Return to Marker Ranch (11 page)

“So you're saying we don't have that kind of chemistry?”

“Yeah. It's like you said. We're friends.” It hurt to say it. It was a lie. But she had to do the right thing. And getting involved with Wade again couldn't be right.

Wade drained his beer, then set the bottle down purposefully on the table. He held out his hand. “Dance with me.”

Her body warmed at the thought of being in his arms. “Why?”

He shook his head. “Damn, you are stubborn. Just dance with me. If you hate it, we'll stop.”

He walked over until they were inches apart. She could feel him there, this energy, restless and edgy, but now she knew the kindness that held him steady underneath. There were a lot of reasons not to, but she ignored them and stepped into his arms.

His big hand behind her back held her up when she felt her knees go wobbly. Being this close to him now, after they'd shared so much, was just
a lot
. She drew a shaky breath and put her hand on his shoulder. He wrapped the other in his, and they swayed to the music.

His strength was magnetic. She'd prided herself on being strong, on keeping everything going on the ranch, on being the person everyone could count on. His thick muscles under her hands, the way he held her up so easily, were sheer relief. She closed her eyes. Her body relaxed into his. He pulled her closer, moving her with him. She laid her head on his chest and inhaled his scent: soap, spice, Wade. She took breaths of him.

She nestled closer, and he tilted his head to bring his cheek down next to hers. She could feel his end-of-the-day stubble against her temple, and her breathing went bumpy and troubled. There was so much heat inside her, as if muscle and bone long frozen were coming alive. She looked up, and he caught the movement and looked down, and his eyes... God, his eyes...serious and deep, dark brown with thick black lashes and then a tiny spark of humor when he whispered, “Do you hate it?”

“No,” she whispered back. “I don't hate it.”

“Is there chemistry?” he whispered.

She let a few beats go by before she admitted it. “There's chemistry.”

He didn't answer, but she caught his smile, just a little triumphant, before he pulled her close again and danced her around in a circle.

When the song ended, he held her tight for an extra moment. She slid her arms around his neck and hugged him.

“Lori,” he whispered against her ear. “I want this with you, so much.”

She buried her face in his chest. Every particle of her was yearning toward him, wanting him closer, wanting him with her. Wanting to find a way to take this heat and sear away all the pain they'd caused. Wishing there was a way to quiet her fears that he'd walk away from her again. “I don't know,” she whispered into his shirt. “I just don't know.”

His hand came over her hair, sheltering, soothing, as he stroked it back from her face. He stepped back so he could see her. “I get it,” he told her. “I get why you don't know. I'll wait. I'll be here. And I'm going to prove to you that you can count on me.”

Tears stung. Frustration that the choices of their past squatted ugly and solid between them, blocking something that felt like it could be so beautiful. “Okay,” she told him. What else could she say? She wouldn't make promises she couldn't keep.

“Hey, let's turn up the music and get to work,” he said, squeezing her shoulders gently and letting her off the hook. “Only this time, I get to choose.”

He walked over to the iPod and grabbed his beer again. Scrolled through her music and tapped. Miranda came back on. It was a sweet gesture, and she smiled her thanks for his choice. But she wished he'd stop being so damn sweet. It was hard to build walls when he kept tumbling them back down.

He gave her a thumbs-up and headed back to the piles of baby clothes. Her rummage sale savior. The man she'd loved, then hated and now, possibly, forgiven.

Dammit.
She wished so much that it wasn't true. She glanced over at him, smiling despite herself as he shook out a pair of miniature overalls. He was right. There was chemistry. But this was a whole lot more than chemicals. And that was what scared her.

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

W
ADE
WOKE
UP
when he hit the floor. Guns blazed around him and he cowered against the bed frame, his mind stuck between the nighttime shadows of his bedroom and the dark cave in Afghanistan, the rock walls shaky protection from the machine-gun fire strafing the outside.

A white flash lit up the room, the shabby furniture pure relief to his wild eyes. The flash was followed by a rolling boom. Thunder. It was nothing but thunder over the mountains. No guns. No fragmenting desert rock, no platoon, no danger.

He was home.

He sucked in air, trying to slow his heartbeat, trying to get a grip on his shaking hands, his racing pulse. Sitting back against the bed frame, he ran sweaty palms over his face.

The thunder rolled again and he winced.

He was such a coward. Couldn't handle a simple thunderstorm. Couldn't handle a bad dream. Even the pills he was relying on to get him through the day were no match for his nighttime fears.

He pushed himself up on shaking limbs, bracing himself as white light flickered. He held his breath, then let it out in relief at the long pause, the thunder distant and low now as the storm passed. He staggered down the hall to the bathroom, flipped the bare bulb on and welcomed the icy water from the tap as he sluiced it over his heated face. He filled a cup and drank it down. “Get a grip,” he muttered at his shadowed face in the mirror.

Such a coward.
Here he was, shaking in the face of a thundercloud and a bad dream.

The other day, after they'd brought the stray heifer down, he'd vowed to Lori to be a man who'd stand by her. In the church hall, he'd held her and told her he wanted to be with her. To be there for her.
Ha.
He couldn't even sleep at night. How the hell was he going to be there for her?

