Reclaiming Nick (21 page)

“See if you can get me the editor at Montana Monthly. Tell her I have a great feature for her. Besides, she owes me a favor.” Piper
shifted so the cell signal could clear the mountains. This morning the blue sky touched the far corners of the earth, with only the slightest wisps of clouds streaked high above. The smell of cows and grass and even woodsmoke tinged the air. Piper drank deeply, amazed at how a week on the range had awakened her soul. Made her feel clean. Almost.

“You’re going to owe me favors if you don’t get back here soon,” Carter said. “Our editor asked me yesterday when you were coming back from your vacation. I told her you were incommunicado.” Behind his voice, Piper could hear the sounds of the newsroom.

A wave of familiarity swept through her, tugging her back to her real life—deadlines, endless pots of coffee, the tick of computer keys. It felt as if she’d been gone for a decade rather than a week. She could barely remember when she hadn’t woken every day with the smell of the land permeating her thoughts, her dreams. Or the image of Nick Noble loving this land. When he’d embraced Pecos, the look on his face had made her nearly cry.

She would never again ridicule the love between a man and his horse. But she did wonder what it might feel like to love something that purely, that freely.

She’d never let herself love anyone but her mother and Jimmy. Letting someone that close meant they were within hitting distance then, weren’t they? She had enough scars from the first go-around to last her a lifetime.

“Remind her that I have at least three more weeks of vacation coming. Besides, after I put together my audition tape, I won’t need the bit salary she pays me.”

“Countin’ your chickens a little early, aren’t you, Piper?” But
Carter’s voice held tease. “Or have you finally got the goods on Noble?”

The view from here overlooked the valleys and bluffs for miles. Piper saw Nick working on the new wheel for the chuck wagon, recognized Dutch coming from the barn, leading his roan. Andy, Quint, and Old Pete had left earlier to check on the herd.

After they’d counted their losses, the hands had driven the herd into the spring pasture while Piper and Nick unloaded the chuck-wagon supplies into the truck. She’d watched as Nick led his roping horse into a trailer, and the look on his face had raised the hairs on her arms. Betrayal? Anger?

Whatever the case, it was just enough to remind her exactly why she’d come to the Silver Buckle Ranch.

He’d said little as they drove back to the ranch. Piper unloaded the supplies while he hitched up the trailer to the red pickup and took off.

When he returned, the horse trailer was empty. He’d headed back to the field to help dispose of the dead cattle while Piper stayed back in camp, feeling helpless. She hated that they’d all worked so hard to get the cattle branded only to have so many die. She’d taken those thoughts to bed with her and stared at the ceiling, conjuring up scenarios.

“I think someone is trying to sabotage the ranch,” she said to Carter. “A few days ago they found two of their bulls dead, and this weekend someone started a stampede.”

Carter’s voice changed. “Do you have enough for your article on Noble?”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, I didn’t prove anything really—”

“Come home, Piper. I mean it. If Nick is the man we think he
is, he probably has a list of enemies larger than the population of Montana. I know that you think you’re safe . . . but I want you to come home before you get hurt. There’s only so much a guy can do trying to protect you from afar.”

His concern touched her. He’d always been a sort of fill-in brother for her . . . someone she counted on to pick her up from the airport or eat dinner with on a lonely Saturday night. But she never considered that he might also feel the same brotherly affection. “I’m okay. You don’t need to protect me.”

She heard Carter sigh, as if holding back a retort.

Piper watched the black bodies of the remaining cattle grazing in the winter pasture. She wasn’t sure why they’d left the cattle there. She had a sinking feeling that they might soon be headed to their dark fate. “Besides, I have Nick.”

“What?”

She winced at his tone and even the lunacy of the statement. “Nick saved my life.”

He’d done more than that. He’d kissed her and held her and let her see inside his heart. And what she’d seen only made her long for more.

Worse, in his arms, she’d slept better than she had in years. That alone should send her running for the border.

“He saved your life?” She could picture Carter taking his feet off his desk and leaning over it. “How?”

“In the stampede. I was nearly killed. He dragged me to a pickup for protection. As it was, a cow came through the glass.”

“Okay, really, that’s it. You’re leaving today.”

Piper shook her head. “I can’t. I—they need help. The Silver Buckle is going under and with these cows lost—that’s why I want
you to call the editor at Montana Monthly. And you’re going to have to teach me to cook.”

She heard him groan, imagined him closing his eyes, rubbing his face. “I think all that fresh air has gone to your head, Piper. You can’t cook, remember?”

“Yes, I can. I will. I’ll read these cookbooks, and you’ll tell me what to do.”

“You can’t learn to cook over the phone.”

“I can—it’s just beans and biscuits.”

