Читать книгу The Reluctant Rancher - Leigh Riker - Страница 11

CHAPTER TWO

LATER THAT NIGHT Blossom surveyed her temporary bedroom. She’d made it through dinner, even held her own with Logan Hunter, although it would be an understatement to say her new boss wasn’t impressed by her cooking. She’d tried to make the meal special with lacy place mats and the few flowers she’d found in the neglected garden, but it had been Willy and Tobias who kept up the conversation.

At least she’d managed to wash the dishes without breaking any of Logan’s best family china.

By the half-open window she plopped down in an old rocking chair. Its wooden arms were worn to a smooth patina that soon warmed under her hands, and the nighttime breeze smelled of grass and animals. Blossom breathed deep. The aroma was better than perfume to her. She’d never had a home like this, but oh, more than anything she wanted one. Her bedroom. The chintz curtains weren’t her style, nor was the fading forget-me-not wallpaper, but tonight she had a job—if only she could do it to Logan’s satisfaction. Something she’d never been able to do with Ken.

Blossom put a hand over her heart, making sure the treasure she’d put there was still safely tucked away. She should feel peaceful tonight, but of course she didn’t. As clear and sharp as broken glass, she recalled how quickly Ken had changed from the attentive boyfriend who said he loved her into the coldhearted fiancé who seemed to hate her.

Not all men, she kept telling herself, had his mercurial temper. Just the ones she’d known. She hadn’t seen that in Logan—yet—but then men like Ken and her father never showed their true colors until it was too late.

Blossom slipped a hand under her oversize shirt to touch the small picture she’d hidden in her bra. Carefully, she withdrew it then held it near the light to study the creased, blurred sonogram image in black-and-white, trying to make out a tiny hand here, a foot there.

She saw no need to tell Logan about her baby. If she could keep from getting fired for even one week, she would take her pay and hit the road again.

Every week, every mile down the road from Pennsylvania to Kansas, every awful job she’d taken to stay alive and protect her unborn baby, took her that much farther from Ken. She had to keep going.

She held the picture to her chest and began to hum, as if the baby she carried was already here in this safer place, his or her sweet, warm body against hers.

Blossom shut her eyes. Tonight she was in a nice, if a bit old-fashioned, room in a wide-windowed, airy house in the middle of nowhere. A house that only needed a woman’s touch—even hers—to feel homey again. Once she got the hang of it, this job wouldn’t be half-bad. And while she was here, Blossom meant to do it well. As well as she could anyway.

Comforting herself, she rocked and sang.

About a little baby...and a mother who’d buy her a mockingbird.

* * *

IN THE DARK Logan listened to the soft melody that drifted from the upstairs window. He pushed the front porch glider with one sock-covered foot. For years it had had the same creak, even before his parents had died, and even when his grandmother was still alive, but he wouldn’t oil it. Neither would Sam. Everything in this house had its own special sound by now, and he didn’t see any reason to paint the metal swing while he was here either. A few rust spots sure wouldn’t ruin his faded work jeans. No problem.

But Blossom? She had trouble—big trouble—written all over her. And that was a problem he didn’t need.

Hours after he’d choked down that too-hot curry, he was still seeing her at his grandmother’s table tonight using his mother’s things. She’d looked more at home there on her first night than any of Mother Comfort’s other candidates would have in a dozen years. No, she’d looked relieved.

Sure, she was pretty enough—although he’d never been drawn to redheads before—but what really got to him was that lost look about her. And if he kept seeing her as an appealing woman, a woman in need, rather than an employee...

Logan wasn’t looking for love. Blossom, on the other hand, looked as if she’d found it then lost it somehow and wouldn’t be the same until it was in her grasp again.

He had enough to worry about. One day he’d been in Wichita about to flight-test a sweet new jet, vying for the promotion he badly needed—the one with better pay that would allow him to fight his ex-wife for joint custody of their now six-year-old son. The next morning he’d been back on the Kansas plains, a temporary cowboy again.

The soft tune floated down to him once more from the window, and the glider jerked to a stop. He should be inside going over the ranch accounts, because no way could Sam do them right now. With his mind on some other planet, he couldn’t be trusted to make any decisions. Instead, Logan had been sitting out here alone in the blackness with a sweet song for company, thinking sad thoughts about his broken marriage and the child he seldom saw.

Upstairs Blossom was buying a diamond ring for some baby she sang to.

