The Ranch Solution

by Julianna Morris

  Caitlin looked across the room hopefully and Mariah gave her a thumbs-up gesture. The teen got so excited she actually jumped up and gave her father a hug before running over. “When can we go?” she asked eagerly.

  “I’ll let you know—most likely tomorrow afternoon. I can arrange the work schedule so you eat lunch here, rather than out on the range.”

  “Awesome. And I can feed Emily when we’re done?”

  “Absolutely. She needs you.”

  Mariah avoided Jacob’s gaze as she left the mess tent again. Local fashions hadn’t changed much since she was a teenager herself, and she was sure they could find something at the Buckeye Booteek that would make Kittie appear more appealing to boys her age.

  Dad doesn’t want me to date or anything. He wants me to die a virgin.

  The memory of Caitlin’s disgusted announcement made Mariah grin despite her churning thoughts. She was almost looking forward to the outing, and it wasn’t just because it annoyed Jacob—she’d feel for any girl without a mother, especially one with an overprotective, out-of-touch father.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “IS IT TOTAL Dorksville?” Caitlin asked, twirling to look at herself from every angle in the clothing store’s mirror. She was trying on sundresses, and the latest one was pale pink.

  “No, but it would be better if your hair was its original color,” Mariah said honestly.

  That morning Jacob had shown Mariah a picture of Caitlin from the previous year. She’d had long, light blond hair and a sweet, eager smile—no wonder Jacob was worried about what had happened to his little girl.

  Caitlin’s expression became hostile and she stuck out her chin. “What about my hair?”

  “I can tell from your skin tone that it isn’t natural, and because it gets lighter and darker,” Mariah said carefully. “Maybe you should try one of these outfits with bolder colors and geometric patterns. They might fit more with black hair and lipstick.”

  “But they aren’t like what the other girls were wearing at the dance.”

  She was right, the local girls her age had all worn soft, pretty outfits with floral patterns, the U-2’s weekly summer barn dance being one of their few opportunities to get gussied up outside of church. But Mariah was concerned that Caitlin would be even more conspicuous if she wore a feminine sundress with her Goth-style makeup, hair and jewelry. And at the moment the teen had decided she wanted to fit in rather than be a maverick. Whether or not she was willing to do what was needed to fit in was the question.

  Caitlin turned to the mirror and fingered the roughly cut locks around her forehead. “What if I wash the black out? It’s temporary and I have to dye it every couple of days for it to look good anyhow. It’s gross when it gets like this.”

  “That would work. If you want we can trim the ends and use combs to draw it back from your face to make your eyes seem bigger.”

  “Awesome.” Caitlin brightened. “And I could get sandals and new lipstick and all.”

  “Right.” Mariah searched through the dresses on the rack and pulled out another. “Try this,” she said.

  It was cadet-blue with small red-and-white flowers, and she suspected it would complement Caitlin’s natural coloring more than the washed-out pastels she’d been considering. So far they’d picked out a number of T-shirts and blouses, a stack of stonewashed blue jeans, several skirts and two pairs of cowboy boots that Caitlin couldn’t choose between. There wasn’t a black top or leering skull in the lot, but Mariah didn’t pretend it was due to her persuasive skills—the Booteek simply didn’t have any in stock.

  Jacob had provided his credit card to use with a letter of authorization, and Mariah was uncomfortably aware of its presence in her wallet. When she’d asked for Caitlin’s spending limit, he had looked at her blankly. “Whatever she wants,” he’d finally answered.

  “Ooh, I like this one,” Caitlin said, spinning in front of the mirror. She was wearing the blue sundress and it looked good, even with her streaky hair.

  Mariah hid a smile and selected two more dresses for consideration. Caitlin put them on the pile, then impulsively ran across the store when she spotted a cowboy hat that appealed to her.

  “Nice youngster,” commented Chloe Gardiner, owner of the Buckeye Booteek.

