The Rancher's Untamed Heart (24 page)

Even with Will settling into his new role well for a few weeks, I was still edgy and uncomfortable. Nowhere near closer to making a decision about my future, or what I wanted from it.

Hanging out on a ranch one lazy afternoon, I walked over to Brandon, leaning on the fence watching the sheep mill about.

"Is this a private party?" I asked, "Or can anyone join?"

He looked over his shoulder and grinned at me. "Well, I wouldn't say just anyone, but you're welcome to pull up a piece of fence, sweetheart."

I leaned on the fence and joined his sheep observation for a few minutes, enjoying the warm sun and cool breeze.

“Can I ask you something personal?” I asked.

He hesitated, but then flashed me a grin, and nodded. “You apparently can rearrange my boyfriend’s life, I think you can ask me a question or two. Might not answer, but I won’t get in a twist over it.”

“Are you… Are you okay with me saying something to Clint?” I asked. “I wasn’t sure whether or not it was my place, but I did it anyways.”

“At first, I was pissed,” he said. “I didn’t think it was, as you say, your place at all. I bitched about it to Will for two days.”

“Ouch, sorry,” I said.

“Nah,” he said. “After I calmed down, I realized that Clint wouldn’t have let you say something like that if you weren’t setting up to be a big part of his life, and that makes it your place. It’s just been me and Clint and Will having a say around here for a long-ass time, but if Clint is ready for you to have a voice, Will and I better make room for that.”

“Is that okay?” I asked.

“It is,” he said. “With Will, too. You’re a nice girl and we like having you around. Clint had to find someone eventually, before his pecker crawled away to find someone who would treat it right whether Clint liked it or not.”

I laughed out loud. “That’s the best way I’ve ever heard someone talk about needing to get laid.”

“I have quite the way with words,” Brandon agreed. “Now, go ahead, ask your nosy question, I’m pretty curious now.”

“Clint’s told me a little about your family,” I said. “Do you talk to them now?”

He shrugged.

“I see my momma just about every Christmas,” he said. “Not the actual Christmas Day, that’s for the kids who aren’t a disgrace, but sometime around the end of December, we have lunch together and she tells me about my nieces and nephews I’ve never met, and I tell her about Clint and the ranch, and neither of us mention Will, and that’s enough for one year.”

His voice was slow and even, but his hands clenched a little on the rail, and I saw the tension in his shoulders.

I wondered why he went at all, and then I wondered why I visited my own mother.

“So, Clint’s parents were,” I paused, “Not that way?”

Brandon shook his head.

“They never really liked it that I was queer, but they treated it like Clint’s bad moods. They wished things were a little different, but knew that saying something wouldn’t change anything, so they just let it go,” he said. “By the time I met Will, they were pretty well used to it, and they were kind as could be to him. Will got along real well with Clint’s momma.”

I smiled.

“Sounds like she was a good woman,” I said.

“The best,” Brandon said, firmly. “You couldn’t meet a kinder, more hard-working soul.”

“She could cook like a dream?” I asked, smiling a little.

“Absolutely. She kept the house spotless and the table full, and always had time for me and Clint when we were little,” Brandon said.

He laughed a little.

“Okay, and when we were grown,” he continued. “We still took our bumps and scrapes to her.”

“What else did she do?” I asked. “Besides being a wife and mother, what else was she like?”

Brandon looked sidelong at me.

“Not a whole hell of a lot,” he admitted. “She went to church, some, but this place is such a ways out she didn’t go every week. She went to the library once a month and got a big pile of books, always had a stack on her bedside table. She’d go out to visit her friends on the ranches nearby, and she always helped out when someone was sick or had a baby.”

I nodded.

“Do you think that that’s what Clint wants from a wife?” I asked. “Someone that domestic and capable, like his mother? Spending most of her time here, taking care of the kids and the hands and him?”

“I think Clint wouldn’t say no to that,” Brandon said, slowly, “But he’s not an idiot and he knows you can’t hitch a dressage horse to a plow. If he wanted a plowhorse, he’d buy a damn plowhorse, and if he bought a dressage horse, well, that’d be because he wanted to ride some shows.”

He paused.

“Naomi, you’re borrowing trouble,” he said, plainly. “Clint knows full well that you’re not his mother, and you’re not much like her, and you’ll never be exactly who she was.”

