The Rancher’s Tempting Nanny

by Mary Sue Jackson

  "I'm sorry, Sara," he said seriously, his eyes holding hers with such intensity that it made her stomach flip-flop like it might on a rollercoaster. "For the way I behaved yesterday. It was way out of line."

  "I'm sorry, too," she said tenderly, reaching up and pressing his hat more firmly down on his head. "Now, get to your appointment, and don't worry about that anymore. It's in the past."

  “Whatever you say, ma’am,” he replied with a lopsided grin. “I know when to listen to what I’m told.”

  He hurried out the front door, leaving her laughing in the middle of the room, Lea looking at her like she had completely lost her mind. Maybe she had, too, and if that was the case, she didn't mind a bit. It was amazing how quickly a mood could change, and hers had taken such a positive upswing that she hardly even glanced at her phone when it rang, only checking to make sure it wasn't Austin calling to say he needed something. When she didn’t recognize the number, she sent the call to voicemail, and didn't even listen to the message the mystery caller left. She chose instead to leave it for some other time when she didn't have such a good mood to potentially spoil.

  She would have liked to block out the rest of the world completely to bask in the glow of her and Austin's reconciliation. When her rosy thoughts were interrupted by a firm knock on the front door, she was tempted to ignore it completely. Instead, she stood with a sigh, shrugging her shoulders when Lea cocked her head in question. She had a feeling they were of the same opinion when it came to the idea of having company, but Sara was supposed to be the adult in this scenario, and that meant showing her manners and opening the door.

  “No,” she whispered to herself after a brief glance through the peephole told her it was exactly the person she was hoping not to see. Then she put on her best fake smile and opened the door a crack.

  “Hi, Pete,” she said, standing in the small space amount of space she had allowed. She knew it was rude not to throw the door open all the way, much less invite him in, but she couldn’t seem to make herself do it. Regardless of Austin’s stubborn insistence that his father was changed, Sara simply didn’t trust the man.

  “Hi there, Sara,” Pete said in the gruff voice that somehow always managed to sound vaguely sheepish. “I was wondering if Austin was around. I’m here to see him about some things.”

  “Oh, no,” Sara said regretfully, her nerves already jangling at the notion of having to help Pete with something in Austin’s stead. “He went to the bank. Said he’s got an important appointment.”

  "Right!" Pete exclaimed, smacking his forehead with the heel of his palm. "I'm such a dodo. He mentioned something about that just yesterday, and yet here I am, ready to take inventory with him. I promised him I would help him with it, you see, and I'm trying to do better at sticking to my word this time around."

  “Sure, I understand,” Sara nodded sympathetically, trying to ignore the odd way his words made her skin crawl. “I wish I could do something to help.”

  “Maybe I’ll just check and see if the doors are unlocked. That way I can go ahead and get started,” Pete said hopefully. “That’d be a nice surprise for him to come home to, don’t you think?” The way he was twisting his hat in his hands, almost like he was afraid of hearing her answer, sent a pang of remorse through Sara. Maybe Austin had been right after all. Maybe all this man needed was a fresh start. If anyone understood that, it ought to be her.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and check?” she said, smiling a little at the thought of how appreciative Austin would be of her making a real effort. “And I’ll let Austin know whenever he gets back.”

  “Thank you, Sara!” Pete said, nodding vigorously and with such a wide grin that Sara couldn’t help but laugh a little. “I’m much obliged. And no need to worry, I won’t bother you or the little one again. It will be like I was never here at all.”

  “Slow down, old boy,” Austin reminded to himself as he eased off of the gas pedal. “You’re almost home, and getting stopped for a speeding ticket isn’t going to get you there any faster.”

  The words got him to ease off the accelerator, but they didn’t stop his left knee from bouncing up and down impatiently. Normally he wasn’t a man who minded abiding by traffic laws. At the moment, however, he was a man with news—the kind that made him feel like he was going to burst if he didn’t get to share it right away.

