Home on the Ranch: Her Cowboy Hero
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Pamela Britton
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21
Chapter 1
Sometimes, life wasn’t fair.
“It’s not that you weren’t qualified,” Patty said. Jayden’s friend and mentor sounded as disappointed as she felt. “You had all the right qualifications. You just didn’t have the work experience the other candidates had.”
Yeah. Experience she couldn’t gain because she had a three-year-old daughter to take care of all on her own. Not that she would change being a mom for the world. Paisley was the light of her life, her reason for busting her butt and earning a degree in sports medicine in record time because she’d been determined to prove her dad wrong. The stalemate between them wasn’t going to end now, not if she had anything to say about it.
“But I have a bit of good news,” Patty went on. “I heard about something at Dark Horse Ranch.”
Jayden glanced over at Paisley, her daughter stretched out on their tiny living room floor, felt-tip pens scattered around, the blooming petals of a flower being drawn in vivid red strokes. She loved to draw, although usually horses. Well, stick horses. She might be three, but her ability to focus always amazed Jayden, although she’d taken to chewing on the end of her thick blond braid lately, something Jayden should probably stop her from doing.
“You know the place, don’t you?” Patty asked.
“Not really.” She plopped down in a kitchen chair, keeping an eye on Paisley. Darn it. She’d been counting on the job at VDC Sports Therapy. She’d been telling everyone about it, taking pride in the fact that she wouldn’t have to move away to find work like so many people had predicted when she’d announced her major in college. Patty had been her ace in the hole. The office manager at VDC and a friend. She’d practically guaranteed her the job.
“I don’t think it’s far from your dad’s place.”
Jayden winced at the mention of her father. She’d barely spoken two words to him since he’d basically called her a bad mom right after his heart attack. One would think a near-death experience would soften a man, but not where she was concerned.
What had her friend been saying?
“It’s down the road from my dad’s place,” she said absently. “Next door to Reynolds Ranch.”
Everyone in town had heard about the state-of-the-art facility built for veterans with PTSD and other war-related injuries. It had been fully staffed for years. She’d never even thought about looking for work there.
“Anyway,” Patty continued, “it’s a full-time PT aide position. You’d be working at the ranch. I guess they have a pretty amazing therapy center. Very few veterans at one time, so the workload wouldn’t be crazy busy like it would have been here.” Patty lowered her voice. “And no whiny old ladies complaining about their hips.”
Which was her friend’s way of trying to make her feel better. She appreciated the effort even if her mood didn’t improve. She’d had to borrow money for last month’s rent from her aunt, and she’d hated doing that because all she needed was for her dad to find out about it. He’d made it clear she was on her own, and for the most part she’d done all right. But this past semester she’d had to cut back on her hours at the coffee shop while looking for a job and finishing up some final credits. She hadn’t worried about it. She’d been riding on a bubble of optimism. She would finally have her degree. She could find a job that paid enough to support her and Paisley and not have to worry about Paisley’s dad, Levi, pitching in to help—which he never did. She’d finally be able to move out of her cheap apartment. She could work for a hospital eventually, pay Aunt Crystal back...
“Are you there?”
Jayden shook her head. “Sorry. I’m just trying to remember if I’ve ever met the people who own Dark Horse Ranch. I don’t think so, but I’m pretty sure my dad knows them.”
“If he does, you should ask him to give them a call. I mean, I know the two of you don’t talk much anymore, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask. We’ve had dozens of applicants for the job here, Jayden. You’d be surprised. But you were one of our top candidates. If my boss hadn’t overruled my choice, you’d be working for us right now, but you should get right on this other job. When word gets out that Dark Horse is hiring...”
It would be a cold day in hell before she asked her dad for help.
Your mother would be so disappointed in you.
The words still had the ability to make her eyes sting.
“Got it.” She took a deep breath. She’d ask Uncle Bob to call them. “Thanks for the heads-up, Patty.”
“Sorry I couldn’t do more, honey.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
Jayden hung up, trying not to feel too glum. Patty had graduated a year ahead of her, working her way up to manager of VDC in record time. She’d find a job, too, sooner or later.
You’re living in squalor when you could be living here at the ranch.
She shook her head. Stop thinking about it.
She might not have lived up to her dad’s expectations of her—pregnant right out of high school, married and then divorced—but that didn’t mean she was a bad mom, which was what he’d implied. Her bitterness turned to resolve.
“To heck with it.” She stood up and grabbed her phone. “Paisley, let’s go for a ride.”
