The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter

“Yes.”

“How come you didn’t introduce us?”

“No time for that now,” he said briskly. “You have a job to do. You’ll meet Maritza at lunch. She’ll be bringing it out to us.”

“We’re going to eat in the barn?”

Harlan hid a grin at her horrified tone. “No, I expect we’ll be out checking fences by then.”

She scowled at him. “I thought you were rich. Don’t you have anybody else working this place? I can’t do everything, you know. I’m just a kid.”

“Trust me, you won’t even be scratching the surface. And yes, there are other people working the ranch. Quite a few people, in fact. They report to my son. They’re off with the cattle or working the fields where we have grain growing.” He shot her a sly look. “You had any experience driving a tractor?”

“The sum total of my entire driving experience was in your truck yesterday,” she admitted, then shrugged. “You want to trust me with a tractor after that, it’s your problem.”

He grinned. “You have a point. We’ll stick to horses for the time being.”

He led her into the barn, which stabled half a dozen horses he kept purely for pleasure riding. Jenny eyed them all warily from the doorway.

“Come on, gal, get in here,” he ordered. “Let me introduce you.”

“Isn’t it kind of sick to be introducing me to a bunch of horses, when you didn’t even let me say hello to the housekeeper?”

“You’ll get to know Maritza soon enough. As for these horses, from now on they’re going to be your responsibility. I want you getting off on the right foot with them.” He pulled cubes of sugar from his pocket. “You can start off by offering them these. That’ll get you in their good graces quick enough. Let’s start over here with Misty. She’s a sweetie.”

Jenny accepted the sugar cubes but she stopped well shy of Misty’s stall. “Why is she bobbing her head up and down like that?”

“She wants some of that sugar.”

Jenny held out all of it. “Here. She can have it.”

“Not like that,” he corrected, “unless you want her to nip off a few fingers at the same time.”

He showed her how to hold out her hand, palm flat, the sugar cube in the middle. Misty took the sugar eagerly. He grinned as Jenny’s wary expression eased. “Was that so bad?”

“I guess not,” she said, though she still didn’t sound entirely convinced.

For the next two hours he taught her to groom the horses, watching with satisfaction as she began first to mutter at them when they didn’t stand still for her, then started coaxing and finally praising them as she worked. He’d never known a kid yet who could spend much time around horses and not learn to love them. Jenny’s resistance was weakening even faster than he’d hoped.

When he was satisfied that her fear had waned, he walked over to her with bit and saddle. “How about that ride now? Seems to me like Misty’s getting mighty restless and you two seem to have struck up a rapport.”

Jenny regarded the black horse with the white blaze warily. The gentle mare wasn’t huge, but Harlan supposed she was big enough to intimidate anyone saddling up for the first time.

“I don’t know,” Jenny said.

“Let’s saddle her up in the paddock and you can climb aboard for a test run. How about that?”

“You’re not going to be happy until I fall off one of these creatures and break my neck, are you?” she accused.

“I’m not going to be happy until you try riding one,” he countered. “I’d just as soon you didn’t fall off and break anything, though I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll get thrown sooner or later.”

“Oh, jeez,” she moaned. “My mom really will sue you if that happens. We’ll ask millions and millions for pain and suffering. We’ll take this whole big ranch away from you and you’ll end up homeless and destitute.” The prospect seemed to cheer her.

“I’ll take my chances,” Harlan said with a grin. “Come on, kid. Watch what I’m doing here. If you don’t cinch this saddle just right, you’ll be on your butt on the ground faster than either of us would like.”

Jenny grudgingly joined him in the paddock. With trepidation clear in every halting move she made, she finally allowed him to boost her into the saddle on Misty’s back.

“I don’t know about this,” she muttered, shooting him an accusing look. “What happens now?”

“I’ll lead you around the paddock until you get used to it. Don’t worry about Misty. She’s placid as can be. She’s not going to throw you, unless you rile her.”

“Is there anything in particular that riles her?” Jenny inquired, looking down at him anxiously. “I’d hate to do something like that by mistake.”

“You won’t,” he promised.

It only took two turns around the paddock before Jenny’s complexion began to lose its pallor. Satisfied by the color in her cheeks that she was growing more confident by the second, Harlan handed her the reins.

Panic flared in her eyes for an instant. “But how do I drive her?”

“You don’t drive a horse,” he corrected. He offered a few simple instructions, then stood by while Jenny tested them. Misty responded to the most subtle movement of the reins or the gentlest touch of Jenny’s heels against her sides.

“Everything okay?” he called out as she rode slowly around the paddock.

Jenny turned a beaming smile on him. “I’m riding, aren’t I? I’m really riding!”

“I wouldn’t let you enter the Kentucky Derby just yet, but yes, indeed, you are really riding.”

“Oh, wow!” she said.

Harlan chuckled as she seemed to catch herself and fall silent the instant the words were out of her mouth. Clearly she feared that too much enthusiasm would indicate a softening in her attitude toward this so-called prison sentence she felt had been imposed on her.

“I’m ready to get down now,” she said, her tone bland again.

Harlan patiently showed her how to dismount. “I think you’re going to be a natural,” he said.

She shrugged with studied indifference. “It’s no big deal. I’d like to go inside now. Too much sun will give me skin cancer.”

He hid another grin. “Run on over to the kitchen. Maritza will give you some suntan lotion. She might even have some of those cookies she was getting ready to bake out of the oven by now.”

“Jeez, milk and cookies, how quaint,” she grumbled, but she took off toward the house just the same.

“Be back here in fifteen minutes,” he shouted after her.

“Slave driver,” she muttered.

Harlan shook his head. If she thought that now, he wondered what she’d have to say when she saw the fence he intended for her to learn how to mend.

* * *