The Last Chance Ranch (25 page)

“No, not at all,” Maggie answered lazily. “There’s nothing quite as relaxing as a spring night, is there?”

“I can’t think of anything,” he agreed. After a moment, he asked, “Is that a black eye you’re nursing?”

Maggie lowered the ice pack, nodding ruefully. “I’ll probably look like a boxer by morning. Seven stitches right through the eyebrow.”

He made a sympathetic noise. “Bet that hurts.”

“It’s all right now, I think.”

“Did you run into a wall?”

“Yes,” Maggie said with a laugh. “A wall of teenagers.”

“Teenagers?” He sounded perplexed.

“I run a small newspaper directed toward thirteen- through seventeen-year-olds,” she explained. “We cover all the news of their community—and unfortunately, the news of the moment is a series of confrontations about a rock band. I got caught in the middle this afternoon.”

He stood to face her, leaning on the support post. “So then you’re Maggie Henderson, right? Of the
Wanderer?”

“That’s me,” she said, surprised. Not many people over the age of twenty had much use for the paper. “You’ve read it?”

“Yes. I like the music reviews.”

“Thanks. I’ll pass that on to the assistant editor, who’s also my photographer.” Maggie gave a small laugh. “And tonight she’s doing everything, since I’m incapacitated.”

“Talented woman.”

“Yes.”

“The paper is a great idea—most people overlook teenagers.”

“I agree. I don’t think it’s ever been tougher to be that age.” Odd, Maggie thought. Perhaps it was the darkness or her exhaustion or his gentle, vibrant voice, but she felt utterly comfortable with this stranger, even in her oversize T-shirt and worn-out jeans. “How do you like your new house?” she asked.

“I love all the windows,” he said, “and the bookshelves in the living room. Are both sides exactly alike?”

Maggie sipped a bit of her beer and let its golden chill cool her throat before she answered. “There’s a breakfast nook on your side that we don’t have, but that’s the only difference.”

“You can’t find places like this too often anymore,” he said. “Everybody’s building condos and putting in microwaves.”

“Speaking of microwaves,” Maggie said with a laugh, “don’t ever run too many appliances at once. My coffee maker in combination with the microwave or even the VCR kicks off the breakers.”

He chuckled appreciatively. “I’ll remember that. I just bought a microwave.” A pause, somehow filled with the lingering sound of his laughter, fell. “I don’t know how to use it, yet, but I guess I’m going to learn,” he added after a moment, a hint of self-deprecation in his tone.

“Don’t worry. I was terrified of mine at first, but it seemed almost criminal not to have one as fast as they cook things. My daughter’s the one who figured it all out for me.”

“Really?”

“She can use it to cook anything now.” Now that’s a bit of scintillating conversation, Maggie, she thought. Even wounded, she could do better than that. “What’s your name, neighbor?”

“I’m Joel,” he said. “Joel Summer.”

In the soft lamplight spilling onto the porch, Maggie could make out a hard-planed face and very dark, straight hair. The shadow view was promising enough that she wished for better light. “What do you do, Joel?”

He shifted again, crossing powerful arms over a deep chest. “I work at the raptor center.”

“Raptors are birds, right?” she asked with a frown.

“Big birds.” He grinned. “Eagles and falcons and hawks. Owls.”

She cocked her head. “That’s an unusual career.” The natural curiosity that had led her into newspapers prompted her next question. “How did you get into that?”

“I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love birds. As soon as I learned you could earn a living studying them, I knew what I was going to do.”

Maggie smiled. “You’re one of the lucky ones, then.”

“‘Lucky’?” There was a distinct edge of bitter humor in the echo.

‘”Blessed is he who has found his work,’” she quoted. “‘Let him ask no other blessedness.’” Maggie lifted her beer in a toast. “Carlyle,” she added.

“Nice theory,” he said.

Maggie heard the faintest tinge of resignation in his voice. “It’s not everything you’d hoped?”

“My work never disappoints me.” Again his grin flashed at Maggie, and she wondered if she’d imagined the other resignation. “Did you know a prairie falcon can fly 150 miles an hour?”

“No.” She smiled.

He smiled, too. “They’re the most graceful creatures God ever created.”

“Are falcons your favorites, then?”

“No, I don’t think I have a favorite.” He made a gesture with one hand. “They’re all—“he shook his head slightly “—magnificent. There’s no other word for them.”

