Learning to love again

Is his hardest assignment

Ever since Clint Washburn’s wife abandoned him, the stoic rancher has built up defenses to keep everyone in Forever, Texas, out—including his young son. Now the boy’s teacher, Wynona Chee, is questioning his parenting! And Clint is experiencing feelings he thought long dead. Still, Wynona has her homework cut out for her if she’s going to teach this cowboy to love again.

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred and seventy-five books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

Also by Marie Ferrarella

Wish Upon a Matchmaker

Dating for Two

Diamond in the Ruff

Her Red-Carpet Romance

Coming Home for Christmas

Dr. Forget-Me-Not

Twice a Hero, Always Her Man

Meant to Be Mine

A Second Chance for the Single

Dad Christmastime Courtship

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

The Cowboy’s Lesson in Love

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09056-8

THE COWBOY’S LESSON IN LOVE

© 2018 Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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To

Glenda Howard,

With Gratitude

For

Continuing To Make

My Dreams

Come True

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue

“Are you nervous?”

Shania Stewart’s softly voiced question to her twenty-six-year-old cousin broke through the otherwise early-morning silence within their small kitchen in their newly rented house located in Forever, Texas.

Wynona Chee didn’t answer her immediately. She was tempted to nonchalantly toss her long, shining black hair over her shoulder and confidently deny the very idea of having even a drop of fear regarding whatever might lay ahead of her today.

Ahead of both of them, really.

But over the course of her young life, Wynona had gone through a great deal with Shania, more than so many women even twice their age. Always close, the cousins had suffered the loss of their parents almost simultaneously. For Wynona, it had been the death of her single mother—she had never known her father—when sickness and heartbreak had claimed her. For Shania, it had come in waves. First, her father had died when a drunk driver had hit his car, then her mother, who had by that time taken in an orphaned Wynona to live with them, had succumbed to pneumonia.

By the time Wynona was ten and Shania was eleven, they did not have a living parent between them. Instead, they faced the grim prospect of being sent off to family care where they would then be absorbed into the foster care system. The latter fact ultimately meant that they would be separated.

The immediate future that faced the two cousins had been beyond bleak at that point.

It was then that they learned the true meaning of the word hope. Their late grandmother’s sister, Great-Aunt Naomi, came swooping into their lives from Houston like an unexpected twister sweeping across the prairie.

A fiercely independent woman, Naomi Blackwell, a dedicated physician who had never married, had been notified about the cousins’ pending fate by the town’s sheriff. She immediately came and took the girls under her wing and returned with them to Houston to live with her in her oversize mansion.

Over the course of the next sixteen years, Naomi not only provided them with a home, she also made sure that they both received an excellent education. This helped guarantee that they could go on to become anything they set their minds to.

It turned out that the girls had set their minds to return to Forever and give back a little of their good fortune to the community. After a short attempt to talk the cousins out of it, Naomi gave them her blessings and sent them off.

When they finally returned to Forever, the house where they had spent their early childhood—Shania’s parents’ house—was gone, destroyed in a fire some eight years ago. Some of the ashes were still there. Consequently, when they arrived back that summer, they moved into a house in town and then set about putting their mission into motion.

Today marked the beginning of their new careers. Shania had been hired to teach physics at Forever’s high school while Wynona was taking over a position that had been vacated at the end of the school year by Ericka Hale, the woman who was retiring as Forever Elementary’s second/third grade teacher.

“A little,” Wynona finally admitted after pausing to take in a deep breath. She could feel her butterflies growing and multiplying in her stomach. “You?”

Shania smiled. As the older of the two, Shania had always felt it was up to her to set the example. But like Wynona, she couldn’t be anything but truthful. It just wasn’t in her nature.

“I’d like to say no,” she told her cousin, “but that would be a lie.” Her smile was slightly rueful. “I feel like everything inside me is vibrating to Flight of the Bumblebee.”

“Really?” Wynona asked, surprised to hear that her cousin was anything but confident. She’d always projected that sort of an image. “But you’ve always been the calm one.”

“Most of the time,” Shania admitted. “But I’m not feeling very calm right now, although I guess I did manage to fool you,” she told Wynona with a self-deprecating laugh. “Now I guess all I have to do is fool everyone else.”

“That’s easy enough,” Wynona assured her cousin. “All you have to do is channel Great-Aunt Naomi.” A fond smile curved her lips. “That woman could make a rock tremble in fear.”

Shania laughed. “She could, couldn’t she?” A wave of nostalgia came over her as she looked at her younger cousin. “Do you find yourself wishing we were back in Houston with her right now?”

“No,” Wynona said honestly. She saw that her answer surprised her cousin. “Staying with Aunt Naomi would have meant taking the easy way. I think we both know that we’re right where we’re supposed to be just as I know that Aunt Naomi is proud of us for choosing to do this.”

Shania smiled in response, nodding her head. “I think you’re right.” The young woman looked at her watch, then raised her eyes to meet Wynona’s. She took in a deep breath. “Well, Wyn, it’s almost seven. If we don’t want to be late our first day of school, we really should get going.”

Wynona nodded in agreement as she felt her butterflies go into high gear. “Okay, Shania. Let’s do this.”

Chapter One

Clint Washburn wiped the back of his wrist against his forehead while crouching down and holding the stallion’s hoof still with his other hand. Seven thirty in the morning and it was already getting hot.

This was fall, he thought. It shouldn’t be this hot, certainly not this early in the day. These days it felt as if things were making even less sense than usual.

A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Clint frowned when he saw the skinny little figure entering the corral. After closing the gate, he was walking toward him.

Ryan.

The boy wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be on his way to school by now.

Clint stopped working on the stallion’s hoof. The tiny rock or whatever had worked its way under the horseshoe, causing the animal to limp, was just going to have to wait until he sent his son on his way.

