Her Right-Hand Cowboy

And then, as his eyes quickly swept over the small class, he saw her. Ena O’Rourke. Blue eyes and long blond hair. Sitting up front, second seat, fourth row. He caught himself thinking that she was the most beautiful girl who had ever walked the face of the earth.

He’d almost swallowed his tongue.

It took everything he had to continue with his blasé act, appearing as if he didn’t care one way or another about any of these people.

But he did. He cared what they all thought.

Especially the blonde little number in front.

And because she had suddenly become so very important to him, he deliberately acted as if he didn’t give a damn what any of these people thought of him. Especially her.

With a Navajo mother and an Irish father, Mitch felt as if he had one foot in each world and yet belonged nowhere.

He remembered Ena smiling at him. Remembered Mrs. Brickman telling him to take the empty seat next to Miss O’Rourke.

Remembered his stomach squeezing so hard he could hardly breathe.

Wanting desperately to come across as his own person and not some pitiful newcomer, he had maintained an aloof aura and deliberately kept everyone at arm’s length, even the girl who reduced his knees to the consistency of melted butter.

Why had he ever been that young and stupid? he now wondered. But life, back then, for an outsider hadn’t been easy.

It hadn’t become easier, he recalled, until Bruce O’Rourke had gruffly given him a chance and hired him to work the ranch shortly after his parents died, leaving him an orphan.

Funny the turns that life took, he mused.

Mitch observed Wade McCallister making his way over to him. The heavyset older man looked more than a little curious. He jerked a thumb at the departing vehicle. “Hey, boss, was that—”

Mitch didn’t wait for the other man to finish his question. He already knew what the ranch hand was going to ask and nodded his head.

“Yup, it was.”

Wade had worked off and on at the Double E Ranch for a long time. Long enough to have known Bruce O’Rourke’s daughter before she was even a teenager.

Turning now to watch Ena’s car become less than a speck on the horizon, Wade asked, “Where’s she heading off to?”

“She’s on her way to talk to the old man’s lawyer,” Mitch answered. Even the dot he’d been watching was gone now. He turned away from the road and focused his attention on Wade.

Wade’s high forehead was deeply furrowed. The ranch hand had never been blessed with a poker face. “She’s gonna sell the ranch, isn’t she?” the older man asked apprehensively.

“She might want to,” Mitch answered. “But she can’t.” His smile grew deeper. “At least not yet.”

“What do you mean she can’t?” Wade asked him, confused.

Wade had known Bruce O’Rourke longer than Mitch had. But Wade didn’t have a competitive bone in his body and he wasn’t insulted that his normally closemouthed boss had taken Mitch into his confidence. As a result, Mitch had been devoted to the old man and everyone knew it. While the rest of them had lives of their own apart from the ranch, Mitch had made himself available to Bruce 24/7, ready to run errands for him no matter what time of day or night. No job was too great or too small as far as Mitch was concerned.

“The old man put that in his will.” He had been one of Bruce O’Rourke’s two witnesses when his boss had had the will drawn up and then had him sign it. Afterward, Bruce had expanded on what he had done. “He said the ranch was hers on the sole condition that she stay here and run things for six months.”

It sounded good, but it was clear that Wade had his doubts the headstrong girl he’d watched grow up would adhere to the will.

“What if she decides not to listen to that—what do you call it? A clause?” Wade asked, searching for the right term.

Mitch nodded. “A clause,” he confirmed. “If she doesn’t, then the ranch gets turned over to some charitable foundation Mr. O’Rourke was partial to.”

The furrows on Wade’s forehead were back with a vengeance. “Does that mean we’re all out of a job? ’Cause I’m too old to go looking for work with my hat in my hand.”

Mitch shook his head and laughed at the picture the other man was attempting to paint. “Too old? Hell, Wade, you’re not even fifty.”

Wade wasn’t convinced. “I’d have to pull up stakes and try to find some kind of work somewhere else, and I’m comfortable where I am.” The ranch hand’s frown deepened. “Like I said, too old.”

