Susan Mallery - The Rancher Next Door

“I admire what you’ve done here,” she said.

He told himself the compliment didn’t matter even as he enjoyed hearing it. “I had good role models. Old Bill Smith was the foreman for nearly twenty years. He believed in using new technology if it saved time and money.”

“Any regrets about staying?” she asked.

He didn’t like the question. “I told you before. I’m content with my life.”

“I know, but I was hoping for something more.”

“A confession? I don’t have any.”

She tried to smile, but it wobbled at the corners then faded altogether. “Gee, and I have too many.” She took a step toward the door and paused. “Thanks for taking the time with Shane. I know you’re busy.”

“I meant what I said, Katie. I enjoyed his company. He’s a bright boy.”

“Not everyone has figured that out. You were one of the good guys back when I was Shane’s age, and it looks like you still are.”

He watched her walk away. Her hips swayed. Her curls danced. She moved into the sunlight like an angel of God returning home.

Jack blinked. Where the hell had that thought come from? Was he getting soft or something? No way was he interested in Katie. Except for occasional sex, he did not do relationships, and he wasn’t going to risk any entanglements, sexual or otherwise, with someone like her. She’d always been trouble and that hadn’t changed. Besides, he’d learned his lesson. Women didn’t stay with him very long. Why get all wound up about something that was bound to end?

He stared through the open door, saw her call for her son, then step into her Explorer. He ignored the unexpected ache in his gut, ignored the fact that it was mighty similar to the ache he’d felt when she’d left eleven years before. There was no way she still mattered. Not after all this time.

Even so, he would do his best to avoid her. Keeping his distance had always been the safest route. If he hadn’t known that when he’d been a teenager, he’d learned it in spades as a man.

Katie closed Shane’s bedroom door and sighed. Her son was finally asleep. Despite his usual quiet demeanor at dinner, the rest of the evening had been spent with him chattering about his time with Jack. How he’d helped with the oil change. How Jack had explained the different parts of the truck engine to him. How Jack seemed to like him.

It broke her heart that her nine-year-old son worried that adults didn’t like him. Unfortunately she knew exactly where that fear came from. First from Shane’s father, who had walked out of his life before he was born and had never reappeared, then from her father, who couldn’t say a single pleasant word to the boy.

“Katie?”

Speak of the devil, she thought as she turned and saw her father approaching.

“Hi, Dad.”

Her father didn’t respond to her greeting. Judging by his closed, angry expression, he wasn’t going to.

“In my office. Now.”

She thought about protesting. She wasn’t a little girl any more. She didn’t like him ordering her around. Then she glanced at her son’s closed door and knew that if she got into it with her father here in the hall, Shane would hear everything.

“I would be delighted to join you for a few minutes,” she said lightly. “Lead the way.”

Aaron glared at her, as if suspecting sarcasm, then turned on his heel and headed down the hall. Two minutes later they were in his office at the back of the house.

A fire burned briskly in the fireplace and chased away the chill. This twenty-by-twenty room was her father’s domain and always had been. A large desk sat in the middle of the floor. Worn chairs flanked it. There were a couple of bookshelves, trophy animal heads mounted on the paneled walls and a large calendar featuring cattle opposite the desk.

The office was the place she and her siblings had presented themselves when they were in trouble or at report card time. Lectures and punishment came from this room, as did their allowances and chore lists. The kitchen might be the heart of the house, but this place was the heart of her father’s world.

Katie settled into the worn leather wing chair closest to the fireplace. While the night wasn’t especially cold, she found herself shivering. Her father took the seat behind the desk-his usual position in this room.

Katie closed her eyes for a second and breathed in the different scents. Leather, dust, wood smoke, the faint hint of cattle and horses. She leaned her head against the chair and smiled at her father. “I know you’re not going to lecture me about my grades or staying out late. I was actually a pretty good kid.”

Aaron’s hard features softened slightly. “That’s true. You paid attention to the rules. The boys and Josie were a bit of a handful. Of course Suzanne’s girls more than made up for you two, and then some.”

Katie laughed. Aaron spoke the truth. While she had been a practically perfect, probably boring child, her sister Josie and Suzanne’s daughters, Robin and Dallas, had been hellions. Especially Robin, who now flew helicopters for the Navy. The three girls had been headstrong, bright and fearless. Aaron adored them even as he resented Robin’s attempts to get him to modernize.

Her father rested his forearms on the scarred desk and met her gaze. “I want to know what you think you’re doing, going to the Darby ranch like you are.”

Katie hadn’t been sure what he wanted to talk about. The knot in her stomach had expected something about Shane. When she understood she was the one who had displeased him she felt first relief, then amazement that he still kept the ridiculous feud alive.

“You make it sound like I’m selling secrets to a Third World country,” she said, hoping to inject some humor into their conversation. “I’m a trained physical therapist, Dad. Right now Hattie Darby is one of my patients. I’m over there helping her recover from her accident.”

“You’re going to have stop treating her. She can find someone else.”

Katie’s mouth opened and closed. She didn’t believe she was hearing this. “Actually I don’t have to stop and she doesn’t have to find anyone else. Except for the hospital staff, I’m the only physical therapist in Lone Star Canyon. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to move back here. I knew that I would have plenty of work and could provide a necessary service. But I can’t settle in town and then hang out a sign saying No Darbys Allowed. I have a responsibility to myself and to the community.”

