The Rancher's Dream

“For me, cooking isn’t work,” she said. “It’s fun. I’m pretty good at it.”

He’d discovered that months ago—everyone had, because her contributions to any get-together were always so delicious no one could believe she concocted them in an efficiency apartment’s kitchen.

And since she’d been staying in his house, he’d learned firsthand just how amazing her skills were. And not just with food. With the whole domestic scene.

Because they’d met outdoors, doing manual labor for their outreach program, and, he had to be honest, partly because she was a straight-shooting, spiky-haired body modification artist, he’d never thought of her as the domestic angel type. But boy, had she surprised him. His half-renovated mess of a ranch house had never felt so much like a home.

Maybe that was partly why he was so wrong-footed around her these days. She was so different here...not at all the woman who deliberately preferred to be called Crimson Slash. In fact, it wasn’t until he saw her in her robe the other morning that he’d noticed that her spiky, red-tipped hair was growing out in soft waves around her chin. And wasn’t even red.

“If we’re trying to impress this buyer, I’ve got a beef Stroganoff that’ll have him on his knees.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “And hey...if you’ve got a spare French maid costume lying around anywhere, I can guarantee a meal he’ll never forget.”

Grant’s imagination served up a quick vision of Crimson in a flouncy black miniskirt and lacy apron. A quick sizzle shot through him—much like the one that had blindsided him that first morning, when he made the mistake of helping her arrange her bathrobe.

He squelched it as quickly as it appeared, as he’d been doing ever since that morning. Indulging even an unspoken attraction to this woman was wrong in so many ways. First and foremost: Kevin.

“Can’t say I’ve got a French maid costume lying around,” he said, laughing easily to show what an innocent joke it all was. “Besides, if you’re going to help with dinner, you’re not going to be masquerading as an employee. You’ll eat with us.”

She was already shaking her head, but he didn’t give her time to protest. “Seriously, Red, you’d be doing me a favor. He’s bringing his girlfriend, and it’ll be more comfortable if I’ve got a date, too.”

She flushed, like a sudden sunburn, and he wished he’d bitten his tongue. Why had he used the word date? That wasn’t how he meant it. He just thought that, in case Stefan was the jealous type, the man might prefer his host not to be conspicuously single.

Crimson wouldn’t be a date. She would be his ally.

So dumb. But to be fair, when had conversation with Crimson become so touchy? Up until three days ago, she’d been the most comfortable female buddy he’d ever had. She was smart, sassy, straightforward and fun. Good-looking, but not hungry for admiration. Actually quite the contrary—with her spiky red hair and no-nonsense clothes, she seemed to be asking for some space.

Around Crimson, Grant could always just be himself. Easy, relaxed, uncomplicated. And then she’d moved into Kevin’s room, and suddenly everything changed.

Well, maybe it was time to change it back.

“What’s that scowl about?” He reached out his good hand and tapped the furrow between her brows. “Since when did the idea of eating dinner with me become a fate worse than death?”

She laughed sheepishly, smoothing Molly’s hair, clearly not wanting to meet his eyes. “It’s not. It’s just that I don’t want you to think—”

“I don’t think anything...except I’m not going to sit there pretending to be the cowboy king while you slave away in the kitchen. You’re not my maid. You’re my friend. Eat with us, or I’m sending out for burgers.”

“Marianne’s too busy even for that.”

“Not Marianne’s burgers.” He tilted his head. “I was thinking maybe the Busted Button.”

“No way!” Crimson’s eyes widened in mock horror. The fast-food joint’s real name was Buster’s Burgers, but their billboard screamed “Fat and Happy—Guaranteed!” above a picture of a cartoon French fry with the top button of his blue jeans popping off, so no one in Silverdell ever called it anything but the Busted Button.

She narrowed her eyes, obviously well aware she was being played. “You’ll never close the deal if you go to Buster’s. Your buyer will be dead of a heart attack before dessert.”

“Exactly.” He grinned. “So. Deal?”

It was her favorite shorthand phrase, one she used when she was sick of debating.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes in that sardonic way he knew so well. He felt his shoulders relax. His good friend Red, who could dandle a baby, cook a gourmet meal and still call baloney when he tried to pull a fast one, was back.

“Deal,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Molly and I have some grocery shopping to do.”

* * *

MONDAY MORNING, CRIMSON went to visit Kevin much earlier than usual. The doctors had moved him to Montrose after the first day, which had been presented as a good sign, and she hoped it really meant there was hope.

