Montana Hearts: Her Weekend Wrangler (22 page)

He drove the truck straight up to Luke’s tent, and just as he stomped on the brake, he saw Luke and Sammy Jo in the Collinses’ Gator, driving toward camp from the opposite
direction. They had their own poles, rods they must have been using to catch fish in the river.

Ryan didn’t wait for the other men to get out of the truck, but leaped out of the driver’s seat and rushed toward the elder lady attacking his gal by the campfire.

He reached out his arms to grab Mrs. Owens from behind, but she spun her weapon around at the last second, and Bree screamed, “Ryan,
look out!”

Jumping backward, he just barely missed being singed.

“Olivia, put the iron down!” Merle called.

“Stay out of this, Merle,” his wife ordered. “It’s up to me to take care of these ­people once and for all!”

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Jed shouted.

“Oh, yes, I do!” Mrs. Owens said, swinging at Ryan again and then taking another jab at Bree.

While Luke and
Sammy Jo pulled a ­couple ropes out of the tent, Mr. Collins hopped on his good foot, and swung his crutches at the crazy old crow, trying to knock the iron from her hand. But Mrs. Owens used her tool to hook and swing the walking implements away from him. And thrown off balance, Jed fell into the grass at her feet.

“Leave him alone!” Bree shouted, running in a semicircle around them, just
out of the woman’s reach.

Ryan ran around the campfire the other way, hoping to sandwich the woman between them, except she swung the fire iron at him once again, forcing him to retreat. Then, with a devious look at Bree, Mrs. Owens aimed the hot iron straight at Mr. Collins’s chest.

“No!” Bree dove toward her dad.

And Ryan, who had circled around again, dove toward Bree.

The hot
iron was inches away from his jaw when all of the sudden Mrs. Owens sneezed. Then she sneezed again. She stumbled backward, as if in shock, and her eyes watered.

“Is someone wearing
lavender
?” she demanded.

Behind her, Luke threw the first rope. Sammy Jo, the second. And together they lassoed Mrs. Owens like the angry bull she was.

Ryan pulled Bree into his arms and a second later
the sheriff arrived to handcuff Mrs. Owens and take her away. Her husband went with them.

“We make a great team,” Sammy Jo said, smiling. “Don’t you think?”

Luke acknowledged her with a nod, grinned, then asked, “Who is wearing lavender?”

Mr. Collins coughed. Then he gave everyone a sheepish look and said, “I am. There wasn’t any other soap in the house.”

Chapter Fifteen

B
REE WORKED IN
the ranch office the following morning making important phone calls, sorting through emails, and checking various guests in and out. Although they were still in the red with their finances, at least their spreadsheets and ledgers were now in order. She glanced at the calendar and sighed. If only she could fill the gaping hole the lost contract left
in their schedule.

Who would have known the elusive corporate contract would have caused so much trouble? After the sheriff arrested Mrs. Owens the day before, Bree and her family had spent the rest of the afternoon and evening giving statements to the sheriff’s deputies and assuring the guests that everything was all right.

Ryan stayed with her, never leaving her side through it all.
She didn’t protest when he wrapped his arm around her, but she didn’t get a chance to tell him how sorry she was for not trusting him either. Because right when she was about to say something, Ryan got a call from Cody and had to leave. News traveled fast in the small town, and his son had heard from a friend that his grandma Owens had been arrested and he wanted to know why. Bree wished she could
have gone with Ryan to talk to him, but her father had reminded her that her own family still needed help with the chores.

As Boots bounded into the office, she glanced at the clock. Ryan had promised he’d bring Cody over to see her later today and, for her, the time couldn’t pass quick enough. She longed to wrap each of them in her arms and tell them how she really felt about them, but for
now she’d have to settle for cuddling her puppy.

Then the phone rang, and after she heard what the caller on the other end had to say, she ran straight for the kitchen.

“Guess what?” she shouted, interrupting the rest of her family’s lunch.

Luke gave her a wry grin. “We won the lottery?”

“Close,” Bree said, smiling. “Rebecca’s uncle called from Denver. When he heard his niece and
her friends lied about who they were to try to get a free vacation, he decided he’d like to make amends by booking our ranch for his daughter’s wedding.”

“But . . .” Delaney glanced around the table. “Do we
do
weddings?”

Bree laughed. “We do now. His daughter just got engaged and wants to get married before the end of summer but the other venues they looked at don’t have any available
dates. They’ve asked to take the slot we’d set aside for the corporate retreat.”

“I love weddings!” Ma exclaimed. “How many guests should we expect?”

Bree hesitated. “He asked if we could accommodate a hundred.”

“A hundred?”
her father bellowed. “We’ve only got twenty-­four cabins. Even if we put four ­people in each we’d still come up a cabin or two short.”

“That’s a good problem
to have, isn’t it?” she asked, smiling again.