He wouldn’t fall for Blossom Kennedy. If she thought he’d missed the travel plans that shone in her eyes, she was mistaken. She wouldn’t stay long.

Neither would he.

* * *

“GIRL, SET YOURSELF down a spell. You haven’t stopped moving all morning.”

Sam’s blue eyes sparkled, all the more vibrant in his pinched white face as he lay back against the fresh sheets Blossom had just put on his bed. She elevated Sam’s head on a stack of pillows and tucked an old but hand-sewn quilt around him. Dull sunlight streamed through his bedroom windows, which were filmed with dust, and Blossom made a mental note to wash them.

“Rest,” she said. “Your grandson won’t thank me for making you more tired this morning than you were when I got here yesterday.”

Sam grunted. “What I’m tired of is being in this bed.”

“Logan is right. The more you rest, the quicker you’ll heal.”

“What’s that?” he said. “Another old wives’ saying?”

She smiled. “I don’t know any old wives.”

Sam snorted. “That was good lemonade you made for dinner last night. Tart but just sweet enough.” He grinned. “Too bad my pucker was wasted. Some woman missed the best kiss of her life.”

Blossom laughed. “You’re bad.” Gathering up his used sheets, she walked to the door. He looked pale to her, and although his running conversation had been sprinkled with corny jokes while she cleaned his room, she sensed he wasn’t quite himself. Blossom could read moods as fast as any high-speed computer could crunch numbers. “You take a short nap and when you wake up, I’ll have lunch ready.”

He straightened. “More of your curry?”

“There’s none left.” She raised her eyebrows. “The other men took care of that. And you,” she added. Last night Sam had eaten two helpings.

“Not Logan,” he guessed.

“He finished his dinner, too, but he wasn’t happy about it.”

“Fussy eater. Always has been.” Sam shook his head then seemed to think better of it. He rubbed one hand over his forehead. “That boy didn’t eat anything but grilled cheese sandwiches until he was ten years old. Then came beef—when I still ran cattle like his daddy and grandpa before me. Even then, he still wouldn’t touch anything that didn’t start out bawling, on four hooves, right here on the Circle H.” He paused. “Far as I’m concerned, my bison now are better than beef. They yield less fat and more protein. But Logan won’t even try the meat.”

We’ll see about that. “He needs to expand his horizons.”

Sam’s expression turned wistful. “I wish I could have seen him choke down that curry. I heard Tobias and Willy laughing all the way up here.”

Blossom didn’t miss his underlying message.

“You can join us for dinner as soon as that dizziness goes away. I’ll save your place at the head of the table.”

He fell back against the pillows again, as if the spinning in his brain had gotten worse, and Blossom felt her heart clench.

“I am kind of tired,” he admitted. “Too much thinkin’ yesterday. I’ll rest my eyes to get ready for lunch. Don’t tell me what it is. Surprise me.”

Blossom had no idea what to serve, or if Logan and his men would come back to the house for the noon meal. Maybe she should ask him to approve her menu—as soon as she made one. With a last glance at Sam, who had turned his face away, she stepped out into the hall.

“Olivia?” The unfamiliar name stopped her, the bundle of sheets in her arms. “Thanks. Makes a man proud to have a daughter-in-law like you. Now, if you and Logan can just set your minds to giving me a few more great-grandkids...”

He trailed off and Blossom’s heart sank. He’d mistaken her for his daughter-in-law. Yesterday he’d thought she’d come to the ranch in answer to some singles ad. When Logan had asked him his name, Sam had stopped to think. He was clearly disoriented, at least part of the time, but she wouldn’t make things worse by pointing that out and upsetting him.

“We’re working on it” was all she said.

With her cheeks feeling flushed, Blossom carried the old bedding down the stairs, through the front parlor and the dining room, and on into the kitchen. She dropped the pile down the laundry chute.

More great-grandkids, Sam had said, which implied there was at least one already. Blossom hadn’t seen any children and certainly no wife for Logan. So where was Olivia?

None of that was her concern. As long as Sam got well enough so he could leave his bed, she’d feel she’d done her job here. It was the least she could do in return for finding this brief refuge at the Circle H.

The sunny morning and the vast expanse of land isolating her here on the ranch lifted her spirits. If she could find Logan, she’d ask about the lunch menu she didn’t have yet. While she was at it, she’d tell him about the incident with Sam.

