The Rancher's Homecoming (4 page)

“Hi, cutie.”

“She just started doing that,” Callie informed him with a smile. “She won't say ‘mama' yet, but she's suddenly saying, ‘hi.' Of course, she has no idea what it means.”

“Mmm,” Bodie hummed against her mother's leg.

Rex walked around them both and sat down in the metal lawn chair next to Callie. It sagged and creaked ominously. He held his breath, but the chair seemed stable enough. With dusk settling around them, the stifling heat had begun to abate, but the only breeze stirring was that pulled in by the ceiling fan in the living room.

“I'll get someone out here to look at the AC unit tomorrow,” he said. “According to Dad, it just needs coolant.”

Callie nodded beside him and softly said, “Wes is going to need air-conditioning to get through his chemo. He doesn't think so, but I do. We're two hours farther south here than Tulsa. You know how brutal these summers can be. I hate to think of him being sick to his stomach in hundred-degree heat.”

“I appreciate that,” Rex said. “I should've taken care of it already.”

“You've had other things on your mind.”

“I have. There's something on my mind now.”

“You want to know why my dad is so upset about me working for you.”

“Yeah.”

“Ben Dolent.”

“Who?”

“Ben Dolent. He runs Dad's grain silo, and Dad has him picked out as his next son-in-law.”

“I take it you're not in favor of the idea.”

“No.”

“What about your first husband? Did Stuart pick him, too?”

“Oh, no,” Callie said, shaking her head and chuckling. “Bo was the exact opposite of the sort of man my dad wants me to marry.”

“What sort of man would that be?” Rex asked.

“One he can control, I guess,” Callie answered. “The kind who will do as he's told and be glad for it.”

“And Bo wasn't that kind of man?”

“He wasn't.” She curved her hand around Bodie's little head, smoothing the baby's pale hair. “Bo didn't care about money. He didn't care about status. All he cared about was me, us and serving God. He had a campground ministry over at Turner Falls. Didn't pay much. I had to work to make ends meet, but we had all we needed. For the little while we were together. We were only married a few months. He hadn't had time to put away anything for us.”

“I'm sorry you lost him,” Rex said.

She cleared her throat, her gaze on the baby. “I'm still trying to figure out what God's doing,” she admitted softly, shaking her head. “I just don't understand yet. I worked and saved every penny right up until my labor started, but when Bodie was nine weeks old she got sick and couldn't go to day care, and that's all it took. We had to go back to my dad's. I know it was God's will. I just don't believe it's His will for me to marry Ben Dolent.”

Rex didn't know what to say to that. His own marriage had imploded because his wife's father had wanted a son-in-law who would “do as he's told and be glad for it” and his wife had been only too happy to try to provide the same. When Rex had balked, the marriage had suffered. He'd sought refuge in work, thinking that if he could prove himself professionally then she would take pride in him. Instead, she'd gone to another man. He couldn't help thinking that they'd still be together if she'd had Callie's strength of character or if she'd loved him as much as Callie had apparently loved her husband.

He smiled at Bodie. “You named her after her father, didn't you?”

“Yes. Her father and my mother. Bodie Jane. It seemed appropriate. She'll never know her daddy, and I was only four when my mother died. I barely remember her.”

“It's a good name,” he said, getting to his feet, “and it's good that the two of you are here.”

“I'm glad you think so, especially after the way my father acted today.”

He did think so. A strong urge to put his hand on her shoulder seized him. He did it before he could stop the impulse, and the rightness of it shook him. Looking at his hand as it cupped her slender shoulder, he suddenly felt as if he hardly knew himself. The frayed cuff of his father's old work shirt and the sheer size of his hand against her smooth, firm, woman's frame rattled him. It was as if he'd never really seen his own hand before, never really touched a woman. He thought of Amy, and for a moment he wondered if she'd even been real. Shaking his head he took his hand away, thinking that he really needed to get some rest.

As for Callie Deviner, he was glad to have her help, but their arrangement was temporary, and even were it not, he had no intention of allowing history to repeat itself.

Pretty little Callie Deviner had the wrong sort of father.

