The Rancher's Family--A Clean Romance

by Barbara White Daille

  “No worries,” he said firmly. He beckoned to Paz, then waited until she had joined them at the table. “I’ve got an idea. Now, you two listen up...”

  CHAPTER THREE

  AFTER A HUG from Paz, Cara had joined her along with Jed and Andi at the table. Large enough to seat a dozen or more people, the table was still dwarfed by the Hitching Post’s huge kitchen. Paz had set out bowls and platters filled with her spicy southwestern specialties.

  While they ate, they caught up on the latest news in Cowboy Creek. As always, Jed seemed to know everything that went on in town.

  As they finished dessert, Cara said, “This was all delicious, as usual, but I’m very sorry about holding up your meal. I could just have stopped to eat something along the way.” Besides that ice-cream cone.

  “No worries,” Jed told her. “This is our usual suppertime any other day of the week. Sundays are different only because the dining room is closed.”

  As Andi topped off their glasses with iced tea, Jed slumped back in his chair.

  “What’s the matter, Grandpa?”

  He shrugged. “Just thinking about Wes Daniels again.”

  Paz shook her head. “It’s not good for him to brood, day after day. We need to do something to help him.”

  “Grandpa’s tried.”

  He nodded. “At one time or another most of the folks in Cowboy Creek have made an attempt. I think we need to shake the man up. He needs something to take him away from his troubles. And you know what they say—a trouble shared is a trouble halved.”

  His gaze met Cara’s, reminding her she needed to be extra careful around him. He had ways of making you reveal your most personal thoughts before you realized you’d opened your mouth.

  She didn’t trust the smile he suddenly gave her, either. “Cara, I think we could use your assistance.”

  “Mine? But I don’t have any idea how to help your friend.”

  “I’ve got the idea. And I believe you’re the one who could help us put it into action.” He set his glass aside and leaned forward. “We’ve all encouraged Wes to take a first step, to start clearing his wife’s things out of the house. I know it’s not an easy thing for him to do, especially on his own. It was hard when I went through it, and I had my family to help. But I also know the time comes when it has to be done. It’s been over a year now for Wes and he hasn’t even made a start.”

  She could imagine Jed’s old friend deliberately putting off the job, dreading having to face painful memories. To make final decisions. To deal with a lifetime—and most likely a houseful—of possessions.

  Hadn’t she faced the same dilemma just a couple of months ago, on a smaller scale? One drawer in a dresser. One drawer she’d used to hold all her hopes and dreams, all the clothes and blankets and toys she’d collected for her baby-to-be.

  Fighting to keep her voice from breaking, she said, “I feel for your friend, Jed, but what can I do? I’ve never even met him.”

  “Exactly my point. It might make things easier for him to have a stranger’s help. We won’t know unless we try. But I think it’s worth a good shot. I’ll give Wes a call, see what we can fix up.”

  Before she could respond, the hallway outside the kitchen suddenly filled with the sounds of shrieks and running footsteps, all coming from the direction of the Hitching Post’s back door.

  What had sounded like a half-dozen kids—but in reality were only two—burst into the room. “Aunt Cara! Aunt Cara!”

  She barely had time to take a deep breath before Tina’s son Robbie launched himself at her for a hug.

  Then a blond-haired toddler climbed into her lap and wrapped her arms around her neck. “Hello, Aunt Cara!”

  “Hello, Missy.” Just the sight of Missy’s chubby little face made her heart hurt. She had helped raise Andi’s daughter almost from birth until the day she and her family had moved from Phoenix.

  A tall, dark-haired man ambled into the kitchen.

  “Hey, Mitch,” Andi said. “Everyone back already?”

  He shook his head. “No, just us. Trey wasn’t feeling well. He overdid it on the hot dogs and popcorn, I suspect. He went off to his room saying he wanted his mommy.”

  “Then I’d better go check in. Come here, Missy—you’re strangling Aunt Cara. And I have a feeling you need your face and hands washed.”

