of action. “I’m suing him.”

  Zoe sat on the metal desk, a slow smile creeping across her face. “Tell me.”

  “Well...” Rachel suddenly felt like she was being stalked by her friend, chased into a dead end. She shook the impression off. Of course, Zoe would be curious. They hadn’t talked in over two months. “I’m suing the Blackwells for water rights. Jon and Ethan asked Ben to come home.”

  Jon and Ethan asked Ben to come home.

  But Ben wasn’t here to stay.

  Rachel moved to the couch and sank into the worn cushions. Poppy sprawled across her chest and drank from the bottle, eyes turning drowsy. Rachel was anything but relaxed. Her pulse was racing and her temples throbbed because...because...

  Because I love Ben.

  Rachel’s heart seemed to swell. The sun streaming through the window and onto her shoulders was warmer and brighter. Poppy was the most beloved and beautiful baby in the world. All because Rachel was in love.

  In love! Her heart trilled like an opera singer only Rachel could hear.

  It was true. Rachel loved Ben’s cocky attitude and his chutzpah. She loved his sharp wit and quick repartee. She loved his kindness. She loved the way he snuggled with Poppy and the way he snuggled with Rachel.

  But...

  She hated that she’d fallen in love with a man who wouldn’t be living in Falcon Creek, who probably looked at her less-than-perfect clothes and her junker truck and compared her to the successful women he saw in New York, the ones who shopped on Fifth Avenue and could afford an expensi
ve nanny. Women who were without mommy stains and mommy brains.

  Suddenly, instead of a trilling heart, Rachel had a heart-heavy list of doubts.

  “Do you think you’ll win the case?” Zoe was saying, staring at a crack in the ceiling, oblivious to Rachel’s meltdown.

  “Yes.” It wasn’t a boast. Rachel believed in her chances. She already had Ben on the ropes. “Yes,” she said again, because she refused to doubt herself when it came to this one case. All she had to do was find a workaround for the water board’s use restrictions. Contact her state congressman or whoever it would take. She could set a new precedent. If Ben was correct, the reversion of water rights from the Blackwells would only be a moral victory without the ability to use the water. If she won the case and the right to use the water, maybe he’d stay, maybe they’d build a life together.

  Maybe pigs could fly.

  Rachel had no right to dream of a future with Ben just because of a few kisses.

  “I like your confidence.” Atop the desk, Zoe crossed her ankles and swung her bare feet. “I need you to challenge my prenup. I want a bigger divorce settlement.”

  Rachel gathered Poppy closer. Taking on the Blackwells for water with proof to back her claim was one thing. Battling Big E when there was a valid prenup was another.

  “I need a bigger divorce settlement,” Zoe insisted. “After all, he made me go without a cell phone or my laptop for two months. Two months! And then, when he finally left me, it was like salt in the wound.”

  Divorces. Rachel’s bread and butter. Granted, it was more like store-bought white bread and margarine, but it was an area she had more experience in than water rights and property law. “You could try marriage counseling.”

  “You think I’d forgive Big E for bugging out on me in Pennsylvania? He left me with nothing but an empty purse and the clothes I was wearing.” She plucked at a wilted orange polka-dot flounce on her dress. “I had to make it all the way home in the dress I wore to the Preakness. I had no makeup, no makeup remover, no concealer, no lipstick, no lotion, no sunscreen.” She paused to draw breath as if she could go on.

  “I get the idea.” Rachel held up a hand. “You had nothing, and yet you made it across at least five states by yourself.” Big E had probably known Zoe was savvy enough to get home safely. Still, it wasn’t like Big E to strand Zoe anywhere or to want radio silence in terms of their cell phones. “Are you sure you didn’t argue before this happened?”

  “No.” Zoe kept her gaze carefully on Rachel’s face without acknowledging Poppy. She’d never held the baby or offered to help with her. “There has to be a way to break that prenup. I was a child when I signed it.”

  Rachel groaned softly. The drama train had officially pulled into the station. “You were twenty-seven, Zoe.”

  “I don’t care! I deserve more than what’s in those suitcases.” Zoe stood and went to look out the window at her possessions. “I want my jewelry. I want alimony until he dies.” This last word came out strangled. Her voice dropped to a tremulous thread. “Which will be soon without me to take care of him. He won’t eat vegetables willingly. He’ll smoke too many cigars, and—”

  “Before that happens, he’ll find another wife.” Rachel tried to say the words soothingly, but it was time her friend faced the truth. “Remember, that’s what Big E does. He moves on.”

  “That’s what he did.” Zoe wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “We were a team. I stood by Big E when his grandchildren abandoned him. That ought to count for something.”

  “You were the reason Ben left,” Rachel said in a voice meant to gently jolt her friend back to reality.

  “When his four other grandchildren abandoned him,” Zoe allowed, bitterness keeping her in wonderland.

  “Technically, Jon was still around.” At Zoe’s cross look, Rachel amended her statement. “Three of his five grandchildren cut off communication with Big E around the time of your marriage. Big E could say you were the cause of the rift.”

  Zoe’s jaw dropped. “How can you say that?” The words echoed into the silence.

