Her Stubborn Cowboy

by Patricia Johns

  Sometimes it took a bigger man to hold a secret than to unload it on someone else. Helen Vaughn had asked him to keep a secret, and she was not someone to ask this sort of favor lightly. She was a wiry little woman who believed in honesty, family, church and an American’s right to bear arms. In that order. She wouldn’t have asked this unless she knew it was necessary.

  Things were complicated now. Chet rolled his shoulder slowly, testing the limits of his movements. It was a strain, nothing more. He’d done worse damage to himself in the past. What he needed to do was to get Andy back home to Ida. That could take care of a small part of the problem, at least, and he could start unknotting the rest of it with a little elbow room.

  The back door opened and Andy sauntered in. He blew out a sigh and tossed his hat onto the counter. He looked tired but not dirty. Chet was willing to bet that his brother hadn’t spent much time riding with other ranch hands today, by the look of him.

  “What’s for supper?” Andy asked.

  “I already ate,” Chet replied. “Leftovers are in the fridge, if you’re interested.”

  Andy made a face and pulled open the fridge.

  “So where were you?” Chet asked.

  “I headed over to Rickton to check out some new rims for my truck,” he replied, emerging from the fridge with a plastic-wrapped plate of chicken fingers and a bowl of mashed potatoes.

  “Ah.”

  Andy sent him a quizzical look. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “There are a few rumors going around town about you.” So much for easing into it, but his shoulder ached, and he didn’t have the patience to dance around this.

  “Always are,” Andy shot back with a grin. “What are they this time?”

  “That you’re colluding with that developer to get other families to sell,” Chet said, keeping his eyes locked on his brother, waiting for a response. He wanted to see shock, an eye roll—something to prove his brother’s innocence—but Andy froze.

  “Tell me that’s just some overactive imagination,” Chet said quietly.

  “They asked me to see if anyone else wanted to sell,” Andy said, his voice low. “I may have mentioned it to Watson. But that doesn’t mean I’m colluding with anyone. It’s a good deal. I’m planning on taking it myself. I think you should, too—”

  “And does Watson want to sell?” Chet asked tightly.

  “Not a chance.” Andy shook his head. “I don’t really care about old Watson. I wanted to convince you. Thing is, we might be able to drive the price up a bit. Four hundred acres... We could make a fortune, Chet.”

  “I told you before that I won’t sell.”

  “What if you could make enough to buy a ranch twice the size of this one, free and clear?” Andy asked, raising an eyebrow. “If you want to ranch, you can ranch, brother. But you could do it comfortably, with the newest equipment and a nice reliable staff. Who says you have to bare-bones it like you do now?”

  There was some logic to what his brother was saying. Chet certainly wasn’t getting rich this way, but Andy’s proposition wasn’t taking into account that this land had been in the Granger family for generations. Their great-grandparents had even been buried on this land. You didn’t just walk away from something like that.

  “And what’s in it for you?” Chet asked. “I mean, Watson selling. Or me, for that matter.”

  Andy looked away. “They mentioned giving me a percentage of the other sales if I could interest them.”

  “A kickback. How much?”

  “Five percent.”

  Chet stared at his brother, stunned. “Five percent? And you don’t feel the least bit bad about any of this?”

  “I didn’t say that I accepted,” Andy retorted. “I said that they offered.”

  “Fine.” Chet sighed.

  “Look, Chet. When I say that we’d be rich, I mean that we’d be seriously loaded. If they want to offer a kickback, we could take it—split it. I’m not suggesting that we convince everyone else to sell. I’m thinking about you and me.”

  “It’s not all about money,” Chet said. “You know that. Or you should.”

  “Just think about it,” Andy said.

  It looked as though the Hope rumor mill had been more accurate than he’d cared to admit, and the realization hit Chet like a blow to the gut. Had his brother really moved that far away from the values they were brought up with? Their parents had raised them with church once a week and family for the rest of the time. Family had meant everything to the Grangers, and when their mother died of cancer, their aunts had stepped in to be maternal figures for them—a job those women took seriously. He and Andy had grown up in a tangle of cousins on this very land. It was one thing for Andy to make his life in the city, but it was another to sell out their childhood home—their entire community—to some faceless developer.

