The Ranch Hand (11 page)

“Seen Harlan this morning?” She managed to keep the tremble out of her voice. Barely. Even the rational part of her, calmly informing her she was overreacting and being paranoid, couldn’t slow her pounding heart.

Her aunt’s expression grew cheerfully conspiratorial. “He said he was headed over to lend a hand somewhere else for half a day. I reckon he went to cut up that tree that fell on your place, as he had his chainsaw with him. I think it’s supposed to be a surprise, so don’t let on that I told you.”

“I see.” It took all her effort to manage a smile.

Her aunt wasn’t fooled. She set her hand on Carol’s arm. “What’s wrong, girl?”

“Nothing at all. There’s just something I have to take care of.” Her hand was steady when she placed her coffee mug down on the porch railing. “I’ll be back for this.”

“It’ll be full of dust when you do, silly girl.” Her tone softened. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Later. I promise.” Her heel ground on the wooden boards with a scraping sound as she turned to go. All her nerve endings were jangling. She felt as if she were a horse with sand trapped between her coat and the saddle and the friction would drive her mad.

A few minutes later she was behind the wheel. The suspiciously calm part of her brain told her not to drive like a crazy person. She nodded in agreement with that part of her brain—and then hammered down on the accelerator and left a cloud of dust billowing behind her in the driveway.

The shudder from the truck tires as she passed over the cattle grate setting her teeth on edge. She came around the bend in the road and spotted Harlan. He had his broad back to her and was sectioning up the thick trunk into parts that could later be split into firewood. Her scowl deepened. Damn him. Why hadn’t he listened to her?

The chainsaw continued its throaty buzzing growl. The blade worked its way through the trunk in a cloud of sawdust. She skidded to a stop, clambered out of the truck, and slammed the door as hard as she could, trying to vent some of the frustrated feeling of betrayal that churned inside her before it made things worse. Harlan was still running the chainsaw and wearing ear-protection, not to mention that his back was to her, so he didn’t turn at the sound of the slamming door. And the petty, highly pissed off part of her found this especially annoying. Vinegar in a paper cut.

She reached in through the open driver side window and slammed her palm down on the horn. The blaring horn echoed off the hills, and finally Harlan killed the chainsaw to kick a round section of trunk away. He heard the horn and turned to her. The beginning twitch of a smile died on his lips after the briefest moment. She took her hand off the horn and stood there, glaring. He set the chainsaw down and pulled off his safety glasses and ear protection and ambled over to her. The expression on his face was grave. So he knew she was pissed. Good.

“Supposed to be a surprise,” he said softly when he’d come up beside her truck. His eyes were wary, watching her closely.

“Oh, it is. Definitely that. I
told
you I would handle this.”

A frown slowly folded his mouth downward. “I wanted to do it. For you.”

She’d expected him to say something similar, and still the words hit her like a punch to the gut. For a moment she wavered…because what was she doing, coming down so hard on a man who cared enough to help? What in hell was wrong with her?

But she knew. This was her place. She’d earned it, she would work it, and she would run it. No one would come in here and start preempting her decisions. If she gave on it now, after she’d explicitly said what she intended, it would open the door for all kinds of future trouble. It came down to one thing and one thing only. Either Harlan respected her wishes and her abilities…or he didn’t. Either he let her handle it her way, or he barged in like every other man that had once been in her life and started taking over.

“I told you—” she started, then took a breath, centered herself and started again. “I
asked
you to leave it to me. Why couldn’t you have just left it to me?” She felt the familiar burning behind her eyes, the threat of tears, and the coldness trapped inside her chest grew even colder.

“When I…care about someone, I give my all. All I got.” He lifted his hands, palms up, and gave a half shrug. “Hard work is all I got.”

“I need someone I can trust—”

“It was supposed to be a surprise. A kindness. Are you saying I ain’t good enough to do this work?”

“You think you’re doing the right thing.” She had to pause and clench her teeth against the threatening tears. She folded her arms to hide her shaking hands. “But it comes down to you doing what you want for me. What
you
think is best. Like every other man who’s ever crashed his way through my life.”

