The Rancher's Family--A Clean Romance

by Barbara White Daille

  * * *

  WES SCUFFED ONE FOOT on the floor, wanting to kick himself for blurting out that remark about charity. Why give the woman ideas?

  “The Garlands are good friends. And I imagine Andi’s plans are on the level,” he admitted, “but I wouldn’t put it past Jed to... Never mind.” He would see Jed himself. From the time Wes was a child Mark’s age, he’d looked up to the man. That wouldn’t keep him from calling him out on his interference. Jed had a reputation for knowing everything that went on in Cowboy Creek. Not one-hundred-percent true. There were things his old friend didn’t—and would never—know about him.

  “I’ll show you Patty’s craft stuff before I head out,” he told Cara. “We’ve got a spare bedroom. Patty converted it into her office and stored everything there. It’s at the far end of this hall.”

  He hesitated at the office doorway. It had been more than a year since he’d set foot in here. If he had his choice, he wouldn’t enter it again. Coward.

  As though someone had shoved him between the shoulder blades, he shot through the door and didn’t stop till he reached the center of the room.

  When Cara followed, he gestured toward the multiple storage chests and dressers, the stacks of boxes, the closed but—as he well remembered—overflowing closet. “Everything’s packed full. But I don’t know much about what Patty stockpiled in here.”

  Her eyes widened. “This is all inventory she’d planned to sell?”

  He nodded. “As I said, she spent a lot of time on her crafts.”

  “I can see that. Mind if I browse?”

  “That’s why we’re here.” He leaned against the door frame, watching her check out the contents of half a dozen boxes and bins.

  “Amazing. If all the rest is like this, Andi should be thrilled to have it for her start-up stock, if you’re interested.”

  “That’ll work.”

  “Great. Then once I finish up in your bedroom, I’ll start making an inventory in here. It’s going to take time, though less of it if I can work from an existing list. I’d guess your wife made one.” She glanced around the room. “Do you have a computer?”

  “Not me. Patty did. A laptop. I’ll get it out when you’re ready for it.”

  “Since you said you’ll be gone most of the day, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look at it before you go. The sooner the better, don’t you think?”

  “You read my mind,” he said truthfully. Just as he’d read the look in her steady gaze. Her eyes held the same sympathy they had the night before. He’d seen too much of that from too many people this year.

  Somehow, last night, he’d imagined he could accept her help. That with her being a stranger, her sympathy wouldn’t bother him. Now he wished he’d never opened the door this morning. Wished he’d never seen her on the porch with the rising sun turning her hair a fiery golden red.

  She had shown up promptly, and he had returned the favor, wasting no time in ushering her toward the stairs. No small talk. No offer of coffee. Definitely no mention of ice cream. Forget manners. The quicker she took care of clearing Patty’s things from his bedroom, the sooner she’d go on her way again.

  Or so he’d thought.

  “I’ll get the laptop.” Forcing himself not to hurry, he loped across to the doorway and down the hall. The exit did nothing to ease his racing thoughts. Like a crazed horse with a fallen rider caught in his own stirrup, he fought against the weight of memories dragging him down no matter which way he turned.

  A memory from last night punched him in the heart.

  He’d watched Mark’s face fall and his teeth bite down to worry his bottom lip. All his boy had cared about was making sure he could still have his ice cream, as if dessert had become the most important thing left in his world.

  This past year, how had he lost sight of his son’s needs, of what was best for both his kids? For their sake, he needed to do anything that would make him a better father. Clearing out that office down the hall was a start.

  In his bedroom, he took the laptop from the closet shelf.

  There were older memories he didn’t want to think about. Memories of the mistakes he’d made with Patty.

  How had he missed so many clues? That admission she’d made a while after their wedding about hating Cowboy Creek. Her boredom at spending all day alone on the ranch. The solution she’d come up with—her constant running with her friends.

  He hadn’t missed the rest. Patty had made sure of that when she’d flat-out told him she had never loved him. Had married him only to get out of her parents’ house. She’d never wanted to be a rancher’s wife.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CARA PROWLED THE bedroom-turned-office, checking out the storage boxes and dressers. Patty Daniels’s interests had covered many kinds of crafts, with the results arranged in no particular order. In fact, they were a regular mess, with Christmas stockings piled on top of cotton place mats, woven leather belts tangled up with woolen scarves. And the list went on.

  Cara hadn’t exaggerated when she told Wes this inventory would take a while. How had he felt about that?

  She didn’t need to wonder how he felt about this room. The way he’d left, with his face strained and his eyes unfocused, answered that. Obviously, the office upset him. How long had it been since he’d come in here alone? What memories did this space hold for him?

  Did she really want to know?

  She crossed the room to open the door of what turned out to be a walk-in closet. After one step inside, she froze. Unlike the mixed-up piles in the office, the closet was so perfectly organized from top to bottom, it could have been lifted whole and set down in any department store.

