Buch lesen: «Second Chance Rancher»

Chapter One

Late morning sun in his eyes, Dane Scott thought he couldn’t be seeing right. There was an old Chevy truck tangled up in the fencerow and a half-dozen head of his cattle grazing in the ditch. He pulled to the side of the road and got out. His dog jumped off the back of the truck and followed him down the slope. As he drew closer, Dane prepared himself, hoping he wouldn’t find anyone inside the truck that he knew belonged to his neighbors, the Palermos.

Fortunately the truck was empty. The tires were bogged down in mud, compliments of two days of rain and a driver who had tried to back out of the mess. Barbed wire from the fence was wrapped around the passenger side tires.

At least he could surmise that seventeen-year-old Maria Palermo wasn’t injured. The big problem was, who to call. The Palermo family was what the good folks of Bluebonnet Spring, Texas, called “a mess.” That was usually followed by a “bless their hearts” or “it wasn’t really their fault.”

The most functional member of the family was Lucy Palermo. But last he’d heard, she was a couple of hundred miles south, near Austin. The twin brothers, Alex and Marcus, were somewhere riding bulls. Their mother was in California with husband number three.

Dane knew Maria was home alone and running wild. Even when her brothers showed up and pretended to be responsible, she was on her own.

He guessed he could call Essie Palermo, great-aunt of the four siblings and owner of Essie’s Diner in Bluebonnet Springs. Essie lamented the children of her late nephew. She said a little religion wouldn’t have hurt them, but the kind they’d gotten from their own father had wounded them to the core.

Dane pulled the keys out of the ignition of the abandoned truck and walked back up the embankment to the road. He pulled his hat low and scanned the field where another two hundred head of Black Angus cattle grazed. Good thing they hadn’t spotted the truck-sized hole in the fence.

At the moment it didn’t matter who he called. He had to get that truck out of his field and patch up the fence. As he headed for his vehicle, a dark blue truck parked behind his. Even with a glare on the windshield, he could see the driver, her dark hair pulled back and a big frown tugging at her mouth.

Lucy Palermo. The oldest of the Palermo siblings, and the last person he expected to see on this stretch of the road. A year younger than his thirty years, she had reasons for avoiding her childhood home. And they had reasons for avoiding each other.

She was out of her truck and heading his way, cutting short his trip down memory lane. Not that he wanted to go there. He opened the toolbox on the back of his truck and pulled out gloves and wire cutters. From the frown on her face he could tell she was half mad and half worried.

“She’s not in the truck so she must be okay.” He guessed that might ease her worry, and then she could focus on being mad.

“She needs to be locked up,” Lucy said on a huff, her gaze shooting to the wrecked truck.

He gave her a quick look, trying to come to terms with the woman at his side, because the girl he’d known hadn’t been this cool person with the clipped tone. A smile took him by surprise but he tamped it down because he didn’t need her ire. That’s exactly what he would get if she knew he’d even dared to think of that girl and that summer. It was safer to keep the conversation on Maria, her little sister.

“She’s just a kid.”

She responded with rapid-fire Portuguese, then briefly closed her eyes and shook her head.

“She’s a kid who ran her truck through a neighbor’s fence and left.” She spoke again in English.

He shook his head and walked away, because she knew better. Lucy followed, still talking. He hid a smile as she continued to rant about their mother leaving town, her irresponsible brothers and the call from Aunt Essie telling her she was needed in Bluebonnet Springs.

“She didn’t know what to do.” He defended her aunt.

“I know. And it isn’t her responsibility. I should have been here.”

He stopped because something needed to be said. She nearly ran into him, so with his free hand he reached out to steady her. Her dark eyes snapped as she looked down at his hand on her arm, not saying a word, but clearly reinforcing the Don’t Touch policy.

Yeah, that was the Lucy he remembered. She’d been wearing that Hands Off sign for a long time. “You’re here now,” he offered. “Maybe if you stay, you can help her out.”

Wrong words. Her dark eyes narrowed. Try as he might, he was a man and he noticed that even spitting mad, she was beautiful. Not the flowery, glossy kind of beauty, but strong and wildly feminine even in jeans, a plain T-shirt and boots.

She scrubbed a hand over her face and sighed. “I plan on staying. And I’m sorry about the fence. I’ll help you get your cattle back in, and then I’ll see to getting the fence fixed.”

They stood side by side studying the wrecked truck and the fence. Dane’s dog, Pete, a black-and-white border collie, sniffed the tires.

“I’m sure she’ll be okay, Lucy. She’s been through a lot.”

“I know she’s been through a lot.” She kept a steady gaze on the truck but he saw moisture gather in her eyes. “I thought Maria was staying with Aunt Essie.”

“I think she might have stayed there for a few weeks but eventually she moved back to the ranch.”

“I can’t say that I blame her. Essie is used to living alone. But I wish someone had told me our mother had skipped town again. If nothing else, I could have taken Maria to Austin with me.”