Her daughter looked up at the sound of her name, blue eyes full of curiosity, blond braid dropping over one shoulder. Jayden wasn’t usually so impulsive, but she was tired of life handing her lemons when all she wanted to do was make lemonade. She had a free hour or two before work, and she had to drop off Paisley at her aunt’s anyway. Aunt Crystal wouldn’t mind if she was a little early. And like she’d told Patty, Gillian Ranch was right down the road from Dark Horse Ranch and the home of Hooves for Heroes, so why not take the bull by the horns?
That turned out to be a little harder than she’d thought. An hour later she sat in front of the massive iron gates that led to the therapy center. The granite pillars that held them in place made it seem like an ancient fortress. She couldn’t even see the ranch from the road, just grass pastures and tall oaks behind a white fence that stretched to her left and right.
Darn it.
She’d assumed someone would be home, had pressed the call button on the control panel at least a dozen times. Her eyes scanned the back seat via the rearview mirror, looking to see how Paisley was doing before remembering she’d just dropped her off. That was how rattled she was by the day’s events.
Okay. Plan B. She checked her cell phone, and when she spotted only a few bars of service, she slipped out of her car. She had to walk a few steps to find a good signal, quickly doing a search for the ranch’s name, then dialing the number before she chickened out.
“Dark Horse Ranch,” answered a gruff voice that did nothing to calm her nerves.
“Oh, hey, hello.” She took a deep breath. The wild oats smelled sweet this time of year, and it was such a familiar scent while growing up that it soothed her nerves. “I was looking for the owner of the ranch.” She turned around in place, shielding her eyes against a hot noonday sun.
“Who’s calling?” asked the voice in an even lower and more ominous tone.
“I’m actually a neighbor,” she said, trying to interject perky friendliness into her words. “I’m Jayden Gillian of Gillian Ranch. Reese Gillian’s daughter, and I was hoping to speak to someone about the job you have available for a PT aide.”
Silence. Jayden looked around...
And that was when she spotted it. A little black bubble beneath the sign. Security camera. Good Lord. Had he seen her mash all the buttons in a fit of frustration?
“I take it you’re the one who’s been pressing the call button over and over again?”
She wanted the earth to swallow her up whole. She stared up at the security camera, smiled, waved.
“Well, yes, actually, I was just sort of hoping to speak to someone toda—”
The gates thumped, then groaned and started to open. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or bad.
“Follow the signs to the stables,” said the voice. “Back of the property. Past the main house.”
The line disconnected.
Colby Kotch just shook his head, rolling away from his desk before standing, but not without one last glance at the security screen on his desktop.
She waved one last time.
Like it was no big deal that she was the reason he’d had to run up a flight of stairs and to the office above the covered arena, and all because she wouldn’t stop pressing those damn buttons. He headed back downstairs, grumbling to himself the whole way. Name-dropping to get a foot in the door. He had no idea how she’d heard about the job, but he’d listen to her spiel and then send her on her way.
“You get up there in time?” Brennan Connelly asked. Beneath the brim of the man’s tan hat, his gold eyes seemed to laugh. Colby had promised to shoe Bren’s horse today, something that he rarely did anymore but that he enjoyed doing when time permitted. He always made time for the boss’s brother-in-law.
“Barely,” Colby said, bending to pick up the bay gelding’s foot. “Good thing, too, because I have a feeling the person on the other end would have just called me back.”
“Oh?” asked Bren. He stood by the head of his horse, which was cross-tied in a grooming stall along the back wall of a massive covered arena. Next to the open area was a stall, a whole row of them, actually, some horses sticking their heads out to watch him work with Bren’s horse, others staring past the wooden rail that ringed the arena in the middle of the building.
Bren patted his horse. “Desperate to get on the waiting list to be a guest?”
“Actually.” Colby dug dirt out of the gelding’s hoof. “We’re hiring a new aide, someone to help pick up the slack. Getting harder and harder to do my physical therapy around here without a little help.”
“Oh, yeah.” Bren’s brows lifted. “Jax told me you’ve added five more slots for veterans?”
Jaxton Stone was his boss, and the kindest man Colby had ever met. Real salt of the earth. The whole family was great, from Jax’s wife, Naomi, to Bren and his wife, Lauren, and all the kids who were usually running around, although some of them, like Bren’s stepson, weren’t kids anymore. Kyle was a senior in high school now.
“We could have added ten,” he said, tipping the hoof left and right, making sure it looked healthy, checking the angles. “This place just gets busier and busier.”
“You ready to take on even more vets?” Bren asked. “I see the cabins out front are done.”
