The Rancher's Best Gift

by Stella Bagwell

  For most of the ride, Camille was quiet and pensive. Matthew didn’t push her to talk. He understood that the news about Chandler’s baby had turned her mood melancholy and there wasn’t much he could say to lift her spirits. She wanted and needed things in her life that he couldn’t give her.

  “I’ll take care of the mares, Camille. You go on to the house,” he told her as they led Daisy and Dahlia into the barn.

  She frowned at him. “No. That’s not the way this works. I’m going to help you,” she insisted. “We’re in this together.”

  In this together. Yes, for now, he thought. For tonight and tomorrow. That was all he could let himself think about.

  “Okay,” he said. “If that’s the way you want it.”

  “I do.”

  She led the mare over to a hitching post and looped the reins loosely around the worn wood. Matthew followed, and side by side they unsaddled the horses and put everything away in the tack room.

  After they’d finished pouring out feed and spreading hay, they walked to the house, where Camille immediately excused herself and went upstairs for a shower.

  While she was gone, Matthew searched around in the refrigerator for whatever leftovers he could find and went to work heating everything and setting the table.

  He was pouring tea into iced glasses when he heard her footsteps enter the kitchen, and he glanced over his shoulder to see her standing a short distance away, staring in surprise.

  “What is this? You’ve fixed us something to eat?”

  “No, you did. I only heated it up. We’re having spaghetti again.”

  She joined him at the table. “You made salad and skillet toast,” she observed.

  She seemed genuinely amazed, and he grinned at her. “I can be handy whenever I put my mind to it.”

  “Well, I’m glad you put your mind to it. But you didn’t have to do all this.”

  He pulled out her chair. “We’re in this together. Remember?”

  Her eyes were watery as she lifted her gaze to his face and for one second Matthew considered drawing her into his arms, holding her tight and letting all the things he was feeling pour out in whatever words he could find. But that wouldn’t do anything, he decided, except complicate things even more than they already were.

  She leaned close enough to place a kiss on his cheek. “Yes, I remember,” she murmured.

  Clearing his throat, he helped her into the chair, and as they began to eat, Matthew was relieved to see she was collecting her ragged emotions. Still, through the remainder of the meal, he carefully avoided mentioning her family. Instead, he urged her to talk about the diner and the friends she worked with. Gradually, she began to smile again, and so did he on the outside. On the inside, he wondered how much longer he could deal with this chronic pain in his chest and the dreadful sense he was never going to recover from this trip to Red Bluff.

  Once their plates were empty, Camille rose and began to gather the dirty dishes. “I think there are brownies left. I’ll make coffee to go with them.”

  “That would be good. I’ll clear the rest of this from the table.”

  He’d barely gotten the words from his mouth when his phone rang. As expected, the caller was Blake and he had no choice but to answer.

  “Sorry, Camille. It’s Blake. I’ll have the coffee later.”

  He carried the phone into the living room and took a comfortable seat in one of the armchairs. For the next fifteen minutes he listened to everything Blake had planned for the next month. The ranch manager’s agenda didn’t include Matthew spending more than a few more days here at Red Bluff.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve had much time to look at some of the remote areas yet,” he stated rather than asked. “This is the first day you’ve had without you and the guys pushing cattle.”

  Matthew leaned his head back against the couch and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Camille and I took a long ride today on one of the southern sections. The grass looked good there. We didn’t have time to go all the way to the boundary fence, though. I’m thinking the eastern range should be somewhat better. It’s not as hilly.”

  “That’s the way I remember it, too,” Blake said.

  He didn’t add anything to that and Matthew waited, expecting him to continue with the subject of the grazing land. Instead, silence stretched between them.

  “Blake, are you still there?” Matthew finally asked.

  “Uh—yeah. Sorry, Matthew, my mind is pretty jammed right now. Too much has been going on around here. Did I hear you right? That Camille rode with you?”

  “She did. You sound surprised.”

  “Hell, I’m not surprised. I’m flabbergasted. What have you done to my little sister? Put some kind of spell on her?”

  Matthew dropped his hand away from his eyes and stared around the shadowy room. Everywhere he looked he saw Camille’s lovely face smiling at him, her eyes twinkling like the desert stars. Would it be like this, he wondered, when he got back to Three Rivers? If so, he didn’t know how he’d live with it.

  “No. I’ve not put a spell on her,” he said crossly. “I’ve just tried to encourage her. It’s not that she never wanted to be a part of the ranch, Blake. She just lacked self-confidence. Your mother and all of you siblings are a pretty hard group for her to measure up to.”

  Blake blew out a heavy breath. “We never expected Camille to be a ranch hand. We just want her to be a part of the family.”

  “She is a part of the family. In her own way—the best way for her.”

  Blake snorted. “If you ask me, she’s still hiding and unable to face her failure.”

  Matthew felt like reminding Blake how he’d faced his own failure when Lenore had jilted him several years ago. For a long, long time, he’d buried himself on Three Rivers and sworn off women completely. But cutting into the man wouldn’t help matters. It would only cause resentment.

