Their Little Cowgirl Page 7

  "What is?" Lissa walked up behind her.

  "This…this whatever between Steven and Jackie. They both agreed that she needed to make some memories since she would be spending her life without Suzy. That certainly doesn't sound promising."

  "Maybe another couple," Lissa suggested.

  "No. Look at my hands, Lissa. Look at the wrinkles." Merry held out her bejeweled, slightly gnarled fingers.

  "Some things just aren't meant to be, Merry. They've both lived difficult lives. You can't expect them to fall into each other's arms just because it's convenient for you."

  "I know." Merry let her hands drop to her sides, a look of defeat on her face. "Ow!"

  "Ow?"

  "I felt a pain. An age related pain," Merry declared. "I do not like this getting old business. I refuse to let it happen, at least not when I'm still twenty-nine. I'm going to—"

  "You're going to what?"

  "I'm going to do something, something that will at least give Jackie and Steven a push. That's it! They just need a little push."

  Her voice radiated excitement.

  Lissa wondered what that meant. In the past if had not meant anything good…

  Alone in her room that night, Jackie pulled out her cell phone and stared at it. She really should call Parris. Who knew what was going on with the business? And the business had been the one thing that had taken up all her time and thoughts until Steven Rollins had walked into La Torchere and turned her world upside down.

  In a very short time, Hammond Events would be all she had, once again.

  She didn't want to call. She didn't want to think about her normal life.

  Suzy had lifted her lips for a kiss today after her nap. It had been the most awe-inspiring moment of Jackie's life.

  Steven's touch still, hours later, made her skin burn and ache for a replay. She had never felt that way about a man's touch. She had never wanted a man's hands on her.

  Now she kept wondering what she had said that had inspired that touch, what she could do to get him to look at her again as though she were something special.

  It was pathetic. He had looked at her deserted knitting after dinner and pronounced it lovely.

  "You did that yourself," he said, "because you wanted her to have something special to remember you by. That's amazing." And he had made her feel as if she truly had done something wonderful rather than completely mess up the project she had started.

  No, she didn't want to call Parris and allow reality to seep in.

  "But you're a realistic kind of woman, and it's probably a good thing to do what you can to get your head out of the clouds. Clouds always blow away," she reminded herself. "Or they don't blow away and they turn dark and drop rain on you."

  She sighed. Hammond Events was her future. She had better not let her future fall apart—or let her father win again. If she did, she would have absolutely nothing to call her own when she left here.

  And so she dialed. On the fifth ring, Parris picked up. "What?"

  Jackie jumped, startled at her half sister's almost snarling tone. "It's Jackie," she said.

  "Oh. Oh, I guess I knew that. If I had been thinking, I would have known that."

  "I just called—"

  "Jackie, I can't do this. You have got to come back."

  "Parris, I can't."

  "No, you don't understand. You have to. People keep wanting…things. What am I supposed to do with them?"

  Parris sounded so uncharacteristically frightened that if so much hadn't been at stake, Jackie would have left. "What kind of things?"

  And Parris related what had been happening, all the crises, all the demands.

  Slowly, Jackie sifted through what had to be done and how to do it, versus what could wait. She coached Parris until she was pretty sure her half sister had all the knowledge she needed.

  "But can't you just come back? Really, I need help." There was a hint of something vulnerable in Parris's voice, but that couldn't be right, could it? Her half sister had never seemed vulnerable. That was just Jackie's imagination. The emotional nature of the past few days had her seeing things that didn't exist.

  "Parris, believe me, you'll do fine. And no, I can't come back yet. Call me soon and tell me how all of this worked."

  "It's not going to work. Nothing is working. If you don't come back, and maybe even if you do, everything is going to fall apart." And Parris hung up with an angry click.

  Nothing is working.

  Jackie hoped that wasn't an omen of how the rest of the week was going to go. Tomorrow she was going to step out on the ranch, and she was as ill-prepared for the world of ranching as Parris was for the world of business.

