Home on the Ranch: Her Cowboy Hero

by Pamela Britton

  “Where going, Mommy?”

  Paisley’s little legs had a hard time keeping up, so Jayden bent and pulled her into her arms. Her daughter’s hands slipped around her neck automatically.

  “We’re going to talk to the owner of this place.” Sure, Colby had said he’d do that, but she felt bad having him do her dirty work. Plus, she really wanted Jax to know how bad she felt firsthand.

  “Who’s that?” Although the words came out sounding like “Who’s dat?”

  “His name is Jaxton, and with any luck, he won’t mind us doing some chores together.” Hopefully Paisley didn’t pick up on her anxiety. “You could help me sweep the aisle or something. Would you like that? We could even clean saddles together.”

  “Yes!”

  If Jayden had asked her to pick up horse poop, Paisley would have been okay with that, too. She’d inherited the horse-lover gene for sure.

  They walked across the parking lot in front of the cabins, their feet crunching on the gravel, Jayden wondering if Bryan peered out at them from the other side of the glass.

  “Mommy. Look.” Paisley’s chubby little finger pointed. Jayden knew she’d caught sight of the Stone family home, which wasn’t really a home, more like a mansion. It had come into view around the bend.

  “Isn’t it pretty?”

  It looked like a resort, all angles and glass and thick beams and redwood planks. On such a beautiful day it sparkled like a geode beneath the late-morning sun. The house was built into the side of the hill, too, and overlooked a valley studded with oaks, a blacktop road intersecting the view, one as straight as a needle that pointed toward the front gate. She’d half hoped Colby would still be there, but his truck was nowhere in sight. There were no cars parked on the asphalt strip along the front of the home, either, making her wonder if anyone was home.

  “Down.”

  Paisley was insistent, and Jayden knew why. She’d spotted the stairs that led to the front door. She loved stairs almost as much as horses, and these led to a porch that surrounded the home. She had to help Paisley navigate, but her daughter managed them with surprising ease. Jayden could hear voices inside.

  “I said give it back.”

  It was a girl’s voice, or maybe a teen.

  “Not until I see what’s on,” replied someone else, a boy, by the sound of it.

  “Darn it, T.J. Now. I’m right in the middle of watching something.”

  She rang the doorbell. A deep-throated woof-woof broke the sudden silence. She and Paisley both jumped back. A second dog joined in the fray, and the second dog sounded scarier than the first, so much so she wondered if she shouldn’t pick Paisley up before the door opened.

  “Thor, ruhig,” said a female. “You, too, Tramp. Quiet.”

  The dogs instantly hushed. The sluggish thud of what could only be teenage feet headed toward the door, followed by the tap-tap-tap of dog claws on a floor. A young lady with brown hair and pretty blue eyes opened the door a crack.

  “Can I help you?” She stared at her, the space between her brows puckering, even more so when she spotted Paisley hiding behind her legs.

  “Yeah, hi. I was hoping to talk to your dad.”

  The doorbell rang. Jayden glanced down at Paisley in surprise. The dogs went nuts again. The young girl quickly slammed the door, and Jayden heard her ordering the dogs to be quiet. Paisley. The little stinker. She’d pushed the button. Jayden scooped her up in her arms.

  Only when the dogs were silent again did the door open one more time. “I’m Jayden Gillian,” she told the teenager. “I work for your dad.”

  “Oh, yeah. Okay. Let me go get him.” She stepped back, revealing a grand entry that would have done the White House proud with its marble floors and vaulted ceilings. A gorgeous German shepherd with a graying muzzle sat at the end of the hall. Tramp wasn’t half as well behaved. He bounded forward.

  “Tramp, no.”

  The dog skidded on the marble floor, and to his credit, he stopped.

  “Da-ad!” the teen called.

  “Will we be okay?” she asked, motioning toward the German shepherd.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s fine. Thor, bleib.” She motioned with her hand. “That means ‘stay’ in German,” she added. “He’s an ex war dog.”

