The Cowboy's Ranch Rescue
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Lisa Childs
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15,5K
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21
CHAPTER ONE
AS HE HAD so many times before, Baker Haven stepped out of the automatic doors of the Willow Creek Memorial Hospital emergency room. The late June sun burned brightly even as it began to slide from the sky, making him squint and reach for the brim of his hat. He pulled it lower over his eyes. It had to be the sun that was making him tear up. Not being here.
As a paramedic and firefighter, Baker was often at the hospital, so the place shouldn’t upset him. And it probably wouldn’t have if not for how it reminded him of the tragedy nearly four months ago, when he’d come here with his wounded nephews and the bodies of the two people he hadn’t been able to save: his brother and sister-in-law. At least he’d kept their hearts beating so they could be donated.
Pain struck him, like it had then, and a slight gasp slipped past his lips. He looked around the parking lot and noticed that it was beginning to empty of vehicles. His oldest brother, Jake, was leaving with his wife and stepson, Caleb. Their nephew Ian was no doubt in their truck. He was the same age as five-year-old Caleb; the two boys were best friends as well as cousins. He spotted his brother Ben strapping the youngest of Baker’s nephews into the car seat in Ben’s Lincoln SUV. Ben’s fiancée, Emily, sat in the front passenger seat. She was turned around, peering over at the toddler, Little Jake, as Ben buckled him up. The oldest of Baker’s nephews, seven-year-old Miller, sat beside Little Jake. The three Haven brothers were orphans now. They’d lost their parents, Dale and Jenny, and while Baker and his brothers had tried to step in to help, nothing would ever be the same. Despite the tint on the back windows, Baker could feel Miller’s glare as they drove away.
Leaving Baker alone in the lot.
He shouldn’t have been surprised that his brothers had forgotten about him. When his pregnant sister-in-law, Melanie, had been rushed here, he’d ridden in the ambulance. They’d forgotten he would need a ride back to the ranch. That was how it had always been growing up. As the youngest of five boys, he’d often felt overlooked. While he was only a year younger than the twins, Dale and Dusty, they’d always been so close to each other that they’d paid him no attention. And his older brothers, Jake and Ben, had been too busy, one chasing his dream of running the family ranch someday and the other of running their hometown of Willow Creek, Wyoming. Even his mother had forgotten about him after their father died.
She’d taken off and left them, and while Baker’s brothers had managed fine without her, he’d been so young and had needed her the most. But that was all for the best because Baker had learned early on to rely on no one but himself, to need no one but himself. He drew in a deep breath and raised his head. The firehouse wasn’t far from the hospital; he could walk there and...
Do what?
He didn’t want to ask any of his fellow firefighters to drive him nearly an hour away to the ranch so he could grab his truck. If they were on duty, they wouldn’t be able to anyway. So he’d probably have to call an Uber.
He had to acknowledge then that the lot wasn’t completely empty. Grandma’s truck was there. But Baker knew that if he rode back with her, he’d regret it. With all his brothers coupled up now, she had only him to focus her matchmaking games on...him and the cook she’d hired for the ranch a few months ago: Taye Cooper.
His pulse quickened at just the thought of the golden-haired beauty. She was tall and curvy and had a smile that lit up her whole face—the whole room. But she had more than her physical attributes. She was smart and funny and...
His attraction to her only complicated the situation since there was no way they were ever getting together. While his other brothers had said the same—that they’d never get married—Baker sincerely meant it because he was the only one who had a real reason for never marrying. He wasn’t just afraid of getting hurt himself; he was afraid of hurting—
“Looks like you need a ride,” a woman remarked.
He recognized that husky voice, and his pulse quickened even more until it was racing. Or maybe that had more to do with what they’d all just been through—why they’d come to the hospital. How close Baker thought he’d come to letting down his family again, to not saving them.
But Melanie, his brother Dusty’s wife, and their unborn babies were going to be fine. Baker couldn’t take any of the credit for that, though. Dusty was waiting for Melanie to be discharged after her blood sugar and blood pressure were under control, so they might be here a while yet. While Melanie needed to be careful, she wasn’t in danger of losing her life or her babies. Baker expelled a shaky sigh of relief over that.
“Are you okay?” Taye asked as she approached him. Her long legs made short work of the distance between them. Despite the warmth of the day and the sun, she wore jeans and a long-sleeve blouse, but her long gold hair was bound back in a thick braid. Unlike everyone else who’d been driving away from the hospital, she was walking up to it. But she’d been inside the waiting room earlier, so it wasn’t as if she’d just arrived. She must have noticed him standing outside by himself and walked over from her parked vehicle to check on him.