“I ain’t every other man,” he replied, his voice grim.

“Could’ve fooled me. First time I ask for some respect, practically beg for it, and you go around my back and do whatever you want. I thought you were different.”

His eyes narrowed. “And I thought I didn’t have to take orders from you. Boss. I thought we were a team. Seems I was wrong too.”

Her voice rose in anger. “Don’t you turn this into something it’s not. You don’t work for me—”

“No, but I’m just the ranch hand, that it? A fun fuck but not a partner, that so?”

“It’s not like that.” She raised her hands to her face. “Stop turning it into something it’s not! This is my place.”

“It’s your place,” he agreed, and his voice had grown dangerously soft. “I’ll get my gear and get gone.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Sorry to have mucked up your plans for this tree.”

A hole seemed to open inside her. All her anger fell into it, replaced by icy fear. She wanted to touch him, but if she reached for him she’d lose something. And she couldn’t lose. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be mad at this. I’m the one with the right to be angry.”

He nodded. “I already admitted you got the right. See it clear as dawn now. Apologies for being so slow on the uptake.”

“That’s not fair, dammit. And you know it.”

“I’m needed back at Snowbrook.” He hesitated, and the anger faded from his expression for a moment. “Best of luck with your place here. I mean that. It’s a damn fine cut of land.”

She heard his words. Knew what they meant. It was over between them. Her heart hammered away in her chest. This couldn’t be happening. Not over some stupid fight like this. All she wanted was for him to respect her wishes. Not try and run everything behind her back. God, why couldn’t he understand that?

She had her pride, but she wasn’t a damn fool either. Their time together…the feverish kisses, the surrender to him in the stable as she let him tie her up and then fuck her. Yes, not make love to her but to
fuck
her… That passion couldn’t be tossed aside so easily. She wouldn’t let it go. This was a ledge she wasn’t about to hurl herself over.

“This isn’t about your dream for your own land,” she told him, desperately trying to think of the right thing to say. Some way they could both save face and come to an agreement and not burn everything they’d started to build together.

“No,” he replied. “It’s about you and yours. You’re riding your own way. I respect that.”

“There’s no reason why we can’t see each other,” she said, her voice quiet but not disguising the need there. “Even if you want something else eventually. We could be happy for awhile.”

He looked toward the mountains, squinting into the sunlight. For a long time he didn’t answer and she waited. Finally, he said, “I need to bring something to this…to what we might have—”

“Don’t you see that you do? That you bring more than enough for me?”

“But I come here to solve problems, to help you for Heaven’s sake, and you reprimand me as if I’m some greenhorn hired hand who ran the herd off a cliff.”

She flinched, and wavered, not knowing what to say. He had done the wrong thing…but she understood why. She only needed him to realize and accept that she had to have her head on this, to blaze her own trails, to make her own mistakes. She started to apologize, but then the anger flashed back. She had nothing to apologize for, dammit, and was he really willing to sacrifice the spark between them over this?

“This is some stupid male pride thing, isn’t it?” The edge to her voice grew sharper. “Is that worth tossing away our—” She almost said love, then veered wide, because he hadn’t used that word, and she wouldn’t be the first. “—our connection?”

That wasn’t the right word, not by a long shot—but the other, unsaid word hung in the air between them, a weight that they both knew was there, but neither of them had dared mention. Might never be mentioned now…

“I don’t expect you to understand—”

“Damn right I don’t understand! Because it’s stupid. It’s so damn selfish.”

“You have to let me say my peace, Carol.”

“Fine. Say your words. What do they matter anyway? I always knew you were a man of action. Your actions are speaking. Loud and clear. You’d rather have your dream of a ranch than me. Not when I come out and demand a bit of respect and…the ability to make my mistakes, on my own. Is that too hard for you? Maybe I judged you too highly.”

His face tightened. He shook his head. “You hear yourself? You won’t have me as an equal partner. I want to give you a hand. Dammit, that’s all I have to give you—the sweat off my brow and the willingness to put in a hard day’s work. I don’t have anything else. Just a horse. Hell, even that trailer I live in isn’t mine.”

