Page 12 of Small Town Hero
C atherine arrived at the ranch that same evening, as she’d said she would, red-gray clouds billowing all around the rental car as she tapped on the brakes and peered curiously at Ian through the windshield.
Ian was mildly amused, watching her sit stiffly behind the wheel as she waited for the dust to settle.
Dub, probably thrilled to have another visitor, any visitor, barked an ear-splitting welcome.
“Mom!” the twins cried, in typical harmony. They’d been sitting on the top rail of the corral fence, watching as Ian worked with the nervous little rescue mare he’d named Ragamuffin.
They jumped down and raced toward the car to greet their mother when she finally emerged, looking as beautiful as ever, with her chin-length blonde hair and trim, fit figure. She was wearing a black designer pantsuit, fancy sandals and just the right amount of gold jewelry.
Catherine had always been classy.
Watching as Vivian and Mabel mobbed their mother with hugs, Ian felt a combination of joy and sorrow—joy because the girls were obviously happy, and sorrow for the loss of his family.
The twins took Catherine’s hands and pulled her in Ian’s direction.
He smiled, nodded a greeting, and waited.
Catherine ran her gaze over him, taking in his cotton work shirt, worn jeans, even his boots.
“You look good,” she told him.
“So do you,” Ian replied honestly. His attraction to her had long since vanished, but she was a fine-looking woman. Strangely, though, even with Catherine standing right in front of him, evoking all sorts of memories, Susannah Holiday popped into his mind.
Ever since their impromptu dinner together at Manuel’s, he’d been focused on asking her out, but now definitely wasn’t the time to be thinking of things like that.
This could be the end of his time with the girls, for one thing.
There was too much at stake; he couldn’t let his thoughts wander.
“You’re happy?” Catherine asked quietly, and he knew she cared about the answer and about him, if not in a romantic way.
“Happy enough,” he answered, with a half smile.
Sunset was spilling colorfully across the eastern sky by then, turning parts of it from lavender to purple, others from light red to deep crimson, all with a current of blue streaming across the mountaintops.
In an hour or so, it would be dark and the stars would come out, bright as sequins, dancing around a pale cycle of the moon.
Ian felt the familiar sense of connection with the land, and that was a comfort to him.
“You hungry?” he asked, when Catherine didn’t speak.
“Sort of,” she admitted, with a faltering smile.
Dub had calmed down by then, but he was rubbing against her legs, no doubt shedding hair all over the legs of her elegant pantsuit.
“It’s been a long day, and I couldn’t eat much on the plane.
” She draped an arm around each of the girls’ shoulders and held them close against her sides, though the move was gentle and affectionate, rather than possessive.
“Suppose we all go to town and have dinner somewhere nice? I’m buying. ”
Vivian beamed up at her mom, shook her head and said, “We’ve got a big pot of beef stew simmering on the stove, so supper’s covered.”
Briefly, Catherine’s and Ian’s gazes connected, then swung away from each other.
“And Dad got the fold-out bed ready, too,” Mabel put in, as if she’d read his mind. “Clean sheets and everything. We even aired out the comforter on the clothesline.”
Catherine’s cheeks pinkened slightly and she looked a little off-kilter. “Well—”
Ian smiled. “It’s okay,” he assured her, as the twins suddenly bolted for the car, where they promptly fetched Catherine’s very small suitcase and handbag. Since the kids were well out of earshot, he added, “I can control my animal instincts, Cath, and I won’t be bothering you. You know that.”
Nervously, Catherine laughed. “I do know that,” she replied. “Anyway, I want to be near my children.”
The twins were playing porter, hauling their mother’s belongings into the house.
“They love you, Catherine,” Ian felt compelled to remind her.
“But they want to stay with you,” Catherine pointed out, somewhat sadly.
“It’s your decision to make, no one else’s,” he said. “They’re your daughters, after all.”
Unexpectedly, tears formed in Catherine’s lovely blue-green eyes. “They’re yours, too, Ian,” she said.
“You mean that?” Ian asked, hardly daring to hope.
“Of course I do. You’re the only father they’ve ever known.
Tony’s a good man, and I think the girls like him, but he could never replace you, not in their eyes anyway.
I suspect, in fact, that my husband’s got his hands full, between his own four children, his job and a new marriage, so adding step-parenting to all that might be a struggle.
