Sweethearts in South Dakota (At the Altar Book 14) Read online

  Brodie picked up his own cup, his lips twisting wryly. “I wish. We’ve also had an outbreak of Coccidia in this last crop of calves. Happens sometimes when we get a wet fall. They’re healthy, for the most part, and should be able to withstand it, but it’s a pain to treat.”

  Ryder closed his eyes, racking his brain for what he’d read about the parasite in his stash of ranching and cattle how-to books. “We’ve already got them separated by ages, so the outbreak shouldn’t spread. Feed and supplements are top-notch, so no changes needed there. Are you using Amprol or Corid on order to treat them? I know a regular dewormer won’t work.”

  Brodie flashed him a look of surprise and a little admiration. “We use Corid, and yeah, one of the guys is picking some up in town as soon as the vet clinic opens. How the heck did you know all that?”

  “What? I read.” Ryder grinned. “All right. Let’s go find the rest of the cattle, and I’ll tell you what I have in mind to make us more competitive in the market.”

  By quarter to twelve, Willa was trying not to watch the clock. She was bored. Daytime TV was driving her crazy. She’d already somehow been sucked in to watching three episodes of a divorce court show, which only reminded her what an amazing husband she’d been blessed with. And that only made her more irritated, mostly with herself, because she was currently mad at her perfect husband and not ready to let it go.

  When she heard the door open in the kitchen, she had to steel herself against grabbing her crutches and hobbling out to the kitchen to greet Ryder. Instead, Honey scrabbled to her feet and ran to the kitchen, barking joyfully. Instead of Ryder, though, she heard Mrs. Hollis’s voice, affectionate and gruff at the same time. “Get off me, you dumb mutt,” she growled, but Honey followed her happily into the living room, tongue lolling and tail wagging madly.

  “How are you doing’?” she asked, crossing her arms and giving Willa a critical look. “You’re pale,” she decided, not giving Willa a chance to reply. “I’ve got some beef stew already made up. I’ll get you a bowl so you’ve got some food in your stomach, and then you’re taking a pain pill. No argument.”

  Willa wanted to yell after her that she wasn’t hungry and Mrs. Hollis couldn’t make her eat, but that would have been immature. She stuck her tongue out in the direction of the kitchen instead.

  “I saw that, young lady!” came her gravelly voice. “Keep it up, and you won’t get any hot chocolate.”

  True to her word, in less than ten minutes, Mrs. Hollis had a mug of steaming hot chocolate with whipped cream, a bottle of water, and a bowl of fragrant stew with chunks of meat, carrots, and potatoes swimming in a thick gravy, and two thickly buttered slices of homemade bread on a tray.

  “Ryder asked me to tell you he wouldn’t be back for lunch,” Mrs. Hollis said, gathering up the breakfast dishes and dirty mugs. “Couple of the guys came down sick, and he’s running into town. Looked pretty cold when I saw him—hopefully he took the truck with the good heater.” She glanced at Willa, obviously trying to gauge the trouble between her and Ryder. “He was out in the north pasture all morning chasing cows.”

  Willa didn’t say anything, just took a sip of her hot chocolate and pretended to watch the local News at Noon. Mrs. Hollis shrugged and prepared to head back to the kitchen, her hands full. “Oh, I think he was limping, too,” she paused and added.

  “Oh, no! What happened?” Willa asked before she could stop herself, her heart racing. He could have fallen off a horse, slipped on some ice, been stepped on, cut himself—she knew just how dangerous work could be on a ranch, and Ryder, the city slicker who thought he could handle everything, didn’t.

  “Nothing,” Mrs. Hollis chuckled, her face creasing in a grin. “He wasn’t limping. I was just checking to see if you cared.” She laughed louder as Willa threw a piece of bread crust at her.

  Eight

  After Mrs. Hollis let Honey out and supervised Willa while she took her pain pills before she left, Willa slept for most of the day, Honey curled up beside her on the deep couch. It was dark when she woke, her lips tingling from a gentle kiss.

  “Hey, sleeping beauty,” Ryder said, leaning over to switch on the lamp on the side table. “How was your day?”

