A Ranch to Keep. Claire McEwen
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he was just coming by to be neighborly, but looking up at her determined form on that ladder, he knew he’d wanted to see her again. Something in him refused to leave her alone, even if that’s what she’d prefer.
Plus, he figured a view like this was the best argument he could think of for helping one’s neighbor. From his vantage point he could see a mile of slim legs ending in tempting curves covered in low-cut jeans. As Samantha reached out with the crowbar, her T-shirt lifted, exposing the pale smooth skin at her waist. Her black hair wasn’t straight like it had been yesterday. It was piled in a messy knot of curls at her neck and he already knew he’d love to see it down, tangled around her striking face.
He hadn’t meant to make her angry with his offer of help, but he was kind of glad he’d pissed her off. Her eyes had gone from that rich green to a sharp emerald in an instant—the transformation was fascinating.
As Samantha wrenched another board off, a stab of admiration hit him in the gut. She was clinging to that ladder with the determination of terrier, though she obviously didn’t like it up there. Samantha wedged the crowbar under the next board, along the rim of the window, and leaned over to get better leverage. The board wouldn’t budge and she leaned just a little farther.
He saw it coming but he was just a split second too late. She threw her weight into the crowbar and the ladder shifted suddenly, throwing her off balance. There was a brief, awful moment where everything—Samantha, the ladder and the crowbar—seemed to be suspended in space, and then all three came down with remarkable speed.
It felt like an action film, but unfortunately he was in it. He dodged the ladder as it slammed into the fence next to him and sprinted for Samantha as she hit the grass at the foot of the wall with a sickening thud. It occurred to him as he ran that he hadn’t heard her scream. Then all thoughts were banished as he reached her inert form and frantically tried to remember all of the first aid he’d ever been taught.
She was on her side, facing him. He knelt and felt her breath on his cheek in a flood of relief. Her eyelids fluttered. “Samantha!” he called, checking her over for blood. None. Her limbs didn’t look twisted, but who knew how this had affected her back or neck. “Samantha!” Damn. He didn’t know her. What if she had some kind of medical condition? He reached into his pocket for his cell phone.
“Wait.” Her voice was like a whisper and he couldn’t remember when he’d been so glad to hear a sound. “I’m okay.” She was staring up at him, looking a little startled.
“Stay still,” he ordered. “Don’t move. You’ve had a bad fall.”
“No, really...” She started to push herself up.
“Samantha, stay still!” he barked, ferocious now with worry. “You don’t know what could be wrong with you. I’m calling 911!”
* * *
SAMANTHA LAY on the ground watching Jack fumble with his phone. As far as she could tell, all of her arms and legs were intact, and her breath was starting to come back to her. Embarrassment flooded her as she realized what had happened. She’d pretended to be so capable and confident in front of him, and then had fallen right off the ladder.
Another thought occurred to her. If he called 911, the whole town would know that she’d made a fool out of herself on her first day at the ranch. She wasn’t sure why that mattered so much but it did. She was dizzy and her head was pounding but she tried to sit up, ignoring the sharp pain that sizzled in her ankle, and reached for the phone. “Please, don’t call an ambulance. I’m fine. I just need a few moments.”
It took a minute to convince him that she wasn’t about to expire, but he finally put the phone away, checked her pupils, which were, apparently, still the same size, and let her try to stand. She leaned heavily on his arm as they walked around to the front of the house, grateful for his strength. His mouth was a grim line as he sat her firmly on the porch steps.
“Let’s get a doctor out here, at least,” he said, sitting down next to her.
“I don’t need a doctor.”
He paused, his brow creased in a frown, and he gave her a long look. Suddenly the frown passed and she knew she’d won. “Fine. No doctor then, if that’s the way you want it. But let me get some ice...and do you have a first aid kit around here? It looks like you got a couple of cuts.”
She looked at him, puzzled, and he pointed. “On your arm, there.”
Samantha twisted her arm around and looked down, seeing the scraped elbow and the gash on her upper arm for the first time. A small trickle of blood was making its way toward her wrist.
She directed him to the car for the first aid kit, and the freezer for ice. He came back and reached for her arm but she pulled away. “I can take care of it.”
He caught her chin in his hand, just for a moment, and turned her head to face him. A slight smile tilted his mouth but his eyes were serious, looking intensely into hers. “No 911, no doctor, and now you won’t let me help. Looks like you’re used to looking after yourself, Samantha. That’s great. But out here we like to help out our neighbors. So let me help you. Okay?”
A blue lake on a sunny day. That’s all she could think of as she looked into his eyes. A lake you could drown in if you weren’t careful. Her brain couldn’t form a complete sentence so she mumbled “Okay” and sat quietly while he put a bag of ice on her ankle and opened the first aid kit.
Jack tilted back the lid and let out a laugh as he eyed the contents of the box. “Samantha, you are one of a kind!” He continued to chuckle, obviously amused by something.
She hated to take the bait but she had to know. “What? What’s so funny?”
“Your first aid kit! I’ve never seen anything like it.”
She looked over at the neat stacks of Band-Aids, the miniature scissors, the bottles of disinfectant and rolls of bandages. “Don’t you have a first aid kit?” she asked, bewildered.
“Yes, but not one that looks like this!” The chuckles subsided a bit. “I’m pretty sure the contents are alphabetized. Are you always so organized?”
Samantha felt herself blushing for what seemed like the millionth time since they’d met yesterday. “Yes, I suppose you could say that.” She ignored his teasing grin. “I like to keep things in order.”
“I’ll bet you do.” He was suddenly more serious. “You like to keep things under control.” His big hands dwarfed the cotton ball as he covered it with disinfectant, but his touch was gentle as he lifted her arm and stroked the soft, cool liquid over her cuts.
Samantha tried to focus on the conversation instead of the strength of his fingers on her skin. “I guess I do keep things under control,” she admitted. “It’s actually an important part of my job.”
Jack ripped open a bandage. “So, is coming down here and cleaning up this old house on your own a part of getting things under control?”
She winced as the truth of his words hit her. How did a complete stranger know things about her that she hadn’t even realized herself? She’d had no control over what had happened in her life lately. She hadn’t wanted to lose Ruth, but it had happened anyway. Her parents were off on another continent again and she’d certainly never been able to do anything to make them stay. Even Mark seemed to be disappearing from their relationship lately. And now she owned an enormous ranch that she didn’t know the first thing about running. Maybe cleaning it up was her way of imposing order on the chaos of all this change.
Samantha closed her eyes, wanting Jack to keep touching her arm, even if he was just sticking gauze on with some white tape.
Jack tucked the supplies neatly back into her kit and got up to stow it back in the trunk of her car. The air felt cold on her skin after the warmth of his hands.
“Nice wheels.” He grinned as he turned back toward her, patting the BMW roadster appreciatively.
“Thanks!”