Luke shrugged. “The plumbing is already in the other two cabins we have started. I can finish them before August.”

Their father gave them each a dubious look. “I guess that means you’re staying?”

“I’d already made up my mind to stay before I got the call,” Bree assured him. “We need to ‘persevere, continue on, and fight for our dream,’
right, Grandma?”

“Never give up,” Meghan agreed, banging her spoon down on the table.

Everyone turned to stare at her, then laughed.

“That’s right, Sweet Pea,” Grandma said with approval, and winked at Delaney. “This one’s learning young.”

All of the sudden the twins burst into the room and chorused in unison, “Can we stay, too?”

“We don’t really want to quit,” Nora said in
a gush. “We love the ranch and—­”

“We’ve decided we don’t need
Trendy Teen
nails,” Nadine finished. “Instead, we can help you promote your boot bling and cowgirl jewelry!”

The twins twirled around and held out their arms to show off the jeweled leather bands around their ankles and wrists.

“Of course you can stay,” Bree told them. “We need you.”

The twins looked at each other,
slapped Meghan a mini high five, and squealed as they ran back out the door, “She said
yes
!”

Bree’s father let out a low chuckle and he shook his head. “I know I don’t express myself as much as
those
two, but I want the three of you kids to know . . . I’m proud of you. And nothing would make me happier than to have us all make this six-­way ranch deal work.”

“Me, too,” Ma agreed.

Bree arched her brow. “No more talk of selling?”

“No,” Ma promised.

“No more cast either,” Bree’s father said, pulling his leg out from under the table. “Now I can work with the rest of you. As an
equal partner
.”

Luke cleared his throat. “Any news on the Owenses?”

“I heard she’s going away to a mental ward for a psych evaluation,” their father informed them. “And Mr. Owens is going
along to support her. You better make some more room on our schedule, Bree, because he asked if we could take in some of the guests he had booked.”

“And I got a call from the sheriff,” Bree added. “Mrs. Owens finally confessed that Susan and Wade Randall are hiding out in Arizona. The sheriff says they’ll pursue the lead, but I went ahead and hired Doug Kelly, a private investigator from the
east coast with a terrific track record.”

“That’s good,” Luke agreed. “Because there’s talk around town that Mrs. Owens wasn’t the only one the ranch managers had been working with. There could be others.”

“Other ­people who want to stop us from operating our ranch?” Ma asked. “Like who?”

“If I had to guess,” Bree’s father grumbled, “I’d say one of them might be our
other
neighbor—­Sammy
Jo’s father. If anyone else is against us, it would be him.”

Bree shook her head. “You’re just saying that because of your decades-­long feud. But I don’t think Sammy Jo’s father would ever do anything to hurt us.”

“Don’t you be too sure,” her father warned.

“What
matters
,” Grandma told them, “is that
we
are all finally on the same team.” Her face beamed as she looked around at all
of them. “A
family
.”

R
YAN PARKED HIS
truck behind his father’s in Aunt Mary’s driveway, and he, Cody, his brothers, and parents all climbed out of the two vehicles.

“Are you sure you don’t know what this is about?” he asked his older brother.

Dean shrugged. “All Aunt Mary said was that she wanted all of us here because she has something to tell us.”

Ryan steeled himself against
the possibility her health might be deteriorating faster than she’d let on. “Has she had news from the doctor?”

Again his brother shrugged.

Ryan drew in a deep breath. What could be so important that his aunt would request all of them to leave the multitude of work at their ranch to come over to hers? Did she need their help? She’d paid a few local teens to feed and care for the remaining
horses, but she didn’t have the herds or crops she’d had in years past.

The door opened and Aunt Mary, wearing a blue shawl over her frail shoulders, came out of her house, assisted by a nurse she’d hired from the community to check in on her.

“Mary, what’s the matter,” his father asked with concern. “Bad day?”

She waved her hand as if it were nothing. “We all have bad days once in
a while. But I called you over here because I’m so excited I couldn’t wait. Come with me.”

The nurse took her arm and together they walked around the corner of the house. Ryan and his family followed. Then Aunt Mary stretched out her arm and pointed toward the field beside the barn, the one that had
not
been salted. “Look! What do you see?”

Ryan turned his head and looked. The field was
. . . green. Tiny green sprouts dotted the entire fenced-­in portion of her property. “Aunt Mary, are you growing . . . hay?”

“No.
You
are.” She turned and smiled at them. “I’m not gone yet. I’m a fighter and I’m going to fight this cancer to the end. But one of these days, I
won’t
be here, and all of this will belong to you. I figure, why wait? I’m not able to use it myself and I thought
you might as well take over and start using it now.”

“But who did all this?” Ryan’s father asked. “Planting this much hay must have been a lot of work.”

Aunt Mary smiled again. “I had help. Lots of help. From everyone in the community who owed me a favor.”

“You could have called us to help,” Dean told her.

