Second Chance Ranch (5 page)

“That’s all?” She rummaged through the refrigerator and emerged with a platter of steaks. Setting the plate on the counter across from him, she began trimming off the fat. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the Trails’ End once being part of the Circle D, would it?”

“That’s just coincidence.” He held his tongue, knowing Grace had figured out his motives, but he wasn’t ready to acknowledge she’d won. “That spread requires work Jen hasn’t even discovered yet. Why else do you think Jess Eklund is all fired up to sell the place?”

“Only the good Lord knows what’s on Jess’s mind. Just because he can’t handle it doesn’t mean Jennifer can’t. She’s a smart girl with a lot of folks believing in her. She’s doing a good, productive thing for all those children who need a bit of fun out in the open air.”

“I’m not saying that. She’s doing a great thing for them. She just doesn’t need as much ranch as she’s trying to buy.” He needed to turn this discussion around before it got out of hand. His mother was a master of getting to the bottom of his dilemmas and weaseling them around to her way of thinking.. “What’s wrong with the Carmichael place? It’s been for sale for over two years now. I’ll bet she could get a great deal if she tried.”

Grace never looked up as she scraped the top of the steaks with her paring knife. “Don’t forget, Arthur Eklund had faith in her, too. When she made the choice to build this camp idea instead of going to med school, he knew she had the mettle to see it through. You do know Arthur wrote all this out in his will, right? Jen gets first chance at it at the price he set no matter what price Jess wanted to set. Arthur even helped her fix up the barn.” She sprinkled seasoning on the last steak and set down her knife, nailing him with her full attention. “You’re telling me she’s not going to beg, borrow, or negotiate to get the place for that price?”

“I’m not saying she won’t, Mom.” A dull throb began at the base of his neck, working its way up the back of his head. “I’m just saying I have a back-up contract on the place in case hers falls through.”

“Isaac Davidson, you listen to me.” Grace plunked her elbow on the counter and sent a couple of jabs of her short paring knife his way. “I raised you to be an honorable man. I know how much you want the Trails’ End back in Davidson hands—you’ve wanted it ever since you heard the whole Jeb Davidson poker game story. But I want you to remember how God does these things.” Stopping abruptly, she turned away and shrugged. “I remember a time when you would have done anything for that girl.”

So did he. He’d been thinking about it a lot more lately than he should.

And every time he did, the hurt of her abandoning him stung harder. “We were kids. Then we grew up. Happens to most folks.”

“You and Jennifer were inseparable. If there was ever a sure thing, it was you and Jen. Still can’t believe you parted ways.”

Neither could he. He thought they’d have forever. When Jen left for college, she left it all - including him - and never looked back. “We went in different directions, I guess.”

“Not so different. You both ended up back home, didn’t you?”

“Don’t read too much into that.”

“Zac, you may have been a headstrong, wild little boy, but you always had a soft heart. You still do, if you’d just trust a little. Have a little faith.”

He stopped snapping peas and frowned.

“You say Jennifer doesn’t understand the farming end. Well then, help her. Teach her. The good Lord knows what He’s doing. Trust Him.”

CHAPTER THREE

The ice cream stick snapped in half.

Glancing down at the splintered ends in each hand, Jen frowned at the distraction. Not a drop of the sweet treat remained on the stick she’d been bending back and forth to calm her nerves. She looked back up at the rooster clock perched on the pine shelf over the kitchen door. A quarter after one. The lab technician said he’d call at noon with the results. Noon. An hour and fifteen minutes ago. What was the hold up?

Jen leaned over the table and shot the half a stick in her hand at the trash can beside the refrigerator. Nailed it. Pressing the other end between her fingers, she set a perfect arc at the can. A satisfying thunk echoed as the stick hit the bottom. Had dread over the test results not been gnawing at her, she’d be whooping up a storm. It had been a week since she’d stopped into the Hawk Ridge Medical Clinic for a cheek swab to see if her DNA matched her daughter’s. A week of chewing her nails, pacing the floor, dusting everything that wasn’t nailed down in the house.