Dane shot her a look, knowing she was talking more to herself than to him. She confirmed that by giving him a hard stare that seemed to ask what he was looking at. So he shrugged it off and started clipping wires wrapped around the wheels of the truck.

He wasn’t getting involved. He was just going to fix his fence and head home to his own life. Lucy Palermo could take care of her problems. He’d take care of his.

* * *

After pushing the truck out of the way, Lucy had helped Dane get his cattle back. They’d patched the fence but she promised she’d be back to make it right. As she headed up the dirt drive that led to the home she’d been raised in, she felt that old familiar tightening around her heart. She recognized it as panic. A few deep breaths helped to ease the pain. There was nothing here to fear. Her father was gone. His life claimed by a bull he’d hoped would be his ticket to the big time.

Her mother wasn’t in the kitchen pretending there was nothing wrong with a man who randomly drank, quoted the Bible and then beat his children for the slightest infraction.

Lucy parked in the circle drive, just a dozen feet from the front steps of the house. It no longer looked like a home, not with the lawn covered in weeds, flowers growing wild up the posts that supported the porch roof and no lights glimmering from inside. The one thing that had been a constant had been the facade of this home. It had looked like a house where a happy family lived. The house had been a real metaphor for their lives. Picturesque on the outside, dark and painful on the inside.

As she headed for the front door she gave herself a pep talk. She didn’t have to stay here. She could take Maria with her back to Austin. Why should either of them stay in Bluebonnet now that Maria would be graduating high school? It seemed like the perfect solution.

She stepped through the front door, chastising herself for reliving the past. The house was quiet except for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the dining room. The air conditioner hadn’t been turned on and the temperature inside must have been at least ninety degrees. It felt cooler outside than in. To top it off, the place had the distinct smell of neglect. The trash hadn’t been taken out. The dog had been left to run inside. Her mother had abandoned her duties. Again.

That left Lucy to pick up the pieces and keep her siblings on track. At twenty-nine she was tired of being the family glue, but since there was no one else, she would do what needed to be done.

She would clean up the mess. She would find her younger sister. She would make sure her twin brothers were clean and sober. For years, since their father’s death, the family was like a spring that had been coiled up tight and then turned loose. They’d all gone off in different directions, a little wild, a lot unpredictable.

She’d picked the Army, even before her father’s death, because it had seemed like the antithesis to her childhood. Every day in the military she’d known the time to get up, to eat and to go to bed. She’d usually known what each day would require. Most importantly, it had meant being thousands of miles from Bluebonnet.

There had been surprises. There had been pain. And death. But she’d survived. The same way she’d survived her childhood.

“Maria, where are you?” Lucy yelled. From the back of the ranch house, the dog barked. Maria didn’t respond, but Lucy guessed if she followed the bark, she’d find her sister.

She opened the door at the end of the hall. Maria was passed out on her bed. The dog growled from the pillow next to her. Lucy scanned the disaster of a bedroom. Clothes covered nearly every surface. The chair by the window, the dresser, the floor. It looked like a department store had exploded. The windows were wide-open, letting in the heat of late May.

What a mess.

“Stupid poodle.” Maria, dark hair tangled and smudges beneath her eyes, reached in a half slumber and pushed the dog off the bed.

“Be nice to the dog,” Lucy warned.

Maria sat up quickly, then held her head and groaned. “Go away.”

“Right, because a seventeen-year-old can be trusted to take care of herself.”

“Marcus and Alex are here. They’re adults. And I’m almost eighteen.”

“Our brothers are in Waco and we both know that. I got a call from Essie, letting me know you were running wild and she’s taking care of the livestock. But you, on the other hand...”

“She should mind her own business.” Maria fell back on the pillow and covered her head with a blanket. “I hate you.”

“Right, because alcohol is your friend and I’m not. How long has our mother been gone? And why aren’t you with her?”

“She went to California a couple of months ago. She and husband number three are back in love. I don’t like to be a third wheel. And I haven’t been drinking.”

“Of course you haven’t. Get up out of that bed. You have a fence to fix.”

“What?” She brushed a hand through the tangles of her curly, chestnut hair.

“You ran through Dane Scott’s fence, Maria. Last night. You even left the truck where you wrecked it.” Lucy shook her head and gave her sister another long look. “Get up. I’ll help with the fence but I’m not doing all the work.”

“Poor Lucy, she has to do everything. And I wasn’t drinking.” The blanket she’d held to her chin dropped, revealing a rounded tummy. Lucy closed her eyes, hoping what she’d seen wasn’t real, wasn’t happening.

“You’re pregnant.” She said it softly, waiting for Maria to deny it.

“Yeah. Surprise! And I wasn’t drinking. A deer ran in front of my truck.”

“No one told me.” Lucy had been busy working in Austin as a bodyguard. She’d had her own life, happily far from the family drama, even though she occasionally got calls to come home and fix things. But now the drama had landed in her lap.

“No. We didn’t tell you. Last time you were home I wasn’t showing.”