The phone rang inside Maggie’s apartment, and she stood up quickly. The motion sent a quick, sharp wave of dizziness through her brain and she stopped, blinking until her vision cleared, one hand over her wounded eye.

Joel crossed to her in an instant, bracing her with a strong grip on her arm. “Are you all right?”

She nodded as the dizziness passed, lifting the beer ruefully. “Maybe I should have stuck to apple juice tonight.” She glanced up at him, about to offer her thanks, but for one split second, less time than passed between the summoning rings of the telephone, Maggie was utterly awestruck.

For the man looking down at her with concern was more than huge, although he was that—he towered over her five foot ten. He was also fiercely beautiful in the yellow light coming through her screen door. Up close, the hard planes of his face were aligned in perfect symmetry, blunt cheekbones angling to a nose that was large but somehow right in his strong face. A hard-cut jaw led to a square chin below firm, sculpted lips, and his broad brow was broken with careless scatters of dark hair.

All of that would have been enough to make any sane woman take a second glance, but his eyes caught and pinned her where she stood. They were a vivid, electric blue and as clear as the spring night, eyes almost too large for a man’s face, eyes that would see everything, always.

Maggie started as the phone rang again. “I’d better get that before it wakes my daughter,” she said, her voice surprisingly even. “It was nice to meet you.”

He nodded, releasing her arm. “You, too.”

Maggie hurried inside, catching the phone on the fourth ring. It was Sharon, needing advice about the editorial page, which was ordinarily Maggie’s responsibility. Maggie gave her the stats she needed and asked, “How’s it going?”

“If you don’t think this is one of the best issues we’ve ever done, I’ll eat my hat.”

“Thanks, Sharon.” She threaded her fingers through her hair. “You know I trust you.”

“You’re just a worrywart. That’s the trouble with you self-sufficient types—you can’t delegate.”

Maggie grinned. “I delegated, okay? I promise I won’t call later.”

“Get some rest. I’ll see you Friday.”

As she hung up, once more firmly anchored in reality, she glanced over her shoulder toward the front door and smiled. It had been a long time since a man had made her mouth drop. She shook her head and turned off lights on the ground floor. Not even a man that gorgeous could jolt her out of her exhaustion tonight.

But as she climbed the stairs toward her bedroom, she wondered what it might have been like to offer him a beer and chat a little longer in the comfort of darkness.

* * *

Joel lingered on the porch after she had gone inside, reveling in the soft night and first insect noises of the year. Her company would have been welcome, but the night, too, was good—clear and full of stars. The gentle air fed his skin. His life had been void of such simple pleasures for a long, long time. He didn’t take them for granted.

The lights in the apartment next to his clicked out, leaving him in a deeper night. The tape that had been playing on his stereo had reached its end. Around the side of the house, he heard a cat meow raggedly several times, and overhead, a rustling in an elm signaled a squirrel or a bird.

Maggie, he thought. The name suited her in ways he hadn’t dreamed it would, suited her sturdy movements and the strength in her arms and legs.

The ragged meow of the cat sounded again, and frowning, Joel got up to investigate. It sounded hurt or hungry or weak. He peered into the bushes along the house and called softly in the accepted fashion, wondering, not for the first time, if the sounds used to coax an animal were universal or just American. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

Deep in the bushes, Joel saw a flash of round eyes, and the cat wandered out, a big black-and-white tom with matted fur and a notched ear. He croaked another meow, looking at Joel with wary hope.

Joel made no sudden move. Instead, he spoke to the stray in a soft, even voice. “Somebody left you behind, didn’t they? I always hate that.” Slowly, he crouched and reached a hand through the rails. “I won’t hurt you.”

The cat shied, and giving Joel one more glance, dashed back into the bushes.

“You’ll be back,” Joel said, his heart tight. “You’ll see.”

* * *

Thursdays were Maggie’s only certain day off, and she reveled in the chance to sleep late and start the day as lazily as she could. A little after one, her grandmother came over with a copy of the
Wanderer
and a rich selection of pastries in a square white bakery box to share over coffee. It was a Thursday afternoon ritual.

Since she hadn’t seen the paper yet, Maggie was particularly glad to see her grandmother. “I was so worried this wouldn’t get out on time,” she said, eagerly snatching the tabloid-size weekly.