* * *

LOGAN WAS IN a corral on the far side of the barn, trying to keep from getting his head kicked in like Sam. He’d rather be mucking stalls because, oddly, that chore was his favorite—if he had one here. As a kid he’d sure spent enough time at it. Logan had lived on the Circle H from birth until he left to join the service. With a pitchfork in his hand, he still liked to let his mind drift, to pretend he was really where he wanted to be, back flying a jet. Sometimes he even whistled to himself as he worked. But if he couldn’t cut short the brief leave of absence he’d taken from his job, this unplanned stay on the ranch could threaten his pending promotion. He wasn’t whistling now. No pitchfork either.

“Stand still,” Logan told the shaggy bison bull calf he’d been trying to doctor for an infection. The stubborn weanling had turned over a bucket of warm water, splashing Logan’s boots. He’d just bent over the bull’s hoof again, one foreleg trapped between his thighs to steady it, when Blossom suddenly appeared. The startled bison knocked Logan on his backside in the dirt.

“Hey!” he yelled, when he knew better than to shout or move fast around the touchy bison. Struggling for breath, Logan picked himself up, dusted himself off and glared at Blossom over the corral fence. “You live on a ranch, you learn to be careful. Hear me?”

Blossom froze like some ice sculpture. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

Oh, no. There was that lowered head again, and her gaze had shifted away.

“It’s okay,” he said in a softer tone. “No harm done.”

Or would the new ache in his hip turn into something worse by nightfall? Getting hurt on a ranch with danger all around was par for the course.

“These bison are ornery critters, easily spooked,” he said.

Wide-eyed and white-faced, Blossom stood stock-still by the rail. He had started toward her, afraid she might faint, when from behind the bull rushed past him, almost flattening Logan again. For one second he thought it meant to crash through the fence and run right over her. Instead, it thrust its broad, runny nose at her through the boards with a lowing sound like a whiny toddler. It hadn’t liked being separated from its mother, and the cow was pacing back and forth along the side of the corral that edged the far pasture.

To her credit, Blossom didn’t scream.

She held one hand to the gap between the boards and let the bison sniff her.

“What a cute boy you are,” she crooned, as if she were still singing that lullaby from last night.

Logan was so surprised he was speechless. “I wouldn’t say ‘cute,’” he finally said. “He nearly stomped me into the ground. I don’t mean to criticize, Blossom, but these animals aren’t pets. And they don’t normally like people much.”

He’d already rescued the tortoiseshell kitten from the bison’s hooves twice today. The fool cat followed him everywhere. Logan had been forced to shut her in the tack room. Maybe for Blossom’s own safety he should lock her in there, too.

But he couldn’t seem to move. “I’ll be,” he said.

That bison calf looked all moon-eyed.

He sure seemed to like Blossom.

Logan couldn’t take his eyes off her either. “I’d ease away from that fence before the calf takes a mind to hurt you. You never can tell what they’re going to do. And even this one is stronger than you might think. Ask my grandfather if you don’t believe me.”

“He only wants a little affection,” she said.

Did she mean the calf, or Sam?

“Still, I wouldn’t—”

He didn’t get the rest out. The bull calf shoved its huge shaggy head into the stout fence—and splintered several planks. Before Logan could react, the bison pushed his whole upper body toward Blossom.

“Whoa, Nellie!” he yelled. “Blossom, head for the barn.” The much bigger bison cow was bawling her head off now. “I’ll open the gate to the pasture so he can rejoin his mama.”

Logan didn’t wait to see whether Blossom followed his order. As soon as the far gate opened, the calf whirled around then thundered toward freedom.

With a sigh of relief that no one had been killed, Logan went after Blossom. He found her standing in the barn aisle, talking to one of the horses in its stall. Cyclone, the big black colt Sam had bought months ago.

“Watch it. He nips,” Logan told her, though bite was more appropriate.

Horse or bison, they were tame only as long as they wanted to be. Strange, how unafraid she seemed of these animals when one look from Logan could make her shy away as if she were about to bolt.

“I’m sorry about—out there,” she said. “You’re okay?”

“Fine.” He hoped she hadn’t noticed him limping across the barnyard.

“Nellie?” She quirked an eyebrow. “That’s his name?”

Logan blinked. “No, this is Cyclone.”

“I meant the little buffalo.”