He closed his eyes and pictured her. That was where his mind went automatically, for comfort, for some small piece of grace. Her hair tumbling down over her shoulders the other night in the parish hall. Her funny answers when they'd asked each other questions. The way she'd reached out to touch that ugly crib.

She was brave. All alone at college, she'd done what she felt she had to and then moved forward, learning what she needed to make her dream of taking over her family ranch a reality.

He thought of all she knew about cattle, about managing them in a positive, healthy way. Every time he was around her, he learned something new.

He opened his eyes and stared at the gaunt lines in his face, stark under the bare bulb. His fist came up, wanting so badly to smash the weak reflection. No. It was almost painful to stop his hand, but he did.
No.
No more smashing walls, no breaking stuff like a toddler in a tantrum. If he really wanted to be there for Lori, he had to get himself under control.

He was kidding himself. What did he have to offer? He was a grown man who couldn't get over a war he'd been lucky enough to survive. He hadn't even been wounded. So why was he here, with anxiety running havoc through his system, setting every nerve ending buzzing on hyperalert? Why did
he
have PTSD?

Some kind of flaw in his system. A weakness in his wiring. It must be.

Lori had been through terrible stuff and she was okay. Why the hell was he like this?

He had to get it together. It was that simple. Just tell his mind to calm down and stay in the present. Take all that nervous energy and use it for becoming the man Lori deserved. That should be his focus. That
would
be his focus for now on.

He turned out the light and went back to bed, closing his eyes and willing his mind to stay in the present. He thought about the repairs he was making inside the barn to make it as warm as possible for winter. He thought about the hay he'd ordered today, and how the guy on the phone had been so friendly. He thought about cutting firewood so he could use the fireplace in the living room as the weather got colder.

And then he fell asleep, and dreamed of war again.

* * *

T
URNING
INTO
L
ONE
M
OUNTAIN
R
ANCH
was always like driving onto a movie set. Wade was pretty sure he'd never visited anyplace where everything was so well maintained. There was a green-and-white-painted sign over the drive, just as you'd expect on a ranch. Old wagon wheels were nailed to the fence near the sign, and after them came rambling roses that some Allen ancestor had planted. The fields on either side of the drive were irrigated and weed free, and dotted with cattle grazing in the morning sun.

He parked his truck, but when he opened the door, his old anxiety hit. He was a Hoffman. He didn't belong at a nice ranch like this.

He shook his head. He was a ranch owner now, and he was here on business.
Stay in reality.

Wade glanced at the envelope on the seat next to him. A draft of the water sharing agreement Bill had helped him draw up, just to make everything official. He decided to leave it in the cab for now. He'd go look for Lori and then he'd get it for her.

Okay, if he was honest, he was hoping if he left the plan here, she'd walk him back to his truck to get it. And he'd have a little time alone with her. Because it had been a few days since they'd folded all those clothes and danced in the parish hall, and he'd thought about her nonstop since. She'd said she didn't know if she wanted to date him. He got that. But he wanted to see her.

He came around the corner of the barn and slowed his steps, amazed by all the activity taking place. They were separating out the cows from the calves. But it was quiet. No one was talking or whooping or waving anything around in the air. It was just Lori out there in the corral, looking dusty and beautiful in her straw hat and tight jeans, leaning against the entrance to a chute that led out to a pasture.

Cows were walking toward her and heading obediently down the chute. The calves were avoiding her by ducking under a rail too low for the cows to go under, into a separate corral. All Lori was doing to separate them was occasionally lifting her hand in the direction of a calf, to guide it toward the rail.

And the animals were calm. The calves weren't bawling for their mothers, and from the cows there was only an occasional slightly anxious moo. He'd never seen weaning time look like this. Usually it was noise and hysteria.

“What the heck did she put in the water here?” he asked, joining a group of ranch hands watching from the corral fence.

“Crazy, isn't it?” a stocky, sandy-haired man said. “She calls it calm cattle management. She went to some seminar on it last year.”

“She's bringing all kinds of fancy ideas onto the ranch these days,” a tall, dark-haired, lanky guy added with a grimace. “Seems like every other minute she's telling us we've been doing it all wrong.”

Wade studied him for a minute. He recognized him. He was Seth, the guy who'd been challenging Lori last time he'd come here. “New ideas don't mean you've been wrong,” he told him.

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name's Wade Hoffman. I've got the property down the road.”

“Seth Garner,” the bitter man said. “And this is Terry Evans.”

“Nice to meet you both.”

“Hey, Wade.” Lori was close enough to make them all jump. Wade looked past her and realized the cows and calves were separated, the gates closed. Every animal was nibbling on alfalfa hay, looking extremely content.

“Nice work,” he said, keeping his expression neutral. It was hard not to smile, or pull her in for a hug, or tell her how damn beautiful she was.

“The calf weaners really do make a difference.” She sounded relieved, and Wade realized how stressful it must be to take this kind of innovative approach in front of such a skeptical audience.

“But it's a big old pain because you have to put them in the chute an extra time to get the paddle on,” Seth told him.

