by Rose, Amelia
“I’m fine,” she sniffled. “Really. It’s just so great the way these guys care so much. They’re so busy, most people wouldn’t want a surly thirteen-year-old underfoot. It’s really special that they would go to the effort to watch out for her. Like the way you watch out for me.”
Casey held her and rocked slightly, murmuring his agreement. He lifted her chin with a gentle finger and looked down into her eyes. “That’s what our family means to us. It’s what you mean to me.” He bent down and kissed her softly, feeling her melt into him as another piece of the anger and pain that had kept her at arm’s length slowly broke off and fell away.
“Oh, geez, I’m so sorry,” he said, sitting up and looking around. “I have to get back. I had no idea what time it was. I’ll find you sometime after dinner, okay?” He stood up to go and offered her his hand to help her up, then quickly kissed once more before running back through the kitchen toward the barn, leaving both of their plates on the counter top as he passed. Cook beamed when he called a brief “thank you for lunch” to the kitchen staff, and the surprised woman then looked to Miranda and nodded her approval. Miranda laughed quietly, watching as more and more ranch hands stood up and left the kitchen in a far more orderly way than she’d ever seen, most of them stacking their plates near the sink and mumbling a quick thanks as they passed.
“I don’t know what kind of witch power you have over him, honey, but I’ll take it!” Cook said, causing the younger ladies to openly laugh. Miranda just returned their smile and gave an exaggerated sway of her hips as she walked the length of the kitchen. She stopped at the door, turned, and shot them a knowing look, only making the three women laugh even harder at her antics.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The three men—Bernard, Casey, and Carey—talked late into the night about the plans for the drive. Seamus and Jacob had long since left to do their homework and go to bed, and Joseph had fallen asleep on one of the sofas facing the empty fireplace. Anders had tried to stay up but was slumped over at the desk next to his laptop, asleep with his head folded on his arms.
“With this many head to move, and this many outsiders coming along on the trip this time, we’re going to need everyone,” Casey argued again as his father and his brother tried to convince him to take a less physically taxing job. “Besides, I don’t need two feet to ride a horse.”
“Hmm, that sounds a lot like the argument I’ve been using for years every time you two try to talk me out of the saddle.” Carey and Casey exchanged a guilty look. “I’ll let you keep to the front, but you have to swap out days. One day in drovering, one day driving the truck. And that’s my final answer. If you are hurt again, we’d be days from getting you help. It’s not just about you this time, either, but if we had to wait for medical crews, we could lose half the herd while people attended to you.”
Casey nodded, irritated at being stuck in the back of the drive like a little girl, but knowing his father was right.
“Did you really invite Miranda?” he asked, changing the subject off his injured leg.
“Didn’t you want me to?” Bernard asked, worry coloring his expression. “I thought you two were getting along great. I just assumed you’d like having her along.”
“Oh, I guess I do,” he answered nonchalantly, not fooling the other two for even a second. “I just didn’t know what you expect her to do. She’s adapted pretty well out here, but she still doesn’t really know what goes into making the drive.”
Carey spoke up. “What if we put Miranda in charge of the city people?” he asked, speaking of the dozen or so people who paid decent-enough money to make the trip, like a working vacation for people who didn’t get to spend enough time outdoors. Their presence on the drive was almost never helpful, and every so often, they were actually very much in the way.
“Well, that would be a good job for her,” Bernard agreed, “but what would she do? You can’t put someone in charge who hasn’t been on the drive before.”
“Could Paul and Gary help her? We’ve been looking for a way to include them, but they’re just not up for it this year. Paul just had surgery last month and Gary only finished chemo three months ago. This way, they could be useful and be needed, but not have to do anything they aren’t physically ready to do.”
“That’s a perfect idea, Carey!” Casey said with a grin. “They’ve done this so many times, they could do it blindfolded in the dark, so they’ll get to help out and the city people will have two seasoned drovers to look out for them.”
“I like it,” Bernard said, agreeing. He was too close to the days when he’d no longer be able to go on trips like this either, and hated to think of leaving anyone behind because their frail bodies betrayed them. “Okay, wake those two up and let’s all get some sleep. Casey, I want to talk to you for just a minute before you go to bed.”
A little while later, Casey knocked lightly on Miranda’s bedroom door, hesitating in case she had already gone to sleep. He was about to turn away when she opened the door a crack, keeping out as much light from the hallway as she could so she didn’t wake Gracie. Casey’s heart nearly stopped at the sight of her in faded flannel pajama pants and a soft, worn-out t-shirt, with no makeup and her hair in a loose ponytail. She had never looked more beautiful.
“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly, looking around in the hallway for any sign of a problem.
“Nothing, I’m so sorry I woke you up. I didn’t get a chance to talk to you after dinner, and I wanted to know if you wanted to go do something with me tomorrow.”
“Really?” she asked with a broad grin. “Just the two of us?”
“Don’t get too excited,” he warned playfully. “It’s just one of those chores we have to do every so often, but it takes all day and I thought you might like to come along and keep me company.”
“Sure!” she said, still trying to whisper.
