by Deb Kastner
He penned the lamb while he went to work giving it the necessary inoculations and cleaning it, then mixed up a bottle of sheep’s colostrum.
He didn’t realize Ange was back until he heard a chuckle from behind him, startling him and making his heart gallop.
“That looks familiar,” Ange said. “I go through almost the exact same process when I prepare supplementary formula for Toby. Except, of course, that the lamb’s bottle is much bigger.”
“Yeah?” he said, testing out the temperature of the formula on the inside of his arm.
Her chuckle became a downright laugh. “I do that, too.”
“Then you should be an expert at feeding. Why don’t I wash up in the barn sink so I can hold Toby and let you have the honor of feeding the lamb?”
“Oh, could I?” Her eyes brightened. For someone who had no intention of sticking around and becoming a rancher, she certainly looked excited.
Then again, all babies were cute, be they humans or lambs. Maybe that was all it was.
Ange transferred Toby into Rowdy’s arms and handed him a bottle of the baby’s supplemental formula.
His gaze dropped to the sweet infant curled in his arms. Lambs were cute, but the little fellow blinking up at him with those big blue eyes was a whole other kind of wonderful. It got him right in the heart.
He wasn’t familiar with feeding a baby, but he held Toby’s bottle much as he would do with a lamb. Toby rooted for it a minute and then settled down to nurse, sucking noisily, his lips not quite sealing around the bottle. A tiny rivulet of milk dripped down his chin and Rowdy dabbed it away with the corner of the receiving blanket Toby was swaddled in.
“Same concept with the lamb,” he encouraged Ange.
She awkwardly turned over the bottle, which was substantially larger than the one Rowdy was using with Toby, and pressed it to the lamb’s lips.
The lamb didn’t budge, as if it had no natural instinct to root for the bottle at all.
Ange sighed in frustration. “What am I doing wrong?”
“It’s not you,” he assured her. “She just needs a little more coaxing to be shown what to do.”
Toby shifted and grunted, pushing the now-empty bottle away. The infant had certainly made quick work of his meal.
“Don’t forget that you need to burp him,” Ange reminded him. “Toby tends to swallow a lot of air when he is bottle-fed and those bubbles go deep.”
Rowdy hesitated, not quite knowing what to do.
“Put him up against your shoulder and lightly pat his back,” she said. “That will coax out the air.”
His blank stare must have clued her in that he was walking around in entirely new territory here.
“Oh, and be sure to put a receiving blanket over your shoulder first. Those burps of his are sometimes a bit wet. You don’t want to get formula all over your nice shirt.”
Rowdy chuckled. He didn’t care about the state of his shirt. He had a dozen just like this one, only in varying colors, hanging in his closet.
He was a cowboy. All he needed were a few T-shirts, some chambray and a couple pairs of jeans plus a Sunday service/wedding/funeral suit.
“I can’t even get her to take this bottle,” Ange said when the lamb continued to balk.
She shook her head and gestured toward the lamb.
“Can I give her a name?”
“A name? You mean like Rover or Charlie?” he teased. He’d always thought of his sheep by the numbers tagged in their ears. Sheep Nine or Lamb Twenty-One or something. Nothing like what Ange was suggesting.
“Well, yes, kind of,” she explained. “You said this little lamb is a female, didn’t you? I can’t keep calling her it or lamb. It’s too confusing.”
Rowdy nodded, trying to conceal the smile that crept up one side of his lips as Ange’s expression became thoughtful.
“How about Miss Woolsey?”
Miss Woolsey?
She had to be kidding him right now.
She wasn’t kidding.
It took every ounce of his self-restraint not to break into laughter. The only thing that stopped him was how seriously Ange appeared to be taking this. She might pop him in the arm if she had any idea what was going through his mind.
Miss Woolsey.
He didn’t know if she realized how difficult it was going to be to tell one lamb from another, assuming she wanted to name every one of them, which he suspected she did.
She would have to check the lamb’s tag every time she wanted to address one of them by name, and she would have to memorize what name went with which tag. She would need a spreadsheet to keep track of it all.
He held back a snort as he imagined her carrying a physical spreadsheet around—or worse yet, an electronic tablet.
There were a lot of little lambs. He’d purposefully stretched the lambing season later for Granny Frances’s flock than his own so he’d be able to work both.
“Okay. So how do I get Miss Woolsey here to nurse?” she asked, holding up her gloved hands and the bottle the lamb was stubbornly refusing.
“Put her between your knees and coax her head up with your free hand.”
He waited until Ange had maneuvered herself into position before he continued.
“Squeeze the bottle enough to get the milk flowing and wipe the contents all over her snout, especially her lips. When she latches on, stroke her neck to encourage her to swallow.”
Ange did as he’d suggested and Miss Woolsey successfully connected with the bottle.
Ange gave a small whoop of joy and then shushed herself, and Rowdy chuckled in earnest. He hadn’t had this much fun during lambing season in years. It was amazing what a woman’s perspective—especially one who was completely unfamiliar with sheep farming—could do to a man.
