The Rancher's Homecoming

Chance patted his daughter on the back of her purple shirt and stifled the familiar urge to strangle his brother. “Why don’t you let me talk to Uncle Ty about that? Claudia? Would you mind taking Rosie out for a bit? Maybe you can listen to the next band. Felix will go with you.” The last thing he needed, or wanted, was for his two worlds—however detached he was from one of them—to collide. “Just hang on for a sec.”

Chance pushed past his brother and ducked into the room. He rummaged through one of Rosie’s bags and pulled out her pink headphones. Like a seasoned pro, Rosie snatched them and plunked them over her ears.

“Okay, Daddy?” she yelled.

Chance laughed and nodded. “Go with Claudia, okay?” He set her on her feet, tugged up her jeans, which were too short in the legs and too big in the butt, and exchanged his daughter for the guitar. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”

“Okay.” Felix didn’t look convinced as Rosie grabbed his hand. Claudia followed with an expression of uncertainty on her round face. “But we still have to talk about this.”

“Looking forward to it.” Chance set down his guitar, watched as Rosie skipped her way between his agent and nanny and quietly, slowly, closed the door. “What are you doing here, Ty?”

“If you answered your phone once in a while this might not be such a surprise.” Ty dropped down into the ripped, green faux-leather sofa that was wedged tightly between the walls. “Man, this place is a hole. I thought showbiz was supposed to be glamorous.”

“It can be.” But starting over meant starting at the bottom and it didn’t get more bottom than where Chance was standing at the moment. “Out with it already. What’s Big E done now?” He busied himself gathering up the books and games strewn about that Claudia and Rosie had occupied themselves with during his show. Right now all he wanted was the safe, quiet surroundings of the small two-bedroom bungalow he called home.

“I’d fill you in on the details.” Ty sighed. “But you told your boy Felix you would only be a few minutes. You need to come back, Chance. You need to come home.”

His stomach pitched. “I don’t think I do.” And the ranch had never felt like home. Not since their parents died.

“Do you really think I’d have flown all the way out here, left my beautiful bride-to-be with those brothers of ours, if I didn’t think this was important?”

“I don’t really know what to think about any of you.” Ty engaged? The idea still had the power to render him speechless. “I’m the black sheep, remember?” He jammed Clyde, Rosie’s worn, crazy-eyed stuffed monster into her rainbow backpack. “The last place I belong is on the Blackwell Family Ranch.”

“Whether you think you belong there or not, it’s your home, Chance. And like it or not, we’re your family. We need you.”

The Blackwell brothers needed him? Chance got to his feet and faced his brother. “What’s wrong? Is Big E dying? Do you need me to sing at the funeral? Oh.” Chance snapped his fingers. “No, wait. I forgot. Last thing our grandfather would want is to ever hear me sing. You were never one for barrel racing, Ty. Out with it.”

“Jon and Ben want to sell the ranch.”

“Good. Great.” One less thing to have to ever think about. “Fabulous. Enjoy whatever cash you get out of it.” He’d relinquished any hope of seeing Blackwell money long ago. As far as he knew, Big E had disinherited him the second Chance eloped with Maura Montgomery.

“Ethan and I don’t want to sell,” Ty added.

Had stubbornness not kept Chance on his feet, he might have passed out. “I’m sorry, what? You don’t want to sell. You. The Blackwell brother who had one foot over the property line the second he could walk?” Had Chance stepped off stage and into an alternate reality? He sat in the only other chair in the claustrophobic space. “This ought to be good. Why don’t you want to sell?”

Ty shrugged, stretched out his legs. “It’s our legacy. It’s Big E’s legacy. And we’ve made some really good progress with the guest-ranch aspect of the business. It’s picking up with all of us working together. Plus Hadley’s nuts about the place. FYI, we couldn’t have done much without Katie. She’s been amazing to work with. Girl knows just about everything there is about ranching, especially our ranch.”

“Katie’s still there?” Chance shouldn’t have been surprised to hear his sister-in-law hadn’t moved away. She and Maura had been raised on that ranch. It was as much the Montgomerys’ home as the Blackwells’. “Guess Maura was right. She always said Katie would never leave that place.” Thinking of his late wife’s kid sister brought up memories Chance honestly wasn’t ready to deal with.

“Yeah, well, Lochlan’s getting up in years. He’s still our foreman, but it’s pretty much in name only. Katie’s picked up his slack to cover for her dad.” Ty ducked his head, but not before Chance caught the flash of concern on his brother’s face. “Lochlan’s sick, Chance. Katie’s tried to keep it quiet, telling us he’d gone to visit friends, but we all just found out. He’s fading. And, well, I know it’s none of my business, but he wants to see his granddaughter before he dies.”

“You’re right,” Chance snapped. “It’s not your business.” Dormant anger he’d long buried threatened to boil over. “That old man refused to see his own daughter when she was dying. Wouldn’t make the trip. Not even to say goodbye. He didn’t even take her calls.” It was the one thing that still kept Chance up at night. That he’d been unable to grant his dying wife’s final wish. Not that he’d been able to accomplish much over the phone, but between Maura and Rosie, he couldn’t leave. Stubborn son of a... “Would you like me to tell you what her father’s rejection did to her? Would you like me to tell you in excruciating detail how she cried for her father at the end?”

“I’m not even going to try to understand that one, Chance.” Ty shook his head and Chance was relieved to see a flash of sympathy come across his brother’s face. “And I’m certainly not going to excuse it. Not even Katie can.”

