The Ranch Hand (3 page)

He swung over the side of the truck, boot heels hitting the dirt with a hard smack. He walked away, off toward Snowbrook’s battered camper trailer. She sank back down on the truck’s wheel well, feeling her stomach squeezed tight, her heart like ice inside her chest. For the shortest, sweetest moment she’d actually thought she’d had all her dreams within reach. The dream of her ranch. The dream of Harlan.

Now she had nothing but a kiss.

And she wanted so much more.

Chapter Three

Harlan rode Pike along the range, herding the cattle back to their pens. An early winter storm was on the way, and it smelled like snow. Already the sky had turned a flat steel gray. The wind had picked up and slapped at him in the saddle as if eager to shove him off.

“C’mon, girl,” he said, stroking Pike’s neck. “Let’s get ’em home safe. Then we can call it a day.”

He’d been struggling to keep it together all morning. Three cups of coffee had only left him both wired and tired, which sounded impossible, but there it was.

All last night he’d tossed and turned in his bed, replaying his conversation with Carol over and over again. He was a damn fool. There were a thousand things he should’ve said. Hell, he owed it to her. If he were going to kiss her, he owed her the truth. But after learning she’d achieved the dream he’d always chased, while he still scrimped and saved and toiled away and kept seeing his chance at his own ranch slipping further away… After learning that, all the words had stuck in his head, nailed there, and he couldn’t pry them out. Was it jealousy? No. He couldn’t be that petty. He refused to believe it.

It was only when he’d seen her this morning as she was hitching the trailer to the ranch’s work truck that he’d realized how badly he’d blown it. She’d been readying for a trip to town for supplies and feed. He’d raised his hand to her and shouted a greeting. Her return wave had been too casual. She hadn’t smiled or returned his shout, and that wasn’t like her.

He guided Pike to the herd’s right flank, tightening it up, guiding them away from a thick stand of trees that would be a nightmare if the cattle scattered through it. He glanced at the sky again. Gray and cold. He settled his hat down tighter against the wind. Looked as though cold weather had come early this year. Winter would be rough.

Especially a winter with Carol gone.

He tried to keep focused on the herd, but his thoughts immediately careened back to Carol and last night. How had things gone wrong after that kiss? She’d felt as deliciously soft and warm as he’d always imagined. It had been torture to draw away, to keep to only one stolen kiss and restrain all he felt for her. Somehow, despite all his noble damn intentions, he’d hurt her. Knowing he’d caused her pain made him feel clumsy and stupid and low. Seemed as though he was still as coarse as hemp rope and smooth as a fence post gnawed by a heifer. Nothing ever changed.

He’d only wanted to let her know how her success had inspired him to redouble his efforts to buy his own ranch, finally make his own way. As a ranch hand, he’d always known he had little to offer her. Hell, he lived in a trailer that wasn’t even his. But if he owned his own ranch, then a girl like Carol…well, he’d present a more suitable prospect. But despite all his long hours and hard work, he hadn’t grabbed his dream in time. Now she was farther from him than ever…and soon she’d be gone, off running her own land, and it would be damn dark around here without her smiles.

At least for him, anyway.

It took longer than usual to herd the cattle back in the pens. They were unhappy and skittish about the storm. He was unfocused and reacting too slowly, so it was a relief when he finally guided the last of the cattle home safe. He’d just finished up when the first snowflakes began to fall. A few minutes later they were coming down fast, fat and sticking to everything.

He glanced at the long, winding dirt road that led from the ranch to the main road. Carol wasn’t back from town yet, though she had a four-wheel drive and chains if it came to that. She’d be okay, even if it got nasty.

His horse nudged him and snorted as he led her back to the stables. He set a calming hand on her neck, but a low-grade nervous tension buzzed inside his stomach.

She would be fine. She was a perfectly capable driver. Hell, she’d driven in Colorado weather all her life. He was being an overprotective fool about it.

He thought about calling her cell phone, urging her to be careful and decided against it. He could see no way to do it without coming across as a condescending ass. He sighed, shook his head, and went to finish up as the snow came down like a white sheet, covering everything.