“I’m not rejecting your help,” she said, but as soon as the words were free she knew they weren’t true. That was exactly what she was doing. She faltered, not knowing what to say next. She couldn’t give on this, but if he was ready to bolt the first time she called him out on going against her wishes, then maybe this heat between them never would’ve lasted anyway. Perhaps she’d made another horrible mistake.

“Sounds as if you are, though,” he said. He cocked his head and eyed her as if she were a wild horse that would kick at the slightest provocation. “Would you let go of your dream if our situations had been reversed? If I wanted you to come to my place, have babies and be content with the things
I
gave you? This has to be even. I have to earn you.”

“I’m not some prize to be won. I’m a person.” You only have to earn me by saying you love me, she thought but could not say. Dared not say.

“You showed me I had to earn you when you came here and smacked my nose for helping out at your ranch. Your. Ranch. As though I was nothing more than some…seasonal ranch hand.” His lips pulled back from his teeth in a half snarl and the words were acidic.

“No. That wasn’t what I meant to do. That’s not how I think of you.” Her vision blurred. A tear tumbled down her cheek. She wiped it away angrily. “Is that how you think of me? That I’m so shallow and mean?”

“I didn’t. But answer me. Would you give everything up for me?”

She hesitated, because the question was so huge. She wanted to believe she would have, if he’d asked. But a man who loved her would never ask. She’d never asked him to abandon his dream of his own ranch for her—though that was hardly fair, because his was still a dream, and she could bend down right now and feel her own soil between her fingers if she wished. She only wanted to be with him. To love him, to explore each other, not just physically, but to understand him better, to know him from soul, to mind, to body, so much that he was a part of her and she a part of him.

But he would shove that all aside for the hope of something in the future he felt he needed so they could be equals. The whole thing left her feeling weak, empty. She closed her eyes, turned her head. Her heart beat hard, thudding, her pulse throbbing in her temples. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

He grew impatient with her silence. “I didn’t think so.”

“It’s not… You don’t understand. That’s not a fair question.” Her voice held a note of pleading.

He shook his head. “Don’t you understand? I want to stake out my own place. Not ride double on someone else’s horse. I never had anyone on my side, handing me opportunities.”

Cold trickled through her like rain off a broken gutter. He must’ve seen how hard his words had hit her because he reached a hand toward her. “That’s not what I meant—”

She moved out of his reach, and he halted, letting his hand fall to his side. His dream. Why couldn’t
she
be his dream? Why couldn’t she be that important to him? She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep her hurt from seeping out.

“I think we’re done here,” she said, very quietly. “We’ve said all that needed saying.”

If he thought she’d been handed everything on a silver spoon…she couldn’t even wrap her head around that, especially after she’d asked him not to help her with the storm damage, and he’d gone and done so anyway, proving he was a man who would do what he wanted, her wishes be damned.

“Don’t make me choose between two things I want,” he said. For the first time she heard desperation in his voice. “I’d rather run my bare hand down a barbed wire fence.”

“I never made you do anything. You should go. Please.”

“At least let me finish this.” He swept a hand at the damned tree that had crushed her house and somehow crushed her chances with this man. “I want…” He clenched his teeth, turned away for a moment, and then leveled his gaze on her again. “I don’t like to leave a thing unfinished.”

Another tear escaped from her eye and made its icy way down her face. “No.”

The silence between them was so complete it made her think she was caught in a snowstorm, blanketing out all the sounds with whiteness. She could hear herself breathing, faster than usual, as if she’d just run up a flight of stairs, her heart beating hard, ka-thump, ka-thump. But those seemed the only sounds in the world.

He wanted to touch her. She could read it on his face, in the set of his body. Perhaps he’d been as surprised at this careening, disastrous turn in events as she had been. It didn’t matter now. After a moment he turned away, gathered up his tools, and loaded everything in his truck. He tipped his hat to her, and again his expression was grim, almost haggard.