“I don’t want to frighten Miss Woolsey away now that I have her eating, but it’s so exciting to be able to know I had a part in saving this little lamb. I had no idea country living could be so satisfying.”
Rowdy’s heart warmed. He’d just shared an important part of his world with Ange, and she’d appreciated it.
Maybe even liked it.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Ange said as Miss Woolsey nursed off her bottle and Rowdy continued to enjoy holding baby Toby, who’d fallen asleep against his shoulder. “It’s been nearly a week and we haven’t heard a word about another envelope.”
The ball of warmth in Rowdy’s chest instantly hardened into ice and plunged into the pit of his stomach.
He’d thought they were making progress here as he taught Ange the ins and outs of ranch life, that they were doing exactly what Granny Frances had expected of them. He was even enjoying himself.
So much so that there were moments when he forgot the whole point was to get this—whatever this was—over and done with so he could claim Granny Frances’s ranch as his own.
But somehow in the process he started to see—feel—tiny inroads into putting the past behind them. Like the sensation of Toby in his arms while Ange bottle-fed the lamb.
As it turned out, all Ange was interested in was the next envelope—moving ever forward so she and Toby could leave Serendipity and put country living behind them.
Of course that was what she wanted.
That was what he wanted, too, wasn’t it?
So why was he finding it so difficult to remember the truth of why they were here and his own desire to move things forward toward his future?
Nothing had changed.
He was getting careless with his emotions, allowing Toby to sneak his way into his heart along with remnants of what he’d once felt for Ange.
Because it couldn’t be more than that. There was nothing in the present about what he was feeling for her. Nothing new.
The first time Ange had left, she’d done so abruptly and without an exp
lanation—although in his heart, he’d known why she had gone. It was because she deserved better than to be tied down to a cripple.
This time, she’d laid it all out for him. No surprises. She would fulfill Granny Frances’s last wishes, and then she would leave.
Ange had broken his heart once.
He would not let her do so a second time.
Chapter Six
Angelica finished feeding Miss Woolsey, washed the bottle out in the barn sink and scrubbed her arms clean, and then went to relieve Rowdy of Toby, thinking he’d probably had enough of baby duty by now.
Rowdy had become extraordinarily quiet during the last few minutes, and Angelica couldn’t read the unusual expression on his face.
This morning had gone well and she would definitely call it a win. They’d probably saved Miss Woolsey’s life. Much more satisfying than feeding chickens.
It was exhilarating work, and Angelica’s adrenaline was still pulsing through her veins. She’d learned very quickly to appreciate what ranchers spent their life’s work on.
Saving a baby lamb? Now that was work worthy of pursuing.
So what was up with Rowdy?
His attitude had gone from day to night with no apparent explanation.
Maybe he just needed to eat something. In her limited experience with men, they tended to get grouchy when their stomachs were rumbling. Josh had always been that way, as had her father.
Rowdy was nothing like either of those men, but it was worth a shot. Even if his mood had nothing to do with the fact that he was hungry, he was still probably hungry.
“Why don’t we stop by Cup O’ Jo’s for some lunch?” she suggested brightly. “It’s been a long morning and I’m starving. Plus, I’m buying.”
If she’d expected a positive reaction, something to the effect of, “Thank you, yes,” she would have been disappointed.
She was disappointed.
Rowdy didn’t even answer. He just sat on the hay bale where he’d parked himself earlier to nurse Toby and frowned down at the baby.
What was Rowdy’s problem, anyway?
They’d had a great morning, and she was just trying to be nice. He’d kept Granny’s ranch running and her stock healthy when Granny could no longer do the work herself. He’d continued to take care of the stock even after Granny had passed. He’d helped Angelica out a lot during this past week—and he hadn’t needed to do any of it.
He could have let her fail. It might even have worked in his favor. He was helping her because of his love for Granny, and because the land would eventually be his.
Buying him a tasty meal was the least she could do to repay him for all he’d done.
That would also give them the opportunity to speak to Jo about when they should be expecting the next envelope.
She realized this whole conversation had been going on in her head and Rowdy hadn’t answered her. Did he want to eat or not? She narrowed her gaze on him.
“Is there a problem here?”
“No. No problem.”
He met her eyes, his gaze determined and his jaw set.
She recognized that look. He was being stubborn about something. The only question now was what he was getting his back up about.
She decided to ignore his odd behavior for the time being and instead suggested they head for the café.
“Do you want to ride together?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’ve got a few chores left to finish here afterward, anyway.”
“Let’s use my SUV, since I’ve already got the attachment for Toby’s car seat on the seat belt.”
His short grunt of agreement was apparently all she was going to get.
Rowdy continued to remain silent during the short drive to the café, staring out the passenger-side window with a pensive expression on his face.
She would have given far more than a penny for his thoughts. She considered everything that had happened that morning, trying to figure out what had changed, where Rowdy’s attitude had vectored off course.
