by Jeannie Watt
“Turn her? Like a pancake?”
“I roll her over.”
That she would like to see. How did one roll a cow? “Is this common?” Madeline asked incredulously.
“It happens every now and then, especially in older cows.”
“And the prescribed treatment is to hang them,” she repeated.
“Richer ranches have aqua tanks.”
Madeline drew back slightly. “You don’t mean a swimming pool for…cattle?”
“More like a tank. The water supports the cow’s weight.”
She was so not ready for this. Hanging cattle. Floating cattle. Oh, yes. Time to get out of this business. She cleared her throat and made an effort to keep her voice even as she asked, “Why are you so certain this place will take a long time to sell if it’s in such grand shape? After all, you’ve put almost all of our profits back into it.”
“Lack of power. Ranchers can’t irrigate without power.”
“You aren’t irrigating.”
“I…we are raising a small herd of specialty cattle. I swap our meadow hay, which doesn’t need irrigation, for alfalfa, and bring the feed cost down. Unless someone comes along who also wants to run a small-scale specialty operation, the power will be an issue. Most ranchers want a bigger herd than I have, and to be able to raise the hay to feed them.”
“Then we need to put in some power.”
“Got a million bucks? That’s what the local power company wants to put electricity up the road.”
“I was thinking solar power.” Ty simply stared at her. “I know it’s an expensive outlay to begin with, but it’ll make the property more attractive, and we’ll recoup the money when we sell.”
Ty continued to study her, as if expecting her to suddenly come to her senses. It made her feel vaguely stupid, a feeling she did not care for one bit. “It makes sense. You could irrigate and the property will be more salable.”
“You can’t run a pivot, or even wheel lines, on solar.”
“What’s a pivot? And wheel lines?”
“A pivot is a giant sprinkler connected to a pump. On a regular power grid, it costs more than ten grand a month to run. That should give you an idea of how much power they use. You don’t have the room to store that much energy on this ranch. If you did, then the hay-fields would be covered in shiny black solar-collecting rectangles and it would be a moot point.”
“Skip liked you.” Her rapid change of subject seemed to throw him, and she felt a sense of satisfaction. She needed to regain control of this conversation, which only emphasized to her how little she knew, how right she was to sell.
“I liked him,” Ty replied cautiously. “What’s your point?”
“Skip was a man who liked to please others. He wasn’t a fool, but he could be led by someone who knew what they were doing.”
Ty stilled. “What are you getting at?” he repeated. “That I finagled him into buying a white elephant because I liked it here?”
“I understand this land was once in your family.”
Ty glanced down at the table for a moment. When he looked up again his features were set in hard lines, and Madeline knew she had pushed too far, though she didn’t feel as if she was pushing at all. Facts were facts.
“My great-great-grandfather was a very successful man who homesteaded in this area. He married a local girl. Most of the land in this valley was probably in the family,” he said sarcastically. “Then things changed. Parcels were sold off during the drought years, the Depression, the World Wars. After my father left, none of the land was in the family anymore. But—” he stabbed a finger at the table and Madeline drew back, putting distance between herself and his anger “—the bottom line is that it would have been damned hard to buy any land in this area that hadn’t at one time been owned by some branch of the family. I didn’t purchase for sentimental reasons or to reclaim a family dynasty. I bought because the price was right and I had a business partner who liked the place enough to help bankroll it.”
“And now his heir wants to sell her half,” Madeline said. The words came out sounding harsh, cold. But she did want to sell and there was no sense sugarcoating it.
“List the property.”
“I will. I assume you won’t do anything to sabotage the sale.”
“Nothing more than breathing,” he muttered. He stood, rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“I’m sorry,” Madeline said softly. “But this is what I have to do.”
“Yeah. Right. I understand.” The words came out woodenly. He looked out the window at the six-inch accumulation of new snow. “The plow should be by sometime this morning.”
“Meaning you want me gone?” Madeline asked flatly.
He met her gaze. There was a depth of pain in his eyes that she found disturbing.
“Meaning that little car of yours has no problem negotiating the roads if you don’t feel like staying.”
WELL, IT’D HAPPENED. Ty wasn’t a big drinker, but every now and then whiskey made the world look better. He didn’t think anything would make the world better today, but he still pulled the Jameson off the shelf and poured a splash in a jelly glass.
How long would it take Madeline to pack up and leave? How long until he had the place to himself again for however much time it took to sell? Could be weeks, could be years. He’d been sincere when he’d told her it would be difficult to find a buyer, but knowing his luck, everything would fall into place and Madeline would have the property sold by spring.Ty sat on a kitchen chair and gently swirled the whiskey. He might have enough money left to buy a much smaller property after he paid his debt to Madeline and the bank. Loans were almost impossible to procure nowadays, but he could keep a few cattle, continue the operation on a greatly reduced scale. But it wouldn’t feed him, and frankly he’d grown attached to this ranch, had come to depend on it. It helped him cope with his guilt.
