The Rancher's Homecoming (2 page)

“Not today, Mrs. Lightner. Has Bodie had her bottle?”

“She has, as well as a bath and a fresh diaper. I was just about to dress her when I heard you come in.”

“That's wonderful. You're a blessing, Mrs. Lightner. Would you finish dressing her for me?”

The elderly woman frowned, her brows meeting behind her large, thick glasses. Rex figured he knew what the problem must be. He set down the boxes.

“Are you the Mrs. Lightner who used to teach me in Sunday school and give my sisters Meredith and Ann piano lessons?”

Those eyebrows went up. “Meredith and Ann? You must be Rex Billings.”

“That's right.” Smiling, he stepped up onto the landing and hugged the woman. “I wasn't sure at first, ma'am. I thought you were older.”

Tittering and fluffing her hair, she actually blushed. “Really?”

“You know how it is,” he said, grinning at her. “Kids think anyone over twenty is ancient. You couldn't have been much older than thirty back then.” She'd been fifty if she'd been a day, but he'd learned to schmooze at the best law firm in Tulsa.

“Oh, go on,” Mrs. Lightner said with a giggle. “You always were a scamp.”

“I suppose I was,” he admitted good-naturedly. “I'm glad to see you, though. I'll be sure to tell Dad.”

She sobered then. “How is Wes? I heard he wasn't doing too well.”

Rex nodded. “It's been tough. The surgery was hard on him, but my sisters and I are going to take good care of him.”

“You tell him I'm praying for him.”

“Yes, ma'am. We appreciate that.”

“I'll be in to take over in a just a moment, Mrs. Lightner,” Callie said. Then she crooked her finger at Rex again. “This way.”

Mrs. Lightner still frowned, but she went off to dress Bodie while Rex picked up the boxes and followed Callie into another room. The place had a faded, girlish feel about it. Callie wasted no time packing her belongings quickly and efficiently. Within minutes, Rex began carting boxes and bundles of clothing down to the truck. He returned to find Mrs. Lightner standing in the doorway, the baby in her arms and a thunderous expression on her face.

“What on earth is going on here?”

“Didn't I say?” Callie replied smoothly, never slowing her movements. “Mr. Billings needs my help until his daughters arrive.”

Sensing a battle on the horizon, Rex quickly surveyed the field and decided on a course of action. Sliding past Mrs. Lightner, he took a quick glance at the baby and carried the suitcases that Callie had packed downstairs. He heard the argument erupt behind him.

“You can't do that!”

“But I must, Mrs. Lightner. Wes Billings desperately needs help.”

Rex didn't linger to hear more. The sooner he got Callie Deviner out of there and to the ranch, the better for all concerned. He returned to find Callie in the nursery tossing baby things into a box while Mrs. Lightner rocked a babbling pink bundle who seemed determined to snatch glasses from teary eyes.

“I'm sure you know what you're doing,” Mrs. Lightner said in a tone that clearly indicated the very opposite.

“We'll be fine,” Callie promised, closing the box. “Thank you for your concern.” She glanced up at Rex then, sliding the box across the carpet toward him. “We really have to go.”

“Yes, I don't want to leave Dad any longer than I must,” he stated honestly. “One of the ladies from church is sitting with him, but she has to leave soon.”

Callie slid another box toward him, then shouldered an overstuffed diaper bag and stood, turning to the rocking chair. Mrs. Lightner sighed as Callie gathered the baby into her arms. Dipping, Callie snagged the top of a large plastic bag of disposable diapers.

Rex stacked and picked up the boxes. They felt surprisingly light, so he took the diapers from Callie.

“If you've got all that,” she said, “I can grab the car seat from the closet downstairs.”

“What about the rest of these things?” he asked, nodding at the elaborate stroller and the padded playpen, the changing table and canopied baby bed.

“Leave them,” Callie instructed briskly.

He didn't have to be told twice. “Okay, then. Let's move.”

Within minutes they were packed into the truck, and Callie was hugging Mrs. Lightner in the driveway.

“Go on home now, Mrs. Lightner,” he heard her say, “and thanks again for everything.”

“But your father...” Mrs. Lightner said.

“Don't worry. Just head on home.”

As they backed out of the driveway, Rex couldn't help asking, “Everything okay?”