  Her heart thudded once, then picked up speed as she took everything in: infants’ dresses on hangers suspended from clothing rods. Shelves of pint-size neatly folded shirts and pants. Rows of plastic bins, some filled with knitted caps, others with tiny pairs of booties, still others with one-piece cotton pajamas. As her gaze raced from one item to the next, her pulse skyrocketed. She stumbled to reverse her step out of the closet.

  Her lower back slammed against an unyielding object. The collision knocked a startled yelp from her.

  “Hey.” Wes’s deep voice sounded just inches from her ear.

  She jumped and swallowed a second yelp. She hadn’t even heard him come into the room again.

  “Easy there. You okay?”

  Her face burning, she turned and saw what she’d hit, the laptop he had gone to get for her. “I’m fine,” she managed. But she wasn’t. Seeing all those baby clothes had thrown her, almost literally.

  “Good to hear. By the way, you nearly cost me a computer.” His expression looked solemn, but she caught a trace of amusement in his voice.

  Grateful for the distraction, she tried to match his light tone. “I can top that. That computer almost cost me a kidney.”

  “You didn’t hit it that hard.”

  “Well...probably not. To tell you the truth, I think my pride hurts the most. I’m not usually startled that easily.”

  “Jumpy.”

  “That’s another word for it. But I guess I’m off the hook. Since you say I didn’t hit the laptop that hard, you won’t be planning to charge me for any damages, will you?”

  “Why not? We all have to pay for our mistakes.” No amusement now. He sounded grim, as if the statement brought back a memory he’d rather forget.

  She understood, not because of something she wanted to forget but because of something she simply wanted...but couldn’t have.

  Wes set the laptop on the edge of a dresser.

  Still shaky, she crossed her arms. Get a hold of yourself, woman.

  When he turned toward the door, she said quickly, “Do you want me to print out your wife’s inventory list so I don’t have to keep the laptop?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t
use it much. I’ve got no idea what she has on there as far as files. You’ll most likely need access to other info, so you might as well hang on to it.”

  “Then I’d feel more comfortable if you stay here while I go through the files. Just in case there’s anything you need to see and I don’t.”

  They both moved to the dresser, where he stood close enough for her to pick up the fresh-laundry scent of his blue T-shirt. He shoved his hands, large and strong-looking, into his pockets and hooked both thumbs on his belt.

  As she focused on easing the laptop backward on the dresser to open it, she had to push away thoughts of the man beside her and that closet yawning like a bottomless pit just inches from her back.

  Maybe agreeing to do this job wasn’t a good idea at all.

  They both stood silently as the computer powered up. On the surface of the black screen, she caught a glimpse of their reflections, both grim. Their shared expression reminded her of the thought she hadn’t been able to get out of her mind last night.

  We have nothing at all in common and yet we’re so alike.

  No matter how strongly she denied it to Andi, she could feel Wes’s pain. She could see how much his son longed for a mother. And even a child his daughter’s age must realize her mommy was gone.

  How had she gotten so wrapped up so quickly in worrying over a man and a little boy she barely knew and a little girl she hadn’t even met?

  The computer screen came to life. She opened the documents folder, then frowned. There were only a half-dozen files, none of them with a name that sounded like craft inventory. “It doesn’t look like she kept anything about her business—”

  “Potential business.”

  “—potential business on the laptop. Are you sure you don’t want to do this yourself?”

  “Go on.”

  She shrugged. One by one she opened the files, letting Wes see the contents, mostly receipts for online purchases. “Guess I’ll be starting from scratch as far as making a list.”

  “Yeah.” He sounded irritated. Or upset.

  “Having second thoughts?” she asked.

  “Nope.” He stepped back a pace and gestured at the laptop. “There’s nothing on there I need to worry about. Feel free to do whatever you need with it and to stick around here as long as necessary.”

  “Thanks.”

  Time for her to start work, too. First in Wes’s bedroom, then back here. It seemed suddenly important to wrap up both jobs as quickly as she could.

  Yes, a break from being around the kids at the Hitching Post had sounded like a great idea at first. And of course she wanted to help Wes and now Andi. But almost every word Wes said and every expression that crossed his face reminded her of his grief, making it impossible to forget hers.

  And then that closet. Eventually, she would have to deal with all those baby clothes, a seemingly innocent task that would revive so many other memories she wanted to forget.

  Turning her back to the closet, she hurried to follow Wes from the room.

  * * *

  HE’D HAD GOOD REASON for returning to the house sooner than he’d intended. As he kicked off his boots on the back porch, Wes repeated that reason to himself. Common courtesy, nothing more. Maybe it would make up for forgetting his host duties that morning.

  Of course, he could have used his cell phone to get in touch with Cara, but what were the chances she’d pick up the phone in a stranger’s home?

  Out in the living room, he looked up the stairway. If she hadn’t heard the noises he’d made down here, he had better warn her he was around. Another courtesy. He called her name.

  “Be right with you,” she called back.

  A moment later, he heard her footsteps in the hall.

  As she leaned over the second-floor railing, her hair spilling over her shoulder. “Hi.” She crossed her arms and rested them on the rail. “I didn’t expect you this soon. I thought you told me you’d be back later in the day.”