  Missy laughed and reached up, ready to go into her mother’s arms, and Cara saw a vision of another little girl with her own strawberry blond hair.

  She blinked, trying to chase away the vision. She had to stop dreaming about a baby she would never have and a future that would never be.

  Coming to Cowboy Creek was supposed to give her the chance to leave all those thoughts and dreams behind. Instead, everywhere she looked, she had seen—would see—nothing but reminders. Andi and her happy family... Tina’s baby and young son... Jane’s two children... Even the cowboy with his little boy at the Big Dipper.

  Watching him with his child made her see what she wanted so badly. What she had so recently lost. The chance to start a family of her own.

  Why hadn’t she just stayed home? Back in Phoenix, she couldn’t avoid kids completely, but she wouldn’t have to be around them nearly every minute, the way she would here.

  Jed shifted in his chair, drawing her attention and making her think about his old friend again. She hoped he could convince the man to let her help him. Suddenly, sorting through someone else’s memories—memories that couldn’t touch her, that wouldn’t break her heart into even smaller bits—sounded like a great idea.

  * * *

  AN HOUR LATER, Cara found herself following Jed’s brief driving directions to his friend’s nearby ranch and the small two-storied house on the property.

  She braked to a stop next to a pickup truck needing a good wash.

  This late in the day, with the sun melting on the horizon, a few lights shone through the curtained windows of the house. She pushed the doorbell and listened to the chimes ring, then fade, as she glanced around her.

  A thick layer of dust covered the porch swing. In one corner of the front window, the fine strands of a cobweb turned golden from the light shining through the panes.

  Her heart went out to the widower who lived here. Obviously, the man had no housekeeper and now no wife to help him with all the little chores that made this house their home. Or else he couldn’t summon the energy to worry about those things once he lost the person who meant everything to him.

  Cara looked at her car only a few yards away. Maybe she should get in it again and leave. Maybe Wes Daniels had decided he didn’t want help.

  And after all, who was she to come here and disturb a stranger still so wrapped up in grief that he might wind up a hermit, as Jed had put it?

  The door swung open. Her jaw almost dropped.

  A man stood in the opening, silhouetted by the light from a lamp in the room behind him. Not Jed’s old friend. A much younger man, twentysomething, with broad shoulders and sturdy arms and dark brown eyes beneath dark brows. A man she already...sort of...knew.

  The unfriendly cowboy she had met that afternoon at the Big Dipper.

  He looked just as surprised to see her. “Did you make a wrong turn on your way to somewhere else?”

  “That might be impossible in Cowboy Creek.”

  “Yeah. We’re not like the big city.”

  A point in his favor—he’d remembered her telling him where she was from. He seemed more relaxed than he had earlier. Maybe he’d just been in a bad mood. Or—be honest—maybe her own stress had led her to misread the situation, and the awkwardness was all on her.

  Then and now. “Well, I’m...” Nerves suddenly stole her power of speech, but that had nothing to do with the man in front of her. She wasn’t worrying over hurting a stranger. Instead, she was anticipating what was coming next—being reminded of
her own loss and reliving her own grief.

  This is not about you.

  She tried again. “I’m here to see Wes Daniels.”

  “That would be me.”

  “Then I’m looking for Wes, senior.”

  “There is no senior. I’m the only Wes Daniels I know.”

  She blinked. “My mistake. Jed said you were a widower. And I saw you with a woman outside the Big Dipper—”

  “She was a friend of my wife’s.”

  “Oh.” She’d definitely looked like she wanted to be friends with Wes...or something more. His tone said he didn’t feel the same. Maybe that explained his attitude. “Okay, then you’re just the person I want to see. We never had the chance to introduce ourselves this afternoon. I’m Cara Leonetti. Jed and Andi sent me.”

  He stepped back and swung the door open wider. “Come on in.”