He squinted. The sun was directly behind the boy, making Ryan’s fine features as well as his expression momentarily difficult to see. Clint’s frown deepened.

“Shouldn’t you be on your way to school by now, boy?” Clint asked.

There was no warmth in his voice, only impatience.

Rather than answer immediately, the small boy looked at his father with wide eyes, his fine, light brown hair falling into his piercing blue eyes. He turned a slight shade of red before answering.

“I...I thought I’d stay home and help you with the horses today.”

“You thought wrong,” Clint replied flatly. “I don’t need your help with the horses. That’s what I’ve got Jake and your uncle Roy for,” he reminded the boy crisply, referring to the ranch hand and his brother. “What you need to do is go to school.” Shading his eyes, Clint scanned the area directly behind his son. “Lucia is probably looking for you right now. Don’t give her any extra work,” he instructed his son briskly, then ordered, “Go.”

The answer, although not unexpected, was not the one his son was hoping for.

Summoning his courage, Ryan tried to change his father’s mind. “But—”

“Now.”

A stricken look came over Ryan’s thin face. His shoulders were slumped as he turned on his heel and made his way back into the house.

“Kind of hard on the boy, aren’t you, boss?” Jake Weatherbee asked. He’d waited until Ryan had left the corral and was out of earshot before he raised the question. “He just wanted to help.”

“He just wanted to skip school, like any kid his age,” Clint replied gruffly.

“So let him once in a while,” Roy Washburn, Clint’s younger brother, told him, adding his voice to the argument. “Nothing wrong with that. If you let your son work with you, he’ll get to see just what it means to be a rancher. It’s what Dad did.”

Clint’s expression hardened. This was not advice he welcomed. “Dad didn’t do anything. He was too drunk half the time to work the ranch. That’s why we did. The boy has to learn discipline before he learns anything else, not to mention what they can teach him at school.” Clint’s eyes swept over the two men standing before him. “I want that kid to be able to pick his future, not be stuck with it the way you and I were,” he told Roy.

Clint brushed his hands off on the back of his jeans. “Now, if you two bachelors are through debating whether or not I’m raising my son properly, maybe you can get back to doing what you’re supposed to be doing.”

“Didn’t mean no disrespect, boss,” Jake told him. “I was just remembering what it felt like being the boy’s age.”

Clint’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe you should try remembering what it’s like being your age and working for a living.” He turned to look at his brother. “Same goes for you.”

“Yes, sir,” Roy answered with just a slight hint of mocking in his voice. He turned his attention back to the recently purchased stallion he was preparing to break.

Clint’s frown appeared to have been chiseled into his features. He was more dissatisfied with his own behavior than with the behavior of either his brother or his ranch hand. He knew that ultimately, the men meant well even if he hadn’t asked for or welcomed their opinions.

Clint blew out a breath. Maybe he’d gone a little too far. “Look, I didn’t mean to go off like that,” he told Jake and Roy. “I’ve got a lot on my mind right now and this thing with the boy isn’t helping any.”

Given a reprieve, Roy decided to take the opportunity to reach his brother. “Don’t you think you’re making more of this than you should, Clint? At least Ryan was offering to help. He wasn’t just running off—”

“Yet,” Clint interjected seriously. “But if I don’t force him to do what he’s supposed to, it’s only going to get worse. I’ve got to nip this sort of behavior in the bud,” he insisted. A distant look came into his eyes. It still haunted him. Seven years and the wound still hadn’t healed. “I missed what was right in front of me once. I’m not going to let that happen again,” he stated firmly.

Roy paused to look at his brother. Though Clint had shut down again, Roy could see the glimmer of pain in his eyes. He knew that he wasn’t referring to his son when he talked about missing what was right in front of him. Clint was talking about Susan, Ryan’s mother. He was talking about the bomb she had detonated in the center of his life.

He had come home late one evening to find a crying baby and a note pinned to the sheet in his crib. Susan was nowhere to be seen and he had no idea how long she had been gone. When it finally dawned on him that she wasn’t home, he was absolutely devastated. The woman he adored and had been married to for almost two years had left without warning.

The short, terse note she’d left in her wake stated that she realized that she wasn’t cut out to be a rancher’s wife and even less to be a mother. She went on to tell him that he needed to cut his losses and forget about her.

According to her note, they had never been a proper “fit.”

That had probably hurt most of all, the antiseptic words Susan had used to describe what to him had been the most wonderful part of his life.

What he had thought of as his salvation had turned into his personal hell.

From that moment on Clint had sealed himself off from everyone and everything.

He hired someone to care for his house and his son—in that order. He didn’t feel that he was up to doing either for a long, long time. To keep from falling into an apathetic abyss, Clint forced himself to run the ranch and to look after the horses that he bought and sold as well as the cattle on the ranch. It gave him a purpose. Otherwise, he felt he had no reason to go on.

Time went on and he made peace with his lot, but he still didn’t come around, still didn’t reach out to the son who seemed to need so desperately to be acknowledged by him.

While no one could have accused Lucia of being an outspoken woman, his housekeeper did do her best to try to make Clint open up to the boy, but none of her efforts were successful.

Clint made sure that the boy was clothed and that he always had enough to eat, but that was where it ended. There was no actual bonding between them. If Clint did manage to make it home for a meal—which he missed with a fair amount of regularity—there was no animated conversation to be had at the table. If it weren’t for Roy, who lived in the ranch house with them, there would have been very little conversation at all.

On a few occasions Ryan would try to have a conversation with his father, asking him questions or talking about something that had happened in school. Clint’s responses usually came in the form of a grunt, or a monosyllabic answer that really said nothing at all.

