The Rancher’s Second Chance Read online

  He leaned over and tapped the papers he'd been poring over when she entered. “I did my reading,” he said, with a grin that made her wish he was wearing a shirt. And wish she'd brushed her hair. “Found out a lot of interesting stuff.”

  She tried to mask her pleased smile by taking another sip of coffee.

  “So next time you do something just to get my attention, it's not gonna fly, right, little man?” He ruffled Devon's hair. “I'm not gonna let a two-year-old rattle me.”

  “Rattle,” Devon echoed solemnly, his cheeks stuffed with Cheerios. “Dada not loud.”

  “Right.” Cole closed his eyes for a second. “Dada will try his best not to get loud.”

  Sammie wasn't sure where to look. Last night, as she printed off one article after another, she'd worried that Cole would take her the wrong way. But he'd not only taken her advice and read the articles, but he'd applied what he'd read and it seemed to have...worked?

  Her chest felt strangely light, like a balloon was inflating inside of it. For a moment, she was sure she would float away.

  She gripped the countertop. “Good. That's a good way to start the first day on the job.” She busied herself with pulling down a bowl and juice glass, then poured more coffee into her mug.

  “Oh, I already started,” Cole said lightly. “I've been up a few hours already.”

  She turned. “Really?”

  He grinned. “It's foaling season.”

  Sammie tried to act like she knew what that meant. She knew what it meant, of course. But why it would mean Cole was up and—shirtlessly—working before 6:30 a.m., she had no idea. “Of course.” She sipped her refilled coffee to cover her discomfort and promptly burned her tongue.

  “We've got three mares ready to pop, so the nursery stalls need to be prepped,” Cole said, his business-like tone at odds with his half-naked state.

  “Mm hmm.” She sipped her coffee again, burning herself a second time. “Sounds fine.” Her mind was desperately rifling through her to-do list for the day. It was a defense mechanism, a way to stop thinking about how broad Cole's shoulders were now, stop musing about how one might go about developing the muscles between your ribs. “I'm going to make some calls once I'm dressed, so…” She turned to see that Cole had one eyebrow raised at her.

  “We,” he said patiently. “We have three mares…”

  “What?” She couldn't have been more shocked if he'd slapped her. “You mean, you and me? Me?” She felt like a broken record, but in her shock it felt like the only word she could say. “You want me to do it?”

  He shrugged. “You're shorthanded, Sam. And with three mares ready, plus the usual summer rush, you've got an all-hands-on-deck situation.”

  “Me?” Her voice was alarmingly high-pitched.

  “No. Devon.” Cole deadpanned. “Buddy? How are you with a pitchfork?”

  “Good!” Devon beamed and kicked his feet.

  “He's got a play one,” Cole explained. “Figured I'd better start him early.”

  “You're kidding me.”

  “Yes, Sammie.” His dark eyes danced with glee. “Yes. I am kidding. But not about needing your help.”

  Sammie cursed herself for hiring a wiseass. She tried one more gambit. “I don't have anything to wear.”

  “Wear something of mine.” Cole grinned. “I've got plenty of crappy clothes.”

  How was I supposed to know? You don't wear them!

  She set down her coffee mug and drew herself to her full height. Damn him and that twinkle in his eye—he was enjoying how flustered he'd made her.

  You're in charge here, she reminded herself. She tossed her hair over her shoulder. Like hell she was going to let Cole Baker think she wasn't up to a challenge. Like hell she was going to let him think she couldn't handle every single thing he could throw at her and more.

  “Fine.” She lifted her mug and remembered to blow on it before taking a casual sip. “Let me get changed, and I'll be right out.”

  Eyes still twinkling, he turned and disappeared down the hall to his side of the house. He retuned with a T-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants. “Might need some rope to hold these up,” he commented casually. “You still got that same tiny waist I could fit my hands around.”

  The second he said that, her skin tingled. The memory of his hands sliding down to her waist and pulling her flush against him seemed burned into her. Like an invisible scar.

