Her Unforgettable Cowboy

Chapter Two

Did I make the right choice coming home to the ranch?

Jolie’s emotions had been tumbling around inside her like clothes in a dryer since the moment she’d spotted Morgan standing beside the stables. The cowboy had always turned her world upside down with his midnight-black hair and deep blue eyes. Six feet of lean Texas cowboy with an extra inch added on for good measure—like the guy needed any extra help.

He’d been thirteen when she moved to the ranch with her parents. Immediately she’d thought he hung the moon. He’d probably thought she was a ten-year-old pest but was too kind to let her know it, unlike his brother Rowdy. Instead he’d endured her childish adoration with a patience that she’d tested on a regular basis.

How could she not have fallen in love with the guy?

“Where should this go?” Joseph asked, looking at her desk.

“I think I’d like it over there by that wall.” Jolie pointed to the opposite side of the room from where the heavy oak desk was sitting now. She smiled, determined not to let the rush of the past and the uncertainty of the present distract her from getting her classroom set up.

She was impressed with the way the boys were willing to help. And startled and a bit shaken by the fact that Morgan had offered his help, too. Especially because he’d not hidden the fact that he was unhappy about her being here—his eyes had told the tale. She’d hoped time had healed old wounds, but even if it hadn’t, she’d had to come home to the ranch.

Needed to come home.

Needed desperately to find the person she’d been, the person she’d lost somewhere in the depths of West Virginia’s Gauley River.

She had loved Sunrise Ranch from the moment she’d moved here when her folks had been hired as house parents for one of the two foster homes on the ranch. It had been a wonderful place to grow up. And she was praying it would now be a place where she could heal and find the funny, take-the-world-by-the-horns girl she’d lost beneath the dark water of the Gauley.

The girl she was faking right now for these boys.

Coming up out of that water, her world shaken to its very core, the one thing she’d known upon gasping that first lifesaving breath was it was time to face her past....

Time to apologize to Morgan McDermott.

As if God was in agreement, this opportunity dropped in her lap and here she was.

“Is this where you want it...Jolie?” Joseph asked.

She’d told them right off to call her Jolie. She was just too laid back for anything else, even if she was their teacher. Besides, the ranch was home to the boys. Informality made it all the more true.

“Perfect,” she said to the earnest young man.

“You got it, then.” Joseph grabbed the edge of the monstrous desk and she was pretty sure he was about to try and move it himself. Not to be outdone, Wes was eyeing the floor-to-ceiling bookcases with determination.

“Hold off over there, Wes,” Morgan demanded, coming in the front door and taking charge. Jolie’s insides jangled as his presence filled the large room.

So much hung between them. She’d hoped to talk to him yesterday when she’d arrived, but he’d been working cattle at the far edge of the ranch. And so here they were in a room full of bright-eyed students, unable to talk about the fact that today had been their first meeting since she’d given him back his engagement ring.

“We’ll get the desk moved first and then the bookshelves, Wes,” Morgan said as he grabbed the other side of her desk.

“Thanks.” Joseph grinned at Morgan. “We’re putting it over there.” He nodded his brown head toward the windows.

With Morgan’s strength, the two were able to move the mammoth desk with ease. Once that was done they attacked the ten-foot-tall bookshelves. It ended up taking Morgan and most of the boys to move them.

Everyone’s eagerness touched Jolie’s heart.

She was smiling so much that she was almost able to ignore the fact that being around Morgan was causing her some heavy-duty stress—she could suddenly feel his presence like a weight.

“Where’s our desks gonna sit, Jolie?”

Jolie looked down into the big, brown eyes of a wisp of a boy. “Sammy, right?” she asked, and he nodded. Sammy seemed like a nervous little fella. Uncertain of himself.

“We’ll need to turn them all to face my desk. That way the light from the windows will stream across your desks. I love light and want y’all to enjoy it while you work.”

“Can my desk be this one?” His words were as timid as the light touch he laid on the desk closest to hers, almost as if he were certain she would say no.

“Sure. It’s got Sammy written all over it. Matter of fact, everyone can pick their desk.”

