Читать книгу The Kentucky Cowboy's Baby - Heidi Hormel - Страница 11

Chapter Two

Pepper’s directions to Gene’s ranch had included exact mileages, road names and landmarks. Even in the sameness of the rocky terrain, dotted with gray-green bushes and low trees, he’d easily found the turnoff that wound through a short downhill drive. Flatlands opened up for a distance before moving into another set of foothills that rolled into mountains. The ranch included a low house, outbuildings and corrals. The animals milling around ranged in color from white to shadows-at-noon black. But they weren’t cattle or horses or even goats.

He checked his rearview mirror to see his daughter, who was eerily quiet. Her head swiveled back and forth as she looked out the windows, staring wide-eyed, her lost-all-its-stuffing dog clutched tight in her fist.

Contrary as any McCreary, after days on the road wishing she’d quiet down, he wanted noise from his daughter now so he could stop thinking about Pepper. She somehow made scrubs look as good as painted-on jeans and a tight cowgirl shirt. She actually looked better than the buckle bunnies who’d been the honey to his bee for years. EllaJayne’s mama had been Miss Kentucky Rodeo two years before he’d met her.

He stopped the truck in front of the house that had a lumpy outline of clearly unplanned additions. It had been Gene’s home. He’d talked of the ranch with a lot of pride. Gene had retired from the rodeo circuit after a string of bad wrecks. Both Danny and AJ had tried to talk him out of it because he was the best at reading the animals. They’d been young and hadn’t understood what it meant to have a body that had been battered and broken again and again.

AJ knew he couldn’t stall any longer. Though he hated to intrude, his nearly maxed-out credit card and flat wallet told him otherwise. He had to swallow that pride and ask—beg for—their hospitality. He’d stay for the memorial, then move on. He’d come west for a brand-new start where no one had heard of the McCrearys of Pinetown, Kentucky.

He held EllaJayne firmly in his arms when he knocked on the weathered door. Up close, the ranch house looked like a cross between a trailer and a cabin.

“There you are,” said the woman who opened the door. “Come in.” Obviously, this was Faye, just as Gene had described her: “Stevie Nicks who bought her duds at Sheplers and her jewelry at swap meets.” She stepped back, pushing a drape of gray-streaked hair with strips of color like her daughter’s out of her watchful green eyes.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, finally remembering the manners that had been knocked into him with a spatula and fly swatter.

“Oh, my,” she said as tears filled her eyes. “Don’t you have the look of Gene? It’s just like he’s here. And those nice manners.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He and Gene looked nothing alike.

“And who is the gorgeous baby? Yours. Look at that hair, that skin. Oh, my, but she’ll be a beauty. Come here, sweetheart,” Faye said and held her hands out to his daughter. The little girl went right to her. “I bet I have a cookie you’d like. You can call me Grana. I always wanted someone to call me that. I’m in the Crone phase of my womanhood. The most powerful. You are in the Baby phase, still finding your power. But don’t worry. It’s there.”

He followed her closely in the wake of the deep scent of incense and sharp desert herbs. “Ma’am,” he tried, “I’m here to—”

“Have you eaten? No. I can see you haven’t. Sit.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I know that I should have called as soon as Gene...passed. But I’m here to pay my respects and attend the memorial.”

She waved a thin, elegant hand covered in silver and turquoise. “Gene understood. He spoke of you often. Now, I’ll fix you a plate and give this little one a cookie.”

“Ma’am,” AJ interrupted. “I don’t want to put you out at a time like this.”

“A time like what?”

Jeez. Gene had told him that his wife and he...well, actually not his legally wed wife. They had never married. AJ said gently, “A sad time like this.”

“Sad?” She laughed brightly and his daughter joined in. “We’re celebrating Gene’s life. That can never be sad.” Faye walked through a listing doorway into a kitchen filled with brightly painted cabinets and mismatched appliances.

“Now,” she went on, “you’re a Taurus and you’ve been traveling, so I think you need scrambled tofu, with sprouted bread, yogurt...no, not yogurt...kefir. Then I’ll move in with Pepper so you can have my room.”

“Please, I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“Of course, you’ll stay here. It’s what Gene would have wanted.”

“I couldn’t do that,” he protested politely, even though he’d planned to ask for such hospitality.

“I couldn’t let Gene’s family stay anywhere else.” Tears filled her voice and she squeezed EllaJayne closer to her.

AJ couldn’t afford to protest too strongly. “If you insist, ma’am.”

“Perfect. This food will balance you, and then you’ll have a wonderful night’s sleep. Here. Hold your daughter while I finish.” She plopped the little girl into his arms and magically produced a chunky cookie that EllaJayne immediately started gnawing.

“What’s in there?” he asked. This cookie looked like it might have all kinds of things that were bad for babies. Except what were those things? Chocolate? No, that was dogs. What had the website said?

