The Rancher’s Second Chance

by Jackson, Mary Sue

  Sammie's door was shut. He paused at it, hand raised ready to knock. Seeing her face before he took the next step would make it easier. Remember what he was putting himself on the line for. Who.

  But facing her after last night—after looking at her from the other side of prison bars—was too much. He retreated to his truck and glanced at himself in the rearview mirror.

  He looked like hell.

  But he also looked...ready.

  He should have spent the drive across town rehearsing what to say. But between the leaden ball in his stomach, and the icepick between his eyes, he felt lucky just to stay upright. Once he'd parked on the street, he glanced at himself in the mirror one more time.

  This was it. Now or never. Time to fight for Sammie.

  “Can I help you?” The receptionist at Jensen Holdings looked way too young to be working in an office. Her overly made-up face couldn't hide her youth. Cole felt another surge of revulsion for Peter.

  “Tell Peter that Cole is here.”

  “Cole who?” Young or not, she had that imperious sneer perfected.

  But Cole wouldn't let her rile him; he was saving his anger for the man in the office behind her. “He'll know what this is about. Now either you can tell him I'm here, or I'll let myself in, darlin'. Your choice.”

  “He's not available at the moment.” A little flutter of nervousness in her voice betrayed her lie. Cole smirked and walked right around her desk, ignoring her shouts of protest as he shoved the door open.

  Peter sat behind the vast expanse of his oak desk. He leaned back with his hands behind his head, like he'd heard Cole's voice out in the reception area and decided to strike a pose of perfect nonchalance before Cole entered.

  “Well, good morning, Mr. Baker,” Peter chortled without rising from his chair. “I heard about your nighttime adventures. Was spending one night in a jail cell not enough for you, that you figure you'll do some trespassing this morning? Do you miss it that much? It is kind of where you belong, I agree.”

  “Trespassing, huh? Like those hands you tried to get into your pocketbook did at Sammie's ranch?”

  “No one trespassed.”

  “I know what you're up to, Petey.” Cole strode forward and planted his hands on Peter's desk.

  Peter's nonchalant expression dropped, and he leaned forward in his chair. “I don't think you know much of anything other than how to screw up,” he laughed. A little fleck of spittle flew from his mouth when he said the word “screw” and landed on Cole's cheek.

  Cole saw red. The nausea, the shame, the beating-his-head-against-a-brick-wall feeling of never getting ahead—they were the kindling and Pete's spit was the match.

  “You sorry son-of-a-bitch,” Cole snarled, leaning over the desk to grab a handful of Pete's shirt collar and haul him to his feet. “You sneaky little shitstain...I know. I know about the bribes. I know you got the inspector to falsify the reports, so it's time to stop lying through those too-white teeth of yours and man the hell up. I'm telling you, right now, that it ends here. You back off. You leave Sammie alone. You stop threatening her legacy and her goddamned living. You understand me?” He punctuated his rant by shaking Pete so hard his head snapped back.

  Pete stared in mute fear. Cole tightened his grip and pulled him across the desk until they were nose to nose. “Are. You. Hearin'. Me?”

  “Mr. Jensen?” The receptionist gasped in the doorway.

  Pete's fear slid off his face and was replaced with a sly smile. “Miss Dell? Call the police. This man is threatening me.”

  Cole let go. For one split second, he thought about running. About throwing open the door to Jensen Holdings and sprinting down the street. He'd blow through town, hit the highway, and just keep running until Hope Springs was nothing but a glint on the dusty horizon.

  But it was only a split second. And then he came to his senses and remembered that no matter how low he had fallen, he still had so much left to lose.

  And he was going to stand and fight for it.

  “Yes, his name is Cole Baker.” Miss Dell was relating the information to the dispatcher with a breathless importance that told Cole just how much she was enjoying the drama. He stepped back from Peter's desk and shoved his hand in his pockets.

  “This doesn't change a thing,” he told him.