  "But what can happen?" she coached herself. "I'm just touring. How could anything bad possibly happen?"

  Jackie was a little jumpy, but eager, Steven noticed right away the next day. He wondered if she was jumpy because he'd been such a fool yesterday, touching his lips to her palm, or if she was just nervous about being out on the ranch. It had been obvious from the first that she was a city girl, and she looked very delicate. Being on a ranch probably wasn't her idea of a fun time, so he had to give her credit for guts. She had not complained once about his insistence on her coming to his home rather than the other way around.

  "What do you want to see first?" he asked her, as he helped her into his truck.

  She turned to him, wide-eyed. "I…well, I guess I don't exactly know. I don't really know the first thing about ranching, you know, except that there are cows and, I guess, bulls."

  "Yeah, you pretty much need both to keep a ranch going." He tried not to grin.

  A slight trace of pink crept up her throat. "Of course. And I've seen that you have horses."

  "Yes, we don't use them quite as much as they used to years ago. The advent of trucks and SUVs has changed things, but we still work the cattle the old fashioned way, on horseback."

  "So you must love horses like crazy? I would guess that a man who lived on a ranch would love them, wouldn't he?"

  He smiled. "I don't actually know what a life without them would be like, having been around horses all my life. Although I probably don't think of them quite the way a person from the city would. A horse is not a pet. It's a partner, and a valued one."

  "So you don't ride just for fun?"

  He shrugged. "Sure, I do, when I have time. I'll—"

  He had been planning on saying, "I'll take you someday," but then he remembered that there wouldn't be a someday.

  "How about you?" he said instead. "Do you ride?"

  Jackie sighed. "I've never tried. That is, I've never even known a horse, really."

  Steven couldn't repress a chuckle. "Well, then, I'll introduce you around the stable when we get back. For now, we'll just hit the high points of the ranch."

  So he took her to the pond. "I have to confess that this is one of my favorite spots. Shady, green, peaceful. Someday Suzy will fish here," he said, and Jackie knelt and dipped her hand in the water.

  "I can see it. Almost," Jackie replied. "She'll be much older then, of course. Walking, talking, skipping rocks." Her tone was wistful. Steven tried not to notice, but it was impossible not to.

  He drove her to the outermost edge of the property, where Hoagie had torn the fence down, letting the cattle spill onto his neighbor's property.

  "You certainly have a lot of fence," she said, eyeing the long expanse that seemed to wander straight to the horizon.

  Steven shrugged. "A law was enacted back in the forties that required ranchers to fence cattle off all the roads. Makes for good neighbors."

  "I'll bet it's tons of work to keep up that much fence."

  "Sure is, but it's just the way things are. It's become a part of our normal duties."

  Jackie shook her head as she eyed the miles of grass. "Normal to you is totally alien to me. I don't know a thing about ranching, and probably most of what I know is imperfect, colored by a lifetime of movies and books that didn't quite get it right
. What kinds of things will Suzy learn as she gets older?"

  Now here was a topic Steven had spent a lot of time thinking about. "She'll have fun, of course. Riding and roping and barrel racing can be exciting. But a lot of ranch work is tedious—repairing water lines and tanks and structures, including fences, keeping the vehicles working, getting rid of any invasive non-native plant species, such as soda apple, making sure the cattle are fed…" He trailed off. No doubt he was boring her.

  "Don't cows just eat grass?" she asked, looking not at all bored.

  "They do graze. But in the winter, even in this climate, we have to provide them with enough minerals. And even though we have a good vet, a lot of the day-to-day doctoring falls to us. Calves have to be helped into the world, and sometimes that's not easy. It's definitely messy. What's more, with so many animals, we have to make sure they're not carrying any diseases or parasites. Not everyone's favorite task." He figured he wouldn't even go near the task of branding, or explaining what it was like to artificially inseminate a heifer. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing most women bred in the city wanted to discuss in great depth.

  "Sounds like a lot of work," Jackie said. "Like an entirely different world not far outside the cities and towns I've known all my life."

