Читать книгу Lone Heart Pass - Jodi Thomas - Страница 11

CHAPTER FIVE

Jubilee

February 24

THE RAIN STARTED an hour before sunset, just as it had the day before, and kept falling until full dark. The land, long dry, didn’t seem to know how to take in all the moisture. Tiny lakes formed for as far as Jubilee could see. Water was suddenly everywhere, if only an inch deep.

She swore a storm had never roared like this one. Lightning so strong she felt the whip of fire in the air. Thunder rumbled, shaking the earth and sky. Nature seemed to be running full blast to tell the world that the months of drought were over.

Jubilee had spent the day listening for the sound of a truck, hoping her boxes of clothes, favorite books and office supplies would arrive today. Since her first year of college she’d always kept a home office. No matter what a mess her world was in, everything had its place in file folders or drawer organizers.

Only between noon and the storm she’d only seen one car, a sheriff’s cruiser, driving down the road in front of her place. She wasn’t sure if it made her feel safer to know her ranch was part of his route or not. Surely very few vehicles headed her way, except the moving truck that was supposed to come today, of course.

Jubilee never realized how little she had worth moving. The old pots and pans she’d had since her freshman year in college had gone to Goodwill a year ago when she moved in with David and he had a fully stocked kitchen. He’d furnished every room of their apartment except for one table. The used dining table she’d bought fit perfectly in the corner. It was so wobbly she had to prop it up with a book under one corner, but he’d thought it rustic.

When she’d left Washington, it simply went to the trash.

In the end, she’d had fewer than a dozen boxes to move.

The memories of a life she’d thought mattered lingered in the shadows of her mind like gray ghosts. If she could have she would have tossed them out, as well. How could she have lived twenty-six years and had so little worth keeping? For the five years since college, nothing mattered but her job, and in the end, it didn’t really matter, either.

She was one of those people whose name could be wiped off the whiteboard of life and no one would notice. David hadn’t called since he moved out months ago. Her parents hadn’t bothered to check to see if she’d made it safely to Texas. If she disappeared, there would be no one to fill out a missing person report.

Jubilee guessed if she’d been able to mark her growth with lines on a doorframe, her chart would be heading down, not up. When she’d left what she’d thought would be a brilliant career, not one person had dropped by to shake her hand. No farewell cake. Not even a card.

As she stood in the doorway of her great-grandfather’s house that was now her only home, she wondered if things could get much worse. The man she’d hired as foreman on the place had said at breakfast—cereal and milk—that he’d finish moving in today and they’d walk the land tomorrow. But, with the downpour turning everything to mud, she doubted they’d be able to start for a week.

Not that it mattered. She’d planned her last life and look how it had crumbled. Why bother to plan this one?

Maybe she should take the opposite of her mother’s parting advice and go goalless for a while. She had forty thousand dollars in her bank account plus what she’d inherited. She could coast, at least for a while. Maybe she’d simply wait until a goal bumped into her for a change.

She had no idea what she was doing out here in Texas. For all she knew the foreman, Charley Collins, was the local serial killer. He might not have stolen her card; murder might be his thing. Think about it, Jub, she almost said aloud. What are the chances that the man delivering groceries and working at the local bar knows how to run a farm? Correction, he’d called it a ranch.

He did have his own horse, though. She had no idea if that was good or bad. What was a guy doing with a horse when he lived over a bar? Logic probably wasn’t his strong suit. He was easy on the eyes, though. The kind of guy who broke every heart he passed.

Only not hers. Three of her four serious boyfriends had told her she didn’t have a heart. Majority vote.

After breakfast, her new foreman disappeared for most of the day, then drove up midafternoon with his pickup full of boxes. He was pulling a trailer filled with a huge horse and a cute pony.

Since she had nothing else to do, Jubilee interrupted her breakdown long enough to watch him move into the little house by the corral. He had an easy way of moving, like a man comfortable in his own body.

She’d thought of going outside to stare at him or even help, but all her clothes were three wearings past dirty. The man in worn boots and a patched shirt had actually frowned when she’d greeted him at breakfast wearing a clean pair of old Levy’s socks and one of his long-sleeved shirts tied at her waist. Just to be proper she used a pair of her great-grandfather’s brand new boxer shorts as her shorts.

