Miss Betty found her in the pantry, opening a bottle of vodka.
“Child, what are you doin’ with that so early in the day?”
Tess fought to keep her facial expression calm, but she was twitchy to get her first sip. “I’m making sure I don’t explode, Miss B.”
She stepped into the kitchen and got out the fixings for martinis. Miss B watched her and said nothing out loud, but her expression spoke volumes. Tess hunched a shoulder and did her best to ignore the older woman.
Finally, the martini mixed, she downed the first long draught in a hurry. Her whole body relaxed. She exhaled. “Better.”
Miss Betty watched her, openly disapproving. “You know liquor don’t solve a thing.” She harrumphed. “Why don’t you go talk to Miss Paula? She’s a level-headed woman, always lookin’ out for you.”
Tess ran her free hand through her long locks. “I don’t want to complain to Paula about her husband. She loves JD. He can do no wrong in her eyes.”
The older woman snorted. “Don’t think you understand about husbands and wives. Complainin’ about each other is their number one entertainment. Maybe you can help her today. She’s still lookin’ poorly. Needs some womanly company.”
Tess grabbed the pitcher and poured herself another tall one. It wasn’t the glamorous way to drink a martini, but her purpose was chemical help, not looking sophisticated. She drank the whole glass down, then refilled it.
“Okay, I’m ready.” She leaned over and pecked Miss B on the cheek. The housekeeper loved her, she knew that for sure. Her brothers were the problem.
The master suite door was open. Paula lay on a chaise in the sitting room. After their parents moved to Cheyenne, Baron and Addie had occupied it until their house was completed. Addie had not redecorated the suite during that time, so when their parents arrived for the wedding, they found their old quarters much as they had been. Anita Selkirk took her most prized possessions with her for their retirement home in Mobile, urging Paula to make the suite her own. But Paula, always feeling she didn’t truly belong to the Selkirk family, had been reluctant. Now, the rooms finally looked different. A fresh coat of paint had replaced their mom’s fussy flowered wallpaper, and the antique country furniture was gone, replaced by sleek, modern pieces.
“Hey.” Tess called out. “You’ve done wonders in here. Looks great.”
“Nothing looks good to me today,” Paula’s voice dragged. Her gaze sharpened and so did her voice. “What have you got in your hand?”
Tess made a sarcastic grimace before raising her glass. “What do you think?”
Paula closed her eyes for a few seconds. When she opened them, she said, “You’re getting too old to drink so much. You’ll turn into a full-time alcoholic if you keep it up.”
“Thank you, mother. I’ve heard it before.”
“You have to face your problems, not drown them.”
Tess said, “JD still treats me like dirt when I express any interest in the ranch. I don’t know how you put up with his nasty chauvinism.”
Paula sighed. “He’s a product of his background. Your parents are the ones who taught him that women shouldn’t have a say in how a ranch is run.”
“Women? My parents still think I’m a teenage girl.”
Paula gave her a frank look. “Do you think creating a tabloid scandal with a DUI will make them revise their opinion?”
Tess hung her head. “I was stupid. I know it. But I was so angry over missing the roundup. I had to blow off steam.” She heard herself whining and stopped. There was no denying she’d messed up in Hollywood.
Paula said, “You do realize that women get drunker on far less liquor intake than men do?”
“I wasn’t trying to drink anyone under a table. I only wanted to have a good time.”
Paula put a protective palm against her lower body, where the baby bump seemed more pronounced than the day before.
“What is it? Did the baby move?”
Paula shook her head a little. Her dark eyes held pain. “I’ve never felt any of my babies move.”
Tess leaned in and put an arm around her friend. “You don’t deserve this. You’re a really good person.” She straightened up. “Not like that selfish brother of mine. JD shouldn’t demand that you fly out here, not in your condition.”
“I didn’t know it would be this bad.” Paula’s voice held doubt and misery. “Before, I felt healthy up until the day I miscarried. This time, I’ve been feeling wretchedly sick for days and days.”
“Maybe it’s a sign this baby will go the distance.”
