The Reluctant Rancher. Leigh Riker

WAS IN a corral on the far side of the barn, trying to keep from getting his head kicked in like Sam. He’d rather be mucking stalls because, oddly, that chore was his favorite—if he had one here. As a kid he’d sure spent enough time at it. Logan had lived on the Circle H from birth until he left to join the service. With a pitchfork in his hand, he still liked to let his mind drift, to pretend he was really where he wanted to be, back flying a jet. Sometimes he even whistled to himself as he worked. But if he couldn’t cut short the brief leave of absence he’d taken from his job, this unplanned stay on the ranch could threaten his pending promotion. He wasn’t whistling now. No pitchfork either.

      “Stand still,” Logan told the shaggy bison bull calf he’d been trying to doctor for an infection. The stubborn weanling had turned over a bucket of warm water, splashing Logan’s boots. He’d just bent over the bull’s hoof again, one foreleg trapped between his thighs to steady it, when Blossom suddenly appeared. The startled bison knocked Logan on his backside in the dirt.

      “Hey!” he yelled, when he knew better than to shout or move fast around the touchy bison. Struggling for breath, Logan picked himself up, dusted himself off and glared at Blossom over the corral fence. “You live on a ranch, you learn to be careful. Hear me?”

      Blossom froze like some ice sculpture. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

      Oh, no. There was that lowered head again, and her gaze had shifted away.

      “It’s okay,” he said in a softer tone. “No harm done.”

      Or would the new ache in his hip turn into something worse by nightfall? Getting hurt on a ranch with danger all around was par for the course.

      “These bison are ornery critters, easily spooked,” he said.

      Wide-eyed and white-faced, Blossom stood stock-still by the rail. He had started toward her, afraid she might faint, when from behind the bull rushed past him, almost flattening Logan again. For one second he thought it meant to crash through the fence and run right over her. Instead, it thrust its broad, runny nose at her through the boards with a lowing sound like a whiny toddler. It hadn’t liked being separated from its mother, and the cow was pacing back and forth along the side of the corral that edged the far pasture.

      To her credit, Blossom didn’t scream.

      She held one hand to the gap between the boards and let the bison sniff her.

      “What a cute boy you are,” she crooned, as if she were still singing that lullaby from last night.

      Logan was so surprised he was speechless. “I wouldn’t say ‘cute,’” he finally said. “He nearly stomped me into the ground. I don’t mean to criticize, Blossom, but these animals aren’t pets. And they don’t normally like people much.”

      He’d already rescued the tortoiseshell kitten from the bison’s hooves twice today. The fool cat followed him everywhere. Logan had been forced to shut her in the tack room. Maybe for Blossom’s own safety he should lock her in there, too.

      But he couldn’t seem to move. “I’ll be,” he said.

      That bison calf looked all moon-eyed.

      He sure seemed to like Blossom.

      Logan couldn’t take his eyes off her either. “I’d ease away from that fence before the calf takes a mind to hurt you. You never can tell what they’re going to do. And even this one is stronger than you might think. Ask my grandfather if you don’t believe me.”

      “He only wants a little affection,” she said.

      Did she mean the calf, or Sam?

      “Still, I wouldn’t—”

      He didn’t get the rest out. The bull calf shoved its huge shaggy head into the stout fence—and splintered several planks. Before Logan could react, the bison pushed his whole upper body toward Blossom.

      “Whoa, Nellie!” he yelled. “Blossom, head for the barn.” The much bigger bison cow was bawling her head off now. “I’ll open the gate to the pasture so he can rejoin his mama.”

      Logan didn’t wait to see whether Blossom followed his order. As soon as the far gate opened, the calf whirled around then thundered toward freedom.

      With a sigh of relief that no one had been killed, Logan went after Blossom. He found her standing in the barn aisle, talking to one of the horses in its stall. Cyclone, the big black colt Sam had bought months ago.

      “Watch it. He nips,” Logan told her, though bite was more appropriate.

      Horse or bison, they were tame only as long as they wanted to be. Strange, how unafraid she seemed of these animals when one look from Logan could make her shy away as if she were about to bolt.

      “I’m sorry about—out there,” she said. “You’re okay?”

      “Fine.” He hoped she hadn’t noticed him limping across the barnyard.

      “Nellie?” She quirked an eyebrow. “That’s his name?”

      Logan blinked. “No, this is Cyclone.”

      “I meant the little buffalo.”

      He did a double take. “Blossom, we don’t name these bison.” He suspected Sam sometimes did, and so had he during his 4-H years of raising beef calves for the summer fair, but Logan refused to personalize them now. By fall some of the herd would become pricey burgers—something he didn’t like to think about—on the menu at a fancy restaurant in Dallas, LA or Chicago.

      And Logan would be back in Wichita. Flying again. He wasn’t about to make any more personal connections to this place.

      “Maybe you should name them.” Her mouth tightened. “Instead, you shouted at him, scared him.”

      Logan shook his head. “He could’ve killed you—and you feel sorry for him?”

      “Yes. What did you do to him? It wasn’t just me. It must have been something to make him want to knock you over like that.”

      Her tone told him he’d only confirmed her worst opinion of him. The knowledge should keep him clear of any involvement he might be tempted into, but she was easy to look at, and in that moment the sweet smell of her shampoo teased his nose with the clean, fresh scent of outdoors.

      “He has a hoof abscess. I was treating it. He didn’t want me to.” That pretty much summed things up.

      “You’re wrong.”

      He rubbed his neck. “You have to show an animal like that who’s the boss. He’s wild, Blossom—dangerous.” He paused. “How do you think Sam wound up in bed with that busted leg and his head all mixed up?”

      “Not from a baby like him,” she insisted.

      “You’re wrong.” He repeated her accusation. “Sam got between that same calf and his mama. She flung him like a rag doll up against a tree. By the time he landed, he was in a world of hurt.” He paused. “The bruises were just the start. I don’t want you to end up the same.”

      Now it was Blossom who blinked. “Well. Thank you for your concern.”

      As if no one else had ever cared about her.

      Exasperated, Logan planted both hands on his hips. Heedless of his warning, she had slipped her hand through the bars to pet Cyclone’s neck. The colt all but purred like a cat. “He has a lot of promise but no common sense,” Logan said.

      “He’s like the bison baby. He’ll never learn to be gentle if he’s...”

      “Mistreated?” The word had just popped into his head.

      “Punished.”

      “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m the bad guy here?”

      He turned away. And nearly tripped over the tortoiseshell kitten. How had she gotten out of the tack