“Everyone knows? Even Mom?”

“She doesn’t know. She isn’t observant. Essie told me it was my place to tell you.”

“How far along?”

Maria looked young. And lost. She was having a baby. “Close to five months,” she answered in a quiet voice.

“Okay, well, we’ll figure this out.” With that, Lucy left the room, the hungry poodle fast on her heels.

A truck pulled up as she washed dishes. Dane had towed the old farm truck back to the house for her. She let out a long sigh, rinsed the plate she had just washed and walked to the front door. Dane Scott stood in the yard, eyeing the mess that had once been the Palermo ranch. A frown settled on his too-handsome, too-tan, too-everything face. He pushed back the cowboy hat that shaded his features and pulled the sunglasses off his too-straight nose.

Lucy wanted to go back inside, lock the door and pretend she’d never been sixteen and in love with Dane. Heat climbed into her cheeks thinking about her teen self and how she’d dreamed he’d take her away from this ranch and her father.

That was all ancient history, years of water under the proverbial bridge.

“Don’t just stand there drooling,” Maria whispered from behind her, humor lacing her tone. “Put him in his place. Never let them see you dream, sis.”

Lucy walked down the steps, pretending Maria hadn’t spoken.

“Dane.” She grabbed the yapping poodle as it ran circles around his stock dog. Other people had real cattle dogs. The Palermo family had a poodle that couldn’t find the door to go outside and wouldn’t know a cow from a tree. “Thank you for towing it home for me. Maria and I will fix the fence.”

His blue eyes narrowed, then his gaze shifted to the point beyond her left shoulder where she knew Maria must be standing. He nodded just slightly as he refocused on her.

“You don’t have to fix it, Lucy. I’ll send a couple of my men over to finish up the repairs.”

“We’re responsible. We’ll fix it.” She kept her tone even, because she wouldn’t argue the point.

He tipped his hat back and leveled those blue eyes of his on her. “I’ll fix the fence. While I’m here I wanted to make sure I can renew my lease for the three hundred acres.”

“Of course you can. Why wouldn’t we keep the agreement?” She wondered if there was something she didn’t know. Something she should know.

He shrugged. “I guess I thought you were going to stick around and might want to use that land.”

She glanced back at her obviously pregnant sister. The teenager was sitting on one of the older rocking chairs on the covered front porch that ran the length of the house.

“I guess I won’t be going anywhere, not for a while. But I’m not going to need that land. I’ll make do with the two hundred we’ve been using.”

“You didn’t know?” Dane’s voice was smooth, quiet and concerned.

He meant about Maria. She briefly closed her eyes and shook her head. In that moment it would have been easy to return to the girl she’d been, the one who had confided in him, shared secrets with him.

No, she told herself. That was a long time ago. A dozen years might as well have been a lifetime because they’d both gone through things. They’d changed. The kids they’d been, those two teens who had met up while riding horses, or in town every once in a while, those two were long gone.

“No. I didn’t know,” she answered. She wasn’t getting the Sister of the Year award. “It looks as if I should have come home sooner. I tried a few times, but work...”

She didn’t owe him explanations. He was a neighbor. He leased part of their land. He wasn’t their keeper.

He was her past. A very unhappy part of her past.

“Understandable,” he answered, anyway. The one word was meant to let her off the hook. She didn’t need that, either.

“No, it isn’t. But I’m here now. And it looks as if I have a lot of work to do. Starting with your fence.” She let her gaze slide away from his piercing eyes to a stable that needed repairs, a wood fence that had fallen down in places and a lawn that was overgrown.

In the distance an ATV could be heard. She glanced west, the direction the sound came from.

“That would be Essie, coming to give me her opinion of the place and my life,” Lucy said, more to herself than to her neighbor.

“She does have opinions.” He grinned as he said it. They all knew Essie. She ran a café in town and had her own small spread about a mile down the road.

In the midst of the worst of her nephew’s religious antics, Essie had rebelled. She’d refused to attend his services, her first offense. And then she’d tried to stop him from beating Lucy. That had earned her a black eye and an escort from the premises. It wasn’t until after his death that Essie was allowed back on the property.

“Yes, she does have opinions.” Lucy watched the four-wheeler and the woman controlling it, a bright red helmet covering her now-graying hair.

“I’ll unhitch your truck and leave it by the garage. But let me know if you need anything. And don’t worry about the fence. I can get it taken care of.” He gave them a parting nod with a tilt of his white cowboy hat before he climbed back in his big Ford King Ranch and drove slowly in the direction of the garage, their old truck clunking along behind him.

“The temperature goes up ten degrees every time he’s near. Hot. Hot. Hot.” Maria appeared at Lucy’s side, a cheeky grin on her face. She took the poodle from Lucy. “I’ll get changed and we can get to work on this place. But you might want to go splash some cold water on your face first.”

Lucy shook her head and walked away from her little sister, who was grinning as if this was all a big joke and they weren’t in serious trouble.