  “Andy, please don’t do this.” He hated the pleading that he heard in his voice, but he had no choice. His brother could end his ranching career here on the family land with one signature on a dotted line. The thought made his stomach churn.

  Andy didn’t say anything, and Chet sighed. He wouldn’t beg again.

  “Have you talked to Ida?” Chet asked after a moment.

  “Not really your business, man,” Andy replied.

  Maybe it wasn’t his business, but it wasn’t as if Chet had wanted to be in the middle of his brother’s relationship issues. Andy had landed on his doorstep and effectively muddied those waters. Besides, Ida had been more than good for him, she’d been a calming influence. When Andy got worked up about some idea, she was the one who could talk him back down. If Andy got back together with Ida, it might just be the cure that Chet needed, too. Was that terrible of him to hope for?

  In spite of everything happening with Andy right now, he did want his brother to be happy, and he didn’t look that way at the moment. The last time Chet had seen him happy had been before their father passed away. Just after he’d proposed to Ida.

  “You aren’t going to talk to her?” Chet asked.

  “She kicked me out!” Andy’s voice rose. “When a woman kicks you out—”

  “You go back and figure out how to fix it!” Chet interrupted. Andy had always bailed too early. That was one lesson he hadn’t learned on the ranch—holding on.

  “Yeah, and this is based on how much personal experience?” his brother countered. “You’ve never been engaged. You hardly even date. I fail to see how you’re qualified to give any kind of advice on women!”

  His words stung because they were true. While Andy had been out with girls, Chet had been learning the ins and outs of running a ranch. Someone had to learn it, and someone had to run this place. So far, Andy stood to reap a whole lot of money if he sold his part of the inheritance, and Chet stood to lose—none of which took into account the years of hard work he’d put into this place while his brother started up a life in the city.

  “I’m pretty confident about the basics,” Chet said coldly. “Like standing by your word.”

  “So I should marry her, even if we’re wrong for each other?” Andy spat the words out with venom. “We’re not married, Chet. We’re not even engaged anymore. It didn’t work out!”

  “It’s about principles,” Chet snapped. “With Ida, with the developers...all of it!”

  “Your high principles didn’t get you far. You’re single and lonely, and you put all your attention into my life instead of getting one of your own.”

  “I’m trying to save you from making the biggest mistake of your life!” Chet spat back.

  “Are you?” Andy demanded. “It looks to me like you’ve got more invested in my engagement than I do.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “It is,” Andy agreed snidely. “Get a life of your own.”

  “I have one!”

  He had a ranch that he loved more deeply than Andy would ever appreciate. He had a community that respected him, a family he cared about... Chet couldn’t keep his anger in check a
nymore. This was how his brother saw him, as some pathetic wannabe, getting his satisfaction from other people’s relationships? There could be nothing further from the truth! If he could walk away from any feelings of responsibility for his younger brother, he would, but Chet was made of sterner stuff than that.

  Chet didn’t hold himself back out of fear or weakness. He held himself back because he believed in right and wrong. Andy had no idea how much Chet had restrained himself. There had been many a time that Andy had hurt Mack’s feelings and he’d seen that dangerous flash in her eyes, and Chet had never once taken advantage of their little tiffs. He’d never once told her how he felt about her—asked her to choose him instead. He’d have been good to Mack. He’d have been faithful—which was a far sight more than Andy had been.

  “You’d be grateful to know how much I’ve held myself back,” Chet said, his voice dangerously low.

  “A lot of good it’s doing you,” his brother scoffed. “Do me a favor and let loose for once. Maybe you’d leave my life alone. So back off!”

  Chet slammed his hands on the table, and a glass wobbled, sloshing water.

  “You’re an idiot, Andy,” he growled. “And I’m washing my hands of you.”

