The Rancher's Homecoming. Arlene James

left him standing in the living room with Rex, who seemed to be trying not to laugh as he rocked back on his heels.

      As she took down a large jar and arranged the flowers in it—they were the same ones she’d seen in the grocery a couple days earlier—silence stretched thin in the other room. Finally, Rex spoke.

      “Dad’s usually pretty tired after he’s eaten. Just coming to the table takes a lot out of him, but at least he’s doing that now, and I’m sure he’d want to thank you personally for the flowers.”

      “Oh. Uh. I don’t want to bother him,” Ben muttered. “Just...wanted him to know I’m thinking of him.”

      “That’s very good of you,” Rex said carefully.

      Callie bit her lip and stayed right where she was. After a moment fraught with uncertainty, Ben mumbled about calling again sometime and left. Callie didn’t move a muscle until she heard the screen door slam behind him. Only then did she creep to the doorway between the kitchen and dining area to peek out. Rex stood just on the other side, his arms folded.

      “So that’s your boyfriend, huh?” Rex teased.

      She glared at him. “Do not call him that, even as a joke.”

      Rex grinned, splitting the beard-shadowed lower half of his face with the blindingly white crescent of his smile. “Poor guy’s fighting way out of his class.”

      The compliment pleased her, which was exactly why she didn’t even acknowledge it.

      “Why did you let him in?”

      “What did you expect me to do? When he asked me this afternoon if you and I are ‘getting together,’ I told him no. I didn’t imagine he’d take that as permission to come courting.”

      She sighed, her face flaming. “I’m sorry. He had no right to ask you that.”

      “Seems a reasonable question,” Rex said in a low voice. “I’d want to know if I was him.”

      She shook her head. “I’ve told him over and over again that I’m not interested in him, but my father just keeps sending him after me.”

      “Obviously your father is the one you have to convince.”

      “Don’t you think I’ve tried?” she demanded. “He just insists that Ben will take care of me and Bodie if something happens to him, as if I can’t be trusted to take care of the two of us.” Wincing, she admitted, “I guess my record isn’t too good, but it’s still infuriating and appalling. I have to prove to my father that I can provide for me and my daughter.”

      “Okay,” Rex said, turning back toward the living room. “I get it. Your wildly overprotective father wants you settled with a man he knows will provide for you the way he wants you provided for. You don’t want the man he’s chosen and are intent on proving that you can provide for your daughter on your own.”

      “That about sums it up.” Except for the part where her dad would go to extremes to get his way. She just hoped, prayed, that Wes Billings had been smart enough to stay out of Stuart Crowsen’s grasp.

      * * *

      The repaired baler lasted all of one day in the field then broke a drive chain. Rex called in to town to see if Crowsen had a replacement. To his surprise, not only did the Feed and Grain have the part, Crowsen offered to have it delivered at once. Rex agreed to receive the delivery at the house and should not have been surprised when Dolent arrived with the drive chain, though why the manager of the grain silo would be delivering equipment parts could not have been more evident, especially when he asked to go into the house for a drink of water. Rex offered him iced tea from the thermos that Callie had filled for him that morning, but Dolent apparently craved water.

      Dolent did not discourage easily; Rex would give him that. Unfortunately, the man didn’t appear bright enough to realize that he had zero chance with a woman like Callie.

      Even though time was of the essence, Rex walked Dolent inside, insisted he take a moment to say hello to Wes and walked Dolent out again, with nothing more than a cool drink and a glimpse of Callie, who was busy preparing lunch. He made sure Ben saw the flowers in the jar on the dresser in Wes’s room. Then he gave Ben a hearty handshake and his sincere thanks before all but physically tossing the dullard into the Crowsen Feed and Grain pickup truck.

      Obviously frustrated, Dolent started up the engine, backed the truck up and drove away, but Rex stood where he was until the pickup disappeared from view. Callie had sent him a look of thanks when he’d steered Ben out of the kitchen, and Rex privately admitted to some personal irritation mixed with his amusement over the man’s dogged persistence. Surely even Ben would soon get the message: Callie was not for him.

      The fact that she was not for Rex, either, was beside the point.

      That didn’t keep Rex from worrying that Dolent might be at the house making a nuisance of himself while he was out in the field trying to replace the drive chain on the baler. He finally decided that he didn’t have the proper tools to repair the baler in the field. Hot, tired, disgusted and frustrated, Rex hitched the thing to the ranch truck and hauled it back to the barn.

      He thought Callie might come out to see what was up, but she seemed as determined to keep her distance from him as he ought to keep his distance from her. At least Dolent wasn’t within sight.

      Rex left the baler in the barn and called an early end to the workday. It was Saturday, after all. Not that work on the ranch ever let up.

      He walked into the house to find two things that shocked him: it was cool, and Callie had just pushed Wes into the living room in the hated wheelchair that he’d vowed never to use.

      “Pick your jaw up off the floor,” Wes grumbled. “I got sick of that bed, but the living room is a long way from my bedroom. Besides, Callie pointed out that I could get to church tomorrow if I was willing to give this chair a go.”