Tempting the Rancher Read online

  Mona squeezed into the room and ran to her daughter. January collapsed in her arms.

  Nat took the stairs two at a time. Wretched, hiccupping cries muffled through the churning air conditioner and stalked him to the cab of his truck. He turned over the flathead V-8 engine and drove until he ran out of gas two counties over and his lungs found room to expand again. In the distance, January’s train wailed. The sound should have made him happy, that she wasn’t on it. It didn’t.

  * * *

  Nat rode Poe to Mona’s trailer. Brontë walked beside them on a lead. The sun had yet to slip away from a day packed with more items on his checklist than minutes.

  Horses needed radios. And they weren’t much for talking to drown out thoughts. Most times, the lack of noise was welcome. But damned if Nat hadn’t gone straight to bed after haying the trailer and showering and found himself right back with January. In last night’s dream, he was back in her old apartment bedroom, taking turns at being a young lover and a young jackass, trying to root out a way that things might have ended differently. Truth was, things hadn’t been right for some time before those last moments together.

  The next day, she had sent a note to Nat at the ranch, via her mother: Meet me at our pasture at dark. She never showed. Recalling that end now churned his stomach enough to ensure that pain never happened again.

  January was right. People had to fight to know the real her—the one beneath all the bravado and extroverted sweetness. Nat had to fight, too. Back then, he hadn’t fought hard enough.

  But maybe, just maybe, he had some fight left in him.

  5

  January heard her name outside the trailer, louder than it should be legal to yell such a thing. That it was tethered to a voice that made her feel all tingly inside made the intrusion like hot butter on a biscuit. She burrowed deeper into the couch cushions and melted back into her nap-time fantasy as Miss Ellie Beaux, badass space outlaw extraordinaire. Quite possibly, she loved Nat Meier for his fictional prowess.

  The second and third time he yelled her name—well, that was plain rude.

  Dream-logged and cotton-mouthed, she got her knees beneath her and peered past the window curtains. Clouds boiled the landscape dim. Nat sat atop his high horse in a tight gray t-shirt that hugged his muscular arms pectoral muscles. His standard-issue jeans were bleached from the sun and frayed at his boots. This time, he wore a baseball cap. The brim looked like it had a run-in with a bull and lost.

  Right then and there, January decided Nat Meier could do any damned thing he pleased so long as he came around looking as hot as a summer revival with no fans. Except for the scowl. They’d have to work on that.

  January slipped on Mona’s cow-print slippers and went outside. She aimed for alertness but missed.

  “You asleep? It’s four in the afternoon.”

  Nat’s tone was an affront to every sexy, non-judgmental thing about him. As if a nap were a luxury for lions and liberals.

  “I made dinner, but Mom isn’t back yet. Plus, I didn’t sleep well last night. Was up late. And I am on vacation of sorts.”

  Somehow, her laundry list of excuses didn’t shift the pitch of his frown.

  “She’s still out working on the palpation cage. Might be awhile.”

  January wanted to ask the obvious question but didn’t really want to know past twisting it into a possible joke. Nat really didn’t look like he was in the mood to laugh. Mostly, his gaze kept slipping south.

  That was the moment January considered her appearance: boy shorts with cupcakes on them, a pink John Deere tank top that Mona had accidentally shrunk and washed with her reds, and striped basketball socks to her knees. A power outfit while her clothes spun through wash and dry cycles.

  Her nipples fully awakened. Nat. The blessed temperature drop ahead of a squall. Both.

  January crossed her arms. “What are you doing here?”

  “Randy’s down with the flu, everyone else is busy, and I got a cow and donkey missing. Someone in town called to say one of the fences at the far end of the property is compromised.”

  She turned on her highest-wattage smile, totally aware of where this conversation was headed. “I’d like to help you, but I’m making myself scarce.”

  “Since when?” Poe shifted, telegraphing Nat’s impatience. “Listen, I don’t have much time before the rain comes and the sun sets, and you’re pretty good with this particular cow.”