  He strode past his brother and banged open the back door. He couldn’t be in that room with Andy for another minute without driving his fist right into his brother’s smug face. A hot ball of rage rose up through his abdomen, and he wished he could hit something—anything to release this anger.

  But he wouldn’t.

  Maybe Andy was right. Maybe he’d held himself back too much all these years. Maybe he should have forgotten about his duty to his brother, his duty to his family and all of those principles of his and done what he’d dreamed of doing every single day of that long, hot summer when Mack had been at the ranch next door. Maybe he should have told her how he felt, how he longed for her, how he dreamed of her...

  As for Andy’s broken engagement, Chet was done. If Ida had seen the light, all the power to her. Maybe she could find a decent guy who’d treat her better than Andy seemed to do.

  His boots thumped against the hard earth, and he sucked in a lungful of that cool evening air. The sun had already sunk below the horizon, a scarlet splash glowing across the sky. A few wispy clouds down by the horizon glowed gold, and the rage started to seep out of him.

  There was something about the Montana sky that was big enough to absorb all those clashing emotions, and he turned his steps toward the barn.

  He’d do one last check of the horses. If the sky wasn’t sufficient, then the soft welcoming nicker from the stables was normally enough to work the knots out of his neck and shoulders. He slowed his steps, the anger pulsing like a distant drumbeat in his head. Andy obviously thought he was some loser, living vicariously through his brother, and he could probably handle that, but what he couldn’t handle was his brother’s declaration about Mackenzie. Just the thought of Andy trying his charms on Mack again set Chet’s blood to boiling.

  The barn loomed against the backdrop of the sunset, a black shape against a crimson sky. Except the barn door wasn’t closed, and a sliver of light shone from within. Chet picked up his pace.

  His first thought was that one of the ranch hands was doing some extra work—not a likely scenario. Or maybe one of his employees was trying to steal from him—a whole lot more likely. He paused at the door, nudged it open wider, then slipped inside, stepping as quietly as possible. The gentle nicker of one of the sleepy horses greeted him before all of his fears evaporated. There was no wayward ranch hand here. On the ground next to Butter Cream and the little white buckling crouched Mackenzie.

  Chapter Seven

  While fighting with his brother, his mind had been firmly on Mack, on the things he hadn’t done when he’d wanted to so badly, and here she was in front of him. But this wasn’t the seventeen-year-old Mackenzie; this was the woman—mature, developed, intriguing. He’d restrained himself before for good reason—she’d been his brother’s girl. But she wasn’t any longer, and he was tired of holding himself behind that wall of reserve.

  Chet stood motionless for a moment, watching Mackenzie murmur to the mama goat. Butter Cream was stoically ignoring her, and Mackenzie sighed, pulling her slender fingers through her long hair. She pushed herself up to a standing position, her back still to him.

  “Mack...”

  She whipped around, eyes wide with surprise, then laughed breathily. “Chet! You scared me.”

  “Butter Cream came for a visit?” he asked wryly, nodding to the goat.

  “Afraid so. She left Chocolate Truffle and took her other baby for a walk. I’ve been calling her Extra Whip.”

  She certainly had her grandmother’s knack for naming critters. He smiled faintly. “Why’s that?”

  “I miss my fancy coffee.” Her eyes sparkled at her own little joke. “She got in around the back. I was just trying to lure her out this way.”

  Another oversight by a worker, but he wasn’t in any mood to be dealing with his ranch hands tonight. He was tempted to ask her to show him where, but he was better than that. He wasn’t going to make excuses to be with her. If she was here, he wanted it to be because she wanted to be.

  “Chet, are you okay?”

  No, he wasn’t okay, and she seemed to be able to zero in on him when he was at his worst. He sighed and stepped all the way inside, pulling the door shut behind him. “It’s been one of those nights.”

  “What happened?”