“That’s a load of horse manure, and you know it.” Her father glared at her. “You don’t need to work at all. You can live on the ranch just like before. I’ve never liked the idea of you being all on your own in Dallas.”

Not in this lifetime, she thought with a shudder. Not even on a bet. “Dad, welcome to the modern age. Lots of women take care of themselves. We live in cities, have jobs, we even drive.”

His gaze narrowed. “Don’t get smart with me, missy.”

Whatever nostalgia he’d felt at their shared past had faded, she realized with a sigh. As she watched, color rose in her father’s face. He was getting angry, and they hadn’t been talking but five minutes. Why did he have to make everything a fight?

She straightened in her chair and leaned toward him. “Dad, I appreciate the offer, but I’m not the kind of person who would be happy living here. I need to make my own way. I love my work. It’s important to me and it makes me happy.”

That made him think for a minute. “I don’t want you working with Darbys.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“We all have choices. You chose to come and live on the ranch while your house is being built. While you’re under my roof, you’ll follow my rules.”

She couldn’t help laughing. “You are the most stubborn, difficult man I’ve ever know. This is exactly why I’d never move home on a permanent basis, Dad. You make me crazy.”

Reluctantly he smiled in return. She watched the wrinkles deepen with his grin. Every time she saw him he looked a little older. He was still powerful and formidable, but she wondered how much longer it would be until he looked old and frail. She dreaded that day. Aaron was as much a part of her world as the sun or the sky.

“I need my work,” she said quietly. “I make a difference in people’s lives, and that makes me feel whole. Part of that work means helping Hattie. I won’t turn my back on her, no matter what you say. Can you live with that or do you need me to move out?”

Aaron glared at her. “You’re my daughter, and there will always be a place for you. But I don’t like what you’re doing.”

“As long as you still like me, Dad.”

He grunted in response, which was as close to a sign of affection as he gave. He shuffled the papers on his desk, then returned his attention to her. “We need to talk about that boy of yours.”

Warning sirens went off in her head. “No, we don’t.”

“The boy’s a sissy. I’ve been telling you to get him up on a horse, but you don’t listen. You cater to him too much. If you don’t get out of his way, he’ll never turn into a man.”

Her spine stiffened. “You mean he won’t turn into you. Guess what, Dad? That’s fine with me. Not because I don’t love you but because Shane is his own person. He has to follow his own path.”

“That’s a crock, and we both know it. You’re ruining the boy. I want to take him in hand so he’ll turn out right.”

She linked her hands together and squeezed until her knuckles turned white. “I admire your ability to know what to do at all times. Most people have questions and wonder if their actions are correct.”

“Most people are fools.”

“Are you ever wrong?”

“Of course not.”

But he wouldn’t met her gaze as he spoke, and they both knew that he was lying. He’d been wrong many times before. How on earth had Suzanne put up with him all these years?

“Dad, I appreciate the advice, but for now I’m going to have to do what I think is best. I know you want Shane to be a part of the ranch, but it has to be in his own time, on his own terms. I need you to respect that.”

“What you need is a man to take you in hand. You and your boy. You’re going to ruin him. Mark my words. You’ll screw him up just like everything else in your life.”

His words hit her like a blow. Until that moment she’d honestly thought her father was proud of her for making her own way in the world. She’d raised a son on her own, paid most of her way through college, been a self-supporting member of society. But none of that mattered to her father. She’d chosen a path other than the one he wanted for her, so she was a failure.

Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back. No way she was going to let him win by seeing her cry. Without saying anything more she rose to her feet and headed for the door.

“Get back here,” Aaron demanded. “I’m not finished with you.”

“Good night,” Katie said softly as she closed the door behind her. She stood in the hallway fighting for control. She couldn’t stay here much longer, she thought sadly. If she did, Aaron would destroy both her and Shane. In the morning she would call the contractor and see if there was any way to hurry the construction on her new house.

“Now I insist you and Shane stay for dinner,” Hattie said a week later as Katie packed up her equipment at the end of their session. “I’ve invited you twice before, and you’ve always made excuses. You’re going to have me thinking you don’t care for my company.”

Katie zipped her bag then straightened and looked at Jack’s mother. Hattie had graduated to using a walker to get around the house. She still had a brace and a cast, but she was much more mobile than she’d been when she’d first returned to the Darby ranch. A cheerful red and white checked shirt hung to mid thigh, while black leggings covered her lower half. The knit material had been cut at the knee to accommodate her cast. A bright red ribbon held her long hair away from her face, and her daughter had been by that morning to paint her toes purple with fluorescent yellow flowers. Hattie sat on the edge of her hospital bed admiring her daughter’s handiwork.

If Katie were to believe her father, she would agree with him that Hattie Darby was no less than a creature of the devil and a danger to all who knew her. But Katie knew her father was wrong.

She’d avoided the invitations to stay in an effort to keep her life calm at her father’s ranch, but the plan wasn’t working. Aaron continued to insist that she not treat anyone with the name of Darby, and Katie continued to refuse to listen to him. They were at an impasse-which made for an unpleasantly strained dinner table. The thought of not having to face that tonight was tempting beyond measure…as was the thought of spending some time with Jack.