Reunited with the Cowboy. Carolyne Aarsen
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apart, six years since she’d broken up with him, left Montana and him for Mitch and the high life of working as a model in New York City, and she could still make him feel like an idiotic teenager.
John yanked open the jockey box in the bed of his truck, the lid obscuring the occupants of the cab. He paused a moment, gloved hands resting on the edge of the box, trying to get his bearings. He’d known Heather was coming. Her arrival was all her adoptive parents, Monty and Ellen Bannister, could talk about. Every time he’d picked up Adana from the main house, where she spent time while he worked, he heard Keira and her mother laughing and talking about the bridal shower Heather would help them plan.
He thought he’d been prepared, but facing the reality of Heather was harder to deal with than the idea of her.
She had always been a stunning beauty, back when they’d dated. But now her face was narrower, her cheekbones more pronounced, her green eyes more wary, her hair even longer than when she’d left. Her expensive clothes were a far cry from the Wrangler jeans she used to favor. Altogether, they combined to give her an elusive beauty that had sucked the breath right out of him when she’d squeezed out of that car.
John pulled the coiled rope out of the box, his hands still trembling from the rush of adrenaline after almost hitting her with his truck, then seeing her again.
Though her car was buried nose deep in the ditch, Heather seemed unhurt. As for the other reason his heart was still pounding, well, she hadn’t been a part of his life for a long, long time. When she broke up with him, he’d thought he was over her.
Guess not.
Her timing wasn’t the best, though.
To the Bannisters, Heather was their adopted daughter, a wounded soul who needed extra protection. To him, she was a huge complication in the plans he’d been putting into place for the past few months. He just hoped her presence wouldn’t jeopardize his business dealings with Monty, Heather’s father.
Buying into a partnership on Refuge Ranch with Monty Bannister, his father’s old boss, was all John had ever wanted since he was a young boy growing up there. Now, after months of methodical plans, calculations and deliberations, he had brought a solid proposal to Monty, just last week. He’d hoped the rancher would make a decision before Heather came home.
She could prove to be an unwelcome distraction. John knew Monty and Ellen hadn’t been crazy about him dating Heather when they were in high school. He had always suspected that was the reason they’d encouraged her to go to college. Which had resulted in their breakup.
Just bide your time, he told himself as he slammed the lid of the toolbox. Heather will be gone soon and Monty will give you his answer.
John grabbed a shovel as well, then stepped onto his truck’s bumper and dropped to the road. He started to dig up the snow Heather’s car was buried in, taking his frustration with his unwelcome reaction to her out on it.
Ten minutes later he had to concede defeat. The spring snow was hard, packed and icy. There was no way he was getting the car out on his own. There had been damage done to the wheels.
He found the tow truck number in his cell phone and dialed. Dwayne answered on the first ring.
“Yeah, I got a car in the ditch up here on the road to Refuge Ranch,” John said as he walked to his truck. “Can you come and pull it out?”
“I’m actually right at Keith McCauley’s place delivering an old truck,” Dwayne told him. “I can be there in fifteen.”
“We’ll wait.” He ended the call, then opened the truck door, and heard Adana chattering away.
“Pwetty earring. Like your earrings. I have earrings.” She showed Heather the piercings in her ears that Sandy’s mother had gotten for her last month.
But Heather, still sitting in the driver’s seat, wasn’t looking at his daughter.
“Do you need me?” she asked, clambering out of the cab, as if grateful for the distraction. She almost slipped on the ice yet again in her hurry to get away from the vehicle.
He was about to steady her again, but she found her balance, pulling away from his outstretched hand.
“I can’t budge your car out of the snow, and one of the tires is popped off its rim. I’ve called Dwayne to pull it out. We may as well wait in the truck till he comes.”
Heather folded her arms over her chest. “Sure. Okay.” With a tight nod she climbed back into the truck, then moved over, closer to Adana, so he could swing in beside her.
It was a little too close for comfort, he thought, as he shut the door. You’ll have to help me through this, Lord, he prayed as he turned up the fan in the truck. Help me remember that Adana is my priority. Help me to remember Sandy and my promise to her to keep our daughter safe. Help me not to be distracted by Heather and her crazy life.
It had happened too many times in the past. He hoped by now he had learned his lesson. Heather was like candy. Sweet, attractive, but with no staying power. And as he glanced over at his daughter, he caught her watching him with her bright blue eyes, so like Sandy’s it made his heart ache. Adana was his responsibility and she was all he needed in his life.
He felt Heather’s arm brush his as she settled into the seat, her arms crossed, eyes resolutely ahead.
She couldn’t look more uncomfortable if she was on her way to an execution.
He shifted closer to the door, reminding himself that Heather was a complication he just had to deal with until she was gone. Because she would leave. In spite of how excited her sister and mother were about her returning home, he knew she wouldn’t stay as long as they believed she would. Leaving had been the story of her life and the refrain of their relationship. She couldn’t have changed much in six years.
Heather tried not to panic as she stood on the road watching her car, resting on the flat deck of Dwayne’s tow truck, head back to Saddlebank.
It’ll be okay, she reminded herself. How damaged could a car get from hitting a ditch? She chose not to think about the whine she’d been hearing since Rapid City, South Dakota. The car would be fine.
She was staying at the ranch until the weekend. That should give them enough time to fix it. Then she could head out to Seattle for her job interview.
A prayer hovered on the periphery of her thoughts, a remnant of a youth spent going to church. But she brushed it aside. She’d sent out many prayers the past few years. None of them had been answered, and she doubted any would be now. She had learned the hard way that she was on her own in this world.
A quick glance back showed her that John had already moved Adana’s car seat to the middle of the cab, putting the little girl between the two adults.
As Heather got back in the truck, Adana reached out to her dad. “We see Grammy?” she asked.
“No, honey. We’ll see Grammy another time,” John said as he started the engine and made a U-turn on the road.
“Wanna see Grammy,” Adana whined. “See Grammy.”
“Sorry, honey.” He gave Heather an apologetic look. “We were on our way to Sandy’s parents for dinner. They’re leaving on a trip and had hoped to see Adana before they went.”
Heather felt guilty. She remembered all too well the first time Sandy, taking pity on the new girl at school, had taken her home with her. Kim Panko, Sandy’s mother, had been friendly enough, but Heather had an innate ability to read people—a necessary skill developed as a result of the constant moves she and her natural mother, Beryl Winson, had made the first ten years of Heather’s life. Over the course of the two girls’ friendship, Sandy’s mother had reminded Heather often how fortunate she’d been to be taken in and adopted by the Bannister family. She suspected Kim wouldn’t