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“He does tend to go on.” He helped Iva through the main room and headed her toward the doors.
He nodded at Ingrid Edwards, once again behind her desk. She was shuffling through a drawer but she smiled up at him, her glasses sliding down her nose and red hair coming loose from a clip that held it to the top of her head. She winked and he wasn’t quite sure what to do.
Last week she’d brought him fried chicken. The week before that, brownies. Ingrid was on the prowl, looking for a husband before she turned twenty-six. Or so the rumor went. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but she’d have to look elsewhere. He was thirty-one and had no intention of settling down.
“It isn’t my Derek,” Iva muttered as they headed for the front door. “I know you think you know him, Carson Thorn, but you don’t. He’s a changed boy.”
“He’s almost twenty, Iva. That’s not really a boy.”
“He’s still my boy and I won’t let you or anyone else run him down. I appreciate what you’ve done over the years, but when it comes to family, I draw the line.”
“As you should.”
She stopped just feet short of the door, leaning heavily on the walker. She studied him with those blue eyes of hers. “I’ve always appreciated your help.”
“My help?”
“The lawyer, for Derek.”
He cleared his throat and glanced out the door, hoping to avoid a conversation he didn’t want to have. But she wouldn’t let it go.
“Johnny Mac fixing my truck,” Iva continued. “And that beef in my fridge.”
“We should go. I need to get in there before Byron and the others really do form a posse like they’ve been discussing. We can’t have them riding off on horses, guns blazing.”
She laughed a gravely sounding laugh. “Your daddy was made of the same cloth as that Byron McKay. You’re a different breed. Don’t be like them.”
“I try not to be.”
“You ain’t been to church in a good long while.”
He should have known it would come back to that. “I’ve been busy.”
“Oh, land’s sakes, don’t give me that. I’m not sure what burr got under your saddle, but it isn’t so big that God can’t fix it.”
He smiled and shook his head. “I know He’s capable. But there’s no burr, just a busy life.”
“Help me to my car, then.”
They were on the sidewalk heading for the old Buick Iva drove. And that’s when he saw Ruby Donovan. She stood in front of the white car dressed in shorts, canvas sneakers and a T-shirt. Her auburn hair lifted slightly in the breeze and she pushed it back and held it with her hand as she watched him approach. Seeing her like that took him back to the first time he’d seen her. She’d been fifteen. He’d been seventeen. She’d just gotten off some crazy ride at the county fair. She’d been laughing at something her friend had said and walking toward the Ferris wheel.
Today felt a lot like that moment when they’d met. And nothing like that moment. Today when she looked at him her hazel eyes didn’t sparkle. Her mouth didn’t form that generous smile. No, she glared. He felt more than a little edgy seeing her up close and in person for the first time in twelve years.
One of these days he’d like to get an answer from her. He’d like to know what he’d done to deserve her walking away without even saying goodbye. He’d like to know how she’d gone from wanting to spend a life together to wanting nothing more than a free ride to college, compliments of his father.
But maybe it was better if he didn’t know.
* * *
Ruby sucked in a breath and tried to pretend her heart wasn’t tripping all over itself the way it had always tripped when she saw Carson Thorn. She’d managed to avoid him for a dozen years. That hadn’t been easy considering he lived just down the road from her grandmother. But somehow on her odd trips home she’d managed.
But seeing him, the tall rancher with the dark brown hair and brown eyes that a girl could get lost in, was like going back. It was like being in love again. And she wasn’t in love. He was no longer that boy, and she was no longer an impressionable teenage girl who believed in happy-ever-after.
It was this man who had taken those dreams from her. This man and his family. Until she’d met the Thorns she had always been good enough.
To see him helping her Gran to the car, that sizzled down deep where the red in her hair lived waiting to be unleashed.
She stepped forward, ignoring the confused look on his face. She ignored expensive cologne that smelled like the mountains and the ocean and everything good in between. She tried, desperately, to ignore the fact that the air seemed too thick to breathe when he was in her space. The need for oxygen meant she had to get him gone as quickly as possible.
“Thank you, Carson. I’ll help her to the car.”
“Be nice, Ruby Jo,” Iva warned.
“I’m being nice.” Ruby stepped close to help her grandmother off the sidewalk.
Iva leaned in. “No, you’re showing your claws. You have no idea, Ruby.”