Besides, once Wes was able to take over the reins of Straight Arrow Ranch again—or if it should be determined that Wes could never do so—Rex would be heading back to Tulsa. That's where his life and his career were based. For as long as Rex could remember, he'd dreamed of leaving War Bonnet and the Straight Arrow Ranch. He'd wanted no part of the backbreaking drudgery that was his father's life here, always at the mercy of the weather and whatever new disease befell the livestock or the crops.

No, this life, and any woman so obviously comfortable with this life, was not for him. That meant he would be wise to keep his distance from Callie.

“I'll say good-night,” he told her.

“Good night.”

“I'll, um, find that high chair in the morning.”

“It's not important.”

“I promised Dad.”

“All right.”

He reached down to smooth a hand over Bodie Jane's head. “Good night, precious.”

“Hiii,” she said.

Callie laughed and instructed her. “Bye-bye. Bye-bye.”

“Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh.”

Chuckling, Rex went into the house, said good-night to his father and climbed the stairs to read and wait for the dark that would bring him rest for another arduous day.

Chapter Four

T
he air conditioner repairman had to come all the way from Ardmore, so it would be late afternoon before he could reach them. Naturally, Friday turned up scorching hot before lunchtime. Wes fretted about the horses in the paddock beyond the stable barn.

“They need fresh bedding and the water troughs have to be cleaned, but I don't want to plague Rex with anything more just now,” he told Callie when she brought him a tall glass of iced tea.

“Can't one of the ranch hands see to it?”

“There's only the three of them, and Rex has them working cattle today. Looks like a bumper crop of bull calves this year, and they've got to be castrated before the end of the month.” He shot an embarrassed glance at Callie. “Sorry. That's blunt talk for a town girl.”

Callie chuckled. “You forget that I grew up in the Feed and Grain. I've heard worse, believe me.”

“All the same,” he mumbled.

Callie puzzled on the situation for a moment, then asked, “Do you have a cell phone?”

The only landline in the house hung on the wall in the kitchen—and had a rotary dial. She wondered if the thing even worked. She'd seen Rex talking on his cell phone, so she knew they had coverage out here.

Frowning, Wes opened the drawer in his bedside table and began pawing through it. “Gotta be 'round here somewhere.” Finally he came up with a flip phone that looked as if it had come right out of the package. “My girls call me every few days. Otherwise, I forget about the fool thing.”

“May I?” Callie asked, holding out her hand. He dropped the small phone into it, and she quickly programmed in Bo's old number. They'd only had the one phone between them, and thankfully Bo hadn't been carrying it the day of the flash flood that had taken his life. She'd managed to maintain the line, though her father had wanted her to cancel it and replace it with a business phone. “Here's what we'll do,” she said, handing back the phone. “I'll bring in that old playpen that Rex found in the storeroom this morning when he went looking for the high chair, and you can watch Bodie while I go out and take care of the horses.”

“I can't let you do that,” Wes protested, shifting on the bed.

“I've scrubbed out troughs before,” she assured him, “and I'm sure I can manage to muck out a few stalls if you'll just explain how—”

“Although,” he interrupted, his pale blue gaze taking on a thoughtful expression, “what you could do is just open the gates between the paddock and the corrals beside the big barn. It's shady over there, and if you turn the tap on and fill that trough next to the red barn, the horses will find their own way to it.”

Callie smiled. “I can do that. You have to promise that you won't pick Bodie up while I'm gone, though. If she starts fussing, you just let her fuss. We can't risk you opening an incision. If you get worried about her, you can call me and I'll come right away. Agreed?”

He nodded and mused, “You know, when I built that paddock, there were three big trees in it, but the drought killed them, one by one, and I had to take them down. Now the horses have no shade out there, so they spend more time inside, which makes more work for us, but I can't let them suffer this heat without some sort of relief, especially my faithful Soldier. That old gentleman has carried me many a mile and bred up some fine animals. Not a better behaved stud in the state.”

“I understand,” Callie said. “Let me get things situated in here, and I'll open those gates.”

“Thanks, Callie.”

She made quick work of it, having already scrubbed every inch of the old wood playpen. The padding had long since disintegrated, so she folded a frayed, faded, quilted bedspread and put that in the bottom of the playpen, which she positioned next to Wes's bed, before hanging one of Bodie's favorite activity toys on the side rail and tossing in some stuffed animals. After feeding and changing Bodie, Callie retrieved the cell phone then plopped the baby down in the cushioned playpen and entertained her for several minutes with the activity center. While Bodie busily played with her toys, Callie slipped out to see to the horses.