I winced.

“I should just let this go?” I asked.

“You should just let it go,” he confirmed. “I’ve had a few chats with Clint about you, and believe me, he’s not expecting you to be something you aren’t.”

I nodded. “Thanks for letting me know, Brandon,” I said.

He nodded.

“I get it,” he said. “It’s hard to think your partner wants something you can’t give them.”

I opened my mouth, but the look on Brandon’s face warned me not to push that. I shut it again and turned to watch the sheep.

It was a nice day to stare at sheep.

The door to my office was opened abruptly.

I’d spent the past few days doing unnecessary paperwork and feeling like a useless cog in a machine that I wasn’t as confident about as I had been a few months ago. I was in no mood to deal with any more nonsense heaped onto my plate.

Doing Sarah’s job and my own for no extra pay was draining and frustrating, and I got no credit for it.

“Naomi,” Herman barked. “What he hell happened?”

He shut the door and stepped close to my desk, looming over me.

I stood up, resisting the urge to stand on my tip-toes to look him in the eye.

“Sir?” I asked.

“I thought that you’d sent that paperwork along for me,” he said, “Instead, I find out that the deadline has passed, no paperwork has gone through, and to top it off, you went out to the damn ranch.”

He picked up a flower from a vase on my desk and absentmindedly crushed it in his hands.

I had a brief pang. Those flowers were from Clint.

“I’m afraid that I don’t know why you’re so upset, Mr. Banks,” I said, in my politest tones.

“You disobeyed me and made more work, of course I’m upset,” he said.

“Well, I don’t know how I made any more work for you by doing my job,” I said. “After all, my job is to process paperwork correctly to the mandates of the law, correct?”

He squeezed the sad remains of Clint’s flower.

“Correct,” he said. “Of course. However, there are grey areas in every field. Everyone lets a small farmer slide sometimes on ridiculous rules that should only apply to ranches with ten times that many head of sheep, or cattle, or whatever they’ve got going on.”

He eyed me.

“I know you’ve done it,” he said, flatly. “You’ve done it, and I’ve seen it, and I’ve stamped the paperwork anyways, because we’re not machines, we’re people. We use our judgment. I trust your judgment, why don’t you trust mine? I’m your superior, and I’ve been doing this since you were in diapers.”

I winced. He was right. I’d bent the rules on a handful of occasions, slipped paperwork through that shouldn’t go. Why did this time, why did my boss wanting me to do it leave such a bad taste in my mouth?

“Why are you so concerned about this?” I finally asked. “When I went out there, the guy was pretty suspicious. If it weren’t a case you were involved with, I’d have gone back with the sheriff,” I said. I’d done it before. Some ranches weren’t safe for one lone inspector. They rarely passed.

“These men are very well-connected and very good at their jobs,” he said. “It’s the sort of big, booming business that we want to encourage in the area. They keep buying up the smaller ranches, so they step on some toes, and that’s not fair to them. They’ve brought in a lot of jobs, and that’s what we want to see. Jobs, land, cattle. Are you with me?”

“No,” I said. “The smaller operations bring in diversity and are better for the land. I don’t want this county to be one big ranch owned by one big man.”

My boss rolled his eyes.

How professional.

“Fine,” he said. “If you want to be that way, that’s just fine. I’m glad I know where you stand.”

Clint rolled into the parking lot a little after ten the next day to pick me up.

“They wouldn’t even let you sit in the damn building?” he asked tersely as he got out of his truck and slammed the door.

“Never heard you cuss before,” I said.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, automatically, still frowning. He leaned down and picked up the cardboard box next to me on the stone steps.

“Let’s go,” he grumbled, glaring up at the building. I wondered if he were going to kick the steps.

I nodded. For Herman’s sake, Clint should get out of there as soon as possible.

When I was buckled into the shotgun seat, I sighed. “Thank you for coming to pick me up, Clint. I know it’s a busy time,” I said.

“Well,” he said, “I find that I suddenly have a lot more time with Will working in the office instead of me. I’m not trying to do two long days every day, just one.”

I nodded again. I’d noticed that too. It was nice, having more of Clint’s attention.

With a small smile, I mentally patted myself on the back. Thinking about my success on the ranch was a lot better than thinking about my morning.

