Once a Rancher (23 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

B
AD
DAY
/
GOOD
DAY
.

Grace couldn't bring herself to scold Ryder. On the one hand, she felt like pointing out that he knew what his father was like, knew he couldn't count on Hank to tell her. And
hello
, didn't he realize she'd be worried? But another, more pragmatic impulse won out. She acknowledged that he wasn't ultimately responsible—and she didn't want to spoil his elation at tonight's success.

So instead she listened as they drove home.

“He was brilliant.” He was talking about the horse he'd ridden in the competition. “I wonder... I mean, you let me have Bonaparte, but if I worked hard, could you think about me getting a horse?”

That meant he was probably getting about five horses already. Let's see—Red, Slater, Drake, Mace, Blythe and Harry. Wait. That made six.

Raine might buy him one, too. She was as bad as the rest of them.

“You can have a horse if you take care of it.” Grace turned onto Main. She didn't want to put too much emphasis on one accomplishment. He was exceptionally good at horse-related activities, apparently, but school was important, too. “I have a feeling the Carson ranch will let us board your horse there. Why don't we make a deal? You pass English and at the end of the school year, we'll ask Red to come with us and we'll go pick out a horse. Okay?”

“I got a C on my last assignment.”

She was fine with that. C was a passing grade. “Ryder, I'm never going to ask you to be perfect at everything. None of us are. It's just impossible. This person can do one thing, and this other person can't. I want to know you're trying. That's all. You did really well today. You—”

“Could our place be on fire?”

Distracted by the sudden change in subject, she said, “What?”

He pointed through the windshield.

The plume of smoke was alarming. They said in unison, “Bonaparte!”

Grace cared about her personal belongings and even more about the things she'd inherited from her grandmother, but she cared a lot more about the cat. As she drove in, she saw that volunteer firefighters were already there and taking care of the problem, but it was definitely her condo with the plume of smoke billowing out.

“We'll find him,” she told Ryder, thankful they hadn't been there when the blaze started. “That cat is so smart...”

She prayed it was true. The first thing she did was call Slater. There were fire trucks all over the place, and she usually was calm under pressure, but nothing like this had ever happened to her. “I need you here.”

He didn't even ask. “On my way.”

She had to park down the street, and she and Ryder ran to the closest truck. There was a firefighter standing next to it, and Grace had enough experience with this type of situation to figure out that he was the one in charge. She caught Ryder by the arm as he was about to charge past her. “Grace Emery,” she told the firefighter. “That's my place. We have a pet. A small black cat. Can you please find out for me if anyone's seen him? We'll stay out of your way, I promise, but that would really help the situation.”

He was thickset and had a goatee liberally streaked with silver, and he looked as if he'd be at home at Bad Billy's. He took one look at Ryder's anxious face and at her hand, clamped on the kid's arm, and nodded. “Yes, ma'am. Lots of smoke, but not much real damage. We got the alert from your security alarm when the back door was broken in. Hopefully, the critter left that way. We realized right away that it was arson, but things are under control now, and none of the other condos were affected. Whoever did this didn't know what he was doing. Thank God...” He looked around. “Let me ask about the cat.”

“Grace, he'll come to me but not to them.” Ryder tried to wriggle away as the man walked off.

“You'll interfere with them doing their job. You're staying right here. I mean it.”

He muttered a word she usually disapproved of, but the situation did warrant cutting him some slack. He was having a rollercoaster kind of evening; they both were. Hers had started low, gone high and was now back to low.

The ranch was hardly right next door, so when Slater arrived twenty minutes later, she'd already filled out a police report and surveyed the damage, which, as the firefighter had told her, was mostly smoke and water. Whoever had done this—and that wasn't really a question in her mind—had set her new couch on fire.

She was going to miss that couch, but at least they'd found Bonaparte in his usual hiding place, and Ryder had coaxed him out from under the bushes.

Child safe, the child's beloved cat safe... So, not a bad outcome to a bad event.

But she was sick of it. Sick of the constant threat, the malicious and increasingly dangerous incidents.

“I'm done,” she said when Slater and Drake walked up. “This is over.”

Slater watched a fire truck pull away. “Can't say as I'm opposed to that. Let's board up the broken door and head back to the ranch. Drake will get the cat in the carrier. Mom loves cats. She's still in mourning over her last one, who finally passed away at the age of twenty-one. Bonaparte is more than welcome.” He held her gaze steadily. “I want you there. Please agree that this is getting way too dangerous.”

She did agree. “For David Reinhart it is.”

She saw Drake walk over, point at the open pet crate, and the cat scooted right out of Ryder's arms through the open door.

“The sight of that crate usually sends that cat into deep hiding.” She really was incredulous.

Slater shook his head. “Don't ask me how, but it just happens. He's a wizard. I've told him he should grow a long beard, wear a robe and put a nest of baby birds on his head.”

Drake looked pretty comfortable in a hat and worn jeans versus the wizard getup, but the cat had gotten his message without any trouble. Grace managed to find some solace in that.

“We'll go home and sort it out.”

Home.
That sounded comfortable. But... “I don't want to depend on you for every little thing.”

“You don't want to depend on me for anything. Hey, look around, someone set your house on fire. That's not little. Besides, Grace, I'm the person you should count on for
everything
. Just like I should count on you.”

No, it wasn't little. What had begun as a simple matter—firing a dishonest employee—had escalated way out of control. She couldn't look over her shoulder every minute of the day, nor could she send a bodyguard with Ryder, or for that matter, Slater. She had work, Ryder had school and Slater seemed invincible with his broad shoulders and male confidence, but she knew he wasn't. Her ex-husband came across that way, too, and he'd been knocked unconscious. She gestured at the ruined remains of her living room. “I wonder if this is why he was here when he hit Hank. He was getting ready to break in to start the fire and Hank walked out the door. Obviously he came prepared with something heavy enough to break some pretty solid glass.”