  Poppy was asleep in Rachel’s arms. The street outside was quiet. But nothing was settled. Not with Zoe’s heart and not with Rachel’s.

  “I’m your lawyer, Zoe. I’m supposed to be one step ahead of the opposition.” Just as Ben always was. “I’m supposed to give you options.” And what options did Rachel have in loving Ben?

  None presented themselves.

  “Options?” Zoe, deflated, dropped her gaze along with her thin shoulders. “Loan me your shoes so I can put my stuff in your truck.”

  “Okay.” Balancing Poppy, Rachel slid out of her pumps and pushed them over with her feet. “I can drive you to your parents’ house in Livingston after Poppy’s nap.”

  “No. I can’t run away from Falcon Creek, Rachel. That’d be like giving up.” Zoe picked up the teal pumps, shaking her head as if the shoes, not her situation, were to blame for her unhappiness. “Katie is going to make sure I don’t get onto the Blackwell property, but I can’t leave town. What if Big E comes back? Until he does, I can stay with you... Can’t I?”

  That vulnerability.

  A casual observer would take one look at Zoe and assume she was the calculating type. They couldn’t see past Zoe’s outer, protective layer to her soft inner shell.

  Zoe had always been enamored with the dream of a good life, one filled with luxuries and a disregard for price tags. She had always been quick to rile over perceived slights. That made her seem like a prima donna.

  But she was also the first to offer aid to her friends, few though they may be, and loyal to a fault. She loved animals and fairy tales and Christmas. Zoe and Big E had more in common than most people realized.

  “Of course you can stay with me.” Rachel stood, trying not to rouse her little girl. “You’ll have to sleep on the couch, though, because I turned your bedroom into a nursery.” She carried Poppy into the second office and put her in the crib. Taking a moment to stare at all that cherubic innocence, hoping her daughter would be better at love than she was.

  A spark was flickering in Zoe’s blue eyes when Rachel returned. “We can use this time together to plan our attack on Big E and the Blackwells.”

  “Or a graceful acceptance of the end of a good run.” Rachel skimmed Zoe’s divorce paperwork.

  “It’s not fair.” Zoe paced. “Big E must have had the divorce papers drafted for months.”

  “Actually, the paperwork looks boilerplate.” Rachel flipped through the pages once more. “It’s fill-in-the-blank stuff filed in the state of Nevada.” Which was where Zoe and Big E had gotten married. Rachel recalled from her law school days that marriages conducted in Nevada could result in uncontested divorces if filed in Nevada, regardless of which state the parties legally resided in. “When it comes to matrimony, Big E knows what he’s doing.”

  “He makes me so mad.” Zoe took off one of Rachel’s shoes and threw it at the wall.

  “Hey, those are my good court shoes.” Rachel went to rescue her pump. “Why don’t you just take the money and start somewhere new?”

  “Because I want to run the guest ranch.” The blurted admission seemed to take some of the bluster out of her. “It was my idea. Please, Rachel. I’m not just losing my marriage, I’m losing my livelihood and my passion.”

  “You’ll have to find a new livelihood.” A new passion and a new husband. If Big E had driven from Pennsylvania to Nevada to get a divorce, he meant to get a divorce. Rachel pointed at the prenup. “There’s also a clause in here about financial ventures. You get nothing but what you agreed to on your wedding day. Are you sure you don’t want to try to reconcile?” Rachel had to suggest it, even though she knew it was hopeless.

  “Big E filed for divorce.” Zoe’s blue eyes welled with tears. She knew it was hopeless, too. “When have you ever known him to change his mind?
”

  “Never.”

  “You’ve always been honest with me.” Zoe took back Rachel’s shoe, put it on and opened the tricky front door with two hands. “You’ll tell me when I should give up and move on. Until then, I’m not.”

  Big E had been married six times. Rachel was afraid the time to give up was now. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell Zoe that. Not when she’d hit rock bottom.

  Or maybe it was because Rachel wanted to believe in love more than the law.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “ETHAN!” BEN BURST into his brother’s exam room across town.

  Ethan wasn’t doctoring an animal. He was kissing Grace, who squeaked like a mouse, slid off the table and hurriedly straightened her mussed blond hair.

  “Don’t you ever knock?” Ethan scowled. He clearly hadn’t forgiven Ben for keeping the bull-for-land trade under wraps for years, or more likely for siding with Jon to sell the ranch.

  “Sorry, Grace,” Ben said to Ethan’s blushing fiancée. “But my news can’t wait. Big E dumped Zoe with the Amish.” After dropping that bombshell, which wiped the scowl from Ethan’s face, Ben brought his twin up to date on their grandfather’s impending divorce and the return of their soon-to-be ex-step-grandmother.

  If there was one thing that could unite the brothers, it was Big E jettisoning Zoe.

  “Maybe the old man is finally coming to his senses.” Ethan clapped Ben on the back. Ben hoped it was a sign of a truce. “Congratulations. That must be a weight off your shoulders.”

  “I don’t care about Zoe anymore.” Ben pulled out his cell phone. “It’s just now dawning on me that Katie had all Zoe’s things packed up in a ranch truck. She must have talked to Big E. Where is she?”