Читать книгу Maddie Inherits a Cowboy - Jeannie Watt - Страница 11

OKAY, SKIP. I WANT ANSWERS.

Madeline burrowed deeper into the sleeping bag she’d laid out on the leather sofa. She hadn’t folded the couch out into a bed, for fear of the amount of dust she might find inside. She hadn’t started cleaning, either, not wanting to suddenly find herself in the dark. But for some reason, Ty had waited almost an hour before turning off the electricity. Wasted time.

She wasn’t sure what exactly she’d expected when she got to the ranch, but it wasn’t this—a dusty, empty double-wide with intermittent electricity. When Skip had said they generated their own power on the ranch, she’d had a romantic vision of solar panels and twenty-four-hour-a-day electricity.

Madeline was tough. She had generations of Yankee blood flowing through her veins. But over those generations, the Yankees had become accustomed to showering whenever they pleased and lighting rooms with a flip of a switch. She was slightly ashamed for needing those things when she prided herself on being up to any challenge, but it was the twenty-first century. Native American tribes at the bottom of the Grand Canyon had electricity and internet.

She’d certainly be talking to Ty about the power situation. Why didn’t the ranch have solar power? Or wind generators instead of these diesel monstrosities? Cost was undoubtedly an issue, but had he even looked into it before spending so much money on the ranch? Was he unaware of the benefits of twenty-four-hour electricity?

If Madeline had been able to see, she would have made a note.

A melancholy moan from somewhere outside the double-wide brought Madeline upright in her sleeping bag, hands clutched to her chest. Her eyes, which had been drifting shut, were now wide-open as she stared into the darkness, listening.

What on earth…?

The plaintive bawl came again, sending a shiver up her spine before she realized the sound had to be coming from…a cow? Of course. Ranch. Cow.

That sound was nothing like a moo. Not even close, but it had to be a cow.

Madeline slowly settled back down into the bag, her heart still beating a little faster. The house was cooling off at warp speed now that the heat source was gone, so she pulled the soft nylon up to her cheekbones and thought about putting on her ski hat. She’d have to see about getting wood.

Or go home.

The thought shot from out of nowhere and Madeline quickly dismissed it. She’d made plans and she was following through. Besides, her lawyer was glad to have her on the other side of the country and not calling every day with a new angle of attack for her defense.

She flopped over and pulled the bag up over her head, risking a headache from lack of fresh air, but her nose was getting cold.

Toughen up.

If Skip could handle living this way, then so could she…. Although when they were kids, Skip’s idea of a good time was camping in the swampy area behind the house and coming back cold, wet, dirty and tired. She’d preferred to curl up with a book and lose herself in another world while the rain beat on the windows.

The thought of being out in the rain, battling the elements, had never appealed to her, just as living in the middle of nowhere didn’t appeal. She had a fiscal responsibility, however, to herself and to her grandmother, so she would muscle through the unexpected physical discomfort and learn something about this ranch she owned half of.

She’d also…hopefully…keep her mind occupied and stop driving herself crazy with what-ifs about her career.

TY WOKE UP SHORTLY BEFORE dawn. He stared into the darkness for a moment, letting his eyes adjust, before rolling onto his back and flopping an arm over his face. He felt like shit. The cold hopelessness that had engulfed him for so many months after the accident was back. In spades.

No. He was wrong. It wasn’t the same. There was a sense of foreboding mixed in with the usual guilt and darkness. Ty ran a hand over the back of his neck, which was about as stiff as it had been for two weeks after the wreck, when he hadn’t been able to turn his head.

Damn it, Skip, I’m sorry. I know you were fond of her, but I just can’t warm up to your sister.

Alvin poked his cold nose against Ty’s shoulder and he automatically ruffled the dog’s silky fur before shoving the blankets aside and getting out of bed. He shivered as he walked naked into the kitchen to turn on the generator and get some heat flowing. He went to the door and let Alvin out, realizing only as he was shutting it that perhaps he shouldn’t do that naked anymore—at least not while Madeline was on the property. Not that she could see much at that distance, but no sense taking chances or prompting complaints.

How long was she going to stay? For real, that was, after she became acquainted with the actuality of life on Lone Summit Ranch. Days, he hoped. He should be so lucky.

The smartest thing for him to do would be to give her whatever information she needed. Answer her questions, weather her insults, show her whatever she wanted to see and do it ASAP. Starting this morning. Then maybe she’d leave.