  She struggled up to a sitting position, and he obligingly stuffed a throw pillow behind her back. “Fine,” she said, not wanting to think about the boredom and all of the work she’d missed out on getting done. “How was yours?”

  Now that she looked at him, Ryder was smiling but looked exhausted. “Probably no worse than any of yours ever are. I had to make a run into town, and I brought you some presents. Want to start with pizza? It’s almost ten, but I don’t figure you’ve had any dinner.”

  “Almost ten?” she sat up again. “How did I even sleep that long?”

  “You must’ve needed it. You want to go eat in the kitchen for a change of scenery, or are you more comfortable here?”

  “We can eat here.” She eyed him with a little concern. Ryder stood up slowly, wincing. It must’ve been a hard day, she thought. Harder than he had let on.

  He brought out two cans of pop and pizza on a couple of paper plates. Honey sat on her own corner of a couch, content to watch her humans.

  It had been a rough day, but Ryder didn’t think it would be a good idea to burden Willa with any of it. Instead of telling her how he’d found a calf dead, likely attacked by coyotes, or how he was able to convince only one of their customers to come back, or how he’d never realized just exactly how disgusting cow parasites could be, he told her about how Beulah, jealous at the lack of attention in the past few days, had knocked him flat on his back in her hurry to see him.

  “You have to be careful,” she warned. “Beulah thinks you’re her mom now, and she’s going to be getting big soon.”

  “I kind of figured that out today,” he admitted ruefully. After they’d demolished the cold pepperoni pizza, he began hauling box after box from the kitchen to the living room, where he pushed the coffee table out of the way and stacked them up in front of Willa.

  “What is all this?” she asked curiously. “Christmas is still a month out.”

  “You’ll have to open them up and find out,” he replied, nudging Honey away from where she sniffed curiously at the top one. “I started ordering on Amazon when we were in the hospital and I found out you were going to be off your feet for a while. Don’t feel bad if you don’t like something. I can always send it back.”

  Gifts had always been rare and practical from her grandfather. Feeling unaccountably excited, because she knew Ryder well enough to know that he wouldn’t always give practical gifts, Willa grabbed the smallest package and used the penknife Ryder handed her to slice the tape. Inside was an assortment of boxed chocolates. He shrugged. “I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like chocolate.”

  “There’s something wrong with people who don’t like chocolate,” she agreed. “And if I ration these out, they might last me until spring.”

  “Don’t bother,” he laughed. “I can always reorder them, and you could use to gain a few pounds anyway.”

  The next box was bigger and held an assortment of stretchy, comfortable-looking outfits. Loose lounging pants that were cute and would fit easily over her cast and coordinating tops in different, muted colors. “You’re not the pink spandex type.” He shrugged. “Don’t forget to check at the bottom of that one.” Sure enough, there were several pairs of fuzzy socks. “They’ve got some sort of non-slip stuff at the bottom,” Ryder explained. “You can cut a few of them, too, and slide them over your cast, to keep the toes on that foot warm.”

  Willa stared in puzzlement at the contents of the third box. It was full of art supplies. “I’m not an artist, Ryder.”

  He gestured toward one of her great-grandmother’s paintings on the wall, one of her favorites of a stallion running across a field. The colors and brushstrokes were so vivid and well-executed, it looked as if the horse was about to leap off the edge of the painting. “Have you ever trie
d? It might run in the family. I figure you have time to find out now.”

  She nodded slowly, running her fingers over a fancy, embossed sketchpad, and then a package of watercolor paints. There were even charcoal pencils, pastels, markers, and colored pencils. At the bottom of the box, there were two intricately drawn coloring books, designed for adults. “Just in case you don’t have any natural talent,” he said.

  “I might need those.” She smiled a little.

  Box after box turned up more thoughtful gifts. A beginner’s beading set. Yarn, hooks, and instruction books for knitting and crochet. One heavy box was devoted to a spread of books, from popular fiction novels to romance to a Christian cowboy–themed devotional to a paperback Russian spy series. A dozen different magazines on beauty trends, sports, current events, cooking, history, ranching, and puzzles—they were all subscriptions, he admitted sheepishly, so she should let him know which ones she didn’t like, and he could cancel them—plus a lap desk, a warm hooded robe, card games, a needlepoint kit, and a calligraphy set for beginners. By the time she was done opening boxes, Willa was surrounded by a mountain of packing materials and enough distractions to keep her from going crazy for at least a few weeks.