  The Booteek specialized in Western wear, and it was the only shopping option for clothing unless they drove into Billings. Chloe’s husband ran the men’s side of the store, which went by the not-so-inspired name of Buckeye Menswear. The Booteek had earned its moniker when gales of laughter rose at Chloe’s original choice—the Buckeye Fashion Boutique. The residents had gone around saying “boooooteeeeek” in such an exaggerated way that after a month Chloe surrendered and got the sign repainted.

  “She don’t have no clothes sense, though,” added Bertha, her mother. “Glad you’re helpin’ out.”

  “Caitlin has her own unique style,” Mariah murmured, glancing at the teenager to be sure she was out of earshot. Though she didn’t think Caitlin’s Goth preferences were becoming to her, they were a question of choice.

  Bertha shrugged and her daughter chuckled. Chloe was a live-and-let-live sort, though she undoubtedly made a few comments about her neighbors behind closed doors. Gossip was an indoor sport in Buckeye—it didn’t take long for everybody to know your business. Once word of Mariah’s broken engagement got out, it would spread like wildfire through the community. There would be endless speculation as to why and they might even connect Jacob O’Donnell to the news. Jacob and Luke hadn’t exactly been subtle at the barn dance, the way they’d snorted and maneuvered around each other.

  Mariah’s stomach tightened.

  She hadn’t broken things off with Luke because of Jacob, but the role he’d played made her uneasy. It would be horrid if Luke thought she had gotten cozy with another man while they were still making plans for the future. He’d claimed to see a change in her over the past year, and she supposed her restlessness, the feeling that something wasn’t quite right, might have started that long ago. Having someone like Jacob at the ranch could have just brought everything to the surface much faster.

  “What do you think?” Caitlin excitedly tottered toward them in absurdly high gold sandals with ribbon straps that wrapped around her ankles.

  Whoa.

  Mariah tried not to cringe. “Uh...they’re pretty, but it would be hard to square-dance in them,” she replied, conscious of Chloe’s hopeful gaze. The store owner had gotten a deal on the glitzy footwear a decade before and done everything short of standing on her head to sell them. Unfortunately, they were the sort of thing you wore to a nightclub in New York, not to anything in Buckeye, so Chloe was left with two dozen pairs of useless stock.

  “I didn’t think of that. Can you take a look and tell me what might be okay for dancing?” Caitlin wobbled back to the modest selection of shoes in the center of the store.

  Mariah followed and found a pair of white sandals in the right size. They were attractive and well made, and would go with any of the outfits Caitlin had chosen. And more importantly, they wouldn’t result in a broken ankle from her falling off a four-inch spike heel.

  “Here, try these,” she said.

  Caitlin approved the sandals and picked out two more pairs in other colors. Additional items were selected, including makeup and hair-care products, which might be necessary with all the dye jobs she’d given herself. With luck it would come clean in a couple of washings and wouldn’t be too damaged.

  The Buckeye Booteek didn’t charge exorbitant prices, yet Mariah whistled when Chloe gave her the total. It was more than she spent on clothing over the course of several years—she hoped Jacob had meant it when he’d said Caitlin could get whatever she wanted. Still, a couple of designer outfits would likely cost more than Caitlin’s entire ranch wardrobe, so maybe he wouldn’t blink when he saw the
bill. Well, except for the cowgirl hat Caitlin had wanted—that might cause Jacob to blink. A top-of-the-line hat cost a small fortune, and the Buckeye Booteek carried the best.

  It was midafternoon when they returned to the U-2 and unloaded everything into the O’Donnells’ tent. Caitlin would probably have taken longer selecting her new clothes if not for Emily. Caitlin hadn’t missed a feeding for the orphan calves since she’d begun working with them, and she wasn’t about to now. She was hoping to meet Shayla at the calf barn if the McFees got back in time from moving cattle to new pastureland.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Caitlin said, throwing her arms around Mariah.

  Mariah hugged her back. “I’m glad you found things you like. Why don’t you come up to the house tomorrow after you’re done with Emily’s second feeding, and we’ll work on your hair?”

  The teen nodded happily. “Okay.”