“You don’t even know what it is,” he joked. “How do you know I’m not taking you out all day to dig around in the pig pen?”
“I wouldn’t care,” Miranda promised him, a content expression on her face. “There’s so much to do around here, there’s just never enough hours to get to know you. I’m sure whatever we have to do, you’ll make it fun.”
“Well, it is partially a picnic. I’ll wake you up at four, okay?”
“FOUR? You mean, the four that happens in the morning?! You didn’t say it was a breakfast picnic!” she said in mock horror.
“Well, it’s a breakfast-lunch-late-snack picnic and if we run into any trouble, it becomes a dinner picnic too. Dress comfortably!” He kissed her quickly goodnight and turned to head down the stairs and back to the field house beside the barn, where he’d been sleeping since she arrived. Miranda watched him go, enjoying the view of his tight-fitting t-shirt and well broken in jeans, fitted to his hips just so, the effect both accommodating his work belt and making her knees go weak. He looked up at her from the front door and waved goodnight and Miranda closed the door softly to her bedroom, crawling in bed once more and giggling to herself at the thought of getting to spend the whole day getting to know Casey better.
The next morning, Casey knocked on her door and finally opened it slightly when she didn’t answer. In her mind, Miranda had been having another nightmare about Mike, dreaming he’d come after her and found her. When the door to her room opened, she sat bolt upright and yelled quietly, her breath coming too fast.
“Hey, Miranda, you okay?” Casey called from the safety of the hallway. It took her a few seconds to answer as Miranda looked around the darkened room frantically, trying to get her bearings. Even after she realized she’d been dreaming, and unsettling feeling still plagued her.
“Yeah, sorry. I’ll be right out,” she answered, turning and placing her feet on the floor. Thirty minutes later, she stepped out of the dark bedroom and pulled the door shut behind her silently so as not to wake Gracie. She turned and screamed when Casey was right behind her, then stared wide eyed as he placed a hand over
her mouth to keep her from waking everyone on that floor.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, taking his hand down after he saw she recognized him. She nodded silently and started down the staircase. Casey took her hand and led her to the kitchen to grab something to eat before they headed out, and Miranda was surprised to see Cook and her staff already at work, whisking dozens of eggs into a giant mixing bowl and rolling out whole piles of dough to make biscuits. Behind the counter, another woman laid out strips of bacon on a long metal sheet, tearing them off of what looked like an entire pig’s worth of the meat.
“Did you wake these people to make us breakfast?” Miranda asked, worried for their lack of sleep. Casey didn’t get the chance to answer before Cook called out.
“Oh, honey, don’t worry about us. The first group will coming for breakfast in about thirty minutes.” She went back to rolling out dough and cutting out the biscuits with an upside down water glass. Miranda frowned. If the first group would eat soon, that meant that all over the ranch there were people already up and about their business. How much work went on behind her back as she lounged in her bed? Miranda vowed to take a more serious interest in helping out.
“You ready for this?” Casey asked, leading her to the front door of the house. Outside, a massive vehicle waited parked at the end of the path that led to the road. The only way to describe it would have been if a pickup truck and an Army tank had decided to have a baby. Its six enormous tires—two in the front and four in the back—reached higher than Miranda’s waist, and the window had been replaced with basket-woven strips of heavy duty fabric.
“Thinking of taking the truck for a spin?” Miranda teased, eliciting a huge, men-and-their-toys grin from Casey.
“You’ll see why we need it today!” he bragged. He reached above his head and opened Miranda’s door for her, then helped boost her up into the seat. “There’s a regular seat belt here, but this harness above your head will come in handy later for more difficult terrain.”
Casey closed her door and came around to his side, opening his door and leaping in, making sure to push off on his good leg. He buckled his own seat belt and turned the ignition over, letting the thunderous engine idle for a moment to warm it up. Through her open windows, Miranda could hear some of the animals protesting in fear from within the barn and finally understood what Casey had meant once about using the horses around the ranch instead of vehicles because they were less frightening to the herd.
He put the large truck in gear and swung out onto the dirt road that ran in front of the house. The row of headlights across the front and the top of the cab illuminated the road ahead, sending dozens of animals scurrying out of the way. When Casey pointed to something out Miranda’s window, she gasped when she saw two pronghorn antelope eating on the side of the road, looking for all the world like they were chewing thoughtfully.
“They’re protected, you can’t hunt them here,” Casey explained about the bored-looking animals. “They know we can’t touch ‘em!”
Miranda continued to stare out the windshield, leaning forward and placing both hands on the dashboard to get a better view. Casey grinned at the sight of his city-slicker, entranced by the sight of wildlife within arm’s reach.
They drove for almost an hour, but turned off the wide dirt road just short of reaching the pavement that signaled the beginning of the town. The truck bounced and jostled for the first few hundred feet as it moved over the rain-washed gulley separating the ranch from the limits. Miranda gripped her door handle and her seat to avoid being thrown around the truck’s interior, even with her seat belt firmly in place.
After the road, such as it was, leveled off some, Casey explained their errand. “Every so often, we have to drive the property line and look for problems.”