She came up with a big fat nothing.
That was one thing the years had taken from them—the ability for them to communicate with one another without words. She used to be able to tell what he was thinking, how he was feeling.
But now, nothing.
Unless he was purposefully shutting her out.
To her surprise, Rowdy’s demeanor changed the moment he stepped into the café. Smiling, he greeted Jo with a side hug and a big smooch on her wrinkled cheek, then told her they would seat themselves in his regular booth.
So his attitude was just for her benefit, then. The brooding was all about her.
She didn’t know why she was surprised, much less disappointed.
After all of the things she had done to him, some of which, like his limp, permanently lingered, it was a wonder that he even spoke to her at all, much less helped her get a handle on temporarily running Granny’s ranch.
When Jo approached with her scratch pad, Rowdy ordered his usual, and Angelica blindly ordered the same, not even knowing what Rowdy’s standard lunch order was anymore.
He used to like grilled cheese on whole wheat bread with dill pickle spears on the side and bag of barbecue chips, but the last time she’d sat in Cup O’ Jo’s with Rowdy had been when they were in their early twenties, and his tastes had probably grown and changed as much as he had.
Angelica didn’t miss the many furtive glances and hissed whispers directed at her. Apparently, she was still a pariah. No doubt people were wondering why she was sitting with Rowdy—and why he didn’t just up and leave.
It was only then that she realized what harm she could be doing, why Rowdy might have been dragging his feet when she’d suggested lunch at the café.
She’d inadvertently put him in the spotlight, in the awkward position of being seen sharing a meal with his ex-fiancée, and not only that, but a woman with a history of being the town’s black sheep.
She respected Rowdy too much to have purposefully placed him in such a position, to put him through this embarrassing ordeal, but it was too late to back out now.
What was done was done.
Now all she could hope for was to make the rest of the meal as painless as possible and get out of there as quickly as they could.
She unhooked Toby from the car seat she’d set next to her on the booth and held him against her shoulder, knowing everyone in the café had a good view of her precious son.
She was a single mother, and maybe she was all those things the town accused her of being. They could judge her if they wanted to. She certainly had made more than her fair share of mistakes, and she owned up to them all.
But she was not ashamed of Toby. As far as she was concerned, the whole world could take their fill of looking, witnessing firsthand just how very much she loved her son.
Jo returned with their food—grilled cheese on whole wheat bread with dill pickle spears on the side and two bags of barbecue chips.
Apparently, some things really hadn’t changed.
Angelica didn’t know why that conclusion reassured her, but it did.
“Let me take that sweet baby while y’all enjoy your meal,” Jo said, loud enough for every patron in the café to hear her.
It wasn’t a suggestion, and Angelica immediately transferred Toby to her arms, knowing her son couldn’t be in safer care.
Jo was like a second mother to most of the town, and any babies who entered her café were fair game for loving on and spoiling by the boisterous redhead.
But Jo taking Toby away and walking him around the café left Angelica alone with Rowdy as they ate. That was sure to stir up the buzz in the gossip hive, as if it wasn’t enough that they’d made such an unforeseen spectacle of themselves at the auction.
At least people at the auction would have—rightl
y—assumed Rowdy had been taken off guard and had no connection with Angelica, and that when Jo lassoed him and led him off the stage, only to deliver the rope into a stunned Angelica’s hands, it wasn’t Rowdy’s fault at all.
The two of them sharing lunch together, though, in public and alone—now that was a sheep of a completely different color.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as Rowdy took a bite of his sandwich. “I didn’t think.”
Rowdy chewed and swallowed, then dabbed at his lips with his napkin.
“I’m not following.”
“I understand now why you were dragging your feet in coming to the café with me today. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed the way people are staring at us and whispering behind our backs.”
“What did you expect, Ange?” His words were blunt but his tone was laced with gentleness. “You show up eight years after running out on me at the altar and you expect everyone to welcome you with open arms, no questions asked?”
“Of course not. I hadn’t anticipated making a public appearance in town at all. But that ship sailed the moment I arrived at that stupid auction.”
“The auction changed a lot of things,” Rowdy agreed. “For both of us.”
Angelica was just about ready to excuse herself and let Rowdy eat in peace when he did the most unimaginable thing ever.
He reached across the table and took her hand, locking their gazes as he did so.
Flabbergasted, she could do no more than remain captured by his blue eyes. Her heart stopped beating. Her breath stopped flowing.
What was he doing?
“Sometimes, the best way to face down a problem is to walk right through it. People have their opinions, and whether or not they change their minds is up to them.”
“Face down your fear and walk right through it,” she repeated. He made it sound so easy, when it was anything but. When her fears were even now staring at them and wondering what was happening between the two of them.
A corner of Rowdy’s lips quirked up. “Walk right through it,” he gently coaxed. “Unless the fear in question is Granny’s Psycho Rooster, in which case I’d advise you to turn and run in the opposite direction.”
