by Diana Palmer
She marveled at the tech that was so new and so powerful. She fell asleep imagining what the future of electronics might hold. It was entrancing.
JUST AT DAWN, HER CELL PHONE rang. She answered it in a sleepy tone.
“Sleepyhead” came a soft, teasing voice.
She rolled over onto her back and smiled. “Hi, Mom. How’s it going at home?”
“I miss you,” Shelby said with a sigh. “Your father is so bad-tempered that even the old hands are hiding from him. He wants to know where you are.”
“Don’t you dare tell him,” Morie replied.
She sighed again. “I won’t. But he’s threatening to hire a private detective to sniff you out.” She laughed. “He can’t believe his little girl went off to work for wages.”
“He’s just mad that he hasn’t got me to advise him on his breeding program and work out the kinks in his spreadsheets.” She laughed. “I’ll come home soon enough.”
“In time for the production sale, I hope,” Shelby added. The event was three weeks down the road, but King Brannt had already made arrangements for a gala event on the ranch during the showing of his prize Santa Gertrudis cattle on Skylance, the family ranch near San Antonio. It would be a party of epic proportions, with a guest list that included famous entertainers, sports figures, politicians and even royalty, and he’d want his whole family there. Especially Morie, who was essential to the hostessing. It would be too much for Shelby alone.
“I’ll come back even if it’s just for the night,” Morie promised. “Tell Dad, so he doesn’t self-destruct.” She laughed.
“I’ll tell him. You’re like him, you know,” she added.
“Cort’s a lot more like him. What a temper!”
“Cort will calm right down when he finally finds a woman who can put up with him.”
“Well, Dad found you,” Morie noted. “So there’s hope for Cort.”
“You think so? He won’t even go on dates anymore after that entertainment rep tried to seduce him in a movie theater. He was shocked to the back teeth when she said she’d done it in all sorts of fancy theaters back home.” She laughed. “Your brother doesn’t live in the real world. He thinks women are delicate treasures that need nourishing and protecting.” She paused for a moment, then continued. “He really needs to stop watching old movies.”
“Have him watch some old Bette Davis movies,” Morie advised. “She’s the most modern actress I ever saw, for all that her heyday was in the 1940s!”
“I loved those movies,” Shelby said.
“Me, too.” Morie hesitated. “I like Grandma’s old movies.”
Maria Kane had been a famous movie star, but she and Shelby had never been close and theirs had been a turbulent and sad relationship. It was still a painful topic for Shelby.
“I like them, too,” Shelby said, surprisingly. “I never really knew my mother. I was farmed out to housekeepers at first and then to my aunt. My mother never grew up,” she added, remembering something Maria’s last husband, Brad, had said during the funeral preparations in Hollywood.
Morie heard that sad note in her mother’s voice and changed the subject. “I miss your baked fish.”
Shelby laughed. “What a thing to say.”
“Well, nobody makes it like you do, Mom. And they’re not keen on fish around here, so we don’t have it much. I dream of cod fillets, gently baked with fresh herbs and fresh butter… Darn, I have to stop drooling on my pillow!”
“When you come home, I’ll make you some. You really need to learn to make them yourself. If you do move out and live apart from us, you have to be able to cook.”
“I can always order out.”
“Yes, but fresh food is so much nicer.”
“Yours certainly is.” She glanced at her watch. “Got to go, Mom. We’re dipping cattle today. Nasty business.”
“You should know. You were always in the thick of it here during the spring.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, sweetheart.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too. Bye.”
She hung up, then got out of bed and dressed. Her mother was one in a million, beautiful and talented, but equally able to whip up exotic meals or hostess a dinner party for royalty. Morie admired her tremendously.
She admired her dad, too, but she was heartily sick of men who took her out only with one end in mind—a marriage that would secure their financial futures. It was surprising how many of them saw her as a ticket to independent wealth. The last one had been disconcertingly frank about how his father advised him to marry an heiress, and that Morie was at least more pleasant to look at than some of the other rich men’s daughters he’d escorted.
She was cursing him in three languages when her father came in, listened to her accusations and promptly escorted the young man off the property.
Morie had been crushed. She’d really liked the young man, an accountant named Bart Harrison, who’d come to town to audit a local business for his firm. It hadn’t occurred to her at first that he’d searched her out deliberately at a local fiesta. He’d known who she was and who her family was, and he’d pursued her coldly, but with exquisite manners, made her feel beautiful, made her hungry for the small attentions he gave with such flair.
She’d been very attracted to him. But when he started talking about money, she backed away and ran. She wanted something more than to be the daughter of one of the richest Texas ranchers. She wanted a man who loved her for who she really was.
Now, helping to work cattle through the smelliest, nastiest pool of dip that she’d ever experienced in her life, she wondered if she’d gone mad to come here. May had arrived. Calving was in full swing, and so was the dipping process necessary to keep cattle pest-free.