It was clear that Clint didn’t know how to talk to his son, or to people in general, for that matter. The wounds that Susan had left in his heart had cut unimaginably deep and refused to heal. Communication with Roy was generally about the ranch, while his communication with Lucia in regards to Ryan was usually kept to a basic minimum.

In essence, to the adults who dealt with him it was evident that Clint Washburn was in a prison of his own making. The fact that the prison had no visible walls made no difference.

No matter where he went, the prison he was in went with him.

This particular morning, when Ryan walked back into the kitchen after his father had rejected his offer to help with the horses, Lucia all but pounced on him.

“Where did you run off to?” she asked. The housekeeper, Lucia Ortiz, had made a clean sweep through the house already, looking for the boy who had been placed in her care from the time he was one year old. “If we don’t leave for school right now, we’re going to be late. Let’s go.”

Small, thin shoulders rose and fell as the boy followed Lucia out of the house to where her twelve-year-old car was waiting.

“I thought I’d help Dad with the horses,” Ryan said in a small voice.

Lucia gave the boy a long look. “Did he ask for your help?” she asked, getting in behind the steering wheel.

Ryan scrambled into the passenger seat, then settled in. He buckled up before answering because he knew that was the proper thing to do.

“No,” he murmured.

“Then why did you offer?” Lucia asked, talking to him the way she would to an adult rather than a child. The boy was going through so much; she didn’t want to add to that by making him feel that he was being looked down upon. “You know your father has his own way of doing things. Besides, he has Jake and Roy helping him.”

Ryan seemed to sink farther into his seat. His voice grew smaller. “That’s what he said.”

Lucia started up the car. It was getting late and if they didn’t leave now, they really were going to be late. Glancing at the boy’s expression, she could feel her heart going out to him. There were times that observing the awkwardness between father and son when they interacted was almost too painful.

“See,” Lucia said, doing her best to sound cheerful. “You need to wait until he asks.”

Ryan pressed his lips together, staring straight ahead. And then he raised his eyes to his ally. “What did I do, Lucia?”

“Do?” she questioned, not really sure what the boy was asking her.

Ryan nodded. “What did I do to make my father hate me?”

She was tempted to pull over and take the boy into her arms, but she knew that he wouldn’t welcome that. He wanted to be treated like an adult, so she did her best to oblige. “Oh, hijo, he doesn’t hate you.”

“Well, he doesn’t like me,” Ryan insisted, hopelessness echoing in his voice.

“It’s not that,” Lucia insisted. “Your father just doesn’t know how to talk to a little boy.” Or to anyone else, she added silently.

“You do,” Ryan said with feeling. “Can’t you teach him?”

Lucia let her true feelings out for a moment. “Oh, hijo, if I only could. But your father is not the kind of man who would allow himself to be taught by anyone. He doesn’t like to admit that he’s wrong. He is a very, very sad man.”

The expression on Ryan’s face was equally sad. “Because my mother left. I know.”

Lucia looked at the eight-year-old sharply, caught off guard by his response. “Who told you that?” she asked.

“Nobody,” he answered truthfully. “I heard Jake and Uncle Roy talking about my mother, about how everything would have been different if she had stayed with my dad.” The look on Ryan’s face was all earnestness as he asked, “Did she go because of me? Is that why Dad doesn’t like me?”

Not for the first time, Lucia had a strong desire to box her employer’s ears. “Oh no, Ryan, no. She didn’t leave because of you. Your mother left because she didn’t want to live on the ranch. She wanted something more exciting in her life.”

“More exciting than horses?” Ryan questioned, mystified that anyone could feel that way. He loved the horses as well as the cattle. Uncle Roy had taught him how to ride when he was barely old enough to walk. The horse had actually been a pony at the time, but it still counted as far as Ryan was concerned. He had loved being on a horse ever since that day.

Lucia looked at him sympathetically. “I’m afraid so.”

Ryan just couldn’t understand. “But what could be more exciting?” he asked, puzzled.

“That was what your mother wanted to find out.” Lucia flashed a smile in the boy’s direction. “She didn’t realize that she was leaving behind the most exciting part of her life.”

Ryan’s eyebrows disappeared beneath the hair hanging over his forehead. “Dad?” he questioned.

Lucia bit back a laugh. The boy was absolutely and sweetly unassuming. “No, you.”

Ryan frowned at the answer. He stared at the tips of his boots, waving his feet back and forth slightly. “I’m not exciting.”

“Oh, but you are,” Lucia assured him. “And you’re only going to get more exciting the more you learn. For that,” she pointed out, “I’m afraid that you’re going to have to go to school. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

Ryan sighed and then nodded. “I guess so.”

The housekeeper caught the hitch in his voice. “Ryan, you’re not having any trouble at school, are you?” she asked, peering at his face.

Ryan shook his head. “No.”

“None of the kids are picking on you, are they?” Lucia asked. “You can tell me if they are.”

“No,” he answered, then added quietly, “None of the kids even know I’m there.”

Lucia tried something else. “How about your teacher? Do you like her?”

“Yes, I guess so.” He shrugged again, then modified his answer. “She’s okay.”

Because she was trying to get the boy to open up to her, Lucia tried to encourage him to keep talking. “Why don’t you tell me about her?”

Looking slightly bewildered, Ryan asked, “What do you want to know?”

Lucia thought for a moment. “Well, to begin with, what’s your teacher’s name?”

For the first time that morning, possibly that week, Lucia heard the small boy giggle. It was a charming sound, like a boy who adores his teacher.

He grinned as he answered, “Her name is Ms. Chee. She is Native American and used to live right here in Forever when she was a little girl.”

“On the reservation?” Lucia asked the boy.

Ryan thought for a moment, as if checking the facts he had stored in his head. And then he shook his head. “No, she said she used to live in a house on the skirts of town.”

“Outskirts?” Lucia tactfully suggested.

