The Rancher Next Door

“We’ll see.” Brady shuffled one boot against the driveway, the sole scraping against the rocky gravel. “She has plenty to keep her busy. I’m sure you don’t need her underfoot over here.”

Caley’s stomach tightened. Was he trying to be polite and not impose? Or was this the brush-off? The attraction she’d felt toward Brady at first sight had definitely seemed reciprocated—however pointlessly. Still, why would he try to dodge her? Maybe he just wanted to make sure she really liked kids and Ava wasn’t intruding. Besides, just because she couldn’t embrace a relationship right now didn’t mean she couldn’t use a few friends—especially neighbors.

She straightened her shoulders and hoped her smile appeared more casual than it felt. “Ava would never be a problem here. In fact, I could use the company while I unpack.” She turned to include Ava in the conversation instead of continuing to talk about her as if she wasn’t there. “We might find some cookies somewhere in the truck. Want to help me look?”

“Yes! I mean—” Ava’s eager eyes darted from Caley to her father and then back again, as if unsure if it was okay to answer honestly. “Dad? Can I?”

Brady scooped his hat off his head with one hand and ran his fingers through his rumpled hair. “I don’t know, Ava.”

Caley took advantage of his temporary hesitation. “It’d really help me out. I hate unpacking. And the quicker I get it done, the quicker I can get out and find a job.” Especially now that her contact at the district fire station had proven slightly off in his assurance they would hire her. Turned out the guaranteed position wasn’t as guaranteed as she’d hoped, and an upcoming budget meeting would determine her fate. Putting in some volunteer hours definitely wouldn’t hurt the decision-making process, but she still had to find something to draw a paycheck in the interim.

Brady’s expression tightened, as if just remembering bad news. “It’s not that.” He squinted down at Ava, shading his eyes from the sun peering over the roof’s edge. “I came over here to find you because I just heard from Ms. Mary. Her sister broke her hip and she’s got to go to Arkansas next week to help her out.”

Concern furrowed the skin between Ava’s eyebrows. “Is she going to be okay?”

“I think so, it just means Mary’s going to be gone awhile. Several weeks, at best.” He glanced at Caley. “Mary is Ava’s nanny. She watches her after school and on the weekends while I’m out in the fields, and cooks and keeps up the house for me.” He released a sigh heavy with burden. Caley could recognize that particular sound a mile away—it was an echo of her own. “So I’m sort of in the lurch right now.”

Ava blinked up at her dad with childlike innocence. “But what does that have to do with me helping Caley?”

“Miss Caley,” Brady corrected. He shook his head, a reluctant grin taking dominance over his shadowed expression. “And I guess not much. I’m the one stressing over figuring this out, not you.”

“Then can I start right now?” Ava leaned down and picked up the box of pillows and bird feeders from the ground, as if in effort to prove her work ethic.

“It really is okay. I can’t eat those cookies alone, you know.” Caley grinned, hooking one finger through Scooter’s collar before he knocked over Ava and her box.

Brady pulled his cell phone from his back jeans pocket and checked the time. “Just until suppertime. You know Mary doesn’t like us to be late for dinner.” He replaced his phone and offered Caley a quick wink that not only surprised her, but automatically made her insides flutter with a swarm of line-dancing butterflies. “And I don’t like cold potatoes.”

Ha. So he wasn’t all uptight, after all—just stressed over figuring out a new routine. She’d been there. Odd how she already had so much in common with her neighbors. Maybe her coming back to Broken Bend was for more than Nonie, after all. She’d have to be careful, though. She didn’t do the commitment thing. But maybe she could somehow find a way to help this handsome cowboy and his adorable daughter and forget her own troubles for a while.

Temporarily, of course.

* * *

That new neighbor was going to be trouble.

Brady could feel it in his bones. Just like his achy right knee meant it was going to rain later that night, he just knew he was going to eventually regret living next door to Caley Foster. Even if she was the prettiest thing he’d seen in a long time.

Or maybe because she was the prettiest thing he’d seen in a long time.

Brady swung easily over the fence separating his property from Caley’s rental and strolled back to his horse, Nugget, grazing several yards away. Ava had taken to Caley quickly, and against his better judgment, so had he. And why wouldn’t they? With those bright green eyes and charmingly messy blond hair—not to mention her grit and ability to take care of herself—Caley Foster seemed like a fresh breeze wafting through Broken Bend.

He just didn’t have much room in his life for gusts of wind these days.

Still, there was something unique about a woman who moved cross-country by herself to take care of her grandmother in the nursing home—something that spoke of goodness and light. Something he didn’t get much of these days, not with him and Ava constantly beating their heads like a couple of battering rams.

Nothing was the same anymore, and the new normal they’d created as a family of two instead of three felt awkward even at the best of times. A knot tightened in Brady’s throat and he swallowed against it, though he knew the effort would be as wasted as trying to convince Ava she didn’t belong on a workhorse beside him. A horse had killed her mom, and though everyone in town deemed it an accident, Brady knew better. It was his fault. He shouldn’t have allowed Jessica on that high-strung beast in the first place, shouldn’t have allowed her to insist she could handle it. Even though four years had passed, he couldn’t erase the image of the stallion’s flat ears and wide eyes before he reared up and threw Jessica off. Some memories were impossible to forget.

