A Ranch To Call Home

He’d only ever known that sense of kinship to a place once before. On the rainy afternoon that a welfare agency dragged him from the whorehouse where he had been born and raised, he’d truly felt like the six-year-old orphan he was.

Living on a ranch for the next ten years, along with four other orphans, hadn’t been horrible. Hadn’t been home either. His adopted parents raised workers, not sons.

Bedsprings creaked near the opposite wall. Footsteps padded lightly across the rug. The door handle turned.

“Where are you going, Bingham?”

“To get a breath of fresh air, is all.”

“I’ll go with you.” Jesse sat up. He’d bet his new herd that fresh air wasn’t all the kid wanted.

“You don’t need to, Mr. Creed. I’ve been breathing on my own since I was born.”

“You walk around in this town with that smart mouth and someone will shoot you as soon as answer.”

“The Underwood brothers come to Black Creek all the time. No one’s shot them yet.”

“Not yet. Put on your coat.” Jesse could lecture the boy all night and not teach him as much as a walk through the streets of this sordid town would.

Once outside, Jesse regretted the need to teach the kid this way. The air was bitter cold. A breeze twirled puffs of dust down the road. He shrugged closer into his coat, hugged the lapels across his throat.

If Bingham was cold, he didn’t show it. All he seemed to notice were two women waving to him from the upper balcony of the saloon.

Jesse resisted the urge to wave back. These were not the women who raised him. Those ladies had doted upon him, loved him freely. He’d come to find out later in life that most soiled doves were not like the ones who had brought him up. With most of those adrift souls, nothing was given for free.

“How about we go inside, have a drink?” Bingham stepped toward the open front door where bawdy sounds spilled into the night.

No doubt it all sounded like a fine time to the boy. Jesse had thought the same at his age. Cold crept through the soles of his boots. It wouldn’t be long before his toes went numb.

Jesse grabbed Bingham’s collar and yanked him back.

“I’m of an age.” The kid gazed longingly at the saloon door.

“When you’re old enough to know better, you’ll be of an age.”

“You sound like my pa.”

The scent of jasmine wafted past Jesse’s nose. Odd to smell that this time of year. He glanced about and didn’t see the plant growing nearby.

“I hope I do.” Once they walked past the saloon, the night grew quieter. It wouldn’t stay that way because there was another saloon on the next block. “Your father is a fine man.”

“I know, and I love him. But the thing is, he’s happy just being at work or home. And that’s all right for him because he’s old. I’m ready to experience everything out there!”

“It’s fine to want that.”

How did he tell the boy what he’d learned without sounding like a Sunday morning preacher? Not that Jesse had anything against Sunday morning preachers; it’s just that he figured the boy didn’t pay much attention to them.

He sure hadn’t. He’d learned about life the hard way. Made some grave mistakes that other folks paid the price for. If he could keep Bingham from doing the same, it would be worth more than the herd of horses he was going to fetch. And they meant the world to him.

“You too cold to keep walking, boy?”

“I ain’t a bit cold, sir.” His red nose said otherwise but he didn’t appear to be shivering.

“I’m glad. I’ve got some things to say to you.”

“I did come along to learn everything you know.”

“Everything you think I know.”

Bingham slapped his hands on his forearms as though he could ward off the frigid air. “I reckon you’ve had more adventures than even than Hoodoo Underwood.”

Many more. Although calling them adventures was giving his experiences glamour when they didn’t deserve it.

The one and only thing he wanted now was to settle on his property, breed horses and raise children. Wake up every morning with their mother in his bed.

Out of the blue—or the dark—a vision flashed in his mind of the woman he had met earlier today. The one who was going to end up brokenhearted because she chose the wrong sort of man.

Hmm... She lay in his bed, hair the color of shimmering cream splayed about the pillow. A playful smile on her face. In his mind, he allowed himself to brush a feathered kiss across her lips because what was the harm? A pair of blue eyes gazed up at him in love, even though she knew his every secret.

Odd how something he only imagined left his heart half shaken. Slightly bereft.