Paula smiled a wan smile. “Nice of you to say so. I’ve been throwing up a lot, too.”
“Like Princess Kate over in the UK,” Tess said, inspired to put a positive spin on it. “Your baby will be a Selkirk royal.”
Paula didn’t smile. “Let’s talk about something else. There’s a lot of help available for people who have a drinking problem. You could check into the Betty Ford Clinic the way all the bigtime movie stars do. It might help your career.”
Tess’s hopeless feelings welled up again. “You’re trying to be funny, but I don’t feel like laughing.” She paced around the room, agitated. “I don’t have a drinking problem. I have a family problem. I know a lot about ranching, and about this ranch in particular. I have good ideas for running it, too, but nobody listens.”
“How reasonable is it to expect anyone to listen to you when you’re drunk?”
“The drinking is to keep my courage up around them. Otherwise, I’d be in floods of tears. I wouldn’t need to drink if they showed they accepted me as an equal partner.”
“What about Rolf? Addie says she noticed him being very interested in you at their wedding.”
Tess waved a hand in the air dismissively. “He keeps asking me to stay here with him, but he ignores how miserable I am. It’s like we’re always talking at cross purposes.” She tried to keep the emotion out of her voice, but failed. Her voice wobbled. “I’m not sure he really sees me, or even likes who I am.”
“Do you love him? Does he love you?”
Tess twisted her lips. “What does that matter when all he wants is a passive little wifey who sits at home waiting for him? That’s not me, the girl with big ambitions.”
“And demons,” Paula said.
Tess nodded. “Yeah. Comes with wanting to live life to the fullest.”
She told Paula all about the ups and downs of her Hollywood life, about little things she’d learned when trying to act, and about her hopes for getting movie roles. Tess even explained how she’d run the ranch if she ever got a chance. “With JD and Baron dismantling the property into smaller pieces, the management style and the strategic planning should change.”
Paula, the financial whiz, detailed some strategies that could keep the Selkirk fortune building indefinitely and allow the family to extend their charity efforts. “If you don’t hold onto every acre of land as sacred, you could raise investment capital by selling some of it outright. Remember that buyer Baron found? There are others like him.” She smiled a little. “JD wants to do more for veterans. With proper use of financial management tools, this ranch can provide the funding for even his most ambitious plans.”
Tess said, “I’m fine with that, if he deals me in on managing the day-to-day and the big strategy issues.” She slumped in a chair facing Paula. “Right now, he won’t do either.”
Paula got a pained expression on her face, so Tess tried to lighten up. She made a funny story out of the crooked poker game with Rolf. Paula looked amused, but clearly she was tiring.
“So, anyway, I plan to lay off playing poker with Rolf from now on.” Tess stood. “You rest. Don’t worry about the baby. This one will pull through.” She hoped she wasn’t being overly optimistic.
Tess left Paula to nap. As she walked down the corridor to her room, she wondered if it would ever be her turn to stay in the master suite. What would happen when Paula inevitably decided she wanted to stay in the
city? She should be safely in a city right now, where immediate medical help was always available. JD was crazy not to realize Paula couldn’t continue as his private pilot in her condition.
Whatever. Meanwhile, Tess could do plenty to advance the investigation despite JD’s bad attitude. She headed out to talk about the rustling one-on-one with as many ranch hands as she could find.
Hours later, Tess had visited all the parts of the ranch where cattle had been rustled. She’d questioned numerous ranch hands and checked out the Green Gables veterans’ home, too, asking JD’s favorite social worker, Tanisha Robinson, about trucks passing in the night. Ms. Tanisha had heard about Tess singing at the honkytonk the night before. She talked Tess into singing along with a ukulele group that was giving a concert but needed a vocalist. Tess hadn’t the heart to refuse. Live entertainment was thin on the ground in this corner of Wyoming.
