Dancing in the Moonlight. RaeAnne Thayne

mother didn’t answer and suddenly seemed wholly focused on deadheading some of the tulips that had bloomed past their prime.

      “Mama!” she said more firmly, and her mother sighed.

      “He does not work here anymore. I told him to go and not return.”

      Maggie stared. “You what?”

      “I fired him, sí? Even though he said he was quitting anyway, that I could not pay him enough to keep working here. I said the words first. I fired him.”

      “Why? Guillermo loves this place! He has poured his heart into the Luna. It belongs to him as much as us. He owns part of the ranch, for heaven’s sake. You can’t fire him!”

      “So you think I’m a crazy woman, too?”

      “I didn’t say that. Did Guillermo call you crazy?”

      Her mother and her father’s brother had always seemed to get along just fine. Guillermo had been a rock of support to both of them after Abel’s death and had stepped up immediately to run the ranch his brother had loved. She couldn’t imagine what he might have done to anger her mother so drastically that she would feel compelled to fire him—or what she would have said to make him quit.

      “This makes no sense, Mama! What’s going on?”

      “I have my reasons and they are between your tío and me. That is all I will say about this to you.”

      Her mother had a note of finality in her voice but Maggie couldn’t let the subject rest.

      “But Mama, you can’t take care of things here by yourself! It’s too much.”

      “I will be fine. I am putting an ad in the newspaper. I will find someone to help me. You are not to worry.”

      “How can I not worry? What if I talk to Guillermo and try to smoothe things over?”

      “No! You are to stay out of this. You cannot smooth this over. Sometimes there are too many wrinkles between people. I will hire someone to help me but for now I am fine.”

      “Mama...”

      “No, Magdalena.” Her mother stuck her chin up, looking at once fierce and determined. “That is all I will say about this.”

      This time she couldn’t ignore Viviana’s firmness. But Maggie could be every bit as stubborn as her mother. “Fine.” She pulled herself up to stand. “Between the two of us, we should be able to manage until you’re able to hire someone.”

      Her mother gaped, her flashing dark eyes now slightly aghast. “Not the two of us!”

      She reverted to Spanish, as she always did in times of high emotion, and proceeded to loudly and vociferously tell Maggie all the reasons she would not allow her to overexert herself on the Rancho de la Luna.

      Maggie listened to her mother’s arguments calmly, hands in her sweater pockets, until Viviana wound down.

      “Don’t argue. Please, Mama,” she finally said, her voice low and firm. “You need help and I need something to keep me busy. Working with you will be the perfect solution.”

      Her mother opened her mouth to renew her objection but Maggie stopped her with an upraised hand. “Please, Mama. The doctors say I must stay active to strengthen my leg and I hate feeling so useless. I want to help you.”

      “You should rest. I thought that is why you have come home.”

      Maggie had her own reasons for coming home but she didn’t want to burden her mother with them, especially as she was suddenly aware of a deep, powerful need to prove to herself she wasn’t completely helpless.

      “I will be careful, Mama, I promise. But I’m going to help you.”

      Viviana studied her for a long moment while honeybees buzzed through the flowers and the breeze ruffled the pale new leaves on the trees, then she sighed.

      “You are so much like your father,” she said in Spanish, shaking her head. “I never could win an argument with him, either.”

      Maggie wasn’t sure why she was suddenly filled with elation at the idea of hard, physical labor. She should be consumed with fear, with trepidation that she wouldn’t be able to handle the work. Instead, anticipation coursed through her.

      She meant her words to her mother—she needed something to do, and pitting herself against the relentless work always waiting to be tackled on a small ranch like the Luna seemed just the thing to drag her off her self-pitying butt.

      * * *

      “No wonder the kid’s not sleeping.” Jake finished his quick exam and let his three-year-old nephew off the breakfast bar of the sunny, cheerful Cold Creek kitchen. Glad to be done, Cody raced off without even waiting for a lollipop from his uncle.

      “What’s the verdict?” his sister-in-law, Caroline, asked, her lovely, normally serene features worried.

      “Ear infection. Looks like a mild one but still probably enough to cause discomfort in the night. I’ll write you a prescription for amoxicillin and that should take care of it.”

      “Thank you for coming out to the ranch on such short notice, especially after a long day. We probably could have waited a day or two but Wade wouldn’t hear of it. He seems to think you have nothing better to do than spend your free time making house calls to his kids.”

      “He’s right. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.” Jake smiled at her but Caroline made a face.

      “If that’s true, it’s about the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

      “Why?” he asked. “Because I love the chance to see my niece and nephews?”

      “Because you need something besides work, even when that work involves family! I’m not going to lecture you. But if you were my client, we would definitely have to work on finding you some hobbies.”

      Caroline was an author and life coach who had moved her practice to the Cold Creek after she married his oldest brother eighteen months earlier and willingly took on the challenge of Wade’s three young kids.

      In that time, she had wrought amazing changes at the ranch. Though the house was still cluttered and noisy and chaotic, it was filled with love and laughter now. He enjoyed coming out here, though seeing his brother’s happiness only seemed to accentuate the solitude of his own life.

      “I don’t have time for a hobby,” he answered as he returned his otoscope to his bag.

      “My point exactly. You need to make time or you’re going to burn out. Trust me on this.”

      “Yeah, yeah.”

      “I’ve been right where you are, Jake,” she said. “You might scoff now but you won’t a few years in the future when you wake up one morning and suddenly find yourself unable to bear the idea of treating even one more patient.”

      “I love being a doctor. I promise, that’s not going to change anytime soon.”

      “I know you love it and you’re wonderful at it. But you need other things in your life, too.”

      Her eyes suddenly sharpened with a calculating gleam that left him extremely nervous. “You at least need a woman. When was the last time you went on a date?”

      He gave a mock groan. “I get enough of this from Marjorie. I don’t need my sister-in-law starting in on me, too.”

      “How about your stepsister then?”

      “You can tell her to keep her pretty nose out of my business, too.”

      She grinned. “I’ll try, but you know how she is.”

      They both laughed, as technically Caroline filled both roles in his life, sister-in-law and stepsister. Not only was she married to his brother but her father, Quinn, was married to his