She started by turning on the tap in the metal trough in the corral next to the big red barn, then wound her way through the maze of fences, opening the gates that led down to the horse paddock. Seeing only one animal in the pasture, it occurred to her that the others might be hiding from the heat in the horse barn, so she ventured in there.

The odors of horse, hay and manure enveloped her. As her eyes adjusted to the shadowed interior, she saw that all of the stall gates stood open so the horses could come and go as they pleased, but a glance at the nearest trough showed her why Wes was concerned. A green scum ringed the metal container.

Callie didn't know much about horses, but she knew better than to surprise them, so she started talking before she started walking. “Hey, now, fellas, it's cooler and cleaner up by the red barn, so why don't we take a walk?”

Just moving around with her arms held out seemed to be enough to get the first one headed toward the door. Another soon followed, and then a big, dark beauty lifted its head, blew through its nostrils and the remaining four horses went out the door in a rapid clip. Smiling, Callie went out a safe distance behind them. She had to climb over a couple fences to get near the water tap and turn it off without wading through horses. They obviously appreciated the fresh water and clean trough. She climbed over those same fences again to avoid skirting too close to swishing tails and rear hooves on her way back to the house, but as she hit the dirt next to the road, she found unwelcome help waiting.

Meaty hands reached out to steady her as she landed after hopping backward from the top rail of the fence.

“Careful. Don't hurt yourself.”

She'd know that oddly thin voice anywhere, and pulled away as politely as she could manage. “I'm fine.”

“I thought you were keeping house and cooking for the Billingses,” Ben Dolent said, squinting at her from above a stiff smile.

“That's right.” She brushed her hands on the seat of her jeans and started for the house. “Need to get back and check on Wes and the baby.”

“How is old Wes?” Ben asked, hurrying to keep up with her. He wasn't much taller than her, and his short legs meant that he had to take twice as many steps. She resisted the urge to lengthen her stride.

“Still weak but mending. He'll start chemo before long.”

Ben clucked his tongue. He had a habit of doing that. “Terrible thing, cancer. I reckon Wes's daughters will want to nurse him through that.”

“When they can,” Callie said. “Right now, I'm it, though.”

“You know you don't have to do this,” Ben said, pumping his arms in an attempt to keep pace with her. “I'll gladly hire professional help for old Wes.”

Callie felt her jaw drop. She came to a halt beneath the bur oak in the front yard and glared at him. “You'd cheat me out of my wages?”

Huffing for air, Ben threw up his hands, his round face registering shock and surprise. Obviously he hadn't considered all the ramifications when he'd agreed to this little ploy of Stuart's. “No! I—I just want to spare you the work.”

“But I enjoy the work, Ben. And where would you find
professional
help around here?”

“There's an agency over in Lawton,” he squawked as she turned and headed for the porch.

“That's over an hour away,” she tossed over her shoulder.

“But they'll send help if it's live-in,” he argued, following on her heels.

“To cook and clean
and
care for Wes?” she demanded, turning on him.

“Nursing care,” he answered lamely, backing up a step.

“Wes doesn't need nursing right now as much as he needs good food, clean clothes and company,” she declared. “Now, the Billings family have hired me, and I'm staying. That's all there is to it.”

Ben lifted his chin, what there was of it. “Callie, listen to reason.”

“You're not talking reason. You're saying what Stuart Crowsen has told you to say. Goodbye, Ben.”

“I trust that's an end to it,” she heard Rex say and turned to find him on the pathway behind them.

Ridiculously pleased, she stepped up onto the porch and went into the house without so much as a backward glance. She heard Ben and Rex speaking, but the conversation was short. She breathed a silent sigh of relief when she heard Ben's vehicle leave a few moments later.

Rex didn't mention the encounter, but after dinner she walked into the kitchen from Wes's room to find Rex waiting for her. He'd leaned a hip against the kitchen counter and waited with folded arms. When he saw her, he straightened and calmly announced, “You have company again.”

Puzzled, she moved into the dining area, Rex following on her heels. When she saw Ben standing in the living room with a bouquet of flowers in one hand and his cowboy hat in the other, Callie didn't know who she most wanted to slap, Ben or Rex. Or her father.

