Loving Lauren

Chapter 4

Lauren pushed her feet and got the old rocker moving. Chase had left about an hour ago after having dinner with them on the back deck. She'd been so full of nerves; she hadn't really been able relax until now. She loved evenings like this. The stars lit up the night sky and the moonlight hit the fields, making them almost shine. She could hear the frogs and crickets chirping their hearts out. It sounded and felt like home. It had been almost a week since Chase had moved into the farthest house in the row of ranch-hand houses. Four of the small places had sat along the edge of the property since before she'd been born. After the tornado that claimed her mother's life, two of them had been remodeled.

Jimmy, her ranch foreman, lived in the largest house, which was one of the remodeled ones. Larry, a seasoned ranch hand that had worked at the ranch since her father was alive, lived in one of the smaller places. Several seasonal men from Arizona were sharing the third place. Several additional men had trailers parked near the houses and would come and go each season. All in all, the men helped keep the ranch running smoothly.

It had taken her almost a year after her dad had passed away to get in the swing of running the huge place herself. Alex and Haley helped out with the horses and some of the chores around the place, but neither of them knew the extent of what she'd put herself through. She didn't want them to. She had hoped that they would go to college, but neither of them had shown any interest, though Haley was taking online classes. Lauren knew that neither of them had wanted to be a financial burden. Alex had actually started giving half her paycheck from the diner to Lauren to help pay the bills. At first, Lauren had declined to keep it, but after a week of arguing, she'd finally relented. Instead of using it around the ranch, as Alex had suggested, she'd opened a savings account and had put the money in it for her sisters to use someday.

Maybe Alex would use it for her wedding, something she'd thought about more often since Alex had been dating Travis on and off for the last few years. Lauren let out a sigh. It wasn't that she objected to Travis Nolan, Alex's on-again, off-again boyfriend...well, okay she did object to him. She had always hoped her sister would do so much better. Travis was known as the bad boy in town. Not the kind that was a cool bad boy, but the kind that got into trouble all the time. His dad was the mayor of Fairplay and, therefore, Travis could do no harm. If he was pulled over for drinking and driving, his dad would be there to bail him out. Before the next morning, Travis's driving record would be spotless.

Lauren didn't know what Alex saw in the man, but she knew that her sister was going to do whatever she wanted. Haley had a boyfriend a while back, but after Wes had graduated from high school, he'd left town and gone on to basic training for the army. She didn't know if Haley had seen anyone since then, and to be honest, her sister wouldn't have told her if she had, since Haley was such an introvert. She hadn't always been like that. Before that fateful day when their mother was taken away, Lauren remembered Haley as being a chatterbox, someone who talked to anyone. Of course, she was so small back then, and she supposed most toddlers acted that way. Her sister was more comfortable around animals. At least that's how Lauren thought of her now.

She looked up at the night sky and thought of everything that had changed over the last seven years. She'd had her freedom and she owed it all to Chase. Why then was she having such a hard time with him being around? There had always been a pull of attraction between them. She would be lying if she said there wasn't. But something was different this time. It was almost as if she had no choice.

Pushing off from the old porch again, she set the old rocker in motion and decided that she was still in charge of her life. No matter who she owed or what decisions she'd made in the past, she was still Lauren West, daughter of Richard and Laura West. Her father and grandfather had built this place to be what it is, and she was even more determined than ever to keep it running and keep it in the family.