The Ranch Solution

by Julianna Morris

  * * *

  AS MARIAH’S BREATHING SLOWED she became aware of a light breeze and the chirping of birds overhead. Jacob held her, stroking her back soothingly. She raised her head and blinked at him.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.” She sat up and began fastening her bra.

  “Gee. I thought women enjoyed the afterglow.”

  Afterglow was one thing; lying nearly naked on the banks of the ranch’s swimming hole was another. The guests usually weren’t told about the creek, but they could have discovered it on their own. What if some of them decided to take a dip on a hot day?

  Thinking of which...Mariah stepped into the creek again and started searching the banks.

  “What now?” Jacob complained.

  “I’m looking for the packaging from the condom.”

  “Why?”

  “Is that something you want Kittie to find if she comes swimming again with Reid? You can’t be sure it was washed away by the current. Besides, it’s trash and won’t ever degrade.”

  Jacob vaulted to his feet and searched, as well. Several minutes went by before they located the telltale piece of plastic, and he dealt with it along with the discarded condom.

  The silence grew as they got dressed. A part of Mariah regretted the end of their sexy play, but she also knew it had been a mistake to get closer to Jacob—she was the one who would be surrounded by reminders long after his vacation was over.

  Mariah’s mixed feelings were reflected in his eyes as they mounted their horses. Their lives were poles apart, yet he’d captured her heart with his humor and intelligence and his love for Caitlin—even his enduring devotion to Anna’s memory was compelling. Surely someone who could care so deeply once was capable of feeling that way again, yet he gave no indication that he had changed his mind about getting remarried or having more children.

  Her fingers tightened on Shadow’s reins and he tossed his head in protest. Mariah eased her grip and urged him ahead, still lost in thought.

  When it got right down to it, the only thing she knew for certain was that Jacob liked having sex with her. And that was hardly enough to reassure a woman in love.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  KITTIE CLIMBED TO THE HAYLOFT above the orphan calves and blinked furiously, determined not to cry.

  Reid sat next to her. He hadn’t said anything on the ride to the ranch; he’d just put their mounts in the corral and followed her to the loft.

  “Don’t Blue and Buttons need to be cooled down?” she asked. It was nice to have Reid there, only she didn’t want the horses to get sick.

  “We came back at a walk. They’re fine.”

  “Oh.” She felt stupid, but it didn’t seem important at the moment. How could her dad think she’d do something that would hurt the ranch? She wanted to stay there forever and ever and take care of it.

  “Your dad is a jackass,” Reid said finally, as if he’d read her mind.

  Despite her wounded feelings, Kittie went instantly defensive. “No, he isn’t. He’s just weird right now.”

  “He sounded like a jackass to me.”

  Well, yeah.

  Kittie heaved a sigh. “I guess it’s kinda my fault. I got into trouble a lot this year and was expelled a few weeks ago. I sort of...accidentally started a fire at my school. I didn’t mean to, but a sophomore gave me a cigarette and I tried it in the locker room. It was lunchtime and I thought nobody was around.”

  Reid gave her a sideways look. “Smoking sucks.”

  “I know,” she said, exasperated. “But Dad and me got into a fight before school that day and I was ticked off about junk. I don’t know. I just did it.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “I heard a teacher come into the gym and I threw the butt away so I could hide in the showers. Then she didn’t even come into the locker room. After a while I came out and found the trash can and a bench on fire. I tried putting it out with the extinguisher, ’cept I didn’t know how to use it very good. Honest, I didn’t mean to do it, and I pulled the alarm when the fire got worse.”

  “Did the sprinklers come on?”

  “No, they were upset about that, too. And that part wasn’t my fault, though they acted like it was. You’d think they’d be glad to know there was a problem.”

  “Go figure.” Reid stretched out his legs and one of the barn cats jumped onto his lap and began purring.