  "I suppose it is, but it's the way we live," he said simply. "If you're born to it, you learn all the tasks as you grow up."

  They both knew that Suzy would grow into this life, just as they knew that it was not the kind of thing someone who hadn't been raised on a ranch would find easy to pick up.

  Suddenly Jackie smiled. "Aren't you going to tell me about all the warm, fuzzy stuff?"

  He raised a brow. "Warm, fuzzy?"

  Her smile grew. "You know, how sweet baby calves look or about the kittens the barn cats give birth to? Or the baby lambs."

  Steven laughed. "No baby lambs here."

  "No?" She sounded almost disappointed. He was half tempted to go out and find one somewhere just so he could tell her he had one, and that was saying a lot for a cattle man.

  "Come on," he told her. "We'll go find something warm and fuzzy, if we can."

  Who would have thought he'd be spending valuable work time trying to impress a woman who clearly had no business on a ranch? After his wife and her hatred of the land and this lifestyle, he had sworn he'd never even let another woman on his property who wasn't an employee.

  But Jackie was already here and she was looking almost… eager.

  "What exactly are you going to show me?" she asked.

  He had no idea, but he figured that between him and Ben, they could surely find something on the ranch that would appeal to a city woman.

  "Steven, that little heifer that we've been waiting on finally wandered off and calved." Hoagie had just rid-den up on his horse to where Steven and Jackie were crossing the south pasture. "But there's a problem. The calf is too weak. Can't stand. I was just on my way to get a vehicle to bring him in, so I'm sure glad that you're here with the truck. The little mama isn't going to be too happy as it is."

  Steven nodded. "We'd better take him fast," he agreed. "No point in making her suffer about giving him up any longer than necessary. Where's she at right now?"

  Hoagie pointed and Jackie followed the line of his arm. A black and white cow, swaying, her head hung low, was nudging at a small bundle on the ground.

  Steven gave Jackie an apologetic look. "Jackie, I—"

  "Go on, you have to make sure she's all right. I'll be fine." And he turned the truck and headed across the field.

  The heifer was lowing pitifully, nudging her barely responsive baby. There was muck all over the place. Jackie felt a lump in her throat. Just before Steven got out of the truck, she touched his sleeve.

  "Will the baby be all right, do you think?"

  He studied her face, then brushed a hand across her jaw. "I can't tell yet, but we'll do all we can."

  Jackie watched as Hoagie neared the heifer and started waving his arms and dancing around, pushing at her and trying to distract her while Steven tried to get near the calf.

  The cow let out a pitiful sound, but refused to budge.

  A tight knot of pain crept up Jackie's chest as she watched the distraught mother. The poor thing. She was so worried about her baby.

  Jackie moved forward, neither Steven nor Hoagie noticing her as they concentrated on their tasks.

  "It's all right. They have to do this," she whispered, stepping close to the heifer. She placed her hand on the heifer's side.

  "Holy cow!" Hoagie yelled.

  "Jackie, don't!" Steven lunged forward, but he was too late. The cow turned at the sudden, unexpected contact and started to kick out.

  Jackie quickly scooted back, landing on her butt in the damp mud.

  Taking advantage of the moment, Hoagie quickly picked up the calf and carried it to the truck. Steven scooped up Jackie and did likewise.

  The cow bawled piteously.

  Hoagie laughed out loud as he climbed back on his horse. "Ms. Hammond, you sure know how to provide a distraction." And he tipped his hat and rode away.

  Jackie tried to ignore her stinging bottom. It wasn't too difficult, since Steven was sitting there, tight-lipped and steel-jawed. "What in heaven and hell were you thinking, city girl? Do you have any idea what that hoof could have done to you?" he asked, as he threw the truck into gear and drove toward the barns.

  Jackie bit her lip. "Not really. That is…I have some, a little, but in truth at the time, I just didn't think. She was so…"

  "I know that." Steven's words were like sharp whips. "But, if all goes well, in a short while, she and her calf will be reunited. You might have been living with the results of your actions for a very long time. Or you might not have been living at all."

