Romancing the Rancher

by Stacy Connelly

  “Oh, I love vintage stuff. And I can’t tell you how many antiques stores my mama and I have combed through, even though my daddy can’t figure out why we like buying other people’s ‘junk.’ I decorated my whole apartment with things I’ve found at antiques shops and— Oh, my gosh!” Bouncing to her feet, she declared, “We should do it. We should decorate this place!”

  “Oh, Summer, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Just a few things. I promise not to go overboard.” She waved a hand around the stark cabin. “You know this place could use a woman’s touch.”

  Theresa didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to think about how Jarrett could use a woman’s touch. She’d replayed the scene outside the stables a dozen times. In that moment, caught up in her own emotions, she’d missed some of his. She’d picked up on the anger and frustration easily enough, but hadn’t she seen something else? Something older and darker. Tiny fragments almost lost in the midst of the noise and explosion.

  This was about more than Summer showing up unannounced. More than a hardheaded rancher’s stubborn refusal to accept help.

  “You know Jarrett likely won’t be too happy about us making changes in here,” Theresa warned.

  “I know. But he’s not too happy now, either. At least this way he’ll be angry but with a decorated cabin to rent out after you leave.”

  After she left... Theresa hated the way those words seemed to hollow out her insides, leaving her empty and aching. It had only been a few days, and she already hungered for the sound of his voice, the sight of one of his rare smiles. Maybe it was better this way. Get used to missing him now before it was time to leave for good.

  * * *

  He couldn’t stay away.

  Jarrett knew he should, knew it would be better for both of them if he kept his distance until it was time for Theresa to go. But everything his brain told him, his body ignored. Which is how he ended up at the front door of Theresa’s cabin, hat literally in hand.

  I’m nothing but a guest here.

  She was more than that, and his gut twisted for making her feel like so much less. He owed her an apology and an explanation if he could work his way through it. Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door and waited for Theresa to answer.

  Wary blue eyes gazed back at him, and her voice was cool. “Jarrett.”

  Nothing less than what he deserved, but he couldn’t help remembering the sound of his name on her lips in the heated moment before he kissed her. “Can I come in?”

  For a second, she hesitated, and he thought she might just slam the door in his face. Instead, she stepped back and waved him inside a cabin he barely recognized. His jaw dropped a little at the changes around him. An earth-toned area rug softened the floor beneath the kitchen table, where a wooden bowl of fresh fruit sat between four place mats. Plump green-and-white-checked cushions decorated the hard-backed chairs, and matching curtains hung in the window.

  Another rug stretched out in front of a couch made much more inviting thanks to a blanket folded over the arm and a few decorative pillows tucked in the corners. Western touches—a horse sculpture on the mantel, a cowboy hat hanging on the wall and a horseshoe above the front door—were a perfect fit for the ranch cabin, and the addition of two end tables, matching lamps and framed artwork completed the new look.

  Theresa lifted her chin. “As long as I’m staying here, I thought I might as well be comfortable.”

  “And Summer had nothing to do with it?”

  Lowering her defiant stance, she pulled one of the throw pillows off the couch and hugged it against her chest. She looked younger suddenly, vulnerable, and Jarrett felt like an ass. “If you decide you hate it, we can take it all back.”

  Hate it? Of course he didn’t hate it. But the cabins were supposed to make money, not take money. A means to an end so he could further his efforts with the rescue. His focus—his love—was the horses and the stable, not the cabins.

  “Theresa, I have five more cabins to finish and I can’t—” Unable to admit the truth, he waved his hand around to encompass all the changes she and Summer had made. His shoulders slumped. “Hell, maybe I’m just fooling myself. Why would people pay money to stay in such bare-bones accommodations when so many other places are...more like this?”

  “The property you have here—it’s amazing. And as far as decorating the cabins, I’m sure your sister would love to give you a hand. She has great taste and a real eye for detail.” Theresa laughed. “And she can bargain like she’s down to her last dollar. You should have seen her, Jarrett,” she added, even as her smile soon faded. “It would mean more to her than you could possibly imagine, if you’d just reach out to her a little.”

  A framed picture hanging over the fireplace mantel caught his attention, and he ran his hand over the back of his neck as if he could wipe away the heat rising there. The candid shot caught him as he walked away from an arena, shoulders hunched, his Stetson pulled low over his forehead. He didn’t know when the picture had been taken, but he’d clearly bitten the dust at some point. Dirt covered his jeans and shirt along with darker patches of sweat. He should have looked broken and defeated, but beneath the shadowed brim of his hat, the fading rays of sunset seemed to highlight the unrelenting determination written in his clenched jaw.

  “Summer took that picture when she snuck away to the rodeo to see you ride.”

  “She— Really?”

  “It’s an amazing shot. The way she captured you so perfectly—proud, strong, stubborn.”

  Alone.

  Theresa didn’t say the word, but Jarrett felt it. In the picture and in the loneliness that had lived inside him since his father died. Somehow that isolation had always made him feel...safe until now. Until Theresa.