  The entryway led directly into a small living room. Magazines and children’s books lay every which way across the coffee table. A flowered afghan trailed from the brown leather couch to the floor.

  Wes picked up the afghan and tossed it onto the back of the couch. “Have a seat.”

  “Thanks. In case Jed didn’t tell you, I’m staying with them at the Hitching Post. His granddaughter Andi is my best friend...” Unsure how to continue, she stopped. He didn’t seem overly enthusiastic about her being here. “Jed told me your wife passed away not too long ago. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  His face went blank, as if she were a magician who had put him into a trance. “Car accident,” he said, his voice just as expressionless. “Last year. Jed probably filled you in on that, too.”

  Suddenly, she found she did care, after all—about this virtual stranger, so close to her own age and already a widower, and about his adorable young son, now left without a mother. Jed Garland’s old friend made her heart crack in a few more places.

  She looked down at the books and magazines on the coffee table, giving them both a chance to pull themselves together.

  Even from friends, condolences were hard to accept. She’d learned that firsthand once people heard about her breakup with Brad. How much worse would it have been if they’d tried to express their sympathy for her losing her baby? Except no one had known about that loss, more proof she’d made the right decision in waiting to tell Andi.

  Wes didn’t have that option.

  And here she was, a stranger to him, trying to comfort him over the loss of a wife he loved, a woman she’d never met. Awkward or not, now she had been put into this situation, what else could she do but tell the truth?

  “Jed and Andi thought it might be easier for you to have someone you didn’t know sorting through your wife’s things. But I don’t mean to barge in where I’m not wanted. If you’re not comfortable with the idea, please tell me and I’ll go.”

  Still, he didn’t respond. Instead, he stared across the room as if silently confirming he wanted nothing to do with the idea. Or with her.

  Then she heard what might have distracted him. The sound of shoes slapping against floorboards. Very small shoes, judging by the noises now growing louder and closer.

  A moment later, Mark burst into the room waving a sheet of construction paper. “Daddy, I finished my picture!”

  The boy caught sight of her and came to a screeching halt. Eyes wide, he sucked in a deep breath. The paper slipped from his hand and fell, shushing to a stop on the hardwood floor. “Hello! Are you my new mommy?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WES STARED AT the woman sitting across from him. Cara’s wide open eyes showed she was as dismayed by his son’s question as he was.

  He stared down the hall to the kitchen. Now would be a good time to head out the back door and over to the barn—if he didn’t need to step up and be the daddy he wanted to be.

  “I like my new mommy,” Mark said with a grin.

  Looking at Cara, Wes shrugged in apology. “Once he gets an idea in his head, he doesn’t let go.”

  “Like most kids, I guess.” Her smile looked strained and her gaze didn’t quite meet his.

  He swallowed a sigh. Now wasn’t the time to have a discussion with his son, especially with this woman still here. But what choice did he have? Mark, who had started asking questions around the time he’d learned to say dada, would never let this one go unanswered. And waiting would only let him set the misunderstanding more firmly in his mind.

  “Hey, buddy, come over here a minute.”

  Mark scooped up the sheet of paper and trotted over to him. Wes ruffled his hair. “What made you think Miss Cara was going to be your mommy?”

  “She came home,” Mark said instantly.

  For a long moment, Wes froze. From the corner of his eye, he saw Cara wrap her arms around her middle. Forcing himself to move, he rested his hand on Mark’s shoulder. “She came home. You mean, like Mommy always did?”

  Mark nodded.

  Yeah, Mark and Tracey’s mommy always came home—at least by the end of the night, because she spent as little time on the ranch as she could. She didn’t invite her friends to visit because she saw them in town. The woman now on his couch was the first adult female he could remember stepping into the house in a year.

  “Son, Miss Cara is not here to be your mommy. She’s not here to stay. She’s just come for a visit. You understand?”

  Mark’s face fell. Biting his lip, he nodded.

  “Good. Now, how about we go in the kitchen, and I’ll dish you up some ice cream.”

