The Rancher Next Door

Chapter One

Nineteen years later

Jack Darby rounded the corner in time to see four large boys go after a small skinny kid. The little guy—pale, in glasses and throwing punches like a girl—stood about as much chance against his assailants as a kitten did against a wolf pack.

Some things never change, Jack thought, remembering all the fights he’d gotten in when he’d been a kid. Even so, the little guy was outnumbered and ill-equipped. Jack hurried toward the huddle.

“That’s enough,” he yelled, just as the little guy dropped to one knee.

The four bullies glanced up, saw him, then took off for the main street. Jack reached the kid still crouched on the sidewalk.

“You okay?” he asked the boy. He bent over, half-expecting blood and tears. What he got instead was a big grin.

“Did you see?” the skinny boy asked with obvious pride. “I got two of ’em. I hit one in the face.”

The boy stood and pushed his glasses up on his nose. Blood dripped from a cut on his lip, but the kid didn’t seem to notice.

Jack knew that any blows the boy had landed had been glancing, at best, but decided not to say that. No point in spoiling the moment. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. “Here.”

The boy stared at it. “I’m bleeding?” His voice sounded both delighted and hopeful.

“You cut your lip.”

“Wow. Just like in the movies.” The boy took the cloth and pressed it to his mouth, then gazed at the blood. “Cool.”

“You’re pretty happy for someone who nearly got the snot kicked out of him.”

The boy nodded. “Sometimes it’s important to act like a man, even if that means taking on a losing fight.”

Jack looked at the kid. He was skinny and kind of short. He would have guessed he was maybe seven or eight, but he sounded older. Or maybe he was just an old soul, as his mother liked to say.

“You’ve learned a good lesson early,” Jack said. “But next time, try taking on less than four bigger boys. At least then you’d have a chance.”

The boy handed him back his handkerchief. “Thanks. I’ll remember that.” He grinned, then winced when the movement pulled his lip. “I’m Shane Fitzgerald.”

“Jack Darby,” Jack said automatically. The boy said something else, but Jack didn’t hear it. He didn’t hear anything but the name.

Shane Fitzgerald. Katie’s son. Jack studied his blond hair and blue eyes. All the Fitzgeralds were fair-skinned and light-haired. He should have recognized him at once.

Katie’s child. Eleven years ago—the summer she’d graduated from high school—Katie had promised to love Jack forever. The nine-year-old boy in front of him was living proof that her promise had meant less than nothing.

“I guess I’d better go find my mom,” Shane was saying. “She worries about me.”

“Mothers do that,” Jack said. “Tell you what. I’ll come with you. Just in case she needs more details about the fight.”

Some of Shane’s pride disappeared. He touched his lower lip and sighed. “Moms don’t like fighting,” he confided as he turned toward Second Avenue.

“I know. I had more than my share of lectures when I was your age.”

Shane looked at him worshipfully. “Did you fight a lot?”

“Too much.”

“Did you win?”

Jack thought of the first time he’d met Katie Fitzgerald. They’d known each other on sight from school, but they’d never talked. Not until that summer afternoon when he’d taught her to ride a bike, and her brother and his friends had kicked his butt. “Most of the time.”

Shane led the way to the offices of Dr. Stephen Remington, then pushed his way through the glass door. Jack followed, only to find Katie Fitzgerald in conversation with Lone Star Canyon’s new physician.

Neither of them noticed the new arrivals, and Shane didn’t seem to be in a hurry to announce their presence. Which was fine with Jack. He wanted the chance to study Katie, to see how she’d changed since she left town eleven years ago.

He remembered that night as if it had happened the previous week. She’d been eighteen and ready to head off to college. Even then he’d known that he was going to spend the rest of his life in Lone Star Canyon. She’d wanted him to go away with her—she’d begged him, telling him that she would love him forever, no matter what. Then she’d peeled off her shirt and pleaded with him to take her.

They’d come close a few times, but they’d never gone all the way. And even though it had taken every bit of strength he’d possessed, he’d turned her down. Because it had been the right thing to do. Because he’d known that at least one of them had to get away, and it couldn’t be him.

Now, all these years later, he looked at the woman who had once been that teenage girl. She was still petite, all of five foot three. Sometime in the past few years, she’d cut her long hair. Short curls danced around her face. Her coloring was the same—light blond hair, blue eyes. She still had high cheeks and a smile that could light up a room…and she was still a Fitzgerald. There were dozens of reasons a relationship between them wouldn’t have worked when they were kids, and even more reasons now.