Colby tucked the hoof pick back in his work apron then picked up the nippers, examining the horse’s hoof for another moment before saying, “Ready as I’ll ever be. Feel better when we hire some more help. Gonna be crazy busy around here when we open up for the summer season.”
“It always is,” Bren said.
They usually helped four people at a time, but with the new quarters out back, they’d be ramping things up. That was good. Colby found his job tremendously rewarding, especially when he watched someone walk out of their facility who maybe hadn’t been able to do that before their arrival. And if those veterans had PTSD? Well, the horses worked miracles with that type of patient, too.
“Someone coming?” Bren asked, turning to peer down the stable aisle to the opening at the end.
“Yup,” he grunted, nipping off a small piece of hoof, concentrating. “The gal who called. She was at the gate.”
A few more nips and he was satisfied, dropping the horse’s hoof before he slowly stood. He followed the direction of Bren’s gaze, watching through the massive opening at the end of the covered arena as a silver car that’d seen better days drove toward them. He tossed the nippers on the ground and wiped his hands on his leather chaps.
“She wanted to introduce herself. Needs a job. Figure I’ll let her hand me a résumé and send her on her way.” Because he doubted she’d have the qualifications he was looking for. He wouldn’t be that lucky.
“That’s Jayden Gillian’s car,” Bren said.
Leave it to the town sheriff to know who everyone was and what car they drove. Course, the Gillians were Via Del Caballo royalty. Jayden’s dad was some kind of famous professional cowboy. Her uncle, too. Team ropers. National Finals Rodeo champions numerous times. A couple of their boys had followed in their footsteps. One of them had even won the average last year, the money he’d earned pushing him to the top of the standings and his first world championship. Funny, though, Colby had never heard about a daughter.
“I should probably go meet her,” he said, the car disappearing from sight while she parked in front of the stable area. “She sounded like a handful on the phone.”
Bren had the most amused expression on his face. “You mean you’ve never been introduced?”
“Nope.”
“And she wants a job?”
“Yup.”
Bren laughed. “This ought to be interesting.”
“What do you mean?”
Bren tipped his hat back, and his expression could only be called gleeful. “Only that Jayden Gillian isn’t the type to take no for an answer, so if your plan is to brush her off, you’re in for disappointment.”
Just as he’d thought. Spoiled little rancher’s daughter. He’d met her type before.
“I think I can handle her.”
Bren released something that sounded like a laugh. Colby ignored him and headed for the barn door. Little did Bren know, but he had lots of experience handling willful women. Back in Texas he’d met more than a few, most of them hoping to land the elusive Colby Kotch. Not because they wanted him. Oh, no. They wanted the family fortune. But that was information he’d kept to himself. He’d never told his boss, or anyone in Via Del Caballo, about the family oil business, although it wouldn’t surprise Colby if Jax had unearthed the truth. The man made a living as a military contractor, which meant he probably had ten-page dossiers on all of his employees.
He heard a car door slam and wanted to head her off at the pass, which was why he rushed toward the entrance. She must have been rushing, too, which would explain why they nearly collided.
“Whoa there,” he said, grabbing her by the shoulders. “You—”
The word okay died in his throat.
A pair of the most spectacular blue eyes he’d ever seen had grown wide. Those eyes robbed him of breath in the most bizarre and peculiar way—sort of like he’d been punched in the gut.
“I’m so sorry,” she said with a smile, her long black hair swinging out behind her. Black brows and super-dark lashes framed those spectacular eyes. “I’m looking for the owner.”
He couldn’t think clearly.
“Is he around?” she asked, obviously puzzled by his lack of response. “I think I talked to him on the phone?”
He realized then that he was still holding her, so he quickly stepped back, suddenly able to breathe once he let her go.
Holy crap, what had just happened?
“He told me to come to the barn,” she added, looking around and spotting Bren down the barn aisle.
“Oh, hey, Sheriff Connelly.”
She smiled, a big, beautiful grin that made his heart do something weird. It was then and there that Colby realized something. The phrase breathtakingly beautiful had a literal meaning.
“I’m him,” he managed to gasp out.
“Him who?”
“I manage this place. Well, the therapy program, but I oversee pretty much everything else.”
She eyed him up and down, and he saw doubt on her face, probably because he looked more like a farrier in his dirty jeans, leather apron and dusty white T-shirt, all topped off with a straw cowboy hat.
“Colby Kotch,” he added.
“Really.” She aimed her smile in his direction. “Nice to meet you, then, Colby Kotch. I’m Jayden Gillian.”
He wasn’t so sure it was nice to meet him, not at all. Bren had been right. Nothing would be easy where Jayden Gillian was concerned, and he had a feeling nothing would ever be the same, either.