Instead she kept her apron on, silently prayed for patience, smiled and said, “Why, Ben. How nice. These must be for the patient.”

Ben looked blindsided as she took the flowers from his hand. “Uh...”

“I'll put these in water and see if Wes is up to visitors.”

She left him standing in the living room with Rex, who seemed to be trying not to laugh as he rocked back on his heels.

As she took down a large jar and arranged the flowers in it—they were the same ones she'd seen in the grocery a couple days earlier—silence stretched thin in the other room. Finally, Rex spoke.

“Dad's usually pretty tired after he's eaten. Just coming to the table takes a lot out of him, but at least he's doing that now, and I'm sure he'd want to thank you personally for the flowers.”

“Oh. Uh. I don't want to bother him,” Ben muttered. “Just...wanted him to know I'm thinking of him.”

“That's very good of you,” Rex said carefully.

Callie bit her lip and stayed right where she was. After a moment fraught with uncertainty, Ben mumbled about calling again sometime and left. Callie didn't move a muscle until she heard the screen door slam behind him. Only then did she creep to the doorway between the kitchen and dining area to peek out. Rex stood just on the other side, his arms folded.

“So that's your boyfriend, huh?” Rex teased.

She glared at him. “Do not call him that, even as a joke.”

Rex grinned, splitting the beard-shadowed lower half of his face with the blindingly white crescent of his smile. “Poor guy's fighting way out of his class.”

The compliment pleased her, which was exactly why she didn't even acknowledge it.

“Why did you let him in?”

“What did you expect me to do? When he asked me this afternoon if you and I are ‘getting together,' I told him no. I didn't imagine he'd take that as permission to come courting.”

She sighed, her face flaming. “I'm sorry. He had no right to ask you that.”

“Seems a reasonable question,” Rex said in a low voice. “I'd want to know if I was him.”

She shook her head. “I've told him over and over again that I'm not interested in him, but my father just keeps sending him after me.”

“Obviously your father is the one you have to convince.”

“Don't you think I've tried?” she demanded. “He just insists that Ben will take care of me and Bodie if something happens to him, as if I can't be trusted to take care of the two of us.” Wincing, she admitted, “I guess my record isn't too good, but it's still infuriating and appalling. I have to prove to my father that I can provide for me and my daughter.”

“Okay,” Rex said, turning back toward the living room. “I get it. Your wildly overprotective father wants you settled with a man he knows will provide for you the way he wants you provided for. You don't want the man he's chosen and are intent on proving that you can provide for your daughter on your own.”

“That about sums it up.” Except for the part where her dad would go to extremes to get his way. She just hoped, prayed, that Wes Billings had been smart enough to stay out of Stuart Crowsen's grasp.

* * *

The repaired baler lasted all of one day in the field then broke a drive chain. Rex called in to town to see if Crowsen had a replacement. To his surprise, not only did the Feed and Grain have the part, Crowsen offered to have it delivered at once. Rex agreed to receive the delivery at the house and should not have been surprised when Dolent arrived with the drive chain, though why the manager of the grain silo would be delivering equipment parts could not have been more evident, especially when he asked to go into the house for a drink of water. Rex offered him iced tea from the thermos that Callie had filled for him that morning, but Dolent apparently
craved
water.

Dolent did not discourage easily; Rex would give him that. Unfortunately, the man didn't appear bright enough to realize that he had zero chance with a woman like Callie.

Even though time was of the essence, Rex walked Dolent inside, insisted he take a moment to say hello to Wes and walked Dolent out again, with nothing more than a cool drink and a glimpse of Callie, who was busy preparing lunch. He made sure Ben saw the flowers in the jar on the dresser in Wes's room. Then he gave Ben a hearty handshake and his sincere thanks before all but physically tossing the dullard into the Crowsen Feed and Grain pickup truck.

Obviously frustrated, Dolent started up the engine, backed the truck up and drove away, but Rex stood where he was until the pickup disappeared from view. Callie had sent him a look of thanks when he'd steered Ben out of the kitchen, and Rex privately admitted to some personal irritation mixed with his amusement over the man's dogged persistence. Surely even Ben would soon get the message: Callie was not for him.