  The pens below were filled with sleeping calves. That morning the wranglers had said they were keeping the doors open so the babies could come in to get shade from the sun. Kittie spotted Emily and stuck her lip out; she didn’t want to leave Emily, even though the baby calf was eating good now and Mariah and the other wranglers had stopped worrying about her.

  “I’d already decided not to smoke again,” she explained. “But I got caught and everything turned into a mess. That’s what Dad meant. He thought I’d brought some cigarettes from Seattle and sneaked off to smoke one.”

  “I tried a wad of chewing tobacco in fifth grade,” Reid volunteered. “It was gross and I threw up a bunch of times. Pop was great—he said there were worse things and that I’d learned a lesson.”

  Kittie thought about the past year. The first few times she’d gotten in trouble, her dad was pretty mellow, but he became more wacko with each dumb thing she’d done. She wasn’t even sure why she’d started causing trouble; it wasn’t always because she’d meant to do something wrong.

  Well, that wasn’t completely true.

  She put a finger over her heart. The scar was just a pale silvery line you could barely see except when her skin got really cold. Her friends had asked about it once or twice, but nobody stared or anything when she went swimming. She’d hardly paid attention to it herself before finding out the truth.

  “Reid, did you see my chest when we were over at the swimming hole?”

  “No.” He looked alarmed. “And you shouldn’t ask guys things like that. Not till you’re older.”

  “I don’t mean my breasts.” Kittie rolled her eyes. “I mean the scar.”

  “What scar? And don’t show it to me,” Reid said hastily.

  “There’s a scar on my chest. I had surgery when I was little. I got born with something wrong with my heart.”

  * * *

  “JEEZ.”

  Spreckles yowled at the loud exclamation, so Reid scratched her neck and she settled down with a grumpy meow.

  “Do you remember them doing it?” he asked when Kittie didn’t say anything else.

  “No. I was two or something. Dad told me a long time ago that my heart was fixed and not to think about it anymore.”

  “Didn’t he tell you anything else?”

  “No. He doesn’t like talking about it.” Kittie wrinkled her nose. “I think it reminds him of my mom—she died on account of her heart.”

  Reid shifted uncomfortably. It stunk that her mother was dead, and it stunk that Kittie had needed an operation when she was only a kid. But if she was fixed and all right, why was she bringing it up?

  “You told me your mom got sick in high school,” he said.

  Kittie bobbed her head and her face got more miserable. All at once Reid remembered something—they thought they had fixed her mother, but it didn’t work, or some such thing. Appalled, his eyes widened. That was what was bugging Kitty. She was afraid her operation hadn’t worked.

  “Then your heart...”

  “Could be bum, too,” she said gloomily. “And my mom kept all kinds of stuff from my dad. I found her diary when I was staying at Nana Carolyn and Grandfather Barrett’s house last fall. The diary was hidden in a secret compartment in a big old piece of furniture.”

  Reid wondered idly why Kittie had gone hunting through her mom’s things.

  “I was just
exploring,” Kittie said, as if she’d read his mind. “And they let me sleep in there, so I kind of had permission. My dad was in college when they got married. Since they lived in a tiny apartment, Mom left lots of junk behind. I used to like staying in her old room until I read her diary.”

  Personally, Reid thought it was creepy leaving everything that way for years and years. “So she didn’t take her diary, either?”

  “Nope.” Kittie’s voice lowered with significance. “She even came back and wrote in it after they got married. You know, when she got sick again.”

  “That doesn’t have to mean anything.”

  “But it did.” Kittie sounded quite certain. “Anyhow, one of the things my mom wrote was that Nana Carolyn was my mom’s stepmother. Dad doesn’t know that or that my first grandmother died because of her heart, too.”

  “But if you had the operation, shouldn’t your heart be okay?”

  “Well...” Kittie reached over and petted Spreckles. “Dad hardly ever lets me do anything like other kids. We stopped going horseback riding ages ago, and he won’t let me have a bike or even a pet guinea pig. I’ve never gone roller-skating or sailing or anything. Sailing,” she said indignantly. “We live next to Lake Union and the Puget Sound, and I’ve never gone sailing.”