“I’ve lived life, and I think maybe you envy that. The thing is, Bingham, I’d have traded every last adventure to have parents like yours.”

“What was it you did, when you were living life before you settled in Forget-Hoping-Anything-Interesting-Will-Happen?”

“I was a bounty hunter.” A robber of freedom. A maker of widows and orphans. He’d taken a life...and worse.

Bingham halted midstride. His mouth hung open, making him look like a fledgling bird expecting a worm to be stuffed into its beak.

“That’s enough talk for now. It’s cold. Let’s go back.”

“But I want to see—”

“Adventure? Look around, boy!” Jesse nodded toward a man who had just stumbled out of the saloon.

Even in the dark, he recognized the fellow who held the heart of the lady on the boardwalk back in Forget-Me-Not. The very lady he had just been fantasizing about. Although, the strange thing was, the vision seemed more solid than fantasy. The oddest part being, he was not a man who indulged in fantasy.

“What do you see?” he asked Bingham.

“A fellow having a high old time. Could be he just won money at cards.”

“The truth is more like he’s so drunk he’s going to vomit at the hitching post. He lost money because his mind couldn’t think a straight thought. He’ll wake up in the morning feeling sick to death, then he’ll do the same damn thing tomorrow night. And he’ll keep on until he’s out of money. I’ve seen it over and over, son. Haggard and hungry isn’t adventurous.”

“But you were a bounty hunter!”

What he wouldn’t give to forget that. To live on his sweet little ranch and wake up next to a blue-eyed, blond-haired woman who forgave and forgot.

Yes, one who made him forget.

* * *

Within moments of passing the split-rail fence, Laura Lee drove the team over the rise of a hill. And there it was...

Home.

Moonlight touched the single-story structure with shimmering, magical light.

As least, that’s how her heart saw it. If the reality of the house was different by the light of day, so be it. Setting the place to rights would be an act of love. The porch looked like it circled the house. She longed to spend time there. Someone had even left behind a rocking chair.

While Laura Lee’s shivers were of pure delight, she doubted the same was true for the horses. No doubt the beasts wanted nothing more than warmth and rest.

Not too far in the distance, to the left of the house, she spotted a tall red barn. A wide bridge lay across the stream cutting between the structures.

“Let’s get you settled in.” With a glance back at the house, she led the team toward the bridge. The enchantment of her four walls would not vanish because she settled the animals first.

The barn proved to be in excellent condition. It was as though the previous owners departed only yesterday. They had even left behind a huge supply of hay, which meant she would not have to unload the wagon tonight.

An hour later, the animals fed and put in stalls, she took one last, loving glance at her barn.

“Good night, everyone.” She patted the dog’s head, then closed the barn door.

She hadn’t walked more than ten steps before she heard scratching and whining. Evidently Hey...Dog preferred to spend his nights outdoors. Hurrying back, she opened the barn door. The dog pranced out, his great tail wagging.

“Even though you have plenty of fur,” she said to him while he trotted beside her toward the house, “it’s awfully cold out.”

Moments later, she stood in the spot she had dreamed of standing since...since as long as she could remember. It was fitting to pause at the foot of the stairs and simply gaze in awe of her lovely whitewashed house.

In truth, the paint was a bit chipped and faded but that didn’t dim its appeal one whit in Laura Lee’s eyes. It only meant that her house needed her as much as she needed it.

“Tomorrow night, I’ll find you a blanket,” she said to the dog. She didn’t need to reach down to pet him. He fit nicely under her hand. There was no denying that she found his presence a comfort. If she managed to sleep tonight, she would do it more soundly knowing that he was keeping watch on the porch.

“Good night, then.”

She mounted the steps, walking backward and looking one last time at her property. If the rolling hills, meadows and groves of trees looked this pretty by moonlight, how would they look in the morning with sunshine bringing everything to life?

She stared at the door. What if it was locked? Johnny had given her a deed and directions but not a key. With the stress of separation looming between them, he must have forgotten.