  She grabbed the clothes and hightailed it to her room.

  Damn him. He was her employee. Nothing more.

  But now she was stripping naked and pulling on clothes that had recently touched his naked skin. That was hardly something a real boss would do.

  The gray sweatpants he'd handed her were worn super soft. He was right, her toned waist was swimming in them, and for a moment she caught her breath thinking about just how huge Cole really was.

  Huge…

  “NO!” she blurted at her reflection in a last-ditch effort to derail that particular train of thought. She grimly tied the drawstring as tight as she could and looked at herself again.

  She looked ridiculous. With her hair scraped back into a ratty, bumpy ponytail, she looked the very opposite of sexy. Maybe that would help her stop thinking those kinds of thoughts.

  But when Cole's eyes landed on her as she returned to the kitchen, he seemed to disagree with her assessment of her appearance. The naked lust in his eyes burned there too long for her to mistake it. She felt like he'd pinned her to the wall.

  “Well, now, you're sure a sight for sore eyes.” His Texas drawl was suddenly as thick as syrup.

  “I look ridiculous.”

  “You look ridiculous in all those fancy-pants city clothes.” His eyes raked over her body again. “This is the Sammie I remember.” He licked his lips and lifted Devon from the high chair. “Come on, little cowpoke. Let's see how long this new 'listening to Dada' stage can last.”

  All the way out to the stables, Sammie's mind whirled. She had a to-do list a mile long, work she'd promised Dr. Ambrose she'd be able to stay on top of remotely.

  It was the only reason the chairwoman had agreed to hold her position. Sammie needed to be keeping up with her research and submitting papers to journals, even planning to present at conferences. Not mucking stalls like a ranch hand. This was not her job…not what she'd signed up for...not what she'd planned on...

  At all.

  Damn Cole for not seeing this. Damn him for making her take on this responsibility. This was his job, the one she was paying him to do.

  She opened her mouth to lay into him at least a dozen times, only to snap it back shut again when she couldn't trust her voice to stay steady. Because he was right.

  The work needed to be done, and she had no one else to do it. Except herself.

  With no outlet for her frazzled nerves, she grabbed the nearest pitchfork as soon as she entered the barn. Cole pointed out the stalls that needed to be prepped, then laughed. “I don't need to tell you that, though. You know exactly what to do.”

  “I do not. Wait, which stalls again?”

  But Cole refused to take the bait. “It'll come back quickly. Like riding a bike, Sammie. You got this.” He tossed a wink her way, then disappeared around the barn. Devon followed quickly behind him, his little legs moving so fast they were a blur.

  How dare he leave me alone? She stabbed the pitchfork into the hay, working out her frantic energy.

  “Who does he think he is?” she demanded of the horses, who watched her hay-flinging with interest. “Winking and then abandoning me in a barn. This isn't where I'm supposed to be! I am not the same girl I was. I broke it off with him! So why the hell does he still make me crazy?” She paused and leaned on the wall, breathing hard. Why do those high school kisses feel like they happened just yesterday?

  She worked at a frenzied pace for the rest of the morning. The sweat dripped freely from her body. This was far harder that the workouts at her air-conditioned gym in Manhattan, but to her surpri
se, she relished it. Her body had been dormant, accustomed to sitting at a desk for long stretches of time, but it seemed to come to life in the face of hard work.

  She remembered ranch life. It was like riding a bicycle, the rhythm of it, and under the watchful brown eyes of the horses, her frenzied panic over Cole drained away. In its place came a kind of familiar peace she hadn't known she was missing until now.

  She hauled and cleaned and washed and fed. She'd nearly finished mucking out all the stalls when Cole returned. “Hey, Devon's playing out front for a minute and I need to check the pregnant mares before—”

  Sammie stopped to look up. He was standing silhouetted in the doorway, but to her relief, she felt nothing buzzing in her body but the sweet tingle of exhaustion. That was certainly progress.