  And then the silence fell like a sledgehammer. Jackie wanted to apologize, but she didn't quite know what to say, because the man was absolutely right. She hadn't stopped to think. She hadn't stopped to consider the fact that both Hoagie and Steven had been doing this all their lives and knew what they were about. She had been concerned for the mother, but she had allowed herself to forget that Steven was a caring parent. He wouldn't be deliberately cruel. He was doing all he could to help his animals and make things right for them.

  "It may not mean anything, but I truly am sorry I interfered," she somehow managed to say. "Ignorance is no excuse for impulsive behavior."

  She thought she saw his hands tighten on the wheel. She was pretty sure that his jaw grew a bit more rigid. She saw his chest rise and fall as he took a deep breath.

  Then he was silently helping her from the truck and into the house. He deliberately turned on his heel and helped Ben take the weak calf to the barns.

  Jackie felt like a fool—but worse, she felt like an intruder. She had forced herself on Steven, had pushed herself into his life. How would he have felt if she had gotten kicked in the head? Despite his resentment of her, he wasn't an unfeeling man. To know that she had heaped guilt upon him…

  She and Charlotte ate in near silence. Jackie was sure that sometime during the afternoon, someone on the ranch had filled Charlotte in on Jackie's actions. But, to her credit, Charlotte hadn't mentioned anything. Together, they got Suzy fed, and then Charlotte asked Jackie to watch Suzy while she got the baby's bathwater ready.

  In a short while Charlotte returned and took Suzy away. Jackie started to go with them, but then she heard steps on the porch.

  Charlotte looked back over her shoulder. "Maybe if you scoot in here real quick, you can make your escape. Steven takes ranch safety pretty seriously."

  "I know," Jackie said, feeling an ache in her throat. "But I'll stay and face him." She was not a coward. She ran her own business. She dealt with difficult people all the time. But this time she was the one who had caused the difficulties. She refused to run from the harsh words Steven was bound to have for her.

  She waited while he opened the door. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.


  "Is…is the little calf going to be all right?" she asked. No point in simply waiting for the anvil to fall on her head. She didn't want him to know that she was nervous. Curling her hands into fists would do that. Instead, she pressed her palms flat against the sides of her new jeans.

  Steven caught the action the way a hawk would catch the movement of a sparrow on the ground.

  "He's fine," he said curtly. "We managed to get two pints of milk into him, and he's come around. He and his mother are off getting reacquainted."

  Some of the tension drained out of Jackie. She realized that she had been half scared that her actions had inadvertently created a rift in the fabric of the ranch, that somehow the heifer and her calf would have their lives messed up by the unexpected drama she had injected this afternoon.

  "I'm so glad," she said, and she couldn't help letting her feelings show as she gazed up at him. "I was so worried about them."

  For a second, Steven closed his eyes. Then he opened them again. He shook his head. "You know this is a ranch. Animals get hurt. They're not raised to be pets."

  "I know that."

  "Yes, but do you understand that Suzy will have to deal with that one day?"

  "Yes." The word was tight.

  "I hear the word 'but' in your voice, Jackie. Don't even go there. Suzy is my daughter. She's a rancher's daughter."

  Slowly Jackie nodded. She knew what he meant. She would have to deal with the fact that Suzy would learn some things about life that other children didn't learn until they were much older.

  "I'm sure you'll handle telling her the facts well," she finally said. "I can tell how much you love her. That will make it easier for her."

  He studied her for a long moment, his dark eyes fierce and serious.

  "Would you like to have a look at the calf?" he suddenly asked, holding out his hand.

  Jackie nodded. She slid her hand in Steven's, knowing she was a fool to do so, because immediately she was aware of him as a man and herself as a woman. His hand was big and warm, his fingers locked loosely around her own. He had a way of making a woman aware of her body, of arousing her senses with just a look. And adding the sensation of touch only heightened everything.