The Dreamer and the Cowboy: A Contemporary Christian Romance NOVELLA (The Rancher's Daughters Series Book 2)

by Debra Ullrick

  “I’ve never seen anything like that.” At the amazed look on his face, a nervous giggle slipped out of her.

  “I just bet you haven’t. I’m sure there aren’t too many rancher daughters who dance. In fact, I’m the only one I know of.” And if my dad had his way, I wouldn’t be one either. Hurt that her father couldn’t understand how much dancing meant to her, that he had never watched her dance even once, Teagan masked the pain of discouragement pinching her heart, and tossed her towel over the rail.

  Kage looked at the wall with the big round clock. The one with the pink ballerina silhouette in the center and the words “Born To Dance” scrawled across its face. It was the same one her mother had given her for her twenty-first birthday three years before. His gaze met hers again. “We still have a few minutes before we have to feed. Would you do me a favor and dance again?”

  Surprised at his request, Teagan studied him, looking for any sign of mockery or condescension. Most men, her father included, thought dancing was a complete waste of time.

  “Please,” he pleaded. Sincerity, bare and genuine gazed back at her.

  How could she refuse when it had clearly taken pushing past the vulnerability to just ask?

  A second longer and Teagan gave him a short nod.

  With only that, Kage walked over to the side wall, removed his cowboy hat, sat down in the chair, and watched her as she searched through a stack of CDs. Knowing he was watching her every move caused an unease to float through her. But knowing he genuinely wanted to see her dance, she slipped the CD into the player and took her place in the middle of the dance floor.

  Within seconds, she forgot all about Kage as she found herself caught up in the dance once again, allowing her emotions full control of her body and the dance.

  ~*~ ♥ ~*~

  Kage watched as she moved around the floor in her bare feet with more grace than he’d ever seen in another human being before.

  Black leggings covered her legs. A loose fitting, light gray T-shirt hung over one shoulder. Underneath it was a white tank top. A sheer light gray skirt that hung longer on one side than the other flowed out as she twirled around.

  Her face revealed a gamut of emotions similar to what he’d seen when he’d first stepped inside the dance studio.

  Kage wondered what was running through her mind as she seemed a million miles away, in her own little world even.

  It didn’t take him long to figure it out. Using her body, Teagan told the story about a woman with a broken heart, a young girl who grieved, who felt alone, abandoned, and tormented.

  Her hands stretched upward as far as they could, grasping and reaching for something invisible. Something close, yet in no way reachable. Sadness blanketed every inch of her face. She yanked her arms to her chest, tucking her hands close to her heart. Lowering her head, she placed one pointed toe in front of the other as she glided across the floor in the opposite direction from where he sat, looking over her shoulder at the ceiling as she did. When she reached the end of the room, she fell to her knees in a graceful movement and folded herself over her legs, her face touched the floor and her arms sprawled straight out in front of her.

  The music ended.

  Teagan remained in that position for several long moments.

  Kage waited quietly, knowing not to shatter whatever moment she was in.

  Slowly she stood, her profile reflecting in the mirror. Tears trickled down her face.

  Still quiet and unmoving, he allowed her to have the next moment as well. A moment he understood deep in his spirit that she needed as she grieved for the loss of the mother she loved.

  One moment turned into another.

  What seemed like hours, but was only minutes later, she squared her shoulders and raised her chin, her neck graceful as a swan’s.

  She turned, and her eyes locked onto his. Questioning. Challenging. Weaving only now with concern that he had in fact been sitting there as she had danced.

  Neither said a word. They just stood there, gazes locked, peering into each other’s soul. How he knew that, he wasn’t sure, but he knew it just the same.

  ~*~ ♥ ~*~

  Teagan stared into Kage’s eyes. It was as if her soul and his were meshing together, and yet how could that be? He was a complete stranger. Despite that, whatever was happening between them was real. More real than she wanted it to be.

  She had plans.

  Dreams.

  Goals and aspirations.

  A cowboy had no place in those dreams.

  Coming to her senses, Teagan blinked, being the first to break eye contact. Her focus shifted to the floor as she battled to pull her warring feelings together.

  She discreetly peeked in the mirror as she grabbed the towel and snuck a glance at Kage. His eyes were closed, and his lips were moving.

  That surprised her.

  Was he praying?

  Thinking he might be touched her as much as his sensitivity in not comforting her when her dance ended. She needed those moments to herself. Needed to remember her mother here in the room with her, watching her dance, and telling her how she had a gift. A gift that God intended for her to use.

  And use she would.

  Somehow.

  Someway.

  Just like she and her mother had planned.

  Momma, I miss you so much. It hurts so bad.

  Her heart reminded her with a jab that her mother was the last person to sit there, watching, and now that chair was filled with someone else. It took her a while, because these thoughts and emotions were deeper and less easily pushed down, but she finally managed to rein in her errant thoughts and emotions. She willed courage into herself, dragged her gaze up to his, and managed to ask the question that was sitting on the surface edge of her mind.

  “Well.” She cleared the emotion from her throat. “What did you think?” Her lungs stopped moving as she waited for his answer. Just why his opinion meant so much to her, she had no idea. After all, he was a stranger. A stranger who didn’t feel like a stranger. More like the other half of her heart.

