Love on the Range: A Looking Glass Lake Prequel

by Rebecca Nightsong

  Oh, man. If only she’d had a chance to snap a picture for Tanya. But she didn’t dare make a move for her phone. He’d probably melt it with his glare if she even touched it.

  Instead, she followed him.

  He heaved her suitcases into the back of his truck with a thunk. A puff of dust rose, and she quickly turned her head away and then climbed onto the front seat. It might be best not to see the condition of his truck bed. This was the west. She should expect dust and dirt.

  She could always get new suitcases when she finally got this job.

  “It was a beautiful trip up here,” she said. She reached behind for the seatbelt, but Jett gunned the motor and backed out of the parking space. She yelped and tried to brace herself as the sudden momentum threw her forward, nearly knocking her head on the dashboard. He slammed on the brakes, treating her to a side of whiplash as he threw the truck into gear and roared out of the gravel parking lot.

  Marlee‘s hands shook as she snapped her seatbelt. She gave it a good tug. “I can see you’re a man who doesn’t waste time,” she said.

  He grunted, but didn’t look at her.

  So much for making a good first impression.

  Good thing the only person she really needed to impress out here was her new boss, and not the hick-town chauffeur they’d sent to pick her up.

  * * *

  While Marlee chattered about everything she’d seen on the train ride to Looking Glass Lake, Jett was lost in his own thoughts.

  It was hard to believe Silas Paycoach was really gone.

  Silas was the best boss Jett had ever known. He was a big quiet man who had been as gentle with his family as he’d been with the livestock.

  Lord, help them. Comfort them.

  It was a short and silent prayer, but Jett knew God heard every word.

  Jett tightened his grip on the steering wheel as a wave of sorrow crashed through his chest.

  The Paycoach family hadn’t been the same since Silas’ death.

  Jett had never seen Silas’ grown children act this way. Matt, Cheyenne, and Jaxson walked like they were in a trance, faces white and stiff. Austin couldn’t speak to anyone without blowing up at them, even though the doctors said he’d make a full recovery. West had started drinking.

  Cody hadn’t been able to make it home in time for the funeral. Flights from Alaska’s Beaufort Sea weren’t easy to come by at the last minute.

  And Logan, the second-oldest Paycoach boy who was Silas’ right-hand man, had simply left all the ranch stuff fall by the wayside. He hadn’t even appointed someone to take care of it in his absence.

  They all refused to leave their mother’s side as they waited with her at the hospital. With every beep of the equipment, and every whispered conversation among staff members, Thelma Paycoach was reminded that the grip death had on her family hadn’t loosened yet.

  Maybe the worst was yet to come.

  So Jett had decided to step up and take charge. The cowpokes had low morale. Men slunk around the ranch, gloom hanging heavy over the corral and bunkhouse. Somebody had to man up and be the leader.

  Not that he was the best leader. He’d be perfectly fine to spend the entire day on the back of a horse, or out mending fences. A whole day with nothing but earth and sky and the soft friendly sounds of horses blowing and neighing. Nothing but him, his horse, and God. No people. No talking. Just the wind.

  But no one else wanted to step up. And the men had grown increasingly restless and grumpy as the days shortened and their late start to the cattle drive lengthened. No one could expect Logan Paycoach to head up a month-long cattle drive when his father had passed away last week and his sister lay unresponsive in the hospital at this very moment.

  So in the end, there was only one thing he could do. Set aside his own heavy grief, and deal with the day to day business of a ranch spinning out of control.

  There’d be time to sort through his sorrow later.

  After the job was done.

  “…don’t you think?”

  Jett snapped his attention back to the present. The city-girl cook he’d picked up had wedged a question somewhere in her chatter. She’d just caught him zoning out.

  “Well?” She dug at him, brown eyes sharp.

  He drug his gaze back to the road, brain scrambling for something to say. Something all-purpose. “Depends on how you look at it,” he finally muttered. He snuck a quick look at her.

