His Favorite Cowgirl

by Leigh Duncan

  A half hour into a conversation in which she felt increasingly out of her depth, Kelly gave the woman a relieved smile. Margie Johnson had finally made a suggestion she could follow. “He always used Jim Buchanan over on the coast. I’ll call him today.”

  “Good. That’s good.” Margie gave the empty hospital corridor a quick study. She leaned forward, her features softening. “I really shouldn’t say this,” she whispered. “I’m overstepping my bounds. But if he hasn’t already named someone, don’t leave it up to the courts to assign a professional guardian. Those people will bleed the estate dry, then stick your grandfather in the cheapest facility they can find. I could tell you horror stories.” Margie drew back, sighing. “In times like these, we always prefer it if a family member steps in.”

  This just gets better and better.

  “I’ll look into it. Maybe he already has someone.” Though, considering her grandfather’s surly attitude and the long-standing bitterness he’d held toward his closest neighbors, Kelly didn’t think it likely. She combed her fingers through her hair, pushing it off her face. A trip to West Palm would delay her return to Houston, but did she have a choice?

  Though he’d never bothered to hide his resentment, her grandfather had kept a roof over her head when no one else would. Looking back, she knew he’d had it rough—a widower trying to raise his granddaughter on his own. Would things have been different between them if—just once—he’d told her he loved her? If he’d said he was glad her mother had left her behind when she’d taken off for the last time? Or given any indication he knew, much less cared, how often his granddaughter cried herself to sleep at night?

  He hadn’t. Instead, he’d treated her like any other chore on his South Florida ranch, all the while criticizing her every move. He’d objected to her friends, her clothes, her attitude until she’d given up any hope of ever pleasing him.

  Still, didn’t she owe him?

  Not that she had the time. No, she needed to get back to Houston, where final negotiations were underway for the big account she’d spent the past six months landing. She had to be there. Had to make sure every t was crossed, every i dotted. There was too much riding on this deal. Signing a major client would earn her acceptance into the Palmetto family. It would mean she’d finally have the financial security she’d worked for since the day she took that entry-level position stocking shelves. That she’d never again have to rely on someone who might let her down the way her grandfather had. The way Hank had.

  Stepping into her grandfather’s room, Kelly sank onto the chair beside the bed. The wrinkled neck and sunken cheeks above the stark white sheet had to belong to someone else. Not to the grandfather who’d ruled his household and his ranch with an iron fist. This man’s hand lay lifeless at his side. His coarse gray hair fluttered with his every exhale. Kelly leaned forward and brushed a few wisps off his forehead.

  “Did you miss me, old man?” she whispered.

  She straightened his oxygen tube. She’d give him one thing: Paul Tompkins could hold a grudge. He’d never had a good word to say about the neighbors who, he claimed, had stolen the Bar X’s water rights fifty years earlier. More recently, her grandfather had blamed the families next door for his wife’s death in a car accident. Every insult or slight, whether real or imagined, had only deepened his hatred for the Judds and the Parkers. And he’d never forgiven her, either, not since the day he learned she’d crossed the line—fallen in love with a boy from one of the families he despised above all others. As punishment, her grandfather had kicked her out of his house the day she graduated from high school. The figure on the bed moaned. Kelly withdrew her fingers.

  If wishes were horses...

  The doctors said he might never recover enough to heal the breach between them. Still, the time had come to repay the favors—slim as they were—he’d shown her when she was alone in the world. She’d arrange for his long-term care. She’d find someone to tend his ranch. But she couldn’t do those things sitting beside a man doctors said might never walk or talk again. A man who, in all likelihood, would drift through the next twenty-four hours in a dreamless sleep.

  She blotted a bit of drool from his leathery cheek and whispered, “See you later, Pops.” Trusting the nurses to get in touch with her if his condition changed, she headed out the door. On the drive, she made some of the calls the caseworker had suggested. One landed her an appointment the next day with Jim Buchanan.

