Home on the Ranch. Allison Leigh

ramp. A damp golden retriever sat up to greet her, thumping his tail a few times.

      “You the guard dog?” Belle let the curious dog sniff her hand as she skimmed the soles of her shoes over the edge of one of the steps. The rain immediately turned the clumps of mud into brick-red rivulets that flowed down over the steps. Beneath the protection of the porch overhang, she wiped her face again, and flicked her hair behind her shoulders. Of all days not to put it in a ponytail. She couldn’t have arrived looking more pathetic if she’d tried.

      She knocked on the frame of the screen door, trying not to be obvious about peering inside and trying to pretend she wasn’t shivering. Even sopping wet, she wasn’t particularly cold. Which meant the shivers were mostly nerves and she hated that.

      She knocked harder. The dog beside her gave a soft woof.

      “Ms. Day!” A young, cheerful voice came from inside the door, then Belle saw Lucy wheel into view. “The door’s open. Better leave Strudel outside, though.”

      “Strudel, huh?” Belle gave the dog a sympathetic pat. “Sorry, fella.” She went inside, ignoring another rash of shivers that racked through her. It was a little harder to ignore Strudel’s faint whine when she closed the screen on him, though.

      She set her suitcase on the wood-planked floor, taking in the interior of the house with a quick glance. Old-fashioned furnishings dominated mostly by a fading cabbage rose print. An antique-looking upright piano sat against one wall, an older model TV against the other. The room was clean but not overly tidy, except for the complete lack of floor coverings. Not even a scatter rug to quiet the slow drip of water puddling around her.

      She looked at the girl who was the reason for her waterlogged trek. “Your hair has grown.” Too thin, she thought. And too pale. But Lucy’s blue eyes sparkled and her golden hair gleamed.

      Lucy dimpled and ran a hand down the braid that rested over her thin shoulder. “It’s dry, too. Come on. We’ll get you some towels.” She turned her chair with practiced movements.

      Belle quickly followed. Her tennis shoes gave out a wet squeak with each step. They were considerably louder than the soft turn of Lucy’s wheelchair.

      She glanced through to the kitchen when they passed it. Empty. More than a few dishes sat stacked in the white sink. The stove looked ancient but well preserved.

      “This is my room.” Lucy waved a hand as she turned her chair on a dime, stopping toward the end of the hall, unadorned except for a bookshelf weighted down with paperbacks. “Used to be Dad’s, but we switched ’cause of the stairs.” She smiled mischievously. “Now I have my own bathroom.”

      Belle’s gaze drifted to the staircase. “And up there was your old room?”

      “Yeah, but the bathroom’s in the hall. Not the same. There’s an empty room up there, though. You don’t have to sleep, like, on the couch or nothing.”

      Belle smiled. “I know. Your dad told me I’d have my own room.” She hoped the two upstairs rooms were at least at opposite ends of the hall.

      She walked into Lucy’s bedroom. It may have been temporarily assigned because of Lucy’s situation, but it bore no sign that it had ever been anything but a twelve-year old girl’s bedroom. There was pink…everywhere. Cage had even painted the walls pale pink. And in those rare places where there wasn’t pink, there was purple. Shiny, glittery purple.

      Hiding her thoughts, she winked cheerfully at Lucy and squished into the bathroom where the towels were—surprise, surprise—pink with purple stripes. As she bent over hurriedly scrubbing her hair between a towel to take the worst of the moisture out, she heard the roll of Lucy’s chair. “Is your dad around?” She couldn’t put off meeting with him forever, after all. He was employing her. He’d hired her to provide both the physical therapy his daughter needed following a horseback-riding accident several months ago, and the tutoring she needed to make up for the months of school she’d missed as a result.

      Lucy didn’t answer and she straightened, flinging the towel around her shoulders, turning. “Lucy? Oh.”

      Six plus feet of rangy muscle stood there, topped by sharply carved features, bronze hair that would be wavy if he let it grow beyond two inches and eyes so pale a blue they were vaguely heart stopping.

      “I guess you are.” She pushed her lips into a smile that, not surprisingly, Cage Buchanan didn’t return. He’d hired her out of desperation, and they both knew it.

      After all, he loathed the ground she walked.

      “You drove out here in this weather.”

      Her smile stiffened even more. In fact, a sideways glance at the mirror over the sink told her the stretch of her lips didn’t much qualify for even a stiff smile. “So it would seem.” It was easier to look beyond him at Lucy, so that’s what she did. “Sooner we get started, the better. Right Lucy?”

      For the first time, Belle saw Lucy’s expression darken. The girl’s lips twisted and she looked away.

      So, chalk one up for the efficiency of Weaver’s grapevine again. Judging by the girl’s expression, the rumor about Lucy’s attitude toward her physical therapy was true.

      Belle looked back at Cage. She knew he’d lived on the Lazy-B his entire life. Had been running it, so the stories went, since he’d been in short pants.

      Yet she could count their encounters in person on one hand.

      None of the occasions had been remotely pleasant.

      Belle had had her first personal encounter with Cage before Lucy’s accident over the issue of Lucy going on a school field trip to Chicago. Lucy had been the only kid in her class who hadn’t been allowed to go on the weeklong trip. Belle—as the newest school employee—had been drafted into chaperone service and had foolishly thought she’d be able to talk Cage into changing his mind.

      She’d been wrong. He’d accused her of being interfering and flatly told her to stay out of his business.

      It had not been pleasant.

      Had she learned her lesson, though? Had she given up the need to somehow give something back to his family? No.

      Which only added to her tangle of feelings where Cage Buchanan was concerned. Feelings that had existed long before she’d come to Weaver six months ago with great chunks of her life pretty much in tatters.

      “Did you bring a suitcase?”

      She nodded. “I, um, left it by the front door.”

      He inclined his head a few degrees and his gaze drifted impassively down her wet form. “I’ll take it upstairs for you.”

      “I can—” But he’d already turned on his heel, walking away. Soundless, even though he was wearing scuffed cowboy boots with decidedly worn-down heels.

      If she hadn’t had a stepfamily full of men who walked with the same soundless gait, she’d have spent endless time wondering how he could move so quietly.

      She looked back at Lucy and smiled. A real one. She’d enjoyed Lucy from the day they’d met half a year ago in the P.E. class Belle had been substitute teaching. And she’d be darned if she’d let her feelings toward the sweet girl be tainted by the past. “So, that’s a lot of ribbons and trophies on that shelf over there.” She gestured at the far wall and headed toward it, skirting the pink canopied bed. “Looks like you’ve been collecting them for a lot of years. What are they all for?”

      “State Fair. 4-H.” Lucy rolled her chair closer.

      Belle plucked one small gold trophy off the shelf. “And this one?”

      “Last year’s talent contest.”

      Belle ran her finger over the brass plate affixed to the trophy base. “First place. I’m not surprised.” Belle had still been in Cheyenne then with no plans whatsoever about coming to Weaver for any reason other than to visit her