“It smells like some of that fancy perfume, don’t it?” Red Davis asked with a chuckle. He was in his late thirties, with red hair and freckles, blue eyes and a mischievous personality. He’d worked ranches most of his life, but he never stayed in one place too long. Morie vaguely remembered hearing her father say that Red had worked for a former mercenary named Cord Romero up near Houston.
She gave him a speaking look. “I’ll never get the smell out of my clothes,” she wailed.
“Why, sure you can,” the lean, redheaded cowboy assured her, grinning in the shade of his wide-brimmed straw hat. “Here’s what you do, Miss Morie. You go out in the woods late at night and wait till you see a skunk. Then you go jump at him. That’s when he’ll start stamping his front paws to warn you before he turns around and lifts his tail….”
“Red!” she groaned.
“Wait, wait, listen,” he said earnestly. “After he sprays you and you have to bury your clothes and bathe in tomato juice, you’ll forget all about how this old dipping-pool smells. See? It would solve your problem!”
“I’ll show you a problem,” she threatened.
He laughed. “You have to have a sense of humor to work around cattle,” he told her.
“I totally agree, but there is nothing at all funny about a pond full of… Aaahhhhh!”
As she spoke, a calf bumped into her and knocked her over. She landed on her breasts in the pool of dip, getting it in her mouth and her eyes and her hair. She got to her knees and brought her hands down on the surface of the liquid in an eloquent display of furious anger. Which only made the situation worse, and gave Red the opportunity to display his sense of humor to its true depth.
“Will you stop laughing?” she wailed.
“Good God, are we dipping people now?” Mallory wanted to know.
Morie didn’t think about what she was doing; she was too mad. She hit the liquid with her hand and sent a spray of it right at Mallory. It landed on his spotless white shirt and splattered up into his face.
She sat frozen as she realized what she’d just done. She’d thrown pest dip on her boss. He’d fire her for sure. She was now history. She’d have to go home in disgrace…!
Mallory wi
ped his face with a handkerchief and gave her a long, speaking look. “Now that’s why I never wear white shirts around this place,” he commented with a dry look at Red, who was still doubled over laughing. “God knows what Mavie will say when she has to deal with this, and it’s your fault,” he added, pointing his finger at Morie. “You can explain it to her while you duck plates, bowls, knives or whatever else she can get to hand to throw at you!”
Mavie was the housekeeper and she had a red temper. Everybody was terrified of her.
“You aren’t going to fire me?” Morie asked with unusual timidity.
He pursed his sensuous lips and his dark eyes twinkled. “Not a lot of modern people want to run cattle through foul-smelling pest-control substances,” he mused. “It’s easier to take a bath than to find somebody to replace you.”
She swallowed hard. The awful-smelling stuff was in her nostrils. She wiped at it with the handkerchief. “At least I won’t attract mosquitoes now.” She sighed.
“Want to bet?” Red asked. “They love this stuff! If you rub it on your arms, they’ll attack you in droves…. Where are you going, boss?”
Mallory just chuckled as he walked away. He didn’t even answer Red.
Morie let out a sigh of relief as she wiped harder at her face. She shook her head and gave Red a rueful wince. “Well, that was a surprise,” she murmured drily. “Thought I was going to be an ex-employee for sure.”
“Naw,” Red replied. “The boss is a good sport. Cane got into it with him one time over a woman who kept calling and harassing him. Boss put her through, just for fun. Cane tossed him headfirst into one of the watering troughs.”
She laughed with surprise. “Good grief!”
“Shocked the boss. It was the first time Cane did anything really physical since he got out of the military. He thinks having one arm slows him down, limits him. But he’s already adjusting to it. The boss ain’t no lightweight,” he added. “Cane picked him up over one shoulder and threw him.”
“Wow.”
He sobered. “You know, they’ve all got problems of one sort or another. But they’re decent, honest, hardworking men. We’d do anything for them. They take care of us, and they’re not judgmental.” Red grimaced at some bad memory. “If they were, I’d sure be out on my ear.”
“Slipped up, did you?” She gave him a quizzical look. “You, uh, didn’t throw pesticide on the boss?”
He shook his head. “Something much worse, I’m afraid. All I got was a little jail time and a lecture from the boss.” He smiled. “Closest call I’ve had in recent years.”
“Most people mess up once in a while,” she said kindly.
“That’s true. The only thing that will get you fired here is stealing,” he added. “I don’t know why it’s such an issue with the boss, but he let a guy go last year for taking an expensive drill that didn’t belong to him. He said he wouldn’t abide a thief on the place. Cane, now, almost jumped the guy.” He shook his head. “Odd, odd people in some respects.”
“I suppose there’s something that happened to them in the past,” she conjectured.
“Could be.” He made a face. “That girl, Gelly, that the boss goes around with has a shifty look,” he added in a lowered tone. “There was some talk about her when she and her dad first moved here, about how they got the old Barnes property they’re living on.” He grimaced. “She’s a looker, I’ll give her that, but I think the boss is out of his noggin for letting her hang around. Funny thing about that drill going missing,” he added with narrowed, thoughtful eyes. “She didn’t like the cowboy because he mouthed off to her. She was in the bunkhouse just before the boss found the missing drill in the guy’s satchel, and the cowboy cussed a blue streak about being innocent. It didn’t do any good. He was let go on the spot.”