“Which took you, what, a couple of hours?” Lori countered. “I think it's well worth it.”

Wade noticed a few other ranch hands drifting toward them to witness the exchange. This power struggle happening between Lori and Seth was probably becoming their daily entertainment. He almost pitied Seth. He'd put his money on Lori coming out on top any day.

“Lori here has us jumping through all kinds of hoops to make sure our cattle are happy and content,” Seth told him, evidently hoping to enlist Wade in his scorn for his boss. “We do everything but cuddle them and sing them to sleep at night.”

“Oh, you hadn't heard, Seth?” Lori's voice was all earnest sweetness. “Now that the calves are separated, I do need you guys to read to them at night. You're on the first shift. Eight p.m. to midnight. I've put a stack of storybooks and a flashlight in a box in the barn. They're going to need a calm tone, but put some animation into your reading as well. We don't want them to get bored.”

“But, I...” Seth stared at Lori, his mouth gaping open. The rest of the men waited, eyes shifting from one to the other. Wade looked away, trying to hide the grin that wanted to take over his face.

“Eight p.m. to midnight. Okay?” Lori repeated.

“But...” Seth sputtered.

“And I like your idea of singing to them. Maybe an hour of songs after the stories, and then you can knock off for the night?” Lori's smile was innocent and bright enough to melt a glacier.

Wade knew her well enough to see the sparkle of humor in those deep blue eyes and the dimple quivering in her sweetly freckled cheek. But Seth didn't know her. He just stared openmouthed until a broad laugh came from the back of the group.

Jim stepped up, guffaws so loud he sounded like a mule. He clapped Seth on the back. “Son, you've been had by the best of them.” He held his hand up to Lori, who gave him a high five as the other men burst into laughter.

Seth shut his mouth and scowled as the other men high-fived Lori and swatted each other on the shoulder as if they'd made the joke. It looked to Wade like they'd been ready to see Seth get what was coming to him.

The ranch hand went red, then pale, then stalked off toward the barn. Wade noted the clenched fists, the anger that had Seth in its grip. Suddenly he feared for Lori. It was one thing to put people in their place if they were normal. But Seth's rage seemed out of proportion.

“Excuse me,” Wade said and went after him. He found him sitting on a hay bale, elbows on knees, fuming.

“What the hell do you want?” Seth asked.

“I want to know why you're working here when you hate it so much.”

“I've worked here a long time.” Seth scowled at him. “Why do you want to know?”

“I've known Lori a long time,” Wade said. “And I don't like the way you speak to her.”

Seth's eyes shifted, and Wade glanced behind him. A few of the other hands had followed them in. Great. An audience. And clearly Seth felt like he had to perform when there were onlookers.

Seth stood leisurely, but Wade was trained for combat. He could see the other man's muscles tensing.

“And why the hell should I care what you say?” Seth was barely done speaking when he launched himself at Wade.

Don't fight.
It defied every instinct he had, but Wade sidestepped at the last minute, letting Seth's own momentum send him down sprawling on the cement floor. Forcing himself to take the high road, he walked over and offered the other man a hand up. “You should care, because I'm right. And because with your attitude, I'm sure you'll get yourself fired soon. So why don't you just spare yourself the trouble and leave?”

“
I'll
say when it's time for me to quit,” Seth grunted as he grasped Wade's outstretched hand and yanked hard, trying to bring him to the floor with him. Wade brought a foot to Seth's chest and shoved him back to the ground, freeing his hand. It was all he could do not to follow through with the kick to the gut that the guy deserved.
Stay in control
, he ordered himself, trying to breathe, to calm the adrenaline that surged.
You're a trained soldier. You stay in control. Even in combat.

Seth staggered up and launched himself at Wade again, anticipating his side step this time. He made contact, hands grasping Wade's shoulders, clawing for his neck. Wade ducked low, the surprise of the move loosening Seth's grip. From there it was easy. Wade grabbed the other man by the waist and flipped him, taking the time to aim him toward a pile of hay. The least he could do for Lori's ranch hand was provide a little cushioning before he slammed him down on his back.

Seth lay in his hay bed, gasping for the breath that Wade must have knocked out of him.
Oops.

“That's enough!” Lori shoved a path between her men and planted herself in front of Seth, her hands on her hips. “Seth, you're fired. Please go pack your things and leave immediately.”

Jim arrived, hastening to her side. He offered Seth a hand up, but Seth shoved it away. He stood on his own and looked at Wade, his lip curling in a sneer. “Look at you, coming here all badass, trying to tell me how to do my job.”

“Seth, mind your words,” Jim cautioned.

Seth spat a gelatinous gob that landed just a few inches from Wade's boot. “If you know so much about ranching, why do you need Lori to come to your rescue all the time?”

Shame was a good weapon. Shocked by Seth's words, Wade didn't see the punch in the stomach coming. Seth hit him hard and Wade staggered backward, doubled over with the pain. Then he started forward, fists curled. His mind seemed to have gone somewhere else. Somewhere disconnected, as if he was watching himself from a distance as he grabbed Seth by the collar and twisted, brought his fist up and hauled it back, ready and eager to crush Seth's face.