Return to Marker Ranch

by Claire McEwen

  Seth staggered up and launched himself at Wade again, anticipating his side step this time. He made contact, hands grasping Wade’s shoulders, clawing for his neck. Wade ducked low, the surprise of the move loosening Seth’s grip. From there it was easy. Wade grabbed the other man by the waist and flipped him, taking the time to aim him toward a pile of hay. The least he could do for Lori’s ranch hand was provide a little cushioning before he slammed him down on his back.

  Seth lay in his hay bed, gasping for the breath that Wade must have knocked out of him. Oops.

  “That’s enough!” Lori shoved a path between her men and planted herself in front of Seth, her hands on her hips. “Seth, you’re fired. Please go pack your things and leave immediately.”

  Jim arrived, hastening to her side. He offered Seth a hand up, but Seth shoved it away. He stood on his own and looked at Wade, his lip curling in a sneer. “Look at you, coming here all badass, trying to tell me how to do my job.”

  “Seth, mind your words,” Jim cautioned.

  Seth spat a gelatinous gob that landed just a few inches from Wade’s boot. “If you know so much about ranching, why do you need Lori to come to your rescue all the time?”

  Shame was a good weapon. Shocked by Seth’s words, Wade didn’t see the punch in the stomach coming. Seth hit him hard and Wade staggered backward, doubled over with the pain. Then he started forward, fists curled. His mind seemed to have gone somewhere else. Somewhere disconnected, as if he was watching himself from a distance as he grabbed Seth by the collar and twisted, brought his fist up and hauled it back, ready and eager to crush Seth’s face.

  “Wade, no!”

  It was Lori. Her small hands were clinging to his upraised arm, and her voice was in his ear. “You stop it! Now!” Talking to him sternly as if he were a bad dog. He started to shake her off, doglike, but strong arms were around his waist, pulling him back. Some huge ranch hand had a grip on him. Then Lori’s voice went low in his ear. “You wish you’d helped me back then? Help me now, dammit. You hit him and I could have a lawsuit that will end me. So could you. You stop now, do you hear me? You stop!”

  He stepped back, his arm lowering, his mind coming back to to the reality in front of him. His hand, unclenched from Seth’s collar, felt numb, and he shook it out. He glanced around, taking in the circle of men all watching him warily.

  The huge guy who’d pulled him back was now standing cautiously at his side. “You all right, man?” he asked quietly.

  Wade gave him an abrupt nod, shame draining his adrenaline as it washed through. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  Jim led Seth away, and the other ranch hands wandered back to work now that the show was over. Then it was just the two of them, he and Lori, standing there at opposite ends of the barn.

  “What the hell was that?” Lori stalked toward him, her own hands balled into fists.

  Wade wondered if she was going to hit him. He was so tired, he didn’t really care if she did or not. “The last time I came by here he was hassling you, too. This time he looked so furious, he had me worried for your safety. I didn’t mean to start a fight. I just suggested that if he was so miserable, there were other jobs out there for him.”

  “That wasn’t your place!”

  “You weren’t doing anything. You let him stay on here, even with him heckling you like that.”

  “I wasn’t letting him heckle me. I’d already won the battle with that bedtime story joke. He lost face in front of the men. He would have come into line or left on his own. I was handling it.”

  “I just couldn’t stand seeing you treated that way.”

  Her face was pale in the dim barn light, but her eyes went dark with rage. “It is not your job to determine how I am treated. I run this ranch. I decide how to handle the guys who work here. You have absolutely no say over it!”

  “But you deserve better.” He was being stubborn, but he wouldn’t allow her to accept mistreatment as the norm.

  “And I will get better. For myself. In my own way.” She threw up her hands in disgust. “Don’t you see it? How you undermined me just now? I’ve been working for months to assert my authority here. And that’s exactly what I was doing, with humor, when you showed up today. And you know what? Now the guys who work here won’t see me as the funny, tough boss who put their ringleader in his place. They’ll see me as the weak boss who needed some man to step in and fight my battles for me!”