“Tell Ryder to grab some clothes, go get some for yourself, and Drake and I will take care of the door.” He grasped her by the shoulders then gently turned her toward the hallway and the bedrooms.

* * *

Everything, all her clothes, would smell like smoke, but knowing Harry, by the time she got up in the morning, it would all be washed and neatly folded. Drake was a wizard and Harry was a genie from a bottle. Slater had told her that when he went off to college he'd realized with dismay that he could run cattle, mend a saddle and do just about everything else on a working ranch, but he didn't know the first thing about washing a load of clothes. He'd sheepishly called Harry for a phone lesson in Laundry 101.

She should make Ryder do his own laundry, Grace decided as she stuffed clothes in a suitcase. It wasn't something she'd ever thought about, but now...

They were going to live at the ranch. She'd suspected all along that it would happen. Still, she was furious to have the chance to discuss it with Slater taken from her. She zipped up the case, told herself the tears in her eyes were from residual smoke and stomped out of her bedroom.

* * *

T
HE
WOMAN
HAD
a serious mad on, and Slater couldn't blame her.

He certainly wasn't marrying a woman who dissolved in a puddle of tears when a crisis came along. She was justifiably angry and that wasn't a secret, but then again, he'd be angry, too. Since Drake was following with Ryder in her car, he ventured a conversation. “If you don't want to live at the ranch, we can buy a house.”

“Would you stop reading my mind?” From the passenger seat of the truck, she sent him a lethal glare. “And, by the way, that's not what I was thinking.”

It was tempting to point out the contradiction, but he preferred to believe he was smarter than that. “Okay, what
were
you thinking?”

“I was thinking you and I should both have a choice. I didn't want it to happen like this—Ryder and me having no other place to go. I wanted you to
ask
me, not feel obliged to take us in.”

“I told you I wanted you there with me.”

She shook her head and gave a humorless laugh. “I'm not making sense, I know. Maybe I'm more romantic than I thought. I suppose I pictured us sitting on your porch, holding hands, discussing it in the moonlight.”

He understood. She was used to making her own decisions, and this situation had been thrust on her all at once. “Well, we can't hold hands while I'm driving, and I need to keep my eyes on the road, but let's talk about it. If you don't want to live at the ranch, let's rent a house while your condo's being fixed and then we can live there. Or somewhere else. We can build our own house. Whatever you want.”

He wasn't destined to know how she might have responded because at that moment his phone vibrated and he picked it up to peer briefly at the screen.

Spence.

He punched a button on the dash so he could talk hands-free. “Hey.”

“We got David Reinhart, who is also by the way David Lipman, according to the driver's license he showed the arresting officer. We took him into custody about fifteen minutes ago. He ran a stoplight. Luckily, everyone at the station knows the story. The officer recognized him from the pictures we'd passed around.”

“That's great news! Let me pass you to Grace. She's here with me.”

The cop speak was rapid-fire and he caught only about half of it, but he gathered that there was enough evidence in the vehicle to validate the arrest. She sounded relieved when they hung up. “He's off the street. The judge will go over all of it, and set bail, pending a hearing on assault and arson charges. The accelerant was in his car. Or rather, the car he was driving, which apparently belongs to his girlfriend.
His
car was repossessed.”

He carefully navigated a turn. “I knew Spence would get him, just wasn't sure when.”

“I didn't doubt him, but this is one of those elusive cases that don't usually show up very high on the urgent scale. Harassment that doesn't cause harm is considered more of a nuisance than a crime.”

“He tried to burn down your house!”

“That's my point. He finally caused harm.” She laid back her head and closed her eyes. “It isn't over by any means, but there's enough to charge him—between the eyewitness who saw him trespassing on my property and the fact that they now have his prints.”

“This has certainly been an interesting day.”

It became
more
interesting.

She said slowly, “I think we could try living at the ranch and see if it works for us. I like having my own space, but Ryder would love being there. And having your family around would help me, not just with him, but if we do have a baby. You'll be away a lot. I'm not talking built-in babysitters, although I'm sure they'd be all over that. I'm talking
family
.”

There were two deer standing in the driveway to the ranch, so he waited until they loped off. “I'm really willing to work on the baby thing.”

“You,” she said, “have turned my life upside down. I'd just gotten it all in order and then you come along.”

He loved her sulky smile and how she completely failed to convince him she meant it. “Really?” he said as they went up the drive. “Life in order? Seems to me you moved, inherited your ex-husband's problem child, started a new career, had serious trust issues and acquired a stalker. You met me, and
now
your life's in order.”

“Oh, right. I'm getting married for the second time—something I swore I'd never do—I'm apparently going to live with my rambunctious in-laws, including a housekeeper who rules with an iron fist, your brother the wizard and the other one who plies me with wine.
And
we have to ride off into the sunset every evening since that's your favorite way to relax.”

He glanced at her, eyebrows slightly raised. “Well, that point can be debated. There's another way to relax that I like even more. It involves a different kind of ride, but it's still you and me together.”

That won him a genuine laugh despite the tense evening. “I'll give you the sweet-talking cowboy award, but you lose in the subtle category, Carson.”

“Hey, I wasn't even aiming for
that
belt buckle.” He parked the truck in his usual spot. The porch lights were on, and he knew both his mother and Harry would be up, waiting anxiously.

He leaned over and put his thumb on Grace's chin to tilt her face up to his. “I am planning to enter the best husband category, though.”

Just before he kissed her, she whispered, “You go, cowboy.”