  “Think about this, Blake. Her brothers and sisters all have things that she doesn’t have. That makes her feel lost and alone. That’s why—I hope that all of you will be happy for her about the diner. That’s the only thing of her own that she truly has. And she’s proud of it.”

  Blake didn’t immediately reply and after the silence continued to stretch, Matthew expected him to come back with some sort of scathing retort. But he didn’t. Instead, he sounded very thoughtful and almost apologetic.

  “I guess I never stopped to think about my little sister in that way. And just because I’m running the ranch doesn’t mean that gives me the right to rule over the whole family. Sometimes, Matthew, I wish—”

  “That Joel was still alive. And you weren’t having to do some of the things you’re doing now,” he finished tactfully.

  “Yeah,” Blake said gently. “The longer I do this, the more I realize that Dad was a superman. He saw everyone as they really were and always dealt with them in the right way. Every problem that came along, he handled like a man. I can’t live up to him, Matthew. It’s impossible.”

  “You shouldn’t be trying. You’re Blake Hollister. Not Joel or anyone else.”

  “No, I’m just me,” he said in a pensive voice, then cleared his throat and asked, “Did you get the news about Chandler and Roslyn’s baby?”

  “Yes, Viv texted Camille and sent her a photo. I’m sure they’re over the moon.”

  “We all are. I had a hell of a time tearing Kat away from the hospital. Seeing baby Billy has sparked her maternal instincts. Before the night is over I’m expecting to hear an argument for another baby.”

  “Another baby? But the twins aren’t that old yet!” Matthew exclaimed.

  Blake chuckled. “What can I say? She loves me and she loves children. How could I possibly deny her?”

  “I—uh—see your problem.”

  Blake let out another laugh. “Problem? Hell, Matthew, I only wish you had
this kind of problem.”

  The two men talked for a couple more minutes before Blake ended the call. Matthew slipped the phone into his pocket and walked back out to the kitchen. The room was dark and quiet and he decided Camille must have given up on him and dismissed the plan to have coffee and brownies.

  He climbed the stairs and found her in the bedroom, sitting on a vanity stool in front of the dresser mirror. She was pulling a hairbrush through her long hair, and after watching her for one brief moment, he walked up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “Let me do that for you,” he offered.

  Smiling faintly, she handed him the brush and Matthew began to stroke the silky strands from the crown of her head all the way down to her waist. It crackled beneath his hands as though it had a life of its own and he thought how the fiery shades of copper and ginger mixed amidst the browns fit her temperament.

  “Mmm. That feels good,” she said.

  “My horse tells me the same thing,” he teased.

  She made a playful face at his image in the mirror. “I’ll bet he does,” she said. Then her expression turned sober. “So, what was Blake’s call about? Is he needing you back at Three Rivers?”

  “Not yet. He told me to stay until the end of the week. If he needs me before then, he’ll let me know. In the meantime, he’s sending down a skeleton crew next Monday. They’ll be tending the cattle for the duration of the winter.”

  Her face brightened. “Until the end of the week? Really?”

  He nodded, while thinking how closely his happiness was now tied to hers. As long as she was smiling he was smiling, too.

  “Yes. Really.”

  She plucked the hairbrush from his hand and tossed it on the dresser, then rose and slipped her arms around his waist. “Then we need to make every minute count, don’t you think?”

  “I thought you were feeling too sad to want me in your bed tonight,” he murmured.

  She brought her lips within a fraction of his. “Sad? I could never be sad as long as you’re here with me.”

  As soon as the last word died away, her lips were moving over his. Matthew closed his eyes and gladly let her kiss blot every doubt and worry from his mind.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next day Camille came down with the sniffles, but she didn’t let it stop her from going full throttle. By Wednesday Norman had everything ready to finalize the sale of the diner and the two of them drove the twenty-minute drive over to Benson to sign the papers in front of witnesses at the title company.

  In spite of constantly wiping her nose with a tissue, she was in high spirits when she arrived home that evening and she couldn’t wait to show Matthew the legal paper showing she was the new rightful owner of The Lost Antelope.

  When she didn’t find him in the house, she immediately walked down to the barn and found him in the feed room sitting on a bale of alfalfa with his cell phone jammed to his ear.

  As she entered the dusty room stacked with bags of feed and bales of hay, he acknowledged her with a glance but continued with the conversation. Which told her the call held some importance.

  Deciding to wait, she walked some distance away from him and took a seat on a ledge of feed sacks.

  “Yes,” he spoke into the phone. “I’d like that, too. But if you need me—yeah, I understand. It can’t be helped. I’ll be there in the morning—as early as possible.”

  He hung up the phone, and the look he directed at Camille was dark and hopeless. “That was your mother. Blake has come down with the flu and the doctor has ordered him to bed. I have to leave for Three Rivers in the morning. Somehow I’m going to have to try and fill in for him until he can get on his feet.”

  Camille felt as though the roof of the barn had just collapsed on top of her. “But what about Mom? She can fill in for Blake!”

