Wearing the Rancher's Ring

“Leave it up to his crew. We’re paying him plenty enough. That will give your men a chance to rebuild some of the corrals down at the ranch yard before you get too busy with the winter feeding.”

Rafe smirked. “They’re sure as heck not going to like doing carpentry work. But it’s got to be done.”

“They can’t play on horseback every day,” Clancy muttered, downing more coffee as he turned his gaze to the wide wall of glass that looked over the backyard of the ranch house. During the daylight hours, the view would stretch for miles beyond the yard to where the distant mountains created a ridge between the ranch and the state of California.

“You have something on your mind, Clancy?”

He glanced at his brother. “Why do you ask that?”

Rafe shrugged. “I’m not sure. You just seem different tonight.”

Clancy released a heavy breath. There wasn’t any point in keeping it a secret, he thought. Sooner or later his family would hear about Olivia being in Carson City anyway.

“I saw Olivia this morning.”

Scooting to the edge of the couch, Rafe stared at him. “You mean the Olivia—as in your ex? You saw her in person?”

Grimacing, Clancy nodded. “In the Grubstake. I went there early so I could have breakfast before I met with Reynolds about the fencing.”

Rafe let out a low whistle. “Oh, man. Did you talk to her?”

Talk? When she’d walked up to him, so much had been going on inside of Clancy that he could hardly remember talking. He mostly remembered feeling a great sense of loss and humiliation. No man wanted to be dumped. Especially by a woman he’d been deeply in love with.

“Briefly. She was there with a man—a coworker. She’s living here in the Carson City area now. Working for the BLM.”

Rafe continued to study him closely as though he feared his big brother was in danger of collapsing or having some sort of mental breakdown. The notion caused Clancy’s jaw to tighten. Olivia might have cut him up pretty bad all those years ago, but he’d survived and grown tougher for it. He needed for Rafe and the rest of his family to understand that.

Rafe shook his head with wonder. “Amazing. Of all the places for her to wind up—right here in your backyard. Reckon that happened on purpose?”

Clancy drained the last of his coffee before casting his brother an annoyed glance. “Not hardly. You know how those types of jobs are—you go where they send you.”

Rafe made a palms-up gesture. “But she could have put in a request for this area. Is she married now?”

“No. Divorced. And apparently no children. At least, she didn’t mention any.” He wasn’t sure how he would feel if he discovered she’d borne another man’s child. Cheated, he supposed. “Arlene, Olivia’s mother, died about a year before Mother passed away.”

“How ironic.”

His throat thick, he said, “That’s putting it mildly.”

Rising to his feet, he carried his cup over to a bar that angled across one corner of the spacious room. If there had been anyone else in the room, Clancy would’ve never brought up his meeting with Olivia. But out of his four brothers, Clancy was closest to Rafe. Though he wasn’t sure why. The two men were very different. Where his brother had always been the first to speak up and the first to lose his temper, Clancy mostly preferred to keep his thoughts to himself and his temper in check. But in all truth, Rafe was the man who kept this ranch pulled together and running at a profit and Clancy greatly admired him for his loyalty to the family business.

“So are you going to see her again?”

Glancing over his shoulder, Clancy frowned at him. “I doubt it. Not unless it happened by accident. I wasn’t about to suggest we might meet somewhere and talk over old times. When a man has been run over once, he doesn’t want to lie down in the middle of the road and beg for it to happen again,” he said flatly.

Rafe shot off the couch and crossed the space to where Clancy stood. “You’re being a fool! If the woman isn’t married, now is your chance.”

“For what? To pick up where we left off?” Clancy countered. “Think about it, Rafe. Could you trust a woman who’d dumped you?”

Shrugging, Rafe said, “Well, Lilly tossed me out for about three weeks and I married her anyway.”

“Try ten years,” he said bitterly, then wiped a hand over his face. “Look, brother, I realize you want me to be happy. But frankly, Olivia doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. I’m not interested.”

“Really? Then why did you tell me that she’s back in town?”

“Like they say, news was light tonight,” Clancy said with sarcasm. “I thought we needed something else to talk about.”

“Don’t try to kid a kidder, brother. You’re not fooling me.”

Turning his back to Rafe, Clancy poured himself another cup of coffee, but this time avoided the brandy. “Okay. If you want me to fess up, then I’ll give it to you. It was jarring as hell to see Olivia again. Especially with her looking so damned pretty. Tell me, Rafe, you’re an expert on women. How does one manage to look sexy wearing a pair of jeans and a plaid work shirt?”

“If she has the right kind of curves she’ll look sexy in anything. And out of it.”

“Yeah. Well, I certainly won’t be privy to that last scenario,” Clancy muttered, then turned to face his brother. “To tell you the truth, Rafe, when I looked at her face this morning, it was like those ten years had suddenly vanished. I wanted to—”

“Grab her up and never let go?” Rafe finished for him.

Clancy released a heavy sigh. “Something like that. Damned fool, aren’t I?”

“No. You’re human. You’re remembering and wondering. And the way I see it, you don’t have a choice. You’ve got to see Olivia again and decide for yourself whether you really want to grab her up and never let go.”

Frowning, Clancy stared down at the brown liquid in his cup. “She might not want to see me again. And she sure as heck might not want to be grabbed up by me.”

“Clancy, you’re a good-looking guy. Persuade her.” With an encouraging grin, he patted Clancy on the shoulder. “It’s almost Colleen’s bedtime. She’ll be expecting me there to tuck her in. I’ll see you in the morning. In the meantime, think about what I told you.”

His brother strode away, and as Clancy stood there in the empty room, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to curse or laugh. Persuade Olivia? He’d not managed to do that ten years ago. What made him think he could do it now?

He didn’t have the answer to that question. But he was certain of one thing. Seeing Olivia again had proved to him that things had never completely ended between them. At least, not for him.

Chapter Two (#ulink_6f8e7c11-0769-505f-9f0a-bc951b993280)

During the following week, the weather turned colder, but Olivia had always lived in an area where the winters were long and the snowdrifts high. Being outdoors in less than perfect conditions was nothing new to her. Even so, it was a relief when she and Wes finally wrapped up their work in the field and arrived back at the office and out of the cold wind.

She was hanging her coat on a hall tree and dreaming of a hot cup of tea when Beatrice walked up behind her and whispered.

“There’s someone waiting to see you. He’s back in the break room. I thought having him wait there would be better than in your office.”

Perplexed by Beatrice’s covert attitude, she asked, “He? Who is it?”

“Clancy Calhoun.”

Everything inside Olivia suddenly froze and the numbness she was experiencing had nothing to do with the long hours she’d spent out in the cold today.

“Oh. Well, thank you, Beatrice.”

Quickly, she walked out of the room and down a short hallway to the break room that she, Wes and Beatrice shared with the other workers in the building. Since there was no door, she paused at the opening to see Clancy was sitting alone at the end of a long utility table. A brown cowboy hat was resting on his knee and beneath the fluorescent lighting, his hair gleamed with copper lights.

He was facing the opposite end of the room, but as soon as he heard the sound of her footsteps, he turned and quickly rose to his feet.