Charley looked as though he’d never seen the fashion.

She’d tried to explain that almost everything she owned was packed, but she doubted he’d like her navy suits any better. Three pairs of jeans and half a dozen tops were all the casual clothes she owned. And they were spotted with drippings from meals on the road or wrinkled beyond wearing.

Tomorrow morning she planned to ask him to turn on the water to the washer out back. Levy probably turned it off every month after he used it, and who knew where the dryer had run off to? Jubilee had a faint memory of the old guy hanging his laundry on a line somewhere.

She’d watched Charley unhitch his trailer and park it beside the barn, and then he’d left again just before the rain started. Jubilee finally moved out on the porch and studied the storm. At this point in her day of doing nothing, she wasn’t sure her life was afloat. No career. No friends. No family who would speak to her.

She wasn’t even sure if this ranch was a blessing or a curse. If she hadn’t inherited it, she would have had to pull herself up and start over. Now, she could just hide out for a while.

Slowly, her mind began to dance with the storm as the sky darkened, and her troubles started to drift away. She watched the rain form tiny rivers in the ruts that Charley’s truck had made. The sound of the horses in the barn blended with the tapping of rain falling off the roof into dead flowerbeds. Even as the world grew black except for the one light in the house by the corral, she refused to move or turn on a light.

She needed the night to surround her. For once she wanted to wrap up in the nothingness of her world. She wanted to be invisible for a while.

The rain finally slowed to a silent dribble. The storm was over. But still Jubilee didn’t move.

Truck lights turned toward her place. The white pickup her foreman drove rocked back and forth as it moved toward her on a road in desperate need of repair.

When he stopped beside the corral and cut his lights, she knew he couldn’t see her even if he looked her direction.

She watched his tall frame unfold. He stood in the lingering rain and raked his rust-colored hair back before putting on his hat. Within seconds his shirt was plastered against his body. Even in the low light she could tell there wasn’t an ounce of fat on the man. Just from the way he moved around the truck told her he was solid rock-hard muscle. Tall and lean and beautiful as only a cowboy can look.

She smiled. He’s definitely not too bright, she decided. No raincoat. No umbrella. Hopefully he’d know more about running a ranch than he did about coming in from out of the rain.

He opened the side door to his truck and reached in.

For a moment she wondered what one last thing he’d carry inside. What had he gone back into town for on this rainy night?

He lifted something out slowly, carefully, wrapped in his work coat. The bundle leaned over his shoulder, molding against his form.

In wide, slow steps he walked through the mud. One hand tucked beneath the bundle. One hand placed in the middle as if holding his treasure close to his heart.

Jubilee stood and watched, surprised and touched as she saw thin pale arms slip from beneath the coat and wrap around his neck.

He’d mentioned a daughter when he’d asked if a school bus passed her place.

In the last blink of faraway lightning, Jubilee saw Charley Collins in a whole new light. He might not have much. His clothes were worn. His pickup old. But the man obviously had one thing he treasured. His daughter.

Charley

THE HOUSE OVER by the corral was dusty and completely empty except for a stove and old refrigerator Charley was surprised still worked. The place looked as if no one had lived in it for years but the bones of the house were solid. At one time someone had loved this place. The molding was hand carved around the doors, and cabinets were crafted carefully. The place was solid. He had a feeling it would stand any storm.

Charley worked into the night cleaning out the four-room house while Lillie slept. Ike, his old boss, had helped deliver what little furniture he had while his crazy new boss was probably taking her morning nap. The bar owner kept telling Charley that he was making a mistake accepting a job from a woman who wouldn’t last six months on the land, but at this point in his life Charley figured one more mistake wouldn’t matter.

With a free place to live and twice the money he usually made, he could build his savings. He could plan for someday.

He’d put up the bed before dark so Lillie would have a place to sleep when he picked her up. Charley didn’t want her to see the place dirty. When she woke, their new home would be clean and her tiny play kitchen would be set up in one corner of the living room.

Finally, about 3:00 a.m. he had everything stocked and put away. The house was so sparsely furnished it didn’t look like much of a home. One couch. One bed. An old dresser someone had given him a year back. A card table and four chairs for a dining table. A rocker painted white that he’d bought the day his baby girl was born.