His pause told her how much he cared about her. “Listen to me carefully. Don’t fool yourself. You can’t cook. You can’t even reheat well. And if Noble finds out you’re stringing them along, he’ll kill you with his bare hands. If you have what you need, then you should leave. Now.”

“I can cook. My mother cooked for years—how hard can it be?”

“Even if you learn to cook—and, yes, you’re smart so you can probably do anything—you can’t stay there all summer! You have a job, and if you don’t come back to it, you’ll lose it. I never liked this idea anyway. Don’t make me come down there and throw you over my shoulder and drag you home.”

“You could teach me to cook while you’re here then.”

She pictured Carter shaking his head, and she smiled when his voice lowered. “Listen to me. You’re not a cowgirl. You’re not a cook. You’re a reporter. A good one whose career could be sliding through her fingers if she doesn’t get ahold of her senses.”

In her mind’s eye, she saw the devastated expression on Stefanie Noble’s face. “I can’t leave them in the lurch.”

“Piper, you are the lurch.”

Her mouth opened in a long, exaggerated gasp. “I cooked a great meal for roundup.”

“You had it catered!”

“I warmed it well. Nick liked it.”

“Oh, Piper,” Carter said, “you’re falling for him.”

“I am not.” Piper flinched at her tone. “I’m not. It’s just that they’re so close to losing everything, and you know what a sap I am for the underdog.”

“Not Nick Noble. Have you forgotten that you went there to find dirt on him so you could even the scales of justice?”

How she wanted to pace. “Okay, listen, I’m starting to wonder if—”

“What? That your brother was really guilty?”

“No, of course not!” But, well, Piper hadn’t talked to her brother in years before his murder conviction. And he had lived all that time with their father; maybe Russell’s ways had infected his son more than she wanted to admit.

No. “Jimmy didn’t do anything. But maybe Nick didn’t either.”

“We did research on Nick, if you remember. He was the last one to see the victim, besides your brother. And we only know about your brother because he confessed. You and I both came to the same conclusion—Nick framed him.”

Piper dug her boot into the ground, not quite sure what to say. Yes, the facts pointed to fishy circumstances. But after spending a week with Nick, her instincts practically screamed Nick’s innocence. Or perhaps that was her heart. At the moment she didn’t know the difference between truth and wishful thinking.

Some ace reporter she’d turned out to be.

“I think I can still get a confession from him.” Her words felt
hollow, but she had nothing else, no other reason to stay at the Silver Buckle.

At least not one she’d admit to herself.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yes. But I need to stay here and . . . cook. However, I don’t know the first thing—”

“Okay, fine. If you can boil water, you can cook. Piper, you’re one of the smartest women I know. And what you don’t accomplish in smarts, you make up for in charm. So go open a cookbook and start reading. Call me tonight with questions.”

“You’re the greatest. Thank you. Thank you! Meanwhile, could you send me a bag of yogurt pretzels and a current edition of the Gazette and—”

“Promise me that you’ll take me with you when you go to Wanted: Justice?”

“Carter, I couldn’t live without you—you know that.”

“The words I love to hear.” She heard his smile on the other end of the line. “I’ll keep my phone with me, Chef Pierre.”

Piper closed her phone, slipping it into her jeans pocket. Right next to her tape recorder.

CHAPTER 15

“O
KAY,
CJ,
ANTICIPATE
, take a breath—” Nick opened the chute, and the calf sprang out, terrified, running for the end of the corral—“now!”

CJ spurred his horse, and the bay shot forward, breaking through the barrier toward the calf. He had already swung his lasso once . . . twice. Then he let it fly. Even as the rope hung in the air, CJ yanked on the reins, bringing the calf to a stop. The rope landed around the calf’s neck, and a second later it broke off from the flimsy string attached to the saddle horn.

“That was 9.24 seconds,” Nick said, looking at his stopwatch. “You’re getting faster every day, kid.”

He remembered his and Cole’s practice sessions, from sunup to nightfall before the big events. He’d break out first, aiming for the head, and a split second later Cole would be aiming for the back feet. They made a synchronic pair—Nick leading, Cole following.

It hadn’t been Cole the Follower who had stood on the St. Johns’ porch a few days ago when Nick had returned Pecos. No, his eyes
had flashed with ownership, his face resolute and unforgiving. And when Maggy joined him on the porch, her hand on his shoulder in a united front against the enemy—him—Nick knew exactly who’d been left behind.

Cole had become a rancher, followed his dream.

Nick had simply drifted.

He had to admit, however, that seeing Maggy and Cole on the porch . . . somehow it looked . . . well, right. As if they belonged together.

It made him wonder if they always had. “You lost Maggy on your own, pal.” Cole’s words had speared right through him, hitting the mark.