  “One more thing,” Ryder said and headed back out to the kitchen. He returned a moment later with what looked like a child’s toy tucked under his arm. “It’s a scooter. I picked it up from the doctor’s office when I was in town.” He set it on the floor. It was black and had a padded seat, handlebars and a basket on the front. “You put your knee on it, like this,” he demonstrated, “and it keeps the weight off your ankle. Then you push with your other leg.” He did and sent the little scooter zooming around the living room, with Honey barking and running behind him like he’d lost his mind. He hit the hand brakes and stopped next to the couch again, smiling sheepishly. “I figured it would be kind of fun and more comfortable than crutches. I’m going to see if I can get one of the guys who’s more mechanical than I am to rig it up with off-road wheels.”

  “Why did you do all this?”

  Ryder gave her a sideways look. “What do you mean ‘why’?”

  “This.” Willa gestured to the stack of gifts. She couldn’t help it. She was suspicious of her husband’s motives. “Did you do all of this out of guilt?”

  Ryan’s smile faded. “No, Willa. It’s not out of guilt. I got you these things because I can afford to do it, and I’m worried about you going crazy here all day, all cooped up.”

  Her stomach started aching at his hurt tone, but she couldn’t make herself apologize. The guilty look on his face when she caught him discussing the ranch with Brodie kept playing through her head like a bad scene from a movie. She stayed silent.

  Ryder sighed in resignation. “I’m going to let the dog out and hit the hay.” He stood up and just looked at Willa for a long moment. “Do you need help getting to bed?”

  “No,” she answered stiffly. “I’ll be fine. I think I’m just going to sleep here on the couch.”

  “Well, goodnight, then.” Ryder hesitated and looked at Willa for a long moment. “I guess . . . just yell for me if you need anything. I love you.”

  Ryder called quietly for Honey as he walked away, his posture tired. Willa wanted to ask him to come back, to apologize, to have him smile at her and kiss her again, but she just couldn’t make herself do it.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered to the empty room.

  Ryder stared up at the few stars visible among the clouds that were moving in, a light, cold wind brushing his face, while he waited for Honey to finish sniffing around by the bushes at the side of the house. He was at a loss. He’d always been sure of himself: who he was, where he was going, how to deal with the obstacles life threw at him. But now, it seemed as if Willa blamed him for her accident, and he couldn’t figure out how to get their relationship back to where it had been before. He knew it was only the first day of taking on the responsibilities of the ranch, but that, too, seemed beyond his control. He had Brodie to help him, but he didn’t know how he could manage if each day was as frustrating and difficult as this one had been.

  “God, help me out here, will you?” he said out loud. Around him, fat flakes of snow began to fall, and above, the last few stars disappeared behind clouds. Despite the fact that nothing had changed, inside, the tension he felt started to ease, just a little bit. Everything would be all right. God had everything in hand, and things always turned out for the best.

  Eventually.

  The next few weeks fell into a routine for Willa as she and Ryder came to an awkward truce, silently agreeing to not talk about anything as uncomfortable as their relationship, the accident, or the ranch. Willa continued to sleep on the couch at night, accepting only the most necessary help from Ryder, and Ryder continued to deal with a flurry of problems on the ranch without letting on to Willa how stressed out he was or how much he missed their closeness. They lived together more like roommates than husband and wife, not hostile, but avoiding the issues that stood between them.

  Willa learned to get around well on the scooter Ryder bought for her and began to gain a little bit of her self-sufficiency back. She had an appointment in town with a physical therapist twice a week who gave her exercises that she performed every day, without fail. The therapist had warned her that to gain back her full mobility, she needed to work for it, and the thought of never being able to do the things she needed to do again was enough to scare her into a consistent effort to speed up her recovery as much as possible.