  “I am sure I have no idea what you're talking about.”

  “And I am sure you do. And I'm going to prove it. I might be getting hauled away in cuffs today, Peter. But I am telling you to your face I'm not going to rest until you’re in cuffs, too.”

  The sirens in the distance made Peter smile. “Never going to happen,” he said with a smug grin. “And I got to say, this obsession of yours is getting pretty embarrassing for the both of us.”

  He glanced towards the door, and his face lit up like candles on a birthday cake. “Oh no, I guess I was wrong. It is more embarrassing for you.”

  Cole turned. Just as he had feared, and yet still expected, it was Richard who stood in the door.

  “Cole, you want to come with me?”

  “Officer, this man trespassed on my property and threatened me bodily harm. My receptionist is my witness. He needs to be locked away. He's a danger, and we all know it.” Peter was one hell of an actor, playing up his terror and shrinking away from Cole where seconds ago he had been lording over him. Cole wanted to laugh and applaud.

  But instead he turned to his brother-in-law. “Yeah. I'm not going to give you any trouble.” He turned back to Peter. “But this isn’t over.”

  “Cole, watch yourself,” Richard warned. He took him by the arm and led him away, whispering urgently through gritted teeth. “If you come with me right now without making any trouble, I can let this slide.” He dropped his voice. “But don't do anything stupid. Violence isn't going to solve anything here.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Cole let his shoulders drop once they'd left the offices. Then he looked at his brother-in-law and sighed. “Sure am glad that you were the one who answered the call. Thanks, man.”

  Richard clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on. It's not worth it.”

  Cole shook his head. “No, it is. It is to me.”

  But he followed him all the same.

  Twenty-Three

  “He did what!?” For the third time in less than forty-eight hours, Sammie almost dropped her phone.

  She almost wished she had, because her cousin's oily voice in her ear was making her break out in a full sweat of revulsion. “Just as I said,” Peter gloated “You sent your ranch boss over here to threaten me. I am going to press charges, Sammie, and do you know what that means? It's over.”

  Sammie dug the heel of her hand into her eye. “Peter, I did not send him over.” She gritted her teeth. What the hell was Cole doing? Was he really so hell-bent on his own self-destruction that he couldn't see what he was doing to the people around him? Drinking, drag-racing, and now threatening her cousin?

  She'd thought he’d changed. She thought he'd grown-up, redeemed himself.

  She'd thought he really was ready to make a go at being a stand-up guy. And she was wrong.

  Didn't this just prove what she’d always believed?

  The ones you love will always let you down.

  She sucked air in through her teeth. “Well, then it's over,” she heard herself say.

  Her cousin sputtered, surprised. “Say that again?”

  “No.” She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of hearing her lose. “Goodbye,” she said instead.

  This was it. She'd fought hard; she’d tried everything, but in the end all this exercise in futility had done was prove that she needed to leave. Her job was waiting for her, her life was waiting for her, and this little experiment had been a failure from day one.

  There was no reason to stay in Hope Springs for one single moment more.

  * * *

  The strange thing, Sammie thought, as she did one more circuit of the house to collect her belongings, was that she'd arrived
in Hope Springs after packing up everything she owned in less than half an hour. But when she tried to leave Hope Springs?

  Her stuff was…everywhere.

  She sighed heavily as she went up on her tiptoes, scouring the cupboard for the mugs she'd brought with her, trying to remember which ones stayed and which ones she needed to ship back.

  It was annoying, having to separate them out like this. It was one of the things she had listed on the con side when she sat down to weigh whether she should stay or go.

  Pro? Her career was back east, and she had the position at Yale to plan for. Her grace period had disappeared, and it was time to get back into the swing of things.

  Pro? She didn't know how to cook. She couldn't hold together a homestead the way her mother could. She didn't deserve the china, so it was best to just leave it behind.

  Pro? She'd be away from Cole Baker and all of the terrible emotions he aroused in her.