As he looked at her, Jack waited to feel something, a sense of regret or loss, but there wasn’t anything—for which he breathed a brief prayer of thanks. He’d learned his lesson. He wanted nothing to do with women in general and Katie Fitzgerald in particular.

Something tickled at the back of Katie’s neck. She shivered slightly, then felt a knot form in her stomach. Her chest tightened. Despite Stephen Remington’s detailed conversation about a patient, Katie turned and saw two people had entered the reception area. A boy and a man.

Her son—dirty and bleeding—accompanied by Jack Darby.

“Hello, Katie,” the ghost from her past said.

She gasped. She didn’t know which sight shocked her the most. Fortunately Stephen heard Jack’s greeting and glanced toward the door.

“Hey, Jack! What happened here?” he asked, walking toward Shane, then tilting the boy’s face so the overhead light fell on his swollen lip.

“I was in a fight,” Shane said defiantly, with a quick look at his mother. “It wasn’t my fault,” he added quickly. “They started it.”

“But you finished it,” Stephen said, leading the boy toward an examining room. “Very impressive. Now I just want to take a quick look at your lip. Do you hurt anywhere else?”

Katie trailed after her son. She was stunned by learning that her son had been in a fight and by seeing Jack after all this time. She didn’t know what to think or do. All she could do was tell herself to keep breathing.

By the time she entered the examining room, Stephen had lifted Shane onto the table and was looking at his mouth.

“His teeth seem fine,” Stephen said, giving her a quick, reassuring smile. “Don’t look so panicked.”

“I’m not,” she said. Panicked wasn’t the right word at all, although she wasn’t sure what she felt.

“See, Mom, I’m big and strong,” Shane said determinedly. “I’m not wimpy.”

Katie leaned against the door frame and winced. Obviously her son had overheard her conversation with his grandfather that morning. Her father was less than impressed with his grandson’s masculinity. In return, Shane was terrified of his grandfather. It was an impossible situation.

“He did okay,” Jack said quietly, so Shane wouldn’t hear. “And I don’t think Shane started the fight, so don’t be too hard on him, okay?”

Katie turned toward the man who had once been the center of her universe. Time had honed the good-looking features of a nineteen-year-old into the lean, handsome profile of a grown man. Tanned skin spoke of his days outdoors. He was lean and powerful—a rancher who spent his life battling nature and stubborn cattle.

His dark gaze was as direct as she remembered, his mouth as firm. Too-long hair still tumbled across his forehead. There had been a time when she’d known Jack as well as she’d known herself. At least that’s what she told herself. But perhaps she’d been wrong about that. Was it possible to ever know another person?

“Thanks for helping him,” Katie said, hoping that her voice sounded normal and that he wouldn’t be able to hear her rapidly beating heart.

He gave her a quick smile. “I owed you, remember? Many years ago you came to my defense in a fight.”

She didn’t return his smile. “What I remember is it was my fault you got beat up in the first place.”

There was a small scar at the corner of his mouth—a legacy from the day they’d first met. She wanted to touch it, as she had in the past. Actually, in the past she’d kissed it hundreds of times, as if her mouth could heal the wound. Jack had teased her that it was worth that scar and a dozen others just to have her feel so guilty and act so loving because of it. She’d told him she would do anything for him. Her gaze fell on her son. No doubt Jack considered him proof that her love had been nothing but a convenient lie.

“No permanent damage,” Stephen said, helping Shane jump down from the examining table to the floor. “He’s going to be a bit sore and bruised for the next few days, but otherwise, he’s fine.” He glanced at the boy. “Try to avoid fights in the future, young man.”

Shane sighed and shuffled his feet. “Yes, sir.”

Stephen turned his attention to Jack and Katie. “I keep forgetting that you know each other. I guess that’s what happens when you grow up in a small town.” He smiled. “Something I can’t relate to.”

Katie shoved her hands into her pockets and tried not to act nervous. “Stephen is from Boston,” she told Jack.

“I know.”

She glanced between the two men. “You know each other?”

Stephen nodded. “The patient I was telling you about? The woman with the broken pelvis, hip and leg is Hattie Darby, Jack’s mother. I’m her doctor. Of course in a town the size of Lone Star Canyon, I’m nearly everyone’s doctor.”

Jack’s gaze narrowed. “Why were you talking to her about my mother?”

As he spoke, Katie’s heart sank. She hadn’t realized…. This was going to make all kinds of trouble.

Still, she was a professional. She forced herself to smile at Jack. “I’m a physical therapist,” she said. “Just moved back into town a couple of weeks ago and hung out my shingle. Stephen wants me to work with your mother while she’s recovering from her accident. I’ll be heading out to the ranch every day to give her physical therapy.”