Ryan’s small, angular face lit up. “Yeah, that’s it. Outskirts. That’s kind of a funny word.”

“Yes, it is,” Lucia readily agreed. She’d heard that the new second/third grade teacher had moved into a house in town. “Did Ms. Chee say why she didn’t live there anymore?”

Ryan thought for a moment, then remembered. “Oh, yeah. She said when she came back to Forever, she found out that the house burned down a few years ago. She was sad when she talked about it.”

Lucia tried to remember if she recalled hearing anything about a fire taking place near the town. And then a vague memory nudged her brain.

“Was Ms. Chee talking about the old Stewart house?” She remembered that the house had been empty for a number of years before a squatter had accidentally set fire to it while trying to keep warm. The wooden structure had gone up in no time flat. By the time the fire brigade had arrived, there was nothing really left to save.

Ryan nodded. “Uh-huh.” He could see his school coming into view up ahead. Growing antsy, he shifted in his seat and began to move his feet back and forth again. “I think so.”

Now that she had him talking, Lucia was loath to stop him. “What else did your teacher tell you?”

“She didn’t tell me. She told the class,” Ryan corrected her.

Lucia had noticed that the boy was very careful about making sure that all his facts were precisely stated. She nodded, accepting the revised narrative.

“Did Ms. Chee say anything else to the class?”

“She said lots of stuff,” Ryan replied honestly. “She’s the teacher.”

Lucia tried not to laugh. “I meant anything more personal. Something about herself.”

Ryan thought for a moment. “Just that she liked teaching.”

“Well, that’s a good thing.” Lucia stopped the car right before the school’s doors. “Now, go in and learn something.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ryan replied dutifully as he slid out of the passenger seat and then closed the car door behind him.

Lucia watched him square his small shoulders before heading to the school’s front door. She shook her head and then restarted the vehicle.

The boy had a lot of weight on his shoulders for one so young, she thought. He needed his father. She only wished she could make his father understand that.

Lucia blew out a breath as she began to drive back to the ranch. Maybe someday, she thought. Hopefully, before it was too late.

Chapter Two

Wynona smiled as she watched the children in her combined second/third grade class come trooping into the room. Seeing their bright, smiling faces as they walked in warmed her heart. It was like watching unharnessed energy entering.

Looking back, it was hard for her to believe that these same little people could have actually struck fear into her heart just a little more than a month ago. On the plus side, that feeling had passed quickly, vanishing like a vapor within the first few hours of the first day.

It was true what they said, Wynona thought. Kids could smell fear. Conversely, they could also detect when someone had an affinity for them, when that same someone really enjoyed their company and wasn’t just pretending that they did.

Kids were a lot smarter than they were given credit for.

Her own class quickly realized that she was the genuine article. That she wasn’t just saying that she cared about them; she really did. And when she told them that she wanted to make learning fun for them, they believed her, even though a few of them, mainly the older ones, had rolled their eyes and groaned a little.

Instead of calling those students out, Wynona sincerely asked them how she could make the experience more enjoyable for them.

Thanks to her approach, within a few days Wynona had a classroom full of students who looked forward to coming to school every day.

But as with everything, Wynona saw that there was an exception. One of her students behaved differently than the others. Ryan Washburn didn’t seem as if he was having any fun.

Covertly observing him, she saw that he acted far more introverted than the other students. Whenever her class was on the playground, unless she deliberately goaded Ryan into participating with the rest of the class, the boy would quietly keep to himself, watching the other students instead of joining in whatever game they were all playing.

After watching him for a month, she had to admit that Ryan Washburn worried her. When she talked to him, he was polite, respectful, but there was no question that he was still removed. The calls she’d placed to his home—apparently, there was only a father in the picture—had gone unanswered.

They were almost five weeks into the school year and she had placed four calls to the man. The man whose deep, rumbling voice she heard on his answering machine hadn’t called back once, not even to leave a message. She was going to give the man a couple more days, she promised herself, and then...

And then she was going to have to try something a little more to the point, Wynona decided.

“Good morning, class,” she said cheerfully as the last student, a dark-eyed girl named Tracey, came in. Wynona closed the door behind her.

“Good morning, Ms. Chee,” her students chorused back, their voices swelling and filling the room rather than sounding singsongy the way they had the first day of class after she had introduced herself.

Instead of sitting down at her desk, Wynona moved around to stand in front of it. She leaned her hip against the edge of the desk, assuming a comfortable position. Her eyes scanned the various students around the room. She was looking at a sea of upturned, smiling faces—all except for Ryan.

“Did you have a good weekend?” she asked them.

Some heads bobbed up and down while some of the more loquacious students in the class spoke up, answering her question with a resounding “Yes!”

Wynona slanted a look at Ryan. He’d neither nodded nor responded verbally. Instead, he just remained silent.

She hoped to be able to draw the boy out by trying to get her students to make their answers a little more specific.

“So, what did everybody do this weekend?” As some of the children began to respond, Wynona held her hand up, stopping the flow of raised voices blending in dissonance. “Why don’t we go around the room and you can each tell the class what made this weekend special for you? Ian, would you like to start us off?” she asked, calling on the self-proclaimed class clown.

Ian, who at nine was already taller than everyone else in the class, was more than happy to oblige.

Wynona made sure to get her students to keep their answers short, or in Ian’s case, at least under five minutes. She was careful to move sporadically around the room allowing enough children to answer first so that Ryan would feel comfortable when it came to be his turn, or at least not uncomfortable, she amended. She didn’t want the boy to feel that her attention was focused on him, even though in this case, it actually was.

After six children had each told the class what special thing they had done over the weekend, Wynona turned toward the boy who was the real reason behind this impromptu exercise.

“Ryan, what did you do that was fun this weekend?” she asked him.