  The front door slammed open. Unable to help herself, Sammie glanced out the kitchen window. Her eyes went wide when she saw a police cruiser pulling away.

  “Again?” she called, keeping her voice flat.

  Cole's tread on the hall floor sounded like a man walking to the gallows. She knew that he could see the half-packed boxes lying everywhere.

  He walked heavily to the kitchen and took stock of her separating mugs.

  “Sammie.” It wasn't a question.

  But she couldn't help giving an answer anyway. “It's over.”

  “What's over?”

  She wanted to remain detached, but she couldn't. “Cole! What the hell were you doing going to Peter’s office?”

  “I was tryin' to help.”

  “Well, I don't need that kind of help. Don't be all macho on my account. I can handle myself.”

  “I know you can handle yourself. You just don't always need to.”

  “Apparently I do!”

  “Sammie, I'm going to fix this for us.”

  “There is no us!” She forgot she was holding a coffee cup, and when she threw up her hands in exasperation it went flying across the room. Cole ducked at the last second, and it crashed against the wall, splintering into a million pieces. “See! See how it is with us? We are oil and water, we are breakable, and we can't work together. It doesn't work.”

  Somewhere in the middle of her tirade, Sammie had started crying, which made her even more pissed off than before. She didn't want to cry. She didn't want to feel any of this. She wanted to shut down. She wanted to go back to life the way it used to be. Where things were in order and understandable.

  Cole raised his hands. “I am the first to admit that I really fucked up here, Sammie. But listen, I've been doing some thinking. If the inspector is going to be falsifying documents, well then we need to be calling in an out-of-town person. There's gotta be another agency that oversees this stuff. Hell, I was in the army, I know this. There's bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy, layer upon layer. If this guy is crooked, then let's go over his head! We can get around your cousin. He's not going to win this. You just got to keep fighting.”

  “I am done with fighting.” Sammie let out an explosive sigh. “It hurts too much, Cole.” She met his eyes for the first time and knew she was right. “It hurts too goddamn much.”

  She turned and walked out of the room.

  But goddamn Cole and his persistence. He wouldn't let her walk away. She wasn't even surprised to feel his grip on her arm; she just let her eyes roll heavenward.

  “Cole, this was never your fight to begin with. I didn't ask you to do this. You're my employee, that's all. You need to focus on your family, not my family legacy. Do you understand? This is not on you; it's on me.”

  “It's on me, too.” He sounded so quiet and despairing that she didn't want to turn to look at his face.

  But her voice trembled all the same. “It's not.”

  “If you're not here, then I'm not here, Sammie. I'll pack up. I'll take Devon. We'll move in with my parents.”

  “Cole, you don't have to do that. I promised you could stay here. This can be your home as long as...as long as Peter lets you stay.” Shame burned on her face. “I promised this place to you and Devon.” She looked over his shoulder. “Where is he?”

  Cole slumped inwardly like she’d punched him in the stomach. “Still at his grandparents,” he said, not meeting her eye.

  “He's been there the whole time? Cole, he's got to be missing you by now.”

  He looked away. “I think it's better for him to be there than here right now, don't you think?” He held her gaze for a moment and then walked down the hall toward his bedroom.

  Sammie's sadness gradually gave over to despair as she stood in the middle of her hallway. He was giving up too.

  And worse, he was letting her give up.

  “It's over," she said aloud.

  With a snort of derision, she turned to the hutch. She grabbed an open box and carefully stacked the beautiful china inside. Then placed a little note on top of the stack. “You win. Enjoy the plates.”

  Grabbing a roll of packing tape, she sealed it shut.

  Twenty-Four

  When his parents dropped Devon off, his son had thrown himself into Cole's arms.

  He'd clung to his neck and demanded fish, home, and Bammie, in that order.

  How the hell could he tell him that the only thing he could provide was the Goldfish?

  “How was he?” he muttered to his mother.

  She pressed her lips together and looked away.

  “Dad?”

