Dancing in the Moonlight

“No! You are to stay out of this. You cannot smooth this over. Sometimes there are too many wrinkles between people. I will hire someone to help me but for now I am fine.”

“Mama...”

“No, Magdalena.” Her mother stuck her chin up, looking at once fierce and determined. “That is all I will say about this.”

This time she couldn’t ignore Viviana’s firmness. But Maggie could be every bit as stubborn as her mother. “Fine.” She pulled herself up to stand. “Between the two of us, we should be able to manage until you’re able to hire someone.”

Her mother gaped, her flashing dark eyes now slightly aghast. “Not the two of us!”

She reverted to Spanish, as she always did in times of high emotion, and proceeded to loudly and vociferously tell Maggie all the reasons she would not allow her to overexert herself on the Rancho de la Luna.

Maggie listened to her mother’s arguments calmly, hands in her sweater pockets, until Viviana wound down.

“Don’t argue. Please, Mama,” she finally said, her voice low and firm. “You need help and I need something to keep me busy. Working with you will be the perfect solution.”

Her mother opened her mouth to renew her objection but Maggie stopped her with an upraised hand. “Please, Mama. The doctors say I must stay active to strengthen my leg and I hate feeling so useless. I want to help you.”

“You should rest. I thought that is why you have come home.”

Maggie had her own reasons for coming home but she didn’t want to burden her mother with them, especially as she was suddenly aware of a deep, powerful need to prove to herself she wasn’t completely helpless.

“I will be careful, Mama, I promise. But I’m going to help you.”

Viviana studied her for a long moment while honeybees buzzed through the flowers and the breeze ruffled the pale new leaves on the trees, then she sighed.

“You are so much like your father,” she said in Spanish, shaking her head. “I never could win an argument with him, either.”

Maggie wasn’t sure why she was suddenly filled with elation at the idea of hard, physical labor. She should be consumed with fear, with trepidation that she wouldn’t be able to handle the work. Instead, anticipation coursed through her.

She meant her words to her mother—she needed something to do, and pitting herself against the relentless work always waiting to be tackled on a small ranch like the Luna seemed just the thing to drag her off her self-pitying butt.

* * *

“No wonder the kid’s not sleeping.” Jake finished his quick exam and let his three-year-old nephew off the breakfast bar of the sunny, cheerful Cold Creek kitchen. Glad to be done, Cody raced off without even waiting for a lollipop from his uncle.

“What’s the verdict?” his sister-in-law, Caroline, asked, her lovely, normally serene features worried.

“Ear infection. Looks like a mild one but still probably enough to cause discomfort in the night. I’ll write you a prescription for amoxicillin and that should take care of it.”

“Thank you for coming out to the ranch on such short notice, especially after a long day. We probably could have waited a day or two but Wade wouldn’t hear of it. He seems to think you have nothing better to do than spend your free time making house calls to his kids.”

“He’s right. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.” Jake smiled at her but Caroline made a face.

“If that’s true, it’s about the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Why?” he asked. “Because I love the chance to see my niece and nephews?”

“Because you need something besides work, even when that work involves family! I’m not going to lecture you. But if you were my client, we would definitely have to work on finding you some hobbies.”

Caroline was an author and life coach who had moved her practice to the Cold Creek after she married his oldest brother eighteen months earlier and willingly took on the challenge of Wade’s three young kids.

In that time, she had wrought amazing changes at the ranch. Though the house was still cluttered and noisy and chaotic, it was filled with love and laughter now. He enjoyed coming out here, though seeing his brother’s happiness only seemed to accentuate the solitude of his own life.

“I don’t have time for a hobby,” he answered as he returned his otoscope to his bag.

“My point exactly. You need to make time or you’re going to burn out. Trust me on this.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I’ve been right where you are, Jake,” she said. “You might scoff now but you won’t a few years in the future when you wake up one morning and suddenly find yourself unable to bear the idea of treating even one more patient.”

“I love being a doctor. I promise, that’s not going to change anytime soon.”

“I know you love it and you’re wonderful at it. But you need other things in your life, too.”

Her eyes suddenly sharpened with a calculating gleam that left him extremely nervous. “You at least need a woman. When was the last time you went on a date?”

He gave a mock groan. “I get enough of this from Marjorie. I don’t need my sister-in-law starting in on me, too.”

“How about your stepsister then?”

“You can tell her to keep her pretty nose out of my business, too.”

She grinned. “I’ll try, but you know how she is.”

They both laughed, as technically Caroline filled both roles in his life, sister-in-law and stepsister. Not only was she married to his brother but her father, Quinn, was married to his mother, Marjorie. The happy couple now lived in Marjorie’s little house in Pine Gulch.

“I heard through the grapevine our local hero has returned,” Caroline said with a look so sly he had to wonder what he possibly might have let slip about his barely acknowledged feelings toward their neighbor. “Maybe you ought to ask Magdalena Cruz on a date.”

A snort sounded in the kitchen and he looked over to find his youngest brother, Seth, lounging in the doorway. “Maggie? Never. She’d probably laugh in his face if he dared asked.”

Seth sauntered into the kitchen and planted himself on one of the bar stools.

Caroline bristled. “What do you mean? Why on earth wouldn’t she go out with Jake? Every woman in the county adores him.”

Though he was touched by her defense of him, he flushed. “Not true. Seth’s the Romeo in the family. All you have to do is walk outside to see the swath of broken hearts he’s left across the valley.”

“Does that swath include Magdalena Cruz’s heart, by any chance?” Caroline asked.

Seth snorted again. “Not by a long shot. Maggie hates everything Dalton. Always has.”

“Not always,” Jake corrected quietly.

Caroline frowned at this bit of information. “Why would she hate you? Oh, I’ll agree you can be an annoying lot on the whole, but as individuals you’re basically harmless.”

“You never knew dear old Dad.”

Seth’s words were matter-of-fact but they didn’t completely hide the bitterness Jake and his brothers all carried toward their father.