by Leigh Riker
“You’re safe here,” he said at last.
But Blossom shook her head. “You told me yourself you don’t think the Circle H is that safe.”
Logan didn’t voice his next thought.
I didn’t mean the ranch. I meant with me.
* * *
THAT NIGHT BLOSSOM stayed in the barn until she thought Logan would be upstairs in his room. He went to bed early and got up before dawn. It shamed her that she’d let Ken—let anyone—turn her into a woman who jumped at the slightest sound. A woman who ran. She’d been so tempted to spill the rest of her story that afternoon, even to beg for Logan’s help with Ken if it came to that.
She’d enjoyed their impromptu lunch way too much. She’d liked being on neutral territory where they weren’t simply boss and employee, talking with him, being teased without the words turning into something else, proving all over again that there was something wrong with her.
Now Blossom sat on a trunk in the tack room with the overhead lights off, holding the tortoiseshell kitten.
“No-Name,” she murmured. “That’s as good as any, I guess.”
Blossom had eaten dinner with Sam again. She’d scrubbed the pots and pans while Logan checked on the horses for the night, then when he came back to the house she’d headed outside, grateful that, for a change, he hadn’t seemed to dislike his meal even though he’d eaten burgers for lunch, as well.
How had he guessed she didn’t feel safe?
She got up and carried the kitten over to the wall mirror where there was just enough light from the barn aisle through the open door to see by. She held the little creature close against her chest then studied their reflections. Blossom’s too-big eyes held the familiar hint of fear, which apparently she couldn’t hide. A pale face. The reddish hair she should have dyed brown or even black as a disguise and which Blossom had always hated. It stood out now like a beacon. The baggy clothes.
She didn’t look appealing. She knew Logan was still calling Mother Comfort about her replacement. Of course he would. She’d heard him on the phone in the ranch office just before dinner when she passed by with Sam’s tray.
So why had he said what he did? You’re safe here. Why did she keep seeing such unexpected warmth in Logan’s gaze?
She was still peering at herself in the glass when Willy walked in.
He jumped back. “Jeez. Didn’t know anyone was in here. Scared me.”
“I’m sorry.” Blossom turned toward him. “I was showing this kitten her image in the mirror.”
He laughed. Without turning on the lights, he came deeper into the room.
Blossom tensed. She’d only seen him once or twice since dinner on her first night at the ranch. He and Tobias had been making themselves scarce. Either that, or they had so much work to do that they were always out on the range.
Willy took off his hat. “Pardon, ma’am, but I need to clean my saddle.”
She turned toward the door. “Oh. Then I’ll just—”
“No need to run off. Plenty of room here for both of us. And—” he nodded at the kitten “—that one.”
“I’m calling her No-Name.”
Willy snorted. “Logan’ll love that, but you’re wasting your time. She’ll take off one of these days just like her mama. I can’t keep ’em straight.”
Logan thought so, too. “I don’t think she’ll leave.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Willy rummaged in a trunk for a can of saddle soap. “A man don’t clean his equipment,” he said, “he’s lookin’ for trouble.”
“I don’t know anything about horses.”
He pulled his saddle from a rack. “You stay here, you will. Springtime it can flood, bad sometimes. That driveway to the road gets covered deep enough, the only way out of here—or in—is on horseback. You should learn to ride.”
“Really?”
“Logan can tell you.”
He’d mentioned a flood at lunch and Blossom wanted to ask more, but she didn’t. She probably wouldn’t stay long enough for it to matter, and she didn’t like the way Willy looked at her. His sly expression, his crafty eyes made her nervous, and he was so big he seemed to fill the small room. She began to edge toward the door behind her.
“Sit down,” Willy said without looking up. “Watch me work.”
Still holding No-Name, she sat. Her pulse pounded. She was clearly overreacting. Did someone else hurt you?
Logan had easily read her wariness of men. Was it that obvious? Ken had done that to her. But not every man was out to destroy her spirit, she tried to tell herself.
“What made you decide to become a cowboy, Willy?”
He rubbed soap into the leather. “Nothin’ else I ever wanted to do,” he said. “Kind of like Logan in reverse. He couldn’t wait to get off this ranch.” He snickered. “Now he’s back, not for any reason of his own—and I have to tell you, I wish old Sam would get better. He’s ornery but at least he loves this place. Logan’ll be off to fly planes first chance he gets.” He nodded. “Hot Shot, that’s what I call him.”
“Not to his face,” Blossom said, remembering the way Logan had reprimanded Willy at the dinner table that first night.
He laughed again, harder this time.
“Don’t you just know it. He and his brother are twins, you know, but only in how they look. Sawyer loved the ranch, like Sam. Don’t really know why he left after all. Hasn’t been back in quite a time.”
“Twins?”
“Can’t tell one from the other.”
“Identical,” she said. And how weird would that be, seeing two Logan Hunters at once? “His brother didn’t want to take over from Sam? Work with him till he retired?”
“As a kid, he’d trailed Sam everywhere—so I heard. A cowboy from the heart. That was before my time here, and it was Tobias who told me, but the legend grows.” He glanced at Blossom through dark lashes. “Nobody quite knows what Sawyer does now, or where he does it.”