“What kind of problems?” she asked, a hint of fear creeping into her voice.
“Oh, nothing terrible, but fences with holes in them, sink holes, places where someone may be squatting on the property, evidence of poachers, stuff like that. We wouldn’t even handle it ourselves, we’d just make a note of it and let Dad know. If it’s bad enough, we could radio back for someone to come out here.” Miranda relaxed and leaned back into the oversized captain’s chair again, watching out her window as the sun crept up over the hills in the distance, lightening the sky as it came into view.
“So, have you ever wanted to do anything besides work the ranch?” Miranda asked, not leading the conversation anywhere, but just making small talk.
“Nope.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Not even in a fit of teenaged rebellion?” she asked, curious at how someone could know from the moment he was born that he would work the farm.
“Nope. I’ve always known this is exactly what I want to do, and exactly where I want to be.” He reached back behind him and retrieved a cloth bag, and handed it to Miranda with instructions to grab their breakfast. She passed him a wrapped biscuit and pulled out two thermoses of coffee, opening her own biscuit and nibbling at Cook’s handiwork. “But what about you? Did you always want to be an accountant?”
“Oh, please. I don’t think anyone ever dreams of being an accountant!” Casey laughed at her response before she continued. “No, it just seemed like something that would pay well and if there was one thing I learned growing up, it’s that life is uncertain. You can’t wait for someone to take care of you, you have to have a hand in it, too.”
“I’d like to take care of you,” Casey said, looking over at her briefly before looking back at the road in front of him. Miranda shuddered at his words, thrilling again at the man sitting next to her.
“How about we try to take care of each other instead? You know, give and take?” she offered, watching his face for any sign that he wasn’t pleased at the thought. Instead, he smiled and picked up her hand, placing a kiss on her palm before putting both hands back on the wheel.
They drove along in near silence for some time, Casey pointing out things for Miranda to write in the small book he’d brought. He called out coordinates from the GPS mounted to the dashboard, having Miranda repeat them back to him as she wrote.
When lunch time finally rolled around, they had covered almost 400 miles of property line, with more left to cover. Casey veered the truck off the dirt path near the edge of a bright green pasture filled with gently flowing knee-high grass. He jumped down and pulled some items from the back of the truck bed, then went to work building a makeshift shade from a tarp tied to the sides of the truck and staked to the ground at the opposite corners with tent stakes. He helped Miranda down and handed her a quilt to spread out as he pulled down a cooler of drinks and a large plastic tub filled with their lunch.
“So, what do you think of the grand tour?” Casey asked as he put sandwich fixings and cold drinks back in their containers following their lunch. Miranda, content from a full lunch and a warm sun, leaned back against the large tire, Casey beside her.
“It’s gorgeous, but how do you manage so much empty space?” she asked, marveling at the expanse of property. “You would need a helicopter just to look at it all!”
“You know, we’ve had to do that from time to time, especially if we lost a member of the herd.”
“You mean, the ranch, right? You said the herd.”
“No, I meant the herd. Of course, we’d go looking for a human member of the bunch too, no question. But if any of the herd wandered off, we’d go after ‘em. Those animals make a fine steak but as long as they still have a heartbeat, they’re every bit as much a part of the ranch as you or me.”
“You think of me as part of the ranch?” Miranda asked softly.
Casey looked at her squarely before answering. “I absolutely do. You’re here with us but more importantly, you stayed. You could have left. My father even offered to pay your way and compensate you for your time. Yes, I know about that part. But you stayed. That makes you part of the ranch, every bit as much as any Carson on the place.�
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Miranda was speechless. It had been so long since she had been a part of something bigger than just herself or Gracie’s life, it felt good to belong, even if the circumstances that landed her here were a little different. She leaned her head against Casey’s shoulder and simply enjoyed being beside him.
“Now seems like as good a time as any,” Casey said, breaking their comfortable and content silence. “I had another reason for bringing you out here today. First, I wanted to show you the land that you would belong to if you decided to stay. But more importantly, I want to make your staying on with us official.”
He reached into his jeans pocket and withdrew a small black velvet ring box and held it between his hands for a moment. “I wanted to take you away from the house for a while, away from the hordes of people who might influence you, so I could ask you this.
“Miranda, it took me long enough to stop being a stubborn idiot and to realize I am in love with you. I would be honored if you would be my wife. Will you marry me?”
Tears ran down her cheeks as Miranda nodded her head, throwing her arms around Casey and kissing him forcefully on his full lips. He pulled back for only a moment, laughter playing at the corners of his eyes and causing him to smile.
“Wait! You have to put this on, quick!” he said as he held out the delicate diamond ring, pinched so tightly between his thumb and forefinger, his knuckle had turned white. “If I drop this, we have twelve hundred miles of land to cover to find it!”
Casey took her hand in his and slid the thin gold band on her finger, sealing it in place with a kiss to her fingertip. Miranda looked down at the ring and was moved by the way it seemed to belong on her hand.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I got here, Casey. I’m so happy to say that the reality of being here is so much better than I could have ever imagined. Your home, your family, but mostly you, have made it amazing. I love you, Casey.”