  “Who is it?” A boy with glasses peeked his head around a corner.

  “Jayden. The new therapist Dad was talking about.” She glanced down at Paisley. “And her daughter.”

  “You’re the one whose car broke,” said the boy, presumably T.J.

  “I am.”

  “All right, you guys. T.J., give Sam back whatever it was you took from her.” Jax came toward them from the back of the house. He smiled in her direction, still wearing the casual polo shirt and jeans from before. Tramp bolted toward him. “Kids, take the dogs with you.”

  The kids came forward, each grabbing a collar.

  “I was just about to go down and get you.”

  “Jax, I’m so sorry about today. I had no idea my ex would show up.”

  “And who do we have here?” he asked.

  Jayden followed the direction of his gaze. “This is Paisley.” She clasped her daughter closer. Her three-year-old always seemed to ground her in ways Jayden would have never thought possible, and today was no exception. Holding her hand gave her confidence. “I hope it was okay to bring her by. I was thinking maybe the two of us can still do some chores. The saddles could use a good dusting off, and I could clean the empty stalls.”

  “Don’t be silly.” He motioned her inside. “Come on in and meet my wife.”

  “That’s okay. Really. I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Mommy,” Paisley whispered, or tried to. She wasn’t very good at regulating the volume of her voice. “This is a big house.”

  She almost laughed. Yes, it was big. With its grand staircase and a sunken living room to the left, it looked more like a hotel lobby than a home. But it was the smell that drew her attention. Garlic. And if she didn’t miss her guess, bacon.

  “You’re not intruding.” Her boss must have read her expression of pure delight. “We’re just about ready to have brunch. As a matter of fact, I was about to go find you and ask if you wanted to eat with us.”

  “Yum,” Paisley said when she caught a whiff of whatever was cooking. Her daughter seemed part bloodhound when it came to her favorite foods, and bacon was at the top of the list.

  “That’s my wife’s gourmet BLT.” He winked down at her daughter. “Tomatoes sautéed in garlic and basil. Maple-cured bacon. Spinach instead of lettuce. Equals heaven.”

  “I’m hungry!” Paisley said, her eyes so full of hopeful anticipation that it made Jayden laugh.

  “Then I guess we accept,” Jayden said.

  “Good.” Jax motioned her forward. He led her through a wide entrance, living room left, hallway to the right. They passed a sweeping staircase and entered a gorgeous kitchen with a terra-cotta floor and a center island as big as a Ping-Pong table, one covered with off-white marble.

  “This is my wife, Naomi,” Jaxton said, pointing toward a double-wide stove where a woman stood cooking. “And my son Tanner in the corner there.”

  “Hey there,” said his wife, turning toward her, and, wow, she was beautiful, made even more gorgeous by a set of pretty blue eyes that were alight with welcome. She had red hair that was pulled into a ponytail. She waved, metal tongs in her right hand. “I’d come give you a hug, but I need to turn my bacon.”

  “Baby!” Paisley said. She began to wiggle in Jayden’s arms.

  “Whoa there.” She caught a glimpse of a little boy, probably no more than two, sitting on the kitchen floor playing with something behind a white baby fence. He played so intently with whatever it was on the ground that he didn’t even look up when they entered.

  “I wanna play!” Paisley said. />
  “Oh, no, honey. I don’t think so.”

  “It’s okay.” Naomi half turned. Some women looked terrible with their hair off their face. Naomi Stone could have passed for a model with her heart-shaped face. “You can put her in there with him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “He plays with his cousins all the time,” Jaxton said. “One of them is two years older and they do just fine. Go ahead.”

  She rounded the corner of the center island. The most adorable blue-eyed boy looked up at them as they approached.

  “Hi, Tanner,” she said softly. “This is Paisley.”

