Trusting the Cowboy (9 page)

“You don’t know that much about it,” he finished for her, remembering the phone call she got when he brought her to town.

“I know something, but I haven’t been here for over ten years. And I thought—”

“You want me to show him around.”

She looked over at him, her eyes pleading. “I would feel better if someone who knew the ranch could talk to him about it.”

He exhaled, shoving his hair back from his face in a gesture of frustration. What irony. Escorting the future buyer over the ranch he had counted on buying himself.

Though he hoped to go through more of the papers in Keith’s office tomorrow, he was starting to see the futility of it all. All they had found so far was an old lease agreement Keith had drawn up with Rusty Granger—frustrating that he had protected Rusty’s interests but not his—and a host of grocery lists and to-do lists, but that was about it.

He doubted that a further search of the office would yield anything more. And yet he knew he had to give it one more try.

“I know it’s a lot to ask and I’m sorry—”

“I’ll do it,” he said as he got to his feet.

She stood as well, looking sheepish. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“What time is he coming?”

“About noonish tomorrow. Does that work?”

“I’ll be done haying today, provided I don’t get any more distractions.” In spite of his irritation with the situation, he couldn’t help smiling at her. He appreciated the lemonade and cookies, and the fact that she had taken the time to think about him.

“I won’t bug you anymore,” she said, returning his smile.

“Bringing lemonade and homemade cookies hardly constitutes bugging.” He looked over at her and to his surprise she didn’t turn away. As their eyes locked, he felt an age-old emotion rise up in him. The beginnings of appeal and connection. The hesitant looks. The careful dance between a man and a woman signaling a shift toward attraction.

Be careful. This one isn’t for you. She’s not sticking around. She created a host of problems for you.

But in spite of the very wise and practical voice warning him, he kept his eyes on Lauren and she on him.

He wanted to touch her face, brush his fingers over her flushed cheek. The impulse was so strong, he felt his hand rising.

Then she turned away—the moment was gone—and he clenched his fist, frustrated with how she was insinuating herself into his life. Yesterday, after he came back from delivering her plants at the ranch, he’d found his thoughts returning to her again and again.

Reliving that moment when he had touched her.

He gave himself a shake, then bent to pick up his phone.

He frowned when he saw two identical black phones lying in the cut hay, neither of them with covers.

“Which one of these is yours?” he asked, picking them both up.

She looked as puzzled as he was, then took one. “I think it’s this one,” she said, hitting the home button.

A picture of his mother and Dean flashed on the screen and she handed it over to him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“That’s okay,” he said, handing her the other phone. “It was a perfectly innocuous picture.”

She shoved her phone in her back pocket and gave him a wistful smile. “It’s sweet.”

Somehow the compliment fell awkwardly between them.

Sweet.

“So I can tell Alex to come tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yeah. Sure.” Vic dropped his phone in his shirt pocket. “Tell him two is probably best. I should be done by then.” Then he climbed back in the tractor.

Lauren was already walking away, carrying the lemonade container in one hand and the bag with the cookies and the cups in the other. He started up the tractor, backed up and lined himself up with the swath of hay and moved ahead.

But before he started moving, he glanced over at Lauren again.

Only to see her looking at him. She lifted her hand holding the bag, waggled her fingers at him, turned and walked away.

What was that about?

You’re being all high school. Don’t read too much into that.

And yet, as he started working, that simple gesture stayed with him.

As did her smile.

Chapter Seven

“W
e generally put the cows out on these pastures first thing in the spring,” Vic was saying as he walked with Alex Rossiter past the fenced fields across the road from the ranch house. The cows in the pasture were just brown and black dots farther back, closer to the hills. “Then, as the snow retreats on the mountains and the grass starts growing farther up, we move them to the higher pastures.”

Lauren followed a few steps behind, feeling useless but at the same time thankful Vic had agreed to this. She knew that her father moved the cows partway through the summer. She and her sisters had participated in a pasture move years ago.

It had been one of those idyllic days. Sunlight poured from blue sky devoid of clouds. A faint breeze kept bugs at bay and the rhythmic plod of the horses they rode had lulled the McCauley sisters and their father into a good mood.

The memory made her smile.

But it wasn’t the kind of information you could pass on to a prospective buyer.

“How many head can you run?” Alex was asking, punching something into his phone, which never left his hand.

“Two hundred in this pasture with proper pasture management.”

“Management as in?”

“Rotation. Moving them around more frequently.”

“Sure. Whatever,” Alex muttered as his fingers flew over the screen’s keyboard.

The conversation drifted past Lauren, again somewhat familiar but not information she knew.

She sensed an edge of tension to Vic’s voice. He most likely wasn’t the most objective guide, she realized, but he was the one who knew the place the best.

“How long has this ranch been operating?” Alex asked, turning to Lauren. “You’re the owner, after all—you should know that.”

He winked at her. The last time she met Alex Rossiter, it was at her office. He had worn an open-necked shirt, a gold chain, a blazer and blue jeans that were artfully faded and distressed. And expensive. As were his John Lobb tasseled loafers.

