Once A Rancher. Linda Miller Lael

      “I’m sorry.” The boy gulped, clearly miserable and, at the same time, a little defiant. “I took this.” He looked sidelong at the woman beside him, visibly considered giving her some lip and just as visibly reconsidered. Smart kid. “I thought it was pretty cool,” he explained, all knees and elbows and youthful angst. Color climbed his neck and burned in his face. “I know it was wrong, okay? Stealing is stealing, and my stepmother’s ready to cuff me and haul me off to jail, so if that’s what you want, too, Mister, go for it.”

      Stepmother?

      Slater was still rather dazed, as though he’d stepped off a wild carnival ride before it was finished with its whole slew of loop-de-loops.

      “His father and I are divorced.” She said it curtly, evidently reading Slater’s expression.

      Well, Slater reflected, that was cause for encouragement. She did look young to be the kid’s mother. And now that he thought about it, the boy didn’t resemble her in the slightest, with his dark hair and eyes.

      Finally catching up, he raised his brows, feeling a flicker of something he couldn’t quite identify, along with a flash of sympathy for the boy. He guessed the redhead was in her early thirties. While she seemed to be in charge of the situation, Slater suspected she might be in over her head. Clearly, the kid was a handful.

      It was time, Slater decided, still distanced from himself, to speak up.

      “I appreciate your bringing it back,” he managed, holding the boy’s gaze but well aware of the woman on the periphery of his vision. “These aren’t cheap.”

      Some of the f-you drained out of the kid’s expression. “Like I said, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it.”

      “You made a mistake,” Slater agreed quietly. “We’ve all done things we shouldn’t have, at some point in our lives. But you did what you could to make it right.” He paused. “Life’s all about the choices we make, son. Next time, try to do better.” He felt a grin lurking at one corner of his mouth. “I would’ve been really ticked off if I had to replace this.”

      The boy looked confused. “Why? You’re rich.”

      Slater had encountered that reasoning before—over the entire course of his life, actually. His family was wealthy, and had been for well over a century. They ran cattle, owned vast stretches of Wyoming grassland and now, thanks to his mother’s roots in the Napa Valley, there was the winery, with acres of vineyards to support the enterprise.

      “Beside the point,” Slater said. He worked for a living, and he worked hard, but he felt no particular need to explain that to this kid or anybody else. “What’s your name?”

      “Ryder,” the boy answered, after a moment’s hesitation.

      “Where do you go to school, Ryder?”

      “The same lame place everyone around here goes in the eighth grade. Mustang Creek Middle School.”

      Slater lifted one hand. “I can do without the attitude,” he said.

      Ryder recovered quickly. “Sorry,” he muttered.

      Slater had never been married, but he understood children; he had a daughter, and he’d grown up with two kid brothers, born a year apart and still a riot looking for a place to happen, even in their thirties. He’d broken up more fights than a bouncer at Bad Billie’s Biker Bar and Burger Palace on a Saturday night.

      “I went to the same school,” he said, mostly to keep the conversation going. He was in no hurry for the redhead to call it a night, especially since he didn’t know her name yet. “Not a bad deal. Does Mr. Perkins still teach shop?”

      Ryder laughed. “Oh, yeah. We call him The Relic.”

      Slater let the remark pass; it was flippant, but not mean-spirited. “You couldn’t meet a nicer guy, though. Right?”

      The kid’s expression was suitably sheepish. “True,” he admitted.

      The stepmother regarded Slater with some measure of approval, although she still seemed riled.

      Slater looked back for the pure pleasure of it. She’d be a whole new experience, this one, and he’d never been afraid of a challenge.

      She’d said she was divorced, which raised the question: What damn fool had let her get away?

      As if she’d guessed what he was thinking—anybody with her looks had to be used to male attention—the redhead narrowed her eyes. Still, Slater thought he saw a glimmer of amusement in them. She’d calmed down considerably, but she wasn’t missing a trick.

      He grinned slightly. “Cuffs?” he inquired mildly, remembering Ryder’s statement a few minutes earlier.

      She didn’t smile, but that spark was still in her eyes. “That was a reference to my former career,” she replied, all business. “I’m an ex-cop.” She put out her hand, the motion almost abrupt, and finally introduced herself. “Grace Emery,” she said. “These days I run the Bliss River Resort and Spa.”

      “Ah,” Slater said, apropos of nothing in particular. An ex-cop? Hot damn, she could handcuff him anytime. “You must be fairly new around here.” If she hadn’t been, he would’ve made her acquaintance before now, or at least heard about her.

      Grace nodded. Full of piss-and-vinegar moments before, she looked tired now, and that did something to Slater, although he couldn’t have said exactly what that something was. “It’s a beautiful place,” she said. “Quite a change from Seattle.” She stopped, looking uncomfortable, maybe thinking she’d said too much.

      Slater wanted to ask about the ex-husband, but the time obviously wasn’t right. He waited, sensing that she might say more, despite the misgivings she’d just revealed by clamming up.

      Sure enough, she went on. “I’m afraid it’s been quite a change for Ryder, too.” Another pause. “His dad’s military, and he’s overseas. It’s been hard on him—Ryder, I mean.”

      Slater sympathized. The kid’s father was out of the country, he’d moved from a big city in one state to a small town in another, and on top of that, he was fourteen, which was rough in and of itself. When Slater was that age, he’d grown eight inches in a single summer and simultaneously developed a consuming interest in girls, without having a clue what to say to them. Oh, yeah. He remembered awkward.

      He realized Grace’s hand was still in his. He let go, albeit reluctantly.

      Then, suddenly, he felt as tongue-tied as he ever had at fourteen. “My family’s been on this ranch for generations,” he heard himself say. “So I can’t say I know what it would be like having to start over someplace new.” Shut up, man. He couldn’t seem to follow his own advice. “I travel a lot, and I’m always glad to get back to Mustang Creek.”

      Grace turned to Ryder, sighed, then looked back at Slater. “We’ve taken up enough of your time, Mr. Carson.”

      Mr. Carson?

      “I’ll walk you out,” he said, still flustered and still trying to shake it off. Ordinarily, he was the proverbial man of few words, but tonight, in the presence of this woman, he was a babbling idiot. “This place is like a maze. I took over my father’s office because of the view, but it’s clear at the back of the house and—”

      Had the woman asked for any of this information?

      No.

      What the hell was the matter with him, anyway?

      Grace didn’t comment. The boy was already on the move, and she simply followed, which shot holes in Slater’s theory about their ability to find their way to an exit without his guidance. He gave an internal shrug and trailed behind Grace, enjoying the gentle sway of her hips.

      For some reason he wasn’t a damn bit tired anymore.

      * * *

      HAVING