HOW COULD HE do that to her? Lori stalked toward the house, anger fueling her pace. She’d finally put Seth in his place. And in his misguided attempt to support her, Wade had ruined everything.
Now she was glad she’d pulled back at the parish hall the other night. She’d been wondering just about every five minutes since then what would have happened if she’d leaned in. If they’d kissed. If she’d told him she wanted to date him. She’d been wishing that she’d had the courage to go for it. But now she was grateful she hadn’t.
A twinge of guilt flickered. She’d been hard on Wade just now, telling him never to come back here. But she needed things to run smoothly on the ranch. When Mom died, Lori’s life had been turned upside down. Getting pregnant had thrown everything into chaos again. Dad retiring had been difficult as well. But now she had her life organized. She had her ranch, and she was starting to earn respect from most of her staff. The last thing she needed was some unpredictable guy coming around and messing all that up.
She picked her way over the cats sleeping in the sun on the back porch steps. The motley group was Mandy’s collection of strays that were too damaged or odd looking to adopt out. If people kept dumping these animals on their property, it was going to get expensive to feed them all. They made Mandy happy, though, so in that way, they earned their keep.
One old tomcat raised a lazy paw and batted her boot as she went by. She bent down to scratch the white patch between his black ears. They both jumped at the sound of a sharp bark behind her.
She turned around. In the dry grass at the foot of the steps was a small dog. It was peach colored and blond streaked, with fur sprouting every which way off its body. It looked like a dust mop had a close encounter with a light socket. Or a porcupine had gotten a perm.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Its hairy tail swung back and forth in a blur of excitement. Two dark brown eyes never left her face. Lori stepped back over the cats and knelt down next to—she took a peek underneath—him. He looked to be somewhere under fifteen pounds. His nails were long and his coat was full of burrs.
He put his front paws up on her leg and looked up at her with eyes that brimmed with intelligence. “Arrowf,” he said.
“Hey, little guy.” Lori scratched him gently between the eyes where his fur sprouted like eyebrows gone wrong. He had long golden lashes, and his eyes were rimmed in startling black. “Have you been getting into the eyeliner?”
His ears came forward at her words. Oversized triangles with plumes of hair streaming off. When Lori stopped scratching, he stood on tiptoes and nuzzled her hand with his black nose, demanding more of her attention. “You look like you just got dumped off here today. Someone decide they’d had enough of you? Did you stop being a cute puppy and become a real dog?”
He cocked his head, listening intently, nuzzling her hand each time she stopped petting him. “You have a big attitude, buddy, but out here you gotta be careful, okay? You’re just a coyote snack in this part of the world.”
She sat down on the lowest porch step, and the dog climbed onto her lap as if he’d always belonged there. He stuck his nose into her cheek, and his snuffling noises made her laugh. She pulled a few burrs off his chin and a couple more off his paws. Then he lay down on her legs and prepared for a snooze.
“Hang on, little guy. I gotta work. I’m heading to the office to cut a paycheck for the man we just fired.” She ran her hands over the little dog’s rough coat. His sun-warmed fur was soothing. But she didn’t have time for this.
She put her hands along the dog’s sides to move him off her lap. He thwarted her efforts by going noodle limp, flopping around in passive resistance when she nudged him. She picked him up, meaning to set him down again, but he curled up in her arms with a sigh of blissed-out contentment.
With her own sigh of resignation, she carried the coyote snack with her into the old parlor that served as an office and set him on her lap while she wrote out a check to cover Seth’s final wages. Biting back all the rude things she’d have liked to say, she wrote “Thank you for your work at Lone Mountain Ranch” on an envelope, slipped the check in and sealed it.
Sinking back in her chair, she rubbed the little dog’s velvet-soft ears. They were the only soft part of his coat, thanks to what was probably some kind of terrier heritage. She could feel his ribs. Mandy was going to want to fatten him up. The dog grunted in appreciation and nosed her hand, giving her a polite lick. “Why, thank you,” she told him.
He looked at her searchingly as if trying to figure out what she meant, and a part of her heart went squishy. He really was a cute little guy.
She should have gotten back to work, but there were incredible smells wafting out of the kitchen. Whatever Mandy was concocting wouldn’t solve her frustration with Wade or make her feel better about firing Seth, but it would taste awfully good. And she could really use Mandy’s company right now.
She scooped up the little dog and headed for the kitchen.
Mandy was up to her elbows in flour. “Wait!” she cried when Lori reached for a cupcake decorated with pink and yellow daisies. “Those are for Patty Tompkins. She’s throwing her daughter a baby shower.”