Belle Garwood, from over at Bell River Ranch, had offered to keep Molly. Because Belle had a newborn baby herself, Crimson hated to impose often, but today, with the big dinner to prepare, she needed the help.

Though Crimson and Grant had both visited Kevin every day since the accident, they never went at the same time. Crimson had picked up a rental car, which made things easier. Even though going separately involved a tremendous amount of driving, especially now that Kevin was in Montrose, it seemed they both preferred it that way.

The schedule wasn’t something they’d discussed much—beyond casually observing that it made sense to take turns. Tag-teaming covered more ground, they’d said. Alternating visits kept watchful eyes in Kevin’s room more of the time.

Grant went in the daytime, mostly, when one of the hands could drive him to Montrose, piggybacking on some errand for the ranch. Crimson went in the late afternoons or early evenings, because it was easier to get a sitter for Molly. If they accidentally overlapped and ran into each other in the parking lot or in the hospital corridors, they never acknowledged that it was awkward.

It was, though.

At home, at the ranch, they’d been able to move past the geyser of sexual chemistry that had sprung up between them that first morning. They’d managed to settle down, even to recapture most of their old comfortable camaraderie. But at the hospital, with Kevin lying there in the dark loneliness of a coma, the memory of that moment seemed to hang over them like a fog of guilt.

This morning the large Montrose hospital was bustling with the usual flurry of early activity. Crimson had bought a colorful balloon to brighten up Kevin’s room, and it bobbed foolishly beside her as she walked past the nurses’ station.

“Cute.” The RN standing at a cart dispensing medications into small cups grinned as she went by. “He’ll love it.”

Crimson smiled back gratefully. She loved the positive energy these wonderful ladies gave off. All of them talked to Kevin as if he could hear them perfectly, so Crimson did the same—even though she didn’t always know exactly what to say.

So many topics were off-limits. Topics like how, just before the accident, she had been on the verge of “breaking up” with him, or whatever you called it when the relationship hadn’t ever quite gotten off the ground in the first place.

You couldn’t Dear John someone in a coma. The fact that Crimson was caught in a romantic no-man’s land was nothing—less than nothing—compared to the trap that held Kevin prisoner in this helpless half-life.

The door to his room stood halfway open, so she pushed lightly and entered, her smile still in place in case, miraculously, he’d opened his eyes and could see it. But he looked exactly the same as he had yesterday. Immobile and terrifyingly remote, as if some tether had been cut, and with every day he drifted farther away from the rest of them.

“I brought you a Donald Duck balloon,” she said brightly, arranging the little cylindrical weight on the windowsill. She tied a bow in the string so the balloon wafted softly at eye level.

“I know you’ll start doing your oh boy, oh boy, oh boy impersonation as soon as you see it.” She pulled the guest chair closer to the bed, sat down and laid her hand lightly on his arm. “But you know what? I’ll be so glad you’re awake I won’t even complain.”

He didn’t respond, of course. The IV continued to plink, and the monitor kept up its electronic hum and rhythmic beep. From just outside the door, voices and footsteps rolled down the hall like waves of energy. But Kevin was utterly silent.

“I wish you could have seen Molly this morning,” she said, refusing to let herself be discouraged. “That front tooth has finally broken through, and she smiles all the time, as if she’s showing it off.”

More silence. But Molly was the one subject Crimson felt comfortable with. No matter how complicated everything else might be, she was certain Kevin would want to know his little girl was all right.

“She’s sleeping better, too. I got one of those teething rings Grant suggested—” She broke off. Just mentioning Grant’s name made her nervous. She didn’t want Kevin to feel he’d been displaced as Molly’s daddy...that she and Grant were the parents now. Even worse, what if some of her new feelings about Grant came through in her voice?

She imagined, sometimes, that even the way she said the syllable was different now. Huskier, leaden with tension and repressed emotions.

“Anyhow, I think there’s less pain once the tooth cuts through. She seems much more cheerful now. And boy, is she eating! When I bought diapers yesterday, I had to get the next size up.”

She chuckled, but the sound echoed eerily in the quiet room, and it felt out of place, like laughing in a church. She wondered why it didn’t sound that way when the nurses did it. Probably because, when a nurse was in here, she didn’t feel so alone.

She didn’t feel so out of her depth.