The Rancher's Christmas Bride

“If he’ll let me stay, maybe I can figure it out.”

Alex thought the best thing she could do was head on back to Dallas. Dan’s old camper suited him but it wasn’t the life she was used to. Not that he knew about her life or what she was used to. But he guessed she didn’t know what it was like to live in an old piece of metal when the wind blew hard from the north.

“I don’t think he’s going to let you stay,” Alex told her as they drove toward the barn.

“Have you always known him?” she asked after he’d opened the gate and they’d driven through.

“All my life. He’s always been here.”

“So you grew up in Bluebonnet?”

He stopped the truck at the feed trough and got out. She followed, watching him, then watching the cattle heading their way. She moved to his side and stayed close as he tossed a feed sack over his shoulder, pulled the string to unseal the bag and poured it out, starting at one end of the trough.

“Did you?” she asked as he went back for the second bag of grain.

“Yeah, I grew up here.”

“You don’t sound happy about that.”

“Because I’m busy and you’re asking a lot of questions.” Questions about growing up were his least favorite. There were too many bad memories attached to his childhood in Bluebonnet. Not because of the town but because his father had tarnished childhood for Alex and his siblings in a way that should have been against the law. It probably was against the law.

“Do you have siblings other than your sister?” she asked.

He pulled off his hat, swiped a hand across his brow and shook his head. “You know a guy for five seconds and suddenly you need his life story.”

She started to protest but he stopped her. Holding his hand up to quiet her, he studied the cattle that were heading across the field. His attention shifted to the slightly damp ground. And tire tracks.

“What’s wrong?” Marissa asked as she moved to stand next to him.

He pointed to the tracks in the soft earth. “Someone has been out here. On four-wheelers. And I might be wrong but there seems to be a couple of cows missing. I wouldn’t usually notice that about Dan’s herd, but he had two black baldies that looked ready to drop their calves any day. And they’re gone. I’ll ask Dan if I need to go look for them. It’s possible they’re off having their calves. But I don’t know who would have been out here with an ATV.”

“Black baldy?” she asked with narrowed eyes and her nose scrunched up.

“A black cow with a white face.”

Her mouth formed an O. “Maybe he sold them?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

He tossed the empty sacks and headed for the truck. “We’ll ask him when we get back. And then I’ll head to my place. I’ve got to get some work done before more rain hits.”

“Work? Do you have another job, other than ranching?”

Another question. He motioned her into the truck. “I used to be a bull rider. Now I ranch and I’m starting a tractor-and-equipment-repair business. I also own bucking bulls.” He got in the truck and cranked the engine. “What about you?”

“I teach kindergarten.” She said it with a soft smile but also with a little bit of sadness that he didn’t like. She looked like the type of person who walked on sunshine and never had a bad day. But that’s what he got for judging a book by its pretty cover.

Everyone had bad days. Most people had secrets or a past they didn’t want to talk about. Those were the hard facts of life. He tried to stay out of other people’s business and leave them to their own past, their own secrets.

Marissa Walker caused a man to forget those simple rules for an uninvolved life. Rule 1: don’t ask personal questions.

They were nearing the gate and he slowed. “Why don’t you open that gate for me?”

She climbed out of the truck and pulled on the gate until she had it open. A couple of times she had to stop and tug up on the jeans Lucy had loaned her. He swallowed a grin as she got back in the truck.

“I hope you enjoyed that,” she muttered.

“I did.” He leaned over to brush her cheek. “You had something on your face.”

And just like that the humor died, and he was face-to-face with the greatest temptation of his life, a woman who just last night had sat in his truck and cried. A woman who wouldn’t be around long enough to know left from right when it came to Bluebonnet.

He leaned back in the seat and put his hands on the steering wheel of the old truck. The clutch was sticky and the gears grinded a bit. It was familiar, and right now he needed familiar.

As they pulled up to Dan’s camper, his passenger let out a soft gasp and reached for the door handle before he could get the truck stopped.

“Hey, at least let me stop before you...”

She was already out of the truck, the door wide-open. He hit the emergency brake and jumped out because Dan was leaning against the side of the camper and he didn’t look too good. Alex remembered those praying lessons the pastor had been giving him, because this looked like a moment to pray for some help, to pray for an old man to take another breath.

“Dan, are you okay? Here, let me help you sit down.” Marissa had an arm around him but he was fighting her off.

“I can get myself to the house.” He leaned, wheezing as he tried to draw in a breath. “Lungs don’t work like...”

“Dan, stop talking and let us help you. We’ll go see Doc Parker.” Alex put Dan’s arm over his shoulder. The older man was taller than him by a few inches and he was still solid. He leaned heavily on Alex as they headed across the dusty yard to Alex’s truck.

“I don’t need the doc.” Dan gave one last attempt. “Trouble. I knew when she knocked on my door that she’d be trouble.”

Dan’s granddaughter bristled at that. “Listen to me—”

“You old coot,” Dan said, finishing her sentence, in a somewhat mocking tone.

“I wouldn’t call you that.” She opened the truck door. “We’re taking you to the doctor, and like it or not, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Dad-burn-it.” Dan collapsed as they managed to maneuver him into the truck.

Alex gave her points for courage. She’d shown up on Dan’s doorstep like a rain-soaked kitten tossed to the curb. Today the kitten had claws and she wasn’t walking out on a grandfather who wasn’t going to make her visit easy.

Alex had to admit, if he wasn’t so tangled up in his bucking-bulls business, and in his past, a woman with her kind of spunk would be the woman to have in his life.

But he wasn’t anything close to solvent and she wasn’t the kind of woman who looked twice at a cowboy like him.

Chapter Three (#u7e6e5980-e6bd-5dd8-bbb6-39b39348538c)

The doctor’s office was in an old convenience-store building on the south edge of Bluebonnet Springs. Alex drove them there in less than five minutes, with Marissa’s grandfather arguing the entire time that he was fine and didn’t need that “quack doctor.” Alex had merely grinned during the rant. Marissa had tried to get Dan to calm down because his lips were turning blue from lack of oxygen.

They pulled up to the clinic, and Alex parked next to the front door. Thanks to a brief phone call, the physician waited outside for them. He had an oxygen tank on wheels, and as Dan argued, the doctor placed the tubing in his nose.

“Don’t fight me, Dan Wilson,” Doc Parker said, as they helped Marissa’s grandfather out of the truck. “I told you to keep oxygen at your house. Now you’re going to have to do what I say and maybe you’ll live a few more years.”