Logan and Sawyer. Blossom smoothed a hand over her abdomen. What would it be like to have twins? Had she just felt a faint flutter of movement?
Willy’s gaze had followed the motion. “Your stomach sour?”
“I feel fine.” She rose from the trunk and laid the kitten gently in her bed.
“Don’t hurry away.”
Willy rose from the other tack trunk, the can of saddle soap in his hand.
“I really should go,” she said.
With the speed of one of the ranch’s border collies, he blocked her way. “I fill you in on the big man—and you want to leave? I must be wrong,” he said.
“Wrong?”
“I could have sworn I saw something with you two. So, a word of warning—don’t get your hopes up.”
“I wasn’t,” Blossom said weakly as her lunch with Logan flashed through her mind. “He’s my employer, that’s all.”
Willy leaned one thick, brawny arm on the door frame just above her head. “Maybe we employees should stick together.”
With a quick shove, Blossom ducked out under his arm. She plucked the kitten from her cozy nest of blankets. She wouldn’t leave No-Name here. She didn’t like, or trust, Willy.
“You and me,” he went on, tracking her out the door. “We could go to the Grange Hall on Saturday night.” He did a little dance step, holding out his arms.
Blossom didn’t answer. With his crude laugh ringing in her ears, she rushed into the aisle then raced from the barn to the house and up to her room.
She wouldn’t be alone with Willy again.
Or even Logan. Today, eating lunch by the stream had been a mistake.
Hadn’t she learned her lesson with Ken? She really couldn’t trust any man.
* * *
IN THE LIVING ROOM, Logan flicked the remot
e control to shut off the TV. He’d tried to watch three different shows—a documentary on terrorism, a silly sitcom, the first period of a basketball game—but none of them had registered. He couldn’t get Blossom out of his head.
What had he been thinking that afternoon? Watching the sun set fire to the rich red of her hair? Bumping shoulders beside her on the picnic bench? Getting to know her, at least a little better than he had before? Worrying about her, when he shouldn’t even try—or want—to get close to her.
Hours ago he’d snatched his cell phone from the end table. A minute later he’d had Shadow Moran on the line. He was still mulling over their conversation, too.
“Hey, handsome,” she’d said. “Does this call have to do with Blossom?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, I am the face of the Mother Comfort Home Health Care Agency.”
“And I may have made a mistake.”
At the other end of the line, Shadow huffed out a breath. “Logan, I’m getting a definite set of mixed messages here. From all sides. First, you drive me half-crazy trying to find a caregiver for Sam. There are no male caregivers in this whole county, which I tried to tell you a hundred times. Then Blossom Kennedy walks into my office—and you hire her. There still isn’t a man to replace her. That is your question tonight, isn’t it? Hers too, maybe.” She paused. “Blossom came to see me earlier.”
“She did?”
“Just before noon. She was carrying a couple of bags so I guess she’d been shopping, but there was clearly something else on her mind. I don’t think she even remembered my name at first. And to me, she looked a bit jumpy. That was nothing out of the ordinary,” Shadow went on. “She looked the same way when she first filled out her application. Today she asked me for cash pay instead of a check. Did you fire her, and she just didn’t want to say so?”
“Not me. Sam’s happy with her.” He wouldn’t include himself. Maybe this explained Blossom’s stiffness during lunch. “I admit, we had a few words when she first got here and I still want someone more suitable, stronger, experienced—” Not as appealing, he thought.
“Does she do a good job?”
“Fair enough. Not much of a cook,” he said, “or at least not real food, but she tries. You think she’s getting ready to leave?” He’d still worry about her if she wasn’t around, but he wouldn’t have to see her every day, hear her move around in her bedroom each night across the hall. Caution himself to keep his mind where it should be—on getting back to Wichita.
“Leave?” Shadow maintained a brief silence. “Run would be my word for it.”
“Huh. I agree.” Logan voiced his earlier thought. “I think she’s in trouble, Shadow. I’ve thought so from the start. We talked today, too, and now after what you’re saying, I’m sure she is.”
“She didn’t want a check and she didn’t want me to deposit her pay in the bank. Sounds like trouble to me. What do we do?”
Blossom’s visit to the agency changed things. It brought out his protective instincts again, suddenly stronger than his need to avoid any type of relationship.
“I’m sure not pushing a woman on the run out into the night. She obviously needs the money she’s earning here at the Circle H. And,” he added, “a place to hide.”
“You want me to stop looking, then? For her replacement?”
Silence on his part for another moment.
“No,” he finally said. “But keep me posted.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
AT THE SOUND of a car pulling up to the barn’s open doorway, Logan dropped Cyclone’s right rear leg, which he’d been holding between his thighs while he dealt with his hoof. Then he saw the woman who stepped out of the familiar new-model sedan—most likely paid for with his alimony check. And mentally braced himself.
Wearing a crisp gray suit, Olivia Wilson Hunter marched down the barn aisle with murder in her beautiful blue eyes. A coral cami or whatever it was called peeked out between the lapels of her jacket. Stopping in front of him, almost in his face, she slapped both hands on her hips. “Did I give permission for Nick to come over here?”