“I suppose I could break a window.” As horrible as it would be if the first thing she did to her house was to break something, she did have to get inside.

To her great relief, when she turned the knob, the door swung open with barely a squeal.

Stepping inside, her emotions burst from her in a flood. She sobbed out loud because she had never really believed she would have a place that was her own. Even all those times she and Johnny spoke about it, dreamed about it, it had been only that. A dream.

Now there were wood floors under her feet. She couldn’t see much in the darkness, but there seemed to be a stone fireplace that spanned the length of a wall. And if she was not mistaken, bedrooms, one to her left and one to right, flanked each end of the big parlor.

Paws scratched at her front door.

Wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands, she sniffled one more time, then opened the front door.

“You ought to have stayed in the—”

Apparently Hey...Dog had no intention of sleeping on the porch because he trotted happily past her, his tail thumping her skirt in passing.

She closed the door against the frigid air rushing inside. If he meant to stay inside, there was really nothing she could do about it. It’s possible that he weighed more than she did.

“Well, what do you think?” Glancing about in the dark, she only imagined what the place was like or what might be in it.

To her relief, she did spot a chair. It was so big and comfortable-looking that a king might feel at home sitting upon it.

How thoughtful it was of the former owner to leave it behind. She would like to express her gratitude for the hay and the chair, but of course, she had no idea how to go about it.

For all that she thought she would not be able to sleep tonight, the chair seemed to open its arms and call her name. Perhaps she had become more worn down than she thought, running about getting ready for the move. Or perhaps it was simply a sense of security wrapping her up. Her own four walls saying, Welcome home...come and rest your soul.

She plopped down in the chair with a great sigh, loosened her hair and fluffed it out behind her.

The dog pressed his face close, licked a lingering teardrop from her cheek. With a soft woof, he sat on the floor. The weight of his head settled on her thigh. For as much as he resembled an extra-large wolf, he seemed to have a sweet and loyal spirit.

“You need a name of your own,” she said while twining her fingers in the thicket of gray-brown hair on his neck. “From now on, your name is Chisel because you chiseled your way into my house...and into my heart, you great hairy beast.”

He sighed, as though he was happy to finally be worthy of a name of his own. Actually, he might have sighed for many reasons, but she hoped it was that one. Shifting his weight, he lay down upon her feet. The warmth was welcome since it was shivering cold, even inside.

With everything the previous owners had left behind, they’d no doubt left firewood as well. Still, in the moment, she was too weary to go exploring.

Shrugging deeply into her coat, she felt her eyes grow heavy. As she did every night, she carried a vision of Johnny’s handsome face off to sleep with her.

Drifting on a sleepy daze, she imagined the sigh of his breath upon her cheek, the brush of his lips lightly grazing hers. He whispered her name and his voice sounded different. More tender and less demanding. The pitch was different, too, deeper. Compelling. She had to admit she liked the difference. Ordinarily, Johnny was bold, taking—or trying to take—what he wanted. In this dream, he wanted to give.

In her slumbering vision, she lifted her hand, trailed her fingers through the short whorls of his dark blond hair. Which was odd since Johnny had long dark hair. He smiled, and she felt a yearning for him to her very soul. His olive green eyes gazed at her with more love than she’d ever felt before.

Olive green eyes! Laura Lee sat upright with a start. Johnny had deep brown eyes.

Could she have been...? No, she absolutely could not have been dreaming of the stranger from town whom she had met for one brief moment. Why would she?

What a faithless creature she was! Johnny had bought her a house! He was out...somewhere...working hard to pay off the mortgage.

She owed Johnny everything. And yet...the yearning for a stranger lingered in her heart.

How wicked she was. She deserved to shiver the night away wide awake. Ah, but the dog’s warmth crept up her ankles to her calves, then her knees.

She drifted back to sleep barely aware of wind hitting the window and making it rattle in its frame.

* * *

Could it truly be morning? It was hard to remember when she had slept so soundly, even at the Lucky Clover, where she’d felt safe for the first time in her life.