  “I think you have an amazing gift. You’re a very talented dancer who belongs on stage, not on a ranch.” His eyes held the truth of every word he spoke.

  Her heart smiled, and she allowed her face to show him how much his words meant to her. Well, as best as it could anyway. No one but God knew how much they meant. “That’s what my momma always said,” she whispered, her voice filled with reverence for the mother she loved and missed. “Those exact same words.”

  “Well, your mama was a very smart women.”

  “She sure was.” She turned her face away from him. “I sure do miss her.”

  “I bet you do. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to my mom.”

  Teagan looked up at him. “You sure don’t hear that very often.”

  “Hear what very often?” he asked.

  “A cowboy who admits he loves his momma. Most of the ones I know are too macho to confess anything like that. It’s so sad. Cowboys are human. They have feelings too, but they sure don’t seem to let them show very often.”

  “Well, this cowboy does. My mom and dad taught me that real men cry. Real men feel. And that the good Lord gave us emotions for a reason and to use. Emotions that weren’t meant just for women alone.”

  Teagan shook her head. “Wow, that’s mind-blowing. Never thought I’d hear a cowboy say anything like that either. But I am sure glad I did. You are one amazing man, Kage Jenkins.”

  “And you are one amazing woman, Teagan Baxter.”

  She smiled as if testing how it felt. “And we don’t even really know each other. Scary, don’t you think?”

  “Nope. Sounds like God to me.” With those words, he turned and headed toward the door. When he reached it, he turned around. “I’ll be waiting outside for you to show me what to do.” He opened the door and just like that, he was gone.

  Teagan stared at the closed door, wondering what he meant by “sounds like God to me�
�. Whatever it was, she was pretty sure she really didn’t want to know.

  Surely God wasn’t in this. Whatever this was. God knew she had plans. And He knew what those plans were because He Himself had given them to her. Still, just to be on the safe side that they were still on the same page, she sent up a prayer, reminding Him of those dreams. Those dreams He had placed in her heart ever since she had started taking dance classes when she was three-years old. And to make sure there was no misunderstanding, she prayed that God would help her not to become attached to Kage. Or to lose her heart to him because she had a feeling there was certainly a danger of that happening.

  Chapter Three

  Kage leaned on the porch guardrail outside the dance studio. Though he stared out at the expansive ranch, his mind wasn’t on any of his surroundings. It was on Teagan and the feelings she stirred inside of him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so attracted to a woman. Not just her physical beauty either but the inward beauty she portrayed when she danced. Teagan was a woman who knew how to express her emotions. Knew how to feel. And feel deeply.

  “You ready?” Teagan asked from behind him.

  He turned and his eyes raked over her for the briefest of moments. Gone was the emotional, elegant woman from moments ago. In its place was the rugged outdoorsy cowgirl he’d met in the barn the day before. Both versions fit her nicely. And both versions he rather liked and admired and respected. He smiled. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “We need to get the horses fed and make sure the water tanks are all working.” Her business-like tone surprised him, left him wondering where the tender, emotional woman from the dance floor had gone. Then again, she was a woman. Oftentimes, within a matter of minutes, he’d watched his sisters’ emotions bounce all over the place. One minute they were crying, and the next minute they were laughing like hyenas strung out on energy drinks. He supposed Teagan wasn’t any different. Women’s emotions fascinated him. God had outdone himself when He made woman.

  “Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  She nodded.

  Kage enjoyed working with Teagan. The two of them worked side by side graining and haying the yearling horses. Finished with them, they hopped inside Teagan’s pickup and drove over to the mare’s pens and did the same.

  As they went about filling grain buckets and dumping them in the individual grain bins in each stall, Kage admired each and every one of the nicely muscled horses that he fed. “These are some nice Quarter horses you have here. Do y’all breed them and sell their foals?”

  “Thanks. And yes, we do.” She didn’t seem as impressed as he was. Was it because she was around them all the time or what?

  “Do you stud them out, or do y’all have your own studs?”

  “We have our own. We’ll be feeding them next.”

  “How many do you have?” he asked, filling the last bin, and putting the bucket back where he got it.

  “Only three. They’re in the stud pens on the other side of the barnyard.”

  “Well judging by the foals and the mares, they must be some pretty nice horse flesh.”

  She hiked a shoulder.

  Once again, Teagan didn’t seem nearly as impressed as he was, and again he wondered why.

  Side by side they walked back to her truck, and he had a hard time not glancing her direction.

  She drove around the main barn. On the way, she glanced over at him. “So, what’s Amarillo like anyway?”

  The truck hit a bump, jostling both of them.

  “Hold on,” Teagan warned him a little bit too late.

  “I am. I am,” he teased, sending her a playful grin.

  They both laughed.

  He righted himself, being sure to hold onto the handle just in case the ride got any bumpier. “You mean weather wise?”

  With a nonchalant shrug, she dipped her head. “Not really. Just in general.”

  “Well, you know what Amarillo means, right?” he asked, knowing that most people who weren’t from Amarillo ever gave the town’s name a second thought.