  It had felt strange, taking off for the bank that way without giving Sara the full story of why he was taking the meeting. They hadn’t been involved for long, certainly not long enough for him to have a clue about what they were doing, but already he didn’t like the idea of concealing things. He just hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of another confrontation about Pete so soon after the last, and he hadn’t known if there would even be something to tell. Except now there was, and he was pretty sure that even Sara, with all of her hesitations, would be able to see what a good thing it was.

  “All of it,” he mused to himself as he guided his truck down the bumpy road leading to his house. “Loan’s going to cover everything we need to finish the renovations, including this here excuse for a road!”

  The thought made him laugh out loud, and left him feeling like all of his stress and worry was about to melt away. His meeting with Mr. Fancy Banker had gone better than he could have imagined, and the ball was now officially rolling on a loan he would cosign with his dad to take care of every last detail of the ranch. After what felt like an eternity of pouring his blood, sweat, and tears into the place, he was finally going to get to see some of it pay off.

  He was so excited to tell Sara about what had happened that it took him a minute to notice the barn doors standing wide open. His brow creased in a frown, then cleared when it occurred to him that his dad must already be in there and hard at work. As far as Austin was concerned, that was ideal. It seemed right to deliver the good news to his dad before he told Sara. After all, it had really been him and Pete against the world as of late, at least when it came to the ranch’s renovations. Austin’s heart soared at the very idea of telling his dad how well the bank meeting had gone, and by the time he got to the open doors, he was practically running.

  “Dad!” he called, grinning in anticipation of Pete’s face when he heard that things were moving forward. “Dad, have I got some--”

  The sentence stopped dead in the air, the words lodged so tightly in his throat that Austin was sure he would choke on them. The first thing he noticed was that there was nobody in the barn to talk to—but that certainly wasn't the worst thing. Because the place was empty, stripped of everything of value and a few worthless things as well, just for good measure. He shut his eyes tightly, fighting to calm the blood rushing in his ears that made it impossible to hear anything but his own heart. It was some kind of hallucination and nothing more. It had to be, because the alternative was so much worse than he was prepared to stomach.

  “No,” he hissed to himself when he opened his eyes and found everything the same. “No! This isn’t happening right now.”

  He backed away from the doors quickly, stumbling and almost landing on his butt, and then he was running for the house, practically breaking the front door down in his haste to get it open.

  “Oh!” Sara cried, her hand going to her chest with surprise. “Austin, you scared me! Lea is napping right now.”

  Ignoring her, Austin tore around the room, looking for something he already knew he wasn’t going to find.

  “What is it?” Sara asked, following his progress, but at a safe distance. “What’s the matter?”

  “Was he here?” Austin asked, taking Sara by the shoulders and looking into her eyes with panic so thick it threatened to blind him. “Was my dad here?”

  “Yes,” Sara stammered, pulling away from his grip. “He got here a little while ago. He said he’d go ahead and get started on taking inventory of what’s in the barn. He said the two of you had already discussed it.”

  Austin groped blindly at the air around him, finding the couch out o
f sheer dumb luck. He sat down hard, clenching his jaw tightly to keep from losing his lunch. It all made sense, as little as he wanted it to. He understood now what a fool he had been to think that his father had really changed. Pete was the same lowlife he had always been, and in Austin, he had found the perfect mark.

  “It’s gone,” Austin said in a broken, strangled voice that hardly sounded like him at all. “The tools, the supplies. Everything. He took it all.”

  “Oh, God,” Sara said breathlessly, sinking to the couch beside him. “Oh, I’m so, so sorry.”

  “This is my fault,” Austin said, his voice hollowed out with grief.

  “But you couldn’t have known,” Sara argued.