Questions darkened Jack’s eyes, but he didn’t ask any of them. His mouth twisted as if he wasn’t pleased at the prospect of having her back in his life, but then she wasn’t all that excited about it, either.

Katie sighed. She never had been very much good at lying, especially to herself. While she would admit to a little dismay at the thought of having to face Jack Darby on a regular basis, she couldn’t deny the fact that the man still made her blood run hot and her heart flutter like a trapped butterfly. Despite the miles and years between them, Jack Darby left her breathless. The fact that she’d sworn off men didn’t seem to matter one bit.

Jack ran his fingers through his hair, then shrugged. “Guess I’ll be seeing you around.” He turned to leave, paused to smile at Shane, then walked out of the office.

Stephen looked from her to the closing door. “I’d heard about the feud between the Fitzgeralds and the Darbys, but this is the first time I’ve seen it in action.”

“It’s a sight to behold,” Katie said glumly.

“Is going to the Darby ranch going to make trouble for you?” he asked.

“Some, but none I can’t handle.”

“Most people’s mothers act their age,” Jack complained as he sat beside his mother’s bed. She was in a private room in Lone Star Canyon’s only convalescent facility, where she’d been for the past six weeks since being released from the hospital. She was finally well enough to come home.

Hattie Darby grinned at her oldest son. “You’re in something of a mood. What’s got your panties in a bunch?”

He grimaced at one of his mother’s favorite expressions. “Nothing.”

“You can’t still be mad because I got hurt,” she said. “It was an accident, Jack. I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

He glared at her. “You were barrel racing at the Thompsons’ barbecue. You’re fifty years old. It’s time you acted your age.”

“My horse lost his footing. That’s hardly my fault.” Her dark eyes snapped with temper. “And don’t go telling me to act my age. When you’re fifty, we’ll see if you’re ready to act like an old man. I suspect you’ll be as full of life as me. So why don’t you stop pretending I’m who you’re mad at and tell me what’s really wrong?”

Despite the hospital gown and the casts, Hattie Darby was still an attractive, vital woman. Her skin was a little pale, but otherwise she glowed with health. Her long dark hair hung almost to her waist. The first gray had shown up less than a year ago. She was fit and stubborn, and he knew he was too much like her for comfort.

They shared both temperament and features. He’d inherited his charm and success with the ladies from his father, but his temper from his mother.

“You’re coming home tomorrow,” Jack said.

His mother raised her eyebrows. “Have you been keeping women at the house? Is that why you’re upset? Now they have to leave?”

Despite his annoyance with the situation, he smiled. “Yeah, you know me. Why have one when seventeen would be that much better?”

Hattie looked at her oldest child. “It wouldn’t kill you to go out on a date now and again.”

“No, thanks, and don’t try to change the subject.”

“I didn’t know there was a subject to change.”

He folded his arms over his chest and glared at his mother. “I spoke with Dr. Remington. Katie Fitzgerald is going to be coming out to the ranch every day to help you with your physical therapy.”

Hattie blinked at him. “Is that what has you upset? Katie Fitzgerald? I don’t believe it.” Her gaze narrowed. “Don’t try to tell me that this is about that ridiculous feud. I say it’s high time that ended, and I suspect you agree with me.”

He did, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.

“As for Katie,” she went on, “she’s a lovely young woman and someone you might want to take notice of.”

He knew what his mother meant—that Katie would be a good match for him. Hattie was beginning to get desperate where his love life was concerned. Lately she’d taken to throwing any single woman she could in his path. As if at least one of them would have to appeal to him.

He thought about telling her that it was too late for Katie and him. They’d had their chance and it hadn’t ended well. Of course, they’d both been pretty young.

“I’m not looking to get married again,” he told his mother. “From what I’ve heard Katie’s divorced, as well.”

“Then you’re probably perfect for each other.”

“Then she’s probably as gun-shy,” he corrected. “Rumor has it her marriage lasted all of six months and the guy left her alone and pregnant. I doubt she’d be much interested in trying that again. I know I’m not. I’ve been burned enough times already.”

Hattie didn’t look convinced. “You’d be nothing like her ex-husband. And I’ll bet she’s nothing like your ex-wife.”

“Mom, I’m serious. Don’t go messing with this. Neither of us is interested.”

Hattie Darby looked anything but convinced. Jack suspected she would try to meddle, but he would be on his guard. The last thing he wanted was a trip down memory lane with Katie Fitzgerald. Between Katie and his ex-wife, who had stayed with him all of two years, he’d long since learned that love didn’t last. The second it became inconvenient, it dried up and blew away.