A Ranch Between Them (Sweet Home Montana Book 1) Page 2

  “That’s not really any of your business, Katie.”

  He’d hoped to squelch her rescuing tendencies with the blunt statement, but failed.

  She gave him a concerned look. “I can—”

  He gave her a warning look. No. She would not help him out in that regard.

  “I’ll ice it. Tomorrow I’ll evaluate. I know what a broken foot feels like.” As well as a broken shoulder, broken ribs and a severely fractured leg. Shattered, in fact. “If it’s really broken, I’ll go to the clinic.”

  “How will you get there?”

  “Katie, believe it or not, I can do lots of things with broken bones. It’s kind of what I do.” Or rather, what he had done. His career was over, but in his glory days he’d ridden many a rank bronc while healing from injuries.

  After a nice long stare-down, her lips tightened ominously, but she didn’t say a word as she eased her foot off the brake, drove the truck out into the field for another bumpy U-turn, then headed in the direction of the ranch.

  * * *

  STUBBORN, STUBBORN, STUBBORN.

  Repeating the mantra made Katie feel less like smacking her passenger, who sat silently staring out at the gravel road ahead of them. She chanced a sideways glance. He pretended not to notice, but his mouth tightened, telling her that he knew she was looking at him and he was purposely not looking back. Not making any kind of a connection at all.

  Fine, Brady. Have it your way.

  It shouldn’t bother her. They’d never been all that close, even though she wanted to be, but he had helped her out a time or two. Laughed with her a time or two...left her wanting more a time or two. She hadn’t gotten that more. He’d mostly held her at arm’s length and she’d never figured out why he could be so friendly with Nick and her older sister, Cassie, but shut her out. It had stung—when she’d allowed it to. It had also irritated her, so she’d made it a point to never let his standoffishness affect how she treated him. If anything, it made her talk to him more.

  “Thank you for the rescue.”

  Katie jumped at the unexpected sound of his voice. “Not a problem.”

  “I guess I’m lucky that you were on your way to the ranch.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Why are you on your way to the ranch?”

  She shot him a curious look. “Grandma didn’t say anything?”

  He shook his head, but she read the intensity in his expression before pulling her gaze back to the road. He wasn’t going to like her answer. She gave a mental shrug and answered, anyway. “I’m on my way to the ranch because I’m staying there.” With no plans to leave in the near future. Or the distant future for that matter.

  She felt him go still beside her as she slowed for a corner, the last one before the wooden bridge over the Ambrose River, which separated the Callahan Ranch from the pastureland they leased, the pasture Brady had probably been checking when he’d had his accident.

  “I’m staying there,” he said, as if there was a mix-up.

  “Yes.” Katie’s peripheral vision was good, honed from her daily walk to work through the city and a near-miss mugging, and she could see that he was frowning fiercely as he studied her profile. “We’ll be fine. The ranch is big.”

  “Why... What happened to your job? Rosalie told me you were doing well.”

  “Big layoff. I was one of the casualties,” she said in a light voice, even though she wasn’t feeling particularly light about it. She’d discovered that her dream job wasn’t as perfect as she would have liked, but she’d rolled with it, planning to put in five years—the magic number that would give her the experience necessary to move up the food chain at another firm. She’d never dreamed that the job would quit her before she quit it. In the land of sky-high rents, she’d yet to accrue much of a cushion. Frankly, she hadn’t thought she’d need a cushion, but she did, and what she’d managed to save wasn’t enough to support her while she looked for another job in San Francisco, so back to the ranch she’d run. And the closer she’d gotten to home, the more right it felt to have cut and run.

  That was something she hadn’t expected.

  Running home was supposed to feel like failure, but instead, as she put miles between herself and the Bay Area, she’d experienced a sense of relief, as if she were escaping something she hadn’t realized was trapping her. What-ifs and should-haves and important next steps faded into the background, and as she approached the Montana border she’d come to the startling realization that her old life didn’t have to be her forever life.

  But you worked so hard for that life. Made so many sacrifices...

  Maybe that was part of the problem.

  She’d conditioned herself to believe that she had to make sacrifices in order to succeed, and if she wasn’t making sacrifices, then she was doing something wrong.

  She’d wanted to be a gardener when she was younger. Wanted to have her hands deep into the soil whenever possible. Wanted to feel that sense of peace that filled her whenever she was tending plants. But watching her older siblings charge into first college and then careers in engineering and education convinced her that responsible adults built responsible careers, and following a passion instead of an official profession with a 401K and health insurance seemed irresponsible. And when Nick had left engineering to develop his contracting firm, she hadn’t really considered the fact that he’d left something he didn’t like so well to do something he liked better.

  Now she was wondering. Was it possible that he’d been more in tune with his needs than she’d been with hers?

  She hadn’t even indulged in hobbies during her career-building years. There’d always been a fire to put out, either in her professional or private life. Life was all about fires, and she knew that, but there were times when she felt like she was encroaching on inferno territory. Even yoga classes hadn’t helped—but that might have been because she rarely had time to attend. The instructor must have loved her—more than once she’d paid for six weeks of classes, only to show up once or twice.