  The skin around his father's eyes was tight with disappointment.

  “You guys mind if Devon and I stay with you a bit?” The question hurt to ask. And it hurt even more to see his father's eyes widening in surprise. “Please don't say anything other than yes or no,” Cole pleaded.

  To his surprise, his father did exactly what he asked. “Yes.”

  Cole nodded. That was one item off the growing to-do list. He'd need another job of course, and fast. He'd probably have to pull Devon from day care for the time being. Maybe if he begged and pleaded with Cheryl, he'd be able to keep a spot.

  But there was no getting around the fact that he was going to have to pull his little boy from everything he loved.

  “Thanks. Just let me finish packing up.”

  He carried his son into the house for the last time. Devon looked around at the boxes that Cole had spent the morning packing, and his little lip wobbled. “No box!” he shouted, hitting it with his little fist and kicking. “No box! Don't wanna have a box!”

  “Devon.”

  “No, Dada! No box. No box!” He was getting hysterical.

  “Devon, hey, Devvy, buddy, you want some fish? Want me to pick you up? Read a story?” Frantically, Cole cycled through the list of Devon's favorites. “Want to...uh...go to the library?”

  Devon's meltdown halted mid-wail. “Byberry.”

  Cole sucked air in through his teeth. It made sense, actually. His parents wouldn't appreciate Devon's teetering stacks of “inappropriate” books in their house, and the next few weeks were bound to be so hectic and out of their normal routine that Cole was sure there'd be no time for them to return the books that were due soon. Best to drop them all off at once, and then maybe bribe Devon with an ice cream cone to keep him from wanting to take out more.

  Bribery. That's what he'd been reduced to. He'd been a fool to think he could handle being a father. Here he was living in fear of his son's mood swings again.

  He wasn't doing right by his boy.

  Devon prattled on and on about something involving a bear and a teacup that only he understood as Cole silently strapped him into his seat. For some reason, settling his stack of picture books in the passenger seat next to him felt even more final than tossing the few boxes in the back. Sammie had helped him pick these books out. Had they really been so happy only a few weeks ago?

  “Bammie come!” Devon shouted from the back seat.

  “Bud, Bammie
can't come today.”

  “Bammie come morrow.”

  “She probably can't come tomorrow, either.” Cole gripped the steering wheel tightly as he looked back at Bitter Ridge Ranch one last time.

  At the library, Mrs. Lazlo cooed over Devon and asked so many questions about Cole's plans that his head spun. He didn't think it was fair that she was asking him about the plans for Bitter Ridge. “Maybe you oughta ask Sammie that one,” he hissed through his teeth.

  “Where is she?”

  Cole pressed his lips together. Anger surged through him. “Well, ma'am, I don't rightly know. Last I saw, she was packing boxes.”

  It felt like a betrayal to sell Sammie out that way, but no more of a betrayal than her leaving in the first place. He glanced over at Devon, who had found Tina in the adult section and was hauling her bodily back to the picture books.

  She laughed and allowed herself to be led, calling out to Cole, “He sure knows what he wants.”

  “That makes one of us,” he muttered under his breath.

  Devon needed this stability. And he couldn't give it to him. “Come on, Dev,” he called, more sharply than he meant to. “Time to get going.”

  “We go home?”

  “We're going to Gammy and Pa's.”

  “No. Home.”

  “Buddy. Don't you like seeing your Gammy?”

  “Gammy. Den home."

  This was not a fight Cole was ready to have. Not here. Not now. “We'll see.”

  He strapped Devon in and started down the street. The toddler's questions mercifully fell quiet.

  Until he piped up one more time.

  “Bammie home?” Devon asked.

  Cole shook his head. He hated lying to his son, hated telling him the truth too: that Bammie was on her way to the airport right now, never to return. He knew Devon needed stability, and yet he'd let him get close to Sammie when all along he’d known she would leave them both.

  “Yeah, buddy. Bammie's going home.”

  Twenty-Five