Leigh Riker - The Reluctant Rancher

“Not much.” Logan had almost flinched. He didn’t need any reminders of the ranch’s isolation.

“I was sure I was lost. Even your driveway goes on forever.” She shot another look over her shoulder. Who was she expecting to see?

Logan exaggerated a drawl. “Well, that’s the thing about Kansas. Straight roads. You can just keep goin’. Even fall asleep if you want, then wake yourself up when you get here—or there.”

Her smile faded. Worrying her lower lip, she took a step backward toward her car. Logan couldn’t blame her. He wanted to run, too, and never come back. This was the place where he’d lost his parents, then his wife, his marriage. And, nearly, his child.

“So,” she said, “this must be the Circle H.”

“That’s what the sign says.”

She tilted her head to study him. “That sign at the end of your road is hanging by a thread. It wouldn’t take a minute to put it back up.”

“That part of your job description?”

“No,” she said, looking away. “I imagine it’s part of yours.”

“Look, we have ten thousand acres here. Miles and miles of fence line. Two men quit this morning, the cook three days ago.” Thanks to Sam’s grumpiness. “Things keep going this way, we won’t need a sign except one that says For Sale.” Her mouth fell open. “On top of that—”

“Logan, where are you?”

It was uncanny timing. His grandfather’s voice blasted from his upstairs bedroom down the steps and through the screen door onto the porch. It happened about ten times a day. He’d always been difficult, but since his accident...

Sam was making a real racket now. Banging on his tray, probably, with the spoon he’d thrown at Logan earlier because he didn’t like canned stew for lunch. Stroking the kitten he still held, he stood frozen. If Sam continued to be the worst patient in medical history, Logan might never be able to get any work done. Or leave. He had to hire help. Right now anyone would do.

“Coming!” he called and then studied the woman. “You still want this job?”

She returned his hard stare. “I’m not sure yet. But I do need it.”

Well, at least she’d made herself clear. He couldn’t keep from asking.

“That bad?”

She bent to pick up her ball cap. “Even worse.”

Logan took another look. None of his business. Whatever had caused that haunted expression deep in her warm brown eyes, he shouldn’t care. Still, he could recognize the same look he often saw in his own mirror. Trapped, it said. So maybe she could help out for a few days until he found a man to replace her.

“Come on. We’ll find out what Sam wants,” he said. “He’ll size you up then we’ll decide.” He added, “Call me Logan.”

She sent the little cat a smile, not him. “Blossom Kennedy.”

Logan peeled away from the porch post, set the kitten down with a gentle pat on her rump and watched her tumble down the steps then scamper away toward the barn. Feeling Blossom Kennedy’s gaze on him, he resettled his Stetson and headed inside.

Blossom followed.

“I’m told the senior Mr. Hunter is sweet,” she said, as if to convince herself that everyone on the Circle H didn’t have the disposition of a billy goat.

Logan couldn’t help a wolfish grin. “Let’s see how long you think that.”

* * *

BECAUSE SHE HAD no other choice, Blossom trailed Logan Hunter up the steps to the second floor of the sprawling house. Really, with that dark hair and those broad shoulders, he was something to look at. Too bad she wasn’t interested, even for the brief time it would take him to fire her. And oh, she’d seen that intent in his dark blue eyes.

The man himself was like a bruise: black hat, midnight eyes, blue jeans and ebony boots. Her first sight of him, holding that kitten, hadn’t matched what she’d been told by the woman at the agency. Or rather, warned about. She bit back a sigh.

Considering her life experience so far, she should hate men. This one wasn’t very friendly, even if his shoulders did look just right for leaning on. But Blossom wouldn’t lean, or cry. That was behind her now. She would try to become a stronger person who relied on herself.

“Has your father been sick long?” she asked, wondering why he’d called Sam by his first name. The agency hadn’t given her any details. All the woman had said was that the owner of the Circle H needed in-home care.

“He’s my grandfather—stepgrandfather, actually. When my folks died, my grandmother was already a widow herself. This ranch—which my dad had run for her—belonged to my family. Then she married Sam and he took over. They raised me here on the Circle H. Sam adopted me.” He kept going up the steps. “He’s not sick. He broke his leg in three places.” Logan sighed. “He cracked his skull. And to complicate matters, he had an intracranial bleed.”

Logan didn’t trip over the big word, which made her unsteady stomach churn. Maybe she should have thought twice before signing on with the Mother Comfort agency, which had admittedly been a last resort. As she’d heard often enough, she was no homemaker. She was surely no nurse. Frankly, she didn’t know what she was. Out of money and stranded in the nearby town of Barren, Blossom had largely faked her experience on the agency application.

“He came home from the hospital a few days ago,” Logan went on, “but his memory’s not so good. He gets confused.”

Predictably, her heart melted. “Poor man.”

“Don’t feel sorry for him. He needed his head examined.”

At his dry tone, Blossom couldn’t resist. She made a face at Logan’s back. If she didn’t need this job so badly, she wouldn’t work for a man who didn’t have so much as a soft spot for his own grandfather. Or was he smiling? She couldn’t see his expression.

They’d just reached the top of the stairs when a crash sounded, and Logan lit off down the hall. He flung open the door of the end room and sent his black hat sailing onto the nearest chair, where it settled perfectly, like a lasso around a calf’s neck.

“Still alive, I see,” he said, his tone gruff. “You’re not safe even from yourself.”

Blossom followed him into the room, a sinking feeling in her uneasy stomach. Maybe she’d bitten off more here than she could chew—as usual.

An older man who didn’t fit her idea of an invalid, except for the large cast on his right leg, sat in the middle of the hardwood floor rubbing his head. “Didn’t you hear me call?” Whipcord lean, he looked like a much younger person than she’d envisioned, and his dark hair had only a few broad streaks of gray. He peered around Logan, who had knelt in front of him. “Who’ve you got there? You finally get some sense and answer that ad I picked out for you in the paper?”

“No,” he said. “She’s from the agency.”

“The Department of Agriculture? Well, I’ve got something to say to—”

“Not the government, the health care people.” His voice had gentled, the same way he’d treated the kitten.

“I don’t need health care,” his grandfather said.

Logan searched his limbs, probably for more fractures, then his head for lumps. He stared into his grandfather’s eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Samuel...uh, Hunter.”

Logan didn’t look happy with the hesitant answer. “I can’t leave you alone for fifteen minutes. You know how dizzy you get when you try to stand up. Where did you think you were going?” He tugged lightly on his arm. “Come on, now. I’ve got you. Let’s get you back in bed.”

“I’m dizzy because I was in bed. All day,” Sam said, still studying Blossom. “I told you those ads would pay off.”

“Forget the singles ads.”

Sam snorted. “I may have smashed my head, but you don’t know the first thing that’s good for you. One bad experience, you don’t stay off the horse—”