Home on the Ranch. Allison Leigh

softening her eyes. It was easier to take when she figured he avoided Lucy’s sessions because of the never ending needs of the Lazy-B.

      “I haven’t watched my child,” she said. “Since I’ve never even had one, that would be difficult.” Then she suddenly lifted her foot onto one of the kitchen chairs and whipped the stretchy black pants that flared over her shoes up past her knee. The scar was old. Faded. It snaked down from beyond the folds of her pants on the inside of her taut thigh, circled her knee and disappeared down her calf. “But I have dealt with it myself.”

      The water and aspirin he’d just chugged mixed uncomfortably with his lunch. Lucy’s healing surgical scars were bad. But when they healed, he knew they would look far better than Belle’s.

      “Not pretty,” Belle murmured, and pulled her pant leg back down. “My hip doesn’t look quite so bad.”

      “What happened?”

      It was hard to believe it, but her brown eyes looked even darker. “I thought you knew.”

      “I suppose that’s why you went into physical therapy,” he surmised grudgingly.

      “Yes.” She sucked in one corner of her soft lip for a moment. Her expression was oddly still. “I was with my dad that night, Cage. The night of the accident.”

      He’d been wrong. His nerves could get tighter. “I didn’t know you’d been hurt.” He couldn’t have known since her family had been living in Cheyenne at the time.

      She studied the crutches she held. “I was lying down in the back seat. I didn’t have on my seat belt, which my dad didn’t know. When…it…happened, I was thrown from the car. Metal and flesh and bone. Don’t mix well usually.” She lifted her shoulder slightly. “Which is something you know only too well, I’m afraid. I’m sorry. I thought you knew,” she said again then fell silent.

      She looked miserable. And damned if he could convince himself it was an act, though he wanted to.

      “Look, Cage, it’s not too late for me to go. I know Lucy knows about the accident between our parents and she doesn’t seem to hold it against my family. But everyone warned me this would be just one constant reminder after another.” Her gaze whispered over him, then went back to the crutches. “I can hold my own against those opinions.” Her voice was vaguely hoarse. “But if your feeling the same way gets in the path of Lucy’s progress then my efforts here will be for nothing. Are…are you sure you want me to stay?”

      No. He stared out the window. Lucy was sitting in her chair just outside the barn, Strudel half in her lap while they played tug with a stick. “Lucy still needs help.” His voice came from somewhere deep inside him.

      He heard Belle sigh a little. “I could talk to the people I worked with at Huffington. Maybe I could find someone willing to—”

      “No.” He couldn’t afford to bring someone else out to the ranch, to pay their full salary. Belle had been willing to agree for less than half what she deserved, and he knew it was only because of her fondness for his daughter. Something he’d deliberately capitalized on. The fact that she’d be able to provide the tutoring Lucy needed was even more of a bonus. “You came to help Lucy. I expect you to hold to your word.”

      “All right,” she said after a long moment. She tucked her arm through the center of the crutches and carried them to the door. Then paused. “I’m really sorry your father didn’t survive the accident, Cage.”

      “So am I,” he said stiffly. He’d lost both his parents that night, even though his mother had technically survived. Apparently, the only one to escape unscathed that winter night nearly fourteen years ago had been the man who’d caused the accident in the first place.

      Belle’s father.

      And even though he’d died a few years later, Belle was, after all, still his daughter.

      Chapter Four

      “I want to go with you.”

      Cage shook his head, ignoring Lucy’s mutinous demand. “Not this time, Luce.”

      “Why not? I want to see Grandma.”

      He wished Belle wasn’t standing at the kitchen sink washing up the pans she’d used to prepare Lucy’s breakfast. He wished she’d stop doing things he wasn’t paying her to do. She’d been under his roof for three days. He’d already warned her to stop dusting the shelves and mopping floors. They may have needed it, but when he’d come upon her doing the chores, he’d lit into her. More than necessary, he knew, but seeing her so at home in his house bugged him no end. He didn’t want her being helpful. Not unless it was on his terms. “I’ll take you to see her another time.”

      “When?”

      “A few weeks.”

      Lucy’s lips thinned. “I haven’t seen her all summer.”

      “And nothing’s changed.” Her eyes widened a little at his sharp tone. He stifled a sigh. Before Lucy’s fall, they’d gone every weekend. “Maybe this weekend. When Miss Day is off.”

      The prospect seemed enough to satisfy his daughter. “Miss Day’s day off,” Lucy quipped. Her lips tilted at the corners, thoroughly amused with herself and he felt his own lips twitch.

      God, he loved the kid. “Yeah.”

      “Don’t make fun of my name,” Belle said lightly over the clink of dishes in the sink. “I grew up hearing every pun you could ever think of.”

      “Day isn’t bad,” Lucy countered. “You oughta hear what people used to call my dad.”

      Belle leaned her hip against the counter as she turned to look at them. The towel in her hand slowed over the plate she was drying. “Oh?”

      “Yeah, Cage isn’t his real name, you know. Who would name their kid that?”

      Cage caught his daughter’s gaze, lifting his eyebrow in only a partially mock warning. “Did you make your bed?”

      Lucy laughed. But she took the hint and didn’t pursue the topic of Cage’s first name. She lifted her arms and he automatically started to reach for her to transfer her from the chair at the table to her wheelchair. But he caught Belle’s look.

      How to protect someone in the long run by causing them pain now? He felt the humor sparked by his daughter drain away and instead of lifting her, he handed her the crutches that were leaning against the wall.

      “Dad.” Lucy pouted.

      “Lucy,” Belle prompted gently. “We’ve talked about this.”

      He supposed that wasn’t surprising. If she’d taken him to task about the crutches, she’d probably done the same with his daughter. Understanding the reasons was one thing. Liking it another.

      Lucy took the crutches. Belle set down the towel and helped the girl to her feet. With the crutches tucked beneath her arms, Lucy looked at Cage. “She told me not to pout around you ’cause you were too much of a marshmallow to hold out against me.” Then she shot Belle a look before awkwardly swinging out of the kitchen.

      Belle’s cheeks were pink and she quickly turned back to the dishes.

      Cage filled a coffee mug with the fragrant stuff she’d made earlier, damning the consequences, and watched her for a moment. She was wearing another pair of those thin, long pants. Jazz pants, he knew, because he’d had to buy some for Lucy for something her dance class had done last winter.

      Today, Belle’s pants were as red as a tomato. She wore a sleeveless top in the same color that hugged her torso and zipped all the way up to her throat.

      She’d have been about Lucy’s age when the accident happened. How long had it taken her to recover from her injuries?

      He abruptly finished off his coffee. Learning that she’d been hurt in the same