He’d learned the hard way that little
good comes from saying yes—especially when his gut told him to say the
opposite—so he issued a terse, knee-jerk, no explanations no. He had to hand it to her, because amazingly, she used different
words to repeat the same spiel. On the third go-round, Nate gave in. With a
little luck, he wouldn’t be sorry when the beat up van rolled away from the Double M Ranch.
It was Memorial Day weekend, and as
usual, the ranch hands had scattered to the four winds, leaving him and old
Smitty to hold down the fort. The boys ought to be comfortable in the bunk
house, and after he’d taken her measure, Nate would figure out where to put
their lady counselor. City folk, in his experience, tended to shy away from
work that involved powerful animals and manure. If they lasted the first
afternoon, he’d be surprised.
As the
van came to a stop, Nate thumbed the tan Stetson to the back of his head. The
boys, staring out the windows, did their best to look older and tougher than
their years. To date, his only experience with kids of any kind had been with
nieces and nephews and his cousin’s children, all under age ten and part of the
big happy Marshall clan. Nabbing sweets without permission was the worst crime
any of them had committed. Something told him this hard-edged bunch was long
past lifting cookies before dinner, and he hoped he hadn’t made a gigantic
mistake, inviting them to the Double M.
The
noonday sun, gleaming from the windshield, blocked his view of the driver.
After seeing the boys’ sour expressions, he half expected a burly prison guard
in full combat gear to exit the vehicle. Instead, a petite woman in snug jeans
hopped down from the driver’s seat and slid open the side door open with a
strength that belied her size.
“Okay,
guys, everybody out!”
He
recognized the husky-yet-feminine voice from their phone call. He’d been way
off base, thinking it she’d resemble a female linebacker. Based solely on her
youthful face, Nate guessed her age at twenty-four, Joe. The fact that she’d
passed muster with the state officials who’d hired her—and earned the boys’
respect to boot—inspired Nate’s grudging admiration.
The teens
climbed out of the van and stared gap-jawed at the Rockies’ Front Range, and she
walked toward him on tennis shoes small enough to fit his ten year old niece.
Nate grinned to himself, wondering how feet that small kept her upright…and how
long the shoes would stay white.
“Hi,” she
said, extending a hand, “I’m Eden. Eden Quinn.”
The
strength of her handshake, like everything else about her, surprised him. She
pumped his arm up and down as if she expected water to trickle from his
fingertips.
“Nate
Marshall said I should meet him here at noon. If you’ll just tell me where to
find him….”
“I’m
Nate,” he said, releasing her hand. “Good to meet you.” He’d said those words to
dozens of people on dozens of occasions, but for a reason he couldn’t explain,
didn’t think he’d ever meant them more.
Eden
tucked her fingertips into the back pockets of her jeans. “I expected you’d be,
ah, well, older.” Then she plopped a hand on the nearest teen’s shoulder.
“These are my boys,” she said, introducing them one by one.
Nate
walked down the short lineup as she stated first names. “Nice to meet you,” he
said, grasping each boy’s hand.
“Is that a Stetson?” the one called
Thomas asked.
Nate
smiled. “Sure is.”
The boy
called Carlo nodded. “Cool.”
With the
introductions complete, Eden clasped her hands together. “So where do we
start?”
He searched
each boy’s face to single out the troublemakers. Seeing no signs of mutiny on
their young faces, he accepted the fact that his failure to say no meant he was
stuck with them. “We’ll come back for your gear,” he said with a nod toward the
horse barn, “and get you settled into the bunk house later. For now, let’s saddle
up so I can show you around the Double M.”
“B-but…I
never rode a horse before,” Carlo admitted.
“Just
follow my lead. You’ll be fine.”
“Can we
pick any horse we want?” Thomas asked.
Nate
shrugged. “I’ll point out the gentlest ones, and you can choose from those.”
The
answer satisfied them, and like wild mustangs, they charged ahead, laughing
like four year olds as they raced toward the barn.
“Hey, fellas,” he called after them,
“hold it down a mite or you’ll spook the horses.”
No one faced him, but he couldn’t
help but notice that they obeyed, instantly.
“This is
really nice of you,” Eden said when they disappeared into the barn. “Not many
people are willing to give kids like these a chance.”
Nate
was itching to find out what, exactly, earned them the ‘kids like these’ title.
“I wasn’t the best-behaved young’un, myself,” he admitted. First chance he got,
he’d pry some background information out of her, but for now, he’d take the
boys at face value.
He
noticed that Eden had to half-run to keep up with his long-legged stride. “So
how did you hear about the Double M, if you don’t mind my asking?” he asked,
slowing his pace.
“Oh,
I read all about you in Sports
Illustrated. You know, that issue where they featured pitchers who aren’t….”
Her
voice trailed off, telling Nate she didn’t know how to broach the subject of
the injury that ended his Major League career—and killed his fiancé—two years
earlier. “Freak accident,” he said, rotating the shoulder, “but it’s pretty
much healed now.” With any luck, she wouldn’t mention Miranda.
“Think
you’ll ever go back? To pitching, I mean?”
He’d
never seen eyes the color of a storm sky before. Funny that instead of cold or
danger, they hinted at warmth and sweetness. He hadn’t felt anything—anything—for a woman since didn’t know
how to react to that, and tugged the brim of his hat lower on his forehead. It
did nothing to block her from his peripheral vision.
“They’d
never admit it,” she said, using her chin as a pointer, “but they were more
excited about meeting a real live baseball star than spending the weekend at a
bona fide ranch.”
“Never
was a star,” he ground out. “And anyway, that was then, this is now.”
She
leaned forward slightly, looked up into his face. “Ah, so you’re one of those
guys who isn’t comfortable with compliments, are you?”
Nate
only shrugged.
“Something
tells me when they get to know you better, they’ll all have an even bigger case
of hero worship.”
The word
made him cringe. Before every game, fans from four to ninety-four lined the
fence beside the field, holding programs, caps, even paper napkins in the hope
of securing a signature. He’d taken a lot of heat from teammates and the press
when a kid in the autograph line slapped the label on him. “We’re not heroes,”
he’d blurted. “Fans should look to soldiers, cops, and firefighters as their
heroes, not a bunch of overpaid athletes like us.” The experience taught him to
let his teammates do the talking from that point on, but it hadn’t changed his
mind about the subject of hero worship.
“Let’s
hope not,” he said, meaning it.
