A Rancher To Love

Leah chuckled a little, which felt foreign, like a language she’d once known but had largely forgotten because she hadn’t used it in so long. She chose to look at it as a positive step, however small.

“Maybe that should be part of my business logo, ‘Keeping Husbands Out of the Doghouse.’”

“Sales would skyrocket.” Simon flashed another easy smile, making Leah think that Keri Teague was a lucky woman.

Leah wondered if she’d ever feel safe enough again to find her own happily-ever-after.

“Have a good visit.” Simon tapped the brim of his tan hat and headed for his department SUV.

Beginning to feel as though her fair skin was blistering under the brutal late July sun, she walked inside. The blast of cold from the air-conditioning hit her as equal parts shocking and welcome. Even before her eyes adjusted to being out of the bright sunlight, she heard a voice she’d known her entire life.

“Hey, cuz,” Conner said as he walked up to her and pulled her in to one of his bear hugs. After the initial, involuntary stiffening at being touched, she slowly relaxed and had to fight tears at how good it felt to see him, to be wrapped in the familiar embrace. Though they’d never lived in the same place, they’d always been close, having been born only a month apart. Though it had always been annoying how he crowed about being older than her. Brat.

“So what brings you out from the big city?” Conner released her and stepped back.

Leah glanced around the office and saw one other deputy she didn’t recognize—probably the replacement for Pete Kayne, who was a state trooper now and on his way to eventually becoming a Texas Ranger.

“Can we talk in private?”

The way Conner’s eyes widened a fraction told her the question surprised him, but then he nodded and motioned for her to follow him to the room they used for everything from lunch to interrogations.

Conner closed the door once they were in the room. She sank onto one of the chairs, the familiar exhaustion that came from lack of sleep weighing on her.

Conner sat in the chair at the end of the table next to her. “What’s up?”

Leah swallowed. “I was wondering if I could stay with you for a little while.”

Conner’s brows moved toward each other. “Wouldn’t you rather stay in Mom and Dad’s guest room?”

“No, I... I don’t really feel up to a lot of questions right now. And even though I asked Mom not to say anything, I wouldn’t doubt she’s talked to Aunt Charlotte.”

“About what?”

Leah picked at the cuticle on her thumb. “My apartment was broken into a couple of weeks ago, and... I was attacked.”

“Attacked?” Conner sat more rigid in his seat and asked the single-word question in a tone that said he was afraid of the answer.

She clasped her hands together. “Just some bumps and bruises, but... I can’t sleep there. I had to leave.”

“God, Leah, did they catch the guy?”

She nodded. “I managed to get my hand on his neck and pushed his head back against the coffee table. It gave me time to get away.” Barely. She swallowed against the lump in her throat threatening to cut off her breath. “The police arrived then.”

Brought by the call of a neighbor who’d heard crashing and her initial screams before her attacker had thrown her down on the couch and started tugging at her clothes. Chills scurried across her skin, and she rubbed against them to try to ward off the feeling of Jason Garton’s breath much too close, the rough way he’d pulled at her shorts, the primal fear for her life. The horror of the idea that she might be raped. And killed.

She couldn’t speak the details, not even to Conner. Not even to her mother. The only person she’d told was the female officer who’d escorted her into Leah’s kitchen and gently asked for an account of what had happened.

“Are you okay?” The concern in Conner’s voice was almost her undoing. Typically they were more likely to joke with each other, so to hear something so different, so sincere, caused that damn lump in her throat to balloon in size.

“I will be.” She hoped. Some days she literally jumped at her own shadow, then felt like a fool for doing so.

“I’d let you stay at my apartment, but I’m actually staying with Mom and Dad for a few days. My apartment flooded, and they’re having to replace the flooring and some of the drywall.”

Leah’s heart sank. She loved her aunt and uncle, but she wouldn’t find the peace and quiet she needed at their house. They would mean well—just like her parents did—but the idea of them constantly checking on her, always just being there, was more than she could handle right now.

“We can see if Skyler has any openings at the Wildflower Inn. How long are you going to be here?”