  She turned on her heel and stalked away, heading out of the barn. At the door she stopped. “I don’t know why the hell you came here today, but please don’t come here anymore. If you need me? Call me. Or send an email. But don’t show up here and get involved with my staff again.”

  He wondered if he was going to puke. A few staggered steps took him to a hay bale where he sat down, head in his hands, and let the world spin around him. A world he didn’t seem to belong to, where none of the rules made sense anymore. He’d been trying to help and instead he’d ruined everything.

  His head hurt. A low, aching throb of stress and adrenaline dregs. Had he taken his meds this morning? He couldn’t actually remember. He hated them. Hated the need for them. It felt wrong to rely on a pill to regulate his mood. Plus, it was disorienting. How did he even know if what he felt was real or not when his mind was swimming in antidepressants?

  A big hand covered his shoulder. Wade jumped up and away, fists up, combat ready.

  “Well, shit,” drawled the big cowboy who’d pulled him off Seth before. “You got it bad.”

  Wade straightened, red faced, trying to act like he hadn’t just jumped out of his skin. “Got what bad?” he asked.

  “That was a hell of a startle,” the man said. He stuck out a hand. “My name’s Ethan.”

  Mystified, Wade shook the man’s hand. “Wade Hoffman.”

  “I know who you are.” Ethan was studying him like he might study a horse he was considering buying. Measuring his qualities with his almost eerie light blue eyes. So Wade studied him back.

  The guy was a little scary looking when you looked past the cowboy attire. There was an eagle tattooed on his beefy neck. A dagger dripping blood etched on his forearm. Wade was almost six feet, but Ethan was a good three inches taller. And built like a linebacker.

  “I knew your older brothers. Arch and Blake. Went to school with them,” Ethan said. “They were a couple of mean-ass dudes. I got in a few fights with them over the years.”

  “Why?” Wade was intrigued. Everything he knew about his older brothers was from being their little brother. The kid they beat up on, picked on or just ignored.

  “They were bullies. And big. Not too many kids could take them on at school, so I had to do it.”

  “Oh.” What else could he say? That he wished Ethan had shown up to fight his battles a few times?

  “After high school I joined the army,” Ethan went on. “Fought a few tours in Iraq. Ended up front and center in the fight for Falluja. When I got back home, I was messed up. PTSD. Seeing things that weren’t there. No idea how to be normal again.”

  Wade shifted uncomfortably. Ethan’s words hit too close to home.

  “I could see it, just now. You have PTSD, and it was taking you over in that fight. I saw it because I used to be the same way.” Ethan reached into his back pocket and handed Wade a scrap of paper with “Monday 8 p.m., Benson Grange Hall” scrawled across it. And a phone number.

  “We have a support group. Just local guys who’ve been through war. Some older vets and a bunch of us younger ones. It doesn’t solve everything, but it helps.”

  “I wasn’t in battles like Falluja. I was in Afghanistan.”

  “It doesn’t matter where the bullets are flying. We all came home messed up, and we’re all trying to figure out how to get over it. I think you should join us.”

  Wade hesitated. The idea of
walking into that room... Who would be there?

  “You need me to show up on your doorstep and pick you up like a date? ’Cause I’ll do that if you’re too scared to show.”

  It needled him just the way Ethan meant it to. “Why do you care if I show?”

  Ethan shook his head in disgust. “Maybe you weren’t in my platoon, or hell, not even in my war, but you’re my brother in arms. We’re like family. Isn’t that what the recruiters told us before we signed our lives away? Well, fuck them. They don’t look after us now. But I look after my brothers. So show up at the grange on Monday night. Afterward a bunch of us grab a beer or two at the High Country. Play some pool.”

  Wade stared at the paper, then back at Ethan. “I’ll think about it.”

  Ethan grinned and delivered a punch to the shoulder that almost took Wade down. “Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.” He turned to leave the barn, then stopped, looked back and grinned conspiratorially. “Don’t tell Lori I said this, but great job with Seth. I was thinking about doing the same thing. You just beat me to it.”

