The Rancher's Baby Proposal Read online

  “Grandpa Jed makes the bestest barbecue,” Tina and Cole’s son, Robbie, announced.

  “He sure does,” Ally agreed. “And Paz makes the bestest chile relleno.”

  Everyone had mingled in the yard until the barbecue was ready, then carried their full plates to the long wooden picnic benches. As usual at gatherings here, or anywhere in her experience, the men gravitated to one area and the women and kids to another.

  Ally would have liked to take a place beside Reagan. But at least from where she was seated, she could see him at the next table and overhear most of the noisy conversation that went on there. He sat a head taller than some of the men surrounding him, and though she couldn’t fault any of Jed’s granddaughters for their taste when it came to husbands, she knew which man she’d choose for hers.

  She’d chosen him a long time ago.

  At his table, Reagan fielded a few questions about what he had been up to since he’d left Cowboy Creek. None of his answers revealed anything he hadn’t told her already. She wished Jed’s phone call hadn’t interrupted their conversation earlier. But still, the fact that Reagan had shared so much with her, painful as it had been for him, gave her hope their relationship had finally made a leap forward.

  When the talk turned to his quitting sports after school, Cole grinned and said good-naturedly to him, “That gets you out of shape quick, Chase.”

  Reagan went right back at him. “We’ll see how out of shape I am once we start throwing horseshoes after supper.”

  “Ally, you’re not eating.” Startled, she turned to find Paz looking at her, her brow wrinkled in concern. “I hope you’re not having a touch of heatstroke.”

  “Oh, I think she’s feeling the heat, Abuela,” Tina said with a laugh. “But I’ll bet it’s got nothing to do with the sun.”

  Andi and Jane, seated on the same bench with Tina, laughed, too.

  “No, it hasn’t,” Ally agreed calmly, “it’s from all the luscious peppers in your relleno, Paz.”

  The older woman smiled. When she glanced away, Ally shot Tina a dirty look.

  “Is there more biscuits?” Robbie asked.

  “Yes, of course, there are.” Paz reached for the empty basket. “I’ll get them from the kitchen.”

  “I can go,” Tina said quickly.

  “No, that’s fine. I need to check things in the oven.”

  As Paz moved away from the table, Ally turned to Tina. “Trying to run off, were you, chica? Thanks for the support a minute ago.”

  Jane laughed. “Give it up, Ally,” she said, keeping her voice down. “Tina’s right. If you’d been any hotter at that point, you’d have been breathing fire.”

  “Ally’s a dragon?” Robbie asked in amazement.

  “Yes,” Jane said. “Ally’s a-draggin’ her heels over—”

  “I am not,” Ally insisted, rolling her eyes. “Jane’s just teasing, Robbie.”

  “Nice teasing is allowed,” Robbie informed her. “Mama says so.”

  “I’m sure she does,” Ally said, flashing a glance at Tina, her so-called best friend.

  She did trust that Tina wouldn’t have shared anything they discussed in private, and that was all that mattered.

  As for the other women, she had appreciated Andi’s help with the crash course on babysitting, and so she didn’t mind Tina’s cousin knowing about her feelings for Reagan. But she hadn’t realized their other cousin, Jane, had been let in on the news, too. She should have known. Family was family.

  Besides, over the years, most of Cowboy Creek would have figured out how she felt about him.

  All except Reagan himself.

  Activity over at the men’s tables caught her eye. The sight of him rising to his feet made her heart beat double time. He was so tall, so broad-shouldered, so—

  “Oops. Somebody had better grab a fire extinguisher,” Andi warned. “Ally’s ready to go up in flames again.”

  The three cousins laughed. Ally’s pretense of glaring at them all just made them laugh harder.

  Robbie turned to look across the yard. “Mama, can I go play horseshoes?”

  “Ask Daddy,” Tina advised. “It depends if the first game is just big boys playing, or big boys and little boys and girls, too. Daddy will tell you.”

  “Okay.” Robbie swung his legs across the bench seat and jumped up to head across the yard.

  “Ally, we know exactly which big boy you want to play with,” Jane said. “And our teasing’s just what you deserve, since you’re always giving it to everybody else.”

  “Not everybody,” she said with a grin. “Not this week.”

  The minute Jane left to get a pitcher of sweet tea for their table and Andi went along, intending to check on the sleeping babies, Tina turned to her. “Well?”

  “Very well, thank you. And you?”

  Tina sighed and shook her head. “Ally.”

  “All right,” she said, still teasing, “then the truth is yes, you were right. I am feeling the heat. Maybe I should go lie down.”

  “Stop,” Tina hissed. “What’s going on?”

  At her friend’s suddenly serious expression, Ally sobered, too. She sighed, but not in pretend exasperation as Tina had a moment ago. More with a mixture of equal parts frustration and confusion.

  “Things are going...better,” she said cautiously.

  She glanced across the yard. Over near the barn the men were setting up teams for horseshoes. Judging by Robbie’s wide grin, the little boys and girls were invited to play, too.