The ranch had been her first home really. She’d been given a small room of her own in the main house, the same as the rest of the unmarried girls. For many years, it had been her sanctuary.

Even though she had been happy, it had never been her dream to live at the Lucky Clover forever. Here, within her own walls, was where her heart always longed to be.

Like a veil being drawn from her eyes, the fog of sleep cleared from her brain. She bounded up from the chair she had slept in.

Everything she had not been able to see in the dark was now visible.

The chair was deep blue and the only piece of furniture in the room. As she’d suspected, there was a bedroom flanking each end of the main room. Behind the fireplace, she thought there might be a kitchen. If she was very lucky, and it appeared that so far she was, there would be a stove so that she could cook her pastries for Friday.

Skipping because there was no one to witness her acting like a loon, she passed through the main room to the area behind the fireplace.

To the right was a table with one chair and to the right of the table was a stairway that led to... She lifted up onto her toes trying to see. There was no way of knowing without climbing the steep stairs, but she thought the space might be a loft.

When she and Johnny had children, the boys could sleep up there. She could nearly see them peeking over the edge, their eyes green and—no, no, no! Brown eyes, warm and happy like their father, peering over the edge.

She shook herself. Perhaps she was still more sleepy than she realized. When she was wide awake, she would no longer recall the dream or how the man had made her feel so cherished.

Spinning left, she was grateful to see a kitchen with a wood-burning stove. As though in a deliriously happy fog, she moved toward the black-iron beauty that had six burners and an oven.

“Hurry home, Johnny! I need to give you a kiss.” And after they’d been to the preacher... Well, she blushed right there in her own sweet kitchen just imagining the kisses they would share.

Chisel, whining at the front door, snapped her to the here and now, which was a wonderful place to be.

“It looks like rain,” she announced, opening the front door. He bunched his legs, then leaped from the porch without touching the stairs. He raced across the yard, over the bridge and through an autumn-brown meadow.

He must be claiming the land as his, the same as she was claiming the house.

And what better way to do it than to explore the loft, then to clean the grime off the windows? After that, with a fire crackling in the fireplace, she would sit in her chair and sew her curtains.

If life could be any better, she could not imagine how.

* * *

If life could be any better, Jesse Creed could not imagine how. Sitting beside the campfire, he could smell his horses, hear them snorting and shuffling their hooves in the dirt.

After a week and a half on the homeward-bound trail, they would soon be grazing in their home pastures. It would take until after dark to get there. They might even encounter some rain. Where he was, it was clear overheard, but far off to the west, clouds were massing.

Rain or not, he didn’t care. All he wanted was to be home.

During the time he’d been gone, he’d seen more of the outside world than he wanted to. There had been no way to ignore tainted reality since he’d been constantly dragging Bingham away from this or that “adventure,” lecturing him on how a horse was better company than the Underwood brothers.

But he was a kid and curious. There was only so much Jesse could do to set the boy’s feet on the right path.

“You anxious to get home?” Jesse asked.

Bingham, lounging against his saddle beside the campfire, didn’t answer at first. An owl hooted in a branch overhead and a distant coyote yipped while the boy seemed to consider what to say.

“I’ll be right glad to see my pa. The thing is, I’m worried I’ll dry up with boredom. Next time you buy horses, I’d like to go along. You don’t even have to pay me.”

“You deserve to be paid. You’re a hard worker.”

There was a matter Jesse had been considering, going over it in his mind all during the journey home. Bingham was at a point in his life where his future might go one of two ways. He could work hard and become a man, or he could take up with the Underwoods and remain a boy for the rest of his life.

Jesse owed society recompense for the wrong he’d done. If he could keep this good-hearted boy from going astray...prevent Thomas Teal from having a broken heart, he would do it.

“With all these horses, I’ve got more work than one man can do alone,” Jesse began. “I’ll pay fair wage if you’d work for me when your father doesn’t need you at the store. You’ve shown what a good hand you’ve got with the herd, that you’re willing to work hard.”

Bingham leaped to his feet and crossed to Jesse’s side of the campfire with his hand extended. The kid stood tall with the star-studded sky behind him. It looked for all the world that he wore a sparkling crown.