Unsmiling, Sammy nodded and slipped into the wooden seat. “Only till my dad comes and gets me,” he added in a quiet voice barely audible over the noise of the chaos breaking out behind him as the other boys began slamming into desks two at a time.

Jolie hardly even glanced at what was happening around her as her heart latched on to Sammy, who was so clearly suffering. “Sure,” she assured him. “You can have that desk as long as you’re here.”

She wasn’t sure what else to say. There were times when kids were on the ranch short-term. But most boys were here for the long haul—Sunrise Ranch had always been geared toward boys who had been totally abandoned by their families. The ranch became their home; the people, their family.

The poor kid got a wistful look on his face, then patted the desk next to him. “You can have this desk, Joseph,” he called to Joseph—obviously Sammy’s hero—as Joseph watched the rodeo going on over who got which desk.

“I’m too big to sit on the front row.” Joseph brushed his brown bangs out of his eyes. “One of the shorter kids can sit there, and I’ll sit in the back so I can make sure all you goofballs behave. Hey, goofballs!” he yelled, drawing all eyes in his direction. “One of you to a desk.”

“Yeah,” Wes barked loudly, crossing his arms and stepping up beside Joseph. “What kind of animals are y’all anyway?”

It looked as if Wes and Joseph had decided they were going to make certain the boys behaved for her. Jolie hid a grin—and then her gaze met Morgan’s. Morgan’s eyebrow hitched upward, his dark denim eyes cool.

He has no confidence in me, she suddenly thought. Jolie was fairly certain Morgan would think she needed help in that department—if, that is, he even remembered how she’d let her class get out of control on her first day of student teaching. It had been a long time ago, and he might have easily forgotten the laugh they’d shared over the little boys letting the mice out of their cage and the hysterics that had ensued. Meeting his sardonic gaze, she hiked a brow of her own. “It’ll be okay, guys. They’re just excited. We’re going to be fine,” she said to Wes and Joseph, assuring all of them, as well as herself.

“Can you ride a horse?” Sammy asked, drawing her attention. She was grateful for the change of subject.

“Yes, I can. Can you?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Never been on one.”

“He helped us work cattle yesterday, though.” Morgan stepped up beside the boy, giving him a smile that sent an arrow straight to Jolie’s heart. Morgan McDermott had a soft spot for these boys.

He placed a hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “You did good, Sammy.”

“It was scary. I almost got trampled, too.” Sammy’s eyes were huge.

“Aw, come on, kid, it wasn’t that bad,” Joseph called from the back of the room where he was trying out his new desk. “If you stick with us, you’ll learn not to be scared.”

Sammy didn’t look too sure about that.

“I ride,” yelped Tony, a skinny kid around fifteen or so who looked like a young Elvis Presley with his swath of black hair, blue eyes and a crooked smile that made his eyes twinkle. He skidded to a halt in front of Jolie.

This led each boy to reveal he could ride. Jolie caught the flicker of fear in Sammy’s expression as he realized he was the only one who couldn’t ride. She glanced at Morgan to find his guarded eyes staring back at her.

“We’re gonna learn to mug steers tomorrow after church,” Caleb said, his freckles crinkling with his smile. “You can come, too, Jolie.”

Sammy slipped his hand into hers and looked up. “Would you come?”

Jolie melted right there in the middle of the room. Turned right into a pool of liquid. “Sure I will,” she said. She was pretty sure she would have jumped from an airplane if he’d asked her. “I love to calf wrestle, and scramble, too. But muggin’ is my favorite! I used to be one of the best here on the ranch, you know.”

“Seriously?” Joseph jerked to his feet, gaping at her from across the room. He and Wes exchanged disbelieving looks. “You can take down a steer?”

Jolie nearly shook her head. Males.

“Hey, y’all look like you don’t think I can do it!” she teased.

“We just aren’t used to girls—I mean, women—wantin’ to do something like that,” Wes drawled, glancing at Joseph and Tony.

Jolie smiled at the cocky, young cowboys, with their worn jeans tucked into their rugged boots and their T-shirts with the arms cut out of them. It was obvious that they’d been working that morning, most likely hauling hay, an ongoing job she remembered quite well growing up on the ranch. A picture of Morgan in that same getup at that age raced through her head and she glanced his way. He looked about as happy as a grizzly bear that had been awakened in the middle of a really good nap.