“Ah.” Chance nodded. “So that’s what this is about. Katie sent you to plead Lochlan’s case. You know I wouldn’t put it past the old man to have put her up to it.”

“Clearly you haven’t seen Katie in a while. She doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to. And for the record, no, she didn’t put me up to this. I can tell you I’ve caught her on more than one occasion looking at those pictures you send her of Rosie. Might be smart of you to remember that while you lost your wife, she lost her sister. Pictures and videos aren’t any substitute for holding that little girl in her arms.”

“She lost her sister when Lochlan disowned Maura for marrying me. Because she walked away from everything Lochlan planned for her.” Chance held up his hands. “If that’s the reason you came all the way here—”

“It’s not that. It’s not only that,” Ty corrected. “We need your vote.”

Tyler wasn’t making any sense. “My vote for what, exactly?”

“For what happens to the ranch. We’re tied, which means it’s up to you. So let’s set aside the opportunity you have to be the bigger person and let an old man go to his death in peace. How about you come back long enough to help me keep this ranch where it belongs? In the Blackwell family.”

CHAPTER TWO (#u6b45426c-372b-5bdd-8dc3-3e9c7797c401)

“OOH, DADDY! LOOK! Horsies! They’re everywhere!” Rosie’s excited squeal from the back seat of the minivan announced his daughter was wide-awake. After four days on the road—because making the twenty-hour trek from LA in one stretch would have been a recipe for disaster—he was ready for a break. Given Rosie’s earsplitting tantrum at the motel last night, he wasn’t the only one.

Not that Falcon Creek, Montana, was going to give him anything close to a respite. Driving through town had already been like sliding through a time portal. Near as he could tell, nothing had changed. Other than a new coat of paint on the diner and new planks on the walkways. A shiny new sign over Brewster’s. Sure there were some new businesses and shops and, undoubtedly, new people. Everything else... Exactly. The. Same.

“Do you see the horsies, Daddy? Oh, they’re so pretty. Can I ride one, please, Daddy?”

“I think they’re a bit too big for you, Bug.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. His heart swelled at the excitement shining in his little girl’s eyes. “But I bet Aunt Katie will be able to find you the perfect pony.” Katie had always been magic with horses.

“Oo-o-oh, a pony.” Rosie rolled her head against the back of her car seat and kicked her pink-booted feet against the back of the passenger seat. “I’ll get my very own pony?”

“We’ll have to see.” Chance winced as the headache throbbing in the back of his head shifted to his temples. He’d run out of coffee—and thus, caffeine—about two hundred miles ago, and judging by the ache in his jaw, he’d grind his teeth to dust before they reached the ranch. “For as long as we’re here at least, I think we can work something out.” Chance shifted his attention back to the endless dirt road.

He slammed his foot on the brake.

Rosie squealed as if they’d just taken a dip on a roller coaster. Chance’s hands gripped the steering wheel as his heart hammered in his chest. The iconic gateway to the Blackwell Family Ranch loomed overhead. Its rusted, weathered sign—nearly as old as the ranch itself—welcomed visitors and guests.

And nearly had Chance turning around and heading home.

Nausea churned in his stomach. What was he doing here?

“Do that again, Daddy!” Rosie ordered.

“Once was enough.” He powered down his window and allowed himself his first breath of Montana air in more than a decade. The combination of pristine oxygen, green grass and leftover moisture from last night’s storm hung slightly tinged with manure and hay. Or maybe that was just his mind playing tricks on him. It had taken him years to forget the smell of the ranch, as if it had seeped into his blood the day he’d been born. He shifted the minivan into Park and unhooked his belt.

“Are we here?” Rosie shifted in her seat, turning her head so fast her red curls slapped her cheeks. “Are we at Grampy’s?”

“Almost.” He never should have told her they were going to visit her grandfather. It seemed every word out of Rosie’s mouth in the two weeks since Ty had delivered his invitation of doom had been to ask about Maura’s father. Every word was like a knife to Chance’s heart.

He couldn’t care less what Lochlan Montgomery thought of him. But if Ty was right, if the old man was dying, Lochlan deserved to see his only grandchild once before he met his maker. If for no other reason than it was what Maura would want.

But if the old man did or said one thing that gave Rosie a moment’s sadness or despair...

Chance slipped out of the van, his sneakered feet hitting the dirt road with enough force that dust immediately covered him. The silence hurt his ears as it shouted its welcome. He stretched, groaned and waited for his muscles to stop screaming at him as he tried to shake feeling back into his extremities.

The midafternoon sun was still moving toward its peak, but was beating down hard enough to remind him that he—and Rosie—would be needing hats. He’d left his Stetson—the one Big E had given him on high school graduation—on his bed when he left the ranch for good. No doubt one of his brothers had found use for it. It would fit one of them better, anyway. “You want to get out for a while?” He rounded the minivan and slid the door open, only to find Rosie standing on the floorboards. She grinned up at him. Chance bit back a sigh as he reached down and picked her up and got bopped in the face by Clyde. “When did you start unbuckling your belt?”

Rosie grinned and hugged Clyde against her chest. “Surprise!”

“You are full of them.” He pressed a kiss against the side of her head and lowered her to the ground. “Let’s not do that again, okay?” The second her feet hit the dirt, he swore the earth quaked. She darted to the fence line and stared out at the endless pasture dotted with horses and cattle.