When the boy looked up at her, she was struck by the thought that he resembled a deer that had been caught in headlights.

After a prolonged awkward silence, Ryan finally answered. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” she repeated, searching for a way to coax more words out of Ryan. “You must have done something,” she said. When he said nothing in response, she tried again. “What did you do when you got up on Saturday morning?”

“I had breakfast,” Ryan replied quietly.

There was some snickering from a couple of the students. Wynona immediately waved them into silence. “That’s a perfectly good answer, Ryan. Everyone needs to take in a source of good fuel so that they’ll have energy to do things properly. What did you do after you finished breakfast?” she asked patiently.

Ryan licked his lips nervously. “Chores,” he finally answered.

“I’m sure your dad appreciated that you did those chores,” Wynona told him with feeling. She looked at him encouragingly. “Anything else?” she coaxed.

The boy thought for a moment, as if trying to remember what it was that he did next. And then he finally mumbled, “I went for a ride on Nugget.” Exhaling a breath, he stared down at the floor.

“Is Nugget your horse?” Wynona asked, hoping that might get him to talk a little more.

This time, instead of saying anything verbal, Ryan nodded.

There was color rising in his cheeks and Wynona realized that unlike the other children who all vied for her attention and were eager to talk, the attention she was giving Ryan just embarrassed him.

Wynona quickly put an end to his discomfort. “Well, that sounds like a really fun thing to do,” she told him. “I loved going for a ride on my horse when I was your age. But I had to share Skyball with my cousin. Skyball was an old, abandoned horse that someone had left to die, but we saved it.” She remembered that as one of the highlights of her less-than-happy childhood. Looking back at Ryan, she smiled at him. “Thank you for sharing that, Ryan. Rachel—” turning, she called out to another student “—how about you? What did you do this weekend?”

Rachel was more than happy to share the events of her weekend with the class.

As Rachel began her lively narrative, Wynona glanced back in Ryan’s direction. She watched the boy almost physically withdraw into himself.

This wasn’t right. She had to do something about it. Wynona was more determined than ever to get hold of Ryan’s father and talk to the man. She wanted to make sure that Washburn was aware of the boy’s shyness so they could work together in an effort to do something about it. She also wanted to make sure that Ryan’s behavior wasn’t the result of some sort of a problem that was going on at home.

When the recess bell rang and her class all but raced outdoors to immerse themselves in playing games they had created, Wynona quietly drew Ryan aside and asked if she could talk to him.

Instead of asking his teacher if he had done something wrong, or why he was being singled out, Ryan merely stood to the side and silently waited for her to begin talking.

She wanted to get him to relax, but she knew that wasn’t going to be easy.

“Ryan, why don’t you come and sit over here?” she suggested, pointing to a desk that was right at the front of the room.

Ryan looked at the desk warily, making no move to do as she said. He had a reason. “But that’s Chris’s desk.”

“I know that, but I’m sure Chris wouldn’t mind if you sit there just for a few minutes. He’s outside, playing,” she reminded the boy.

After hesitating for another second, he finally walked over to the desk she had pointed out. Still hesitating, Ryan lowered himself into the seat as if he expected it to blow up at any moment.

Watching him, Wynona was more convinced than ever that there had to be something wrong, most likely in his home life. Was his father abusing the boy?

Taking care to make and keep eye contact as she spoke, she kept her voice as warm and friendly as she could as she began to talk to the boy.

“I know that I’m still new here at the school, Ryan, but I just wanted you to know that if you have something you need to talk about, or if there’s something that’s bothering you, no matter how small it might be, I’m here for you.”

It was everything she could do not to put her arms around the boy and hold him to her. He looked so terribly vulnerable.

“You can tell me absolutely anything you want.” She peered down into his face, trying her best to maintain that eye contact. The boy had attempted to look away, but she wouldn’t let him. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Ryan?”

Ryan pressed his lips together and nodded, but he didn’t say anything.

It was like pulling teeth, Wynona thought. Very elusive teeth.

But she was determined and she tried again. “Is there anything you want to tell me, Ryan?”

Ryan shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

His answer was so low, she almost couldn’t hear the boy.

She knew that she could only push so much without scaring him off.

“Okay, but if you change your mind,” Wynona told the boy, “my offer still stands. And you know where to find me.”

Ryan responded to her question in complete seriousness. “In school.”

The corners of her mouth curved ever so slightly, but she managed not to laugh.

“Exactly.” Wynona glanced at her watch. “You’d better get outside, Ryan. I’ve used up part of your recess playtime.”

He obediently rose to his feet. “That’s okay,” he told her. “I wasn’t going to play anyway.”

Wynona took advantage of the opening, hoping to get a better understanding of what was going on in the boy’s head.

“Why not? Don’t you like to play, Ryan?”

She watched the small shoulders rise and fall in a helpless shrug. “Everybody already picked who they wanted on their side and what games they’re gonna be playing,” he told her.

She came to stand beside him, trying to convey in spirit that she was on his side. “Nothing’s cast in stone, Ryan. There’s always room for one more.”

The look he gave her said that they both knew that wasn’t true, at least not in his case. As he began to slip out of the classroom, Wynona called after him. “Would you like to help me put out the books for our reading lesson?”

Sensing that would only put him even further apart from the others, Ryan answered, “That’s okay. I’ll just go outside.”

Watching him go, Wynona blew out a long breath. Granted, she hadn’t been a teacher for all that long, but she could definitely recognize a cry for help when she saw it, even though none of those particular words had actually been spoken.

“Oh, Lord, what happened to you, Ryan?” she murmured under her breath as she observed the boy from the window as he made his way outside.

As she watched, Ryan went to a space on the playground that was totally devoid of any students. It was as if he had voluntarily placed himself in exile.