He did a double take. “Blossom, we don’t name these bison.” He suspected Sam sometimes did, and so had he during his 4-H years of raising beef calves for the summer fair, but Logan refused to personalize them now. By fall some of the herd would become pricey burgers—something he didn’t like to think about—on the menu at a fancy restaurant in Dallas, LA or Chicago.

And Logan would be back in Wichita. Flying again. He wasn’t about to make any more personal connections to this place.

“Maybe you should name them.” Her mouth tightened. “Instead, you shouted at him, scared him.”

Logan shook his head. “He could’ve killed you—and you feel sorry for him?”

“Yes. What did you do to him? It wasn’t just me. It must have been something to make him want to knock you over like that.”

Her tone told him he’d only confirmed her worst opinion of him. The knowledge should keep him clear of any involvement he might be tempted into, but she was easy to look at, and in that moment the sweet smell of her shampoo teased his nose with the clean, fresh scent of outdoors.

“He has a hoof abscess. I was treating it. He didn’t want me to.” That pretty much summed things up.

“You’re wrong.”

He rubbed his neck. “You have to show an animal like that who’s the boss. He’s wild, Blossom—dangerous.” He paused. “How do you think Sam wound up in bed with that busted leg and his head all mixed up?”

“Not from a baby like him,” she insisted.

“You’re wrong.” He repeated her accusation. “Sam got between that same calf and his mama. She flung him like a rag doll up against a tree. By the time he landed, he was in a world of hurt.” He paused. “The bruises were just the start. I don’t want you to end up the same.”

Now it was Blossom who blinked. “Well. Thank you for your concern.”

As if no one else had ever cared about her.

Exasperated, Logan planted both hands on his hips. Heedless of his warning, she had slipped her hand through the bars to pet Cyclone’s neck. The colt all but purred like a cat. “He has a lot of promise but no common sense,” Logan said.

“He’s like the bison baby. He’ll never learn to be gentle if he’s...”

“Mistreated?” The word had just popped into his head.

“Punished.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. I’m the bad guy here?”

He turned away. And nearly tripped over the tortoiseshell kitten. How had she gotten out of the tack room?

He eyed Blossom. “You again?”

“I was looking for you. I heard her crying. So I let her out.”

Logan picked up the cat, who instantly nestled into the crook of his neck. “Just so you know. I didn’t touch that calf except to help him. I’d never touch this horse in anger.”

“They won’t respond to threats either.”

“Ah,” Logan muttered. “I see. You decided to work on this ranch, so you stopped at some bookstore on the way and bought a copy of The Horse Whisperer. Or The Cat Whisperer. No, there’s probably a Bison Whisperer, too.” Putting the kitten down, he gave Blossom a pointed look. “I have news for you. Sometimes—like when you’re about to get kicked—that touchy-feely stuff doesn’t work, city girl.”

Still shaken from his near brush with serious injury, he tried to stare her down. Finally, she glanced away, her gaze following the kitten as she meandered down the barn aisle. From the bend of Blossom’s slender neck, he realized she must consider herself akin to the bison calf. Mistreated. Was that the expression he kept seeing in her eyes?

He knew little about her. He wanted it to stay that way.

The kitten disappeared around the corner, probably headed for a hay bale and a nap. And Blossom was gazing past Logan, out the barn doors. She stared at the long driveway, as she often did.

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry I put you in danger. I am a city girl.”

He tried to lighten the moment. “Let me guess. New York? Boston?”

“Philly,” she admitted. “City of Brotherly Love.”

Logan nearly missed her subtle change of tone. She’d seemed so cheerful earlier, yesterday, too, and even at dinner last night. He didn’t want to see that other look in her eyes or hear the trembling words that spoke of some deep hurt. He had enough troubles of his own and all the responsibility he could handle.

She took a breath. “The farther west I travel, the more...open I feel. Less closed in somehow.”

He couldn’t help but smile. “That’s how I feel when I’m flying.”

“You’re a pilot?”

“Private jets. Experimental sometimes—but mostly redesigns.” Until he got his promotion. Then his assignments would become way more interesting.

“A test pilot,” she said. “No wonder you don’t seem that happy to be here.”

He looked outside the barn at that big blue sky. “Got me,” he said.

“I think I know how you feel. Flying high must seem like being a bird. I suppose if I reached California, I’d feel positively free.” She didn’t sound that convinced. “Or maybe,” she added with that look again, “I’ll just run out of road.”

He didn’t want to care, but still he had to ask.

“Blossom, what are you running from?”