The house was bigger than the apartment they’d been in. Two bedrooms, even though one was empty. The house had a front porch where Lillie could play and a back porch where he could watch the sunset.

After he checked on Lillie, he stood out on the back porch and smiled. Fresh air. Open space. Silence. Someday, he’d have a place like this, but for now, working here was about as good as he could hope for. No more smelly bar or worrying whether he’d have enough odd jobs to make the bills. Now, with luck, he could save most of his salary. Maybe in a year he’d have enough to pay down on a place of his own.

He’d talked things over with Sharon’s parents. Now that they were both retired, they wanted to keep Lillie a few nights during the week, at least until summer. On the other days they promised to pick her up from school if the weather was bad or the school bus’s rural route wasn’t running.

He didn’t like not tucking her in every night, but on those two days she stayed in town he could work here until dark. Putting in a couple of fifteen-hour days would make the rest of the week lighter.

The Lees had turned Sharon’s old room into Lillie’s playroom. Here she only had a few toys, but at their house Lillie had a roomful. This time, he’d make her room more like a little girl’s room. He might have no idea how to raise a little girl, but he’d learn.

This ranch didn’t have much of a chance of making it, but he planned to give it his best shot. If they could make it through the summer, they might survive, but he’d need to think of a way to have money coming in now to help cover expenses.

As he stared out into the night, he swore he saw an army green raincoat marching across the open field between the main house and the end of the corral. For a moment he thought it was a flash from an old World War II film, then he saw long white legs and what had to be white socks.

Jubilee Hamilton. Taking yard-wide steps across the mud as if she were measuring it off.

Lightning flashed. The promise of more rain scented the air. His insane employer marched on, her damp blond hair plastered to her skull as the coat flapped in the wind.

He thought of going after her, but decided to just watch. Who knows, her kind of crazy might be catching. It was three o’clock in the morning and she was out walking. If she got hit by lightning, Charley decided he’d simply bury her and keep working the ranch.

Finally, exhaustion from a long day of moving from one kind of life to another got the better of him and Charley slipped inside, closing out any thought of his boss, as he closed the door to his new home.

An hour later in the stillness of his bed on the couch, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Something drew him to Jubilee even if he didn’t want to admit it. She seemed so lost. So alone. She wasn’t the kind of woman he’d ever be interested in, but deep down he wanted to help her make this place work. He’d taken this job to save himself, but he had to make it work. Not just for Lillie and him. For her, too.

Jubilee Hamilton needed to believe in something. Maybe the dream of this place working or maybe just herself.

One line she’d said earlier kept swirling in his mind. She’d said this was her last chance. Then, she’d closed up as though she hadn’t meant to say so much.

He understood last chances. He’d been living in that valley so long he thought he owned the place.

Charley closed his eyes. Who was he kidding? He was no knight in shining armor. But maybe just this once, he’d give it a try. If he failed at this quest, it wouldn’t be from lack of trying.

The next morning, by the time he drove back from taking Lillie to Sharon’s folks’ place, he’d decided not to mention having seen Jubilee Hamilton out walking. If she was crazy, she’d deny it. If she wasn’t, she might think he was spying on her.

He rushed into her kitchen, in a hurry to get started working. He was surprised to see that she’d made oatmeal and toast. The coffee even smelled drinkable today.

“Morning,” he nodded as he waited for her to sit down. She was dressed pretty much the same as yesterday, but she’d added a moth-eaten sweater. She’d also combed her hair and tied it in an ugly little knot that looked like a bulldog’s bobbed tail. It crossed his mind that she must have to work at it to look this homely.

She handed him his coffee and sat down across the table. “So before we get started, I have a few things that need doing.”

He leaned back, sipping his coffee.

“Can you turn on the water to the washer out in that little shed behind the house? I need to do laundry.”

“I can show you how,” he answered. “It’ll need to be turned off if there is any chance of freezing.”

“Fair enough.” She passed him one piece of toast. “Next, I want to plant a garden whenever the time is right. A big garden with all kinds of vegetables.”

“Did you ever grow anything?”