  She sat, her gaze sweeping him from head to toe.

  Like she was some fancy supermarket scanner trying to tally his worth.

  Well, let her look. He had nothing to hide.

  Maybe she’d detect his irritation for her constant yammering. It wasn’t respectful to encroach on someone else’s thoughts with chatter.

  Out here, folks knew that.

  “I guess that’s true,” she said.

  He let out a small breath, relieved he’d passed the test.

  “If a person was born here,” she went on, “maybe the sky wouldn’t seem so big to them.”

  Okay. Maybe he could cut her some slack. The woman was new. She wasn’t used to the west, or the idea that silence was valuable.

  Around these parts, a man didn’t take away somebody’s silence for no reason.

  “But to me,” she said, “this sky is huge. I know people call it Big Sky Country, but I had no idea it would feel so—”

  Jett downshifted and turned off the highway onto the rough gravel surface of Beaverslide Road. He glanced at Marlee.

  She gripped the handle above the door, and chewed her lower lip. “Out here, it feels like when you take the lid off a pasta pot and you let all the steam out, you know?” She gazed at him with wide eyes that shone with excitement.

  “Huh,” he said. He’d never thought of it that way.

  “It’s like God taking the lid off us to relieve some steam,” she said.

  He glanced at her twice between navigating the sharp turns in the road. He could respect a person who respected his land. And who respected God.

  But then she launched into another long speech about how pressure was important in cooking, and how food could transform when put under pressure for even a small amount of time.

  Wow. The woman sure could talk. It gave him plenty of time to size her up.

  His first impression was that she was shiny. Shiny hair, shiny nails. Even her flannel shirt had some kind of glittery things all over it. He didn’t know fashion, but even he could tell this was fancy compared to what most of the women in Looking Glass Lake wore.

  Her shirt was soft and drapey, with long flowing sleeves. As if somebody decided flannel alone wasn’t good enough and had sewn deep lace fluffy stuff onto the cuffs and collar. Dark jeans hugged her curves and tucked into bright purple rhinestone cowboy boots. She looked like an advertisement in a western travel guide. Or like a rodeo queen dressed in fluff and frizzle, designed to look beautiful next to an ad for some kind of de-worming medication.

  Yup. Jett narrowed his eyes. She was dressed to sell something.

  And the way she was yapping on without pausing for breath meant she was nervous. Probably worried about making a good impression in a place well out of her comfort zone.

  He’d most likely be just as nervous in her world.

  As her voice washed over him, he imagined her home.

  Yeah, he’d hate her world. The city. Where a person was so surrounded by words—words coming in through the eyes and the ears. Words everywhere, so that a man’s own thoughts couldn’t be heard.

  But maybe if a person grew up with so many words around all the time, it would be hard to be in a place where the word supply was short. It could get lonely in the west. Out in the middle of nowhere with just God and the pines. It could get achingly lonely. But it was a good ache. An ache that made a man feel alive and connected to God.

  She’d never last through that. She’d have her fill of God letting off her steam.

  Jett relaxed his grip on the steering wheel as he tried
to focus on listening. Even if it was exhausting to listen to all that chatter, it had a strangely calming effect on him. At least it was somewhere to herd his thoughts. Somewhere other than the ranch and the tragedy that had hung so heavy on his shoulders for the past week.

  Now, she was talking about Bible verses she’d read on the train ride.

  “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands,” she mused. She turned to look at him. “It’s a lot harder to see the work of His hands in the city,” she said. “I’ll bet it makes people here praise God a lot more often.”

  “Huh,” he said. Again, something he’d never thought of.

  So maybe he was wrong about the exhausting part. He could listen with both ears if she was going to talk scripture and the beauty of the land that had become his home.

  He glanced at her again. Her forehead was pressed against the passenger window, and she craned her neck to see the frothy creek as it tumbled and cascaded along the gravel road. Even though they were running late, he slowed down just a tad to give her a longer look at the creek.

