Page 28 of Rancher's Return

Marigold looked amused.

“Are you animals actually going to introduce yourselves?”

“Oh,” said Reggie between mouthfuls of bread. “I’m Reggie.”

“Marcus,” said Marcus, not looking up from his stew.

Colton treated Marigold to a smile that was a little bit too smart-assed to be called polite. “We’ve met.”

“Yes. We have. I’m Marigold. Lily’s mom.”

“We don’t have to call you Mrs.?”

“No,” she said. “First of all because I’m not a Mrs. and second of all because I like my first name just fine.”

“Fair enough,” said Marcus.

Lily looked marginally uncomfortable, but then, he couldn’t blame her. He could think of few things that would’ve horrified him more as a teenager than having to sit down at a table with the family of a girl he was making out with, and he imagined that unease transferred across gender lines pretty equally. Colton, for his part, didn’t seem to be having a problem at all, but Colton had an outsized amount of confidence for a boy of seventeen.

Likely, that was what attracted Lily to him. It was also what made Colton a potentially devastating heartbreaker. Buck also knew that from experience.

He had been a little bittoogood at getting girls to fall in love with him. Not so good at getting anyone tostayin love with him, because he couldn’t back up that charm with actual substance. Not back then.

Not that he had any evidence he could do it now.

Not that he had ever tried.

The odd one-night stand didn’t exactly foster emotional maturity when it came to things like that. He liked to believe he had garnered maturity in other ways. But as far as romantic relationships went...

He looked up, his eyes connecting with Marigold’s. Yeah. He didn’t need to be looking at her when he thought about things like that.

“How are you settling into Lone Rock so far?” she asked brightly, looking around the table at all the boys.

“It sucks,” said Reggie, chewing loudly.

“Boring,” said Marcus, giving it a thumbs-down.

“I don’t mind it,” said Colton.

“Why do you think it’s boring?” she asked, looking directly at Marcus.

“Because it is,” Marcus said. “Respectfully.”

“Is there a respectful way to call something boring?” Marigold asked.

He shrugged. “I figured I would give it a try.”

“What kinds of things did you like to do back where you came from?”

Marcus squinted. “At the ranch? Or at home?”

He felt a small, strange kick in his stomach hearing Marcus refer to where he’d been before as home. But he supposed Marcus would feel that way. Because he had grown up in Cleveland, which was different from the ranch for troubled youth and different from Lone Rock, and Cleveland was what he thought of when he thought of home. Even if it had been inhospitable in a lot of ways. Even if he had spent years bouncing from house to house.

“Either place,” Marigold said.

“There were always kids to run around with at home,” Marcus said. “You could go out on the street and find whole group of them. Go play basketball.”

“You can do that here,” she pointed out.