Callie smiled and glanced over her shoulder at the baby before settling into her seat with a satisfied sigh. “It is now.”

Rex wondered why she seemed so anxious to take this job, but he was too glad of the help to care. The sooner his dad was on the mend, the sooner he could get back to his real life. The sooner
everyone
could get back to their real lives, him, his sisters, their dad, even Callie Deviner.

Hiring the daughter of the wealthiest man in War Bonnet as a cook and housekeeper did seem odd, but Rex didn't really care what the pretty little widow's reasons were for taking this job. He had to give her this: she was a decisive woman, and she traveled light and fast.

He could've done worse. Casually looking over at her, he smiled.

Oh, yes. He could have done much worse.

Chapter Two

W
es greeted Callie and her little daughter, Bodie, with the brightest smile Rex had seen in weeks.

“I'm tickled pink to be here,” Callie told him. “You just don't know. Now, I'm going to get the baby down for a nap, clean that kitchen floor and start on your lunch.”

“Ah, I don't have much appetite,” Wes said, picking at the coverlet on his bed.

“Listen, you,” Callie threatened teasingly, “I have your wife's recipe for pimento cheese, and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm counting on there still being jars of the pimentos she put up in the pantry.”

Wes's eyes filled with tears as he beamed. “I never knew what to do with them.”

“Need any help getting dressed and to the table?” she asked, patting Wes on the shoulder.

Rex knew his father hadn't been out of his pajamas since he'd come home from the hospital.

Rex could've kissed Callie then and there.

Wes shook his head and rasped, “I'll manage.”

“I'll help him before I go out and get to work on the baler again. The girls stocked up on groceries before they left, so I think you'll find everything you need in the kitchen. If not, let me know. I'll send someone back into town.”

Nodding, Callie left to settle the baby and get started on her work, the little one riding her hip. Rex helped Wes dress in loose jeans and a soft T-shirt. Wes even combed his thick, sugar-and-cinnamon hair, complaining about the heavy graying at his temples and needing a trim.

“We'll get you to the barber as soon as you're back on your feet,” Rex promised. Then he went out to tackle that old baler again.

The Straight Arrow Ranch still baled the old small, rectangular bales and stored them in pole barns situated strategically around the property because only about 25 percent of its two square miles of land was suitable for growing fodder, and much of the range to the north and west was too rough for transporting the large, round bales to which so many ranchers had gone. Besides, they already had the storage facilities, so it didn't make sense to fix what wasn't broken, as Wes put it. Except that the hay baler was currently broken, and Rex wasn't making much headway fixing it.

Wes sat at the kitchen table when Rex came in for lunch, exasperated and determined not to show it. Story of his life lately. He saw no sign of the wheelchair that he'd rented, probably because Wes hated to use it, but Rex didn't care how his dad had gotten to the table as long as he was there. He sent Callie a smile of thanks as he walked to the counter and helped himself to a tall glass of iced tea.

“How did you know he loved Mom's pimento cheese sandwiches?” he asked softly.

She gave him the barest of smiles, whispering, “I've seen him eat three at a sitting.”

Saluting her with his tea glass, Rex walked to the table. He silently congratulated himself on making a good hire.

Church ladies had been helping them out since Rex's sisters had left after getting Wes home from the hospital, providing casseroles and other dishes and sitting with Wes when called upon, but it had rapidly become obvious that they couldn't continue to impose. The past couple weeks on their own had been rough, especially with the ranch taking more and more of Rex's time. Rex honestly hadn't expected to find someone to help so quickly, though. He'd only stopped at the café because he was hungry for a decent breakfast. Even before his sisters had returned to their respective jobs—Ann to Dallas, where she managed a hotel, and Meredith to Oklahoma City, where she worked as a nurse in the hospital where their father had been through surgery and would soon start chemotherapy—breakfast had been an issue. Even a well-stocked larder didn't help if a person had no idea what to do with its contents.

Callie knew exactly what she was doing. Neither of his sisters could hold a candle to her in the kitchen. Even his mother might have had her work cut out for her. Gloria Billings had been fun, loving and more than a little scatterbrained. Callie proved efficient, quick and affable, not to mention easy on the eyes. Wes certainly seemed happy with what was on his plate, and Rex hadn't seen that in many months, even before they'd figured out what was wrong with his dad.