  She wiped a piece of straw from her hair. “I must look a sight,” she complained.

  “You finished already?” Cole was openly gaping.

  Sammie rolled her eyes. “Don't sound so surprised.”

  “I'm not.” He stepped into the barn, moving towards her with that familiar, easy stride of his. “I always knew you were a hard worker. I just thought—”

  “I'd forgotten?” She brandished the pitchfork at him.

  His eyes glinted, and he gripped the other end. “Watch it. That's heavy.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I know. I've been using it all morning.” She gave it a tug. “I've got it.”

  He shook his head. “This is different. You don't have the right leverage. You're gonna hurt yourself.” He tugged it back.

  But Sammie wasn't going to give in. “The only way I'd get hurt is from you trying to snatch it from me.”

  “Sammie, stop. It's too heavy for you to lift up like that.”

  “Cole, I got it…oh!” Sammie lost her footing and staggered forward, bumping right into his chest.

  It was like bumping into a brick wall.

  She looked up. Way up. Had Cole always been this tall?

  Had his eyes always been so dark?

  “Sorry,” he murmured.

  His rough hands were warm and steadying on her shoulders. She kept watching him, too mesmerized by the shapes his lips were making to realize he was speaking. After a beat, it finally registered.

  “What?”

  “I said sorry. I was trying to—” He let go of her and sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “You know, I don't rightly know what I was trying to do. Sorry.”

  She let the pitchfork go and deliberately stepped back. She'd only bumped into him, but her whole body felt knocked off kilter. She felt unstable. As if the parts of her body that hadn't touched him were jealous of the parts that had and were trying to go in for a turn of their own.

  She smoothed her hands down her shirt. “Not a problem.” She cleared her throat. “You're my employee, anyway. I guess I always did have a problem with delegating.”

  At this, his eyes darkened. Sammie felt suddenly shitty for reminding him that he was her employee. But that's all this was, right? He was helping her because she was paying him and giving him a place to live. Not because he liked her or anything.

  He'd liked her at one time, but she'd made sure to stop that. They ran in different crowds.

  She struggled to remember why that fact had seemed so important to her back then.

  She let out a long breath and scraped her hair back to retie her pony tail. “So this barn is done, the cattle are grazing, and you checked the mares. We're all set, right?”

  Cole raised an eyebrow. “Far from it.”

  “Huh?”

  He softened his voice. “You're a good worker, Sam. You got a lot done here, but we need at least another two just like you.”

  Sammie cursed softly, earning her another eyebrow raise from Cole. “Peter hired all my ranch hands away,” she explained. “Except the two part-timers, and I know that if I don't offer them full-time work soon, they'll take Peter up on his offer. He's offering triple the normal salary just to lure them.”

  Cole's eyes went wide, and then narrowed to dark slits. “Peter? You mean your cousin, Sleazy Pete? I always hated that little rat-faced prick.”

  Sammie snorted. “Don't hold back or anything, Cole.”

  “Sorry.” He spread his hands placatingly. “I know he's family.”

  She snorted again. “He's related by blood, but he's hardly family.”

  Cole was watching her with an unreadable expression.

  For some reason, her cheeks heated. She pulled herself together. “You think we need…uh…how many full-time hands do we need?”

  “Two.” he said promptly. “At least. I'll get to work on job descriptions so you can get to hiring. And, not for nothing, but you've got a whole bunch of land and not a lot of cattle.”

  “Cattle are expensive.”

  “I have some ideas for the land.”

  “You do, huh?” Sammie wasn't sure how she felt about this.

  “If you want to take a walk with me?” He let his eyes rake over her again. “You might get dirty though.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say she didn't mind getting dirty that much. But she caught herself at the last minute. Innuendo—even the innocent, unintentional kind—seemed highly dangerous right now, especially as she walked alongside Cole, taking two steps for every one of his. He led them around to the front of the house and scooped Devon up, settling the little boy on his hip as he pointed out the places she could expand.

