Читать книгу The Ranch Solution - Julianna Morris, Julianna Morris - Страница 10

CHAPTER ONE

“WE’RE ALMOST THERE,” Jacob said, glancing at Kittie, garbed entirely in black, including her nail polish and lipstick. He’d decided to deal with her abysmal wardrobe later; getting her out of Seattle had been a big enough struggle.

She blew a bubble with her gum and stared ahead silently.

“You’ll be able to ride horses there. You used to enjoy riding. Remember?”

“Whatever.”

He gave up and checked the GPS for how much farther they had to go. They’d flown to Billings, Montana, in an O’Donnell International company jet. Upon arrival Jacob had rented a car for the rest of the trip.

Along with losing her MP3 player, Kittie’s punishment for smoking and accidentally setting fire to the girls’ locker room was having to pay for the damages out of her allowance and composing a written apology to the school. An acceptable written apology, since Kittie could easily make an apology sound more like an insult.

Oh, yeah, and she was grounded for life, plus ten years. Jacob had told her if she shaped up during their trip, he might shave a few years from that part of the punishment.

Kittie hadn’t even blinked.

Tough love sounded clichéd, but he was desperate. He’d try anything.

Guided by the GPS, Jacob turned onto the U-2 Ranch road and after a mile came over a hill. Laid out in a shallow valley were the ranch buildings and, on the opposite slope, an array of white canvas tents. He winced—he hadn’t slept outdoors since he was a boy. A ranch vacation was a far cry from the Caribbean resort where he’d taken Kittie for Easter a year ago.

Jacob pulled to a stop in the parking area. There was plenty of space, likely because the school year hadn’t ended for kids who were still attending classes instead of being expelled.

“Hello, there,” called a voice as Jacob opened the trunk of their rental. The speaker was a white-haired man who looked older than the hills. But the weathered cowboy had steel in his face; he might be a worthy match for a surly teenager. “I’m Burt Parsons. Welcome to the U-2 Ranch. You must be the O’Donnells.”

“Duh,” Kittie said sarcastically.

Burt didn’t seem surprised. “And you have to be Kittie.”

Without a word, she spit her gum to the grass.

Before Jacob could say something about it, Burt gave her a stern look. “We don’t allow littering here,” he informed her. “Put it in the trash.”

Kittie didn’t move.

“Pick it up, young lady, unless you’d rather shovel horse manure from the barn.”

“Dad.”

“Better get the shovel, Burt,” Jacob suggested, taking their new sleeping bags from the trunk. It was hard letting someone else discipline Kittie. He had a hunch that tough love might be rougher on him than on his daughter.

Glaring at them both, she picked up the wad of gum and threw it in a barrel marked for trash.

“You folks are later arriving than we expected,” Burt said, stepping forward to help with the luggage. He read the baggage tag on Kittie’s neon-pink duffel, pushed it into her arms and went ahead of them with an easy stride, carrying the sleeping bags. Jacob followed with his own suitcase.

Kittie trudged next to him with an aggrieved mutter, but as they passed the largest barn, a young man came out and she stopped dead in her tracks. “Uh, hi,” she said, without even a touch of sarcasm or disdain—like his old Kittie.

Jacob stiffened. At first sight the guy appeared to be in his early twenties, but on closer inspection he was clearly younger. Great. That was all his daughter needed—a crush on another messed-up teenager.

The boy checked Kittie up and down. “You’re that city kid we’ve been expecting.”

“I’m not a kid, but I am from Seattle. My name is Kittie O’Donnell...uh, that is, I prefer Caitlin. Who are you?” She smiled shyly.

“Reid Weston. You’ll scare the horses in that getup,” he said.

He walked away and Jacob realized Reid Weston wasn’t a troubled teen—he was a cocky, underage cowboy. Kittie’s devastated expression showed he’d flattened her ego with a single comment. And what was that bit about Kittie wanting to be called Caitlin? It was the first he’d heard of it.