“I’m a little insulted here! Girls do this sort of thing all the time.” She laughed when they all swallowed and looked a bit meek. “You’ll find for the most part that I look at life with a bring-it-on attitude.” She looked directly at Morgan before shifting back to the boys. “I haven’t done it in a long time, but it sounds too fun to pass up. I’ll be there.” She looked at Mr. Grizzly Bear again. “May I speak to you outside?”

“Sure,” he growled, swiveling toward the back door. “You boys don’t tear anything up while we’re gone.”

Jolie thought Morgan was teasing even though he seemed far from a teasing mood. Surely he wasn’t thinking the boys were going to destroy all the work they’d just put in. But then again, there was the incident with the desks.

Looking back over her shoulder, she was struck by the group. The picture they made reminded her of an old John Wayne movie, The Cowboys, about a bunch of ragtag boys who’d needed a gruff old cowboy to teach them life lessons. Although Morgan was far from an old cowboy, it was plain to see that these boys respected and admired him. And needed him.

Smiling at them, she winked. “If y’all want to finish turning the desks and lining them up, that would be great.”

They all chorused, “Yes, ma’am.”

Smiling at their politeness, she followed Mr. Grizzly outside and then passed him, leading him out of earshot of the class. There was a large, gnarled oak tree still bent over as it had been all those years ago. She didn’t stop until she reached it, turning his way only after they were beneath the wide expanse of limbs.

Morgan crossed his arms and studied the tree. “I remember having to climb up this tree and talk you down after you scrambled up to the top and froze.”

She hadn’t expected him to bring up old memories—it caught her off guard. “I remember how mad you were at having to rescue the silly little new girl.” Mad? Actually, furious was more accurate.

A hint of a smile teased his lips, fraying Jolie’s nerves at the edges. It had been a long, long time since she’d seen that smile.

“I got used to it, though,” he said, his voice warming.

She laughed, encouraged by his teasing. “You had no other choice! I guess if you hadn’t rescued me I’d never have made it to my teen years.” But she was grateful to Morgan for more than that. She’d grown into a teenager who could handle almost any situation, a girl confident in her own skin. She hadn’t been afraid to try anything because she’d been so crazy adventurous—and free to learn from her mistakes, thanks to Morgan and his brothers, Rowdy and Tucker, who had always been there to help her through. She’d idolized them, but at the same time, wanted them to stop babying her.

Morgan especially.

Of course it was Morgan who’d made her the angriest, and Morgan whom she’d fallen for. Their relationship had never been an easy one. The push and pull of attraction had started when she’d demanded independence, and then changed when she’d found herself desperate for his approval. But it became something incredibly complicated when she’d realized she wanted his love.

And then the pull of competitive kayaking entered the equation when Morgan introduced her to it on a lazy summer afternoon and things grew more complicated. She’d been fifteen, and her instant infatuation with the sport had been too much to ignore. For a young woman who craved the adventure world-class competition offered, Sunrise Ranch suddenly seemed...small. When Morgan made it clear that he had no desire to leave the ranch, Jolie decided she had no choice but to walk away.

Looking at him now, she was overcome by the memory of the internal war she’d lived through when she’d made the decision to leave.

It had been six years, but it felt like twenty.

They were standing beneath the shade of the old oak tree, electricity humming between them. When the smile left Morgan’s eyes, Jolie sucked in a wobbly breath, forcing herself to focus on the job she’d been hired to do. “I’m curious about Sammy. Has he been here long?”

“Just a couple of weeks. He’s our newest rancher. He’s still having trouble emotionally, after his abandonment. It’s a tough situation.”

“He seems fearful.”

“He is, poor kid. He knows his dad has been gone from the picture for a long time. But his mother gave him up to the state and now he thinks his dad will find out and come for him. He’ll stretch the truth from here to Alaska, so you might want to tread lightly with everything he says until you give it a reality check.”

“He lies?” she asked, a little more frankly than she’d intended. But she needed to know the truth if she was going to help him.

Morgan grimaced. “Kinda. More like the boy who cried wolf.”