She shook her head. “No, but how hard could it be?”

“I’ve got a few books packed away on gardening that my mother used to make me read but we could ask Donald at the feed store. He’d know what would grow best here.” Charley grinned when her eyes lit up. “I could run a line from the horse trough in the corral to water it regular.”

“Great. A garden would save money on food, but I doubt it’ll make any money to bring in.”

He nodded. “Probably not, but it might if we ran a row of watermelons. I was thinking of boarding horses in the extra stalls. It would bring in steady money. You’d provide the feed and I’ll do the work. We could use the income as operating money for the headquarters.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

Before he could tell her more, a blast from a truck horn ended the conversation.

“My stuff!” she yelled and ran outside waving, as if the lone truck on the lone road might miss the lone house.

Charley ate his breakfast of half a bowl of oatmeal and one piece of toast and then he ate hers. He refilled his bowl with cereal and downed it while he watched the trucker set a dozen boxes on the porch. The truck still looked full when the driver closed the doors and headed away to the next stop.

After refilling his coffee, Charley walked to the front door and watched her running from box to box, opening all her treasures as if she hadn’t seen them in months. From what he could see, she had a box of high heels, two boxes of books, one of pillows and blankets, and the rest seemed to be clothes. She carefully lifted one box and carried it into the crowded room off the kitchen that had probably once been a parlor but that Levy had used as a bedroom.

After she set the box down as if it held glass, she ran back to the other boxes.

“Wait for me,” she said as she grabbed a few things and ran past him and up the back stairs.

“No problem,” he said to himself as he began picking up the boxes and moving them into the kitchen. He had no idea where the stuff would go, but inside seemed a better place than outside.

Ten minutes later she emerged in gray slacks, low heels and a white silk sleeveless blouse that moved like cream over her slim body. If she hadn’t still been wearing that dumb knot on the back of her hair he might not have recognized her. She was tall and slim, but she was nicely curved in all the right places—if he’d been noticing, which of course he wasn’t.

“I’m ready.” When he just stared, she added, “I know I’m not dressed to ranch, but this will have to do until I can wash my jeans.”

“You look fine.” Charley was surprised how much he meant it. “We’ll be out all morning; you’ll need a hat and a jacket to cover those arms.”

“I’ll be fine.” She picked up a tiny red purse and slung the gold chain strap over her shoulder.

“Unless that’s a first aid kit, you won’t need it. We’re going to drive over your land, not go shopping.” Charley grinned. For the first time, she looked like the city girl he knew she was. All polish. No practical.

“Right.” She didn’t drop her purse. “I’ll leave it in your pickup,” she said as she followed him out into the sunshine. “I never go anywhere without a purse.”

When he opened the pickup door, she smiled at him. “Thanks for taking in the boxes.”

“You’re welcome.” He liked the way she talked when she wasn’t yelling at him. She had a nice voice. The kind of low voice that a man wouldn’t get tired of listening to.

For the next hour they drove every trail on her land. He tried to fill her in, but he had the feeling he was talking to himself most of the time.

“This is good pastureland. With the natural spring you could run fifty head out here easily, maybe more. If you want I could buy a few calves. We might have to feed them until the grass greens, but it won’t be long.”

“How much per head?”

“Three hundred, this time of year. By the end of summer they’ll be worth a thousand or more.”

She looked at him then. “That’s a great profit.”

“Not as much as you think. We’ll need to supplement-feed some of them. Then there would be shots and tagging. That’ll cost you. We might lose a few before we sell them.”

She was silent for a few minutes, then said, “Buy sixty head. If we lose five we’ll still make enough to buy a hundred next time and have a nice profit. Would this next pasture also hold a hundred head?”

“It would over the warm months if we get plenty of rain.” He was surprised at her quick logic. The lady might not know ranching, but she understood numbers.

“Then we go with the hundred. I’ve got enough to make the investment and I understand Levy has a ranch account with the bank.”

Charley was impressed with her quick calculation. He had no idea what background she came from. “I’ll make the buy before the end of the week.”

She nodded once and went back to silence.

He continued talking, “You got a gravel pit over there across the road. Always a source of quick money if you need it, but once it’s gone, it’s gone. We might want to save it for emergency money. The flat few acres up ahead are good for farming, but it’s dry land.”