She needed to do something about this, Wynona thought. She honestly didn’t know what, but there had to be something she could do. She couldn’t just stand back and do nothing while she watched the little boy almost wither away and die on the vine.

Over the course of the next two days, Wynona attempted to call Clint Washburn three more times. Each time she called, the phone rang five times and then the call went to his answering machine. She already knew that she was calling a landline. Apparently, Clint Washburn didn’t have a cell phone.

He also didn’t answer his landline or check his messages, she thought, growing progressively more and more annoyed. Being annoyed was something rare and out of character for her but she was definitely getting there, she thought, frustrated.

When she “struck out” again, waiting in vain for the man to return any of her calls, Wynona made up her mind as to what she was going to do next.

She obtained Ryan’s address from the administrative office—a closet of a space, she thought as she walked out—and drove over to Ryan’s family ranch.

She knew that this was highly unorthodox, given that they were only entering into the second full month of the school year, but she was out of options. At this point she was dead set on giving Washburn a piece of her mind. She wasn’t used to being ignored like this. Especially not when it came to a matter that concerned one of her students.

When she drove her vehicle up to the ranch house that afternoon, Ryan was the first to spot her. The sound of an approaching vehicle had already drawn him to the front window. He was looking out that window when the car pulled up.

The car was unfamiliar to him. The person emerging from it was not.

“It’s Ms. Chee!” he all but shouted in surprise. Turning for a split second to look over his shoulder in Lucia’s direction, Ryan repeated what he’d just seen. “Lucia, it’s Ms. Chee! She’s here. My teacher’s here!”

Caught by surprise, Lucia quickly wiped her hands on her ever-present apron as she hurried toward the front door. Puzzled, she spared Ryan a glance. “Did she tell you she was coming?”

“No,” he answered, his head moving from side to side like a metronome set on high. “She didn’t say anything to me about coming here.”

“Are you sure?” Lucia prodded. “Did you do something bad in school?”

Even as she asked the question, Lucia was certain that the answer was no. Ryan was the model of obedience at home, but nothing else occurred to her at the moment.

“No,” Ryan answered in a small, uneasy voice that said he was wavering in his belief about his own innocence in the matter.

Lucia had reached the front door by now and began to open it.

“Well, she has to have a reason for this visit,” Lucia insisted. The next moment the small, dynamic housekeeper was standing on the porch, a one-woman welcoming committee. “Hello, I’m Mr. Washburn’s housekeeper, Lucia Ortiz.”

Wynona quickly made her way up the steps to the housekeeper. She took the woman’s outstretched hand, shaking it.

“Hello, I’m Ryan’s teacher, Wynona Chee.” She peered over the shorter woman’s shoulder, looking into the house. “Is Mr. Washburn around?”

Lucia remained standing in the doorway, making no move to let the other woman in. Her first allegiance was to the family she worked for. “Yes.”

Wynona had come this far; she was not about to back off or turn around and go back to town. “I’d like to see him, please.”

“He’s at the corral,” Lucia informed Ryan’s teacher politely. “But this is his busy season. He’s breaking in the new horses.”

From what she remembered, ranchers were always busy, Wynona thought. She hadn’t come to discuss what the man was doing; she had come about his son, whose well-being was far more important than any horses or cattle.

“I’m sure that’s all very important,” she told the woman, “but what I have to say to him is far more important.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Just point me in the right direction and I’ll be out of your hair,” she promised the housekeeper.

“Maybe you should wait in the house,” Lucia tactfully suggested. “I can bring you some tea to drink. Or perhaps you’d rather leave a message for Mr. Washburn and he’ll get in touch with you.”

Right, because that had worked out so well, Wynona thought. “Sorry, but I did and he didn’t so now we’re past leaving messages and waiting politely. I need to speak to him now.” She looked down at Ryan. “Ryan, can you take me to where your dad’s working?”

Torn, it was the moment of truth for Ryan. Hesitating, he wavered for just a second and then he chose his side.

“Okay,” he said, taking her hand. “Follow me.”

Chapter Three

Taking a momentary break, Jake leaned against the corral fence. That was when he saw her, a tall, willowy woman with jet-black hair. She was dressed in jeans, boots and a work shirt. And she was heading straight for them.

“Hey, don’t look now, boss, but from the looks of it, there’s an angry lady coming your way,” Jake alerted Clint. “And if you ask me, it looks like the lady’s loaded for bear.”

Roy was already looking in the woman’s direction and she had his complete attention. “I don’t care what she’s loaded for as long as she brings it my way,” Clint’s brother declared wistfully. “Who is she?” he asked, intrigued. “I don’t remember ever seeing her around before. I would have remembered that face,” Roy assured his brother and the other man.

Jake hadn’t taken his eyes off the woman since he’d first spotted her.

“Yeah, me, too.” He glanced toward Clint, who was still working and hadn’t bothered to look at the interloper. “You know her, boss?”

“Whoever she is, Clint, she’s got your boy with her,” Roy added, still not looking away.

“What the hell are you two going on about?” Clint demanded shortly.

He’d been up early, going between the stable and the corral, and working since before his son had gone off to school. He had only spared a minimum of time for the cattle today. He was in no mood for guessing games, or unannounced guests. He just wanted to finish what he was doing and get in out of the sun.

“I don’t know about Jake, but I’m talking about the prettiest sight I’ve laid my eyes on in a long, long time,” Roy answered.

Exasperated, Clint dropped what he was doing and finally looked up just as the angry-looking young woman stepped up to the fence. Rather than ducking between the slats the way he would have expected her to do, he saw her climb up and then over the fence, jumping down on the other side as if she’d been doing it all of her life.

He was aware that his son was taking all this in with awe. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said that the boy had the makings of a crush on this woman.

“Which one of you is Clint Washburn?” Wynona asked, walking until she was right in the middle of them.