He had lost Maggy on his own. Which meant that Cole hadn’t stolen her, not really. Truth be told, seeing Maggy didn’t stir up the old feelings like he thought it might. He could honestly say that he wanted her to be happy.

Nick stepped into the corral, working with CJ as they drove the calf back into the pen. He locked the pen and leaned against the corral as CJ went at it again.

He couldn’t help but like the boy for his energy and enthusiasm. And helping him took his mind off what Piper was up to in the kitchen. He’d probably stopped by the dining hall more often than necessary. Of course, Piper looked adorable in her chef’s coat, with flour on her face, her hair in a ponytail.

“Nick, get out!” He remembered her startled expression yesterday as he’d burst in, smelling smoke yet again. The woman had a knack for setting the kitchen on fire. And her wretched expression as she held a blackened pan of—were those supposed to be biscuits?—only made him laugh.

“Too many irons in the fire, George?”

She’d smiled at him meekly as he approached, then wiped the flour from her nose with his finger. It took everything in him not to bend over and kiss her.

“You’re not supposed to be bothering the cook,” she said, tossing the pan onto the counter and using a metal spatula to work off the biscuits. “I don’t get it. I followed the recipe. . . .”

“Are you trying something new?” He glanced at the open page in the Joy of Cooking.

“Uh . . . yeah,” she said, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

For the first time in over a week, again he felt the niggling sense that something wasn’t right. The ingredients she’d left on the counter only confirmed it—flour, lard, salt, and baking soda. “You know that this is soda . . . not powder, right?”

She frowned and took in the container in his hand. “Oh, wow. Yeah. I’m just tired.”

“You’ve been holed up in here for two days, like some sort of outlaw. What’s going on?”

She’d pushed her bangs back with her forearm, leaving a fresh trail of flour. She didn’t comment as she went back to prying the flattened disks from the pan. Three broke off with a whoosh, and one hit him in the chest. She looked up, wide eyed.

“Hey, look out. Those things are lethal.”

Her expression darkened.

Uh-oh, he’d made George mad. Hiding a grin, he scooped one off the floor and winged it back at her.

She ducked, but a small smile creased her face. Before Nick knew it, she’d gathered the pile of black bullets into her arms, shielded herself behind the counter, and begun to pick him off.

He held his arms over his face and took cover behind the other end of the counter. “Piper!”

“Get out of my kitchen, Nick!”

“Okay, okay!” He hit his knees, slinking out, then ran out the door. But he wore a silly grin on his face all day.

Now, as CJ lit out after another calf, Nick couldn’t help but let his thoughts roam. Like . . . what if he had a son, one with chocolate brown eyes and unruly blond hair, with Piper’s freckles and her devastating smile? Or a little girl, who would climb into his lap to hear his stories and learn to cook like her mother?

The thought so took him, he didn’t notice as CJ roped the calf. “What did you think of that, Nick?”

Nick rounded up his thoughts, tried to find his footing in reality. “Uh, great.”

CJ grinned as he rewound his rope.

“CJ, I have to ask you—your horse is great, but he’s still a little scared of the rope. Why haven’t you tried Pecos?” He kept his voice light, but seeing Pecos had shaken him, and his insides burned every time he thought of his father giving his paint away. If his father had been trying to hurt him, he’d done a stellar job.

“Well, I’m not supposed to ride Pecos,” CJ said, bringing his horse around and backing him into the chute. “Mom told me I couldn’t. The day Uncle Dutch brought him over, she sat on the porch and cried. I don’t know why, but she doesn’t want anyone to ride him.”

“Then why did Bishop give him to her?”

CJ straightened the coils in his rope. “She said it was a gift of love.”

Oh. Nick let that thought simmer. Bishop had always liked
Maggy, but the gift seemed extreme for a caretaker. He had a feeling Bishop was trying to apologize in his stead.

What if, in fact, the gift wasn’t meant to hurt so much as to heal?

Nick locked the calf into the gate, got her straightened around while CJ measured out the loop of his rope and fixed it in his grip. “Try and send it on the second loop this time,” he instructed.

The kid would nail the prize at the Custer County rodeo. But Nick suddenly wanted more for him. He wanted the championship. He wanted to see the hard-earned smile of victory in CJ’s dark brown eyes.

CJ absorbed Nick’s instruction, determination on his suntanned face. Thata boy.

“Ready?”

The boy leaned forward in his saddle, watching the gate.

Nick popped it open, and the calf shot out. A second later, CJ followed. He threw on his second go-round and tagged the calf dead-on. The rope broke at 8.25 seconds.

“Good job, kid.”

CJ grinned at him, again winding up his rope. “I gotta get home. Mom needs help. The bulls dug up a hose, and it’s draining the water tanks. We don’t want any more cows dying.”