  Mariah watched her running to the far barn; she remembered being that age and feeling the need to run everywhere.

  She’d enjoyed the shopping trip, though it was a reminder that having broken up with Luke, it might be years before she had children of her own. Single cowboys were plentiful at the U-2, but they weren’t the most promising husband material. Of course, neither was Jacob, and it wasn’t just because they had nothing in common—he didn’t want to get married again or have more kids. He hadn’t said why, but she guessed it was mostly due to Caitlin’s surgery and what he’d gone through with his wife. Ironically, Jacob’s devotion to Anna’s memory was one of the most attractive things about him.

  It suggested he could be more than a cash register if he wanted to be.

  * * *

  LATE SATURDAY AFTERNOON Kittie crammed her clothes and other gear for the dance into three shopping bags and dashed up to the ranch house. She was too excited to eat dinner; all she could think about was whether Reid and the other boys would pay more attention to her. Anyway, there’d be snacks and desserts to eat at the dance if she got hungry.

  She had her new cowgirl hat smashed on her head, not wanting anyone to see her hair yet. It was blond again, and it looked funny to her after being black or another color for so long. She hadn’t even let Shayla see it.

  Her dad had asked to see her new clothes, but she’d just shown him the hat. It was a genuine Stetson cowgirl hat, made of creamy fur felt. A band of braided leather adorned the base of the crown, and the wide brim would shade her eyes when she was out riding. She’d told him he should to go into Buckeye and find one for himself, along with cowboy boots—she’d even offered to help him pick them out. Talking to her dad was sure better than being mad and fighting with him.

  “Good evening, little lady,” said Mr. Weston when he opened the door. “Are you going to save me a dance tonight?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “Excellent. Mariah mentioned you were coming up here to get ready, so go down that hall, third door on the right.”

  Kittie decided it was the greatest house ever, old and rambling, with two cats curled up on opposite ends of the couch and Pip padding down the hallway behind her. It wasn’t like their loft in Seattle. It was warm and comfy with lots of old wood and color, not bamboo and glass and chrome.

  Pip nosed her palm and she leaned over to hug him. Shayla was scared of Pip because he was huge and his eyes were so dark in his white face, but Kittie thought he was splendid. Mariah had called him part mystery mutt, but Burt had said the part that wasn’t a mystery was the type of dog they used in Alaska to pull sleds in the snow, which made Pip superstrong.

  Kittie went through the door where Mr. Weston had told her to go, and her fingers tightened on the handles of her shopping bags. The room was real pretty. Light came in from two long windows, and the bed was covered with a quilt that had a single big star on it made of tiny blue and white diamonds. Everything was simple, but there was a bureau where you could sit in front of three mirrors, and she saw a really old silver hairbrush and mirror sitting on a silver tray. They were like the ones Nana Carolyn kept in her bedroom—the ones she claimed had once belonged to Kittie’s great-great-grandmother.

  “You’re right on time,” Mariah said, breezing in.

  She was already dressed for the dance in a white eyelet sundress and Kittie sighed with envy. Mariah didn’t have to worry about a flat chest. Reid had said that different guys liked different things, and maybe he was right—the newlyweds who’d left earlier in the week could be proof. Susan didn’t have big breasts, and Chad seemed to think she was terrific. But a girl had to have something under her shirt.

  “How is Emily doing?” Mariah asked.

  “She butted one of the other calves when it tried to get her bottle.”

  “That means she’s sticking up for herself. Good job, Kittie,” she said. “Now, let’s see if that black dye washed out.”

  Reluctantly, Kittie took off her cowboy hat. “I bet it looks dopey.”

  Mariah shook her head. “Not at all. It has a curl without the heavy dye and it’s a lovely color, Caitlin. Black is fine, too, but blonde goes with your new clothes.”

  It was nice the way Mariah remembered to say Caitlin—Kittie did sound like a kid’s name.

  “Do you want me to trim it, or would you prefer keeping it the same?” Mariah asked.

  Kittie gulped. She might as well change some things and see if the guys in Montana liked it. “Trim it, I guess. Just not too short.”