  Honey was a welcome distraction, and the sweet dog went everywhere with Willa. Which wasn’t far, since Willa was still mostly homebound, but she was grateful for the company, and if she talked to the dog sometimes, well, that was nobody’s business but theirs. Honey watched with interest as Willa began to explore some of the gifts that Ryder had bought her. She enjoyed several of the books and was playing around with learning to cook. The crafting projects were hit or miss. Some projects were failures—like crochet, for example, an exercise in frustration that always somehow ended with a lot of cursing and her fingers tied up in knots in the yarn. She donated the yarn and hooks to Mrs. Hollis. Beading, though, came naturally, and Willa found a satisfaction she hadn’t expected in creating intricate designs. Painting, too, was becoming a little bit of an obsession. Through classes she found online, learning the basics of sketching, line, shape, form, and texture came easily, and though she wouldn’t show anyone else her work, she was excited at how well many of her pieces turned out.

  Her happiness was shadowed, though, by the cloud that hung over her relationship with Ryder. She didn’t know how to bring things back to where they had been, and she missed him.

  Ryder was getting used to the routine of his daily work, and though he was exhausted every night, he had to admit that there was satisfaction in the job. He and Brodie still privately worried about the Circle G’s beef contracts—the competitor, a nearby ranch called Silver Sage, who had snapped up some of their customers, was taking a big bite out of their bottom line and luring some of their best employees over, too—but they agreed not to burden Willa with any of it. She had her hands full with recuperation, and neither man wanted to see her stress out any more than she already was.

  Ryder was torn between resentment and relief at how much time ranch operations kept him away from Willa. He wanted to fix things between them but still didn’t know how, and the sheer amount of work he had to do took all of his time. He thought back ruefully to the early days of their marriage and how annoyed he’d been when Willa hadn’t made it home for lunch like she’d promised. If only he’d known what she was dealing with, he would have understood. He’d only managed lunch at home twice since Willa’s accident.

  Tonight, though, he planned on being home in time for dinner. Willa had made an offer to cook—something so completely out of character for her, he didn’t intend to miss it. Ryder also hoped that maybe they’d get the chance to talk. He’d been putting it off for too long.
r />   By four o’clock, Willa was regretting her offer and wished she’d just asked Ryder if he wanted to go into town. She was attempting chicken cordon bleu, a recipe rated as “intermediate” in her new cookbook. She’d learned how to do basics like soup and fancied-up sandwiches. It’s not like she was trying one of the “expert” rated recipes.

  “Intermediate, my foot,” she muttered, trying to peg a toothpick into a slippery roll of chicken, ham and cheese. Cordon bleu chicken apparently needed a cordon bleu chef. The thing refused to stay together. She was re-rolling the mess after it had come apart in the baking sheet, yet again, when her elbow knocked into the package of sliced ham, sending it to the floor. Instantly, helpful Honey jumped to the rescue, and the rest of the ham was gone before she had a chance to rescue it.

  “Now what?” Willa demanded of the dog, who grinned back at her adoringly, hoping for more handouts. “I can’t make cordon bleu without ham.”

  “Are you talking to that dog again?” Help had come, with a burst of cold air and a scattering of fat snowflakes.

  “Mrs. Hollis,” Willa breathed in relief. “How did you know I needed you?”

  The woman chuckled, breezing into the kitchen. “Brodie mentioned as how you were going to be cooking for Ryder tonight, and I just figured I’d swing by to see if you needed a hand.” The woman eyed the pile of chicken on the counter in front of Willa. “We need some sort of bat signal you can put out if you need help. What’s that supposed to be?”

  “Chicken cordon bleu,” Willa sighed. “But it’s not working out so well. Honey ate the ham.”

  Mrs. Hollis rolled up her sleeves. “No problem. Your man’s going to be here in an hour, though, so we’d best see if we can turn this cordon bleu to parmigiana in a hurry.”

  It was later than Ryder had hoped when the wind blew him in at five forty-five. A tantalizing smell was in the air, and he sniffed, identifying red sauce and something else. “Sorry I’m late,” he yelled. “Let me wash up really quick.”