“Well, don’t go packing up your saddlebags just yet,” Mitch told the man he regarded as his right-hand man. “Even if the ranch does get sold down the line, whatever organization takes over is doubtlessly going to want the ranch to keep on turning a profit. But don’t worry,” Mitch assured the other man. “The old man was banking on the idea that once his daughter gets back to her roots, she’s not going to want to let this place go.”

Wade, however, wasn’t convinced—with good reason, he felt. “You weren’t here when she left. To be honest, I’m surprised the old man’s daughter came back at all.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mitch said, thinking back to his own childhood and adolescence. It had taken him time to make peace with who he was and where he had come from. Now he was proud of it, but it hadn’t always been that way. “Our past has a greater hold on us than we’d like to believe.”

But Wade was still far from swayed. And other problems occurred to him. “Even if she does wind up keeping it, she’s bound to make changes in the way the ranch is run.”

Mitch was used to Wade’s pessimism. It hadn’t been all that long ago that he had been just like Wade, seeing the world in shades of black. But then Bruce had taken him under his wing and everything had changed from that day forward.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mitch advised. “Let’s just see how her visit with the old man’s lawyer goes.”

Wade took in a deep breath, centering himself. “Okay, you’re the boss, Mitch.”

Mitch grinned. “That’s right. I am. At least for now,” he allowed, deliberately playing on the other man’s natural penchant for gloom and doom.

For Wade’s sake, as well as for the sake of all the other men who worked under him at the Double E Ranch, Mitch maintained a positive attitude. The old man had taught him that there was nothing to be gained by wallowing in negative thoughts, saying that he himself had learned that the hard way. If things went well, then being negative was just a waste. And if things didn’t go well, there was no point in hurrying things along. They’d catch up to him soon enough.

Besides, who knew? Mitch thought. Maybe coming back here would help heal whatever was broken within Ena’s soul.

“C’mon,” Mitch urged, turning toward Wade. “We’ve still got work to do.”

Forever had built up since she’d been here last, Ena thought as she drove down the town’s long Main Street. The last time she’d been here, the town’s medical clinic had been boarded up, the way it had been for close to thirty years. From what she could see by the vehicles jammed in the small parking lot, the clinic was open and doing a healthy business.

She smiled to herself at her unintentional pun.

And that was new, Ena noted as she continued to travel along Forever’s Main Street. Slowing her vehicle, she took a closer look at what appeared to be—a hotel?

Surprised, she slowed down even more as she passed a small welcoming three-story building. Yes, it was a hotel all right.

Was there actually an influx of tourists to Forever these days? Enough to warrant building and running a hotel? Was it even profitable?

Ena looked over her shoulder again as she passed the new building. She had never thought that progress would actually ever come to Forever. Obviously she had thought wrong.

The law firm where she was supposed to go to see her father’s lawyer was new, as well—as was the concept of her father actually having a will formally drafted and written up. If her father had actually wanted to put down any final instructions to be followed after his demise, she would have expected him to write them down himself by hand on the inside of some old brown paper grocery bag, its insides most likely stained and making the writing illegible.

To see a lawyer would have taken thought on his part, a process that she had a hard time crediting her father with. Anyway, to draw up a will would have been an admission of mortality, and from the bottom of her heart, she was certain that her father had honestly believed he was going to live forever.

He’d certainly conducted himself that way while she lived here.

Ena realized that she was driving past the diner. She caught herself wondering if that, too, had changed. Was Miss Joan still running the place? She couldn’t bring herself to imagine that not being the case. Miss Joan had been a fixture in Forever for as long as she could remember.

When she’d been a young girl, Ena could remember that she’d been afraid of the sharp-tongued woman. It was only as she got older that she began to appreciate the fact that everyone turned to Miss Joan for advice or support, even though, at least on the surface, Miss Joan was a no-nonsense, opinionated, blustery woman who could cut to the heart of any matter faster than anyone she’d ever met.

Ena made a mental note to stop by the diner when she finished with her father’s lawyer. She wanted to see for herself if Miss Joan was still running the place.

And, while she was at it, she wanted to ask Miss Joan why she at least hadn’t gotten in contact with her to tell her that her father was dying of cancer. Never mind that she hadn’t given the woman her address or phone number and had maintained her own silence for ten years. Miss Joan had her ways of getting in contact with people. She always had.