Today he had gone with the more down-home cowboy look. Plaid shirt, plain blue jeans, cowboy boots so new they still shone, and topping it all off, a straw cowboy hat, crisp and gleaming.

Then there was Vic, with his twill shirt rolled up at the sleeves, stained leather gloves shoved in the back pockets of blue jeans faded at the knees and ragged at the hem, worn over scuffed cowboy boots. His hat was weathered and sat easily on his head, almost an extension of himself. Authentic. Man of the land.

He looked rooted. Grounded.

Alex was a nice guy, a pleasant man, in fact, but compared to Vic he seemed insubstantial.

His money wasn’t. And she needed every penny of it.

“The ownership of this ranch goes back many generations,” Lauren said. She leaned against a fence post, dredging up the history lessons her father gave them whenever he thought they needed reminders of their past. “My father inherited it from his father, whose wife was related to the Bannister family of Refuge Ranch, which is farther up the valley. Before that it’s a tangle of Bannister and McCauley ownership. I think I ran across a family tree going through my father’s papers. I can show it to you if you’re interested.”

Alex waved off the offer. “No. I was just making conversation.”

His comment was throwaway, but she couldn’t shed it that easily as her gaze traveled over the fields she had ridden on as a young girl, the fields her father and his father and grandfather had owned.

She would be breaking that chain.

The thought affected her, and she felt the beginnings of regret and dangerous second thoughts.

“So what would you like to see next?” Vic asked as Lauren dragged herself back from her precarious thoughts.

“What do you recommend?” Alex addressed his question to her, seeming to ignore Vic.

“We can drive farther down the road to show you some of the other places and a few outbuildings,” Lauren suggested.

“I thought we could go farther up into the hills on horseback. Get a feel for what that would be like. I was hoping you could come along,” Alex said.

He slanted her an arch smile and added a touch on her arm that telegraphed his meaning.

He was flirting with her.

She was taken aback but recovered. She had to keep things professional.

Besides, his attention wasn’t welcome or appreciated. She looked past him to Vic, who stood with his thumbs hooked through his belt loops in a classic cowboy pose.

Only she knew it wasn’t fake. His hat was pulled low, shadowing his features. She couldn’t read his expression, but she guessed he wasn’t impressed with Alex.

“What do you think, Vic? Do you have time to saddle up some horses and go into the backcountry?” she asked.

“Sure. As long as Alex is up to an hour-long ride.”

“I’ll be okay,” Alex said, still looking at Lauren, his smile deepening. “Especially if you come along.”

Lauren tried not to roll her eyes. Instead she gave Alex a tight nod, then pushed herself away from the fence post. “Let’s go, then.”

Half an hour later, as she and Vic were saddling the horses, Alex wandered around the yard, looking at the house, the barns. But it seemed half his attention was on her.

As she slipped the cinch strap through the ring, she caught Vic looking at her over top of Roany’s saddle. “So what’s your take on the guy?” Vic asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I think he’s not interested in the Circle M as a ranch.”

She tugged on the strap and threaded it through a last time, pulling as she did, striving to find the right words to express her own uncertainties and yet not give Vic false hope. “I know. I think he sees it as an investment, though I don’t think he realized how large it was.”

“You told him how many acres it was.”

“When lots the size of your mother’s garden are considered huge, you can’t imagine how much land a ranch can encompass.” She sighed, glancing back at Alex, who now stood, hands on his hips, smiling up at the house as if it met with his approval.

She had talked to Amy yesterday to reassure her that she would, indeed, send her share of the investment to her in a couple of months, once the will was satisfied and Alex had transferred the money.

Which he had assured her was not a problem.

“And you must do what you must do,” he said, his voice quiet.

Lauren wasn’t sure if he was mocking her or simply acknowledging her circumstances. Trouble was, she didn’t like to think that he would want to hurt her.

She lowered the stirrup and rocked the saddle horn to make sure everything was secure, then ducked under the horse’s lead rope to get the bridle.

“I’m sorry,” Vic said as she passed him. Then, to her surprise, he caught her by the hand and turned her to look at him. “I shouldn’t put pressure on you. It’s just— I’m thinking that you’re starting to like it here.”

She suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

“I am. It’s peaceful here,” she said finally, fully aware of the callused warmth of his hand and how reluctant she was to remove hers. This was getting to be dangerous, she reminded herself even as she kept her hand where it was. The subtle connections between them were luring her into a place she had promised herself she would never go again.

“It can be,” he said, his thumb making slow circles over her hand, making her heart speed up. “Winter can be harsh and wild, though. When the wind whips up snow and piles it into snowbanks, blocking off roads.”

“I’ve never been here in the winter, except when I was a little girl,” she said, her breathless voice struggling to find equilibrium.

“It has its own beauty, though,” Vic continued. “Its own moments when the sun comes out and the world looks like an endless blanket of white.”

His voice and the pictures he sketched with it were beguiling, and Lauren imagined herself tucked away in her father’s ranch house, looking out over blinding fields of white, a fire blazing in the hearth, a book on her lap.

It’s a dream
, her practical self told her. A foolish dream. How would she survive? How would she make a living?

She tugged her hand free and pulled herself away from Vic. She hurried to the tack shed, and in the quiet and gloom she caught her breath and regained her perspective.