But she shook her head. “You’ve had enough trouble taking care of the fields
you have. I didn’t want you to go through another disappointment.”

“One of our neighbors came forward and told the sheriff he spotted the real estate agent’s plane fly over that night our field was salted,” Zach told her. “He’d been wearing his night-­vision goggles to chase away raccoons from his grain shed and identified the plane’s numbers.”

“Yeah,” Josh added. “That realtor won’t be
working around here any time soon.”

Ryan’s father gazed out over the field and then glanced at their aunt again. “Are you sure about this?”

Aunt Mary nodded. “You lost the first half of the season,
twice
, but you’ll still have the second planting ahead of you.”

They each took turns hugging and thanking her, then Ryan bent down and put an arm around his son. “Isn’t this great?”

Cody shook his head. “Nothing’s great.”

Ryan frowned. “Why not?”

His son looked up at him and held his gaze. “Because we don’t have Bree.”

B
REE’S CELL PHONE
buzzed, alerting her she’d received a text. She glanced at the screen.

Sammy Jo.
Did you see the video Rebecca sent Del?

She texted back.
No.

A moment later, Sammy Jo forwarded it to her, and she pushed play. The first
thing she saw was a fist coming straight toward her. Then the angle of the video shifted, flashed across Mr. Owens’s face, and Ryan went down.

Bree winced.
Ooooh!
That didn’t look good. But Ryan hadn’t been looking at him. Hadn’t been ready. He’d glanced at . . . Cody.

The film shook up and down as if someone had been running. Mr. Owens’s face came into view again. Then a blinding flash
that made the screen go white. Another camera.

Bree strained to see what came next. More bobbling of the film back and forth, a lot of screaming, static, and commotion, as if the person filming went this way and that. Then a clear shot of Ryan punching Mr. Owens and . . .
ooooh!
. . . the mare clamping down on the older man with her teeth!

Sammy Jo texted again.
What did you think?

Bree smirked as she texted Sammy Jo a reply.
Looks like Ryan’s man-­hating mare is going to need a little more work.

Then as she walked out the door of her house, she realized how wrong she’d been to let her fear of being hurt overshadow the truth. Ryan was a charmer, but he was also a man of his word. If nothing else, she could trust in that.

The sound of a truck rumbled up her driveway,
and when she turned, she saw the Triple T emblem and that the vehicle pulled a horse trailer behind it.
They were here.
The truck stopped, and as soon as Ryan and Cody got out, a surge of excitement coursed through her at the sight of them.

“What’s this?” she asked, smiling as she pointed to the trailer.

Cody grinned. “We brought over your mare and filly.”

“Both?” She glanced at Ryan.
“I thought your aunt was only giving me the filly.”

He gave her a direct look. “They’ve come a long way, but I don’t think they’re ready to be separated from each other just yet, do you?”

“No.” She stepped toward him and touched a finger to the dark bruise on his jaw. “Ryan, I know Mr. Owens set you up with the newspaper photo. I believe you were telling me the truth.”

He drew her
hand away from his face and kissed it. “Then believe me when I say . . . I don’t want you to leave.”

“You aren’t going to New York, are you?” Cody demanded.

Bree smiled again and shook her head. “No, of course not. I told you I’d stay.”

Cody ran forward and hugged her. “See, Dad? Told you. She’s not going anywhere. You were wrong.”

“And I am
so
glad.” Ryan held her gaze, his expression
soft. “I want us to be together, Bree.”

“Me, too.” But it had to be for the right reasons. “I
do
care for you and Cody,” she said, the back of her throat aching. “More than anything. And I trust you. I do. But . . . how will I really ever know I’m not just another girl to you?”

He flashed her that charming, mischievous grin that always set her heart aflutter. “Marry me.”

“What?”
She
stared at him, felt the ground tilt, and put a hand against his arm to steady herself. Did he just say what she thought she heard him say?

Ryan motioned to Cody, who smiled at her, his eyes sparkling like his father’s as he ran back to the truck and retrieved a bouquet of flowers. Cream-­colored roses, like the bouquet Ryan had handed her on her first day back in town.

Then Ryan tipped
his hat back on his head, and when he got down on one knee her heart thundered in her chest.

“Brianna Collins,” he said, taking her hand in his again and gazing up at her. “I love you. Not any of those other women, but you.
Only
you.”

She nearly burst with happiness as she imagined herself as Ryan’s wife. Cody’s mom. The three of them together as a real family.

Then she hesitated,
afraid she must be dreaming.

“C’mon,” Bree choked out. “You don’t really mean it.”

He gave her hand a squeeze. “I
do
.”

She looked into his eyes and saw that he was
serious
!

The expression of pure adoration on his face left her breathless as Ryan rose to his feet. Then he drew her into his arms, and swung her down into a playful dip like he’d done the night of the dance.

“How
else can I convince you?” he whispered.