  Neither had Reid, but he didn’t live near a lake. “That doesn’t mean your heart doesn’t work right. And your dad seems real busy. He probably doesn’t have time to go sailing.”

  “Yeah, but he’s also dragged me to a ton of doctors. Besides, if everything’s okay, why won’t he talk about it? I tried after Christmas and he got tense and acted funny. He said not to worry and wouldn’t say anything else.”

  “He brought you to Montana.”

  “Because of the fire. I heard him on the phone before we left—he thought this was a place where they take care of messed-up kids. And he keeps telling me not to do things, even here.”

  “I don’t think you’re messed up.”

  “Thanks, Reid.” She smiled and was awful pretty.

  He felt bad for disliking her when she first arrived—when it got down to it, it really was dumb to be mad at people from Washington because of a drunk driver from Seattle. His Dad used to say that if you have to point a finger, make sure it’s pointed in the right direction. And Reid was mad at the driver—the asshole had walked away from the accident with barely a scratch.

  “Why don’t you tell Grams about the surgery and the rest of it?” he suggested. “She’s a doctor and might be able to help.”

  Kittie shook her head. “No. She’d have to tell my dad since I’m under eighteen—that’s the way doctors work—and then he’ll only get upset.”

  Reid tried to think of another solution. Under the circumstances, Kittie might know more about how doctors did things than he did, even if his grandmother and aunt were both M.D.s.

  “Then talk to Mariah. She almost graduated from veterinary school, so she knows some medical stuff.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  * * *

  MARIAH EXCUSED HERSELF as soon as they got back to the ranch. The one spot she could be sure of privacy was her bathroom, so she dropped her clothes and stepped into the shower. Her body still hummed from making love with Jacob and a part of her wished they could have stayed at the creek, exploring new ways to satisfy each other.

  Idiot, she scolded silently. She was an idiot for falling in love with Jacob in the first place.

  What if he decided he wanted something permanent with her? Did she love him enough to give up having a baby? Caitlin was a great kid, but she was nearly grown and Mariah wanted her own kids to raise, though being responsible for her brother had given her a regular diet of sleepless nights and churning stomachs.

  Mariah turned off the water and donned a soft satin bathrobe. Reid had given it to her for Christmas and she slid her hands over the sleek fabric. She didn’t indulge in that sort of thing often, yet she had a secret love for expensive, frivolously feminine nightclothes and lingerie, just like Grams.

  She looked in the mirror, smoothing her damp hair, remembering how Jacob had played with its heavy length. On a ranch, long hair might be as frivolously feminine as a silk negligee or satin robe. That could be why she’d kept it long—she wanted to feel like a woman in the midst of wrangling cattle and repairing fences.

  She sat on the bed, fighting a wave of melancholy. It was late afternoon and she ought to be working, but realizing you were in love with a man like Jacob O’Donnell was enough to disturb any woman.

  Okay, say they got married.

  There wasn’t much common ground between a Montana ranch and Seattle. Either she’d have to give up the U-2 for the city, or he’d have to be willing to live in Montana; Mariah didn’t know if either one of them could make that choice. And even if they got married and she moved to Seattle, how would she deal with having a workaholic husband she rarely saw? It was hardly the marriage she’d envisioned for herself. Yet she’d shared things with Jacob that she hadn’t told anyone—not her grandparents and certainly not Luke. That meant something, didn’t it?

  She’d always felt she should share the same goals and interests as a potential husband, but the thought of never seeing Jacob again hurt more than she could have imagined a month ago. And she had to wonder, were they that different in the things that counted, or was she rationalizing an impossible situation?

  Mariah resolutely got up and combed her hair, plaiting it into a French braid.

  The debate was academic.