But there were also flames reflecting on his face.

Yep, the kid could go right or wrong at this point. If Jesse had any say in the matter, Bingham would grow to be a responsible citizen.

“I’ll take that job, sir!”

“You’ll need a horse of your own, son. Pick one out of the herd tomorrow.”

“You’re giving me a horse?” Bingham’s long jaw dropped open.

“No, not giving. You’ve worked hard and earned yourself a pony.”

The boy slapped his thigh. “I reckon I won’t sleep a wink wondering which one to take.”

Half an hour later, Jesse heard snoring from the other side of the campfire. He heard it because he was the one who could not sleep.

Images of home played in his mind. He could nearly hear the sound of the stream that cut between the house and the big red barn. He imagined the solid thud his boots would make on the wooden bridge when he crossed it.

He pictured the horses in the paddock, saw them racing across the meadows, resting in groves of cottonwood and aspen that were scattered over the property.

He’d been so busy getting ready for the herd that he’d neglected the house. It had suited his needs for a while, with the one chair on the porch and the other before the fireplace. It was hard to remember what he’d stuffed into the loft built over the kitchen, but he was anxious to get it out and put his house in order.

Gazing up at the stars, he knew he was a blessed man. He didn’t deserve any of what he had.

In the end, he did fall asleep halfway into a prayer of thanksgiving.

Chapter Four

It was late in the evening when Laura Lee hung a curtain on the last bare window. Listening to rain tap on the porch, she adjusted gathers over the rod, smoothing them with her fingers until they were evenly spread.

Then, hands on hips, she stood back to gaze at her handiwork. It looked like bouquets of snow-white flowers bloomed in the windows. Even though she was accustomed to sewing, her fingers ached...along with her back, her legs and her arms. Still, she could not remember a time when she’d felt better.

Glancing down, she saw the hem of her skirt winking in the high shine of the floor she had spent hours polishing.

The attic had been a treasure trove. She was surprised that the previous owners had left such useful items behind.

When Johnny returned, he was going to be pleased to see the place looking like home. There was a red rug on the floor, which she had managed to beat most of the dust out of before the rain started.

He would also appreciate the fact that he had sturdy dinnerware on which to eat the delicious meals she planned to make for him. She had been beyond pleased to find a cast-iron skillet and a pot in the loft. Basic tools but along with what she had purchased, she was well equipped to prepare food with the same skill as her mentor, Mrs. Morgan from the Lucky Clover.

There was still only the one chair, but one of the rooms had a big, comfortable bed with room and more to stretch. She’d found an extra blanket in the loft, and a good thing, too. The weather was turning colder by the day. It couldn’t be long before frost covered the ground.

Walking over to the chair, she glanced about, satisfied at how two weeks of hard work had turned her house into a home. With a tweak and a fluff, she plumped a pillow and set it back in the chair to make it look welcoming.

She smiled at her well-read copy of the Ladies’ Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper where it lay open on the end table beside the chair. Over the past few months, she’d all but worn out the pages of the magazine. Just this week, she’d spent many an evening in her chair, studying this and dreaming of that.

Hmm... One chair... A pair of newlyweds.

Sighing, she wondered where her fiancé was. It had been too long since she’d seen him and, oh, but she did miss the sound of his voice and the hint of mischief that always lurked in his brown eyes. She could not help but wonder where she would be when Johnny returned, what she would be doing or wearing.

However it happened, their reunion would be utterly romantic.

But where was he? She thought he would have returned by now. Worry over him was beginning to shadow the joy of being in her own home. It couldn’t take this long to conduct a business deal. Surely he was as anxious to get home as she was to have him here?

More and more she had to banish the fear that something might have happened to him. If only he hadn’t gone off with those men. They did not look like the decent sort, in her eyes.

It took some effort to forget Johnny’s smile, how he looked so gloriously happy to be off on an adventure when he rode away from her. It couldn’t mean anything, but still, she’d have rather seen a frown of regret.