  Her words hit him like a closed fist, and it was all he could do not to explode. Because she had known, hadn't she? She had warned him in her gentle, tactful way that things with his father might not be as they seemed. He had just been too caught up in his growing feelings to be able to see how untrustworthy most people really were. He had been too wrapped up in her. A part of him recognized how unfair the thought was even as it occurred to him, but a bigger part was relieved to have somewhere other than himself to lay the blame.

  “I should have known,” he said through clenched teeth as he got to his feet to pace the room. “I would have, too, if I hadn’t been so distracted. I let myself get too soft, and this is what happened.”

  Sara's eyes went wide, and her hand rose to her cheek as if she'd just been slapped. He could see her swallowing hard like she was trying not to cry, and when she folded her hands neatly in her lap, it was impossible to miss that they were trembling. He had done that to her, and the realization had him stinging with remorse on top of the bitterness and anger already flooding him. So he’d screwed this up, too. Big surprise. Blowing things up to keep himself safe was part of what he did best.

  “That’s not fair,” she said quietly, her eyes locked onto his. “And it’s not true, either.”

  “Maybe it’s not,” he shot back, edging towards the door like a cornered animal poised to make his escape. “And maybe it is. I don’t have a clue. All I know is that I can’t be here right now. If I stay inside this house, I’m going to tear the whole thing down.”

  He didn't wait for a response to that but slammed out the door, taking the porch steps two at a time. He needed to get as far away from Sara, from people in general, as he could if he was going to avoid making the kind of mistake he wouldn't be able to take back. He was in the mood for a fight, so much so that a small part of him was pleased when he saw a car rolling to a stop at the edge of his drive and a strange man climbing out of the driver's door.

  “This is my property,” Austin said, striding towards the unwelcome visitor purposefully with his hands shoved down deep in his pockets. “And I don’t believe I know you.”

  “No,” the man said, his eyes passing over Austin quickly and moving to the house. “My name is Ted, and I’m looking for Sara.”

  “For Sara?” Austin repeated with a frown. “Why do you want her?”

  The man finally turned his attention to Austin, eyes locking with his.

  “Because she’s my wife.”

  Eighteen

  “Husband?” Austin repeated, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. “I’m sorry, I think I’m going to need a little more information. Last I heard, Sara was divorced.”

  “She is,” Ted admitted, although his expression soured as he did so. “I guess I’m just not used to the ‘ex’ part, you know? Truth be told, I’m not so sure I want to get used to it, if you catch my drift. It wasn’t exactly me who wanted the separation."

  Austin nodded, trying hard to wrap his head around the conversation, all while feeling himself sink further into the blackness of his mood. A quick once-over of Sara's ex left Austin reasonably confident that he could take the man in a fight if need be. He would be lying if he said there wasn't a part of him that welcomed the idea of a brawl just to have a place to direct his anger. Instead he shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, if only to keep this man from seeing how badly he wanted to ball them up into fists and strike.

  “So tell me this,” he said conversationally, his voice miraculously betraying very little of the turmoil raging inside him. “Are you here because she asked you to come, or did you come of your own volition?”

  “Not sure I catch your meaning, friend,” Ted said, squinting a little in the sun. Austin pressed his tongue against his teeth to keep from mouthing off at the use of the word “friend” and taking a step closer to his unwanted guest.

  “I’m asking you if Sara knows you’re coming,” he explained slowly, careful not to let the rising agitation crawling up his insides show. “Or if this is a surprise for her.”

  "Oh, right," Ted said, looking over Austin's shoulder again as if he'd once again lost all interest in who he was talking to. "Yeah, she doesn't know I'm coming. She doesn't exactly take my calls, if you know what I mean."

  “Okay--?” Austin said, wondering what on earth the man had been thinking to come here. He didn’t think this was the kind of surprise women wanted from their ex-husbands.

  "So I only recently found out what she's been doing with herself all summer, and I thought what the hell, you know? Came out here on a whim to see if I could sort some things out."

  “I see what you’re saying, but in my experience, when a woman doesn’t take your calls or leave a forwarding address, it means she’s not in the mood to chat.”