That was the plan, anyway, but after eating a quick breakfast of coffee and toast with peanut butter, he couldn’t bring himself to knock on Madeline’s door and ask her when she wanted to go over whatever it was she wanted to go over. Instead he walked past the doublewide to the barn, where he started the tractor. Once it was running and he was ready to pull out and drive to the hay shed, he turned on her generator, holding his breath as always. The ancient machine coughed and chugged, then took hold.

Duty done, he adjusted the scarf around his neck and pulled his earflaps down, then climbed into the driver’s seat. Alvin was already waiting on the empty flatbed trailer. He gave two barks, his way of communicating approval that at long last they were starting the real work of the day. As Ty put the tractor in gear, the little collie braced himself, his sharp gaze darting here and there as he guarded his trailer against any marauders that might try to hitch a ride.

MADELINE’S EYES FLASHED open as the overhead lights came on. Normally she never slept this late—it was almost 8:00 a.m. eastern standard time—but she hadn’t fallen asleep until very, very late. In fact, she’d resigned herself to staring up at the dark ceiling, her nose getting colder as the temperature steadily dropped, and wondering if Skip had truly enjoyed living this way or had been too proud to admit he’d made a mistake.

Somewhere along the line, she’d fallen asleep.

She sat up and then immediately snuggled back into the sleeping bag. The room was even more frigid than when she’d fallen asleep, but the furnace had come on with the power. She would let the heat blow for a few minutes.

Or a few hours.

Madeline compromised and climbed out of the bag ten minutes later and put on her coat. She hurried to the bathroom and shut the door to trap the heat flowing up through the vents. Blessed warmth.

Having no idea how long the electricity would be on—something else to discuss with Ty—she cranked on the shower, grimacing slightly as the water ran rusty. It cleared after a few minutes and she climbed under the wonderfully strong spray, letting it beat on her shoulders and back, warming her.

Madeline stood under the shower until the water started to cool—something she rarely did, but she had a slightly larger water tank back home. She stepped out into the saunalike environment she’d created, cleared the condensation off the mirror with her washcloth, then prepared for the daily battle with the blow-dryer and flatiron.

Once that was done, she would brew a thermos of instant coffee, then sit down with her laptop and write up a plan of attack for the morning and afternoon. She’d spend the evening working on her great-grandmother’s memoir, with a flashlight if necessary.

First on the list—set up a meeting with Ty. She hoped today he was in a mood to cooperate.

Second—a trip back down the mountain. She wanted to talk to Connor, both to touch base and to vent about the state of this alleged ranch, her uncertainties concerning Ty. She needed a sounding board. Someone she could trust.

THE MORNING WAS NOT going well. Fair or not, Ty blamed Madeline. If she hadn’t come to the ranch, he would have been able to concentrate. He wouldn’t have hit the pothole under the snow, shifting his load of hay so that he caught a bale on the gatepost as he drove through.

After he’d restacked the hay, Alvin held the cows off while Ty opened the second gate, the one leading to the cattle pasture, and drove the tractor through. The dog leaped back onto his trailer and Ty started feeding without incident, Alvin happily snapping and barking at the cows to keep them from pulling bales off one side of the trailer while Ty dropped hay off the other. But while Ty usually found a temporary sense of peace in the simple act of feeding, today a dark cloud hung over him.

Were these his only choices in life? To be depressed or to be angry?

Hell of a way to live.

Man up. Madeline was Skip’s sister. His inherited business partner. He had to do his duty and be civil. She was here for answers he owed her, to clear up suspicions that, while insulting and rather tactlessly voiced, were justified. For all she knew, he was a guy who’d taken advantage of her brother.

Would he be able to convince her otherwise?

Was he even going to try? And if he did, would she listen, or was she one of those people who, once her mind was made up, refused to change it? Skip had told him more than once about her stubbornness.

Ty had become grimly comfortable about how he dealt with his guilt. He didn’t need Madeline here, stir ring the pot. Mainly because he didn’t know if he had it in him to come up with yet another coping mechanism.

He dumped one more bale, then got on the tractor to move to the next spot, stringing the cattle out so they had room to eat.

He drove on a few yards, then stopped when he saw a yellowish-brown mound next to the frozen creek. His rotten morning continued.

It’d been easy to blame Madeline for his bad mood and lack of concentration, but it was kind of hard to blame her for the cow lying in the willows. Ty stopped the tractor and left Alvin to keep the cows from destroying the stack of hay on the trailer.