“You had a cow die?”

CJ worked to move the calf into a holding corral. “Five of them near the south end. My dad rented the land this winter, and when we went for roundup, we found them and the tank mostly dry.”

“That land bumps up to Hatcher’s Table on Silver Buckle land,” Nick said, mostly to himself.

CJ closed the cattle gate. “I cut through there sometimes on my way to Mr. Lovell’s land. He lets me do some hand work.”

Like mother, like son, apparently. How did this kid find time to practice, homeschool, help his mother, and do odd jobs? Nick wondered if CJ’s workload had anything to do with Cole’s cast and the comments he’d picked up from Stefanie alluding to Cole’s health problems.

To see Cole hurting had bothered Nick more than he wanted to admit. Cole had always worked ten times harder than Nick, and Nick knew it must be sheer torture for Cole to watch Maggy and CJ run the ranch on their own. Cole had set the bar when it came to cowboying.

“Let it go, Nick.” Cole’s words had latched on, dogged him like a hungry coyote. “Let it go.”

And then what? Nick had returned to make sure the Silver Buckle stayed in Noble hands. Letting go would mean giving up. It might even mean selling out. Perhaps to that buyer Saul had rustled up.

No. He’d never surrender the family legacy.

“You and your mom need any help?” Nick wasn’t sure why he asked, but suddenly he couldn’t stop himself. Maybe helping Maggy would give him a peek at their side of the fence. He’d discover why Cole had been so important to Bishop.

“Thanks, Mr. Noble, but we just hired on a man—Jay. He’s working with my mom.”

An old flare of protectiveness—probably left over from his cop days—burst to life inside him. “Jay who?”

“He’s just Jay. He answered an ad my mom put up in Lolly’s. He said he’d been in Wyoming, rodeoing.” CJ climbed down from his horse, led the animal through the fence as Nick closed it.

Nick stood there, rolling that information through his head. Hiring temporary hands was a way of life out here. Still, his past
experience with drifters in Wellesley had his instincts buzzing. “You watch over your mom, okay?”

CJ gave him a curious look, then nodded. “You comin’ to the rodeo on Saturday?”

“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.” He grinned at CJ, then slapped the horse’s hindquarters. “Remember to angle your rope!”

CJ lifted his hat without looking back as he trotted across the field toward the St. John spread.

Nick chuckled, remembering the days when he rode the Silver Buckle as if he already owned it—cocky, young, brash.

Stupid.

“The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever. He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.” The words from Psalm 103 filled his thoughts, a replay from what he’d read last night. Since the roundup and Dutch’s comments, he’d dug out his father’s old, marked-up Bible. Seeing Bishop’s comments written in the margins stirred up memories of his father’s voice: “The love of the Lord remains forever with those who fear him. His salvation extends to the children’s children of those who are faithful to his covenant, of those who obey his commandments!”

Nick hadn’t exactly kept God’s precepts. He’d thrown them out like every other remnant of his upbringing. But without a compass to guide him, he had been left lonely and wandering. And harboring an anger that only festered.

Certainly not the future his father had hoped for him.

His father probably hadn’t hoped for a future in which his children lost the Silver Buckle either. Nick had spent the better part of three days clearing the last of the carcasses from the field and meeting
with the Custer County sheriff again over the circumstances of the stampede. He bristled when the sheriff asked if he thought anyone might be out to cause trouble for the Silver Buckle. Neither he nor Stefanie had mentioned Cole or Pecos.

Stefanie didn’t out of loyalty. Nick didn’t because he wanted to solve this on his own terms.

Everything inside him said Cole wouldn’t start a stampede. And certainly Cole wasn’t responsible for the sick, dehydrated cattle out at Hatcher’s Table. Yes, Cole most likely hated Nick, but could a man change that much? Cole had always been the peacemaker.

Pecos had probably escaped his corral and set out for the home he’d known all his life—the Silver Buckle. An instinct Nick should have followed long ago.

Last night, long after the sun slid behind the Bighorns, Nick had sat in darkness on the porch, watching the light from Piper’s window and wondering how long forgiveness took to incubate and what it might look like when it was birthed.

He was starting to believe that Cole would get everything Bishop had promised him.

And Nick couldn’t do a thing about it.

To Piper, the smell of baking bread—without the added scent of char—felt like the applause of thousands. She sat on the stainless-steel counter, her attention on the little brown-stained oven window.

Carter would be so impressed. She was so impressed. Four days of devouring the how-to sections in Chet’s cookbooks, experimenting with ingredients, learning the difference between biscuit batter
and bread dough, and she’d finally managed to cook something that might have Nick’s mouth watering.