In the Rancher's Arms, page 5
“Mom actually mentioned one of your articles the other day, one you wrote for the high school paper about how the girls were unfairly targeted by the school’s dress code.”
Arden’s forehead wrinkled for a moment before relaxing. “I haven’t thought about that in forever. I can’t believe she remembers that.”
“I’d like to say it was because the article was so good, but it was just as likely because Sloane was really fired up about that issue.”
Arden smiled and appeared to relax. “I remember that, how righteously indignant she was. I’m pretty sure she had some quotes I couldn’t put in the article.”
He barked out a laugh. “Yep, that sounds like her.”
“The school really was perpetuating a double standard. I never once saw one of the guys get reprimanded. You know, that still ticks me off now that I think about it.”
“Mom agreed with you. For a while after that she was actually on the committee of parents and teachers to make sure the rules were applied fairly and without going overboard.”
“Well, glad to know some good came out of the uproar. I don’t think the administration liked me very much my senior year.”
Neil shrugged. “Sometimes you have to poke the bear to make it move.”
“Hmm, I like it. You should make T-shirts with that saying on them.”
“Maybe I will. Always looking for new ways to keep the ranch afloat.”
Arden opened her mouth a little, as if she was about to ask a question, but just then one of the bulls in the pen got rowdy and kicked the fencing. Arden yelped and jumped back.
He reached over to steady her with a nonthreatening hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. He’s not getting out of there.”
Even in the dimmer lighting behind the pens, Neil could see that the color had drained out of Arden’s face. It looked similar to how it had in the convenience store that first day she’d been home. He did his best not to show his sudden anger at the people who’d done this to her. He hoped the soldiers who’d rescued her had left the kidnappers where they’d fallen. Let them be carrion for whatever roamed the wilds of Uganda.
Neil felt a tremor run through Arden’s body, and he had the strong urge to pull her into his arms. But instead of making her feel protected, he suspected that action would freak her out even more. With more reluctance than he should feel, he dropped his hand away from her and took a step back. He turned his attention to the team roping competitors, allowing Arden time to pull herself together without him watching.
When she stepped up next to him, she rested her forearms along the top of the fence as he did. Good, she was tough under the layers of fear that had accompanied her home from Africa.
They stood there, side by side, during the rest of the rodeo events, stepping away from the fence only when it was time for the bulls to be moved into position for the bull riding event at the end. He kept the conversation light, mainly talking about what was taking place in the arena or catching up on what some of the people she and Sloane had gone to school with were doing now. He wondered if their lives seemed boring compared to hers.
A couple of times he spotted people moving in their direction and ran interference with a simple shake of his head that did the trick without Arden noticing.
When they fell into silence, he couldn’t keep his thoughts from drifting back in time to when he was the one on the receiving end of all the stares. He’d only been five at the time, but there were some images and feelings that were burned into his memory as if they’d been put there with a cattle brand. He had a feeling that Arden was feeling something similar.
Part of him wanted to walk away and shove all those long-ago memories into the dark corner of his brain where he tried to keep them. Being near Arden, with her trauma so recent it clung to her like the scent of smoke when you’d been near a fire, had seemingly opened a door to those memories, letting them come to the surface for air.
But his parents—his adoptive parents—had raised him and his adopted siblings to be good, decent, caring people. And right now, Arden was the one in need of a protective barrier and someone she could talk to about anything but her ordeal. He barely knew her, but there was no denying the connection he’d felt from the moment he’d spotted her in front of Franny Stokes, looking as panicked as an insect caught in a spider’s web.
After the last of the bull riders got tossed into the dirt, the crowd started to head for the cars. Arden didn’t make a move to leave, so he stayed by her side.
“I better go find my parents,” she said finally. “It was nice talking to you.”
“You, too.” Instead of parting, however, he fell into step beside her as they headed toward the grandstands.
The look of gratitude on Ken and Molly Wilkes’s faces told Neil that he’d done the right thing sticking by Arden throughout the evening.
“Neil, nice to see you again,” Molly said.
“You, too, ma’am.” He directed his attention to Ken. “How you doing, sir?”
“On the mend.” He wrapped his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “This one here is the best medicine this old heart could have asked for.”
Neil saw a pained look pass over Arden’s eyes before she managed to hide it. He couldn’t imagine how she must have felt when she’d been rescued only to find out her dad had suffered a heart attack.
“I’m glad to hear you’re doing better.”
Ken nodded then followed everyone else toward the parking area. Molly squeezed Neil’s hand and said, “Bless you,” softly so that the words dissipated in the noise of the departure of half of Blue Falls before they could reach Arden’s ears.
He was surprised by the sudden lump in his throat so he simply nodded. As she followed Ken and Arden, he watched them walk away, hoping they all had better days ahead. Arden looked over her shoulder at him and smiled the tiniest bit. It might be all she could muster at the moment, and he felt lucky to be on the receiving end.