  January’s smile dimmed. “MooDonna?”

  Nat rolled his eyes. “Yeah.”

  Her pulse skittered. The thought of that beautiful creature with the big, fat, wet nose, scared and roaming the highway, twisted her stomach in a bunch. “Say it, Nat. Saying her name is the first step to bonding.”

  “For God’s sakes, would you get dressed and come with me?”

  “If you promise not to sell her.”

  “What?”

  January had seen sea cliffs in Malta less severe than Nat’s frown.

  “She’s a good cow.”

  “She’s a pain in the ass. You know what they call pain-in-the-ass cows? Steak.”

  “Nat Meier, you make me a promise, or I’ll go back to my nap.”

  As if on cue, thunder rumbled across an afternoon unable to climb out of darkness. Brontë shifted. Nat squirmed in the saddle.

  “Fine, I promise. Let’s go.”

  A jig of victory slipped loose. January bounded back through the door then dressed and packed a bag. Nat’s grandfather once told her his three rules for preparation before setting out on any journey: something to fill the belly—food and water; something to injure the belly of an enemy, because a wound there would lead to the greatest blood loss; and something to ground the belly—a reminder of home, a center point in case things don’t go as planned and you’re down to your last minute. Clem was fond of bellies, and not because his physique made him look like his backside had been kicked clear through to his belt buckle. Nat’s grandfather believed that hearts and heads sometimes got in the way. Instinct, he always said, was God whispering in your ear. Clem’s three-belly rule had saved her life on more than one occasion. Right then, God was whispering in January’s ear to take some roasted veggies in Tupperware.

  Moments later, the sky opened. January slid Mona’s plastic raincoat over the pack on her back and grabbed another slicker off the rack by the door for Nat. He refused it and stayed only long enough for her to grab Brontë’s reins. By the time her buttocks landed in the saddle, Nat and Poe were nearly out of sight.

  Driving rain made repairing the ranch’s furthermost fence feel like preforming surgery through cheesecloth. Nat’s work gloves were waterlogged and stiff, and the raincoat January insisted on draping over him did nothing but block the scant light left in the day. He uncoiled fresh wire, cut it on pliers Willie had shoved down through the spool, and went through the motions of repairing the fence, more muscle memory than concentration.

  He was too worried about January.

  They had found the cow and donkey on Meier land—barely. The two animals were soaked and huddled. Noses pointed at the brunt of the storm showed their confusion. Damned if he hadn’t spied relief in the cow’s eyes when she saw him at the same time the name MooDonna zinged through his brain. January’s nonsense was getting to him. The minute he started looking at his herd as anything more than dollar signs was the minute he should sell the ranch, head to Sixth Street in Austin, and strum a guitar while reciting poetry about his feelings.

  The donkey, Mae, was injured. As far as he could see, a minor cut above her front right fetlock. January insisted on teamwork: he took the fence because she lacked the strength to drive the post deeper past the mud, and she tended the wound. Nat hadn’t seen Mae stirred except when the jenny earned her place on the ranch driving coyotes away from the herd, but that wasn’t to say she wouldn’t kick when provoked, in pain, and startled by the electrified air. Every half-minute or so, Nat glanced back through the sheeting rain to make sure January wasn’t laid f
lat-out.

  At his first glance, she stroked the cow’s neck and chin, January’s lips moving in full-on conversation with the blasted cow. At second glance, January had produced a cup from somewhere and was filling it with rain. At third glance, she crouched at a safe distance in front of Mae, one hand braced at the top of the donkey’s leg, the other irrigating the wound with rainwater. Apparently, she and Mae had become fast friends, too. January’s lips still moved, and the donkey’s eyelids were half-closed and relaxed.

  Nat surveyed the sky. No break in the clouds, and they were losing daylight by the second. At this rate of rainfall, the dry creek bed that wound onto the neighboring property would swell with running water. The alternate route back to the house was at least forty minutes. Double that, leading scared livestock. They were screwed out of all options.

  Trying his phone was like roping a fart in the wind. Cell tower pings in this part of the county were non-existent.