The second question came, “What’s dry land mean exactly?”

“It means without rain you don’t have a crop. Most years crops need irrigating, but it’s expensive to buy and maintain.”

Again came the question of how much. If Charley hadn’t been saving every dime he could to realize his dream of owning his own ranch, he might not have been able to give accurate answers. As it was, he knew down to the penny every cost.

Charley kept talking about what they could do with money or without. She must have enough money to pay him, but he doubted old Levy had left her much else. Maybe she was planning with her own money. The Lexus she’d parked near the house couldn’t have been more than a few years old and the clothes she wore now weren’t picked up at a dollar store. If the lady had money to invest, this ranch could be a great deal more than Levy ever planned.

“You going to take notes?” he asked.

“No,” she answered. “I’ll remember. I’ll set up my office tonight and make some charts. I like to see the progress.”

“I agree.” This was what he’d studied to do. If he’d been able to do it on his family ranch he’d be counting cattle by the thousands. Here the numbers would be small, but for the first time since he’d left college, he could do what he loved, even if it was with someone else’s money.

When they stopped near the edge of a narrow canyon that crawled along one side of her land, he asked her if she’d like to see the Lone Heart Pass that the ranch had been named after.

The sun was getting warmer. He walked with her to within a hundred yards of a column of rocks maybe thirty feet high. “There is no easy way into the canyon for miles except for this pass. It’s like a rock hill split in two a few million years ago and left a passage. If we were on horseback we could go one at a time, slow and easy, through to the pass, but it spooks some horses to be all closed in by the walls.”

She took a few steps on ground that suddenly turned rocky and uneven.

His hand shot out to grip her arm to steady her. The feel of her skin beneath his fingers was hotter than he’d expected it to be. One touch made him aware of her as a woman. Before, he’d thought of her as lost, crazy, way out of her depth. Now, with the silk blouse clinging to her, Charley felt as if he was really seeing her for the first time.

Like the land around her, there was a beauty about Jubilee that most people didn’t see at first glance. Not that he was interested, he reminded himself, but still, he could notice her.

Looking toward the passage, she asked, “Can we walk in? I’d love to see the canyon on the other side.”

Charley shook his head. “Not in those clothes or shoes. It’s beautiful, but it would take us an hour or so to walk through then get back to the truck.” He could see already that her bare arms were blistering and the climb just to get to the pass opening would ruin her slipper shoes.

An instinct to protect her rose in Charley, surprising him, but she was no damsel in distress. The only way he could help her was to show her how to make this ranch grow.

She turned to face him. “Take me to town, then. Show me the way. If you have things to do here, I’ll drive back in and buy what I need later, but I need to learn the road.” Her chocolate brown eyes met his and he saw determination in her gaze. “I want to be ready to start work tomorrow. It’s time we started making something of this place. I’ll need the right kind of clothes and shoes to do that.” She frowned as if suddenly fearing her own words. “Can you buy me a horse?”

“I’ll make a few calls,” he answered. “Can you ride?”

“Of course.”

She’d answered too fast to be telling the truth. He grinned. “I’ve heard tell that brown eyes never lie,” he said.

She faced him square with her lying brown eyes looking a bit angry. “I can ride.”

She might be crazy, but nothing about Jubilee Hamilton was lazy.

As they walked back to his truck, she added, “Mr. Collins, I’ll buy your lunch when we get to town. I’m starving. My breakfast seemed to have evaporated.”

He wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not. The lady was hard to read. “I’ll accept the offer for lunch, but call me Charley.”

“Fair enough. My family calls me Jub.”

He opened her passenger door. “If you don’t mind, I’ll call you Jubilee. Jub seems more like a drink than a name.”

When he climbed into the driver’s seat, she was busy rummaging through her tiny purse that couldn’t hold more than three or four things. She didn’t look at him.

For some reason, he thought he’d won a round, but Charley had a feeling it would be a long time before they knew each other well enough to even be friends. They were as different as two people could be.

Ten minutes later when she asked for the vegan menu at Dorothy’s Café, Charley had to fake a coughing fit to keep from laughing.