Faye crossed to the stove. “Wheat germ, oats... You ride bulls, Gene said, and you’re a Taurus. Isn’t it wonderful the way the universe makes things like that work?”

“Used to ride bulls.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think the universe will like that.” She turned to him and a frown marred her surprisingly smooth brow.

“I don’t think the universe is very happy with me right now.” EllaJayne looked up at him, the cookie in one hand.

“No,” she said clearly. The one word she said regularly and loudly. Her brow wrinkled. Uh-oh. He knew that look. That was the look that meant something smelly was going to come out of one end or the other. Really, Universe, what have I ever done to you?

* * *

PEPPER EXPECTED TO see Daddy Gene come around the side of the house and onto the patio, to greet everyone with a big shout and a laugh, then smooth his handlebar mustache into place before announcing that it was time to get the party started. Except that wouldn’t be happening. Faye had tried to make it festive with lights strung around the patio and a table laden with food. Of course, everyone knew the kinds of dishes Faye cooked so a number of pies, casseroles and platters had magically appeared, too.

Pepper saw the mayor chatting with Gene’s cousin AJ. The man and his daughter had stayed with them last night at Faye’s insistence. Pepper had been so busy between work and getting everything set for the memorial that she’d only been home to sleep. Pepper turned away, not sure exactly what she was feeling. Today was a celebration, she reminded herself, but the weight of responsibility made her shoulders ache. Daddy Gene had been a part of her life since he’d shown up at the commune. Pepper had only been five years old, but she’d known he was the kind of man they both could count on. Now what?

“It’s time,” Faye announced. “We’re here to celebrate the life of my lover, companion and soul mate.” Then she started singing “Witchy Woman” while the silence got increasingly uncomfortable.

Dear Lord. Angel Crossing had more or less accepted Faye...they’d loved Daddy Gene and he and Faye were a package deal. Alone, Faye might be just a little too filled with hippie hokum.

Danny stepped up to Faye and stopped her swaying, off-key rendition mercifully short. “That was one of Gene’s favorites. You know, he was my mentor... AJ and I wouldn’t have stayed on any bull without Gene. He could read those animals like most men read the want ads.” Nods rippled through the crowd. Faye smiled at Danny. It might just work out okay. “I’ll miss Gene, just like all of us will. But I know he wanted us to have a good time tonight. Drink a little beer—his favorite, Lone Star—jaw a bit and eat good food...and I see the tables are filled. To Gene.” Danny lifted his beer bottle and everyone joined in.

Pepper turned away to pull herself together. A celebration, she told herself again. She could do this for Daddy Gene. This one last thing for him. The man who’d been her father and the one person she could count on no matter what. “Love you, Daddy Gene,” she said quietly, looking out toward the mountains dark against the brilliant pinks, purples and reds of the sunset. “Thanks for the show.” She smiled and then wiped away the tears. Time to honor a life well lived. She wouldn’t remember those last days of illness and pain. She’d remember him laughing. That was her favorite Daddy Gene.

* * *

“FAYE ASKED ME to do the reading of the will tonight.”

Pepper stared at Bobby Ames, Angel Crossing’s attorney and part-time taxidermist.

He went on, “Everyone grab a seat. This won’t take long.”

They were in the living room of the ranch house, sitting on an assortment of chairs salvaged from roadside garbage piles or built by Faye’s friends.

“Come along, Pepper Moonbeam,” Faye said, formal and stiff. She’d been holding back her sadness tonight so they could “rejoice in” Daddy Gene’s life, not mourn his death. Pepper knew how tough that was as she’d worked over and over to hold her own tears in check. He’d been gone for just a month. They’d scattered his ashes weeks ago, but today was the real goodbye and much more painful than the one at his bedside. She didn’t understand what the lawyer was doing. Gene had left the ranch to Faye, what else could the will say? My god, he’d named the place for her: Santa Faye Ranch.

Pepper sat and waited for the attorney to speak again, a moment out of a soap opera or a telenovela. Bobby Ames finally started to read the will. Daddy Gene named a couple of friends and gave them his riding gear and two of his trophies. Then Bobby Ames did the strangest thing. He put the will down, sucked in a breath and spoke in a voice that Pepper was sure he’d learned from Law and Order. “I want to let you know that if Gene had come to me... I’ll just read this, then you can ask questions.”

What had Daddy Gene done? Put the rest of the will in verse? Or maybe he’d set up a scavenger hunt for the remaining items, like his bear-claw necklace. That would be like him. He’d been just a big kid at heart.

“The ranch goes to my cousin and savior, Arthur John McCreary.”

Pepper’s breath clogged her lungs as she ran over the words again in her head. They didn’t make any sense.

“He left me the ranch?” AJ asked. He didn’t sound like a man who’d just hit the jackpot.

