His Favorite Cowgirl. Leigh Duncan

neighbors, Kelly didn’t think it likely. She combed her fingers through her hair, pushing it off her face. A trip to West Palm would delay her return to Houston, but did she have a choice?

      Though he’d never bothered to hide his resentment, her grandfather had kept a roof over her head when no one else would. Looking back, she knew he’d had it rough—a widower trying to raise his granddaughter on his own. Would things have been different between them if—just once—he’d told her he loved her? If he’d said he was glad her mother had left her behind when she’d taken off for the last time? Or given any indication he knew, much less cared, how often his granddaughter cried herself to sleep at night?

      He hadn’t. Instead, he’d treated her like any other chore on his South Florida ranch, all the while criticizing her every move. He’d objected to her friends, her clothes, her attitude until she’d given up any hope of ever pleasing him.

      Still, didn’t she owe him?

      Not that she had the time. No, she needed to get back to Houston, where final negotiations were underway for the big account she’d spent the past six months landing. She had to be there. Had to make sure every t was crossed, every i dotted. There was too much riding on this deal. Signing a major client would earn her acceptance into the Palmetto family. It would mean she’d finally have the financial security she’d worked for since the day she took that entry-level position stocking shelves. That she’d never again have to rely on someone who might let her down the way her grandfather had. The way Hank had.

      Stepping into her grandfather’s room, Kelly sank onto the chair beside the bed. The wrinkled neck and sunken cheeks above the stark white sheet had to belong to someone else. Not to the grandfather who’d ruled his household and his ranch with an iron fist. This man’s hand lay lifeless at his side. His coarse gray hair fluttered with his every exhale. Kelly leaned forward and brushed a few wisps off his forehead.

      “Did you miss me, old man?” she whispered.

      She straightened his oxygen tube. She’d give him one thing: Paul Tompkins could hold a grudge. He’d never had a good word to say about the neighbors who, he claimed, had stolen the Bar X’s water rights fifty years earlier. More recently, her grandfather had blamed the families next door for his wife’s death in a car accident. Every insult or slight, whether real or imagined, had only deepened his hatred for the Judds and the Parkers. And he’d never forgiven her, either, not since the day he learned she’d crossed the line—fallen in love with a boy from one of the families he despised above all others. As punishment, her grandfather had kicked her out of his house the day she graduated from high school. The figure on the bed moaned. Kelly withdrew her fingers.

       If wishes were horses...

      The doctors said he might never recover enough to heal the breach between them. Still, the time had come to repay the favors—slim as they were—he’d shown her when she was alone in the world. She’d arrange for his long-term care. She’d find someone to tend his ranch. But she couldn’t do those things sitting beside a man doctors said might never walk or talk again. A man who, in all likelihood, would drift through the next twenty-four hours in a dreamless sleep.

      She blotted a bit of drool from his leathery cheek and whispered, “See you later, Pops.” Trusting the nurses to get in touch with her if his condition changed, she headed out the door. On the drive, she made some of the calls the caseworker had suggested. One landed her an appointment the next day with Jim Buchanan.

      An hour later, she pried open the mailbox outside the gate to the Bar X. Bills and circulars slid across the seat as her sturdy SUV bounced over a drive in desperate need of grading and rolling. At the end of the road, she stepped from the vehicle onto hard-packed dirt in front of the house she’d once called home. Burnweed and chamberbitter had taken over the narrow strip of lawn she’d mowed once a week, every week, for eight years. She climbed carefully over the broken steps leading to the front porch. Her grandfather never locked the house, but humidity had swollen the door tight. Putting her shoulder into it, she shoved it open.

      Stale, overheated air clogged her throat as she stepped into the living room. Little had changed since the last time she’d crossed the threshold. Maybe the floral print on the overstuffed couch in front of the window had faded a bit. A thicker layer of dust coated the end tables. A few more cobwebs hung in the corners. But ranching magazines and farm reports littered the floor around her grandfather’s recliner the way they always had. The same braided rug covered the worn hardwood.

      She stopped only long enough to draw open the drapes and hit the switch on the overhead fan before she made her way into the dining room. There, she added the day’s mail to a growing pile. She rifled through a stack of bills, dismayed by the collection of late and overdue notices that had been sitting untouched for so long they felt gritty.

      “What have you been up to, old man?” she muttered. The meeting with her grandfather’s attorney was starting to take on even greater significance.

      A wave of nostalgia swept her when she headed down a short hall into a room where once bright paint had darkened to dull beige. Their corners curled and yellowed, posters of pop bands whose fame had long-since faded dotted the walls. She made quick work of stripping the sheets someone had draped over the furniture before she pulled a worn pair of jeans and a T-shirt from her bag. As much as she itched to give the house a thorough cleaning, it would have to wait for another day. On her grandfather’s ranch, the livestock always took top priority.

      Her hair pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail, she headed outside. She strode across the yard to the cattle pen, where troughs filled with food and water told her she owed Hank another round of thanks. An approaching pickup truck meant she’d have the opportunity sooner than she had expected. Despite all that had gone on between them, her heart did a little dance when the tall rancher stepped from behind the wheel.

      “Hey.” She crossed to him, her hand outstretched in a neighborly fashion. Keeping her tone decidedly neutral, she said, “Thanks for seeing to the livestock.”

      She felt the press of Hank’s calloused hand in hers and waited an instant. When no chills raced up her arm, she relaxed, certain time and distance had healed her broken heart. He’d crushed her, turned his back on her when she’d needed him most, and she’d moved on. Her life, her future, was in Houston.

      “Not a problem.” He leaned into the truck and emerged bearing a casserole dish in one hand, a large paper bag in the other. His lips slid into their trademark half grin. “Our cook, Emma, sent food. Let me take it inside for you.”

      Kelly sent a troubled look over one shoulder. “If you think it’s bad out here, you should see the house. I’ll spare you that.” She hustled the food into the kitchen. When she emerged five minutes later, Hank was nowhere to be seen, but his truck hadn’t moved.

      She followed the clang of metal against metal to the barn, where the bitter smell of ammonia stung her nose and brought tears to her eyes. Wiping them, she swept a quick glance down a crowded center aisle. She noted tools and equipment in haphazard piles, bales of hay that should have been stored upstairs in the loft. Scum floated in the closest watering trough. The three stalls on each side of the aisle needed serious attention.

      Hank was already hard at work in one. Grabbing a pair of gloves and a shovel, she stepped into the stall across from him. Muscles that had grown used to working out at the gym sent up a protest when she bent to remove the old bedding, but the routine came back quickly as she raked and spread fresh straw. Across the aisle, Hank worked without speaking until they finished the first set of stalls.

      As they moved on to the next pair, Kelly stripped her gloves from her hands while Hank drank from a thermos.

      “How’s Paul? Any change?”

      She twisted the cap on a bottle of water she’d grabbed from the fridge. “He’s still the same. The hospital sent in a caseworker. Margie Johnson. Do you know her?” When Hank shook his head, she went on. “She suggested I talk to Pops’s lawyer, get myself appointed his legal guardian.”

      Hank grabbed his shovel and disappeared