Lori was going to protest when she saw the tray of chocolate chip cookies. “May I please, please have a cookie? I deserve chocolate after my day so far.”
“One,” Mandy said. “That batch is for the city council meeting tonight.”
“Two and I’ll deliver them for you,” Lori bargained.
“It’s a deal.”
Lori reached for the cookies.
“What are you holding?” her sister demanded.
Pulling her hand away from the cookies, Lori looked down at the little dog. “You haven’t met him? He was by the back porch.”
Mandy sighed. “Must’ve been dumped off on the driveway. He’s gorgeous. But you can’t bring him into the kitchen. What if his scruffy little terrier hairs end up in the cupcakes?”
Lori glanced down at the dog, who looked up at her in mute appeal.
“Oh, look at that!” Mandy’s smile was ear to ear. “He loves you! I think you found yourself a new dog.”
“He’s not my dog,” Lori protested. “He just hitched a ride in from the porch.”
“Uh-huh,” Mandy said, putting all of her lack of conviction into the words. “And never, in your entire life, have I seen you cuddle a lap dog.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure how that happened. He seems kind of sneaky that way.” Lori took the dog back to the porch and set him down in the sun. Then she opened the bin where Mandy kept the pet food. She poured a cup of kibble into a dish and looked down at the stray, who was sitting bolt upright, watching her expectantly. “You can stay here,” she told him. “Eat your food. And don’t go out into the woods.”
She set the dish down and the coyote snack dove for it, crunching the kibble like he couldn’t remember his last meal. Which made Lori angry at whoever had dropped him off here. He deserved better.
But she was tired of being angry, so she closed the porch door behind her and returned to the kitchen, stopping at the sink to scrub her hands. She put two cookies on a plate and poured herself a glass of milk. Sinking her teeth into a still-warm cookie, she let the melted chocolate chips transport her to a happier place.
“So, what’s going on?” Mandy asked, stirring milk and eggs into her batter.
“What makes you think something’s going on?”
“You’re in the kitchen in the middle of the day. Cuddling a small dog and eating cookies.”
“I was just in the office writing out a check for Seth. I fired him today.”
“Good.” Mandy stirred her batter emphatically. “He was creepy.”
Lori jolted abruptly out of her cookie reverie. “Did he hassle you? You should have told me.”
“He never said anything. Or did anything. He just looked. But it was the kind of look that made you want to take a shower afterward.”
“You should have told Dad when he hired him. Or me.”
“I just figured I’d stay out of his way. It’s hard to get reliable help, and it’s not like I’m contributing much to the ranch.”
“What?” Lori stared at her sister. “What part of your poultry business, keeping the garden, cooking everything, cleaning everything, helping me with the books, scheduling all the repairs for the house and running a baking business on the side qualifies as not contributing?”
“You know what I mean. I’m not out there—” she lifted her chin toward the window “—doing ranch stuff.”
“Do you want to be?”
“No,” Mandy said quickly.
“So we’re good. Because I sure as heck don’t want to be in here making dinner.”
“What happened with Seth?” Mandy asked.
Lori filled her in on the morning’s events while Mandy poured the batter into the waiting cake pans.
“It’s kind of sweet that Wade was trying to help you with Seth.”
“Sweet? No! He undermined me in front of the whole staff! It was humiliating.”
“Oh, Lori, only you would find a hot guy rushing to your rescue humiliating.”
“No self-respecting rancher would want someone else stepping in to solve problems with her staff.”
“Really?” Mandy was smiling mischievously, but Lori chose to ignore it.
“Really. I swear. Wade coming back here has caused so much trouble. I mean, I know he’s not trouble like everyone in town thinks of when they hear the name Hoffman, but between the well and having to help him with his ranch, and now this, it’s just too complicated.”
“You think he’s trouble because you care about him. When you talk about him, you light up.”
Lori stared at her sister in disbelief. “Light up in anger, maybe. Or frustration. No, I’m done with him. I’m thinking about asking Jim to go over there and help him out from now on. And handle the water sharing deal. I just don’t need this headache.”
She looked up when Mandy snorted. Her sister had abandoned her batter and had her wrist over her mouth, laughing so hard she’d snorted.
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“Because you like him. It’s so obvious. Rushing over there to track down his cow for him. Getting so mad today when he was trying to help.”
“He’s my neighbor and he has our water. I don’t like him. I’m stuck with him.”
“Hmm...stuck, huh?” Mandy looked at her thoughtfully. “What if you did hand everything to do with Marker Ranch over to Jim? You’d almost never see Wade. Would that really make you happy?”
“Sure it would,” Lori said, taking a long swallow of her milk to hide the blush she could feel traveling across her cheeks. Why did her sister have to be so perceptive?