* * *

Carol’s business in town took longer than she’d planned. She’d hoped to be in and out before the storm, but the grocery store had been packed with people stocking up before the snowfall. When she’d finally finished and loaded the big grocery run for the ranch onto the truck, she’d run into more delays at the feed store. The delivery truck hauling hay and oats had been late, again because of the freak storm.

Because of the delay, she was forced to kill time in town, having lunch at a little greasy spoon called Curley’s Corner, staring out the window at the ominous gray sky. Normally the food there was great. Today her BLT had tasted like sawdust and she’d set it aside unfinished. It wasn’t the sandwich though; it was her. She was worried about the coming storm, fretting about the frozen food she’d bought…and still brooding over last night. The way Harlan had seemed to draw away from her after she’d told him the news she was leaving, though he’d done his best to hide it. Then surprising her with that wonderful kiss.

No, she wasn’t going to think on that anymore. Either the kiss or the leaving. The food would be fine, too. She’d packed the meat safely in a cooler she always used for the long trip, but she didn’t have room to fit all the ice cream inside. There had been a doozy of a sale on ice cream, near a third off, and she couldn’t pass that chance up, daydreaming of ice cream cones, ice cream sundaes, ice cream shakes…until she’d discovered that flat meat packaging fit far better in the cooler than six tubs of ice cream. Nothing to help it now. That fence had fallen. Three ice cream gallons sat in plastic bags in the back of the truck. It was cold out, but not cold enough to keep the ice cream solid forever if she didn’t get back on the road soon enough.

Forget the ice cream; it was the late hay delivery that really worried her. They needed the supplies, and if the storm were truly bad, they might not be able to get back into town for a few days. There might be enough hay bales at Snowbrook to see them through…but then again maybe not. She didn’t like to gamble—not with livestock, and never with their horses, which, in her mind, were closer to employees. She meant to uphold her end of the deal with those horses—food and shelter in exchange for their hard work. She was determined to stick it out and come through for them. Actually, now that she thought about it, she guessed she considered the horses closer to family.

The snow started coming down hard an hour before the delivery truck arrived. At first it didn’t stick, melting away on the asphalt, the building roofs, and the car hoods. But as she waited for the tractor-trailer to unload, the snow began to linger on the surfaces cold enough not to melt it right away. When Billy and Carl had finally helped her load her trailer with hay and supplies, the three of them had worked fast in the snowfall. Two, going on three, inches of snow covered the ground already. It stuck to her cowboy hat, her jacket, clung to her boots, left icy cold kisses on any bit of exposed skin.

Now she carefully guided the truck and full trailer back on the main road and headed back toward Snowbrook. Traffic was light, but conditions were treacherous. She had the truck in four-wheel drive and the weight of both the truck and trailer gave her decent traction. She took it slow and steady, but the snow began to fall harder and visibility started to drop—not enough to force her off the road, but enough to make her concerned. A plow had been along once already, but the snow continued to come down fast.

Driving was tense, but simultaneously tedious. Her mind began to wander as she rolled steadily along. She started thinking about Harlan again. That kiss. That blissful, toe-curling kiss and then…nothing. She didn’t know what she’d expected from him. But whatever she’d hoped for—him begging her not to go, him following that kiss with something more—whatever it had been, him talking about how she’d
inspired
him hadn’t been it. She wanted—

A SUV came up fast in her rearview mirror, driving with far too much speed for the road conditions. Damn fool. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel, watching the SUV eat up the distance between them. She didn’t dare tap the brakes, even to let him know she was in front of him and moving at a far slower speed. Doing that might cause the SUV driver to overreact, lock up the brakes and crash.

The road was only two lanes. The SUV swung out into the oncoming lane without a signal and zoomed past her. The glow of headlights appeared a few hundred feet off through the thick snowfall from a vehicle coming toward them. The SUV cut back into her lane too soon. She had to step on the brakes hard. The trailer lost traction, and the truck started to slide. Her heart leapt into her throat. She gently turned into the slide, careful not to over correct. The weight of all the supplies made the handling sluggish, and the truck seemed to fight her, determined to go into a full spin. Grimly, she fought back, struggling for control.