“I don’t know. Did you?” He gave her a grim smile then set aside the rasp he’d been using to file a rough spot on the colt’s hoof that could make him lame. “We don’t live together anymore, Olivia—Libby. I haven’t seen you in weeks. I can’t read your mind.”
“Grey knows better,” she said, taking care to avoid coming too near the colt. “I could kill him for that.”
“If you didn’t love your brother,” Logan pointed out. How did she know about Grey and Nicky’s visit? Grey surely wouldn’t have told her. “I had no idea they were coming to visit until I walked into the kitchen—and saw Nicky. Grey had just pulled him down from climbing the cabinet.”
“Climbing?”
Uh-oh. Wrong thing to say. Libby watched their son like a hawk until Nicky must be afraid to take a step.
He hadn’t meant to goad her. Watching Libby’s face turn pale always reminded him of the flood, his wife’s panic and his own failure. She had pleaded with him then for help. She wasn’t pleading now.
“I’m in charge of his well-being—”
“The judge agrees with you.”
“And if I ever catch Grey bringing him here again without my say-so—”
Logan’s mouth tightened. “Lighten up. You need to take this to Grey. That wasn’t my fault.”
Her features softened a bit. Her hands dropped away from her hips. “Well, Grey wasn’t at his house when I stopped by, but you were here. I guess you were handy.”
Logan rubbed the nape of his neck. But that wasn’t all. Libby never set foot on the Circle H if she could help it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her in this barn. Wearing killer high heels and a suit. She was here for some other reason.
“We can’t keep on like this, Libby. For one thing, it’s not good for Nicky. It’s not good for us either.”
“There is no us.”
“True,” he had to agree. “I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but the flood, the divorce and losing Nicky have been the low points of my life so far. I’d give anything for all of that not to have happened. You want to rub it in again?” He turned back to the colt. “Go ahead. But I’m not listening to any more of this.”
She trailed a hand over the colt’s sleek black neck as if she’d forgotten he might nip and had remembered her love of animals instead. They’d shared that at least, other than Nicky, though they weren’t sharing him now.
“I don’t want to see Nick hurt.”
“Kids climb, Libby. That’s what they do.”
“You’re calling me a helicopter parent.”
At first Logan didn’t respond. If the term fits...
“He needs the freedom to make mistakes, just like we did,” he said. “That’s how we learn.”
“Oh. I see. So now you’re saying our marriage was a mistake.”
Among other things—like his absence when he was needed most. Logan snapped a lead line on the colt then unlatched him from the crossties.
“Maybe I am,” he muttered. “All I know for sure is, you’re wrong to shelter Nicky the way you do.”
He started down the aisle to Cyclone’s stall.
Libby caught his shoulder. “You weren’t here during the flood. But you should have been, and the weather reports didn’t lie. You grew up on this ranch. You knew how bad it could get.”
“Yeah, and I guess we’re going to rehash this forever.”
He released the horse into his stall, rolled the door shut then hung the lead rope on a hook outside. Automatic motions he’d made a thousand times without having to think. Muscle memory.
Still, he didn’t intend to stay here any longer than he had to. Or suffer through another tirade from L
ibby.
As he’d learned the hard way and from talking with Shadow last night after his lunch with Blossom, good feelings didn’t last.
He leaned back against the closed stall door, listening to Cyclone root in the hay for stray bits of grain.
“Libby, we loved each other once. Didn’t we?”
She didn’t answer. For a long moment she looked at him, as if trying to decide whether or not he’d ever appealed to her. Whether they’d shared any common goal.
“All right,” she said. “I admit, Grey bringing Nick over here wasn’t your doing. But don’t let it happen again.”
“You’d better tell Grey that.” Logan added, “Now, why don’t you let me know why you’re really here when a phone call would have done the job?”
She shifted, folding her arms over her chest and avoiding his gaze. “You know me too well. So here’s the thing—and, God, I hate to ask this—but I do need a favor.”
“From me?”
“I know. Astonishing, isn’t it?” Libby focused on the open barn doors at the end of the aisle. “I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning. Nick’s school is closed for parent-teacher conferences. He’s too old for day care except the after-school program, and my usual babysitter called in sick today. My friends all work full-time. And Grey’s going to Montana to buy cattle. Could you possibly...”
“Consider it done.” He paused. “You came all the way out here to chew me up about the other day—when all along you needed me to help you?”
“I guess I did.” She smiled a little. “I had to work up to it.”
“Ah, Libby.”
She tucked a strand of blond hair behind one ear, reminding Logan of all the times he’d done the same for her. “I hate to ask you for anything.”
“Maybe you need to think about that.” She was almost to the barn doors when he called out, “Hey. You feeling okay?”
“Perfect. It’s just a...checkup.” She couldn’t resist adding, “I’d rather he didn’t come here tomorrow. You can do something with him in town.”
Then she turned her back, marched off without another word, her slim form moving farther and farther away. She was distancing herself from him physically just as she had emotionally before she left him—and took Nicky with her.