“Well, I guess you have your answer, then.” A small smile played over Mandy’s face, making it clear she didn’t believe Lori’s words were the answer.
But how could she explain how she felt to Mandy when she didn’t understand it herself? Yes, she’d be sad if she never saw Wade. But Wade worried her. And how he made her feel flat out scared her. It was so much easier to be angry with him, and today had given her the perfect excuse. “Life was just so much simpler before he came back here.”
“Sure,” Mandy agreed. “Simple, safe and boring. All you did was work.”
“Well, I have a lot of work to do. And I don’t need some guy who can’t control his temper messing things up.”
Mandy studied her for a moment. “Is that what happened? He got in a fight because he couldn’t control his temper?”
Lori shrugged. “Not exactly,” she admitted. “He got in a fight because Seth tried to spit on him and then hit him in the stomach really hard.”
Her sister smiled. “You want to hear my theory about why you’re upset?”
“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“I think you’re upset because you want everything to be in control.”
Lori stopped chewing. “I’m some kind of control freak?”
“Well, I think ever since Mom died, you’ve been focused almost completely on the ranch. On making sure nothing else unexpected or bad happens to any of us. And don’t get me wrong. I appreciate that. You have worked really hard to make me feel safe. But I can see how Wade coming along and making you feel things you can’t control would upset you.”
“Doesn’t all my work simply mean I’m a good rancher?” Lori decided to ignore the second part of her sister’s little speech.
“Yes, you’re a great rancher. But you are also a perfectionist.”
“I’m not a perfectionist,” Lori protested. Then she thought for a moment. “I just like it when everything goes perfectly.”
Mandy giggled. “Exactly. So when Wade got into it with Seth today, and it wasn’t ideal, it worried you. You want everything to work out...like some ranch you read about in one of your college textbooks. And you take it personally when it doesn’t. But real life isn’t perfect like that.”
“Dad always made everything work out perfectly around here.”
“No, he didn’t. He just didn’t stress much about the messy stuff. Think about it,” Mandy demanded. “Remember the fight those two hands got into? When they trashed the south bunkhouse?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Did that make Dad some terrible rancher? Because a fight happened on his ranch?”
“No.” Sometimes Mandy’s logic made her nuts. Because it was usually correct.
“You weren’t in the fight today. It wasn’t in your control. Why take it personally?”
“I don’t know. It feels like it reflects on me. And what if Wade gets in a fight again? Because, yes, maybe I do have some feelings for him. But it’s so complicated, Mandy. More than I can explain.”
“Maybe I don’t know the whole story,” Mandy said. “But are you expecting Wade to be perfect, too? I think you’re holding both of you to a pretty high standard. You are allowed to make mistakes, Lori, and so is Wade.”
Lori considered her sister’s words. She did try to do everything the best possible way. Maybe that was part of why she couldn’t forgive herself for ending her pregnancy. She’d gone for the fastest, most obvious solution but not, in hindsight, the best one for her.
“Am I right?” Mandy asked.
“Maybe...” Lori grumbled.
“I’m not making excuses for Wade. I don’t want you to be with someone who has a terrible temper or anything like that. I’m only saying that if you hold out for people to act perfectly before you let them in, you could be on your own for a mighty long time.”
“I’ve been on my own so far and done all right.”
“Sure. But are you happy? After you see Wade, you come back all sparkly. And I saw his face when he looked at you in the bar that night. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you. It was pretty romantic.”
“Sparkly?” Lori stood up from the table. “I’ve never been sparkly a day in my life. I’m just dust and cattle.”
“And I’m just saying that if you asked Wade, he’d tell you he likes dust and cattle. A lot. And that he sees way more than that in you.”
“Well, I’m not asking.” Suddenly the kitchen felt hot and stifling. Lori wanted wide-open space and a good gallop on Dakota. And to be far away from Mandy’s insights that hit way too close to home. “I have a cattle drive to plan. I’m gonna get going.”
“Why don’t you ask Wade to go with you?” Mandy asked, a wicked smile on her face. “I’m sure he could use the experience.”
She couldn’t take any more. Lori covered her ears with her hands. “What was that, sis? I can’t seem to hear you.”
“Oh my gosh, you’re ten years old again? You like him, you like him...” Mandy crowed, regressing right along with her.
“Can’t hear you, la la la la...” Lori sang, and then they were both giggling hysterically. Lori uncovered her ears and came around the table to give Mandy a quick hug. Then she clapped her hat on her head and headed out to find Dakota. She still wanted that gallop, but thanks to Mandy and her cookies, she was feeling a few years younger, a few pounds heavier and a whole lot better.