  He couldn’t tell her all of it—not the part about Andy taking a kickback on land sales. That was something so infuriating that he still needed to sit with it and chew it over. It wasn’t something he could put into words yet, even though it ate away at his middle. He glanced up to find Mack looking at him, her blue eyes soft and sympathetic. She wanted to know what had happened. He could tell her about Ida, at least. That would be part of the burden shared.

  “I butted my nose into my brother’s business with Ida.”

  Chet nodded toward the opposite end of the barn, where there were some low bales of hay. They walked slowly in that direction, past the horses’ stalls. Butter Cream followed them passively enough—him, really. He knew the goat would go wherever he went, and part of his reason for not wanting to simply take this goat was that Butter Cream brought Mackenzie over so often, too. He’d be crazy to cut off that avenue to the pretty novice rancher.

  “So he was mad?” she clarified.

  “Something like that.”

  His brother’s words were still echoing in his head, and they stung enough that he wasn’t about to repeat them. Not yet. Not until he could say them aloud and roll his eyes, but the fact that his brother thought so poorly of him rankled.

  “Things were said,” Chet said drily. “I came out to get some air.”

  “So is he leaving, then?” she asked.

  Chet laughed bitterly. “That would be too easy! No, he’s not leaving. He’s just incensed that I’d dare impose on his privacy. Ironically enough.”

  As if Andy weren’t imposing on Chet’s privacy by showing up on his doorstep.

  “I thought of all people, he could talk to you,” she said.

  “When we were kids, he’d talk to Mom. When Mom died, he—” Chet frowned. Who had Andy turned to after her death? To him. At least sometimes. Chet had turned to their father for support, and Andy had turned to him.

  “I remember you guys being closer—the Granger boys.”

  “I guess we were.” He’d hated it, truth be told, but he didn’t like talking about that side of things. This wasn’t the relationship he wanted with his brother, but whenever they got into the same room together lately, they ended up arguing over something—anything. If he’d known how to fix it, he would have.

  Mackenzie sat down on a bale of hay, and Chet settled next to her. The straw prickled into his jeans, and he glanced down at her—that golden hair shining in the barn’s low light.

  “Andy and my dad never got alo
ng too well,” Chet said after a moment. “Dad and I connected over the ranch, and Andy... I don’t know. He didn’t care about the stuff we did.”

  “You left him out.”

  Her succinct insight irked him. “He walked away,” he countered.

  Mack shrugged, and Chet looked at the floor. Sure, Chet felt guilty about monopolizing their father’s time, but he’d been a kid, too. He hadn’t known how to keep those balances, nor should it have been expected of him. And Andy had been a smart aleck who kept pushing the limits. They sat in silence for a few beats, her warm, slender arm brushing against his.

  “Speaking of difficult relationships with fathers...” she said quietly. “My dad called. He told me that he’s getting married.”

  “Oh yeah?” Chet eyed her cautiously. Was this good news or bad? He wasn’t sure how it would land until she glanced up at him through her long lashes. Her expression was grim.

  “Her name is Krissy, and she’s only about ten years older than me. They’ve been together for a while now.”

  “Have you met her before?” he asked.

  “No.” She rested against the pile of bales behind her. “I never wanted to. I hardly see my dad as it is, and I wasn’t exactly keen to meet his latest girlfriend. They never last.” She winced. “Except for this one, apparently.”

  Chet nodded. “So you’re not exactly wishing them well?”

  “No.” She turned away, her hair falling over her profile so he couldn’t see what she was feeling. He could guess, though. This wouldn’t be easy on her—it wouldn’t be easy on anyone—and he wished there was a way he could lighten the burden.

  “I get it. It would just feel better somehow if he knew exactly how much he lost when he walked away from you two—a little karmic backlash.”

  “Exactly.” Her smile warmed him. “Karmic backlash. I like that. They actually look happy—in the pictures, at least.” She sighed and leaned back once more against the bales. “And it’s not only that I don’t want him to move on—it’s that I don’t think it’s fair that my cheating father gets to find a really good match for him and the rest of us don’t.”