  “Okay.” Mariah opened a drawer in the bureau and took out a worn leather case. “This is a barber’s kit—we cut our own hair on the U-2. I won’t take very much off, just enough to make the ends even.”

  She combed and snipped and then Kittie used the bathroom to put on one of her new dresses and a pair of sandals. “I forgot to get panty hose,” she said, coming out with her lip down. She’d never worn nylons, but the popular girls at school always did.

  “Cowgirls hardly ever wear panty hose,” Mariah said firmly.

  Kittie felt better. “Oh, okay, then. Can you...uh...show me how cowgirls do their makeup?”

  “Sure.” Mariah didn’t actually apply the makeup. She just gave directions, saying the trick was to only use a little. Then she demonstrated how Kittie could hold her hair back with the decorative hair combs they’d bought.

  “Awesome.” Kittie turned and twisted, trying to see herself from every angle. With Mariah’s help, she looked older and prettier. Was that what having a mom was like...having someone who took you shopping and showed you how to do stuff?

  A yucky feeling went through Kittie’s tummy, except it wasn’t because of Mariah.

  Both her mother and her biological grandmother on her mom’s side had died really young from having bad hearts, but nobody else knew she’d found out that Nana Carolyn was Grandfather Barret’s second wife. She’d read it all in her mom’s diary. Kittie touched a finger to her chest where there was a faint visible scar. And she had the same bad heart. Supposedly it was fixed now, only her dad wouldn’t talk about it. She knew that they’d tried to fix her mom, too, yet she died anyway.

  Kittie wasn’t stupid. If she was okay, why wouldn’t he let her do ordinary things like other kids? Coming to the ranch was the most fun she’d had in forever. And why wouldn’t her dad talk about what had happened if she was really fixed?

  Then there was the other stuff that her mom had written in her diary...stuff Kittie’s dad didn’t know.

  Someone tapped on the door, making her jump. She didn’t feel guilty exactly, but it was awful to think about...and it made her mad. It wasn’t fair getting born sick.

  “Hello, you two,” called Mrs. Weston. “It’s after seven and the dance is starting.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up, Grams. We’ll be there in a minute.” Mariah smiled at Kittie. “Are you ready to face all those people?”

  Kittie checked her reflection
again in the mirror. She thought she looked like the other girls from the last dance—the pretty cowgirls that Reid had danced with. Well, she looked a little like them. He’d danced a lot with Laura, with her perky boobs and smile.

  “How do I look?”

  “As if you could have grown up in Montana.”

  “Honest, truly?”

  “Honest, truly. But you know, it really isn’t where you grow up—it’s where you feel at home. I lived in California for over six years and I was completely out of place, while you grew up in the city but seem totally comfortable here.”

  “Montana feels like home,” Kittie said, and it was true. She didn’t want to ever leave, though most of her friends were in Seattle. But she had new friends now, like Blue and Emily and Burt. Shayla wasn’t staying at the U-2 as long as she was, but they were going to write to each other using email after she left.

  “Then let’s go show those cowboys what you’ve got.”

  * * *

  JACOB PACED BACK and forth along a side door of the Big Barn, trying to keep an eye out for Mariah and his daughter without being obvious. Surely Kittie couldn’t have gotten too outrageous with the clothing available in Buckeye. They seemed to focus on casual wear, and Mariah would have kept Kittie from getting anything shocking anyway.

  You mean the way you kept Kittie from wearing skulls and spiderweb tattoos, an inner voice jeered. Her own father. She isn’t Kittie’s mother—how much influence could she have?

  Shut up, he ordered.

  The fact that Kittie had asked Mariah for help was huge. She’d been so belligerent about her clothes and appearance that even a small shift toward her old self, behaving the way she used to, would be a relief. With that comforting thought in mind, his jaw dropped when Mariah and Kittie appeared. His daughter’s hair was blond, she wore a pretty dress, and a mere hint of conventional makeup highlighted her face—she was utterly beautiful. She also looked older, something that didn’t please him quite as much.