When he shifted his gaze away from Arden, he was met by the curious stares of two of his siblings. While Ben lifted his eyebrow, Sloane nodded in the direction Arden had taken.
“You seem to be making a new friend,” Sloane said.
“Just helping to give her some space. This was all a bit much.”
Not wanting to wait to see whether they believed him, he slipped into the flow of people heading home. Even though his siblings knew about his history, and he theirs, he didn’t want to talk about why he’d evidently appointed himself Arden’s temporary bodyguard. He didn’t even want to think about it because he didn’t care to consider there was more to his decision than helping out someone in need. If he ever got involved with someone, it didn’t seem wise to choose someone with as many demons as she had.
* * *
“DID YOU HAVE a nice time tonight, dear?” Arden’s mom asked as she moved into the line of cars leaving the fairgrounds.
“Yeah.” It was at least partially true, so it wasn’t really a lie. And it wasn’t as if she could tell her parents she’d nearly succumbed to a panic attack and had been rescued by a virtual stranger. That pattern was becoming way too common lately—the soldiers who got her out of the traffickers’ camp, the nurses at the hospital she’d been taken to, Neil at the gas station, now Neil again tonight. She wasn’t accustomed to needing rescuing like some damsel in distress and she loathed the feeling of being weak, needy, scared. She’d give anything to simply be able to step back into the person she had been before her capture.
“Been a long time since I’ve been to a rodeo,” she said, realizing her single-word answer might not be particularly convincing.
“That’s good. Looked as if you had some nice company most of the evening. That Neil Hartley is a good boy. All those kids are. Diane and Andrew did a good job raising them.”
Arden made a sound of agreement, not knowing how else to respond.
“I’ve always admired them for taking in all those kids and giving them a good home,” her mom said.
It was on the tip of Arden’s tongue to ask her mom if she knew their stories, but she clamped down on that moment of her natural curiosity. The last time she’d followed it, things hadn’t ended well. Instead, she directed her attention out the side window. But the questions about Neil kept forming despite her attempts to think about something else, anything else. How did he come to be a member of the Hartley family? What satisfied him so much about ranch life that he didn’t feel the need to travel? And why did he keep appearing right when she felt she was losing her grip on her sanity? Why had he chosen to stay with her all night rather than go to his family or friends?
So many questions, but she was going to have to get used to not pursuing answers so she might as well start now.
She might tell herself that Neil Hartley needed to remain a mystery, but it didn’t keep thoughts of him from accompanying her all the way home. She was glad for the darkened interior of the car when her thoughts shifted from questions about his past and motivations for his actions to what a handsome man he’d become. He’d always been good-looking but in that teenage, I-haven’t-reached-my-full-potential kind of way. The passage of more than a decade since she’d last seen him had allowed him to reach that potential. In classic Western parlance, he’d grown into a tall cool drink of water. She’d never liked the big, bulky guys, so Neil’s long, lean frame managed to spark her interest when attraction was the absolute last thing on her mind.
But like that inherent curiosity that had led her to be a frequent user of her passport, she had to ignore the attraction, how safe Neil managed to make her feel by simply standing next to her, and how, for at least a little while, he’d allowed her to remember some of the good parts of her nomadic life. If he was as good a guy as he seemed and her mother claimed, he certainly didn’t need to be around someone who was haunted by a darkness she didn’t know if she could ever escape.
* * *
THOUGHTS OF ARDEN lingered in Neil’s mind the next morning as he unloaded plants for his mom’s garden that he’d picked up at the nursery earlier. He wondered if Arden had been able to sleep after the bombardment of the collective good wishes of her hometown.
He remembered the curious looks Sloane and Ben had thrown his way and shifted his attention to the task at hand. Thunder in the distance drew his attention to the west. The horizon was growing dark, ominous. Damn, that didn’t look good.
Just then his mom and sister Angel hurried out of the house.
“Let’s put all those in the potting shed,” his mom said as she motioned toward the vegetable and flower plants. “There’s a bad storm heading this way.
“Yeah, they’re calling for baseball-sized hail.” Angel grabbed a tray of tomato plants from the open tailgate of Neil’s truck. “The radar is lit up like a Christmas tree.”
Damn, exactly what they didn’t need. All he could hope for was that the hail wouldn’t materialize or at least hit somewhere it wouldn’t do damage. Rain they could use, but hail had not one good use, especially to ranchers with hundreds of head of vulnerable cattle out in the open. Hail, especially of the size predicted, was deadly.
By the time they’d unloaded all of the plants and rolled up the windows on all the vehicles, the storm had marched much closer. The wind kicked up, nearly blowing Neil’s hat away. He noticed Ben securing the door of the small building he used for his leather working, and his other brother Adam came galloping in from the southern pasture and got his horse into the barn just as the first raindrops fell. Neil ushered his mom and Angel into the house, then a clearly upset Maggie. He hadn’t even closed the door all the way when the first of the hailstones hit the roof. Maggie hid under the coffee table as if it was the dog apocalypse.