  “Miss Cara, too?”

  “Of course, Miss Cara, too, if she wants some.”

  Mark rounded the coffee table. He grabbed Cara’s hand and grinned at her. “You love ice cream!”

  Her blue eyes softening, she smiled. Good for her. Her rigid shoulders told Wes she still felt uncomfortable, but she hadn’t looked to him for a way out.

  “Yes, I do love ice cream,” she agreed. “You remembered I said that to you at the Big Dipper this afternoon?”

  “Yes!”

  “Along with never giving up, my son’s got a great memory.” Too great once in a while and usually at the worst possible moment. Like now. But heck, his boy deserved some credit of his own. “And he’s smart. So smart, I sometimes think he’s three going on forty.”

  Cara’s laugh put dimples in her cheeks. Her shoulders relaxed a fraction.

  “C’mon.” Mark tugged on her hand.

  Only then did she shoot a glance in Wes’s direction. Giving in, he gestured toward the hallway. Mark led the way, towing Cara along like a cart behind a pony, leaving him in their trail dust.

  As he passed the stairs, Wes slowed his steps, listening. All seemed quiet on the second floor. Tracey must still be sleeping—and with luck, that would last a while longer. His cranky little girl definitely needed extra rest.

  He followed his son and Cara down the hall to the kitchen.

  Crayons and construction paper covered the table where he had settled Mark after supper. He liked having his kids close in the evenings. “Don’t mind the mess. This is about the only chance we have to spend some quiet family time together. Well...considering all Mark’s chatter, maybe not so quiet.”

  Mornings were rushed, between getting them fed and dressed and to the sitter’s in town, then hurrying back home alone to tackle the day’s chores. Young as they were, he didn’t like the kids being so far away from him all day. But with the ranch to take care of, again, what choice did he have? Even before the accident, Patty took any chance she could get to go on the run—

  “I don’t want to interrupt your time together,” Cara protested.

  “Not a problem.” Neither was the fact she’d interrupted his thought, too. No sense going down that familiar rocky road. “Mark’s making a picture to bring to his sitter’s in the morning.”

  “You come to Miss Rhea’s,” Mark sa
id to her. “We have milk and cookies.”

  She shot Wes a glance. “Maybe it would be better if I just come back tomorrow.”

  He shrugged. “You’re here now.”

  Mark nearly dove onto his bench at the table. He liked to kneel there when he drew or colored pictures.

  “Take it easy, champ,” Wes said. “You’ll fall off if you’re not careful.”

  “I won’t fall.”

  Over his son’s head, Cara’s eyes met his. He tried for a smile. “As you said, like most kids. Can’t tell them anything, can you?”

  She glanced down at Mark then scanned the room as if she still felt uncomfortable around him. She’d seemed okay talking to Mark at the Big Dipper this afternoon. No surprise she felt uneasy here, considering that the moment Mark had seen her in the living room he’d tried to claim her for his mother.

  Mark held one of his drawings up for her to see.

  “Very nice,” she said, examining the lopsided barn and stick figure horse as if she’d just discovered a masterpiece in the making.

  She pointed to the paper, then said something Wes didn’t hear. But he couldn’t miss his son’s laugh, a sound that lately he hadn’t heard nearly as often as he liked.

  “You sit here,” Mark told Cara. He patted the chair beside the bench. The same chair his mother had always sat in.

  Cara obligingly took her seat.

  Mark stared at her, a crayon clamped in his motionless fist. He seemed afraid to move or even to blink, as if in that second of time she might disappear. The way his mother had.

  Wes’s throat suddenly threatened to shut down.

  He rummaged in the utensil drawer for the ice-cream scoop.

  “Here.” Mark handed Cara a crayon and slid a sheet of paper toward her. “You color.”

  They sat close together, with her head tilted down toward his son’s just the way Patty had when she’d drawn pictures with Mark. Only then, their two dark-haired heads had matched, underscoring the fact they were family.