The Rancher's Dream

Crimson was visible through the kitchen window. She stood at the sink, scrubbing a pot. She bent over her chore, her shoulders working rhythmically and a wisp of hair dangling into her face. Clearly annoyed by it, she pursed her lips and blew upward, trying to make the silky brown curl behave. The curl lifted, but it dropped into the same place no matter how many times she puffed.

Finally, she laughed. Shaking her head, she lifted her sudsy fingers from the dishwater, and tucked the lock behind her ear. When she lowered her hand again, a frothy dollop of suds remained, sparkling on her earlobe.

Grant could almost feel Hopler’s heartbeat quickening.

“Wow.” The man’s voice was reverent, as if he’d stumbled on a unicorn. “Imagine. A woman who looks like that, cooks like that and then laughs while she’s doing the dishes.”

At first, Grant didn’t respond. He found the description offensively reductive. Crimson was so much more than some Stepford paper doll. She was quirkier, more independent, more difficult and mysterious and real.

She was so much more interesting than some misogynistic millionaire’s Donna Reed fantasy.

Hopler sighed. “I honestly didn’t know women like that still existed.”

Grant felt his nerves prickling. “They don’t. She laughs only when she feels like laughing. When she feels bitchy, she cusses like a sailor and breaks the cups. Sometimes she just tells us to do our own damn dishes.”

“Even better,” Hopler said, unperturbed. He turned toward Grant, his expression quizzical. “But remind me again...which one of you is dating her?”

* * *

CRIMSON HAD KNOWN there would be a price to pay for Molly’s long nap during dinner. And sure enough, at about 3:00 a.m. the baby began to squirm and whimper.

Crimson rose quickly, hoping to calm Molly before she began to cry in earnest. She knew Grant needed a good night’s sleep.

She could use one, too—but that didn’t seem likely. Though she’d been lying in bed for several hours, she hadn’t been able to doze off.

The Hopler dinner had been both exciting and disturbing, and her mind was racing. Her thoughts circled restlessly until they tied themselves in knots.

So she was glad of a distraction—and the comforting warmth of the baby’s body against her shoulder. Strange how much companionship an infant could provide.

And funny how not being isolated anymore could make her realize just how horribly lonely she’d been this past year. She’d been born two minutes before Clover, and those were the only two minutes in her life she’d ever been truly alone—until the night Clover died.

She hugged Molly tightly as she moved toward the changing table, which gleamed in the moonlight.

“Hush, honey,” she whispered. “We’ll get a clean diaper and a nice warm bottle.”

Molly subsided, understanding the promise in Crimson’s tone, if not her words. When Crimson laid her back against the cushioned plastic of the changing table, she kicked her feet a couple of times. She found her fingers and began to suck noisily.

Crimson moved quickly. She was learning Molly’s rhythms, and she knew that, after about a minute or so, the baby would realize the fingers provided nothing to fill her tummy, and she’d start to fret angrily, as if someone had tricked her.

She had just finished heating the bottle when Grant appeared in the doorway.

“Hey,” he said, rubbing his fingers across the stubble on his chin. “You must be exhausted. How about if I help with that?”

Her hand went instinctively to her hair, which once again must be sticking out everywhere. All that tossing and turning...she probably looked as if she’d stuck her finger in a light socket.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Sorry we woke you. I was hoping you could get some sleep. I know you’ve got an early morning tomorrow.”

He yawned, as if in confirmation, but he moved into the room, anyhow. He wore soft blue-gray sweatpants and a gray T-shirt. His hair was tousled, too.

“I mean it. Let me help. I’m tired of feeling useless. If I sit in the rocker, I can feed her with one arm.”

She hesitated, but he was already arranging himself in the mission-style wooden rocker over by the window. It was a large, manly piece of furniture, beautiful in its simplicity, and terrifically comfortable. When Kevin moved in, Grant had commissioned Jude Calhoun, a local woodworker, to make it to match the bedroom set already in the guest room.

When Crimson had first heard about the handmade rocker, she’d thought it sounded extravagant, especially since Kevin and Molly were obviously temporary guests, and Grant had no need for such a thing. But over the past week she’d learned what a work of genius it was. Quiet, roomy, with great back support and perfectly placed arms that helped support an infant for hours at a stretch.

Almost every night this week, both Crimson and Molly had fallen asleep in that chair.

“Surely she’s in no danger,” Grant said, glancing up at her with a smile that said he knew she doubted his ability to hang on to a squirming baby. “Not if I’m sitting down, and you’re standing guard.”

“Of course she’s not...” But even so she waited, watching him brace his elbow on the rocker’s arm. He let his casted forearm slant down toward his lap. That cast was as hard as a chalky rock, which she knew from bumping into it several times this week. No way Molly would fall asleep on a bed of unforgiving plaster.