  “No.”

  “Amarillo is Spanish for yellow.”

  She held up her palm and shrugged. “And your point is?”

  “It means everything that ain’t watered is yellow. And yellow’s on a good day. We plant crops in the playa lakes because there ain’t any water in them.”

  “Huh?” Confusion scrunched her forehead. “I’m not following you. What’s a playa lake?”

  He chuckled to himself even as he looked out the windshield seeing nothing but green and trees. So different from Amarillo. “In Texas, low places in the flatland are called playa lakes. That means when it rains, which it rarely does, the water tends to run to those low spots. And lakes are supposed to form. These days, people build houses in the playa lakes.”

  She turned wide blue eyes on him before putting them back on the road that led to a large barn with six-foot chain link pens. “Why would they build a house on a lake?”

  He tore his gaze away from the impressive white with blue trim barn that matched the rest of the outbuildings and placed it on her. “Because there ain’t no water in that lake.”

  “Ohhhh.” Dawning lit her face.

  “Honestly, if the Spanish had gotten to Texas today they’d have called Amarillo marrón.”

  “Why Marr own?”

  “Cause that’s how you say brown in Spanish. And it’s a whole lot more brown than it is yellow now.”

  “You make it sound really awful.”

  “It’s not really. But just don’t go in March.”

  “Okay, now you have me really intrigued. Why not go in March?” She jerked the wheel to dodge a rabbit that darted out in front of the truck.

  Doing that down a main road at a high rate of speed wasn’t a wise thing to do. It could be extremely hazardous and even cause a wreck. But since they were here on the ranch and she was driving slowly, he didn’t see the harm. Teagan probably knew that anyway. Most country folk did.

  “Because in March it isn’t just the ground that’s brown, it’s the sky too.”

  “What?” Teagan tilted her head. “No way.”

  “You think I’m kidding. I’ve seen the sky be as brown as the ground.”

  She eyed him skeptically. “What makes it brown?”

  “All the dirt in the sky.”

  “Dirt in the sky?” She leaned forward and peered up at the sky before looking over at him with a pitiable look on her face. “No wonder you want to move to Colorado.”

  Kage laughed. “Yeah, it’s hard to breathe on dust storm days like that.”

  “How many days are like that?”

  “You know March. Well, we stretch the wind of March back into January and forward it about until the end of May.”

  “Your Texan accent is sure coming out strong and not making a lick of sense to me.”

  “Well, when you talk about the Texas wind there ain’t any other way to sound.” He chuckled. “As for how much wind we get, most days a gentle breeze is about 40 mile an hour. And on a bad day, you’re looking at 60 mile winds with 70 mile an hour gusts.”

  “And I thought Colorado was bad. When we get wind, we joke about how someone must have moved the Wyoming line because we never used to get much wind, but we sure do now. Nothing like Amarillo though. You said you don’t get any rain? You mean as in none. Zero. Nada.”

  “Just about. When we do get rain, things get really interesting because we either end up with vehicles with a million dents from the hail or everybody in their basement.”

  The instant she understood his meaning, her eyes widened. “You mean tornadoes?”

  “Let’s put it this way, when the sky gets green, it’s time to head for the cellar.”

  Teagan scrunched her face. “This ranch is beginning to sound better and better all the time.”

  “No seriously, even though it’s like that, the sunsets make it really worth it. And the people there are friendly.”

  �
�I’ll take your word for it.” Kage more heard the sigh than saw it. She was as intriguing as one of those sunsets back home. “I’ve never been anywhere but here.” This sigh was longer and deeper.

  Though Kage could only see her profile, he noticed the sadness there. He actually felt it more than saw it. What was it about her that had him so in tune to her feelings? “Is there a reason why you haven’t been anywhere but here?”

  She parked the truck in front of three six-foot tall chain link pens. The first run had a solid black stud, the second a chestnut with a blazed forehead and three white socks on his legs, the third held a smoky-gray grulla. All muscled out. All fine stock. Though he wanted to check them out further, right now, he was more interested in Teagan’s answer.

  Teagan put the truck in park and just sat there with her hands on the steering wheel, staring out the windshield. “There never seemed to be a good time to leave. Every time my sisters and my mom thought we were finally going to get to go on a real vacation somewhere, something always came up on the ranch, and my dad felt like he couldn’t leave. He told us to go ahead, but my mom never wanted to go without him.” She sighed again, this one even heavier than the last. “My mom never got to see the south.”

  The sadness in her voice didn’t get past his notice.

  “That was the one thing she wanted to do before she died… visit each of the southern states. I wished she could have. But now it’s too late.” Her head barely weaved, but it weaved just the same. “I don’t want to live with regrets. It won’t be long now before I leave this place.” Determination broke through the small voice. “I’m going to travel first, and then I’m going to go to a dance school so I can fulfill my dream of dancing on stage. I want to share the stories buried deep in my soul through my dancing.”

  She slowly turned her eyes on him, drifting, floating, and fighting not to be extinguished by someone’s thoughtless words. All were exposed for him to see. It was a dream he had no doubt would become a reality. And it would be wise for him to remember that.

  ~*~ ♥ ~*~