The Reluctant Rancher

Every week, every mile down the road from Pennsylvania to Kansas, every awful job she’d taken to stay alive and protect her unborn baby, took her that much farther from Ken. She had to keep going.

She held the picture to her chest and began to hum, as if the baby she carried was already here in this safer place, his or her sweet, warm body against hers.

Blossom shut her eyes. Tonight she was in a nice, if a bit old-fashioned, room in a wide-windowed, airy house in the middle of nowhere. A house that only needed a woman’s touch—even hers—to feel homey again. Once she got the hang of it, this job wouldn’t be half-bad. And while she was here, Blossom meant to do it well. As well as she could anyway.

Comforting herself, she rocked and sang.

About a little baby...and a mother who’d buy her a mockingbird.

* * *

IN THE DARK Logan listened to the soft melody that drifted from the upstairs window. He pushed the front porch glider with one sock-covered foot. For years it had had the same creak, even before his parents had died, and even when his grandmother was still alive, but he wouldn’t oil it. Neither would Sam. Everything in this house had its own special sound by now, and he didn’t see any reason to paint the metal swing while he was here either. A few rust spots sure wouldn’t ruin his faded work jeans. No problem.

But Blossom? She had trouble—big trouble—written all over her. And that was a problem he didn’t need.

Hours after he’d choked down that too-hot curry, he was still seeing her at his grandmother’s table tonight using his mother’s things. She’d looked more at home there on her first night than any of Mother Comfort’s other candidates would have in a dozen years. No, she’d looked relieved.

Sure, she was pretty enough—although he’d never been drawn to redheads before—but what really got to him was that lost look about her. And if he kept seeing her as an appealing woman, a woman in need, rather than an employee...

Logan wasn’t looking for love. Blossom, on the other hand, looked as if she’d found it then lost it somehow and wouldn’t be the same until it was in her grasp again.

He had enough to worry about. One day he’d been in Wichita about to flight-test a sweet new jet, vying for the promotion he badly needed—the one with better pay that would allow him to fight his ex-wife for joint custody of their now six-year-old son. The next morning he’d been back on the Kansas plains, a temporary cowboy again.

The soft tune floated down to him once more from the window, and the glider jerked to a stop. He should be inside going over the ranch accounts, because no way could Sam do them right now. With his mind on some other planet, he couldn’t be trusted to make any decisions. Instead, Logan had been sitting out here alone in the blackness with a sweet song for company, thinking sad thoughts about his broken marriage and the child he seldom saw.

Upstairs Blossom was buying a diamond ring for some baby she sang to.

He wouldn’t fall for Blossom Kennedy. If she thought he’d missed the travel plans that shone in her eyes, she was mistaken. She wouldn’t stay long.

Neither would he.

* * *

“GIRL, SET YOURSELF down a spell. You haven’t stopped moving all morning.”

Sam’s blue eyes sparkled, all the more vibrant in his pinched white face as he lay back against the fresh sheets Blossom had just put on his bed. She elevated Sam’s head on a stack of pillows and tucked an old but hand-sewn quilt around him. Dull sunlight streamed through his bedroom windows, which were filmed with dust, and Blossom made a mental note to wash them.

“Rest,” she said. “Your grandson won’t thank me for making you more tired this morning than you were when I got here yesterday.”

Sam grunted. “What I’m tired of is being in this bed.”

“Logan is right. The more you rest, the quicker you’ll heal.”

“What’s that?” he said. “Another old wives’ saying?”

She smiled. “I don’t know any old wives.”

Sam snorted. “That was good lemonade you made for dinner last night. Tart but just sweet enough.” He grinned. “Too bad my pucker was wasted. Some woman missed the best kiss of her life.”

Blossom laughed. “You’re bad.” Gathering up his used sheets, she walked to the door. He looked pale to her, and although his running conversation had been sprinkled with corny jokes while she cleaned his room, she sensed he wasn’t quite himself. Blossom could read moods as fast as any high-speed computer could crunch numbers. “You take a short nap and when you wake up, I’ll have lunch ready.”

He straightened. “More of your curry?”