“Goodness, child,” Anna said in her Texas-shaded drawl. “What in the world happened to you?”

“Oh, I forgot you hadn’t seen me. Come on.” Maggie led the way through the living room to her spacious, sunny kitchen before she answered, shaking open the paper as she walked. When she saw the photo covering a solid three-quarters of the front page, she grinned, turning to show her grandmother. “This is what happened,” she said with a chortle. “Isn’t that gorgeous?”

Anna, dressed in a pale green shirtwaist dress with splashes of pinkish flowers, made a clucking noise. She poured a cup of coffee. “I suppose you were right in the thick of it.”

“Not intentionally, but yes, that’s where I ended up.” Maggie smiled as she examined the photo more closely, a good action shot of the crowd, with the demonstrators in the background and an angry boy in leather raising a fist in the foreground. His fist pointed perfectly to the hand-lettered sign in the background that read End Violence in Our Music. Ban Proud Fox. “Beautiful,” Maggie said with a sigh. “The kids are going to love it.”

“Which kids?”

“My readers, Grandma. The ones that buy the paper, remember?”

“Well,” sniffed Anna, “I think it looks like you support that vile music. You’re giving this whole thing so much attention.”

“You know better.” It was old ground. The war over the band Proud Fox had been raging for two months. “I think they write reprehensible lyrics and that they’re not behaving responsibly. But you know what they say about free speech. It’s not free unless everybody has it.”

Anna opened the box of pastries. “No sense in us arguing about it again.” A frown wrinkled her pale white skin as she arranged the sweet rolls on a plate, then took a seat at the table. “That cut looks pretty serious, Maggie. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Fine.” Maggie paused to look at herself in the mirror behind her plant shelf. Aside from the neat arch that sliced through her eyebrow, extending an inch into her forehead, she also had a colorful black eye. She brushed her straight, tawny hair away from the wound and turned back to her grandmother. “I’ll live.” She selected a cheese Danish from the plate on the table and sat down. “Better me than Samantha.”

“She was there?”

“Wearing a leather jacket, yet.”

“Ye gods. See what I mean?”

Maggie chose her words carefully. “None of this would be happening if those who didn’t like the band ignored it.” The Danish was perfect, and Maggie sighed. “Sam’s just going through some kind of identity crisis or something right now.”

“Are you going to let her stay with her dad this summer?”

“Of course I am.”

Anna dabbed her mouth with a paper napkin, her cornflower-blue eyes snapping as she gazed at her granddaughter. “He’s no good for her.”

“I disagree.” Maggie straightened in her chair and cocked her head, puzzled. “Are you angry with me about something? You’re not exactly cheerful today.”

For a moment, Anna measured Maggie. “I’m worried about you. I don’t like this job, and I think you’ve got more than you can handle in your stepdaughter, and you won’t accept help from anybody.” She stood up briskly and carried her coffee cup to the counter. She paused there for a moment. “I spoke with your mother this morning.”

Aha, Maggie thought.

“She’s talking about divorce again.”

Maggie eyed a bear claw, trying to decide whether to have a second. “Big surprise.”

“I didn’t raise her to be like this. Three marriages, all in the dumps. What’s wrong with her?”

“Well, I can’t speak for the second and third, but my father was
not
a gem of a man,” Maggie said. “I think she was brave to stick it out for the twenty years she did.” What Maggie’s mother did was her own business. The two had never been close, and over time had drifted apart to the point that they corresponded only infrequently. If pressed, she would have said she loved her mother but that they had nothing at all in common. Maggie’s true parent was—and always had been—her grandmother.

She went to Anna and hugged her. “Mom’s a big girl now, and you did the best you could. Let the rest go.”

Anna nodded, and when Maggie released her, peered out the window over the sink. “How are the lilacs doing this year?”

Maggie poured a second cup of coffee and glanced out. “Not quite open yet, but they’ll be pretty in a few days.”

“Who’s that man out there, Maggie?” Anna said sharply.

Maggie felt her heart flip oddly as she leaned over, bumping Anna’s shoulder as they both looked out the window. There, admiring the buds on a semicircular bank of lilac bushes, was her new neighbor. “Joel Summer,” she said quietly. He wore shorts this afternoon, and his legs, Maggie thought, were a sight to behold—winter pale but sturdy and corded with muscle. His hair in the daylight was dark chestnut, flicking sparks of deep red light when he moved his head.