“I have ideas.” She looked back. Carson was still there, watching them.
Her younger brother, Derek, was nowhere to be found. He’d said something about errands to run and he’d get a ride home. She didn’t like when he disappeared. She trusted him, but since cattle had started disappearing just a little too close to the time Derek had been released from prison, she knew he was going to continue to be a suspect until someone was caught.
These days everyone was a suspect.
She was surprised no one had tried to blame her since she’d arrived back in town only a few weeks ago.
Carson interrupted her thoughts, and that was too bad because she’d been trying to block him from her mind and her memories. He stepped past her and opened the car door.
Once Iva was situated, Ruby took her purse out of the walker and folded the contraption up to store it in the trunk of the car. She turned, and Carson Thorn was there. Without a word, he took the walker from her hands. If she’d trusted herself to speak, she would have told him that she could take care of things herself.
Funny that his name was Thorn, because he was a real thorn in her side. A thorn she’d prayed like the apostle Paul that God would remove from her. She’d tried to pray away his memory. And now? She didn’t need him lurking, being kind, respectful. She needed him to go away and not be a reminder of everything she’d lost and why she’d left Little Horn.
If it hadn’t been for Iva and Derek, she would have stayed in Oklahoma, and then she wouldn’t have had this issue to deal with. But she was home. And they did need her here. Her grandmother needed her.
“Is that frown for me?”
What should she say to that? She could say, of course it wasn’t. Or she could admit that it was. “I didn’t realize I was frowning.”
He leaned against the back of the car, long legs in new jeans and those expensive boots of his. The walker was still in his hands.
“You were definitely frowning.”
“I should have sold the ranch and convinced Gran and Derek to move to Oklahoma with me,” she admitted without intending to.
“What would have been the fun in that? You’re not a city girl, Ruby. You were born and raised in Hill Country, and you can’t outrun it.”
“I’ve been living in the city a long time, and I’m adaptable.”
His smile faded. “Yes, I guess you are.”
She wondered about that smile, why he acted as if it was all about him. She wondered if he had any clue how much his dad and sister had hurt her. How much he’d hurt her? It wasn’t as if she’d wanted to stay gone from her home. She’d stayed gone because she hadn’t been able to imagine seeing him with someone else. She was only back because Gran’s health had deteriorated and someone had to look out for Derek.
“Listen, we don’t have to do this. When we see each other, we don’t have to get tugged back into the past. It was a long time ago and I’m over it. I’m sure you’re over it since...” She shook her head. She wasn’t going there. “I have work to do.”
He stepped away from the back of the car and pointed, indicating she should open the trunk. When she did, he lifted the walker and stowed it inside. “There you go. Is there anything else you need help with?”
She stared up at the tall, overpowering rancher, surprised by the offer. She tried to see the boy she’d known in the face of this ruggedly handsome stranger. The features were stronger, more defined, more...everything. His eyes were shuttered against emotion. But she saw a flicker, maybe a hint of warmth.
“I don’t need help. We’ve always gotten along just fine.”
“Did you put up the surveillance cameras the league handed out?”
“I have them in a box. I haven’t had a chance to take them out, and I don’t know if I can do it myself.”
“I can help you put them up.”
She wondered if her mouth had dropped when he made that offer. Purposefully, she clamped her lips and shook her head. “I’ll read the directions and do it myself,” she insisted. Yes, she knew the only difference between her and a stubborn five-year-old was the lack of a foot stomp on her part.
“I was trying to help.”
“I know. And I really do appreciate that. But I can take care of things. Derek will help me.” She put a finger up and wagged it in his face. “Don’t say it.”
He grinned and suddenly the tension in the air melted just a little. “I won’t say it. But if you change your mind, let me know.”
“I will.” She took a few steps away from him, feeling better with the solid metal of the sedan between them.
“It’s been nice talking to you, Ruby.”
With that, he walked away.
“Yes, nice talking to you.” Nice going back in time and revisiting heartache. And the other leftover emotions. The ones that should have been long gone— feelings she hadn’t expected to surface after so many years. Ruby stood there for too long, and a car honked. She stepped out of the way, waving absently at the car pulling into the parking space next to hers.
She opened the door of the sedan and climbed in behind the wheel. She glanced at her passenger, and Iva pretended not to be grinning.
“Gran, do not get that look on your face. Carson Thorn is twelve years in my past. I can do without him and without his daddy’s money.”