Maybe we all need a bit of space, time to adjust and get our bearings. ”
“Maybe,” Ian agreed quietly, and, laying a hand to the small of his ex-wife’s back, he steered her gently in the direction of the house. “You’re hungry and tired. For tonight, let’s keep it simple. You’ll feel stronger tomorrow—we can talk then.”
“You’re right,” she answered wearily.
“Go on inside,” he said. “Vivian and Mabel will be waiting, and I’ve got to get Ragamuffin and the other horses into the barn.”
Catherine, almost to the door, turned her head to look at Ian and smiled. “ Ragamuffin? Did you come up with that name?”
“Yep,” Ian replied, with an answering smile. “She’s had a rough time, and she needs special treatment.”
“You haven’t changed,” Catherine said, her tone kind and soft.
“You still can’t pass up a stray.” She glanced at Dub, who was hovering at Ian’s side by then, ready, as always, to “help” with the chores.
Like the horses, the dog was a rescue, and she knew that.
“I wish there were more people like you in this chaotic world of ours.”
Ian smiled again, but said nothing. Compliments always made him a little uncomfortable.
He was no saint, after all.
He just liked making a bad situation better, when and if he could.
As he settled the horses into their stalls for the night, filled their feeders with hay and a scoop of grain, Dub at his side the whole time, like always, Ian thought about his life.
He loved his daughters. He loved his horses and, of course, his dog.
As for his job, well, he couldn’t imagine doing anything else for a living.
But there was no denying that he was lonely, specifically for the company of a woman.
A woman like Susannah, for instance.
He didn’t know her very well—there hadn’t been time for that, of course—but he’d thought about her plenty since that first encounter on the road between Flagstaff and Copper Ridge. She hadn’t hesitated to push up her proverbial sleeves and wade right into the task at hand.
At Manuel’s, while three little girls chattered and admired Ellie’s new phone, he’d gotten the basics.
Susannah was in Copper Ridge to take care of her sister and her niece, but the arrangement was temporary, she’d said so.
She had friends and a condo and a life in Chicago, and she planned on going back when the time was right.
Getting close to her was more of an emotional risk than it would be with a local woman, he had to admit.
Just as Catherine had chosen to leave Phoenix for Miami, back in the day, Susannah would eventually return to the Windy City as soon as Becky and Ellie were on their feet again, and able to make it on their own.
Or, she might simply take them with her when she left.
What Ian knew for sure about Susannah was that she wouldn’t abandon her family, however complicated things might get, and what he knew about himself was that he wasn’t leaving the ranch; he could no more do that than walk on water.
In fact, he intended to be buried in the small cemetery hidden away in a copse of trees on the other side of the property. His grandparents had been laid to rest there, along with his great-grandparents, and one day—hopefully far in the future—he would join them.
Taking all those things into consideration, he wondered if there was any point in asking Susannah out in the first place, getting his hopes up, and all that. She was a city girl, and he had to remember that. After Chicago, Copper Ridge had to seem pretty boring to her.
Recalling the break with Catherine, some of the old heartache returned in a rush.
Strong as he was, by nature and by decision, Ian didn’t figure he could go through that kind of loss again and remain the person he was.
The first round had nearly killed him, after all.
Resigned, and somewhat saddened, Ian finished his chores and, with a sigh, latched the barn door.
Dub, so close Ian almost tripped over him, gave a sympathetic whimper.
Animals, he reflected, no matter what the skeptics said, could read emotions.
Ian ruffled Dub’s ears and spoke gently to him, and they made their way through the gathering twilight toward the house.
Inside, the girls were waiting to greet Dub; they’d filled his water and food bowls, and they showered him with sweet verbal nonsense.
His tail, instead of wagging, spun a wide circle, counterclockwise, reminding Ian of a helicopter blade. One of these days, that three-legged mutt might just take off and fly around the room.
Ian nodded a hello to Catherine on his way to the bathroom sink, where he would wash up and swap out his work shirt for a clean one.
While he was outside tending the horses, Catherine had changed into jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers and tied her hair up into a ponytail. She smiled as he passed, and went on setting the table for supper.
The familiarity of the scene knotted Ian’s throat and made the backs of his eyes sting.
