Second Chance Rancher

She’d picked the Army, even before her father’s death, because it had seemed like the antithesis to her childhood. Every day in the military she’d known the time to get up, to eat and to go to bed. She’d usually known what each day would require. Most importantly, it had meant being thousands of miles from Bluebonnet.

There had been surprises. There had been pain. And death. But she’d survived. The same way she’d survived her childhood.

“Maria, where are you?” Lucy yelled. From the back of the ranch house, the dog barked. Maria didn’t respond, but Lucy guessed if she followed the bark, she’d find her sister.

She opened the door at the end of the hall. Maria was passed out on her bed. The dog growled from the pillow next to her. Lucy scanned the disaster of a bedroom. Clothes covered nearly every surface. The chair by the window, the dresser, the floor. It looked like a department store had exploded. The windows were wide-open, letting in the heat of late May.

What a mess.

“Stupid poodle.” Maria, dark hair tangled and smudges beneath her eyes, reached in a half slumber and pushed the dog off the bed.

“Be nice to the dog,” Lucy warned.

Maria sat up quickly, then held her head and groaned. “Go away.”

“Right, because a seventeen-year-old can be trusted to take care of herself.”

“Marcus and Alex are here. They’re adults. And I’m almost eighteen.”

“Our brothers are in Waco and we both know that. I got a call from Essie, letting me know you were running wild and she’s taking care of the livestock. But you, on the other hand...”

“She should mind her own business.” Maria fell back on the pillow and covered her head with a blanket. “I hate you.”

“Right, because alcohol is your friend and I’m not. How long has our mother been gone? And why aren’t you with her?”

“She went to California a couple of months ago. She and husband number three are back in love. I don’t like to be a third wheel. And I haven’t been drinking.”

“Of course you haven’t. Get up out of that bed. You have a fence to fix.”

“What?” She brushed a hand through the tangles of her curly, chestnut hair.

“You ran through Dane Scott’s fence, Maria. Last night. You even left the truck where you wrecked it.” Lucy shook her head and gave her sister another long look. “Get up. I’ll help with the fence but I’m not doing all the work.”

“Poor Lucy, she has to do everything. And I wasn’t drinking.” The blanket she’d held to her chin dropped, revealing a rounded tummy. Lucy closed her eyes, hoping what she’d seen wasn’t real, wasn’t happening.

“You’re pregnant.” She said it softly, waiting for Maria to deny it.

“Yeah. Surprise! And I wasn’t drinking. A deer ran in front of my truck.”

“No one told me.” Lucy had been busy working in Austin as a bodyguard. She’d had her own life, happily far from the family drama, even though she occasionally got calls to come home and fix things. But now the drama had landed in her lap.

“No. We didn’t tell you. Last time you were home I wasn’t showing.”

“Everyone knows? Even Mom?”

“She doesn’t know. She isn’t observant. Essie told me it was my place to tell you.”

“How far along?”

Maria looked young. And lost. She was having a baby. “Close to five months,” she answered in a quiet voice.

“Okay, well, we’ll figure this out.” With that, Lucy left the room, the hungry poodle fast on her heels.

A truck pulled up as she washed dishes. Dane had towed the old farm truck back to the house for her. She let out a long sigh, rinsed the plate she had just washed and walked to the front door. Dane Scott stood in the yard, eyeing the mess that had once been the Palermo ranch. A frown settled on his too-handsome, too-tan, too-everything face. He pushed back the cowboy hat that shaded his features and pulled the sunglasses off his too-straight nose.

Lucy wanted to go back inside, lock the door and pretend she’d never been sixteen and in love with Dane. Heat climbed into her cheeks thinking about her teen self and how she’d dreamed he’d take her away from this ranch and her father.

That was all ancient history, years of water under the proverbial bridge.

“Don’t just stand there drooling,” Maria whispered from behind her, humor lacing her tone. “Put him in his place. Never let them see you dream, sis.”

Lucy walked down the steps, pretending Maria hadn’t spoken.

“Dane.” She grabbed the yapping poodle as it ran circles around his stock dog. Other people had real cattle dogs. The Palermo family had a poodle that couldn’t find the door to go outside and wouldn’t know a cow from a tree. “Thank you for towing it home for me. Maria and I will fix the fence.”

His blue eyes narrowed, then his gaze shifted to the point beyond her left shoulder where she knew Maria must be standing. He nodded just slightly as he refocused on her.

“You don’t have to fix it, Lucy. I’ll send a couple of my men over to finish up the repairs.”

“We’re responsible. We’ll fix it.” She kept her tone even, because she wouldn’t argue the point.

He tipped his hat back and leveled those blue eyes of his on her. “I’ll fix the fence. While I’m here I wanted to make sure I can renew my lease for the three hundred acres.”

“Of course you can. Why wouldn’t we keep the agreement?” She wondered if there was something she didn’t know. Something she should know.

He shrugged. “I guess I thought you were going to stick around and might want to use that land.”

She glanced back at her obviously pregnant sister. The teenager was sitting on one of the older rocking chairs on the covered front porch that ran the length of the house.

“I guess I won’t be going anywhere, not for a while. But I’m not going to need that land. I’ll make do with the two hundred we’ve been using.”

“You didn’t know?” Dane’s voice was smooth, quiet and concerned.

He meant about Maria. She briefly closed her eyes and shook her head. In that moment it would have been easy to return to the girl she’d been, the one who had confided in him, shared secrets with him.

No, she told herself. That was a long time ago. A dozen years might as well have been a lifetime because they’d both gone through things. They’d changed. The kids they’d been, those two teens who had met up while riding horses, or in town every once in a while, those two were long gone.

“No. I didn’t know,” she answered. She wasn’t getting the Sister of the Year award. “It looks as if I should have come home sooner. I tried a few times, but work...”

She didn’t owe him explanations. He was a neighbor. He leased part of their land. He wasn’t their keeper.

He was her past. A very unhappy part of her past.

“Understandable,” he answered, anyway. The one word was meant to let her off the hook. She didn’t need that, either.

“No, it isn’t. But I’m here now. And it looks as if I have a lot of work to do. Starting with your fence.” She let her gaze slide away from his piercing eyes to a stable that needed repairs, a wood fence that had fallen down in places and a lawn that was overgrown.

In the distance an ATV could be heard. She glanced west, the direction the sound came from.