Going home again via the track, Tess stopped at the Shepherds’ old line cabin. The small building was a simple storm shelter nestled in a copse of a few straggly trees. It was in sad repair now that it wasn’t on an active property line. The wood slats, never fancy or finished, had faded to grey and had warped so much the cabin’s interior was visible though the gaps. The roof was the only part that had been repaired recently, but only because the cabin was still used as an emergency shelter. Although anyone rushing in to escape a storm better have a weapon. Snakes and other critters had a habit of hanging out in abandoned buildings.
The cabin didn’t have a lock. Tess nosed around the interior, noting a wooden bar standing ready to seal the door shut. That was a joke considering the condition of the walls. In a corner was a pile of cups and bags from a fast food chain. A few French fries had spilled on the floor—fresh garbage. The nearest fast food place was thirty miles north, and no one from Green Gables would drive there and bring a meal back to eat in this miserable shack. This was proof the rustlers were coming from that direction and probably taking the cattle back that way. She found more suspicious evidence, too. Rolf should see this.
Unable to raise Rolf on her phone, she drove back to the ranch house, calling her agent as she did. “Any news? I’m in Wyoming, at the ranch, by the way. Got suckered here by a so-called friend.”
Her agent was Addie’s mother, Barbara Jelleff, who worked with her husband in their own talent agency. “Nothing so far. Great idea to get away from the media heat. Did that handsome cowboy I saw romancing you at Addie’s wedding convince you to visit?”
“How did you guess?”
“Love isn’t a secret when you get older. You see it in people’s faces.”
Embarrassing. Good thing Rolf was only a few years her senior and couldn’t see her love for him on her face. Because she did, she loved Rolf. She’d never have gone to bed with him at Addie’s wedding if she hadn’t cared. She didn’t do hookups. She was an old-fashioned girl that way. Why couldn’t Rolf understand what she needed from him was a commitment to who she was? All he ever talked about was her giving up things that were important to her. She needed a life of her own, or she’d drown in a bottle.
Chapter 12
JD stormed into the ranch office, furious. “Tess has been all over the place, asking questions. Ground her. Remove all the vehicles from the ranch house. Everything, including any bicycles or even a ride-on lawn mower.”
“You’re not serious, man,” Rolf said. “She’s a grown woman. You can’t make her a prisoner here.”
JD clenched his fists, still visibly angry. “I want her to keep out of our way tonight. If you have to hogtie her or lock her in her bedroom, do it.”
“I’ll remove the vehicles, but that’s all.”
JD said, “I called Baron to warn Addie not to be out tonight. He’ll make sure she stays inside.”
“You think? Baron’s a big, hulking guy, but I hope you explained why he should ask Addie nicely to please stay inside. Addie isn’t one to respond to orders.”
JD looked surprised. Could he really not have noticed how much Baron followed what Addie wanted? Had JD been fooled by Baron’s physical resemblance to a classic macho cowboy? Baron was a pussycat. Addie was a tiger.
JD threw a cattle tag on the desk. “Why can’t these women understand the chain of command? Paula does.”
“Paula’s in love with you, so no comment on that. Baron and Addie are happy. Tess could be happy if you dealt her in on ranch business. She’s not stupid, man.”
JD wasn’t listening. Rolf said nothing more. JD took off, and Rolf did his job and arranged for the hands to remove all the motorized ranch vehicles from the ranch house in a hurry, including the one Tess had just returned to the garage a little while ago. Somehow, he didn’t run into her while it was going down. Seemed like a dumb thing to do. What if there was an emergency? But Rolf hadn’t wanted to mention that possibility to JD, who was worried enough about his fragile wife.
Rolf went to tell Miss Betty, apologizing when he did. “I hope you didn’t have any plans to drive anywhere today. JD’s orders.”
“That boy.” She shook her head. “He’s askin’ for trouble.” Miss Betty rolled her eyes and clucked. “Baron tried somethin’ like that with Addie a few years ago. Big mistake.”
An hour later, Rolf was in the ranch office looking out the window when he saw Tess leave the house. Saw her stomp out of the garage a minute later. Saw her stomp back to the house. He expected her to storm in and confront him, but she didn’t.