Before everything between him and Catherine had gone to hell in a handbasket, they’d shared homey evenings like this whenever possible—which wasn’t all that often, actually, considering the demands of their jobs—and Ian had loved those times. Felt like part of a family again.
In the bathroom, he took off his shirt, tossed it into the hamper, and turned on the hot and cold water taps. He soaped up, rinsed, toweled himself almost dry, and made for his bedroom.
There, he took a blue sweatshirt from the chest of drawers and hauled it on over his head. He’d take a shower before he went to bed, but for the time being, he was clean enough to make an appearance at the table.
Upon his return to the kitchen, Ian found the girls already seated and scrolling through their phones. Without a word, or a confirmation from Catherine, he collected the devices and set them aside.
He half expected Vivian and Mabel to protest, but they didn’t. They were all smiles as Catherine set steaming, fragrant bowls of stew in front of them, and the sight of them gave Ian another pang of sadness.
Were they hoping their parents would fall in love all over again, and remarry, so the four of them could live as a family? A stranger, viewing the Norman Rockwellian scene, would probably never guess the truth.
Ian waited until Catherine was seated, then sat down in his usual place at the end of the table.
It was Mabel’s turn to say grace, and what she said caused both adults to lock gazes.
“Dear God, thank you for this food and thanks too that we’re all together tonight, like a real family—Mom and Dad and me and Vivian. ” A pause. “And Dub. Amen.”
After the amens, Ian tucked into his supper. He’d put in a long day, between the kids, the horses, and Catherine’s arrival, and he was hungry enough, as his grandfather used to say, to eat the north end of a southbound skunk.
The twins chattered, as usual, telling their mother all about “helping” their dad work with the rescue horses, riding their ponies, and about their friend Ellie and her aunt, Susannah, who was very pretty and something of a local hero in the bargain, since she’d probably saved Tim Boyd’s life after he got thrown from his horse.
Not only that, but she was helping Ellie and her sick mom, too.
Catherine listened, smiled slightly, and met Ian’s gaze.
He felt his neck heat up and looked away.
In a lot of ways, Catherine hadn’t changed. She was very good at picking up on nuances and pursuing them until she got to the truth.
Natural enough, Ian reminded himself, feeling a bit cornered, given that she was a prosecuting attorney. A very successful one at that.
After supper, and having loaded the dishwasher, at their mom’s insistence, Vivian and Mabel headed for the living room, closely followed by Dub.
Soon, the TV came on, spilling the opening overture of yet another Disney movie.
Ian and Catherine remained at the kitchen table, with cups of coffee steaming in front of them.
“Susannah, huh?” Catherine inquired lightly. “Do you realize you actually blushed when her name was mentioned a little while ago?”
Ian cleared his throat. “I’ve known her for less than a week, Catherine,” he replied.
“Sometimes,” Catherine answered, “a week is all the time two people need to know they belong together.”
He expelled a skeptical breath, though not in a confrontational way. Catherine wasn’t his enemy.
“Is that how it was for you and Tony?” he asked, teasing.
Her answer shouldn’t have surprised him.
“Yes,” she told him. A fairly long pause followed, while Ian concentrated on stirring his black coffee and Catherine sipped thoughtfully from her cup.
When she went on, the mood had lightened considerably.
“It was wild, how quickly we fell in love and knew it was for real. If I’d read our story in a book, I wouldn’t have believed it for a moment. ”
Ian’s smile was genuine. “That’s great, Catherine,” he said.
“Ian,” Catherine said, sounding both good-natured and serious, “I want you to be every bit as happy as I am. This place”—she gestured, meaning the ranch itself—“is beautiful, but you’re lonely here.
It must be really hard when the girls are with me, in Miami.
You need to open your mind and your heart to opportunities to find the right person to spend the rest of your life with.
We may be divorced, but you’re a catch, Ian McKenzie—for real.
So stop holding yourself prisoner and take some chances. ”
Ian absorbed Catherine’s words, but he didn’t continue the discussion. He could have said he took plenty of chances, especially as a sometime firefighter, or said he’d dated plenty of women since they’d parted, or made a dozen other excuses.
He’d have been tripped up by his own honesty in the process, because the truth was, Catherine was right.
He was one lonesome cowboy.