  He shook his head as he slipped the phone back into his shirt pocket. “Cattle buyers are coming tomorrow afternoon. But Maureen and Chandler have to go to the Prescott range. Something about a sick bull they’d had to leave behind. So that means Chandler is going to have to take time off from the clinic. And it also means that I’m going to have to leave early in the morning.”

  “Oh.” It was the only word she could manage to say.

  With stiff, jerky movements, she rose and walked toward him. “But Matthew, I was planning on you staying until Saturday morning!”

  He shook his head. “I was planning on it, too. But this has put a kink in things. I’m foreman of Three Rivers, Camille. I’m needed there. To do my job and part of Blake’s.”

  “Yes,” she said dully. “It’s your job. I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  Camille did understand all too well. In simple words, Matthew’s life was at Three Rivers. Hers was here at Red Bluff and never the twain would meet again. Not as they had these past couple of weeks. The short period of time had changed everything for her. She’d fallen totally and irrevocably in love and no amount of time or distance was going to change that.

  “I do.” Tears suddenly blurred her vision and she quickly turned and started out of the feed room. “I—I’m going to the house.”

  Jumping from the hay bale, he caught her by the shoulder. “Camille, you came out here to the barn for some reason. What was it?”

  She dabbed her watery eyes with the tissue she’d been carrying. “Nothing important. I just wanted to show you this.”

  She pulled the folded document from a pocket on her jacket and handed it to him.

  As he unfolded the paper and scanned the contents, she watched a myriad of feelings parade across his face. He seemed pleased and regretful all at the same time.

  “I’m thrilled for you, Camille.”

  Was he? She wouldn’t describe the look on his face as thrilled, but then Matthew had never been a man to wear his feelings on his sleeve.

  What feelings, Camille? The man likes your company. He enjoys the meals you cook and the sex even more. But that’s all the feelings he has for you. Don’t expect to read them on his face or anywhere else. In the morning you need to tell the man goodbye, then forget him.

  Wanting to scream at the hateful voice going off in her head, she took the property title from him and stuffed it back into the jacket pocket.

  “Thank you,” she said stiffly. “That means a lot to me.”

  She started to pull away from him, but his fingers tightened on her shoulder, preventing her from taking a step.

  “Camille,” he said softly. “Don’t you think we need to talk about this?”

  Her heart pounding sickly in her chest, she forced her gaze to meet his. “About this? What is there to talk about?”

  His gray eyes were suddenly full of shadows. “I don’t know. I thought—” He continued to look at her while a hopeless expression crept over his face. “Well, I guess you’re right. There isn’t anything for us to talk about. I’d just like to ask if you think you might be coming up to Three Rivers anytime soon.”

  He might as well have picked up the pitchfork behind him and rammed it straight into her chest. She was hurting so badly she thought her breathing was going to stop, literally.

  “No. Not now. Maybe in a few months—if all goes well with the diner,” she said, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper.

  A muscle in his cheek flinched, but otherwise, his expression didn’t change.

  “I thought you would say that.”

  Hoping he couldn’t see the pain she was feeling in her eyes, she asked, “What about you, Matthew? Will you be coming back to Red Bluff before next fall?”

  “That’s a whole year from now. I can’t say if I might be here before that time.”

  She let out a long, shaky breath and did her best to smile at him. “Well, it’s been special, hasn’t it? And we still have tonight.”

  “Yeah,” h
e said. “We still have tonight.”

  * * *

  Long before daylight the next morning, Camille was still sound asleep when Matthew slipped out of her warm arms, dressed quietly so as not to wake her, then walked out of the house and drove away from the ranch.

  The rough dirt road carrying him away from Red Bluff was narrow and often filled with wildlife. Matthew didn’t allow himself to think about anything except driving the truck safely through the cold dark morning. For several miles, Hollister land remained on both sides of him, until finally, just before he reached I-10, he passed under a formal entrance and the ranch was in his rearview mirror.

  When he finally merged onto the interstate, he tromped on the accelerator and focused on one single objective. Get to Three Rivers as fast as he could and back to being the Matthew Waggoner he’d been before Camille opened the door and welcomed him inside the Red Bluff hacienda.

  At the speed he was driving, he reached Benson in record time, and as the lights of the town twinkled off to his left, he was glad the highway looped around it. He didn’t want to see the little café where he and Camille had gone for dinner on Halloween night. No. The sooner he forgot, the quicker he could rid himself of the hollow feeling that had settled in his chest.

  Yet by the time the sun started peeping over the mountains behind him and Phoenix appeared on the horizon, the pain in his heart was unbearable and the only thing he could think about was all that he’d left behind him.

  So what are you going to do, Matthew? Be like that little boy back in Gila Bend and cover your head up and cry? You knew going to bed with Camille Hollister was going to be a mistake, but you couldn’t resist her. You couldn’t find enough common sense to walk away from the woman. No, you had to go and fall in love with her.

  Determined to drown out the mocking voice in his head, Matthew punched on the radio and turned up the volume.