The Cowboy and the Lady

“That’s all right. Ryan will come around.” His eyes shifted to the teen. Under all that bravado was just a scared kid, he thought. A kid he intended to reach—but it wouldn’t be easy. “There’s a fine for every time you curse. You put a dollar into the swear jar.”

“Curse?” Ryan mocked. “You call that a curse?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes, I do. While you’re here you’re going to have to clean up your language as well as your act,” Jackson informed the teen.

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Pay him the damn fine so he’ll stop whining,” Ryan told his sister.

“That’s three now,” Jackson corrected quietly. “That one isn’t free. And you’re the one who needs to pay, not your sister. Time you learned to pull your own weight. Your sister can’t be expected to always be cleaning up your messes.”

“Yeah, well, a lot you know,” Ryan retorted, an underlying frustration in his voice. “My sister’s the one with all the money.”

“That’ll change,” Jackson informed him. “You’ll be earning your own money while you’re here. Everyone at The Healing Ranch earns his own money by doing the chores that are assigned to him. You’ll get yours after you settle in.”

“Wow,” Ryan marveled. “How lame can you get?”

Ryan shifted from foot to foot, eyeing his sister and obviously waiting for her to say something to back him up—or better yet, to spring him so he could stop playing this ridiculous game and go home.

Debi’s cheeks began to redden. “I’m sorry about this,” she apologized to Jackson.

Jackson waved away the apology. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve had a lot worse here.”

“Gee, thanks,” Ryan sneered. “You know I’m right here.”

“Wouldn’t forget it for a second,” Jackson assured him.

By then, Garrett had come over to join them. Behind him, the three teens who were in the corral had stopped working with their horses and were now watching the newest arrival at the ranch try to go up against Jackson. It played out like a minidrama.

Garrett flashed a wide, easy smile at both the newest addition to the crew on the ranch and the young woman who had brought him to them.

“This is my brother, Garrett.” Jackson made the introduction to Ryan’s worried-looking sister. “We run the ranch together,” he added rather needlessly, since the information was also on the website he’d had one of Miss Joan’s friends put together for him, Miss Joan being the woman who ran the town’s only diner and who was also the town’s unofficial matriarch.

Taking the attractive young woman’s hand in his, Garrett slipped his other hand over it and shook it. “Welcome to The Healing Ranch, ma’am,” he said in all sincerity.

“Who came up with that stupid name, anyway?” Ryan asked. “You?” The last part was directed toward Jackson. “’Cause it sounds like something you’d say,” the teen concluded condescendingly.

Garrett treated the question as if it was a legitimate one. He was attempting to defuse the situation. Once upon a time, Jackson had quite a temper, but he now prided himself on keeping that temper completely under wraps.

“Actually,” Garrett told Ryan, “it was our uncle. He came up with the name. This was his ranch first,” Garrett remembered fondly.

“Oh,” Ryan mumbled, looking away. He shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged, lifting up bony shoulders. “Still a lame name,” he muttered not quite under his breath.

Jackson pretended not to hear. “The bunkhouse is right over there,” he pointed out.

“Yeah? So what? Why would I want to know where the stupid bunkhouse is?” Ryan asked, the same uncooperative attitude radiating from every word.

“Because that’s where you’ll be staying,” Jackson said. Inwardly, he was braced for a confrontation between the teen and himself.

Ryan’s deep brown eyes darkened to an unsettling murky hue. “The hell I am.”

“You’d better get to work soon, Ryan. You’ve already got several fines—and counting—against you,” Jackson informed him. “Garrett, why don’t you take Ryan here—” he nodded at the teen “—and introduce him to the others?”

“Others?” Ryan repeated. “Is this where you bring out a bunch of robotlike zombies and tell me they’re going to be my new best friends and roommates? Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

“Ryan, apologize right now, do you hear me?” Debi ordered. Her words might as well have been in Japanese for all the impression they made on Ryan. Watching her brother being taken in hand had her looking both relieved and tense.

“Ryan, drop the attitude,” Jackson told him. “You’ll find it a whole lot easier to get along with everyone if you do.”

Ryan drew himself up to his full six-foot-two height. “Maybe I don’t want to get along with ‘everyone,’” he retorted.

Jackson looked at the teenager, his expression saying that he knew better than Ryan what was good for him.

But for now, he merely shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he told Ryan. Jackson turned toward the distraught-looking young woman he had spoken to on the phone several days ago. He could feel that protective streak that had turned his life around coming out. “Why don’t you come with me to the main house and we’ll go over a few things?” he suggested.

She looked over her shoulder back to the bunkhouse. Garrett was already herding her brother over to the structure.

“Debi!” Ryan called out. It was clearly a call for help.

It killed her not to answer her brother. Debi worked her lower lip for a second before asking Jackson, “Is he really going to be staying in that barn?” she asked uncertainly.

“It’s the bunkhouse,” Jackson corrected politely, trying not to make her feel foolish for getting her terms confused. “And back in the day, that was where ranch hands used to live. It’s been renovated a couple of times since then. Don’t worry, the wind doesn’t whistle through the mismatched slates.” The corners of his mouth curved slightly. “The bunkhouse also has proper heating in the winter and even air-conditioning for the summer. All the comforts of home,” he added.

Apparently, Ryan wasn’t the only family member who needed structure and reassurance, Jackson thought. Ryan’s sister had all the signs of someone who was very close to the breaking point and was struggling to hold everything together, if only for appearance’s sake.

“If home is a bunkhouse,” Debi interjected. It obviously seemed incongruous to her.

“A renovated bunkhouse,” Jackson reminded her with an indulgent smile. “Don’t worry, your brother will be just fine.”

Well, if nothing else, Ryan had certainly proven that he was a survivor, she thought—if only in body. His spirit was another matter entirely. But then, that was why she had brought Ryan here. To “fix” that part of him.

“Right now, I think I’m more worried about you and your brother,” she said.

“Why?” Jackson asked, curious. This, he had to admit, was a first, someone bringing him a lost soul to set straight and being worried about the effect of that person on him. “Is Ryan violent?” The teen seemed more crafty than violent, but it paid to be safe—just in case.

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Debi was quick to clarify. “Under all that, he’s basically a good kid—but I’ll be the first to admit that Ryan is more than the average handful.”

“If he wasn’t,” Jackson pointed out as they made their way to the main house, “then he wouldn’t be here—and neither would you.”

“True,” Debi readily agreed—and then she flushed slightly, realizing what the man with her had to think. “I’m sorry if I sound like I’m being overly protective, but I’m the only family that Ryan has left and I don’t feel like I’ve been doing a very good job of raising him lately.” She looked over her shoulder again in the direction her brother had gone as he left the area.

She spotted him with Garrett. The two were headed for the bunkhouse. Garrett had one arm around her brother’s shoulders—most likely, in her estimation, to keep Ryan from darting off. Not that there was anywhere for him to go, she thought. The ranch was some distance from the stamp-sized town they had driven through.

“He’ll be all right,” Jackson assured her. “Garrett hasn’t lost a ranch hand yet.”

“Is that what you call the boys who come here?” she asked, thinking it wasn’t exactly an accurate label for them. After all, they were here to be reformed, not to work on the ranch, right?

She looked at Jackson, waiting for him to clarify things. What he said made her more confused. The man seemed very nice, but nice didn’t get things done and besides, “nice” could also be a facade. That was the way it had been with John. And it had fooled her completely.

“I found that ‘ranch hand’ is rather a neutral title and, when you come right down to it, the boys do work on the ranch. My office is right in here,” he told her as he opened the door for her.