  It was nice to feel this kind of brotherhood again. But he still didn’t think he had what it took to go share all his troubles with a group. “Glad there’s someone here who has Lori’s back.”

  “You’ve got a thing for her?” Ethan laughed when Wade shook his head to deny it. “Damn. Maybe we need a second support group for all the guys in this town hoping Lori Allen will give them the time of day. Good luck with that, Wade. See you Monday.” And Ethan strolled, still laughing, out of the barn.

  Wade stared after him and then glanced down at the paper in his hand. Holy hell, life was strange. Was his PTSD really that obvious? He thought he’d kept it somewhat under control today. He’d stopped when Lori asked him to. He was making progress.

  The memory of the disappointment in Lori’s eyes mocked him. He’d been a millisecond away from losing it, and he knew it. It didn’t matter how much he wanted to pretend he was doing okay. Whatever demon was inside him was just biding its time. It had almost found its way out today.

  Wade shoved the paper into his pocket. He’d think about the support group. But he had a whole history of keeping his personal troubles private. So it was hard to imagine sharing his problems with a bunch of guys from Benson, a town that had gossiped about the Hoffmans for generations. A town that had never felt like home.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  HOW COULD HE do that to her? Lori stalked toward the house, anger fueling her pace. She’d finally put Seth in his place. And in his misguided attempt to support her, Wade had ruined everything.

  Now she was glad she’d pulled back at the parish hall the other night. She’d been wondering just about every five minutes since then what would have happened if she’d leaned in. If they’d kissed. If she’d told him she wanted to date him. She’d been wishing that she’d had the courage to go for it. But now she was grateful she hadn’t.

  A twinge of guilt flickered. She’d been hard on Wade just now, telling him never to come back here. But she needed things to run smoothly on the ranch. When Mom died, Lori’s life had been turned upside down. Getting pregnant had thrown everything into chaos again. Dad retiring had been difficult as well. But now she had her life organized. She had her ranch, and she was starting to earn respect from most of her staff. The last thing she needed was some unpredictable guy coming around and messing all that up.

  She picked her way over the cats sleeping in the sun on the back porch steps. The motley group was Mandy’s collection of strays that were too damaged or odd looking to adopt out. If people kept dumping these animals on their property, it was going to get expensive to feed them all. They made Mandy happy, though, so in that way, they earned their keep.

  One old tomcat raised a lazy paw and batted her boot as she went by. She bent down to scratch the white patch between his black ears. They both jumped at the sound of a sharp bark behind her.

  She turned around. In the dry grass at the foot of the steps was a small dog. It was peach colored and blond streaked, with fur sprouting every which way off its body. It looked like a dust mop had a close encounter with a light socket. Or a porcupine had gotten a perm.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  Its hairy tail swung back and forth in a blur of excitement. Two dark brown eyes never left her face. Lori stepped back over the cats and knelt down next to—she took a peek underneath—him. He looked to be somewhere under fifteen pounds. His nails were long and his coat was full of burrs.

  He put his front paws up on her leg and looked up at her with eyes that brimmed with intelligence. “Arrowf,” he said.

  “Hey, little guy.” Lori scratched him gently between the eyes where his fur sprouted like eyebrows gone wrong. He had long golden lashes, and his eyes were rimmed in startling black. “Have you been getting into the eyeliner?”

  His ears came forward at her words. Oversized triangles with plumes of hair streaming off. When Lori stopped scratching, he stood on tiptoes and nuzzled her hand with his black nose, demanding more of her attention. “You look like you just got dumped off here today. Someone decide they’d had enough of you? Did you stop being a cute puppy and become a real dog?”

  He cocked his head, listening intently, nuzzling her hand each time she stopped petting him. “You have a big attitude, buddy, but out here you gotta be careful, okay? You’re just a coyote snack in this part of the world.”