  Her daughter just about jumped out of her arms when she leaned over the plastic fence. She immediately toddled over to Tanner, pausing a moment to stare down at the little boy, who eyed her curiously, then bending to give him a hug.

  Her softly spoken “Hi” melted Jayden’s heart.

  “That’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen,” her boss said from behind her.

  “She’s got a good heart.”

  “I can tell,” Jax said. “Probably a lot like her mom.”

  “I heard about your car.” Naomi turned away from the stove again, the stainless-steel hood above her whirring, the bacon she cooked sizzling and popping grease onto the brick backsplash. “Bummer.” She put the tongs down, wiping her hands on the front of her apron before meeting her husband’s gaze. “Did you check on Bryan? Did you invite him to lunch like I asked you to? Are you sure, I don’t know, we shouldn’t have him stay with us until the other vets arrive? You guys were such good friends.”

  “Relax,” he said, going up to his wife and giving her a kiss on the cheek. “One, I never even left the house. Jayden was at the front door as I was about to leave. Two, I tried calling him, and he didn’t answer. Three, I’m guessing by the tersely worded message he left me after I told him we needed to talk that he wants to be left alone, but I’ll go ask just to be sure.”

  “Oh, well, shoo.” She waved her husband out of the kitchen. “Tell him I said hello. I’ll set up brunch on the back patio.”

  “You know you don’t have to cook for our guests anymore. Patsy will be over in a little bit. She’ll get Bryan squared away if he refuses to eat with us.”

  “Patsy can come eat with us, too.”

  “You’re doing her job.”

  “She has enough to do, what with keeping this place clean and helping me with the kids. Besides, I did her job long before she moved in, so it’s no big deal.” She waved at him again. “Go. It’ll be done in a few minutes.”

  He just shook his head. “Be right back.” He waved at her as he left.

  “Sit.” Naomi motioned toward the bar stools stashed beneath the center island. “I’m just about to pull the bacon off the stove. I’ll toast some bread next and then we’ll be ready to eat.”

  “Smells amazing.”

  “It’s my kids’ favorite,” she said over her shoulder as she flipped over some more bacon. “We all sort of overslept this morning. My sister-in-law had a party last night. Do you know Lauren Connelly?”

  “I’ve heard of her. She’s the sheriff’s wife, right?”

  “That’s her. She’s a nurse over at Via Del Caballo General. Great gal. You’ll love her.”

  “Her husband’s super nice.” She’d had to call him a time or two when things had gotten heated with Levi. She’d never forget his kindness.

  “Anyway, Patsy is our housekeeper. She lives in the apartment right over there.” She pointed to a door by where the kids played. “She cooks and cleans for our guests. And when we don’t have guests, she helps me around here. I started an event planning business a couple years ago, so it gets a little crazy sometimes.”

  “You plan weddings?” Jayden couldn’t remember where she’d heard that, maybe her aunt.

  “Yup. We actually hold them here in the spring and fall. That’s on top of the work we do with veterans. We’ve always got something going on around here, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. We are so blessed.”

  She had a feeling she’d get along great with her boss’s wife. She was older than her by a dozen or so years, but her smile was so warm and friendly, Jayden felt instantly at ease.

  “If you want to do me a favor, could you get some plates out and put them on the patio table? I’m going to scramble some eggs just in case someone’s in the mood for a traditional breakfast.”

  “Sure.”

  “Plates are right there.”

  She pointed to a cabinet by a sink in the middle of the far wall. Jayden kept an eye on the kids as she went about her task. Her boss’s home was amazing. On her way past the house earlier she’d thought it was built into the side of the hill, but that wasn’t the case at all. It was angled in such a way that only the one corner touched the rocky outcroppings. A terra-cotta patio ran along the back side of the house and framed a pool made to look like it’d sprouted from cracks in the earth. A table sat right outside the door, near an outdoor stove made from the same bricks that formed the backsplash inside the kitchen. And what a kitchen. Wooden beams intersected the ceiling above. Bowl-shaped light fixtures—three of them—hung in a row down the length of the center island. You could probably feed every cowboy within a fifty-mile radius out of the place.