This was one of his feistier cows, but she simply turned her head and blinked when he approached. And then he saw the dead calf. A preemie, but a big one.

“Come on, girl,” he muttered, reaching out to give her a couple pats on her shoulder. She didn’t react. He nudged her with his knee, carefully, since he’d had recurring problems with the joint since the accident, but again, no response.

Shit.

Ty dug under the layers of clothing he wore, pulled his cell out of his pocket and hit lucky number three with his gloved thumb. You know you’re a rancher when you have the vet on speed dial.

“Hey,” he said when Sam Hyatt answered. The crackling connection told Ty the vet was in his truck, probably on the edge of the service area. “Ty Hopewell.” His breath crystallized as he spoke. “Any chance you can make it up to my place this morning? I have a cow down. She’s just aborted a big preemie. Calving paralysis, I’m guessing.”

The best Sam could do was noon, since he was more than a hundred miles away, en route to another emergency call.

“Thanks. See you at noon.” Ty ended the call, then stood for a moment studying the cow. She studied him back. Finally he shook his head and started for the tractor, where Alvin was doing his best to save the load. Ty climbed onto the seat and put the tractor in gear.

He didn’t even want to think about what else might happen today.

TY WASN’T AT HOME. Madeline knocked twice. The collie hadn’t barked, so it followed that Ty was out and about, doing ranch chores or some such thing.

She’d carried her cell on the walk across the wide drive, hoping to step into a service area, but no luck. If she was going to communicate with the outside world, she was going to have to travel or ask Ty if she could use his phone. He’d probably say no and then she’d end up traveling anyway.

She stood for a moment, hands on hips, debating whether to check the barn or the shop first, then caught sight of movement in the field. A tractor, slowly heading away from her. It stopped a few seconds later and Ty got off and walked back to the load of hay, climbing on the trailer to avoid the crush of cows. The collie was snapping at the animals, fending them off.

Ty was feeding, and it looked as if he’d just begun. How long would it take to feed all those cattle? Should she wait?

The sky was darkening, the clouds hugging the top of the mountain range. The last weather report she’d accessed before leaving Reno had promised days of on-again, off-again snowstorms. If she wanted to store up on provisions, such as toilet paper—how on earth had she forgotten toilet paper?—and set up a way to get mail, she needed to take advantage of this window of opportunity. She would catch up with Ty as soon as she got back.

It was wasteful to run the generator while she was gone—Ty had said the fuel was low. So she went to the barn, covering her ears until she reached out with one hand and cautiously flipped the toggle switch he had used to start the machine. After a low drone of protest, it stilled.

The silence that followed was intense and Madeline felt an instant flood of relief.

They were definitely going to look into solar power.

THE COW LOOKED NO BETTER when Ty stopped on his way back from feeding. Four hours until Sam got there… Once again Ty tried to get her to her feet, and once again she refused to budge. It was gearing up to snow again, but at least the cold wasn’t as bitter as it’d been the week before. Ty got on the tractor, feeling helpless. Losing a cow wasn’t in the budget. He’d already lost a calf. He wasn’t up for a double loss.

He parked the tractor in the barn, cocking his head and wondering why things didn’t seem quite right.

It took him a second to realize the generator wasn’t running.

Shit.

He climbed off the tractor, wincing as he twisted the knee he’d been so careful of when he’d nudged the cow.

Ty paused for a painful moment, resting his hands on his thighs, knowing from experience that if he waited a few seconds, let his knee recover, there would be no lasting damage. He took a cautious step once the pain subsided, and the knee held. Good. One point for him—his first today. But if the generator engine had seized… It hadn’t.

The engine was cool to the touch. The oil level was fine.

The collar of wires appeared to be all right. No short.

And Madeline wasn’t there in the barn, demanding to know what had happened to her power.

Ty scratched his head, then reached out to flip the switch. The machine started. Ty turned it back off.

Madeline had turned off the power? That seemed odd.

Granted, she seemed a bit odd herself, but still…

Ty didn’t want to initiate contact. Even though he’d come to the conclusion that the smartest thing he could do was to cooperate, the logic part of his brain hadn’t quite conquered the pissed-off part. It turned out, though, that he didn’t need to worry about initiating contact. Her car was gone.

For good?

He doubted it, but he climbed the porch steps to check if her belongings were still there. That plan was squashed when the knob refused to turn in his hand.

Madeline had locked her door.