  She was tired of being on edge full-time. Tired of drama—a sentiment Brady could probably identify with, given the drama he’d recently been involved with. And the consequences of said drama. It had killed her to watch him limp across the pasture to the truck, and to slow her pace to match his when she could so clearly remember scrambling to keep up with his long-legged stride the few times she’d accompanied him and Nick as they worked around the ranch. And she had questions—or rather, one big question.

  Had he really been sneaking around with the girlfriend of the bull rider who’d punched him out just prior to his last ride? It didn’t seem like something Brady would do, but she hadn’t been around the guy in a long time.

  After the fight, Brady had insisted on making his ride, because there was an additional purse for the cowboy who could ride the unrideable widow-maker he’d drawn. She didn’t know how much being punched had affected him, but the horse had reared over backward four seconds into the ride and crushed Brady beneath him. So, fight or no fight, Brady’s career was over.

  “So, you’re heading to the ranch to...” Brady’s voice trailed, inviting her to fill in the blanks.

  “Stay. There are two houses. One for you and one for me.” She glanced over at him. “Are you living in the main house?”

  “Hardly.”

  “The foreman’s house is nice.” It was about half the size of the main house, but still had two bedrooms and a bath and a half. A big kitchen that Katie had painted and wallpapered when she was a teen, while Ed, the cranky ranch manager, had been on vacation. He’d asked for the kitchen to be painted, but he hadn’t expected cherry wallpaper and bright red cabinets.

  “It suits me.”

  Brady fell into silence, and after a couple of quiet miles, Katie poked the bear. “Do you have a problem sharing the ranch with me?”

  “No.”

  “Right.” He’d made it pretty clear that he did have a problem sharing and she figured it stemmed from all the stuff he’d been through over the past several months. Stuff she wanted to know more about, but didn’t dare ask.

  “It’s not personal.” Brady straightened in his seat, grimacing at the small shift in body position. Katie wished he would have allowed her to take him to the clinic to be checked out. If the foot was broken, something would need to be done, whether he had good insurance or not. “I thought I’d have the place to myself.”

  The tires clattered as she drove onto the single lane bridge. The lifeline to the ranch. It was just big enough for a cattle truck or hay wagon, but it was always a nail-biter driving over it in a big rig.

  “Good thing you don’t, or you would have probably died of hypothermia lying under that four-wheeler all night. Who would have come looking for you?”

  “Touché.” The word came out flatly. “I owe you.”

  “No. You don’t.” She meant it. She didn’t want anyone, least of all Brady, feeling beholden to her.

  Katie drove under the tall archway that marked the entrance to the ranch and her heart swelled. It felt so good to be home. Away from the stuff that had seemed so normal at the time she hadn’t noticed it was chipping away at her soul. Maybe that was why, upon receiving her pink slip, the third emotion she’d felt after shock and fear was a brief and quickly squelched twinge of relief.

  After parking the truck next to the main house, she half expected Brady to bolt—or to come as close to bolting as he could with his injuries, both old and new—but instead he turned toward her and regarded her for a long moment from under the brim of his ball cap, giving her a moment to study him back.

  He’d been
good-looking in high school, but now he bordered on spectacular with his dark hair and green eyes. The planes of his face had become more pronounced with age, as had the laugh lines around his eyes. She doubted that Brady had laughed a lot lately, but the lines made her realize how much time had passed since they’d seen one another. They’d both aged, changed. They weren’t the people they’d once been.

  “I’m hurting, Katie.”

  The candid admission startled her. Brady O’Neil admitting weakness. Brady, who’d refused to go to the clinic. Brady, who’d never let on that his parents were not the loving parents they appeared to be. Nick had clued her in on that small fact.

  “Hurting inside or out?” She half expected him to pull into himself after she asked the question, refuse to answer or deflect the question. He didn’t.

  “Out.” His jaw shifted sideways, and he sucked in a breath before saying, “Both. Which is why I need my space. Maybe, before I go, I can explain everything. But for now...” He made a frustrated gesture. “Like I said, I need my space.”

  “Do you think I’m going to try to mother you, or smother you or something to that effect? Because that isn’t the case. I’m here to sort my life out, too.”

  There was color in his cheeks. This wasn’t easy for him, but now that he knew she was going to be sharing his domain, he was establishing boundaries. Like she would encroach where she wasn’t wanted. Although perhaps he had cause to think that. She hadn’t exactly taken the hint when he’d tried to shut her out when they were teens.

  “What makes you think I’m going to insinuate myself into your life?” she added.

  He ignored the remark. “You’re a helper, Katie, and I don’t want help. I want to find out what I’m capable of alone.”

  “Well, we now know your capabilities in the wrecked four-wheeler department.” Katie instantly held up her hand. “Low blow. Sorry. But what makes you think I’m going to pay any attention to you at all?”

  “Katie,” he said softly, “you rescue things. Puppies, kittens, leppie calves.”