  “Be nice,” she warned Paisley when she took a yellow brick from Tanner. Her daughter immediately gave the piece back.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” Naomi said.

  “Come to think of it, I didn’t have breakfast this morning. I was too busy running around trying to find a backup babysitter for Paisley. My aunt usually watches her for me, but she came down with a cold at the last minute. But then my ex showed up, only to drop her off here an hour later. I swear, he had no intention of watching her all day in the first place.”

  Naomi made a moue of sympathy. “I take it he’s not the best dad?”

  “That would be putting it kindly.”

  Naomi nodded. “I was lucky with my first husband. He might have had other faults, but he was a great dad.” Some of Jayden’s curiosity must have shown on her face because Naomi added, “T.J. and Sam aren’t Jax’s kids. Well, they are in every way that matters.” She smiled, but it was a grin tinged with sadness. “Their dad died in combat.”

  Jayden’s breath caught for a second. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay, but that’s why Jax and I are so passionate about this place. We’ve both been affected by tragedies. Everyone who works here has been touched by war somehow, even Patsy. And now Bryan is here.” She shook her head. “Jax loves that man like a brother. The two of them were in the same unit years ago. Jax left, but Bryan stayed in.”

  Everyone? Even Colby? She was dying to ask. Instead she said, “I heard Bryan almost died.”

  “He did, and now he’s got some psychological issues. They’re some of the same problems Jax had when I first met him. This place was such a balm to his soul back then. For Colby, too. I hope it has the same effect on Bryan.”

  There it was again. Colby.

  “Was Colby a guest here?”

  “No, no.” Naomi took a bite of bacon, chewing and clearly enjoying the taste. “He came to us from Texas.”

  Why did she think there was more to the story than that?

  “He’s a really nice guy, but he keeps to himself. I don’t even think he’s dated anyone in all the time he’s been here. Shame, though, don’t you think? He’s really cute.”

  She tried to appear as if she hadn’t a clue what Naomi was talking about, but her boss’s wife had sharp eyes. She started to smile, the grin spreading across her face, amusement lighting her eyes.

  “Aha.” She pointed at her, laughing. “I see you agree.”

  She couldn’t hold Naomi’s stare. Darn her for bringing it up. She’d been doing fine ignoring her coworker’s good looks up until the moment
he’d pulled her up against him, and now here she was, blushing like a teenager.

  “I think, though, that what he really needs is a friend.”

  Was she trying to tell her something? There was something in the depths of her gaze, something both serious and sad.

  “I’m not sure he likes me enough to want to be my friend.”

  Naomi shook her head. “He likes you. You should have heard him earlier. He was singing your praises in that cute Southern accent of his.”

  She ducked her head. He liked her? Not that way, of course, but he approved of the job she’d done. That meant more to her than... Well, it just meant a lot.

  “So I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t let him scare you off. He might seem standoffish and hypercritical, but inside, he respects how hard you’re working.”

  She supposed she liked and respected him, too. And that was scary to admit. The last man she’d liked had led her down the garden path. But that wouldn’t happen with Colby. He was...different. Look at how he was fixing her car. Not many people would offer to do that. That was something a friend would do. There was nothing wrong with returning that friendship.

  Was there?

  Chapter 8

  “All fixed,” Colby said, slamming the hood of Jayden’s car. He wiped his hand on a rag, grease coating his fingers. “Go ahead and try to start it.”

  Jayden slipped into the driver’s seat of her car, foot hanging out, door still open. She’d told him Paisley was up at the big house, Colby trying not to feel self-conscious as he stood in front of her vehicle in his blue coveralls. He’d been great at ignoring women for so long, but he couldn’t ignore this one.

  “Here goes,” he heard her say.

  It started right up.