Clint noted that both his brother and Jake would have been more than willing to say they were, but since he was standing right there, they couldn’t. Both looked in his direction.

“I am,” he told her, taking off his work gloves and shoving them into his back pocket. “Can I help you?” he asked. His tone of voice clearly indicated that there were a great many other things he would have wanted to do first before turning his attention to whatever it was that this woman had come to see him about.

Wynona did a quick scrutiny of the man. He had broad shoulders and a small waist. His dirty-blond hair could have used a haircut, but it was his attitude that really needed work. The man was just as unfriendly as she had imagined he’d be.

“I’m Wynona Chee,” she informed him, introducing herself. And then she added, “I’m Ryan’s teacher,” in case he hadn’t listened to any of the multiple messages she’d left—which she was beginning to suspect he didn’t.

“Well, Wynona Chee, if you’re his teacher, why aren’t you at school, going about your business?” Clint asked.

She resented the way he said that, but snapping at the man wasn’t going to help Ryan and it was Ryan who was the important one here. So Wynona bit back a few choice words that instantly rose to her lips and kept her temper in check.

“I am going about my business,” she informed him tersely, ignoring the other two men taking all this in. “Since you weren’t returning any of the countless messages I left on your phone, I decided that a face-to-face meeting with you might be the better way to go.”

“Oh, is that what you decided now?” Clint asked and she got the distinct impression that he was mocking her.

“Don’t mind my brother,” Roy said quickly, speaking up. “He gets kind of ornery when he’s been working all day. Around here, whenever rattlesnakes take one look at him, they just head the other way.”

Clint shot his younger brother a dirty look, which didn’t seem to affect the other man at all.

Instead, Roy just shrugged in response. “I just thought she needed to be warned,” the younger man told Clint.

At any other time, Wynona might have even been somewhat amused by this exchange between brothers, but she wasn’t here to be amused. She was here because she felt that Ryan Washburn needed help in coming out of his shell before that shell wound up setting around the boy permanently, walling him off from everyone around him.

Wynona opened her mouth to state her purpose, then stopped. While Clint Washburn seemed uninterested in what she had to say, the other two men with him appeared to be all ears. She had a feeling that what she had to say wasn’t something that Washburn would want the others to hear.

“Is there someplace we could speak privately?” Wynona asked Ryan’s father.

Since he could see the woman wasn’t going to just leave even if he didn’t encourage her, Clint resigned himself to hearing her out about whatever minor, imagined complaint she had come to voice. It was the only way he figured he could get rid of her.

Gesturing around at the vast area surrounding them, he said, “Pick a place.”

She felt that he was humoring her, but it didn’t matter as long as he listened to what she had to say and, more important, took it to heart.

“How about over there?” she asked, pointing to the far end of the corral, away from the horses and the other two men.

Broad shoulders rose in a careless, disinterested shrug. “Works as well as any other place,” he told her in an equally disinterested voice.

As she led the way to the spot she’d pointed out, Wynona noticed that Ryan fell into step right beside her. She didn’t want to risk the boy overhearing his father saying something negative about him.

“No, you stay over there for now, Ryan,” she instructed the boy gently.

“But you’re gonna be talking about me, aren’t you?” Ryan asked. It was obvious that he felt that since this meeting was about him, he did have a right to be there.

She had a feeling that he was always being excluded, but this time it was in his best interest.

Wynona did her best to temper her answer. “I’d like to talk to your dad alone first, Ryan. When that’s done, you can join us.”

Because she took the time to explain this to him first, Ryan felt a little better about having to be left out. Nodding his head, he stopped walking and obligingly fell back.

His uncle came up behind him and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder as Ryan’s teacher and his dad kept walking. He waited until they were a little farther away.

“You getting into some kind of trouble?” Roy asked his nephew good-naturedly. He ruffled Ryan’s hair with affection.

Ryan turned around to look up at him. “No, sir,” he answered solemnly.

“No, I guess not,” Roy laughed. “You wouldn’t know trouble if you tripped over it.” Ryan had always been a good kid, almost too good, Roy thought. A kid needed to get into things once in a while, but Ryan never did. “Why don’t you come on back and help me and Jake get the bridle bits ready for those new horses?” he told his nephew.

He’d seen time and again how eager the boy was to help and for the life of him he couldn’t understand why his brother kept turning a deaf ear to Ryan’s offers. It just didn’t seem right, he thought.

Both he and Clint had grown up working around the horses and doing every imaginable chore there was when it came to running the ranch. They’d practically been born in a saddle and it certainly hadn’t done them any harm. It had come in handy when their father had totally stopped doing any work on the ranch at all.

Roy had told his brother more than once that working with the horses was good for the boy, but Clint never seemed to hear him.

He shook his head. If Clint kept this up, he was certain that his brother was going to drive a permanent wedge between himself and his son.

Roy certainly hoped that that young, pretty teacher had better luck talking some sense into his fool brother’s head than he did, he thought, looking over toward where the two were standing.

With a shrug he caught up to his nephew and went to rejoin Jake.

“So what’s so important that you felt you had to come all the way out here in person to tell me?” Clint asked once they finally stopped walking and Ryan’s teacher had turned around to face him.

Wynona got right to it. Hands on her hips, she demanded, “Do you have any interest in your son?”

Clint felt his back going up instantly.

“What kind of a fool question is that?” he asked.

He’d raised his voice, but she wasn’t about to be intimidated. “A pretty straightforward one as far as I can see.”

His dark blue eyes narrowed. “Then maybe you have blinders on.”

Wynona didn’t take the bait, didn’t get sidetracked by the hostility in his voice and she didn’t get caught up in an argument. Instead, in a very calm voice, she told him, “I would still like an answer to my question.”

