Reuniting with the Rancher. Rachel Lee

filled.

      “There you go.”

      To his surprise, she lifted the five-gallon bucket and with both hands carried it over to the tree. Layer by layer, they watered lightly and refilled the hole. When he was done, he ridged the dirt in a ring around the tree. “Now fill this ring and just let it soak in. You’ll probably need to do that every day.”

      He pulled off his work gloves, leaving her to it, and put the spade away. When he returned from the shed, he found her standing with an empty bucket, staring into space.

      “Is something wrong?” he asked.

      “It’s just so peaceful out here. I wish some of my kids could experience life like this, even if only for a short time.”

      Then he said the stupidest, most idiotic words to ever cross his lips. “So why don’t you bring some of them out here?”

      She looked at him then. Really looked at him, her blue eyes wide and almost wondering. His groin throbbed a warning. Had he really just suggested she come back here?

      Man, he needed to finish up and get out of here now.

      Chapter Three

      Cliff left shortly after the tree was properly planted and watered. He’d even staked the slender trunk with bands in three directions so the wind wouldn’t tip it over, or make it grow crooked, at least for now.

      But then he was gone, and empty prairie winds blew around her. She stood looking toward the mountains, still dark green and gray in the early-afternoon sunlight, but soon the sun would sink behind them and the light would paint them purple.

      She couldn’t remember ever having felt so alone. Well, except for one night in Chicago, on a dark street when she had been attacked. She had felt alone in the world then, and it had seemed like forever before the cops had arrived. Someone in the poverty-stricken area had taken a huge risk calling them. She never knew who, and she didn’t want to because she feared for the caller.

      She had mostly gotten used to the conditions she worked in. When she wasn’t making home visits, she was working with various programs designed to keep youngsters busy and off the streets. She was used to hearing random gunfire, though, used to the screeching of tires as some gang blew by, showing off their disdain for traffic laws and any unfortunate person who might be trying to cross a street.

      Never alone, whether surrounded by good people or troublemakers. Except that one night. And now.

      After the attack, she’d been given a few weeks off and had come here to recover. The contrast had really struck her then, and it was striking her now.

      Except this time Martha wasn’t here to listen, to advise, to sympathize. Another thing struck her right then: for all the tea, sympathy and advice, Martha hadn’t even hinted that she should find a safer job. Not once.

      She lifted her eyes to the sky and asked, “What’s it all mean?”

      Of course there was no answer. She turned from the tree and stared at the house. She could stay here. Martha had left her more than enough money that if she was careful she needn’t ever work again.

      But that didn’t seem like something Martha would want for her, a dead-end existence without purpose. Martha had always been doing something for someone. A giver by nature.

      And a great example.

      So why don’t you bring some of them out here? Cliff’s question came back to her. Why not? She could imagine the red tape. Taking kids across state lines to spend a few weeks with her here? Not likely.

      It was all too easy to imagine the hoops, then the structure she’d have to build. She couldn’t do it alone. She’d need help with the kids, trained help. She’d need things for them to do. Would they stay in the house or should she build a bunkhouse?

      The next thing she knew, she was sitting in Martha’s rocker on the front porch, rocking steadily, staring out over wide-open spaces, feeling an oddly healing touch in the emptiness of the world around here.

      Those kids deserved a taste of this, she thought. An opportunity to live for a short while without the hunger and fear that filled their lives. To be able to fall asleep at night to quiet instead of gunshots.

      She tried to dismiss the idea as utterly impractical. The amount of work in just getting it rolling, all the obstacles and roadblocks she’d run into. And while she was working on that, how could she keep up with her job?

      Nor did she want to be so close to Cliff. He’d been pleasant enough today, she gave him credit for that, but her tension around him was almost as bad as her tension on a dark city street. It was an incautious, overwhelming desire for him, every bit as strong as it had been all those years ago when she’d given in to it and caused some serious pain.

      And while she had never let Cliff know, leaving him behind hadn’t been easy for her, either. No, she hadn’t wanted the commitment he was offering. Hadn’t been ready for it. Had been set on her goal to help kids to the point that she couldn’t imagine any other life.

      So she had gotten what she really wanted, and now life had brought her full circle to deal with all the unanswered questions.

      How could she best help those kids? And why did she still want Cliff?

      Why don’t you just bring some of them out here?

      Why had he asked that question? What had he been thinking? His face had revealed nothing, but he’d been quick to leave after that, as quick as he could.

      Could she stand being this close to him for any length of time, which bringing kids out here would require? But as soon as she asked herself, she felt selfish. If there was some way to help kids with her legacy, then she needed to do it, Cliff or no Cliff.

      But maybe bringing those kids out here for even a few weeks or months might not be kind at all. To give them a taste of a different life and then plop them back into their old messes? It would help only if she could make them see possibilities to work for when they got home. Dreams they could believe in.

      Propping her chin in her hand, unaware that the afternoon was fading into twilight, she twisted the idea around in her head, half wishing Cliff had never mentioned it, half wishing she could find a useful way to do it.

      The chill of the night penetrated finally, and she went inside to make herself a small supper. Once again the empty silence of the house hit her hard, making her eyes sting and her chest tighten.

      Live here alone forever? No way. Somehow there had to be another way. A better way. A useful way.

      * * *

      Damn memory, Cliff thought. He’d given up all hope of sleeping. Again. Since he’d heard that he was going to have to see Holly again, he’d been an insomniac, and now the insomnia had grown to devour most of the night hours.

      As for memory...there were all kinds of it, he was discovering. He wasn’t remembering the way Holly had looked all those years ago. No. Mental pictures had nothing to do with it.

      Instead his mind was plaguing him with the sounds she made during passionate sex. His hands, indeed his entire body, were resurrecting the way her skin had felt against him, the way she felt beneath him. His palms itched with the certain knowledge of how it felt to caress her, how her breasts felt in his hands, the hard way her nipples pebbled, the dewiness of her womanhood.

      And scents. They filled his nostrils almost as if she were right there, sated and content.

      He even remembered exactly, exactly, how it had felt to plunge into her warm depths.

      Much as he tried to banish the thoughts, they planted themselves and stayed like unfinished business. He couldn’t see Martha’s house from his place, but it didn’t matter. There weren’t enough hundreds of square miles in this county to make him comfortable when she was in it.

      His body ached with a need to take her again, to touch her again, to fill her again. Not even