“You’ve got the wrong will,” Pepper told the attorney. Well, maybe more like accused him of gross incompetence.

“Now...” Chief Rudy started.

“It’s wrong,” she said. It’s got to be. She’d used the inheritance she’d been sure she and her mother would get on the grant application to get the Angel Crossing Community Garden Project started. “Daddy Gene always said... I used the property—”

“How could I have forgotten,” Faye said with something like regret and worry, two emotions she rarely acknowledged. “You told that agency you would use the value of the ranch as the matching money.”

“You did what?” AJ’s storm-gray gaze locked on her. No chance that she couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. “There’s a lien on the property?”

“Not exactly,” she said.

He hitched up his sleeping daughter so her head fit more firmly on his shoulder. “You. Me. The attorney. We need to talk now.”

“What are you, a caveman? I already told you there’s some mistake.” She moved closer to whisper what needed to be said so no one—especially not her mother—could hear. “You didn’t even visit. When he was...when the doctors said that he...you didn’t visit. Why would he leave this to you? Did you call him? Talk to the attorney?”

“Are you saying that I scammed Gene? My God, he was kin. He watched out for me when I first started riding bulls.”

“What other reason could there be?”

Bobby Ames pretended to clear his throat.

Pepper moved around the room restlessly as the silence stretched. Not only was her plan on the line, her mother’s future was, too. The ranch would have been plenty to keep Faye in yogurt and tofu. One good thing about her mother was that she didn’t need a lot of cash to get along. That’s why Pepper had been so sure the community garden plan would work.

“Now, we need to discuss this frankly,” Bobby Ames said, still using his TV-attorney voice. “There’ll be no more talk about this will not being legal. It is. Faye and the chief looked everywhere for another one. There was nothing at the house. I called around to other attorneys and there was nothing. This is his will.”

Pepper wanted to say no. She wanted to scream no, but she was nothing if not a realist. She left the dreaming to her mother.

“Why me?” AJ asked.

Yeah, she wanted to know that, too.

Bobby Ames adjusted his glasses. “Could be that it’s an old will and you were his cousin? Or maybe because you saved his life.”

“I’m not sure I saved him,” AJ said, moving his daughter to his other shoulder.

“The way Gene told it was that if you hadn’t run into the arena and grabbed him, he’d have been stomped to death. He said the clowns had gotten tangled up with a loose calf and you were the first one to him. He said you took a good kick to the ribs.” AJ’s hand went to his side. “I believe you nearly lost your spleen.”

“He thanked me plenty,” AJ said. “I never expected—”

“You don’t need to make any decisions today,” Bobby Ames said, “except this thing with Pepper and the grant. What did Faye mean?”

Pepper searched for a way to understand the new lay of the land. She’d never imagined Daddy Gene wouldn’t leave the ranch to Faye. She’d never asked him about it in those last weeks. They’d all known he was dying but they’d still tried to deny it until the very end.

No one spoke and the silence stretched out long enough that she could hear the deep breathing of the baby. Come clean, girlie girl, Daddy Gene’s voice said in her head. Dear Lord. What would they do? What would the state office where she’d filed her paperwork say?

Pepper said, “Daddy Gene loved Faye, you all know that. You know what he would do.” Her voice squeaked to a stop. Her chest hurt from holding back the tears. She had to get through this next bit, then she could fall to pieces. She needed to protect Faye’s future and her own plans for the garden, her patients and the town. Pepper breathed deeply as she’d seen her mother do before a big announcement. “I’m planning the Angel Crossing Community Garden here at the ranch and we needed a grant for the equipment. Faye agreed I could use the value of the ranch’s land and outbuildings to match the money the state would grant us. It was the only way to get the money, so I put that on my application. I’ve already set up the greenhouse using my own savings and promised loans to my farmers. I told you all about it, chief. Remember? There would be fresh food for those who worked the ground and plots where others could grow specialty plants that they’d then sell and pay me land rent. It would be run by a nonprofit and support small businesses as well as senior and children’s health. The mayor even agreed it was a good idea.”

“It is a good idea,” Chief Rudy said, cutting off AJ when he started to protest, “but you didn’t tell any of us that you basically were promising money you don’t have or that the plan had been put together with a spit and a prayer.”

Finally, AJ spoke, his voice low but no less angry. “So you’ve used my ranch and now there’s a lien and I won’t be able to sell.”

“It seems that you’ve gone awfully quick from ‘I can’t believe this is mine’ to ordering us all around because you inherited some land,” Pepper said, facing him and forcing her voice to be steady. “There isn’t a lien on the property. I’ve only just put in the paperwork. I’m sure I can explain things and rescind the application...if I have to, which I’m not convinced I’ll have to.”

“It’s the Spring Equinox right now,” Faye said out of nowhere, as she sometimes did. “This was always Gene’s favorite time of year. He said spring was when anything was possible.”