After pulling up in front of the neat, hospitable, small freshly painted building with its sign proclaiming Law Offices, Ena carefully parked her sports car.

As she emerged out of the vehicle, she saw a couple of vaguely familiar-looking people passing by. They were looking in her direction as they walked. By the expressions on their faces, they appeared to be trying to place her, as well.

Getting this uncomfortable bit of business over and done with was the only thing on her mind at the moment. She looked away from the duo and went up to the law office’s front door.

Ena had barely rung the bell when the door swung open. She found herself making eye contact with a tall, good-looking, blond-haired man she didn’t recognize. The man had a friendly, authoritative air about him despite his age, which she judged to be somewhere around his late thirties.

Ena dived right in. “Hello, I have an appointment with Cash Taylor,” she told the man.

Warm, friendly eyes crinkled at her as he smiled. “Yes, I know. I’m Cash—and you’re right on time,” he told her. “That isn’t as usual as you might think.” Cash opened the door all the way. “Won’t you come in?”

“Thank you,” Ena murmured, making her way into the small homey lobby. And then she turned toward Cash, waiting.

“My office is on the right,” he told her, sensing his late client’s daughter was waiting for him to tell her which direction to go in.

There were two main offices in the building. Cash had one, while the sheriff’s wife, who had initially started the firm when she married Sheriff Santiago, had the other. Both were of equal size.

“This is new,” Ena heard herself saying as she followed Cash into his tastefully decorated office.

“It is,” Cash agreed. “Although I can’t take credit for it. My partner started the firm when she decided to stay in Forever after she married Sheriff Santiago.”

“Sheriff Rick’s married?” Ena asked, surprised by the information.

Cash nodded. “Married and a father. So am I.” Not that she probably remembered him, Cash thought. However, there was someone she probably did remember from her early days in Forever. “You might know my wife. She was Alma Rodriguez before she decided to take a chance on me,” he told her with an engaging smile.

The surprises just kept on coming, Ena marveled. “You’re married to Alma?”

Cash was obviously proud of that fact. He nodded. “You’ve been gone ten years, is it?” As he sat down at his desk, he checked the notes in the open file before him. “I guess you have a lot of catching up to do.”

“I don’t plan to stay here long enough to catch up,” Ena politely informed him. “I’m just here long enough to get the property ready to put up for sale and then I’m going back to Dallas.”

Cash frowned slightly. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to postpone your return back to Dallas,” he informed her politely.

Ena’s eyes widened as she stared at the lawyer. “Wait, what? Why?”

Cash realized that he had forgotten one very important step. Extending his hand to her, he said, “First of all, please allow me to express my condolences on the death of your father—” He got no further.

Ena waved her hand, symbolically wiping away whatever else he had to say along those lines. She didn’t want his sympathy or anyone else’s.

“You can save your breath, Mr. Taylor,” Ena said. “My father’s been dead to me a long time, just as, I assume, I have been dead to him.”

Cash shook his head, wanting to correct her mistaken belief. “I’m afraid I—”

“If he didn’t tell you, Mr. Taylor, let me,” Ena volunteered. “From the minute I was born, my father and I never got along. After my mother died, that hostility just increased by a factor of ten. I took off the day after I graduated from high school. And I’ve never looked back.” That wasn’t strictly true, but she saw no point in elaborating.

Cash nodded. “Yes, your father told me.”

Ena shifted in her seat, uncomfortable at the very idea of being here. “To be honest, I’m not really sure why he left the ranch to me. I just assumed he was going to run the ranch forever.”

“Unfortunately,” Cash began, “forever had a timetable.” He lowered his voice a little as he added, “And we are all very sorry to have lost him.”

Right. He had to say that, Ena thought.

“Uh-huh,” she finally responded, only because she felt she had to say something.

“As for leaving the ranch to you,” Cash continued genially, “you are the only living member of his family.”

She wanted to be on her way back to Dallas. “All right, so tell me what I need to sign or do to get this sale moving along,” she requested. As far as she was concerned, this was already taking too long.