“The stories don’t ever seem to change, do they, Morgan? I just can’t imagine how these boys handle their families not wanting them. Or not caring enough to make loving homes for them.”

She’d been around kids like Sammy all the time growing up. Some handled the situation with anger, some with denial, but it was all about fear. She understood that on a personal level—three times this week she’d awakened in the middle of the night because of nightmares. She pushed the thoughts away, praying she was up for this job.

“Sammy’s a good example of how bad these kids have been hurt. They need people around them who will care for them and stick with them.” The hardness of Morgan’s tone matched the accusation in his eyes. “What are you doing here, Jolie? Why aren’t you taming rapids in some far-off place?”

“I...I’m—” She stumbled over her words, tongue-tied by his question. “I’m taking a leave from competition for a little while. I had a bad run in Virginia and I— It was bad.” She couldn’t bring herself to say that she’d almost died, that she was lucky to be standing there. “Anyway, your dad was kind enough to offer me this opportunity.”

“I heard about the accident and I’m real sorry about that, Jolie. I really am. I wish you a speedy recovery so you can get back out there doing what you love. But why come here after all this time? We dropped off your radar a long time ago.”

“This is my home. It has never been off my radar.” Jolie saw anger in Morgan’s eyes. Well, he had a right to it, and more than a right to point it straight at her. She’d just thought she was prepared for it.

She was wrong.

“Morgan,” Jolie said, almost as a whisper. “I’d hoped we could forget the past and move forward.”

Heart pounding, she reached across the space between them and placed her hand on his arm. It was just a touch, but the feeling of connecting with Morgan McDermott again after so much time rocked her straight to the core and suddenly she wasn’t so sure coming home had been the right thing to do, after all.

A jolt from a live wire couldn’t have burned Morgan more than the touch of Jolie’s hand. Shock waves coursed through him with a vengeance, his mouth went dry. There had been a time when he’d have done anything for her touch. He gulped hard and hardened his heart against a walk down memory lane.

He wasn’t some kid anymore, holding his heart in his hands. He was a thirty-two-year-old adult male with a good brain between his ears. Or at least he’d thought he had a good brain.

“I did forget the past. A long time ago,” he assured her, his skin burning where her hand still lay. He wondered if she felt the way his pulse had started galloping at her touch. They stared at each other as seconds slipped by.

“Yes, of course you would have,” Jolie said at last, her hand squeezing his arm slightly before it slipped away. “But I was hoping there would be no hard feelings.”

His jaw jerked in reflex.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said. “It really wasn’t personal.”

“You broke our engagement, then headed off in search of better things. I think I had a right to take that personal.”

“That is not fair.”

Morgan was suddenly not at all comfortable with where this was heading.

“I wasn’t searching for better,” she said. “I couldn’t stay. You know I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.”

“Well,” he drawled icily, “that makes me feel a whole heap better.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes shadowing. “Morgan, I’m so sorry for the way it ended that day. I’m sorry for letting us go so far. I never meant to hurt you. I never should have accepted the ring in the first place knowing my heart was torn.”

“On that we agree.” At least she hadn’t waited until the night before they were to walk down the aisle like Celia, the next woman he’d been fool enough to ask to marry him. Two in a row had made Morgan hang up any thoughts of ever popping the question again. Not that he ever should have started dating Celia in the first place.

“Look, Jolie, that was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter anymore. Right now my concern is for those boys. They got hung out to dry by their parents and then their teacher left them for something better at the last minute. They don’t need another person leaving. They need someone they can count on to be here for them.”

Slapping a hand on her hip, fire flashed in her eyes. “I intend to honor my contract for the semester, and I’m going to do my best to help each of the boys any way that I can.”

Morgan met her gaze with fire of his own. “I don’t like your being here, but it doesn’t matter—you are. I’ll just have to hope and pray it all turns out okay.”

Turning away he strode back toward the schoolhouse, leaving Jolie standing beneath the old oak. He used the walk to rein in his temper so he could finish setting up the classroom. The last thing he needed was for the boys to pick up on the bad vibes between him and Jolie—and if he wasn’t careful, they would, before he even made it in the door.

How, he wanted to know as the schoolhouse got closer and his temper just got worse, was he ever going to make this work?

