Redeeming the Rancher. Deb Kastner
he’s built for himself—and he doesn’t really want to do that! He’s built himself a virtual empire here.”
Alexis hadn’t experienced that kind of major heartbreak, but she knew how it felt to have the urge to run away from her problems—as fast and far as possible. She could hardly blame the man for deciding to leave if he had the wherewithal to do so. Vivian leaned toward the overdramatic, but Alexis found her curiosity growing nonetheless. “Go on.”
“He needs to find somewhere to nurse his wounds and get back on his feet. I thought Serendipity would be perfect for him.”
“And so it may be,” she agreed. “I understand he’s looking to acquire a ranch?”
“Well, he thinks he is. Have you seen him talk about it? His eyes light up like a kid’s at Christmas.”
“What do you mean, he thinks he is? From what I could see, he seemed pretty determined to work his new plans.”
“Right now, maybe. Once he’s been in Serendipity for a week he’ll be bored out of his mind. He’s a serious type-A personality. He never sits still. So the slow pace of the town will drive him batty.”
“How do I fit into this, again? You don’t want me to help him look for a ranch? I thought that’s why you sent him here.”
“Oh—help him. Do. In fact, it would be really great if you could immerse him in some of the work around Redemption Ranch. A horse ranch is something he’s dreamed about since he was a kid. He has no idea what he’s truly in for. You should show him what a cowboy really does all day.”
“I suppose I could do that.” Alexis did know a lot about ranching—enough to know Griff wasn’t precisely what she would consider to be cut out for it. If she didn’t miss her guess, once he saw how difficult and physically demanding country work really was, he’d go running back to the city faster than he could say the name of his favorite designer. “Ranching isn’t the sort of thing a guy just decides one day that he’s going to do. Most of us are raised to be ranchers.”
“Exactly. He’ll see what dirty work it is and come running back to Houston—back to his real career.”
She could tell Vivian’s concern for Griff was genuine, but there was still a lot that didn’t make sense. The whole thing still felt to Alexis like subterfuge. If the whole point was to get Griff to return to Houston, it seemed to Alexis that it would make more sense to let him flounder without any help whatsoever.
Why did Vivian need Griff to return to Houston?
Alexis needed better answers if she was going to be any part of this scheme. She’d have to take valuable time away from her struggling ministry to lend Griff the assistance Vivian apparently thought was a necessary part of the equation. It wasn’t that Alexis was being selfish, exactly, but she needed every spare second to try to come up with solutions to her own problems, not spend all of her time trying to fix someone else’s—especially if the end result wasn’t to help Griff obtain a ranch, but rather for him to realize what a pipe dream the whole idea was.
“Why didn’t you just call and tell me about your plans with Griff? At the very least, don’t you think you should have warned me that he was coming? I could have made arrangements for him to stay somewhere…” She paused and swept in a breath, shaking her head against the cobwebs that were forming. “Else,” she finished lamely.
Total silence on the other end of the line. Vivian was many things, but never silent, which nudged Alexis’s suspicions to the surface.
“Viv?”
“You aren’t going to be mean to him, are you?”
Even though Vivian couldn’t see the gesture, Alexis rolled her eyes. “Of course not. When have I ever been mean to anybody? But I have to say you’ve put both Griff and me into a difficult dilemma, and frankly, I want to know why. There’s something you’re not sharing with me. Why is it you’re so concerned about whether or not I’m being nice to Griff? Come clean, sister.”
“Just promise me you’re going to treat him with extra-special attention.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? What kind of special attention?” This did not sound good.
“The kind that will be good for both of you! I’m not just doing this for him, you know. Hello! You’re alone. You should pop your head into the real world once in a while. You don’t take care of yourself, you work too hard, and you don’t have enough fun in your life anymore. Play hooky once in a while. Go out to dinner with a guy. With Griff. You know what I mean?”
“Viv! Enough with the matchmaking, already.” Alexis was going to protest further, but Vivian had a point, however poorly made. “Okay. Okay. I’ll admit I’ve got a full schedule with the ranch and the kids, but—”
“When was the last time you went out?” Vivian asked, interrupting her. “On a date? With a man?”
“I know what a date is.” She sighed in exasperation. “And as a matter of fact, I’ll have you know that I—” Her sentence sputtered to a stop.
Uh, oh. Now that she thought about it, it had been a long time since she’d been out on a date, official or otherwise. With her two best friends Samantha and Mary happily married and busy with their new husbands, Alexis had pretty much shifted her social life to the back burner. Sure, she attended church and community events just as she’d always done, but she’d never needed a date to do that.
“Exactly!” Vivian crowed, obviously thrilled to have proved her point. “You don’t take care of yourself, so it is my solemn duty as your twin to do it for you. What are sisters for, if not that? If I’d told you he was coming, you’d have shuffled him off on to someone else. This way, you have to spend time with him—and realize how perfect the two of you are for each other.”
“You said the guy is fresh off a heartbreak,” Alexis pointed out, propping her hand on her hip. “I doubt he’s going to be looking for a new relationship anytime soon.”
“Maybe not right away. But once he sees how sweet and special you are, that’s bound to change.”
“I highly doubt sweet is the first word that comes to mind when he thinks of me.”
“What? Why? What did you do?” Viv’s voice rose and tightened. “You didn’t kick him out of the house, did you? Please tell me you didn’t.”
Alexis groaned. “Not exactly. Well, kind of. He’s going to be staying in the bunkhouse with the ranch hands.”
“You didn’t!” Viv wailed.
Alexis’s face was on fire. She felt as though she needed to dunk her head in a bucket of ice water to cool down. Why was her sister putting her on the spot this way, as if she was the villain in this melodrama? She’d been thrust into the scene with no advance notice and no lines. How was that fair?
“What else was I supposed to do with him?” she demanded. “Did you really think I’d let some man—a stranger, no less—just move into the house with me? It’s not as if I had any warning that he was coming so I would have had time to make proper arrangements.” She couldn’t help but add that little thrust of the knife, although she doubted Vivian picked up on it.
“You be nice to him. It’s important. You’ve got to win him over.” Vivian’s voice took on a desperate edge.
“For the last time, Viv, I am being nice. I didn’t kick him to the curb as I could have done—or worse yet, call the cops on him and have him arrested for trespassing.”
Vivian’s breath caught audibly. “You wouldn’t.”
“Of course not, although it could very easily have gone down that way. I can’t imagine what you were thinking, sending him to town without giving me a heads-up. I thought he’d broken into our house. He scared me half to death, showing up at the crack of dawn with no warning.”
“Oh.