“There’s none left.” She raised her eyebrows. “The other men took care of that. And you,” she added. Last night Sam had eaten two helpings.

“Not Logan,” he guessed.

“He finished his dinner, too, but he wasn’t happy about it.”

“Fussy eater. Always has been.” Sam shook his head then seemed to think better of it. He rubbed one hand over his forehead. “That boy didn’t eat anything but grilled cheese sandwiches until he was ten years old. Then came beef—when I still ran cattle like his daddy and grandpa before me. Even then, he still wouldn’t touch anything that didn’t start out bawling, on four hooves, right here on the Circle H.” He paused. “Far as I’m concerned, my bison now are better than beef. They yield less fat and more protein. But Logan won’t even try the meat.”

We’ll see about that. “He needs to expand his horizons.”

Sam’s expression turned wistful. “I wish I could have seen him choke down that curry. I heard Tobias and Willy laughing all the way up here.”

Blossom didn’t miss his underlying message.

“You can join us for dinner as soon as that dizziness goes away. I’ll save your place at the head of the table.”

He fell back against the pillows again, as if the spinning in his brain had gotten worse, and Blossom felt her heart clench.

“I am kind of tired,” he admitted. “Too much thinkin’ yesterday. I’ll rest my eyes to get ready for lunch. Don’t tell me what it is. Surprise me.”

Blossom had no idea what to serve, or if Logan and his men would come back to the house for the noon meal. Maybe she should ask him to approve her menu—as soon as she made one. With a last glance at Sam, who had turned his face away, she stepped out into the hall.

“Olivia?” The unfamiliar name stopped her, the bundle of sheets in her arms. “Thanks. Makes a man proud to have a daughter-in-law like you. Now, if you and Logan can just set your minds to giving me a few more great-grandkids...”

He trailed off and Blossom’s heart sank. He’d mistaken her for his daughter-in-law. Yesterday he’d thought she’d come to the ranch in answer to some singles ad. When Logan had asked him his name, Sam had stopped to think. He was clearly disoriented, at least part of the time, but she wouldn’t make things worse by pointing that out and upsetting him.

“We’re working on it” was all she said.

With her cheeks feeling flushed, Blossom carried the old bedding down the stairs, through the front parlor and the dining room, and on into the kitchen. She dropped the pile down the laundry chute.

More great-grandkids, Sam had said, which implied there was at least one already. Blossom hadn’t seen any children and certainly no wife for Logan. So where was Olivia?

None of that was her concern. As long as Sam got well enough so he could leave his bed, she’d feel she’d done her job here. It was the least she could do in return for finding this brief refuge at the Circle H.

The sunny morning and the vast expanse of land isolating her here on the ranch lifted her spirits. If she could find Logan, she’d ask about the lunch menu she didn’t have yet. While she was at it, she’d tell him about the incident with Sam.

* * *

LOGAN WAS IN a corral on the far side of the barn, trying to keep from getting his head kicked in like Sam. He’d rather be mucking stalls because, oddly, that chore was his favorite—if he had one here. As a kid he’d sure spent enough time at it. Logan had lived on the Circle H from birth until he left to join the service. With a pitchfork in his hand, he still liked to let his mind drift, to pretend he was really where he wanted to be, back flying a jet. Sometimes he even whistled to himself as he worked. But if he couldn’t cut short the brief leave of absence he’d taken from his job, this unplanned stay on the ranch could threaten his pending promotion. He wasn’t whistling now. No pitchfork either.

“Stand still,” Logan told the shaggy bison bull calf he’d been trying to doctor for an infection. The stubborn weanling had turned over a bucket of warm water, splashing Logan’s boots. He’d just bent over the bull’s hoof again, one foreleg trapped between his thighs to steady it, when Blossom suddenly appeared. The startled bison knocked Logan on his backside in the dirt.

“Hey!” he yelled, when he knew better than to shout or move fast around the touchy bison. Struggling for breath, Logan picked himself up, dusted himself off and glared at Blossom over the corral fence. “You live on a ranch, you learn to be careful. Hear me?”

Blossom froze like some ice sculpture. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”