* * *

Infuriating man, Jolie thought, stalking after Morgan. “Stop right where you are, bucko,” she demanded, sounding as if she was calling him out to a gunfight at the O.K. Corral. He swung around at the entrance to the schoolhouse, clearly startled. She marched straight up to him.

“You might not have any faith in me.” And my faith in myself might be shaken to the core. “But while I’m here, I’ll give these kids everything I have to give. No holding back.”

For the first time since the accident Jolie felt a familiar strength ease through her, and she liked it. She’d had moments since nearly drowning when she’d felt as weak as a newborn, but she still counted herself a strong woman. She prayed that throwing herself into helping the boys of Sunrise Ranch would be a win-win situation for all of them.

“Key words, Jolie—while you are here.”

“It doesn’t matter to you if I can do a good job, does it, Morgan? This is personal on your part.”

“You bet it’s personal. These boys are my personal responsibility.”

Stung by his words and breathless with fury, she glared up at him, trying to ignore the fact that the man smelled of pine and leather. His scent played havoc with her senses. Her eyes, traitors that they were, slid down to rest on his lips. She inhaled, but all the air in the world seemed to have gone missing.

Focus, Jolie. Focus.

“Think the worst of me, Morgan McDermott. However,” she said, her conviction ringing true in her own ears, “I will give these boys everything I have to give them.”

He stepped so close they were almost touching, and she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. “That’s exactly what I expect,” he said. “They deserve it.” His gaze fell to her lips and lingered for only a brief instant before meeting hers. Jolie’s heart skipped a beat, and Morgan’s eyes were nearly black with dark emotion—yearning? Fury? Jolie was rendered speechless by his scowl. What was going on in that mind of his?

He left her then, continuing toward the school.

As she followed him toward the back door, she was sure of one thing and one thing only: for the first time in weeks she was filled with a great sense of purpose. What God had in store for her and Morgan, she didn’t have a clue. But God had plans for her at the Sunrise Ranch school and she was determined to prove herself to Him.

It was probably going to be a lot easier than proving herself to Morgan.

Chapter Three

When Jolie reached the main classroom a few seconds after Morgan, she saw Joseph holding the front door open for Morgan’s grandmother, Ruby Ann “Nana” McDermott. Nana was the backbone of the ranch, a former barrel racer who ran the chow hall like a well-greased wagon wheel. Her vision had been essential in making Lydia McDermott’s dream come true, and her heart had been essential in making the place what it was today.

Jolie knew that since Lydia’s death, Nana had been just as much a mother to Morgan as she had been to the countless young ranchers who’d needed her love. Jolie had loved and adored Nana and the feeling had been mutual. In her sixties, Nana had deep blue, wide-set eyes, high cheekbones and a square jaw, and there was no denying that her son Randolph and her three grandsons, Morgan, Rowdy and Tucker, were from her gene pool. Before her thick ponytail had turned the color of pale steel, it had been jet-black like Morgan’s and Randolph’s—a long-ago gift of the Cherokee blood of Nana’s ancestors.

Yesterday Jolie had been welcomed by Nana with open arms—there was never any lack of hugs where Nana was concerned. Today Nana hustled into the room like a woman on a mission, her ponytail swinging as she brought cookies to her boys—and checked up on Morgan and “her girl,” as she always called Jolie.

She set the large tray down on a worktable beside the computer as the tantalizing scent of chocolate and cinnamon filled the room. Nana’s smile was just as warm and sweet as the cookies nestled on the tray.

“Y’all have sure been workin’ hard today, so I whipped up some of your favorite cookies.” The instant she stepped back, it was like a free-for-all—the boys dived for the chocolate chip cookies, attacking them as if they hadn’t eaten all morning.

“Glad you came on out today, Jolie,” she said as Jolie gave her a hug.

“I thought it would be best to come and, you know—” she faltered as she looked at Morgan, who frowned at her “—get acquainted, with the boys, I mean, and get prepared.”

Morgan looked as if he’d just witnessed her robbing a bank or something, his eyes narrowing in distrust. Jolie gulped and looked back at Nana.

“Thank you for the snacks. These boys deserve it—as you said, they’ve been working hard.”