He heard the sound of female voices in the kitchen. Decided to be smart and keep on with his work instead of checking out how Tess was taking not having a vehicle at her disposal anymore today.
***
Tess stared at the empty garage in disbelief. Where were all the cars, the trucks, the four-wheelers? Even that old motorbike someone had bought was gone.
She went back to the kitchen in a stormy mood. “Miss B, where are the ranch vehicles?”
The elderly woman looked up from the recipe book she was studying. “JD ordered everything serviced over at the hands’ compound. They’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Why do I think someone’s trying to keep me stuck here without transport?”
“’Tis likely the truth.” Miss Betty shook her head, her pinched expression showing her disgust. “Men don’t have the sense they were born with. Imagine leaving us women here helpless. What if we have an emergency?”
“Baron’s not in on this, is he?”
“Addie wouldn’t let him get away with such a harebrained notion.”
Miss Betty watched as Tess paced the kitchen in agitation.
“I need a drink,” Tess said.
The old lady went to the pantry and came back with a plate of cookies.
“Eat somethin’ sugary, instead,” she said, “and think the problem through.” She returned to her recipe book.
Tess sat at the counter a few feet away and idly ate a chocolate chip cookie. Then not so idly. Miss B had put cookies out in the middle of the day. That was unusual. No, it was a signal. Was she telling Tess there was an easy answer to this latest outrage?
Tess said, feeling her way, “If I wanted to, I could call Addie and she’d drive over and I could use her SUV for a while.”
“I expect you could,” Miss B said, not looking up from her book.
“But that would involve them in whatever JD’s up to, and Baron wouldn’t like it. Addie wouldn’t, either.”
“True.”
She had a third cookie. It didn’t give her the same charge she got out of vodka, but her brain wasn’t turning to mush. She could still think through the problem. “JD and Rolf did this because they have some grand scheme to catch the rustlers tonight.”
Tess munched on another cookie. “But they don’t know what I’ve learned about the rustlers. I’m sick of JD shooting me down. I have to test my theory before I tell them. Which means I have to get access to a vehicle. Today.”
After a few more minutes, she sprang up. “I’ve got it. Okay to use your computer?”
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“You go right ahead, child. That dang thing just takes up space.”
Tess sat at the niche in the corner of the kitchen, where a desktop computer languished. She quickly got it running and connected to the net. “This is creaky old by now, but still easier to use for my purpose than a phone.”
“Baron bought it for me. To tell truth, I never use it.”
Tess glanced at Miss B, who was eyeing the computer as if it were a strange beast. Some things never changed. The housekeeper was a rock, but she preferred her old-fashioned ways.
Tess nimbly searched for what she wanted, then sent it to her phone. She jumped up. “That was all I needed. See you later.”
Miss Betty stared. “What you got in mind?”
“You’ll see.” Tess patted the older woman’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. Nothing drastic.”
Unless the housekeeper thought buying an SUV via a phone call was a big deal. Tess went upstairs to her bedroom, rummaged around for her driver’s license, and made the call.
A half-hour later, she’d completed everything, including sending a photo of her driver’s license to the dealership. In a good mood again, she put on her maillot and headed down to the pool.
***
Rolf was still hiding in the ranch office when he heard Tess shrieking on the pool deck. He went to the breezeway that led to the garage, and saw her playing a game with his dog. She held one end of a towel and shook it at Shadow. “Grab the towel, boy! Come on!” she urged in a teasing tone of voice. Shadow’s tail was wagging and he leapt at the cloth as she dangled it above him. They went a few rounds of the Australian sheep dog pulling the towel with his teeth and her yanking it away and shaking it at him. Then she grabbed the towel and wadded it up and tossed it as far as she could. Pretty far, for a girl. An overhand throw, too. Shadow took off like a streak, and Tess ran after him, shrieking joyfully, although she was barefoot. Only wearing a brief one-piece bathing suit, too, which made for an interesting show. “Go for it! Don’t let that evil old towel escape! It’s getting away!”
Cowgirl Rescue (Selkirk Family Ranch Book 3) Page 12