  “More fencing first,” he said, before launching into a list of plans that made her dizzy.

  But strangely...excited.

  It was exciting to stand next to Cole Baker and listen to his plans for a future for Bitter Ridge Ranch. It was exciting to let herself get swept up in his optimism—the way she used to—and bask in the way his eyes shone when he explained how it would all come together.

  Her whole life she'd been ambitious, but her work rarely left her excited and giddy to get started.

  She didn't quite know what to make of it all.

  So she did what she always did. She retreated into work.

  “That all sounds fine,” she blurted, cutting Cole off mid-sentence. His confusion made her flush, so she turned towards the house. “I have...work...stuff...”

  Without another word, she rushed across the lower pasture. She didn't know why it seemed so imperative to get away from him. She has the feeling that if she listened for one more second, she'd find herself happily swept up in his plans and agreeing to everything.

  And what would happen to her then?

  She let the front door slam shut behind her and hurried for the cool safety of her father's office. Her laptop was still open and showing a screen full of unread emails that had piled up through the day.

  Relief flooded through her. Here was her future, just waiting for her to answer. And it had nothing to do with Bitter Ridge Ranch.

  Sammie eagerly clicked the first unread notice—an announcement of a faculty wide meeting at the end of the month—but no matter how many times she read and re-read the stilted greetings, the information refused to sink in.

  “When?” she asked the screen, scrolling back up for a third time to see if she'd missed the start time. When she couldn't find it a fourth time, she grunted in frustration. “Email later,” she admonished herself, snapping her laptop closed again. “Paperwork now.”

  A teetering stack of mail still perched at the edge of her father's wide desk. A jumbled assortment of notices collected from the PO box town, as well as a bunch of courier envelopes from the estate lawyer. Avoiding them had been easy when Sammie was busy with Cole.

  But now...since she was avoiding Cole...

  With a long sigh, she pulled the topmost envelope from the stack. Opened, scanned, and threw the whole thing in the trash, then jotted a reminder in her planner to cancel her dad's subscription to Time magazine.

  The second, third, and fourth envelopes were equally mundane. Offers of personal loans and a flyer from a local politician beg
ging for votes.

  She mindlessly slit the fifth envelope, figuring it to be more of the same. Not even the official looking seal at the top of the paper slowed her down, since she knew how often scammers faked official looking documents—right down to stamping FINAL NOTICE across the top of it. She scanned it without really reading and held it out over the trash can.

  Then froze.

  At the top of the pile, there was another envelope, a twin to the one she'd just opened. Sammie stood up and shuffled the pile around to reveal three more envelopes with the same official seal stamped on them.

  The seal of Crane County Court.

  With mounting dread, Sammie forced herself to reread the letter on the desk, but the words made no sense until she cleared her throat and began to read aloud.

  “Final Notice. Your property has been found in violation of the building and safety codes listed below. This is your final notice. Failure to comply by the date stamped above…”

  Sammie let the paper fall.

  The list of violations stretched onto a second page. The cost of the repairs demanded would bankrupt the ranch. Not making them would incur fines that would also bankrupt the ranch.

  But that wasn't what had her heart in her throat.

  The date stamped at the top had come and gone before Sammie had even returned.

  She'd come back to save a ranch that was already lost.

  Five

  All the information Sammie had found for Cole said to allow extra time at your kid's first day care drop-off. So the next morning, he and Devon showed up at Little Lambs Day care right when it opened.

  “It's going to be fun!” Cole chanted for what felt like the millionth time that morning. “You're going to have so much fun!” He bounced Devon on his hip, wondering who he was trying to sell the idea of day care to—his son or himself.

  “Now, buddy, don't be scared.” He set Devon down in the center of the toddler room, fully expecting to snatch him right up again the second Devon started wailing. In fact, he'd already bent halfway over to grab him…

  Only to watch his son rush excitedly over to the corner bookshelf and start pulling books to the floor.