His heart beat even harder with her consideration.
He knew not to take it personally; Taye just had a nurturing personality. She was always taking care of everyone and not just with her delicious cooking. She had an empathy and a wisdom far beyond her age, which had to be even younger than his twenty-eight.
Not that he’d spent that much time around her.
In fact he’d made it a point to stay away from the house, away from her, whenever he was at the ranch, which, unfortunately, had been a lot over the past few weeks. He’d been covering ranch duties for Jake while he’d been on his honeymoon and had continued helping out since he’d returned.
It’d been hard being at the ranch, being with the boys.
A hard jab of guilt struck him, and he felt dizzy for a moment.
“Baker, are you okay?” she asked again, and she reached out, just briefly, her hand sliding over his forearm, steadying him. But he jerked away from her as tension gripped him. Her face flushed with color while her pale blue eyes darkened.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, but right now he couldn’t deal with his feelings, especially not with his attraction to her. His throat thick with all the emotions assailing him, he could only nod in reply to her question. She, with all her intuition, could probably tell he was lying. He wasn’t okay. He didn’t think he ever would be okay.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bother you. I just noticed you standing here while I was about to drive away, but you’re probably waiting for your grandmother.” She turned away from him then, and he was the one who reached for her, grasping her arm to stop her from leaving without him.
“No!” He really couldn’t deal with Sadie’s matchmaking right now. She’d had a winning streak lately, pairing up her grandsons. After Dale and Jenny’s funeral, she’d hired Jake’s ex, Katie O’Brien, to balance the ranch books, pushing them together. Then Ben had got with Emily Trent, who’d been hired as a nanny to the boys. Melanie had come to the ranch as a physical therapist to Miller, who’d sustained injuries in the crash—unbeknownst to all of them, she and Dusty were already married. And Grandma had also hired Taye... “If you don’t mind, I really would like a ride back to the ranch.” Although with as rude as he’d probably seemed to her, he wouldn’t blame her if she rescinded her earlier offer.
She shrugged, which dislodged his hand from her arm. “Sure, I’m heading there anyway.”
And suddenly he wasn’t all that eager to return to the ranch. “You don’t have to stop in town anywhere?” he asked.
Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head. “No, I don’t. But... Did you want to stop somewhere?” she asked.
If he could go anywhere, he’d want it to be the past, back all those months ago when he had been the first one on the scene of that accident.
But he was already frozen there, unable to move beyond it, just like his nephews. Little Jake woke up with nightmares. While it seemed Ian had recovered from the concussion that affected his short-term memory, he still kept “forgetting” that his parents were dead. And Miller...
He was so angry.
Baker’s brothers, all happily coupled up now, had moved beyond the crash that had taken their brother. But then they hadn’t been there...not like Baker and the boys had been.
HE WAS STUCK...as if glued to that spot on the sidewalk outside the hospital. Taye would have reached for him again, but her pride still smarted from the way he’d jerked away from her just now. She’d only meant to comfort him because he’d looked so lost, so abandoned, standing outside alone while everyone else had driven off without him.
Her heart had ached for him. So much that she had to close her eyes for a moment in order to regroup. That was the problem with being empathetic, with feeling the emotions of others, especially when someone was hurting as much as Baker was: it was overwhelming.
His pain wasn’t the only overwhelming thing about Baker Haven. His good looks were the other reason Taye needed to regroup, to shut out his handsome face for a moment. He had the classic chiseled features, rigid jaw, sharp cheekbones and those eyes... They weren’t brown or green but an eerie topaz color. Closing her eyes for a moment didn’t erase his image from her mind. It was burned there thanks to a firemen charity calendar he’d posed for that had been pinned up in the kitchen of the diner she used to work at.
It had been kept on his page all through January, February, March and the beginning of April, before she’d left the place. It might still be stuck on his page, which was July, even though it was June. But she hadn’t been back to the diner since Sadie Haven had asked her to come work at the ranch. And she didn’t want to look at the calendar.
She didn’t really even want to look at the man himself, not when she could feel how much he was hurting, and she knew that she was helpless to comfort him. She hated feeling that way, hated the way he made her feel. What he reminded her of.
Not the calendar—though maybe that was why he’d jerked away from her, because he didn’t want any more women flirting with him.