She felt cold chills down her spine. She’d only seen the boss’s current love interest once, and it had been quite enough to convince her that the woman was putting on airs and pretending a sophistication she didn’t really have. Most men weren’t up on current fashions in high social circles, but Morie was, and she knew at first glance that Gelly Bruner was wearing last year’s colors and fads. Morie had been to Fashion Week and subscribed, at home, to several magazines featuring the best in couture, both in English and French. Her wardrobe reflected the newer innovations. Her mother, Shelby, had been a top model in her younger days, and she knew many famous designers who were happy to outfit her daughter.
She didn’t dare mention her fashion sense here, of course. It would take away her one chance to live like a normal, young single woman.
“You went to college recently, didn’t you?” Red asked. He grinned at her surprise. “There’s no secrets on a ranch. It’s like a big family…we know everything.”
“Yes, I did,” she agreed, not taking offense.
“You live in them coed dorms, with men and women living together?” he asked, and seemed interested in her answer.
“No, I didn’t,” she said curtly. “My parents raised me very strictly. I guess I have old attitudes because of it, but I wasn’t living in a dorm with single men.” She shrugged. “I lived off campus with a girlfriend.”
He raised both eyebrows. “Well, aren’t you a dinosaur!” he exclaimed, but with twinkling eyes and obvious approval.
“That’s right—I should live in a zoo.” She made a wry face. “I don’t fit in with modern society. That’s why I’m out here,” she added.
He nodded. “That’s why most of us are out here. We’re insulated from what people call civilization.” He leaned down. “I love it here.”
“So do I, Red,” she agreed.
He glanced at the cattle and grimaced. “We’d better get this finished,” he said, looking up at the sky. “They’re predicting rain again. On top of all that snowmelt, we’ll be lucky if we don’t get some more bad flooding this year.”
“Or more snow,” she said, tongue-in-cheek. Wyoming weather was unpredictable; she’d already learned that. Some of the local ranchers had been forced to live in town when the snow piled up so that they couldn’t even get to the cattle. Government agencies had come in to airlift food to starving animals.
Now the snowmelt was a problem. But so were mosquitoes in the unnaturally warm weather. People didn’t think mosquitoes lived in places like Wyoming and Montana, but they thrived everywhere, it seemed. Along with other pests that could damage the health of cattle.
“You come from down south of here, don’t you?” Red asked. “Where?”
She pursed her lips. “One of the other states,” she said. “I’m not telling which one.”
“Texas.”
Her eyebrows shot up. He laughed. “Boss had a copy of your driver’s license for the files. I just happened to notice it when I hacked into his personnel files.”
“Red!”
“Hey, at least I stopped hacking CIA files,” he protested. “And darn, I was enjoying that until they caught me.”
She was shocked.
He shrugged. “Most men have a hobby of some sort. At least they didn’t keep me locked up for long. Even offered me a job in their cybercrime unit.” He laughed. “I may take them up on it one day. But for now, I’m happy being a ranch hand.”
“You are full of surprises,” she exclaimed.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he teased. “Let’s get back to work.”
CHAPTER TWO
THE SMALL TOWN NEAR THE RANCH was called Catelow, named after a settler who came out west for his health in the early 1800s. He and his family, and some friends who were merchants, petitioned for and got a railhead established so that he could ship cattle east from his ranch property. A few of his descendants still lived locally, but more and more of the younger citizens went out of state to big cities for high-tech jobs that paid better wages.
Still, the town had all the necessary amenities. Catelow had a good police force, a fire department, a shopping mall, numerous ethnic restaurants, a scattering of Protestant church
es and a Catholic one, a city manager from California who was a whiz at making a sickly city government thrive, and a big feed store next to an even bigger hardware store.
There was also a tractor dealership. From her childhood, following her father around various vendors, she’d been fascinated with heavy machinery. Once, while she was in college, for her birthday present King Brannt had actually rented a Caterpillar earthmover and had the driver teach her how to operate it. She’d had her brother, Cort, do home movies of the event. The rat wouldn’t edit out the part where she drove the machine into a ditch and got it stuck in the mud, however. Cort had a wicked sense of humor, like King’s younger brother, Danny, who was now a superior court judge, happily married to his former secretary, redheaded Edie Jackson. They had two sons.
She walked down the rows of tractors, sighing over a big green one that could probably have done everything short of cook a meal. It even had a cab to keep the sun off the driver.
“This is how you spend your day off, looking at tractors?” a sarcastic feminine voice asked from behind her.
Startled, she turned to find Mallory with Gelly Bruner clinging to his arm.
“I like tractors,” Morie said simply. She glared at the other woman, whose obviously tinted blond hair was worn loose, with gem clips holding it back. She was dressed in a clinging silk dress with high, spiky heels and a sweater. It was barely May, and some days were still chilly. “Something wrong with that?”