If their DNA matched, she’d drop everything and drive to Denver to donate immune building marrow for the transplant. The procedure was simple for the donor. Day surgery to extract the bone marrow and she’d be back in Hawk Ridge before anyone missed her. No one else the wiser; her secret would remain safe.

She followed the line of her laminate counter top to the stove where the leftovers of lunch remained on the cookie sheet. Chocolate chip with walnuts, her favorite comfort food. If the tech didn’t call soon, she’d have to bake up another couple dozen. The computer on the other end of the counter beeped indicating a dangerously low battery. Jen turned in her seat. Lot of good her research had done. Carli Seacrest from Canandaigua, New York remained a mystery to Jen, even though she’d given birth to her eleven years ago. She’d scoured the Internet for any information on Carli and her family, but found nothing more in depth than the generic stats Montgomery Stone had given her: a corporate executive father, stay-at-home mother, two other adopted children, water front property on one of the Finger Lakes.

Nothing about Carli. No sports, no hobbies, no pets...nothing. She knew nothing more about this precious little girl to whom she’d given birth than she knew of the sweet children playing in the mountain sunshine just hundreds of feet away from her. They battled cancer. Only the kids at the Trails’ End had passed through the fire of treatments and emerged on the other side. Carli still waited at the started block, desperate for her turn to run the race.

Jen banged the heel of her hand on the table causing the clutter of papers in front of her to flutter. The bank was waiting for a business plan from her and all she could do was stare at the clock and count the minutes. She had to snap out of it and get to work. For all she knew, Ray might not call with the results until Monday. Squeezing her eyes shut, she sat up straight in her chair.

Lord, help me focus
. The soft whirr of the window fan in the living room clouded her mind like smoke through a keyhole.
Lord, we can do this. Just You and I…just like always.
A gentle calm and quiet settled over her. One step at a time...don’t look for trouble...take life in stride and move forward. Opening her eyes, she focused on the land map she’d pinned to the wall, her anxieties stuffed away in the back of her mind.

She tilted her head as she stared at all the brightly colored pins scattered across the map.

Drawing a deep breath, Jen followed the twists of an irrigation ditch through the divided crop lands. Nothing was square about this property. All twenty-five hundred acres followed natural ridges and valleys making for a very nice pattern display, but awful for calculating the area. She had a master’s degree in nursing--science always came easy to her, not geography. In all, she figured she had eighteen hundred acres of tillable land, fifty flat acres for the camp and the rest in forest and mountainous incline that lent nicely to the trail hikes she’d devised for the campers. The diversity of the property was terrific for what she wanted to do, but at the moment it more than frustrated her. She folded her arms across her chest and stuck her tongue out at the mish-mash of lines in front of her.

“You always did have a creative way of dealing with problems.” Zac stood in the kitchen doorway, the screen bouncing into him with a soft thud. “Funny, I seem to remember you nagged at
me
to grow up back in the day.”

“What do you want?” Jen continued to stare at her work, afraid to look at Zac. He’d always been able to read her better than she read herself. She didn’t want him thinking anything was wrong. If he so much as offered her the smallest comfort, she feared her nerves would shred.

“I came to apologize.”

Her ears perked even as the rest of her body froze in place.

“I should have told you about the contract. I asked Trevor to draw it up because he’s most familiar with the details. I asked him not to tell you.”

At his confession, an iron knot tightened in her stomach. She had her own secrets, but she wasn’t about to return the confession. Ever since discovering Zac’s opinion on love and money, her resolve to keep her secret only strengthened. If all worked out, she’d be a match, take care of her daughter’s health and no one would be the wiser.

She turned her head until she caught a glimpse of Zac leaning against the door jamb, his palm flattened on the counter top. In a button down shirt with his sleeves rolled to the elbow, his darkly tanned arms proved he was more an outdoors man than one to sit behind a desk. “Trevor,” --her voice cracked-- “told me.”