“What you need to do,” he informed her, “is to stay here for the next six months.”

Ena stared at the man opposite her in disbelief. “You’re serious?” she asked, stunned.

Cash nodded. “Absolutely. Those are the terms of your father’s will.” To prove it, he read the brief section to her.

Ena made an unintelligible noise. “Even from beyond the grave, that man found a way to put the screws to me,” she cried.

“In your father’s defense, I think that he thought of it as a way to bring you back to your roots,” Cash told her.

“My roots,” she informed him stubbornly, “are in Dallas.”

“That might be,” Cash conceded. “But your father saw it differently.”

Ena rolled her eyes. “My father saw everything differently. He made it his mission in life to contradict every single thing I said or did,” she informed him.

Cash did his best to attempt to smooth over this obviously rough patch. “I realize that there was some bad blood between you years ago—”

“There was always bad blood between us,” she informed the lawyer tersely. “The only reason it wasn’t spilled was because my mother—who was a saint, by the way, for putting up with the man—acted as a buffer between us. Once she was gone, there was no one to step in and try to make my father be reasonable—so he wasn’t. Everything that ever went wrong was, in his opinion, my fault.”

Ena stopped abruptly, catching herself before she could get carried away.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “My father always had a way of bringing out the worst in me. How long do I have to decide whether or not I’m going to abide by the terms of this will of his?” she asked.

“I’m afraid you have to if you want to keep the ranch,” Cash told her.

“So I guess that’s the decision before me,” she said. “Whether or not I want to keep the ranch. Tough one,” she said flippantly. “How long did you say I have before I have to give you my decision?”

Cash stared at her. For the moment, she had managed to stump him.

Chapter Three

Knowing some of the circumstances behind Ena’s relationship with her father, Cash cleared his throat and tried to be as diplomatic as possible. “I realize that the situation between you and your father wasn’t exactly the best.”

Ena suppressed the involuntary harsh laugh that rose to her lips. “I take it that you have a penchant for making understatements, Mr. Taylor.”

“Call me Cash.” He didn’t comment on Ena’s observation. “Things aren’t always the way that they seem at first glance.”

Ena folded her hands before her on the desk. Her knuckles were almost white. “If you’re referring to my father,” she told the lawyer evenly, “Bruce O’Rourke was exactly the way he seemed. Cantankerous, ornery and dead set against everything I ever said or did.” She drew back her shoulders, sitting ramrod straight in the chair. “My fate was sealed the day I was born, Mr. Taylor—Cash,” she corrected herself before the lawyer could tell her his first name again.

“That’s being a little harsh, wouldn’t you say?”

“No,” she replied stiffly, “I wouldn’t. If anything, I’m being sensitive. My father was the harsh one.” A dozen memories came at her from all directions, each with its own sharp edges digging into her. Ena winced as she struggled to block them all out. “He never forgave me for being the one who lived,” she told Cash quietly.

Cash looked at her, completely in the dark as to her meaning. “I’m sorry?”

She had probably said too much already. But word had a way of getting around in this little town and if he didn’t know about her father’s tempestuous relationship with her, he would soon. He might as well hear it from her. This way, he’d at least get a semblance of the truth. It was his prerogative to believe her or not.

“I had a twin brother. It turned out that my mother was only strong enough to provide the necessary nourishment and bring one of us to term.” She took a deep breath as she regarded her folded hands. “My brother didn’t survive the birth process. I did. My father had his heart set on a boy. I was just going to be the consolation prize.” She raised her eyes to meet Cash’s. “He never got over the fact that I survived while my brother was stillborn. My father spent the rest of his life making me regret that turn of events.”

Deeply ingrained diplomacy kept Cash from arguing with Ena’s take on the matter. Instead, he said, “Still, he did leave the ranch to you.”

“No,” she contradicted, “he dangled the ranch in front of me and left me with a condition, which was something he always did.” She thought back over the course of her adolescence. “He enjoyed making me jump through hoops—until one day I just stopped jumping.”

Over the course of his career, Cash had learned how to read people. Right now, he could anticipate what his late client’s daughter was thinking. “I wouldn’t advise doing anything hasty, Ms. O’Rourke. Give the terms of your father’s will a lot of thought,” Cash advised.