She hit the bank of snow that had been shoved off the road by the plow. The truck shuddered for a second before powering through. The wheels on the right side went off the road. She fought against the pull to the right, battling to keep the truck moving in a straight line as she very gently tapped the brakes.

Once she’d won control, she carefully pulled farther off the road so another driver coming from behind wouldn’t slam into her trailer. She slowed to a stop with her heart hammering away and adrenaline popping in her veins. Crap. She wished she’d gotten the license number of that idiot driver, but she’d been too busy keeping her truck from careening off the road. The SUV had raced off without stopping. Of course. She hadn’t expected anything different from a driver like that.

She put on her flashers, checked her mirrors, and climbed out of the truck. First she examined the trailer load, throwing careful glances back along the road, still worried that the hazardous conditions would lead to someone plowing into the back of her trailer. The hay and feed and supplies hadn’t shifted, the tarp remained tied down perfectly, giving her a burst of pride that she was still a pro at securing a load. She hurried back to the driver’s door and climbed inside. She started the truck and gently applied pressure to the pedal…

…and the tires on the right side spun without gaining traction. She shifted into reverse and tried again, nursing the pedal, but again, the right side tires couldn’t gain traction. She swore and climbed back out. The snowflakes kissed her face, blew in her eyes. She grabbed a couple of flares from the back and walked along the right side of the truck. The snow was five or six inches deep here. It was even deeper where the first plow had pushed it off the road. She waded through it, around to the right side tires.

“Beautiful,” she murmured as she stared down at the muddy brown spray thrown around the tires, all along the sides of the truck.

It wasn’t the snow that was keeping the tires from getting traction, it was the mud beneath the snow. Her boots squelched in it as she moved closer, and every footprint marred the white with muddy tracks. She sighed and her breath clouded around her face. It was cold and the snow already dusted her shoulders, stuck to her hat and coat, the flakes sliding down her neck and below her collar, making her colder.

She stuck the flares in the snow, supporting them with a little snow pile, leaving them along the side of the road at fifty and a hundred feet, and kept her lights and flashers on. Then she turned back to her truck and went for the bag of cat litter she kept for just such an occasion, portable traction in case she ever got stuck. She could dig around the tires until she hit drier ground. Once she got rolling she’d be okay again.

Seemed it was time to get dirty. Good thing she wasn’t a girl scared of a little dirt. She stared into the trailer, mounded with snow. At least her ice cream wouldn’t melt any time soon.

* * *

Worry crept up on Harlan as he kept watch for Carol through the growing storm and she kept not arriving home. The snow had really started to come down. The flakes had thrown a thick white blanket over his truck, the chair outside his trailer, and turned his fire pit into a vanilla-filled pond. The occasional gust of wind had even stuck snow to the trailer windows. He had the heater going hard, but the icy chill in the air deepened.

Carol was an hour late.

Normally he wouldn’t have given it another thought, but with the snow and everything, he itched to call her. Only to make sure she was fine. To double check that everything was happy trails, nothing to worry about. But at the same time he didn’t want to sound like an ass, fretting like a mother hen—or worse, imply that she couldn’t handle herself in a fix of bad weather…

He paced back to the window. The snow still fell, relentless. He could barely make out the dirt driveway through the drifting white. His breath began to cloud the window. He smeared it away, annoyed, and scowled at the sky. No sign of the storm letting up any time soon.

To hell with it. He didn’t care if he sounded like a mother hen. He didn’t give one hot country damn if she got prickly about it. She was late, and he was worried. That was enough for him.

He grabbed his cell phone and dialed her, but was sent straight to voicemail. Damn. She might have the cell phone off. She might be out of batteries or driving through a No Service area.

Or she might be in trouble.

He grabbed his hat and coat and headed for the door. Three minutes later he had his windshield scraped free of snow and his truck on the road.