  Her gaze drifted, casually she hoped, to the man standing beside him. As if he knew she was looking his way, Reagan met her eyes. She couldn’t help smiling at him.

  After a brief hesitation, he returned the smile, yet his expression looked strained. She felt the tiniest ripple of unease. A silly reaction, considering he’d been fine on the drive over here.

  “Reagan is talking to me a little bit more,” she told Tina, half as a way to reassure herself there was nothing wrong.

  “That’s good.”

  “But he has something bothering him, and he won’t talk to me about it.” He would have, if Jed’s call this morning hadn’t come at the exact time it had. Reagan would have made the decision to talk to her then. She was sure of it.

  “He’ll open up with you,” Tina said, “sooner or later. You know what a talker Cole is and always has been. But you and I both know it took a while for him to let me in. Give Reagan some time.”

  “But that’s just it. How much time will I have? At the house, we’ve started sorting some of his parents’ things. There’s a lot to go through, and I know he doesn’t want to stir up all those memories. If he decides just to have everything hauled away or to drop it off for donation, he could be headed out of Cowboy Creek ten minutes later.”

  Unfortunately, even her logical, rational best friend couldn’t argue with that statement.

  * * *

  AS THEY CLIMBED the back steps of Reagan’s house, Ally shot a look in his direction. It was almost dusk, with the sun sending out its last faint rays. His hair shone in the light, and when he swung open the kitchen door and paused to usher her inside, his eyes shone, too.

  Smiling, she went past him into the kitchen.

  “Coffee?” she asked. “Paz sent home some of her special almond cookies.” Home. Wondering if he had noticed the slip, she tried not to wince.

  He didn’t answer. He was focused on unbuckling the straps around Sean, who had fallen asleep in the car seat on their way home... Well, it was Reagan and Sean’s home. Until someone else bought it.

  She swallowed hard. “I can take him up to change him,” she said.

  “No, I’ll do it. Coffee sounds good.”

  She watched him go, holding Sean close against his chest. The sight mad
e her heart melt. The thought that Reagan had wanted his child when the baby’s own mother hadn’t cared about him left her on the verge of tears.

  She couldn’t let Reagan see her like this.

  After making the coffee, she carried a tray with two mugs and a plateful of Paz’s cookies to the living room.

  Reagan had sat here on this couch last night when he had told her about his ex. He’d been so hurt by the past, and she had been upset at hearing his story.

  She didn’t want either of them to have to relive bad times. And she had already acknowledged to herself that doing something twice—such as bringing him sweet rolls on a Saturday morning—didn’t create a ritual. Yet tonight she hoped repetition would work in her favor. She hoped his knowing he had talked to her here and survived would make him feel safe enough to try it a second time.

  A few minutes later, Reagan came downstairs and settled Sean in the playpen she had moved into the living room.

  By then, she was curled up on the couch, ready and willing to listen to anything he would share. But something told her she would have to start the conversation rolling.

  “Who won at horseshoes this afternoon?” she asked.

  “Cole’s team against mine,” he said promptly. “Then Cole’s again, then mine, and the final game was a draw.”

  “Must have been hard for you to lose, considering your school record and all.”

  “Don’t you start, too,” he said with a laugh. “Those guys weren’t about to let me live it down because I’d quit playing after I left high school.”

  “Why did you quit? It’s not like you.”

  His smile slipped away. He sat back and took a sip of coffee, cradled the mug in both hands and stared down at it.

  Again, intuition told her she had hit on something. She had known whatever was bothering him was connected to the years he’d been gone. And since he had already told her about the situation with his girlfriend, there had to be more he hadn’t shared with her yet.

  “Couldn’t afford to go to college without a full-time job,” he said finally. “I worked nights, and that didn’t leave me time for both sports and studying.”

  “But you were such a good athlete. And your grades were good. I know sports are so competitive, but still...” She eyed him from under her lashes. He was still staring down at the mug. “I’m sorry you didn’t get any scholarships.”

  “Didn’t apply.”

  Her eyes flew open in surprise. “You didn’t...not anywhere?”

  “I didn’t decide for sure to go to college until my senior year, and by then I figured it was too late to talk to my counselor about applying.” He shrugged. “I already knew I didn’t have what it took to go pro. I’m not complaining or trying to be modest, just stating a fact.” He ran his thumb along the edge of his mug. “Besides, my parents were more important to me.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Yeah.” He laughed shortly. “I heard that a lot back around that time.” He glanced at her, then away again. “I held off so long about deciding on a college because my dad couldn’t understand why I wanted to go away to school. We’d fought about it all through high school. I wanted to take college classes in ranching, ranch management, animal husbandry. And he couldn’t see the point of that at all. He didn’t know why I needed to go away when he felt I could have learned everything I needed to know about ranching right here at home. From him.”

  “And was he wrong?”

  “Yes, he was wrong,” he said with some force. “He knew a lot, but not everything. There are ways to make a working ranch and farm, even a small one, profitable. Ways to make the soil yield more plants—and healthier ones, to produce hardier crops. Ways to use technology to make a farmer’s life easier.”