  An hour later, she pried open the mailbox outside the gate to the Bar X. Bills and circulars slid across the seat as her sturdy SUV bounced over a drive in desperate need of grading and rolling. At the end of the road, she stepped from the vehicle onto hard-packed dirt in front of the house she’d once called home. Burnweed and chamberbitter had taken over the narrow strip of lawn she’d mowed once a week, every week, for eight years. She climbed carefully over the broken steps leading to the front porch. Her grandfather never locked the house, but humidity had swollen the door tight. Putting her shoulder into it, she shoved it open.

  Stale, overheated air clogged her throat as she stepped into the living room. Little had changed since the last time she’d crossed the threshold. Maybe the floral print on the overstuffed couch in front of the window had faded a bit. A thicker layer of dust coated the end tables. A few more cobwebs hung in the corners. But ranching magazines and farm reports littered the floor around her grandfather’s recliner the way they always had. The same braided rug covered the worn hardwood.

  She stopped only long enough to draw open the drapes and hit the switch on the overhead fan before she made her way into the dining room. There, she added the day’s mail to a growing pile. She rifled through a stack of bills, dismayed by the collection of late and overdue notices that had been sitting untouched for so long they felt gritty.

  “What have you been up to, old man?” she muttered. The meeting with her grandfather’s attorney was starting to take on even greater significance.

  A wave of nostalgia swept her when she headed down a short hall into a room where once bright paint had darkened to dull beige. Their corners curled and yellowed, posters of pop bands whose fame had long-since faded dotted the walls. She made quick work of stripping the sheets someone had draped over the furniture before she pulled a worn pair of jeans and a T-shirt from her bag. As much as she itched to give the house a thorough cleaning, it would have to wait for another day. On her grandfather’s ranch, the livestock always took top priority.

  Her hair pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail, she headed outside. She strode across the yard to the cattle pen, where troughs filled with food and water told her she owed Hank another round of thanks. An approaching pickup truck meant she’d have the opportunity sooner than she had expected. Despite all that had gone on between them, her heart did a little dance when the tall rancher stepped from behind the wheel.

  “Hey.” She crossed to him, her hand outstretched in a neighborly fashion. Keeping her tone decidedly neutral, she said, “Thanks for seeing to the livestock.”

  She felt the press of Hank’s calloused hand in hers and waited an instant. When no chills raced up her arm, she relaxed, certain time and distance had healed her broken heart. He’d crushed her, turned his back on her when she’d needed him most, and she’d moved on. Her life, her future, was in Houston.

  “Not a problem.” He leaned into the truck and emerged bearing a casserole dish in one hand, a large paper bag in the other. His lips slid into their trademark half grin. “Our cook, Emma, sent food. Let me take it inside for you.”

  Kelly sent a troubled look over one shoulder. “If you think it’s bad out here, you should see the house. I’ll spare you that.” She hustled the food into the kitchen. When she emerged five minutes later, Hank was nowhere to be seen, but his truck hadn’t moved.

  She followed the clang of metal against metal to the barn, where the bitter smell of ammonia stung her nose a
nd brought tears to her eyes. Wiping them, she swept a quick glance down a crowded center aisle. She noted tools and equipment in haphazard piles, bales of hay that should have been stored upstairs in the loft. Scum floated in the closest watering trough. The three stalls on each side of the aisle needed serious attention.

  Hank was already hard at work in one. Grabbing a pair of gloves and a shovel, she stepped into the stall across from him. Muscles that had grown used to working out at the gym sent up a protest when she bent to remove the old bedding, but the routine came back quickly as she raked and spread fresh straw. Across the aisle, Hank worked without speaking until they finished the first set of stalls.

  As they moved on to the next pair, Kelly stripped her gloves from her hands while Hank drank from a thermos.

  “How’s Paul? Any change?”