  He finished tightening the fence and ran over to the other three. January had secured a rope around each animal and tethered them together. Blinding light split the sky two full counts before thunder shook the ground. The worst of the storm was two miles out. Wide-eyed, the three looked to him for further instructions.

  A million and one chores awaited Nat back on the active side of the property three days before auction, but with an injured animal and lightning-rod trees everywhere, Mother Nature had made the choice for him.

  “Clem had an old cabin not too far from here,” Nat hollered above the storm. Last he’d thought about the structure, someone in town had asked about it to reclaim the wood and sell it to an upscale developer in Dallas for a rustic feel to their fish-bowl, high-rise loft. Chances were every bit of it was gone, but right now, all Nat had were chances.

  He could have kicked his own ass for getting January into this dangerous mess.

  Howling winds made conversation impossible. January nodded and reached for the animals’ neck ropes.

  “No way,” shouted Nat. “I’ve got these two. Ride Poe. Brontë will walk beside you.”

  Nat led the caravan to the parcel from which Clem had worked the land when he was Nat’s age. Once a young man with dreams of becoming a pilot, Clem had left the woman he loved and a father who no longer understood him to serve on the Allied fronts in Europe. Grateful to escape war with his life and a handful of shrapnel in his knee, he returned stateside to find his love waiting for him. Clem never set foot in a plane, not even a commercial airliner, in his later years. Nat’s grandfather once told him on the steps of his original cabin that dreams should be rewritten from time to time, else life will rewrite them for you. Nat had forgotten those words until now, perhaps in the greatest rewrite of his life.

  He glanced up at January. The outline of her raincoat swayed with Poe’s movements as if she had been born in a saddle, but she was a city girl when she first came to Close Call. Strands of hair webbed across her soaked cheeks. A good four inches of wet Texas clay caked atop the toes of her boots. Her face had a bloodless pallor. She should have been miserable. Ten years ago, she would have been miserable. But now—Jesus—now she returned his gaze and smiled. Fuck it all, she smiled at him, and he nearly toppled face-first into the mud from the way his axis shifted. After all he had put her through, not just today but since she had been back, she smiled, and Nat knew some rewriting had begun.

  When Nat spotted the old structure, his pulse eased and it felt less like he was hauling the world’s weight behind him. A lean-to on the cabin’s south side separated pioneer-type tongue and groove construction from a broken-down tractor Clem had scrapped for parts but did little to hold back dogfennel and thistle weeds nearly as tall as the roof.

  Nat tied the cow and donkey to the lean-to’s post and set to work clearing out a space for the animals. He tossed the scrap metal parts into the field and used his pocket knife and hands to clear away the overgrowth for mostly-dry bedding. January tucked in from the rain with the horses, looped their reins to the other post, fed them apples from her bag. They settled Poe and Bronte close-in and left Mae outside the horizontal frame where the angle of the roof cut off the worst of the storm and kept the weed bed largely dry.

  “What about MooDonna?” asked January.

  Nat surveyed his remaining options and the wind’s direction. “Tie her up on the west side. She’ll be out of the worst of it there.”

  Without protest, January led the cow around the corner and out of sight.

  Nat did a quick check for poisonous weeds in the lean-to then near the cow. When he returned to the lean-to, he found January scrambling back from the open field. She had laid his raincoat flat, loaded the center with rocks to form a valley, and secured the periphery with more rocks. Already, a small pond formed at the center of the yellow nylon.

  “Where did you learn that?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Africa.” As if a continent on the other side of the globe was the most obvious answer. For January Rose, it was. She might have ducked into the cabin to avoid the worst of the storm or watched him scramble to secure his animals and complained about how she could be back in Mona’s trailer in her knee-high socks and no bra, sleeping off the deluge, but she did neither of those things. Instead, her first thought was collecting rain to water the animals.

  The realization warmed him, scalp to toes. His brain sent his heart a warning—don’t fall, she’ll leave again. Thankfully, her chatter brushed the internal crisis aside.