It was odd that the one place he’d found solace, however temporary, was here, where he’d worked with Skip. It hadn’t happened since Madeline had told him she was flying out to meet him, but there were times while he was feeding, or fixing fence, when the peace of the land seemed to permeate his soul. Times when he felt a whisper of something that felt a bit like hope.
And then it would all go to hell. Like now.
He knew better than to listen to whispers.
MADELINE OPENED THE WINE she’d bought at the mercantile and poured a dollop into a disposable plastic glass after booting up her laptop. She wasn’t imbibing because of the stress of her meeting with Ty. No. She wanted to relax before she started working on the memoir.
She wasn’t a bad person because she wanted to sell her half of the ranch—a ranch she’d never intended to own in the first place. She was simply doing what she had to do. It was unfortunate that it affected Ty, but that was the way it had to be.Madeline lifted the glass, taking a sniff. She hadn’t expected much of the wine, but it was surprisingly full-bodied, with interesting notes. There was cherry, or perhaps it was blackberry. A hint of lavender. And was that vanilla?
She sipped, tilted her head in silent appreciation after swallowing, then topped off the glass and started making editing notes on the last completed chapter of the memoir. Yes, definitely vanilla.
A glass and a half later Madeline realized it was getting too dark to see her work, and reached out to flick on the light. Nothing happened.
Of course, nothing.
She shoved her feet into the boots next to the chair and then grabbed her coat. Time for some of the amenities of civilization. Skip had been nuts. Camping for a few days was one thing, but every day? Even he had to tire of this mile-long walk to the barn when he wanted to use an appliance.
Ty was just leaving his own house when she opened her door. He caught sight of her and hesitated, as if he was going to reverse course, but instead he sucked it up and continued down the path to the barn, the dog at his heel. Madeline refused to be the chicken, so she did the same, even though the sim
ple laws of physics decreed that, traveling at their given speeds, they would arrive at the barn at the same time.
As it turned out, Ty beat her by a few seconds, perhaps because her legs were not as cooperative as usual. The snow was deep.
“Surprised I’m still here?” she asked. As opposed to in her little car on her way down the mountain, like he wanted.
“Can’t say that I am.” Standing well back, he held the door open so she could pass through first.
“Careful not to touch me,” she muttered.
“What?” he asked in a mystified voice.
She turned to him, standing on the threshold, tilting her chin up so she could meet his eyes, squinting slightly so that he was in focus. He seemed to be wavering. “Careful you don’t touch me. You know.” She reached out and gave his canvas-covered arm a few good pats. “Touch, touch, touch.”
“Madeline?”
“Never mind.” She turned and stalked over to the generator. She fully expected an explosion every time she started the machine and it must have shown in her face.
“Let me,” Ty said, coming up beside her.
She held up a hand. “I can do it.” She flipped the toggle with a flourish, then stepped back and put her hands over her ears. Ty took her arm and led her across the barn to the haystack, where he released her and took the requisite step back before she could warn him again about the dangers of touching.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you picked up a bottle of wine at the mercantile.”
“Indeed I did.”
He poked his tongue into his cheek and nodded as if all the mysteries in the world had just been solved.
“It’s not bad,” Madeline added.
“One of my favorites,” he agreed solemnly. “What is this about not touching you?”
“On the porch. Yesterday. When I almost lost my balance, you reached out to steady me, and then you recoiled.”
“I did not…recoil.”
“You did,” Madeline said. “But that’s all right. The circumstances between us are not the best, and considering what I have to do, I don’t see them getting any better.”
She paused, inhaling deeply, since she’d forgotten to breathe while she was speaking. Ty stared at her. Madeline stared back for a moment, wondering if his slightly aquiline nose was the product of Native American blood. And then, since there was really nothing else to say and he kept going out of focus, anyway, she turned and headed for the barn door on her still mildly uncooperative legs.
Ty didn’t try to stop her, didn’t protest that she was mistaken. She hadn’t expected him to.
TY TENDED TO THE COW, trying not to think about what had just transpired. Another unexpected similarity between Madeline and her brother. Neither could handle good Basque wine—at least not Anne McKirk’s good Basque wine. But Amuma was a kick-ass brew. He’d practically been raised on the stuff, and it had been a good teenage party staple, but it could still sneak up and wallop him.
Careful not to touch me.Ty snorted softly as he ran a hand over the cow’s hindquarters. But upon consideration, he had to admit she was right. He had recoiled—a word he’d never used except when discussing a pull-start engine—but not for the reason she seemed to think. He justifiably thought she wouldn’t want him touching her, being a suspect in ranch fraud and all. He’d tried to give her some space. He hadn’t realized that she’d noticed or cared, although come to think of it, she had seemed a bit put out.
Interesting.
Apparently Madeline had some vulnerabilities under that hard shell of hers. How was she going to feel when she sobered up and realized she’d let one show?
He hoped it bugged the hell out of her.
WHO WOULD HAVE EXPECTED the champagne effect from a bottle of homemade red?