  She twisted the cap on a bottle of water she’d grabbed from the fridge. “He’s still the same. The hospital sent in a caseworker. Margie Johnson. Do you know her?” When Hank shook his head, she went on. “She suggested I talk to Pops’s lawyer, get myself appointed his legal guardian.”

  Hank grabbed his shovel and disappeared into the stall. His voice floated over the partition. “You’ll be sticking around, then?”

  Kelly brushed the back of one hand across her face. Though anyone else might have thought her high school sweetheart sounded indifferent, she caught the quiet awareness in his voice. More for herself than for him, she shook her head. “Only till I find someone to run things here. I’m not staying,” she said firmly.

  A shovelful of manure landed in the bottom of the wheelbarrow. She shrugged. Hank’s interest had died as quickly as it’d flared, which only confirmed how little he’d changed over the years. She returned to the business at hand. “You say there’s no one in the bunkhouse?”

  “From the looks of things, it’s been empty for some time.” He answered without a break in his rhythmic shoveling.

  Kelly struggled to keep pace. “It looks like he’s been trying to run this place on his own. Has anyone at the Circle P said anything?”

  “I’ll ask.” Hank’s damp T-shirt had molded to his muscular chest. He swapped his shovel for a rake.

  “You don’t know?” Her grandfather might not have trucked with the Parkers, but neighbors usually kept tabs on one another.

  “Haven’t been here that long myself.” Across the aisle, Hank piled soiled straw into the wheelbarrow before hefting the handles and heading for the back door. “I’m only filling in till Randy and Royce come back.”

  “It’s hard to think of the twins being all grown up. They were still in elementary school the last time I saw them.” Her motions slowed. Though she’d fallen out of touch with her classmates, she occasionally checked the high school’s Facebook page, where, several months before, someone had posted Seth Judd’s obituary. “I was sorry to hear about your dad.” For the eight years she’d lived on the Bar X, Seth and Doris had shown her more kindness than her own relatives had. “He was too young.”

  A strained “Yeah, it sucks” was the only answer she got, as Hank dumped the load on the refuse pile. He pushed his way back down the barn’s wide aisle. “Mom’s at Garrett’s. He and his wife teach school in Atlanta. Or they did till Arlene got pregnant. But things aren’t going well, and Mom’s there for the duration.”

  Problems with the pregnancy? Kelly sipped air. Praying Hank wouldn’t notice the way her fingers had spread protectively over her belly, she turned away from him. “And Colt?” she asked over one shoulder, brushing aside the pain the same way she had every day for the past twelve years.

  Metal scraped against wood as Hank moved into another stall. “He fell in love with the Circle P’s new cook and got married last month. That was some wedding.”

  “I’m sure it was.” But thinking of weddings only brought up more old pain. She turned aside, working without saying anything more until the sweet smell of fresh bedding filled the air. She stepped into the aisle while Hank trundled the empty wheelbarrow the length of the barn. At some point, he’d removed his shirt. Sweat glistened on his toned and hardened muscles. She couldn’t help it when her eyes slid down his sculpted abs to the pair of jeans he wore low across his hips.

  Despite a stern reminder that Hank had proven himself a fair-weather lover, her mouth went dry. Reaching for her bottle, she gulped the last of the water. The days when she had thought Hank Judd hung the moon and all the stars in the sky—those days were over. The life she’d built to fill the void he’d left waited for her in Houston. And the sooner she got her grandfather situated, the sooner she could return to it.

  * * *

  “WANT TO BRING the horses in?” A few hours earlier, the barn hadn’t been fit for man nor beast, but a proper mucking and fresh bedding had put things to right. Or at least, right enough that Paul’s big gray gelding and pretty little mare didn’t need to spend another night in the corral.

  At Kelly’s nod, Hank stepped aside, letting her take the lead. As she wiped sweat and dirt from her slim arms, he shook his head. Who would have guessed the cool sophisticate who’d shown up at the hospital would match him scoop for scoop as they worked in the barn? At some point, Kelly had swapped ostrich skin, rhinestones and designer jeans for serviceable boots and a pair of Wranglers that managed to hug her slender frame in all the right places. Little by little, the superior attitude that had reminded him more of his ex-wife than of the first girl to win his heart had slipped away, as well.