She was growing dangerously attracted to Vic.

She couldn’t allow this. Letting another man into her life was dangerous. Her father. Harvey. She had known them longer than she had known Vic and they both had proved to be untrustworthy. No way could she allow herself to be vulnerable again.

But unbidden came the questions Vic had asked her when they were coming back from the greenhouse. Questions no one had ever asked her—why she did what she did. Why she was an accountant.

She was good at it. It was her job. Her dream to start her own business.

But even as she repeated the words in her head, standing in this tack shed, the scents of old leather and saddle soap and the musky smell of horse blankets stirred other memories of rides into the hills. The freedom she felt here.

The peace.

She shook off the thoughts, grabbed Roany’s halter and took a steadying breath. It was losing her father, she thought, that was making her feel so nostalgic. So vulnerable. She couldn’t let herself get all emotional.

And with that pep talk fresh in her mind, she stepped out of the shed and ran straight into Alex.

“Whoa, there,” he said, grabbing her arms to steady her. “There’s no rush.”

She gave him a tepid smile, pulling back. “Sorry. I don’t want to keep Roany waiting,” she said, holding up the bridle.

“I guess we don’t want antsy horses on our ride.” Then, thankfully, he lowered his hands.

She walked over to Roany and felt a moment’s hesitation. It had been many years since she had bridled a horse, but she knew Vic and Alex were watching and she wanted to prove herself competent.

Take your time, analyze the situation, then move with confidence.

Her father’s advice returned to her. She took the headstall in one hand, the bit in the other, and with the hand holding the bit, inserted her finger and thumb on each side of Roany’s mouth. She put pressure on his mouth, then he obligingly opened it and she neatly slipped the bit inside.

A few seconds later the bridle was on and buckled and Lauren felt in control of her world.

She led Roany to Alex, showed him how to get on, then returned to where Vic was buckling up Spot’s bridle.

“Is she ready?”

Vic nodded, avoiding her eyes, and she wondered if he regretted that moment he had touched her.

As she mounted and followed Vic and Alex, she couldn’t help but think how Alex’s touch had done nothing for her.

But Vic’s had left her breathless.

* * *

“From here you can see across the valley.” Vic pointed out the Saddlebank River meandering through fields and groves of trees. “Just to our right, about two miles down, is where Refuge Ranch starts, and beyond that the Fortier spread.”

The land spread out below them and Lauren rested her hands on the horn of the saddle, letting her eyes sweep over the vista with its varying shades of green. The shadows of clouds moved over the undulating land. She heard the trill of a song sparrow, the eerie cry of a hawk circling overhead. And blended through it all the occasional lowing of cows.

An unexpected tranquility came over her and a peculiar happiness followed.

“I always loved coming up here,” Lauren said to Vic, drawing in a cleansing breath and releasing it slowly.

“It’s a beautiful view.”

She glanced over at Alex, but he was frowning at his phone, reading something on the screen.

“The land goes right down to the river, doesn’t it?” she asked, turning back to Vic.

“Some of the richest pastureland is right along the Saddlebank River. And it can carry a lot more cows than it does, but your dad would’ve needed more help to run them all. It’s a great ranch, lots of potential.”

Lauren was surprised at the admiration in Vic’s voice. The way he leaned forward in the saddle, as if getting a better look at what lay below, showed a connection to the land that she envied. He was rooted here. He belonged here.

“What would you do with the ranch that my father didn’t?” As soon as she asked the question, regret flashed through her. As if she was encouraging him to verbalize dreams that would never take place now.

But Vic smiled and pointed to the land below. “I’d break that pasture along the river and turn it into cropland.”

“Wouldn’t that leave you short on pasture?”

“The ranch isn’t running to capacity. I’ve been holding back heifers to increase our herd over time. And when I get to the herd size I want, I would break the existing pastures into smaller ones and utilize rotational grazing to get more out of them.” He glanced over at her and then gave her a laconic look. “But I guess that’s all just a dream now, isn’t it?”

Lauren didn’t look away as regret and second thoughts scrabbled at her. She wanted to apologize, but that seemed moot. “Do you have the same view from your place?”

“No. Our ranch is on the other side of the road.”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Alex?” Lauren avoided Vic’s eyes, glancing over at Alex, but he was still busy with his phone.

She felt a moment’s irritation and he must have sensed it, because he suddenly glanced over at her and slanted her a sheepish grin. “Just checking with my partner. He’s shifting some stocks for me.”

Lauren only nodded, recognizing his need to keep his finger on the pulse of his business.

Something she’d been neglecting the past two days. This morning she’d checked her phone and seen four text messages from Amy. She’d quickly answered them but left her phone in the house when she went out to help Vic.

She didn’t want to be distracted on this ride, and she didn’t want business to intrude.

“So, tell me some more about the ranch,” Alex asked, dropping his phone back into his shirt pocket.

“This ranch can carry about eight hundred cow-calf pairs,” Vic was saying, “and it currently has about four hundred acres in hay, which I was thinking—”

“What about the horses we saw on the yard? Would they come with the ranch?” Alex asked, interrupting Vic, turning to Lauren.