Tension knotted in her stomach as she realized she was going to have to tell him her plans sooner than she expected. That this was more than a visit. Though her parents thought she was acting too hastily, something inside her knew her decision to leave Houston and take up residence in Blue Falls was the right one. Even with Jason Garton behind bars, she still suffered from panic attacks each time she stepped into her apartment. Her rational brain knew the likelihood of yet another intruder lying in wait was miniscule, but that message didn’t get through to the place fear resided, ready to pounce at the least provocation.

Here she hoped she could feel safe and be far enough away from the noise and bustle of Houston that she could finally start thinking like a rational human being again. That she could reclaim the happy, creative, fun-loving person she’d always been.

“I’m not going back to Houston.” Just saying the words made it more real, and she didn’t know whether to be relieved or scared that she was losing her mind. Maybe the right answer was both.

Conner stared at her for a moment, and she feared a barrage of questions or that he would caution her against acting too rashly. Instead, he simply nodded.

“What are you looking for?”

The relief that washed over her made tears threaten. “I want peace and quiet, some solitude without being too alone.” She shook her head at her inability to properly vocalize the feeling of what she needed. “That probably doesn’t make sense.”

A jolt of her anxiety returned. In her mind, she really hadn’t examined options beyond staying with Conner. With him she thought she might feel safe. She feared being alone again, even in a different town. What if she felt just as scared in Blue Falls as she did Houston? What if the fear never went away?

Not wanting to hop that train of thought, Leah pushed the fears aside. She knew they’d reassert themselves later, but for now she wanted to enjoy a reprieve.

“It does make sense,” Conner said. “And I think I know the perfect place.”

* * *

TYLER LOWE WATCHED his five-year-old niece sitting on the opposite side of his kitchen table nibbling on her grilled cheese sandwich, quiet as the proverbial church mouse.

“Maddie, is the sandwich okay?” He wasn’t a fancy chef, but he thought he made a mean grilled cheese.

Maddie nodded but didn’t speak. She’d been like this for the past month, ever since her mother had dropped her on his doorstep almost without taking time to stop the beat-up car she was driving. His fists tightened as the familiar anger at his younger sister rushed to the surface again. Kendra had always been flighty, a handful for their parents, but she’d graduated to unfit mother when she’d started drinking and taking drugs. It was a sad state of affairs when a single rancher and farrier with no experience raising children was preferable to a child’s own mother.

Even so, each day he felt more like an abject failure. What had his niece endured that had turned her from a happy, energetic toddler to the quiet child who almost seemed scared of him? Once upon a time, she’d crawl up on his lap and pat his face with her chubby little fingers. But she likely didn’t remember that. Now she was no longer energetic or chubby, and he was just a guy her mother had left her with, someone she didn’t know anymore.

And he had no idea how to reach her.

He reverted back to silence, too, thinking how he needed to take her shopping for new clothes soon. Not surprising that Kendra had left the child behind with only one small bag of clothes and the stuffed puppy that was never far from Maddie’s side. Since her arrival, he’d bought her a few things. But with school right around the corner, she needed not only clothes and shoes but also school supplies. And when had school supply lists become as long as his arm, and for a kindergartner? Evidently she had to have everything from crayons to safety scissors to boxes of tissues.

A little more than a month ago, he’d have never thought he’d be enrolling a child in kindergarten for the fall. He was about as equipped to be a parent as a bull was to fly jumbo jets. And he was discovering that raising a kid was expensive, even if you just provided the basics. No wonder his sister had left her only child in his care. Yes, it was an unkind thought, but abandoning Maddie had been the last straw.

“Honey, why don’t you wrap up the other half of your sandwich and bring it with you?”

Maddie met his gaze, a tentative question in her pretty green eyes.

“I’ve got to go to another ranch to work on a horse’s feet.” And of course there was no way he was leaving a five-year-old home alone. He didn’t think a babysitter was a good idea either, at least not yet. His gut told him that being left with yet another person she didn’t know wasn’t the best thing for Maddie right now. He might not know what was, but that wasn’t it.

Maddie slipped out of her chair and wrapped her sandwich in a napkin. She held it in one hand and her puppy in the other. She didn’t even question that she had to go with him, which some instinct told him wasn’t normal. Weren’t kids her age normally full of questions, curiosity on steroids?