Taye could commiserate with him on being judged by appearance. She had never fit the standards for size and beauty, at least not her stepmother’s standards. Fortunately the world was coming to appreciate that beauty came in all shapes and sizes and that true beauty came from within. She wasn’t certain what Baker had inside him...except pain.
She drew in a breath and opened her eyes to focus on him again. While she couldn’t help him, she could at least get him back to the ranch even though he certainly didn’t seem in any hurry to get there. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for your grandmother?” she asked again.
He shuddered. “No!”
She knew why. And she forced herself to chuckle and tease him instead of taking offense. “Ah, that’s right. You’re the last bachelor cowboy standing. You must be afraid that she’s going to focus all of her matchmaking energy on you now that all your brothers are paired up.”
He tipped back his hat and stared down at her, which was an odd sensation for Taye. Not many people were taller than her, at least as much taller as the Haven men.
“Aren’t you worried?” he asked.
She laughed at the thought of anyone—even Sadie Haven—manipulating her into doing what she didn’t want to do. She’d learned at a young age how to handle people who wanted to make her into something she wasn’t. “What? Because you and I are the last singles at the ranch? Don’t worry,” she told him. “I’m not expecting you to propose.” And she certainly wouldn’t accept if he did. Then she grinned as a thought occurred to her. “Although that would probably be the only way to get your grandmother off your back. Maybe we should stop off at a jeweler’s and the church on our way back to the ranch. Get them to save a date for our wedding...” She laughed again and turned to walk back to her car.
But she didn’t hear any footsteps behind her. Either Baker still couldn’t move away from his spot on the sidewalk, or she’d scared him too badly with her comments. She turned back and, sure enough, he was frozen in place, his long, lean body rigid with tension. She uttered a weary sigh and assured him, “I was just kidding. I’m not fishing for a ring.”
She’d determined long ago to never get married, to never risk that kind of heartbreak, the kind her mother hadn’t been able to survive.
“Seriously,” she said. “You’re going to be safe getting into the car with me. I’m not stopping anywhere but the ranch.”
She was already getting a little edgy that everyone else had returned before her. Despite having eaten dinner earlier, they might be hungry again after the trip to town, and while she always had food prepared or left over for the ranch residents to eat, she liked to be the one who heated it up for them. That way she could make sure that everyone ate enough and that they all stayed healthy and happy.
She hadn’t been doing a very good job of that with Melanie, though, or they probably wouldn’t have had to come here today. Taye hadn’t been doing all she could to ensure that her pregnant friend’s blood sugar didn’t drop as low as it had. She would do better; she would find out from Melanie’s mother what her favorite foods were and prepare all of them. But she needed to get back to the ranch to do that.
“I’m leaving now,” she said. And she was sticking to that no matter how sad he looked standing there alone.
Footsteps echoed hers this time as she started across the lot again. And before she could reach for the handle of the driver’s door of her compact SUV, another hand—a big hand—was on it, trying to pull it open. As Baker tugged on it, the car alarm sounded. She gasped at the noise and at his closeness, before clicking off her key fob.
“What are you doing?” she asked. With the way he’d reached around her to grab the door handle, she was caught between the vehicle and him. He stood so close to her that she could feel the heat from his body, and with every breath she drew in, she inhaled his unique scent, some rain-fresh aftershave mixed with hay and horses.
“I’m trying to open your door for you,” he said.
“Why?” she asked with suspicion.
Men never opened doors for her; they believed—rightfully so—that she could open her own doors. They also never saw her as that super-feminine girl who needed their protection or help. And Taye preferred it that way, which was good since it was all she knew.
“Because my grandmother taught me to be a gentleman,” he said.
She snorted. “If you did everything Sadie wanted you to do, we would be stopping at the jeweler’s and the church on the way back to the ranch.” She’d expected him to jump back then, like he’d jerked away from her touch earlier.
But he leaned just a little closer, so that she could see the glimmer in his topaz eyes when he remarked, “Maybe we should...”
She furrowed her brow. “Should...what?” she asked in confusion. She’d lost the thread of their conversation. He was so close. He was standing right in front of her, his arm still wrapped around her as he held on to the door handle. Her pulse had quickened until it was racing. And she wasn’t just edgy to get back to the ranch. She was edgy to get away from him, or maybe to get closer...
She shook her head and with it, she tried shaking off all thoughts of where that would lead—to heartbreak for both of them. “What are you talking about?”
“Stopping at the jeweler’s, at the church,” he said, and then he leaned closer and added, “Maybe we should...”
“What are you doing?” she asked in shock, jerking back.
“Proposing...”
