Arlene James - The Rancher's Homecoming

Callie slid another box toward him, then shouldered an overstuffed diaper bag and stood, turning to the rocking chair. Mrs. Lightner sighed as Callie gathered the baby into her arms. Dipping, Callie snagged the top of a large plastic bag of disposable diapers.

Rex stacked and picked up the boxes. They felt surprisingly light, so he took the diapers from Callie.

“If you’ve got all that,” she said, “I can grab the car seat from the closet downstairs.”

“What about the rest of these things?” he asked, nodding at the elaborate stroller and the padded playpen, the changing table and canopied baby bed.

“Leave them,” Callie instructed briskly.

He didn’t have to be told twice. “Okay, then. Let’s move.”

Within minutes they were packed into the truck, and Callie was hugging Mrs. Lightner in the driveway.

“Go on home now, Mrs. Lightner,” he heard her say, “and thanks again for everything.”

“But your father...” Mrs. Lightner said.

“Don’t worry. Just head on home.”

As they backed out of the driveway, Rex couldn’t help asking, “Everything okay?”

Callie smiled and glanced over her shoulder at the baby before settling into her seat with a satisfied sigh. “It is now.”

Rex wondered why she seemed so anxious to take this job, but he was too glad of the help to care. The sooner his dad was on the mend, the sooner he could get back to his real life. The sooner everyone could get back to their real lives, him, his sisters, their dad, even Callie Deviner.

Hiring the daughter of the wealthiest man in War Bonnet as a cook and housekeeper did seem odd, but Rex didn’t really care what the pretty little widow’s reasons were for taking this job. He had to give her this: she was a decisive woman, and she traveled light and fast.

He could’ve done worse. Casually looking over at her, he smiled.

Oh, yes. He could have done much worse.

Chapter Two

Wes greeted Callie and her little daughter, Bodie, with the brightest smile Rex had seen in weeks.

“I’m tickled pink to be here,” Callie told him. “You just don’t know. Now, I’m going to get the baby down for a nap, clean that kitchen floor and start on your lunch.”

“Ah, I don’t have much appetite,” Wes said, picking at the coverlet on his bed.

“Listen, you,” Callie threatened teasingly, “I have your wife’s recipe for pimento cheese, and I’m not afraid to use it. I’m counting on there still being jars of the pimentos she put up in the pantry.”

Wes’s eyes filled with tears as he beamed. “I never knew what to do with them.”

“Need any help getting dressed and to the table?” she asked, patting Wes on the shoulder.

Rex knew his father hadn’t been out of his pajamas since he’d come home from the hospital.

Rex could’ve kissed Callie then and there.

Wes shook his head and rasped, “I’ll manage.”

“I’ll help him before I go out and get to work on the baler again. The girls stocked up on groceries before they left, so I think you’ll find everything you need in the kitchen. If not, let me know. I’ll send someone back into town.”

Nodding, Callie left to settle the baby and get started on her work, the little one riding her hip. Rex helped Wes dress in loose jeans and a soft T-shirt. Wes even combed his thick, sugar-and-cinnamon hair, complaining about the heavy graying at his temples and needing a trim.

“We’ll get you to the barber as soon as you’re back on your feet,” Rex promised. Then he went out to tackle that old baler again.

The Straight Arrow Ranch still baled the old small, rectangular bales and stored them in pole barns situated strategically around the property because only about 25 percent of its two square miles of land was suitable for growing fodder, and much of the range to the north and west was too rough for transporting the large, round bales to which so many ranchers had gone. Besides, they already had the storage facilities, so it didn’t make sense to fix what wasn’t broken, as Wes put it. Except that the hay baler was currently broken, and Rex wasn’t making much headway fixing it.

Wes sat at the kitchen table when Rex came in for lunch, exasperated and determined not to show it. Story of his life lately. He saw no sign of the wheelchair that he’d rented, probably because Wes hated to use it, but Rex didn’t care how his dad had gotten to the table as long as he was there. He sent Callie a smile of thanks as he walked to the counter and helped himself to a tall glass of iced tea.

“How did you know he loved Mom’s pimento cheese sandwiches?” he asked softly.

She gave him the barest of smiles, whispering, “I’ve seen him eat three at a sitting.”

Saluting her with his tea glass, Rex walked to the table. He silently congratulated himself on making a good hire.

Church ladies had been helping them out since Rex’s sisters had left after getting Wes home from the hospital, providing casseroles and other dishes and sitting with Wes when called upon, but it had rapidly become obvious that they couldn’t continue to impose. The past couple weeks on their own had been rough, especially with the ranch taking more and more of Rex’s time. Rex honestly hadn’t expected to find someone to help so quickly, though. He’d only stopped at the café because he was hungry for a decent breakfast. Even before his sisters had returned to their respective jobs—Ann to Dallas, where she managed a hotel, and Meredith to Oklahoma City, where she worked as a nurse in the hospital where their father had been through surgery and would soon start chemotherapy—breakfast had been an issue. Even a well-stocked larder didn’t help if a person had no idea what to do with its contents.

Callie knew exactly what she was doing. Neither of his sisters could hold a candle to her in the kitchen. Even his mother might have had her work cut out for her. Gloria Billings had been fun, loving and more than a little scatterbrained. Callie proved efficient, quick and affable, not to mention easy on the eyes. Wes certainly seemed happy with what was on his plate, and Rex hadn’t seen that in many months, even before they’d figured out what was wrong with his dad.

Eventually Wes wiped his mouth with a napkin, saying, “Wish I could do better by this, Callie. Sure is good. Any chance you can put it up for my lunch tomorrow?”

Callie turned from the big, old stove that had been Rex’s mother’s pride and joy. Gloria had loved everything about the rustic, sprawling, sixty-year-old cedar-sided ranch house, wrapped in deep porches and steep, metal roofing that Rex’s grandfather had built. She’d even loved the drafty, smoky, fieldstone fireplace that took up one whole wall in the L-shaped living and formal dining area. Smiling, Callie walked to the rectangular kitchen table and picked up Wes’s plate.

“I think there’s enough left over for your lunch tomorrow, if that’s what you want. I was planning on Gloria’s chicken and dumplings for supper.”

Wes sat back with a happy smile. “It’s been an age since I last had that.”

“Gloria was generous with her recipes,” Callie said. “I use them all the time.”

As she carried the plate back to the sink, Wes looked to Rex. “You did good, son.”

Rex just smiled and gobbled down the last of his thick sandwich, as a thin wail rose from upstairs.

Callie calmly moved toward the back stairs. A back hallway provided access to the stairs, a laundry room, mudroom, a small bath and what his mother had used to call her craft room. His dad had taken over the latter as his bedroom to spare himself a trip up the stairs after he’d taken ill. What had once been six small bedrooms upstairs had been remodeled into four bedrooms and two roomy baths, all with sloping ceilings.