  He stood. For a moment she thought he planned to walk off, as if that was how he’d handled his emotions when he and his father argued.

  Instead, he moved across the room to stand beside the playpen.

  “My dad was old-school,” he said, staring down at Sean. “And he worked the old-school way, which is fine if you’re happy running a ranch that just makes ends meet. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t starve, but there were only three of us in the family, and some months we’d have found it hard to feed a fourth.”

  He didn’t say it outright, but she knew he was thinking of himself as a daddy, a single daddy, having a child to feed.

  “But it wasn’t just that.” He turned to look at her. “My dad worked so hard. He couldn’t afford help. And when I was only a kid having to go to school every day and involved with homework and sports, that left just him, working day after day, sunup to sundown. That’s a rancher’s life. He knew it. I know it. But there are farming methods available today that they didn’t have when he started out.”

  “Reagan,” she said quietly, “I’m sure your father wanted what was best for you and your mama and himself, too. He didn’t want just to make ends meet. No father does.”

  He shrugged. “It was a pointless argument, anyway. We didn’t have the money—would never have the money—to invest in the equipment we’d need to put all those upgrades into place.” He sighed. “And even if we’d had the cash, my dad probably wouldn’t have gone for it.”

  “That’s understandable. Sometimes people get set in their ways, and it’s hard for them to change. What about Jed? He owns a working ranch along with running the Hitching Post. Tina’s the bookkeeper and she’s told me that the ranch has always done well.

  “I’m not telling tales out of school,” she assured him. “Everybody in Cowboy Creek knows Jed’s the most successful landowner in the county. And they all respect him for it.” She frowned, puzzled. “You would have talked to Jed. Couldn’t he convince your father?”

  He gave her a crooked smile. “That would have been telling tales out of school.”

  “No, it wouldn’t, Reagan.” She set her mug on the tray, then braced her crossed arms on her knees. “Jed and your parents were very good friends. He would have helped you out with this, helped your father understand, if you had asked him. Jed’s so good about helping everyone. That’s what friends do for each other. Especially in ranch country.”

  She smiled. “I might live in town and love the stores and restaurants and the dances at the Cantina, but that doesn’t mean I’m clueless about the people who live out on the ranches and farms. It doesn’t matter where any of us live, in town or outside it. Everybody in Cowboy Creek pulls together to help each other.”

  She waited for his response.

  After the silence stretched on, she took a deep breath. “And that’s why it hurt so much, isn’t it?” she asked softly. “Your father couldn’t understand why you wanted to go away to school. But you couldn’t tell him your reason—that you wanted to learn everything you could about ranching so you could help him.”

  Not answering, he looked down at Sean again. But his face had flushed, telling her she had guessed right. Her throat tightened, and she blinked away tears. “You wanted to make things easier for both your parents. But you never told your father that, either, did you? You let him think you were selfish, that it was all about you and what you wanted.”

  “He was a proud man.”

  “So are you. And a good son.”

  “Not in my dad’s opinion.” His eyes looked black and bottomless. “The day I left for school we had another fight. And he told me never to come back again.”

  His words stole her breath. She wanted to go to Reagan, put her arms around him and hold him close. The instinct that had guided her so far tonight told her approaching him would only cause him to back away.

  He was a proud man, just like his father.

  She stayed where she was and prayed she had made the right decision.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Reagan had known Ally w
ould react to his statement just the way she had, with both sympathy and understanding. He could see the shock on her face, the horror in her eyes, and he could hear the truth in everything she’d said.

  “You were right,” he told her, struggling to speak past the lump in his throat. “I didn’t want my dad to know my real reasons for going away to school. I’d set out to do the right thing, and everything came out wrong.

  “By trying to keep things from him, I hurt him worse than if I had told the truth. I didn’t understand that then. Even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered by that point, anyway. It was too late. We’d both said things we shouldn’t have. And when he told me never to come back, I didn’t say anything at all. I just left.”

  “He didn’t mean it.” He could hear the pleading note in her voice.

  “He did mean it, Ally. He felt I was rejecting him and what he stood for, felt I was abandoning him and Mom, and he struck back at me. I didn’t realize it till later—much later, after he and Mom were both gone.”

  After Elaine had walked out on him and his son.

  He crossed the room and set his coffee mug on the tray. Hands empty, he searched for something to do with them. Knowing he couldn’t go for what he wanted, couldn’t reach for Ally, he settled for crossing his arms and looking at her over the coffee table.

  He settled for ending this conversation and moving on.

  “But you know,” he said, “you were right about something else. I do have good memories to look back on, from before that time. As a kid, I practically grew up in my dad’s shadow—literally—following him around the house and out to the barn. He was always teasing me about keeping up.”

  Better run those short legs around and make ’em grow, son. I’ll need your help a lot out here once you get bigger.

  “And Dad was always doing something with wood. A big part of a rancher’s life is spent checking on the corrals and the perimeter fencing, making sure there’s no damage that could injure an animal, no breaks that would give the stock a chance to become trapped or get loose.”