Patricia Rosemoor - A Rancher's Vow

“Are you saying I don’t fit in here?” she demanded.

“Do you?”

“Not everyone has to be a rancher or a rancher’s wife to love the high-desert country. Silver Springs used to rely on the silver mine, but it dried up years ago and so did the town. And so did anything resembling a life for me here.”

Alcina was working up a head of steam as she spoke. Reed couldn’t help but be mesmerized by her heightened color and the way her features so quickly became animated, making her appear even more beautiful.

“But there is hope, Reed,” she went on hotly, “and that hope is new blood and new ideas. So what if my way of being able to live here meant turning our old home into a bed-and-breakfast? It was that or drive into Taos or some other town that’s at least solvent to make a living. Then I would be commuting again and…oh, never mind.”

Alcina shoved herself from the table and rose. Reed hadn’t meant to insult her into leaving, but he figured she was through listening, for the moment, anyway. Besides, he’d said too much as it was. Normally, he kept his nose out of other people’s business and his opinions to himself where they belonged.

If he had, she might not be stalking away from him in disgust, her patrician nose in the air.

More than anything, Reed craved peace in his life, no doubt a reaction to his fractious childhood. He’d grown up in a household where his father and two brothers had constantly warred with each other. Reed had vowed he never would live like that again.

So why was he finding the outspoken woman so attractive? Reed wondered.

He forced himself to remain seated rather than follow her. He could use a woman in his life, true, but he could do without Alcina Dale.

Disgusted at how his supper conversation had turned sour, Reed tried to muster his appetite in vain. Half of the food he’d piled on his plate would be wasted.

Then he remembered the dog.

After throwing away the bones and scraping away some of the spicier stuff, he was satisfied that the leftovers would do. He found an empty bowl, filled it with water, then headed back toward his truck.

On the way, he spotted Pa near the house, deep in conversation with Vernon Martell, whom he’d met on his last visit home. The man was alone, his wife being an invalid who rarely got out. Reed meant to say howdy.

The neighboring rancher was a hearty man, tall and broad-shouldered, not trim, but not heart-attack material, either. In his mid-forties, he wore his light brown hair short, and his equally light brown eyes peered through fashionable titanium-framed bifocals. He was plain dressed—at least compared to Cardona—but he appeared equally well-heeled from the looks of his custom boots, chamois sports coat and heavy diamond-studded gold cuff links that said a lot about his healthy bank account.

Drawing closer, he heard Martell say, “I’m in the market to expand the VM.”

“You already did with that land you got from that developer fella.”

The tone of the conversation stopped Reed in his tracks.

Vernon Martell was new to the area, so to speak, having lived in these parts little more than a year. Denizens of the community were considered in terms of generations, or at least decades, rather than in months or years. Besides which, Martell had picked up a ranch that had folded under economic stress dirt cheap—a foreclosure—and that didn’t win any popularity contests. Neither would his buying a chunk of Luis Gonzalez’s land.

“That was a start,” Martell agreed, “but I’m not finished.”

Instinct made Reed stay where he was, a few yards behind the men. Wanting to hear what they had to say, he chose not to interrupt.

“You must’ve had a better year than the Curly-Q.” Emmett Quarrels narrowed his gaze on his neighbor. “What did you have in mind?”

“Your southernmost pastures—they adjoin the land that belonged to Gonzalez.”

“So what’s your point?”

“That we could both come out ahead,” Martell said magnanimously. “Me with a little more land, you with enough money so that you don’t lose the rest.”

“I’m not losin’ nothing.”

“That’s not the word going around. Word is that Tucker Dale is ready to foreclose—”

“Gossip is fodder for old women with nothing better to do!” Emmett snapped, cutting him off.

Reed could hardly believe it. Tucker Dale, Alcina’s father and Pa’s longtime former business partner, threatening Pa with ruin.

Martell persisted. “So the rumors aren’t true?”

“It’s none of your business. Unless…you wouldn’t know anything about the bad-luck incidents plaguing the Curly-Q lately?”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

Pa seemed to be mulling that over, Reed realized, after which he choked out, “All I’m saying is that I expect you should mind your own spread and keep your nose out of mine!”

With that, Pa stomped off. Martell stared after him for a moment before turning and coming face-to-face with Reed. Their gazes locked. The other rancher was the first to look away. He waved to some invisible acquaintance and stalked off in the other direction.

Leaving Reed uneasier than ever. He’d known the Curly-Q was in trouble from his talk with Bart. But the seriousness of the situation suddenly hit him hard.

His gut told him that he’d walked back into a worse hornet’s nest than he’d left more than a decade ago.

“EVERYTHING IS SET for your honeymoon night,” Alcina told Pru when they met directly outside the ranch house, where she’d gone to regroup after her cross words with Reed.

“This is so great of you, so special.” Pru pushed the red curls from her freckled face, gave Alcina a big hug.

“Special for a special friend,” Alcina said.

She’d decked out the best suite at her bed-and-breakfast—the Springs—with dozens of candles, special scented bubble bath for the Jacuzzi and rose petals strewn across the spread. She’d also left a bottle of champagne set in a big bucket of ice next to the bed. Hopefully, it would still be cold when the newlyweds arrived—a lot of hours had passed, and it was already dusk.

“The spare key is in the cactus pot to the right of the front door,” she reminded Pru. “Don’t let Chance get bit,” she joked as if she meant the cactus, “unless you do the biting, of course.”

Laughing, Pru said, “A little privacy right now sounds like the best wedding present in the world.”

Newlyweds living with the bride’s family until other arrangements could be made wouldn’t be easy on any of them, Alcina knew, and they were saving their honeymoon for the National Rodeo Finals to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, in two weeks. She was happy to do this for Pru and Chance. She only wished she could let them have the bed-and-breakfast to themselves all night, but there was no place in town for her to bunk in, and Josie couldn’t really stay with Bart because of his kids. At least no other guests were checked in—not that Alcina couldn’t use more business.

“You’ll have several hours alone, anyway, so you can get as wild as you want,” Alcina teased. “Josie and I will give you fair warning when we come in—we’ll make lots of noise.”

Pru’s eyebrows arched as she said, “Maybe if you’re lucky, that’ll be really, really late.”

“How late do you want me to be?”

“As late as a certain Quarrels brother will keep you happily occupied.”

Knowing what Pru was getting at, Alcina felt her grin fade. “You’re dreaming.” Thinking of the argument she’d had with Reed earlier, she said, “I’m the last woman Reed Quarrels would want to keep out late.”

“I don’t know. He was looking pretty interested.”

“Was being the operative word. And then I opened my big mouth.” Alcina sighed and wondered if she should have listened to his opinions and held her own, something she’d never gotten used to doing. “No man likes to hear a woman rant while he’s held captive like a pinned butterfly.”