  “Finished checking out the northeast pasture.” No lie. He just hadn’t gone on to the next pasture as planned. “I know it’s long past time, but I forgot to tell you about lunch. There’s plenty of fixings in the refrigerator. You can help yourself.”

  “Thanks, but I brought some snacks along with me and I’ve already eaten. Have you got a minute? I want to show you something up here.”

  “About the crafts? Not necessary. Between you and Andi, I’ll trust you both to figure out what to do with everything.”

  “No, it’s not about the crafts. Or it is, in a way. There’s a drawer stuck in one of the dressers. I didn’t want to force it or go looking around your house for your tools. If you’ll just give me something to use to pry it open, I can handle it myself.”

  “I’ll take care of it. I know which drawer you mean. The wood’s warped.” As he climbed the stairs, he added, “My wife picked up the piece secondhand on one of her flea-marketing trips.”

  “I love going to flea markets back home, especially around the holidays. You can get great deals on handmade crafts and antiques and find brand-new merchandise, too. I haven’t been to the market here in Cowboy Creek yet.”

  “Patty shopped out of town.”

  Cara’s silence said he’d spoken too abruptly. They got halfway down the hall before she spoke again, gesturing toward his bedroom door. “Since we’re here, I want to show you what I’ve done.”

  She stepped into the room before he could answer.

  Hanging back in the doorway, he stared at the bed. Hard even to see the bedcovers beneath the piles of clothes. So many shirts and sweaters and dresses Patty had bought and never worn. She had never had enough chances to wear them. One more thing she’d made sure he wouldn’t forget.

  Cara shifted. Realizing she’d been waiting to get his attention, he dragged his gaze away from the bed.

  “I’ve already bagged up what you should probably toss. It wasn’t much.” She pointed to a large plastic bag in one corner of the room, then to the bed. “These piles are things you might like to donate. And this one is some tagged accessories I’ll see if Andi might want to try selling online.”

  Still staring at the bed, he nodded, impressed and glad now he’d taken her help. Organized and businesslike help—just what he’d known he wouldn’t get from the women at the Hitching Post or the older ladies in town. They meant well; they always had. But he needed someone who would focus on the job. Who didn’t ask personal questions. Who wasn’t sticking around.

  When it came to this job, he needed Cara.

  Startled by the thought, he looked up. She stared back.

  Organized and businesslike she might be, but the one thing she had in common with all those other women was the one thing he didn’t want to see in her blue eyes. The one thing he saw again now. Sympathy.

  He crossed the room to the nightstand. Jerking open one of the drawers, he said, “How about jewelry? There’s a box of it here.”

  “Well, I...” She sounded uncertain. Or tense. “I don’t know that Andi would want to sell anything too expensive.”

  “It’s not.” He set the box on top of a pile of clothes. “The only things of value we ever had were our wedding rings. Patty’s tastes didn’t run to jewelry, just clothes.” Good thing, too. Between clothes and crafts, she’d strained their budget enough. Not that she could see it that way. “I’m talking fake...plastic...whatever you call it.”

  “Costume jewelry.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay. Some of that might fit in at the online store. Everything else with tags still on I’ve left in the closet for you to take a look at. Like I said, I’d recommend you try a clothing consignment shop or flea market for those.”

  “Whatever you think is fine with me.”

  “In that case, I’ll bag those up, too.”

  She’d gone back to her businesslike
tone again, much better than the tension he’d heard. Or thought he’d heard.

  Maybe that had been all on him. Maybe he just hadn’t wanted to be the only uncomfortable person in the room. “You were wanting to show me that drawer?”

  “Yes.”

  They went to the office at the end of the hall. Earlier he’d hated having to enter this space. Now grateful for the diversion, he strode into the room.

  “I spent most of my time in the bedroom,” she said. “I only came in here once the questions came up about the clothes. I’m moving slowly, trying to organize as I go. There’s so much here and no order to how it’s been stored.”

  “Yeah. My wife was good at doing what she liked, not so good at following through on things she didn’t choose to.” To give her credit, she had taken great care of the kids. When she was around.

  At least he’d had sense enough not to say that to Cara. He hadn’t intended to volunteer the rest of the information, either. He hoped he’d kept any bitterness from his tone, not just for her benefit but his own. What right did he have to feel bitter?

  “It’s over that way.” She pointed to a small oak dresser in the corner of the room, with one bottom drawer open only a few inches.

  “Yeah. Patty had trouble with that drawer all along.” He crouched in front of the dresser. “You’ve gotta know the secret. Push the whole thing back an inch, shove this side in another notch, then give it a yank and out it comes.”

  As he spoke, he demonstrated. The drawer flew loose, still in his hands, the momentum throwing him onto his butt. The drawer landed in his lap. Balls of knitting yarn bounced all around him and across the floor.

  From behind him, he heard Cara’s laugh, light and cheerful and directed at him. He’d earned it. But it proved his point about his own tension.

  She leaned down to pick up some of the yarn, coming to his eye level. It made him think of the day they’d met at the Big Dipper.