  Not that she was the same person he remembered. Though he caught glimpses of the freckle-faced teen who had lost her virginity with him on a blanket beside Lake Okeechobee homecoming night, she’d grown into a woman with ample curves. She’d smoothed and polished her soft Southern drawl since the days when they’d been a whole lot more interested in sneaking off to their spot behind the bleachers than sitting through Ms. Cunningham’s algebra class. He wondered if she’d remained single, but quashed the idea that she’d stayed true to him. After all, she was the one who’d chucked their relationship aside over one admittedly stupid mistake. Convinced she’d come to her senses and one day want him back, he’d concentrated on the rodeo while he waited her out. But she hadn’t forgiven him. Not then. Not ever. Instead, she’d split the day after graduation. She hadn’t been back since. He didn’t know a thing about the woman she’d become.

  “Where do you hang your hat these days?” While Kelly clipped lead ropes onto halters, he hefted the gelding’s saddle from a fence rail.

  “Houston. I’m a regional manager for Palmetto Boots.” She took off for the barn, the horses trailing her.

  Working for the world’s best-known boot manufacturer explained the fancy footwear she’d sported at the hospital. “Been with them long?” he asked, dropping the saddle onto a sawhorse in the tack room.

  “Ever since Pops kick—ever since I left.” She settled the gelding into one stall, the fawn-colored mare into another. “I started out stocking shelves. Took night classes. Earned a degree in business. Hard work and a little bit of luck put me on the fast track to the corporate level. I’m in the middle of negotiating a big contract with Ivey’s.”

  Hank caught a hint of pride in her voice and figured she deserved it for nailing a contract with the largest chain in the South. “Good for you,” he called, grabbing curry combs and brushes from pegs near the door. He’d always known she was meant for bigger things, though there’d been a time when he’d thought they’d conquer the world together.

  Kelly checked the gelding’s coat for burrs. “So how about you? Last I heard, you were rodeoing.”

  Hank whistled. “Haven’t done that in...” Ten years and eight months. He straightened the frown that sprang to his lips. “Rodeo’s no life for a family man. I sort of—” he paused, searching for the right word “—fell into real estate. Mostly in North Florida. The Tallahassee area.”

  “Sal
es, huh?” Kelly grabbed one of the curry combs he’d balanced on the top rail. “Never figured you for a suit and tie.”

  “It took some getting used to.” He caught her arched eyebrow over the horse’s hindquarters. She knew him well. Too well.

  “Business must be good if you can take this much time away from it.” She began brushing.

  “I’ve done okay.” Although not lately. A nation-wide recession had all but sunk the housing market. Not that he’d admit those failures to the woman he’d once dreamed of building a future with, especially not when hers had turned out so well. “Let’s just say losing Dad made me re-examine some things. I realized family had to come first. Mine needed me here, so here I am.” He bit his tongue. From the shape of things on the Bar X, it looked as though her grandfather could use some help, too.

  Kelly’s green eyes pinned him. “My future is in Texas,” she said, leaving no room for misinterpretation. She took a breath. “If you’re in real estate, though, you must know the market better than I do. What’s a place like this going for these days?”

  “You don’t want to hang on to it?” The Bar X had been in the Tompkins family far longer than the Circle P had belonged to the Parkers. He watched carefully as Kelly’s gaze swept through the barn.

  “I might not have that option. I found a couple of final notices from the tax office on the dining room table.”

  A trip to the hardware store and some elbow grease would fix broken steps and door hinges, but a man who didn’t pay his tax bill could lose his birthright to the highest bidder at the county auction. He and Colt were going to the next one in...

  Hank gulped. “You don’t have much time. The tax sale is in three weeks. October first.”

  Kelly’s hands, which had been working a comb through the gelding’s long mane, stilled.