He cursed as he looked out the window next to the door. Thankfully the hail didn’t appear to be the size of baseballs, but it wasn’t tiny either. And in the next moment, it started falling harder, sounding as if it was coming through the roof. It was so loud that Neil couldn’t hear anything else—until glass started breaking. It’d be a miracle if this storm didn’t break every window in every vehicle.
He jerked in the same moment Angel yelped.
“Andrew, are you okay?” Neil’s mom headed toward the ranch office off the living room.
“Yeah, but I need something to block this hole in the window.”
Neil’s mom rushed toward the utility room where she kept all manner of just-in-case supplies. He took the few steps toward the office but paused in the doorway when his dad held out his hand, a lemon-sized, jagged ball of ice in his palm.
So much for hoping the hail would at least miss the ranch. A lump as hard and cold as that hailstone settled in the pit of Neil’s stomach. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket.
“I’d better get a picture of that because I’d bet money we’re going to have an insurance claim,” Neil said.
He’d taken a few pictures of the hailstone and the broken window when his mom returned with duct tape and a thick sheet of plastic. Once they got the window covered, Neil walked into the living room. Angel’s daughter, Julia, was curled up next to her mom in the oversize chair, staring at the window.
Neil ruffled Julia’s dark hair. “You’re safe in here, kiddo. The storm will be over soon.”
The storm did pass within a few minutes, leaving the ground outside as white as if it had snowed. On the TV, the weather guy was talking about the storm’s track and who should take cover. He also mentioned that there were likely to be more storms later on.
Neil stepped out onto the porch just as Adam was leaving the barn. The ice crunched under Adam’s boots as he approached. Neil descended the steps, and the other members of his family followed. He didn’t even have to get close to see his truck, along with the rest of the vehicles not in the adjacent garage, was damaged. As he reached his truck, he saw the full extent—broken back window and the body filled with sizeable dents.
“Damn, it beat them all to hell,” Ben said as he examined his own truck.
Already Neil heard more thunder to the west. It was going to be one of those days when Mother Nature pitched a series of hissy fits that left destruction in their wake.
* * *
ARDEN WAITED UNTIL the storm passed before she left her room and headed to the kitchen, where her mom was peeling potatoes.
“Can I borrow your car, Mom?”
Her mother looked toward her. “Where are you going?”
Arden heard the worry in her mother’s voice but pretended she hadn’t. “Job hunting.”
Her mom put down the potato and the knife just as Arden’s dad stepped into the room from the garage.
“But you have a job, sweetie,” her mom said.
Arden shook her head. “Not anymore. I want a change.”
Her parents looked at each other before shifting their attention to her.
“I wouldn’t do anything rash,” her dad said.
“I’ve had more than enough time to think about it.”
They were quiet for a long moment before her mom nodded. “Okay, but there’s no rush to look for anything new. You need time to rest and relax.”
If she rested anymore, Arden thought she might lose her mind. “I need something to do.”
And she really needed to bring in some money to help her parents pay off the medical bills, especially since she was the reason they had them in the first place.
The concern on her mom’s face tempted Arden to back out of her plans, but she desperately needed to find something that would occupy her mind at least a few hours a day. The guilt and anxiety were going to eat her alive if she didn’t find some respite from them.
“You sure you’re ready?” her dad asked.
“Yes.” Which was a complete lie, one she hoped her parents couldn’t see straight through. Truth was they probably did, but they didn’t voice any more objections.
Her dad snagged the key ring from where it hung on a peg board on the wall and extended it to her. When she reached out to take the keys, he captured her hand, forcing her to make eye contact with him.
“You do what you have to do, but if you figure out it’s too soon, that’s okay,” he said.
Arden pressed her lips together and nodded, not trusting her voice not to reveal just how emotional she felt at the moment. She held herself in check until she was in the car and pulling out of the driveway. She let go of a long, shaky breath. Off to the west, the sky was darkening again. Maybe she should wait until tomorrow to go job hunting.
No. She had to do it now. Every day she waited was another day her parents were deeply in debt.
On her way into town, she tried to think of jobs that would require the least amount of interaction with other people, the fewest opportunities for them to ask her about what happened in Uganda. Maybe the county needed someone to drive one of those mowers along the highway. Or... Oh, who was she kidding? Blue Falls was a small town. The likelihood of there being jobs available in which she didn’t have to talk to anyone else was practically nonexistent. She’d just have to learn how to steer the conversations away from her if they became too uncomfortable.
As she reached town, she slowly drove past the various businesses in the downtown area, hoping that at least one had a Help Wanted sign in its window. Primrose Café—way too much interaction in the spot that was the town’s gossip central. Every restaurant in town would be a constant barrage of people. Yesterwear Boutique, Mehlerhaus Bakery, the hardware and furniture stores, yarn shop, bookstore, bridal store—she had a hard time imagining herself working at any of them, and there were no Help Wanted signs to help make her decision. If she hoped to find anything, she was going to have to park and start making inquiries.