He nodded, his thick, dark hair brushing the collar of his shirt making him look like a kid out of school rather than the CFO of a corporation. “I asked him not to say anything unless you asked. I put him in just as uncomfortable a position as I have you. I’m sorry.”

What was she supposed to say to his naked confession? Throw a fit? Throw him out? He’d pulled the rug out from under her righteous indignation. Rat. She turned back toward her work. “It’s a back-up contract. Doesn’t mean you’re getting the ranch, but it probably makes Jess feel better about a deal.”

“Exactly. I’m glad you understand.” He ventured closer and waved his finger at the wall. “That wall is going to need some serious spackle once you finish your crop plan..”

“I’m remodeling bit by bit anyway.” She didn’t have the energy to spar with him. Thoughts of her daughter blended with the reality of Zac. So foreign, yet so familiar. Both beyond her grasp. She drew a breath and waved him over. “C’mon closer, I promise I won’t bite.”

His dark eyes lit with his smile as he hooked the chair beside her. “A nibble here or there wouldn’t hurt.”

The familiar ribbing loosened her up. In no time at all, he’d distracted her enough for the muscles in her shoulders to relax and the tension to drain from her neck. She shifted her hips and moved over to give him a better view of her work. “Goon.”

Their shoulders bumped as he studied the map, the contour of his solid muscles obvious through the fabric of his shirt. “Where did you get this? The layout is old.” He leaned toward the wall and traced lines that traveled all over the map. “The overall boundary is the same, but a couple of these fields have split due to diverted irrigation patterns.”

All she heard was
layout
and
fields
as fresh-scented soap and woodsy aftershave played with her senses and mingled with the familiar scent of his warm skin. Some things never changed. Frustration stirred. The past was the past, right? Her back molars ground as she fought to keep her emotions locked up.

Think clearly, girl. Think ahead.

Even as the warning shouted through her head, Jen drew another wiff of Zac’s famous brand of strength and attraction. Tough thinking about timothy hay and flood irrigation with his strong forearm right next to her cheek. When she turned her head, her hair brushed his sleeve and she practically jumped out of her seat.

He glanced at her. “You okay?”

Figures and graphs lay scattered in front of her. He traced a blunt finger down the weathered paper on the table. Growth charts and seeding patterns took back seat to the strong, tanned hands marred with scars from a lifetime spent team roping with her brother. The two of them had been quite the pair, becoming fast friends when the O’Reilly children had been temporarily adopted into the Davidson family. Before their mother had died, Kade barely knew which end of the horse to point toward the steer.

Jen cleared her throat. “Have you seen my brother lately?”

His fingertip stopped at the bottom of the column. “Yeah, I just saw him last month. What made you ask?”

Her gaze swiped over his thumb, the tip still bent at an unnatural angle from a roping incident so many years ago. The guys were always careful, but trouble found them anyway. Zac and Kade had endured their share of injuries. “Just wondering. I haven’t seen him since Easter.”

Zac rested his elbow on the back of her chair, his hand grazing her neck as he studied her. Her pulse sprinted even as she angled away from him. The sight, sound and smell of Zac Davidson messed with her head.

“He stopped by the office in Denver on his way to Steamboat Springs. Mitch Cauldwell has him hauling bulls up and down the Front Range from New Mexico to Montana for all the rodeos running.” A tiny frown formed between his well-shaped brows. “I thought he said he was stopping home before going north.”

“If he did, I didn’t see him.” Her gaze avoided his questioning brown eyes. “Dad didn’t say anything either.”

“Does your dad still want him to go back to school?”

The image of her irate dad flashed across her mind. “I think I have enough education for the both of us, but he thinks Kade should do more than drive stock for a cattle company. He’d be happy if Kade thought about getting a more challenging job.”