Not Madeline. The only wine in the world to influence her in this way was the bubbly stuff, which had a hit-and-run effect. It hit her hard when she wasn’t expecting it, and then an hour later—although in this case it was three hours later, almost nine o’clock—she was stone-cold sober. Only usually, since she rarely put herself in situations she couldn’t control, she was not in a state of deep regret and embarrassment.Oy. She rubbed a hand over her forehead and let out an audible groan, thankful she didn’t have a worse headache than she did. She’d had only two glasses. What was in that stuff?
It was dark outside, time to turn off the generator. Ty was in his house. She could see his silhouette through his kitchen window. Now or never. He was probably going out to check the cow before bed—if he hadn’t already done it while Madeline was sleeping with her head on her worktable.
She’d wasted a lot of light and fuel that evening, and, prior to that, said a few things she wished she hadn’t. Nothing that wasn’t true; but she hated showing weakness, and she’d stupidly let Ty know his revulsion bothered her. And, she thought stubbornly as she let herself out of the house, there was no other word for what he’d done, whether he admitted it or not. She knew a recoil when she saw one. She just didn’t know why it had bothered her enough to have a drunken conversation about it. He didn’t want to come in contact with her, the woman who was selling the ranch. Big deal.
Except she hadn’t been the woman selling his ranch yesterday, and it did bother her. Illogical, but true.
TY WOKE UP SWEATING, the blankets thrown off the bed in his frantic attempts to pull Skip from the wreckage.
He drew in a shuddering breath as he realized he was in his house, in his bed, and then fell back against the pillow, heart pounding. How long had he been trying to rescue Skip? Minutes? Seconds? It felt like hours.Alvin whimpered next to the bed and Ty reached out to reassure the dog before pulling the covers back up off the floor. Alvin had been through this with him before. It was going to be one of those days when Ty could barely drag himself through his chores. Even if he didn’t consciously think about the nightmare, he felt the physical effects all day long.
This was his first nightmare in over three months. Why now?
It had to be Madeline, both reminding him of Skip and threatening his sanctuary. Double whammy.
The thought of putting the ranch on the market was eating at him, but he was in one hell of a position. Madeline pissed him off and his future was tied up in the operation, but he couldn’t fight her.
He owed her a brother, and there was no way he could repay that particular debt, making the playing field even between them.
It was killing him. From the inside out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MADELINE DRESSED carefully for her trip to town, wearing her jeans this time, so as not to stand out or look uptight, and the red sweater. She slipped into her light blue puffy coat, pulled on her gloves. It was cold in the house and the gloves felt good on her chilled fingers.
Ty hadn’t turned on the generator that morning and she hadn’t bothered to turn it on herself, since there was enough water in the storage tank for an ultraquick shower and to brush her teeth. Her decision to do without electricity had nothing to do with avoiding Ty.She’d never before showered under polar conditions and had found it to be exhilarating in an odd way. That Yankee blood was finally reverting to form. Her hair had been safely pinned up and protected from the water by the heavy-duty shower cap she never traveled without—she couldn’t risk her hair getting wet when she didn’t have use of the flatiron. She hadn’t counted on the copious amounts of steam created by a hot shower in a very cold environment. Her hair started to wave, but not to the point of curly embarrassment.
After putting on her beret, she let herself out of the house and walked directly to her car, head down. Still no Ty. No tractor in the field, no lights on in his house. He must have overslept. She felt a sense of relief as she got into the vehicle. The embarrassment over lecturing him about touching her would fade, but what had she been thinking? She didn’t let loose like that unless she was intimate with the other person. She wouldn’t classify her relationship with Ty as intimate—or likely to become that way.
In fact, the thought was rather mind-boggling. What would it be like to sleep with a standoffish cowboy? Probably very one-sided, she decided with a tilt of her chin.
Anne wasn’t at the mercantile when she arrived, so Madeline would be able to shop in peace. The teenage girl in her place smiled pleasantly.
“Can I help you find anything?”
“Just about everything,” Madeline said, only half kidding as she once again took in the overwhelming hodgepodge of merchandise. “Actually, I only have a couple items I need to find. Batteries. Matches. And maybe a kerosene lantern?” No wine.
The girl came out from the behind the counter and led Madeline around the store, showing her where everything was. A much different shopping experience from the last one.
“How long will you being staying?” the girl asked as she rang up the items five minutes later.
“I’m not sure,” Madeline said truthfully. If she found an agent she could work with, it could be a matter of days.
“If you’re here for the Christmas pageant—” the girl pointed at the poster taped to the door “—be sure to go. It’s always fun.”
“I’ll do that.”
Next stop, the post office. Susan, whose twinkling wreath pin had been replaced with Rudolph, greeted Madeline like a long-lost friend and told her that while she had no mail, Ty had some.
“I, uh, think I’ll let Ty pick up his own mail.”
“He has a package,” Susan said, as if that piece of information would tip the scales.
“He’ll probably want to pick that up himself,” she said, heading for the door. She was not involving herself in Ty’s personal business again.
“Have you arranged to have your wood delivered while the roads are plowed?” Susan called before the door closed. “It’s supposed to snow again soon.”
Madeline turned and marched back into the lobby. “What wood?”