And some he was determined never to repeat. The farther away Ava stayed from the dangerous animals he worked around daily, the better off she was. She belonged in the house, where it was safe, with Mary. If he could, he’d up and move them somewhere else entirely, but Brady couldn’t sell his livelihood. It ran through his blood. He had no way to make a living besides maintaining the land and animals that had been passed down to him from two generations before. The difference was, he knew what he was doing—a ten-year-old girl did not. He refused to allow anyone else he loved to be harmed.

Brady swung up on Nugget’s back and nudged the horse toward the back forty acres, eyes automatically scanning the area for smoke. He’d gotten a little paranoid after the local fire department had issued a widespread warning about seasonal brush fires. The early-autumn winds and leftover summer temps could cause an issue in moments. Bad enough for any rancher—doubly bad for him, specifically.

He shook off the memories that threatened to lodge, reminding himself he wasn’t a child anymore. He wasn’t trying to prove himself on a daredevil prank, and he certainly wasn’t trapped in a burning basement. He had plenty of issues to deal with now without being burdened by what wasn’t real any longer—like Mary leaving, for example. He must be preoccupied to have left his daughter with a near stranger, but everything about Caley rang sincere and honest. Maybe it’d be good for Ava to make friends with a woman.

Besides, he’d told his daughter “no” so many times lately, Brady didn’t think he could handle one more disappointed flash of her blue eyes.

He urged Nugget into a lope and rocked along with the familiar, comforting gait. He might be calloused from life, but he wasn’t totally hard-hearted.

Yet, anyway.

Chapter Two

“This box is marked bath towels, but it’s full of Christmas ornaments.” Ava held up a giant cupcake ornament. The pink-and-green icing sparkled under the light from the dusty ceiling fan overhead as it twirled from her finger.

Caley propped her favorite—and only—painting against the living room wall and strode across the matted carpet to peer inside Ava’s box. “You’re right. I must have mixed them up last time I packed. So I guess the box marked ornaments is full of—”

“Dish towels?” Ava supplied.

Caley grinned. “I was going to guess silverware.”

Ava snorted. “How often do you move, anyway?” She held a smaller box up for Caley to see how worn the bottom was. “Some of these boxes look...tired.”

That was putting it nicely. “Pretty often. I like to travel, keep things interesting.” More like keep from feeling too much, remembering. Regretting.

“That sounds like fun.” Ava nestled the cupcake ornament back into the tissue paper, and folded the box shut. “We hardly ever leave the ranch. I know Dad would never move anywhere.”

“What about vacations?” Caley found a box marked cleaning supplies and dug inside for a duster to clean the fan. She came up with a hammer instead, which she laid on the floor beside her beloved picture of a firefighter. She’d hang it later. “Do you and your dad ever take trips together?”

“We went to Dallas last year for a weekend, and he bought me some new shoes.” Ava closed the ornament box and set it gently against the far wall, out of the way.

Dallas? That was maybe four hours away. Not much of a vacation—especially considering Brady could get Ava shoes at Walmart one county over. No wonder Ava and her dad seemed so strained. Did he ever take time away from the ranch to just hang out with her?

But it really wasn’t Caley’s business—however much she wanted to make it so. Don’t get involved. You’re not going to be here long enough to make it count. Story of her life. But it was safer that way. The fewer people whose lives she impacted personally, the better off they were. She’d stick to saving lives via the anonymity of the fire department. The emotional connections she’d leave up to someone else.

“I’ve been asking for a trip to Disney World for my birthday next year, but Dad says he can’t leave the ranch for that long. Not even with Uncle Max here to help.” Ava tossed a red throw pillow onto the worn blue love seat and shrugged as though it didn’t matter.

But Caley knew from experience it did. Would things have been different between her and her own father growing up if he’d invested time in the little things after Mom left? Into the fun stuff that made memories? Instead, Caley grew up and had to go make her own memories alone. The first time she skydived, she’d been about ready to lose her breakfast inside the plane, but the thrill of the adventure to come pressed her forward. Why couldn’t her father have ever taken the opportunity to be spontaneous? To trust? To live?

He couldn’t do any of those things now, not from the Broken Bend graveyard twelve miles up the road. Regret rolled over in its familiar spot in her stomach. Her childhood might not have been ideal, but she still wished she had been given one more chance to redeem it.

Hopefully it wasn’t too late for her and Nonie.

“You must really like firefighters.” Ava lifted a decorative candle engraved with the Maltese cross from a box and wiggled it at Caley, shaking her from her negative track of thoughts. “First that giant picture, now this.”

“That’s because I am one.” She winked and set the candle on a shelf built above the TV stand.

“Awesome.” Ava stared at Caley with newfound respect.

She bit back a snort. Too bad adults weren’t as easily impressed with female firefighters.