  Funny. With all that shininess, he hadn’t pegged her as the reading type. But she obviously spent a lot of time in her Bible, if verses poured out of her so easily.

  At least she loved the Lord.

  But still, that didn’t mean she’d make it out here in wild country.

  Ten to one, she’d be high-tailing it for the first train back by breakfast. And he’d be stuck with finding another cook.

  Something he couldn’t afford to do right now.

  Jett swallowed as sweat prickled along his neck. Like it or not, he’d better get busy making it a bit more comfortable for her. Even if he had to make up some words out of thin air.

  * * *

  Marlee sat back in her seat. She’d stopped trying to make conversation ten minutes ago, and now she stared at the creek, pines, and tangled wildflowers as they climbed higher and higher into the mountains.

  She’d tried to draw Jett into the conversation with questions. But he’d given her answers that left the conversational burden squarely on her shoulders.

  From that point on, all he’d contributed was single-syllable responses.

  Maybe the man simply couldn’t talk much. Maybe he was slow. She’d heard how some people thought country folk were a little backwards in schooling and intellect. But she’d always assumed that was how it was in pioneer days, when people didn’t have schools to attend. Or when boys had to work the farms to survive, and going to school was a luxury they couldn’t afford.

  Maybe the man had simply spent too much time in the sun. Maybe he couldn’t talk because the sun had bleached all his thoughts out.

  Marlee giggled. It was an impish thought, but it made her laugh.

  They rumbled over a wooden trestle bridge, and Marlee pressed her nose to the glass, watching the creek churn and heave under them.

  Something about this land stilled her tongue and unzipped her eyes to soak it all in. A feast for the eyes.

  And the town. She’d only been there an hour, and it had stirred something inside her. People here acted like a family. A huge and weird and very close family.

  A pang jabbed through her, and Marlee tried to push thoughts of her own family aside. She’d been born as a “surprise” baby, fifteen years after her sisters. Both of her sisters felt like strangers to her. And in some ways, her parents had felt like strangers, too. Like she was an afterthought and not really part of the family.

  What would it have been like to have a close family?

  After Marlee had purchased her vegetables at the café, she’d stayed to talk with Annie. She’d watched as the local sheriff teased Annie. Annie had said she and Sherriff Mack had been best friends forever.

  Watching Annie and the Sherriff at the café, she could tell they were close. Even though Annie had done all the talking and the Sherriff hadn’t said a word other than to tease the redhead. Behind all that jesting, it was easy to see the man was loyal and supportive. It would be nice to have that one day—a person to cheer her on.

  She could have used a cheering section. No matter how hard she worked, it seemed like her grades were barely passable. Culinary school was no cakewalk—it wasn’t enough to perfectly execute technique. They wanted her to reach deep down into her roots and cook from the heart. Cook with flair and spirit.

  Well, that was the problem. She had no ethnic spin to put on dishes. She had no roots to draw from. No home-made dishes with lovely memories connected. What she had was a picture of what she wanted to be. And that picture was always out of reach.

  Well, it didn’t matter now. Now, she was about three thousand miles away from instructors who frowned when she wasn’t original enough.

  A new place would give her inspiration. And maybe she’d discover her own style and flavors for cooking.

  Maybe out here in the west, she could do what thousands of pioneers before her had done: make a new life for herself.

  Starting with doing well at this ranch. They’d hire her as a line cook. After that, if she could earn a promotion to chef, and put in a few years working hard to get a good reference, she might have a fighting chance when she finally applied for a head chef position at the new resort when it opened.

  “So.” Jett interrupted her thoughts. He shifted in the driver’s seat, and cleared his throat. “How long have you been a cook?”

  Marlee chuckled. So the man could talk.

  If Tanya were here, they’d place bets on when his next sentence would occur. Loser would do dishes for a week, and winner would get to control the TV remote.