“I’ve already thought it over,” Ena informed the lawyer, “and I’ve decided not to play his game.”

Cash’s eyes met hers. “Then you’re going to let him win?”

Ena looked at the attorney sitting on the other side of the desk. Her brow furrowed. “Excuse me?”

“Well,” he began to explain, “from what you’ve said, your father always made you feel that you were a loser. And if you walk away from the ranch, you’ll be forfeiting it, which in effect will be making you a loser. And that, in turn, will be telling your father that he was right about you all along.”

Ena scowled at the lawyer. “You’re twisting things.”

The expression on his smooth face said that he didn’t see things that way. “Maybe, in this case,” he responded, “I’m able to see things more clearly because I don’t have all this past baggage and animosity coloring my perception of things.” He slid to the edge of his seat, moving in closer to create an air of confidentiality between them. And then he punctuated his statement with a careless shrug. “I’m just saying...” he told her, his voice trailing off.

He was doing it, Ena thought, irritated. Her father was boxing her into a corner, even though he was no longer walking among the living. Somehow, he was still managing to have the last say.

Ena frowned. As much as she wanted to tell this lawyer what he could do with her father’s terms, as well as his will, she knew that Cash was right. If she tore up the will and walked out now, that would be tantamount to giving up—and her father would have managed to ultimately win.

She hated giving him that, even in death.

Blowing out a breath, she faced her father’s lawyer with a less-than-happy look.

“I have to stay here for six months?” She asked the question as if each word was excruciatingly painful for her to utter.

“You have to run the ranch for six months,” Cash corrected, thinking she might be looking for a loophole. There weren’t any.

“Can I delegate the work?” Ena asked, watching the man’s face carefully.

“You mean from a distance?” Cash asked. She wanted to oversee the operation from Dallas, he guessed.

“Yes,” she said with feeling. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

“No.” The lone word shimmered between them, cloaked in finality. “Your father was very clear about that. He wanted you to be on the ranch while you oversaw the work that needed to be done.”

Ena swallowed a guttural sound. It was all she could do to keep from throwing her hands up in frustration. “I don’t know anything about running a ranch. My father told me that over and over again,” she emphasized. “He deliberately kept me away from the day-to-day process—other than mucking out the stalls. That he was more than happy to let me do.”

“Obviously he’d had a change of heart about the matter when he had me write up the will. And anyway,” Cash went on, “you have some very capable men working at the Double E. I’m sure that they all would be more than willing to help you.”

He was right and that was exactly her point. “So why can’t I just tell them to use their judgment and keep the ranch running just the way that they always have?” she asked.

The look on Cash’s face was sympathetic. He could see how frustrating all this had to be. “Because your father’s will was very specific,” he told her.

Ena’s laugh was totally without any humor. “Yes, I’ll bet. It probably said, ‘Keep sticking pins in her side until she bleeds.’”

For the first time since they had sat down together, she saw the lawyer grin. “Not even close,” Cash assured her.

She wasn’t so sure. The sentiment was there all right, just probably hidden between the lines. “You obviously didn’t know my father as well as you thought you did.”

“Or maybe you’re the one who doesn’t know the man, at least not the way he was in his last years. It’s been ten years,” Cash reminded her. “People change in that amount of time, Ms. O’Rourke.”

“Normal people do,” Ena agreed. “But not my father. He was as set in his ways as any mountain range. To expect that mountain range to suddenly shift would be incredibly foolish.”

“So you’re turning your back on the will?” Cash concluded.

“No.” She saw that her answer surprised him, so, since he’d been the one who had attempted to talk her out of forfeiting her claim, she explained. “Because you were right about one thing. If I just metaphorically toss this back in my father’s very pale face, then he will have won the final battle and I’m not ready to let that happen. So,” she continued, taking in a deep breath, “even though it’s going to turn my whole life upside down, I’m going to stay on the Double E and work it so that I can meet those terms of his. And when I do, I’m going to sell that burdensome old homestead so fast that it’ll make your head spin, Mr. Taylor.”