  Okay. So, she’d rescued a few orphan calves. Some abandoned puppies. A few kittens. Big deal. She propped a hand on her hip. “And that’s your big fear? That I’m going to try to rescue you?” She lifted her eyebrows in a speaking expression. “Like I did today?”

  Brady didn’t bite.

  Katie let out a frustrated huff of breath. “Fine. We’ll make a no-rescue pact. I won’t rescue you, again, and you won’t rescue me.” She lifted her chin. “Not that I would need to be rescued.”

  He cocked an eyebrow and the color rose in her cheeks as she got his point. “I can now change a tire by myself, and if I get stranded after midnight, I have a cell phone.” And a lot more street smarts than she’d had back in the day.

  “How about instead of a pact, you treat me like Ed Cordell? An employee of the ranch.”

  Ed, the former ranch manager, had kept to himself, did his job and did it well. He’d been all business, and Katie had never been able to warm up to the man. But he’d kept the ranch running smoothly, she’d give him that.

  “If you’re asking me to treat you like Ed, you’re serious about this leave-you-alone thing.”

  “It’s not personal, Katie,” he repeated. “It’s what I need right now.”

  Katie lifted her chin. “If you need to be left alone, I’ll respect your wishes. Believe it or not, I no longer need to tag along where I’m not wanted. I’ve changed over the past decade.”

  “I noticed.”

  She frowned at the unexpected remark, but before she could come up with a comeback or a question, Brady held out a hand. Katie stared at it for a second, feeling as if she was teetering on the brink of something dangerous, which was crazy because how dangerous could it be shaking hands with a guy who didn’t want her—or anyone for that matter—around? She resolutely put her hand in his, her nerves jumping as his warm, work-roughened palm made contact with hers and his fingers closed.

  “Deal?”

  Katie nodded briskly before pulling her fingers free. “Deal.” She felt as if she’d just gotten a slow-motion electrical shock. That was the only way she could describe the tingle that gripped her body when they made contact, ultimately making her stomach tumble.

  The vestiges of a crush from the distant past. That was all it was.

  She reached for her door handle, her heart beating harder than before, and still feeling the warmth of his fingers on hers. She pushed her hands into her back pockets and met Brady’s gaze. “This is where we go our separate ways, living our parallel lives on the Callahan Ranch?”

  He gave his head a slow shake, those mossy green eyes full of an emotion she couldn’t quite read as he said, “I doubt we’ll be able to do that, but when we do meet—”

  “You’re Ed to me.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  AS SOON AS Brady made his way into his house and the door was safely closed behind him, he stopped and scrubbed his hand over his face. Well, he’d handled that poorly. And now he knew why he’d had a message to call Rosalie waiting for him when he came in for lunch. She’d been out when he’d tried to contact her, and then he’d had to leave to check the fence before turning out the cattle on new pasture.

  After that he hadn’t been able to call because he’d been stuck under a four-wheeler.

  Brady squeezed his forehead with his palm before dropping his hand loosely back to his side. Katie Callahan, who was supposed to be enjoying her dream job in San Francisco, had shown up out of nowhere to rescue him. And he’d been borderline rude as he’d tried to set boundaries. He probably hadn’t needed to instantly jump right into it as he had, but he wasn’t thinking as well as he used to as he coped with life changes.

  While Katie might say that she wanted to be left alone, too, her brand of alone wasn’t the same as his. And he’d never seen Katie not pitch in and help. It was as if it was hardwired into her brain to lend a helping hand and rescue the less fortunate. She was the person who stood up for the kid who got picked on. The person who hand-raised the orphan duck. Who yelled at people who treated animals poorly with no regard to how they might react to her scolding. And here he was, a walking-talking rescue project. He was curious to see if she could treat him like Ed.

  He moved to the kitchen table and sat down in a sturdy handmade oak chair. His foot was throbbing, as was the thigh with the metal rod holding his femur in place. He stiffly leaned down and felt his foot and ankle through the thick cotton sock, which was soaking wet and caked with dirt, wincing as he touched the swollen area. Katie might be taking him to the clinic, after all.

  Biting his lip, he took hold of the wet sock and gently peeled it down over a purple ankle and swollen foot. It got hung up and clung to his damp skin, but eventually he pulled it free and dropped it on the floor, turning his foot to get a look at it from a different angle.

  Broken?

  Gingerly he probed. He thought not. He’d had enough broken bones as a result of his chosen profession to be fairly certain of his diagnosis. Or maybe he was just fooling himself to keep money in the bank. All that mattered was that he was able to walk, kind of, and that meant, with the help of the four-wheeler, he’d be able to do his work. It’d be better if he were closer to ambulatory, but one thing bronc riding had taught him was to suck it up and look for a work-around in order to continue with the job. He’d ridden with broken ribs, a dislocated elbow, a stress fracture in his tibia. And he’d won money every time. People had told him not to ride, but he’d never listened, because he knew his abilities. He’d figured out how to do things then, and he’d figure out how to do them now. He’d also figure out how to live peacefully with Katie here on the ranch and somehow ignore the attraction that was just as strong now as it had been back in the day when she’d seemed way too young, and way too sweet, to hook up with a loose cannon like him.