  “Actually, I’m a chef,” she corrected.

  Jett frowned.

  Marlee silently kicked herself. The man had made an effort at conversation, and she’d had to go and correct him. Maybe she had her rude moments, too. “Chef. Cook. It’s kind of the same thing,” she said.

  But it wasn’t.

  It mattered. A lot.

  He slowed the truck, and smiled at her before turning onto a dirt road.

  That smile sliced through her, clean to her brightly painted toes in her new boots. She blinked, stunned.

  Before, he’d gone from lazy to pushy in sixty seconds flat. And now, he’d gone from rude to charming in less than half the time.

  His charming came with a huge helping of handsome, garnished with a single rakish dimple in his tanned cheek. She stared at him, mouth open. It was like he was a whole new person.

  “Cowpoke. Foreman.” He winked. His grin dazzled and a warm chuckle reached out to her. “It’s kind of the same thing, too.”

  Marlee licked dry lips, her brain numb. Was he flirting with her?

  She could almost hear Tanya’s voice: “He’s cute, but you gotta focus, girl.”

  Her roommate would be right.

  “So how long have you been a chef?”

  “I recently got my diploma and certification, so not long,” Marlee said stiffly. Not that she wanted to discourage a decent conversation. But she was out here for work. Not for romance. Even if he was handsome when he smiled.

  Jett had already turned his attention back to the road.

  Foreman, huh?

  If he was the best of the cowboys out at this ranch, Marlee dreaded meeting the rest of them.

  CHAPTER THREE

  When they roared up the gravel drive at the ranch and all the way to the back where the outbuildings were, Marlee saw urgency everywhere. The ranch was getting ready for something big.

  Dust swirled as cowboys scurried by carrying saddles and gear. Some loaded horses into trailers, and cattle dogs scampered around the activity, as if they were the ones running the place.

  “We’re late,” Jett barked as he jumped out, slamming the truck door behind him. “Leaving in forty-five minutes,” he threw over his shoulder. “So be ready.”

  Before Marlee could slide out of the truck and ask him where everyone was going, and what he’d meant about being ready, he’d jogged to the barn,
calling out orders to the men.

  Marlee kicked at a rock with the toe of her shiny new boot.

  Okay. This wasn’t the kind of place where she’d get a lot of direction. It was a sink or swim kind of place.

  Squaring her shoulders, she narrowed her eyes and squinted through the dust, trying to figure out which building would hold the kitchen and mess hall.

  “Be ready” possibly meant get lunch on for the men before they left. Marlee hesitated for a minute. She didn’t want to leave her suitcases in the truck. But he’d been clear about orders to be ready in forty-five minutes.

  That didn’t give her much time to locate the kitchen and the head chef and get instructions for her lunch duties. Maybe after lunch, she’d be able to settle in. Find her room, unpack, and decide how she’d want to prepare the produce she’d bought.

  Marlee spotted a long low building next to the barn. In front of it sat a truck where Crazy Hoss unloaded boxes of produce she’d bought in town. That had to be the kitchen.

  Hitching her knife roll up a little higher on her shoulder, Marlee marched toward the building. Crazy Hoss was just coming out of the door when she arrived.

  “Well, that’s the last of yore veggies.” He gave her a gap-toothed grin.

  “Thanks,” Marlee said.

  He tipped his hat and headed toward the barn where most of the activity was centered.

  “Hello?” Marlee called out as she stepped inside.

  The small cafeteria was empty.

  Flipping the lights on, she headed back to the kitchen.

  If lunch was supposed to be ready in forty-five minutes, why wasn’t the kitchen humming with activity?

  Pushing through the doors to the kitchen, Marlee stopped in her tracks.

  Gleaming stainless steel surfaces greeted her. But the place was completely deserted.

  “Oh, no,” Marlee groaned.

  No wonder they’d asked for help. Forty-five minutes until time to pull out, and the head chef at the ranch was nowhere in sight.