  But old habits died hard, and he had to remember that long after Theresa went back to St. Louis and Summer returned to Atlanta, he’d have that loneliness surrounding him, so it probably wasn’t the best idea to think he could just cast it aside.

  With her blue eyes watching him so closely, though, the words started pouring out. “It’s not pride. I know it probably seems that way, but it’s not. When I first thought of starting a ranch, it was supposed to be me and my dad. Working together with our horses on our land instead of always working for someone else.”

  “But then he had his stroke?”

  “Yeah, and I wanted to be there for him. To take care of him, but I—I couldn’t. With the medicine and the machines he needed just to keep him alive, he required around-the-clock care.”

  “Professional care, Jarrett. You can’t blame yourself for not being able to care for him. You didn’t have the training. That’s not your fault.”

  The nurses and social workers had told him the same thing, but he’d still been struggling for a way, searching for a possibility, when his mother had shown up. He hadn’t seen her in five years, and then he stepped into his father’s hospital room and there she was. Seated by his dad’s side, holding his unresponsive hand, as if she had every right to be there. As if she hadn’t walked out on them years ago.

  And while Jarrett might have forgiven his mother for leaving his father, he would never forgive her for showing up again after his father’s stroke. But the social workers and doctors had been all smiles for his mother, saying how wonderful it was that Lilly was going to take care of Ray. Take care of everything...

  His throat tightened in memory, making his words sound rough and hoarse, but he forced himself to tell Theresa the rest of it. “My dad had always been so tough, so strong. Even after my mother left, he stayed strong. And to see him like that, so helpless, was bad. But for my—for Lilly to see him that way and to see the pity in her eyes when she looked at him...”

  He’d hated her in that moment. As a kid, he’d never understood what he’d done that made her leave him behind. And
later, as a teenager, he’d been bitter and angry as hell that she’d continued the charade of them being one big happy blended family during those dreaded summers. But he’d never hated her—until that day in the hospital.

  Anger and resentment and guilt still lived and breathed in his gut, like some monstrous three-headed dragon, over the way she’d charged back into their lives when Ray was at his worst. When he’d been unable to stand up to her or to tell her to go back to her Southern mansion, her old-money husband, and to leave the two of them the hell alone.

  Jarrett had said all that and more, slamming the door shut in his mother’s face, and vowing to the doctors and hospital social workers that he’d take care of his dad, the way Ray had once taken care of him.

  Guilt breathed another round of fire, even at the memory of just how badly he’d failed to keep that promise. “I looked for rehab centers that I could afford, but even the least expensive was more than I could come up with back then. And those places—I wouldn’t have left one of my horses in their care, forget putting my father there. And I knew Lilly could give him the best money could buy—round-the-clock nurses, daily therapy, treatments insurance might not cover. All of it. So in the end, I said yes.”

  “You did what was best for your father.”

  “Did I? Was it best for him or just easiest for me?”

  Not that he hadn’t paid in his own way. His stepfather had seen to that.

  My money...my rules.

  George Carrington had made it clear Ray’s care was contingent on Jarrett falling in line. He’d quit the rodeo and moved back to Atlanta. He told himself he would have done it anyway, wanting to spend as much time with his father as he could. But that hadn’t made him want to punch the smug look off his stepfather’s face any less as he’d sat through family dinners and taken a job working at the old man’s stables.

  He’d swallowed his pride and put up with living under his stepfather’s thumb for his father’s sake, but Jarrett had learned his lesson. He would never take the easy way out again.

  “The ranch, the stables, the rescue—I wouldn’t have any of it if it wasn’t for my father’s life insurance policy. Even though he’s gone, I feel like he’s still looking out for me. And I want to make him proud, Theresa. I want to show him—to show them—I can do this on my own.”

  Theresa didn’t need to ask to know who Jarrett was referring to. His family had done a number on his pride, and while part of her understood how much of his self-respect he’d tied into working the ranch on his own, she couldn’t pretend his words didn’t hurt her heart a little. She didn’t doubt that he’d succeed, but when he did, who would be there for him to share in that success?

  “I have to do this on my own. It’s the only way I’ll be able to look myself in the mirror each morning.”

  Theresa knew better than to argue against such determination. She should be glad, she supposed, that he’d opened up to her the way he had, but understanding the reasons why he held himself apart from the people around him only made that distance seem so much harder to bridge. “I get it.”

  Seeing the disbelief in his gaze, she insisted, “I do. You think you have to do this alone, but just remember one thing. It didn’t start out that way, did it? The ranch was something you wanted to share with your dad. And I know it’s not the same without him, but, Jarrett, there are other people who care about you.”

  For the moment their gazes locked, Theresa’s heart pounded as she wondered how much he could read in her expression. Did he know how much she was starting to care for him? How much it hurt her to think of him pushing himself so hard and pushing everyone else away? The coward in her wanted to look away, to take a step back before she gave too much away. But if she wanted Jarrett to lower his guard, wasn’t it time maybe for her to give up her own?

  “Jarrett...” She whispered his name around the lump in her throat, fighting the fear that urged her to swallow the words before she said them, knowing she wouldn’t be able to take them back.