I sighed.

“They would have let me stay in the building,” I said, “I just didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of getting to peer at me.”

He nodded. “That sounds fair,” he said.

“Mind if I make a call?” I asked.

He told me to go ahead and turned the radio on low, the sound of Patsy Cline’s voice drifting around the cab, not loudly enough to keep me from talking.

“Sarah?” I asked, when she answered. “Have you heard?”

“Are you getting married?” she asked, immediately.

“What? No,” I said. “No. Well. Nothing like that. Nothing that good.”

“Shit,” she said. “Spill, what’s up?”

“So, yesterday, I thought about being a cog, and I wanted to be a cog I liked,” I said. “So, well, when Herman told me to mess with some paperwork… I didn’t. I just moved on. He found out and blew up at me and I didn’t back down, and first thing this morning he handed me a box and a pink slip. ‘So sorry,’ he said, ‘budget cutbacks, something’s gotta give, and you’re junior.’”

“That’s such total bullshit!” Sarah exclaimed. “Seriously? The Lars kid has been there for like ten days, and those girls with the hair haven’t been there six months.”

I shrugged.

“Well, it’s pretty clear that if you don’t do what Herman wants, you’re junior,” I said.

She sighed.

“He’s afraid to fire me because I caught him being sneaky once or twice, and he knows I’m vindictive,” she said. “I should have realized that if I were out he’d come sniffing around you to see if you’d help his shady ass. Want me to call him and give him a piece of my mind? I can keep you on the line so you can hear.”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I mean, it would be pretty funny, but I don’t want to go back there, and I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking that I care.”

After a few more minutes of her indignation, I hung up.

“So, that’s the full story?” Clint asked.

I looked over at him.

“You can’t have a chat like that in front of a man and expect him not to listen,” he grumbled, surprising a laugh out of me.

“I thought you would, so I didn’t have to tell it twice,” I said. “That’s about it.”

When I called Clint, I just said “I’ve been fired, will you come get me? I drove the company car to work and can’t get home.”

We pulled into the parking lot of my apartment.

“Oh!” I said. “I thought I’d go to the ranch, if you don’t mind.”

“Suits me down to the ground,” he said. “You know I want you out there more. Need to pick anything up?”

I wavered, and then sighed.

“Yeah, I could probably do with a few things,” I said.

Twenty minutes later, we were on the way out to the ranch with a bag of my clothing and a bottle of my favorite shampoo.

I pulled it out of the bag and smelled it, and sighed again.

“I guess, if I’m unemployed, I won’t be buying any more of this,” I said. “It’s stupidly pricey, but it smells so good and makes me feel pretty.”

Clint glanced over. “Tell me where stocks it, we can go get more in a few days.”

“You don’t need to do that,” I said, embarrassed.

“Sure, I do,” he said. “I want you to be happy and feel pretty, and the ranch is pulling in enough money. Will’s threatening to make me, what did he say? ‘Diversify your stock away from stinking awful sheep and sell llama fur to yuppies,’ so I expect it might be pulling in more than that soon enough.”

He made a face.

“I know a guy with a couple of old llamas,” he said. “They spit.”

“You’re not more curious about me getting fired?” I asked, bluntly. He was talking about llamas and buying me fancy shampoo, I expected a litany of questions about my future plans and whether or not I was going to get evicted and crawl back to my parents. That’s what my old boyfriends would have done.

“You didn’t seem too excited to talk about it,” he said. “You said a while back that your lease is up in a few months, I figured you’d find a new job and maybe move somewhere cheaper.”

He looked at me sidelong.

“I figured maybe,” he added, “I’d see if you wanted to move out to the ranch, at least for a little while. I won’t charge you rent, you can take your time, job hunt if you want to, don’t if you don’t want to. Maybe have a little vacation. Lay about, read some books, take a few weeks for yourself.”

“That sounds pretty heavenly,” I admitted.

“You wouldn’t ever need to go back to work, if you didn’t want to, if we got married,” he said.

“I just lost a job, I didn’t, I don’t know…” I trailed off. “Just, give me some time, please. I just lost a job, I’ve never been fired before. I just need some time to think.”

“No problem,” he said, and patted my knee. “Take all the time you need, sweetheart. I love you.”