  She sat down on the lowest porch step, and the dog climbed onto her lap as if he’d always belonged there. He stuck his nose into her cheek, and his snuffling noises made her laugh. She pulled a few burrs off his chin and a couple more off his paws. Then he lay down on her legs and prepared for a snooze.

  “Hang on, little guy. I gotta work. I’m heading to the office to cut a paycheck for the man we just fired.” She ran her hands over the little dog’s rough coat. His sun-warmed fur was soothing. But she didn’t have time for this.

  She put her hands along the dog’s sides to move him off her lap. He thwarted her efforts by going noodle limp, flopping around in passive resistance when she nudged him. She picked him up, meaning to set him down again, but he curled up in her arms with a sigh of blissed-out contentment.

  With her own sigh of resignation, she carried the coyote snack with her into the old parlor that served as an office and set him on her lap while she wrote out a check to cover Seth’s final wages. Biting back all the rude things she’d have liked to say, she wrote “Thank you for your work at Lone Mountain Ranch” on an envelope, slipped the check in and sealed it.

  Sinking back in her chair, she rubbed the little dog’s velvet-soft ears. They were the only soft part of his coat, thanks to what was probably some kind of terrier heritage. She could feel his ribs. Mandy was going to want to fatten him up. The dog grunted in appreciation and nosed her hand, giving her a polite lick. “Why, thank you,” she told him.

  He looked at her searchingly as if trying to figure out what she meant, and a part of her heart went squishy. He really was a cute little guy.

  She should have gotten back to work, but there were incredible smells wafting out of the kitchen. Whatever Mandy was concocting wouldn’t solve her frustration with Wade or make her feel better about firing Seth, but it would taste awfully good. And she could really use Mandy’s company right now.

  She scooped up the little dog and headed for the kitchen.

  Mandy was up to her elbows in flour. “Wait!” she cried when Lori reached for a cupcake decorated with pink and yellow daisies. “Those are for Patty Tompkins. She’s throwing her daughter a baby shower.”

  Lori was going to protest when she saw the tray of chocolate chip cookies. “May I please, please have a cookie? I deserve chocolate after my day so far.”

  “One,” Mandy said. “That batch is for the city council meeting tonight.”

  “Two and I�
��ll deliver them for you,” Lori bargained.

  “It’s a deal.”

  Lori reached for the cookies.

  “What are you holding?” her sister demanded.

  Pulling her hand away from the cookies, Lori looked down at the little dog. “You haven’t met him? He was by the back porch.”

  Mandy sighed. “Must’ve been dumped off on the driveway. He’s gorgeous. But you can’t bring him into the kitchen. What if his scruffy little terrier hairs end up in the cupcakes?”

  Lori glanced down at the dog, who looked up at her in mute appeal.

  “Oh, look at that!” Mandy’s smile was ear to ear. “He loves you! I think you found yourself a new dog.”

  “He’s not my dog,” Lori protested. “He just hitched a ride in from the porch.”

  “Uh-huh,” Mandy said, putting all of her lack of conviction into the words. “And never, in your entire life, have I seen you cuddle a lap dog.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure how that happened. He seems kind of sneaky that way.” Lori took the dog back to the porch and set him down in the sun. Then she opened the bin where Mandy kept the pet food. She poured a cup of kibble into a dish and looked down at the stray, who was sitting bolt upright, watching her expectantly. “You can stay here,” she told him. “Eat your food. And don’t go out into the woods.”

  She set the dish down and the coyote snack dove for it, crunching the kibble like he couldn’t remember his last meal. Which made Lori angry at whoever had dropped him off here. He deserved better.

  But she was tired of being angry, so she closed the porch door behind her and returned to the kitchen, stopping at the sink to scrub her hands. She put two cookies on a plate and poured herself a glass of milk. Sinking her teeth into a still-warm cookie, she let the melted chocolate chips transport her to a happier place.

  “So, what’s going on?” Mandy asked, stirring milk and eggs into her batter.

  “What makes you think something’s going on?”