Eventually Wes wiped his mouth with a napkin, saying, “Wish I could do better by this, Callie. Sure is good. Any chance you can put it up for my lunch tomorrow?”

Callie turned from the big, old stove that had been Rex's mother's pride and joy. Gloria had loved everything about the rustic, sprawling, sixty-year-old cedar-sided ranch house, wrapped in deep porches and steep, metal roofing that Rex's grandfather had built. She'd even loved the drafty, smoky, fieldstone fireplace that took up one whole wall in the L-shaped living and formal dining area. Smiling, Callie walked to the rectangular kitchen table and picked up Wes's plate.

“I think there's enough left over for your lunch tomorrow, if that's what you want. I was planning on Gloria's chicken and dumplings for supper.”

Wes sat back with a happy smile. “It's been an age since I last had that.”

“Gloria was generous with her recipes,” Callie said. “I use them all the time.”

As she carried the plate back to the sink, Wes looked to Rex. “You did good, son.”

Rex just smiled and gobbled down the last of his thick sandwich, as a thin wail rose from upstairs.

Callie calmly moved toward the back stairs. A back hallway provided access to the stairs, a laundry room, mudroom, a small bath and what his mother had used to call her craft room. His dad had taken over the latter as his bedroom to spare himself a trip up the stairs after he'd taken ill. What had once been six small bedrooms upstairs had been remodeled into four bedrooms and two roomy baths, all with sloping ceilings.

“If you need me, I'll be in the barn,” Rex announced as Callie climbed the stairs.

“Okay,” Callie called. “We'll be fine.”

“That baler still giving you trouble?” Wes asked with a shake of his head. “Wish I was up to helping you fix it.”

“It's okay, Dad.” Rex got to his feet. “Let's get you back to your room.”

His father sighed but laboriously pushed into a standing position. At sixty-two years of age and six foot four inches in height, Wes still stood a couple inches taller than Rex, but he felt perilously thin when Rex wrapped his arm lightly about Wes's waist.

He walked his dad down the hall into his bedroom, which now contained a rented hospital bed. His sisters had draped a sheer curtain over the window, but Wes preferred to keep that pushed to one side. Rex thought it was so his father could see his mother's peonies. Even now, four years after her unexpected death, they bloomed in the shade of the old hackberry tree at the side of the house, though the flowerbeds badly needed weeding.

Rex made a mental note to see to the flowerbeds—just as soon as he got the baler operating and the early hay harvest under way. He had to get the hay in or the cattle wouldn't have the fodder they'd need to get through winter. The Straight Arrow covered 1,280 acres of prime ranchland, and a good portion of it had been sowed in sturdy grasses, but after several years of drought, even the good rains of the past year hadn't allowed the range to fully recover. With Dad's medical bills piling up—the insurance carried high deductibles and co-pays—the ranch couldn't afford to buy more fodder than usual and still stay on a sound financial footing, which was why Rex would be paying Callie's wages, though he intended for neither her nor his father to realize that fact. After all, he could afford it. Besides, he'd be practicing law again soon enough.

Ranching had never been Rex's chosen career path, but without the ranch, Rex and his sisters feared that their dad would simply give up. He'd taken their mother's death hard, and they feared that his cancer would become an excuse for him simply to let go and join her in the next life, especially if the ranch faltered. Rex couldn't let that happen. Though not as prosperous as in years past, the ranch remained on solid fiscal footing, and Rex intended to see to it that it stayed that way. As much as he disliked the physical labor of ranching, he could,
would
, do this.

Besides, Callie wouldn't be here for long. They'd only need her until Meredith could get a leave of absence from her nursing job and Ann's company sent a temporary manager to take over for her so she could use some of those many vacation days she had stacked up. Anyway, it was worth double Callie's wages to see Wes smiling, dressed and sitting at the table for meals again.

Meanwhile, having a pretty woman around the house, good meals on the table and clean clothes would go a long way toward helping Rex swallow his frustration and dismay with the work and do this thing for his dad. It was the least he could do for the man who had never pushed him to give up his own dreams to take over the family legacy.