“His daddy has been gone a few years, honey.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“And you have to think about forgiving, because hanging on to all that resentment isn’t good for a soul. While you’re at it, forgive his sister.”
She started the Buick and glanced quickly at her granny before shifting the car into Reverse. “How do you know about Jenna?”
“As if there are any secrets in this town. You didn’t want to tell me, but I heard that she said some things about you not being the right woman for her brother and that he’d found someone in college that would make him a perfect wife. A woman who didn’t buy her clothes at the thrift store.”
“I didn’t want you to know. It would have...”
“Hurt me? No, not at all. We did the best we could, and there’s no shame in buying clothes secondhand. It’s called being good stewards of what God gives us.”
She swiped at the tear trickling down her cheek and reached for her grandmother’s hand. “You are so important to me.”
“I know.” Iva grinned and squeezed her hand. “Now, let’s get on out to the house, and you try to stop thinking about Carson Thorn.”
Stop thinking about Carson. Of course. She would just put his memory aside. She would forget summer days at the lake, two kids in love planning their future, the house they would build, the horses they would raise together.
They’d been kids planning a way to conquer the world and their own pasts.
His past: the death of his mom in his early teens and a dad who wouldn’t accept anything less than perfection.
Her past: the loss of her mom and then her dad. There had been a lot of dysfunction before they’d been turned over to their granny Iva to raise.
Life had brought her full circle, back to Little Horn, back to Iva and Derek. She would try to start a new life in Little Horn, working with kids, giving riding lessons and maybe rebuilding the farm.
Carson Thorn wouldn’t even cross her mind. Not if she stayed busy, stayed clear of town and never stepped foot off the ranch. If she had no social life and no friends, she would never bump into him.
“I wonder why he never married?” The question slipped out, totally unintended. “You know, the woman he met. Did he ever bring her around?”
Iva shot her a knowing look. “You know, for years you haven’t let me mention him. Why all of the questions now?”
“Just curious.”
“I never saw him with another woman, Ruby. He’s worked the ranch, tried to keep that sister of his out of trouble and he’s done his best for the town.”
Ruby shrugged it off. “Not that I care.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“I do not care.” Ruby turned on to the driveway that led to the Donovan ranch. A long driveway with sagging fences running along both sides. At the end of the drive sat a white farm house and a sagging barn to match those fences.
When she looked at her home she saw work that should have been done years ago. She saw neglect.
She should have come home more often. She should have ignored her grandmother’s claims that everything was fine. Somehow she’d convinced herself that the money she sent home was needed more than her presence. Random weekends home hadn’t been enough to keep things going, though.
“Stop beating yourself up, Ruby.” Iva reached to open her door, but she paused to give Ruby a sharp look. “It was my choice to let Slim go. I just couldn’t see paying him anymore. And it was me who told you that we could get by.”
“I should have come home.” Ruby let her gaze slide over the landscape, the fields dotted with a few head of cattle, the hills in the distance and the blue, blue sky rising above it. “I love this place.”
And she’d let heartache keep her from it, from the people she loved and the life she loved. But she was back now, and she would make this ranch profitable again.
She hoped it wasn’t too little, too late, because she wouldn’t run again. She would face the past and face Carson Thorn. Even if it hurt.
Chapter Two (#ulink_11a43bf4-dcd3-51af-8b6e-e05306f6e2f4)
As much as Carson loved living on this ranch in Texas Hill Country, some mornings he’d just as soon put it on the market and move to the city. Or to another country. This was one of those mornings. He’d been up since well before daybreak, and he’d heard nothing but problems and complaints since he set foot in the barn.
The hay they’d bought from Iowa hadn’t showed up, there was an outbreak of pinkeye and someone really needed to do something about the wild hogs that were tearing up a section of field at the back of the property where the hills were steep and a creek supplied water. Carson poured himself a cup of coffee, raised a hand to the young kid about to ask what he needed to do, since it was his second day on the job, and walked out the back of the barn to watch the sun come up over an autumn landscape.
He sighed as he sipped about the worst coffee in history. For a brief moment he could forget wild hogs, pinkeye, drought and cattle thieves. For that moment, as he watched the sun come up, he knew God existed and he knew that as bad as things could look, somehow they always worked out in the end. For a man who sometimes felt as far from God as he could get, maybe that was getting somewhere.