  Jacob might have mixed feelings about her, but marriage was less likely than going over Niagara Falls in a teacup. She was silly to even think about it.

  * * *

  REID WALKED OVER the hill, west of the house, and down to the gate of the family cemetery. The prairie grassland outside the fence was long and swaying; inside it was closely mowed around the gravestones.

  He swallowed hard and opened the gate.

  Grams and Granddad came up here every week, but he hadn’t been since the funeral. Even Mariah visited. The flowers on the graves were faded and he cleared them away before laying down the two bunches of wildflowers that he’d picked after talking to Kittie.

  It was because of Kittie that he’d come. At least he’d known his parents, while she didn’t have any memory of her mom.

  That stunk.

  He let out a painful breath. The long rays from the sun deepened the shadows in the letters cut into the granite stones for Tamara and Sam Weston. The markers in the small cemetery were all straight and well maintained. Granddad said it was a sign of respect for Weston history and he wouldn’t let things get run-down.

  “I really miss you guys,” Reid said awkwardly. He sat on the grass and tried to picture his mom and dad in his head. For the past four years, no matter how much he tried, all he could see was the funeral when he thought of them.

  “Hey, are you all right?”

  He peered up at Mariah.

  “I guess. How did you know I was here?”

  “I saw you walk this way with the flowers.” She sat next to him and gazed at the two gravestones. “They were so proud of you. The last time I phoned before the accident, Dad kept telling me how brilliant you were in science and math and other subjects.”

  Reid squirmed. “That was just him being a dad.”

  “You are brilliant. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  He shredded a piece of grass. “Can you see their faces? I mean when you think about them and not just when you see a picture.” He didn’t want her to think he was awful for forgetting, but she had said he could talk about their parents whenever he needed.

  “Most of the time. When I do, Mom is usually laughing, and Dad is smiling.”

  “I can’t see their faces.... That is, whenever I try, I just see us standing up
here, with the flowers and the preacher and feeling as if the world had ended.”

  Mariah leaned on one elbow. “For me it used to be the hospital in Billings. But they aren’t here, you know, any more than they were at the hospital.”

  “Sis, do you believe we’ll see them again?”

  “I’m sure we will,” Mariah said quietly. “I even feel Mom and Dad next to me sometimes, especially in the Big Barn.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “You will, probably when you least expect it.”

  “I hope so.” He poked at the wildflowers he’d brought. “I should get back to work.”

  “You’re sixteen, Reid. You don’t have to work so much.”

  “You don’t, either. You keep talking about Granddad retiring and trying to take over for him, but he doesn’t want to retire. That should count, right?”

  “Yeah...that counts.”

  “And Grams wants to get involved with the business end of the ranch,” Reid said doggedly. He might as well get it all out. “Aunt Lettie doesn’t need her much now that the new school principal’s wife turned out to be a nurse and is working at the clinic. Grams wants to feel useful.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll speak to her.”

  They were both silent for a while, then Mariah got up.

  “I’ll let you be alone...unless you want me to stay?”

  “I just want to think awhile.”

  She squeezed his shoulder and left. Reid screwed his eyes shut and thought about his parents, letting the memories come, thinking of how Mariah had described her images of them...Mom laughing, Dad smiling.

  He saw his mom’s blue eyes first.

  She’d loved to play word games. He had gotten his dark brown hair from her and his height from his dad. Sam Weston had smiled more than laughed and usually refereed while the rest of them gave each other a hard time.

  Mom had loved comedies. Dad had preferred mysteries. They’d done everything together and were the greatest mom and dad in the whole wide world.

  Hot moisture leaked from the corners of Reid’s eyes and he wiped it away impatiently. He turned his head to read the names on the carved stones, but he didn’t see them.... Instead his parents were standing there in shiny Technicolor. Dad was wearing his favorite hat and going-to-church boots, and Mom wore that pretty pink dress she’d gotten the winter they went to Disney World.