  “I’d forgotten how strong the rain gets here. Looks like it’s letting up.”

  “You can go inside,” he said. “Get dry.”

  “I like it here.”

  Nat wasn’t sure if her here meant Texas, a forgotten cabin from another era, or with him.

  “Why did the animals come all this way?” she asked. “I mean, all their friends are miles away.”

  The obvious parallel to her life clearly escaped her. “One of them probably gave the other the idea.” A certain compulsive liar father sprang to mind.

  “Right, but MooDonna wasn’t injured. She could have come back.”

  “Not likely.” Nat opened a package of sterile cotton gauze. “She grew up around Mae. Mae guarded her as a calf then watched over her offspring when she calved. They’re as socially complex as humans.”

  “So you would say they’re friends—MooDonna and Maybelline?”

  Nat’s brows disappeared under his damp ball cap. “Maybelline?”

  “Yeah. Mae. Maybelline. Have you seen these eyelashes? She could do a killer falsies commercial that would put any Hollywood actress to shame.”

  Nat chuckled. Tried not to, but did, anyway. He stroked Mae a bit, determined she was calm—and that J was right, the old girl did have long eyelashes—then settled before her with a first aid kit he kept in Poe’s saddlebag. The affinity January had for livestock was staggering.

  “Another week here and you’ll be naming hens after Victoria’s Secret models.”

  “Already done.”

  Nat stopped digging for medical scissors long enough to shoot January a look.

  “Kidding. Though the tan one with the white feathers where a bikini top would go? She looks a little like Gisele Bündchen. Strong chin, that one.” January rubbed Mae’s jaw. “Isn’t protectiveness a desirable trait in herds?”

  “Most of the time.”

  “And wouldn’t you say that MooDonna exhibited such a trait toward her injured companion?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Then you might want to apologize for calling her a pain in the ass. And the s-word.”

  “Steak?”

  January shushed him and gave Mae an affectionate stroke behind the ears. “Later, of course. After you tell her she’ll be a permanent part of the Meier clan.”

  Nat cut his eyes toward January again. He wondered if she realized how much that stupid-ass promise was going to cost him.

  She flashed a smile, innocent and killer, all in one.

  “What can I do t
o help?” She scratched the tuft of hair on Mae’s forehead.

  The donkey blinked under heavy lids.

  “Just do what you’re doing. Keep her calm.”

  “She likes singing.”

  “Don’t do that. Please.”

  “The goats in New Zealand loved my singing. They followed me everywhere.”

  “Are you sure they weren’t running away, Shrimp Mama?”

  January kicked him somewhere near the kidneys. Reflexes like Mae.

  Tension that Nat had stockpiled in his chest collapsed on a laugh. “I distinctly remember you couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

  “You didn’t seem to mind much when we were parked by the lake, and I danced in the bed of your truck and sang ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams.’”

  “You were wearing two of my bandanas as a shirt. I’m pretty sure you could have yodeled until my windshield broke and I wouldn’t have minded.”

  Nat held her gaze, a litmus test of sorts to gauge her interest in a repeat of one of the most memorable nights their last summer together. They had taken a rowboat under the trestle. He told her he loved her for the first time, that he would wait for her to come back, as long as it took, and she accused him of being sweet simply because she had yet to see the image of her true love on the banks. That night wasn’t just about hormones. That night was different. Mona had left town. They had all night, and he used every moment of it as a slow crawl into awareness, adoration, permanence.

  She didn’t look away.

  Nat shifted, rock hard. His wet denim felt like a vice. Hope ached in his gut. He didn’t want the moment to pass, but Mae let out a gusty exhale that drew January’s attention and reminded him of the task at hand.

  The donkey’s wound looked largely superficial, most likely the result of trying to breach the broken fence and failing. He pulled a bottle from the pack and reread the directions.

  “Can you get me a cup of rainwater? This antiseptic has to be diluted.”

  She reached into her pack for an unopened water bottle. “This is probably cleaner.”