  Austin was pushing the limits of politeness, and he knew it. He had no idea how much it would take for this Ted guy to want to fight, but he did know that if he wasn’t careful, they were going to throw down right here in the yard. He tensed his body, ready for a confrontation, and was surprised when all he got was a sigh and a shrug for his troubles.

  “I know it,” Ted said, shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d done. “But I had to try. Some women you just don’t get out of your system. I guess I didn’t realize that before.”

  Ted gave the impression of a man who'd been too much in his own head lately, who was now eager to get some of those thoughts off his chest. Austin just happened to be the unlucky guy standing there to take the deluge. There was no telling how long he would have gone on talking if not for the sound of the door opening and shutting. Ted stopped talking abruptly, his eyes widening, and the first signs of a tentative smile playing at the corners of his lips. Austin turned to follow his gaze, although he didn't really need to. He already knew what he'd find on the front porch.

  “Ted?” Sara asked, her face pale aside from two bright spots of color in her cheeks. “I don’t understand. What...what are you doing here?”

  One look at her face was enough for Austin to be sure that Sara’s surprise at Ted’s showing up was genuine. What he couldn’t know, and what was making him crazy wondering, was whether she considered it a good surprise or a bad one. The only thing he could be certain about was that he wasn't going to leave the two of them alone together. Not unless she looked him dead in the eye and asked him to go.

  “Seriously, Ted, why are you here?” Sara asked again, coming slowly down the steps towards them. Her arms were wrapped around her chest like she was cold despite the warmth of the day.

  “I’m here for you, sweetheart,” Ted answered earnestly, his eyes only for her now, leaving Austin poised awkwardly between the two of them who seemed to have forgotten he was there. “I’m here because I don’t like how we left things.”

  “I’m sorry,” Austin interrupted here, unable to keep quiet any longer. “You mean in divorce?”

  “That’s right,” Ted agreed, just the faintest hint of hostility creeping into his voice now. “But just because divorce is so final doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it. I just want you to hear me out, baby, okay? Can you do that much?”

  Sara opened her mouth but nothing came out, her eyes wide and confused as she searched for the right answer. Watching and waiting, Austin could hardly breathe. He
was surprised to realize that he was afraid to hear her answer.

  “I can’t talk about anything with you right now,” Sara said, her voice sounding very far away in her own ears. “I need to think about this—about you being here at all. You need to go, and I’ll call you once I’ve decided what I’m willing to do, okay?”

  She watched Ted's face anxiously, still trying desperately to wrap her mind around the fact that he was here. It was just too much on top of everything else that had happened, each new revelation more difficult to believe than the last. First there was the spat with Austin, then Pete cleaning him out and proving Sara's worst fears about the man true. Then, on top of everything else, there was the voicemail she had listened to after Austin stormed out of the house. It was from the board of directors of the school her co-worker called about. Sara had almost forgotten sending in an application, so much had changed in the meantime, and now they wanted to offer her a job, pending a satisfactory interview. All this change was happening so quickly that she could hardly see straight, and now here was Ted, inviting himself back into her life just when she felt the most unsure of herself.

  “Sure, of course,” he said now, holding up both hands in a mea culpa gesture as he stepped closer to his car. “Whatever you need. I know this must feel like it came out of nowhere. Just really think about it, okay? Maybe I’ll have something to say that will matter. Maybe even something that could change things.”

  "I will," she agreed, trying to sound reassuring if only to get him to leave faster. She feared she only sounded tired, but he didn't seem to notice. "I promise."

  Ted grinned at her as if that one promise had already gotten him everything he wanted. Before she could tell him not to get his hopes up, he was getting into his car, and she was too relieved to have him go to say anything else at all. Watching her ex-husband drive off, this man she used to love more than anything in the world, she wasn't sure how to feel. It certainly didn't help matters that she could feel Austin watching her, either.