* * *

After changing her daughter's diaper, Callie nursed her in the rocking chair in front of the empty fireplace. She watched through the window as Rex walked across the yard, past an enormous bur oak, over the hard-packed red dirt road to the big red barn on the other side. The old barn sagged a bit, its white roof beaten to gray in places by the Oklahoma weather, but it still stood proudly beside a maze of corrals and a conglomeration of newer metal outbuildings.

Rex pulled on a pair of leather work gloves as he walked, his big, booted feet kicking up little dust clouds along the well-worn path. She respected him for taking time out of his law practice to come here and care for his ailing father, but she had to wonder just how much he knew about balers and livestock.

Wes obviously needed the help. His gauntness had shocked Callie more than the sudden graying of his hair, and in order to tempt his appetite she'd instantly started sorting through her mental store of Gloria Billings's recipes and what she recalled the Billings girls had bought in her father's grocery.

Gloria had always been very kind to Callie and widely generous with her recipes. As a motherless girl who had always known she was a disappointment to her father—Stuart Crowsen obviously would have much preferred a son to take over his many businesses—Callie had deeply admired Gloria and envied Ann and Meredith.

She barely remembered Rex. He'd been away at college by the time she'd started to take notice of boys. She hadn't given the largely absent Rex a passing thought. She couldn't help doing so now, though.

He was a fine-looking man, and he so obviously loved his father.

“Thank You, Lord,” she whispered, cradling Bodie against her. “Thank You for sending him into the café this morning. Thank You for this chance. Thank You for giving me a way to help Wes. Please show me how to make the most of it. I hope Gloria knows that I'll do my best by him.”

Bodie pulled away and sat up then, giving Callie a milky smile. Callie hugged her, feeling for the first time since her husband, Bo, had died that they were truly going to be okay.

“We're on our way now, baby girl. Soon we'll be on our own.”

The money that she would earn here with the Billings family would take her and Bodie to a new life, someplace where Callie could find a decent-paying job and make a home for the two of them. Far away from her father. Meanwhile, she would do her best to get Wes Billings back on his feet and Straight Arrow Ranch running smoothly.

She carried Bodie downstairs, created a playpen out of kitchen chairs, filled it with her daughter's favorite toys and went to work. This kitchen wasn't as modern as her father's. Even the microwave and dishwasher were ancient. The room had lots of space, though, and Callie loved the butcher-block work island.

Within the hour, the house was filled with the mouthwatering aroma of chocolate chip-and-walnut cookies. Wes called from his room, “Smells good!”

“I'll bring you a plate with a glass of milk.”

She piled half a dozen cookies on a plate, poured a talk glass of whole milk and carried them to him, along with a stack of napkins.

“I can't eat all that,” he protested.

“Eat what you want,” she replied, leaving the snack on the bedside table within easy reach.

He helped himself to the first cookie, took a bite and closed his eyes, humming approval.

“Girl, you know your way around a kitchen.”

“I had to learn early.”

“I imagine you did.”

“Gloria was a big help.”

“My Glory was a jewel,” he said on a sigh.

“I missed her after y'all switched your membership to Countryside Church.”

“The pastor out there was the son of a good friend of mine,” Wes explained, reaching for another cookie. “We wanted to support him. He's been gone awhile now, but by then we'd sunk pretty deep roots in that church. It's home.”

“I understand,” Callie said. “I've been thinking about going there myself.”

Wes nodded and finished off the second cookie, then reached for the milk, saying, “You'll like it. Rex is gonna like these. That old baler is giving him a real hard time. Why don't you take him some?”

“I'll do that,” Callie said.

Wes brightened appreciably. Callie smiled and returned to the kitchen, where she found a sturdy paper plate and a disposable cup. She filled the plate with cookies and the cup with milk. After parking Bodie on her hip, she went out through the front door, carrying the plate with the cup nestled in its center.

She entered the barn through the wide rolling door nearest the road. Rex was bent over the long, mechanical arm of the baler, growling at something.

“Maybe this will help,” she said.

He jerked upright in surprise, a ratchet in his hand. His eyebrows peaked when he saw the plate of cookies and cup of milk. “Oh. Uh. Thanks.”

“Your dad thought you might like a snack.”

“Yeah. Looks good. Won't get that stupid bolt off, though,” he grumped, laying aside the ratchet and stripping off his gloves.