  His gaze cut away as he shifted. Reaching out, he ran a hand over the Western-themed throw Summer had draped over the back of the couch. “This is nice.”

  The moment was gone, and disappointment and relief turned head over heels inside her stomach. “Yeah, we thought so, too.”

  It wasn’t much, that small admission, but enough for Theresa to reach out and cover his hand with her own. For a split second, she wished that he’d been on her other side. That it was her right hand instead of her left. But as she willed her fingers to close around his, she changed her mind. Hard-fought victories always tasted the sweetest, and when Jarrett turned his wrist and wrapped his strong, sure fingers around her slightly trembling ones, she couldn’t imagine anything better.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, “for telling me about your father. For helping me to understand and for...trusting me with that part of your past.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then come riding with me.”

  “Now?”

  The smile he gave her reached right into her heart, pulling her closer as he tugged at her hand. “Now.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Theresa took a deep breath as she followed Jarrett into the stable. She knew it hadn’t been easy for him to open up, to be so emotionally vulnerable. Far more frightening than the physical challenge confronting her. And she did trust him. The harder part was trusting herself.

  What if she couldn’t hold on to the reins? What if the weakness in her leg threw off her balance, and she couldn’t keep her seat?

  But of course, those were useless worries. Theresa knew it even before Jarrett stopped in front of one of the stalls, where a spotted mare named Molly stuck her head out for a piece of carrot. In the short time Theresa had been staying on the ranch, she’d gotten to know the horses. Overly friendly Duke, shy Silverbelle and sweetly mellow Molly, a favorite of the young girls who came for riding lessons. First timers who wanted nothing more than a slow circle around the corral.

  Like sitting in a rocking chair on your front porch, Summer had told one of the nervous guests in her friendly Southern twang just the other day.

  No, Theresa wouldn’t need to worry about falling off Molly. She wouldn’t need a tight grip on the reins to keep the horse in line or worry that a sudden move would knock her from the saddle. It’s still riding. It doesn’t matter that it won’t be the same. That it won’t be like it was before.

  She’d tried not to feel angry or bitter or, worse, filled with self-pity over the accident. In so many ways, she was lucky to be alive. Lucky to even think about riding a horse. That was key here. Enjoying the moment and not making comparisons, not longing for what could have been.

  “Hey, Miss Molly.” Reaching out, she stroked the horse’s satiny muzzle almost as if in apology. You’re a good horse. Slow and steady.

  Just what the doctor ordered. She’d been told not to push too hard or expect too much, too soon from her therapy. Slow and steady when what Theresa wanted was to fly. To run, to jump, to escape the trapped feeling that still overcame her at times when the simplest tasks took so damn long.

  “Ready?” Jarrett asked as he grabbed a bridle for the mare.

  “Sure. Let’s go for a ride.”

  Maybe that had always been her problem—wanting too much, expecting too much. Maybe the lesson she was supposed to learn from the accident was to simply accept what was and not hope for so much more. But as Jarrett stepped closer, she swallowed as her heart pounded out a crazy beat. She caught a hint of soap and aftershave, the fresh, woodsy scents drawing her closer and tempting her to breathe him in. She already knew how perfectly she fit in his arms, how her mouth felt made for his kiss. And yes, she wanted more. Wanted everything.

  * * *

  Jarrett had hoped going for a ride would put
a spark into Theresa’s eyes. That she’d feel the same freedom, the same peace that he had only been able to find on the back of a horse. But he’d miscalculated with Molly. He knew it the instant Theresa stepped close to the calm horse.

  His plan had been to take things slow, to give Theresa time to adjust to riding again. But she wasn’t some little kid who loved the idea of horses more than the reality, and she wasn’t some novice greenhorn, either. A city girl, yes, but one who knew her way around a stable.

  One who knew her own mind.

  I’m not that fragile, Jarrett. Don’t touch me like I’ll break. Like I’m broken.

  She was ready for a challenge. She had her relatives to protect her, to keep her safe and sheltered. She didn’t need him for that. She needed him to help her break free.

  Resisting the urge to pull her into his arms, he instead stepped away. “Wait here a second.”

  He had planned to take Duke on their ride. Solid, dependable Duke, and he gave the horse a carrot as he walked by. Not this time, buddy.

  Instead, he saddled Champion. Like Duke, Champ was Jarrett’s horse, but unlike Duke, the big chestnut gelding was far too spirited for anything so boring as trail rides. Champ was the horse he rode when he longed for a sense of freedom and flying. The powerful connection of horse and rider racing against the wind. It had always been a solitary escape for him in the past. As Jarrett swung into the saddle, though, he couldn’t help grinning as the big horse shifted beneath him, muscles bunched in anticipation. Today it was a ride he couldn’t wait to share.

  Theresa’s blue eyes widened as he held out a hand. The surprise wasn’t enough to disguise the spark of attraction. Her pulse fluttered at the side of her neck, and he had the sudden urge to press his lips to that very spot. A spot that would be within easy reach if she said yes. “Still trust me?” he asked.

  “I thought—” She glanced over her shoulder at Molly. “I thought we were going on a trail ride.”