His face darkened like storm clouds over the prairie. “Yes, I’m interested in my son.”

She gave him the benefit of the doubt. “Then why didn’t you return any of my phone calls?” she asked, her hands still fisted at her sides. “I told you I was concerned about Ryan’s behavior.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? “Was he fighting?” Clint asked.

Responding to his tone, she raised her chin defensively. “No, but—”

“Was he failing finger-painting?” Clint asked her sarcastically.

Was he belittling education, or just her? In either case, she could feel her temper rising. “I don’t teach finger-painting,” she informed him.

The expression on his face was smug, as if he had just won his argument. “I figured that. Maybe you should.”

What was that supposed to mean? Wynona wondered. In any case, she wanted answers out of him. She wanted him to verbalize what was going on in his head. “What did you figure?”

The smug look on his face didn’t abate. “That you were just making lady noises.”

“What?” She stared at him incredulously. “Lady noises?” Wynona repeated. What the hell was that—aside from denigrating?

Despite her best efforts, she could feel herself really losing her temper. Something about Clint Washburn made her want to double up her fists and punch him hard, knocking some sense into that thick head of his.

His attitude reminded her of a few men she had encountered as a student and growing up in two different communities: the reservation near Forever and Houston. More than one of her friends’ fathers were painfully distant from their children, concerned only with their own needs. They never once realized the effect that their behavior had on their offspring. She herself never knew her own father.

She hadn’t known that there was any other way to behave until Shania’s family had taken her in and she saw what a real father was really like. Dan Stewart had been kind and caring, taking care of her the same way he took care of Shania. Though she had known him only for a short time, the man had made all the difference in the world to her.

That was what she wanted for Ryan—before it was too late.

“Yeah. Lady noises,” Clint repeated. “You come in, take one look around, unleash your emotions and think you’ve got the solution to everything. Well, you don’t,” he told her. “So, are we done here because I’ve got a ranch to run.”

He was about to turn away but she caught his arm and made him turn back to face her.

“No, we are not done here,” she informed him tersely. “Your son is starved for your attention,” she said angrily.

He’d been surprised at the strength of her grip when she’d grabbed his arm. She was obviously not as delicate as she appeared. But that still didn’t change the fact that she had no business telling him how to raise his son and he told her as much.

“I’m not going to coddle the kid.”

“No one’s telling you to coddle him,” she retorted, her eyes all but flashing. “I’m just asking you to give him some of your time.”

“In case you weren’t listening,” he informed her, getting to the end of his patience, “I’ve got a ranch to run.”

“Then have him help you,” she countered. She knew of a lot of kids who helped their fathers out on the ranch. Why was he being so stubborn about it? “And talk to him while he’s helping.”

Clint was getting really tired of having this woman tell him what she thought he should be doing with his son. “Look—”

She anticipated his protest. “Mr. Washburn, I’m not asking you to read bedtime stories to Ryan, although you might give that some thought—” Wynona couldn’t help adding.

“You’re kidding,” he cried, stunned by her suggestion. Nobody read to him when he was a kid. That kind of thing wasn’t important in his book.

“No, I’m not ‘kidding,’” she told him. “But the point I’m trying to get across to you is that you need to take an interest, a real interest, in Ryan. Treat him like a person. Like he matters. Talk to him, ask him how he’s doing in school, tell him about the things you did when you were his age—”

Clint cut her off. He didn’t have time for this. “I don’t remember,” he snapped.

Wynona’s eyes narrowed again as her frustration with this jackass of a man increased. It was obvious that he was stubbornly fighting her on this but she wasn’t about to let him win.

“Then make it up!” she cried angrily. Catching herself, she got control of her temper. “The point is communication. Because right now, every day, this boy is slipping further and further away and if you don’t try to stop that, to make him feel as if you care about him, he’s not only going to wind up being lost to you, he’s going to be lost to himself, too.”

That sounded like a bunch of garbage to him. “That’s your opinion.”

“It would be yours, too,” she informed him, “if you just stopped and assessed the situation more closely like a father.” She had almost said “like someone with a brain” but had stopped herself in time.

Clint waved her away and turned on his heel toward where Jake and Roy were waiting. “I don’t have time for any of this psychobabble,” he said as he walked away from her.

“It’s not psychobabble,” she insisted, calling after him. “It’s common sense.”

“Ha!” Clint countered, but he kept on walking.

He knew if he turned around to say anything more, she’d just drag him back into another argument and he had already wasted enough time on this woman and her crazy theory.

Clint kept walking until he got back to where Jake and his brother were working. Ryan was with them as well and the boy looked up at him the moment he drew closer. Before his son could say anything to him or ask any questions, Clint said, “Go into the house and do your homework.”

“I already finished my homework, sir,” Ryan told him quietly.

“Then go do something else,” Clint ordered, turning back to what he’d been doing before that woman disrupted his day.

To his surprise, Ryan stood his ground.

“Can I help you?” he asked in the same small, hopeful voice he’d used the morning when he had asked the same question.

The word no hovered on Clint’s tongue and he’d almost said it. But then he heard that teacher’s vehicle as she apparently started it up and then began to drive away.

Good. The woman was really going back into town, Clint thought.

But what the woman had said annoyingly refused to drive away with her. It seemed to linger in the air like a solid entity.

Clint frowned as he turned to look at his son.

“Yeah,” Clint finally said, reluctantly relenting. “You can help—as long as you promise not to get in the way.”

Stunned that his father had actually said he could help, Ryan looked at him, a wide smile spreading out over his small, angular face.

“I promise! Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it, Dad,” Ryan proclaimed eagerly. “Just tell me,” he repeated.

Clint looked down at his son. Despite the boy’s eager reaction, Clint couldn’t shake the feeling that he had just unintentionally opened up Pandora’s box.

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