“Reid and his family own the ranch,” Burt explained, as if nothing had happened. “You’ll be seeing a lot of them.” He motioned them toward the hillside studded with tents.

The tents were utilitarian at best, with mattresses laid out on each side of a canvas partition, along with lanterns, a small bedside table and sturdy army-green footlockers.

“We don’t recommend keeping food in here.” Burt tossed a sleeping bag onto the mattresses. “We have the usual critters who’ll want to share it, but if you do have any snacks, be sure to put them in your locker and fasten it tight. Better yet, store all food in your car.”

“Hear that, Kittie?” Jacob asked his daughter. Kittie had a thing for red licorice. He’d bet a thousand bucks she’d filled her duffel bag with the revolting stuff.

She just stuck out her chin.

“The lanterns are rechargeable,” Burt went on. “Bring them to the mess tent in the morning if they need a charge, otherwise you’ll be taking care of business in the dark. No candles—it isn’t safe. Flashlights are okay if you’ve got ’em. The bathrooms and laundry and other facilities are in the buildings to the left, and the mess tent is over there.” He pointed to a large tent with smoke rising behind it. “Folks are mostly gathered for supper already—we start serving in thirty minutes.”

“Thanks, we’ll be there.”

“No hurry,” Burt said. “Take your time and get comfortable. We don’t stand on formality.” With a short nod, he ambled toward the ranch house.

Jacob shot a look at Kittie. She’d assumed her defiant attitude, apparently having recovered from Reid Weston’s snubbing remark.

“I’m not shoveling any horse poop,” she announced and disappeared into her side of the tent.

* * *

MARIAH WESTON STALKED into the ranch house and slammed the door. She leaned against it and took several deep breaths.

“Problems, dear?” asked her grandmother.

“Nothing a two-by-four making contact with a certain cowboy’s privates wouldn’t fix. Hurt a guy where he lives and maybe you’ll get his attention.”

Dr. Elizabeth Grant Weston smiled resignedly. “Lincoln must have broken another heart.”

“Yes. We have yet another departing guest who hoped Lincoln had fallen in love with her and wanted to get married. For crying out loud, Linc keeps a supply of condoms in his shirt pocket! It’s pretty obvious what his intentions are. Did she really think he was going to change his ways and decide that wearing a wedding ring is better than being a carefree bachelor?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“Cowboys don’t change—they just get older and stop having luck with the opposite sex.”

“Goodness, you’re in a mood today.”

“Can you blame me? I found Ms. Bingham smoking in one of the barns, so upset she almost set fire to the place.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Oh, dear. We don’t allow smoking. I wish we could extend the ban to chewing tobacco, but the ranch hands practically mutinied on the no-smoking rule.”

“I reminded her about the rules when I grabbed the cigarette and doused the smoldering hay. She apologized and the whole story spilled out in a hysterical swoop. Lucky me. I guess she just needed to tell someone. Linc always breaks things off at the last minute, but the women usually don’t take it this hard. Why are people so blind?”

“Patience, dear,” her grandmother urged.

Mariah rubbed her aching temples.

Patience wasn’t one of her strongest qualities. She did well with animals, not so great with people. Animals were straightforward; their emotions weren’t illogical. She felt sorry for Diane Bingham, but she honestly wondered how the woman could have imagined things working out with a cowboy. Diane was a born-and-bred city dweller with a taste for fast cars, sushi bars and nightclubs. She’d come to Montana on a whim and nearly gone crazy with the quiet before getting hot and heavy with Linc.

Linc had grown up on a horse, had never lived in a town with more than five hundred residents, probably thought sushi had something to do with sex and drove a decrepit truck from the 1970s that couldn’t reach fifty on a paved road.

The difference between ranchers and cowhands and most people was just too big. You might have a casual vacation affair, but you never expected it to become permanent. Mariah had learned that when she was fifteen and discovered that summer promises were too easily shattered...along with hearts.

Elizabeth patted her arm. “I’ll have your grandfather speak with Linc.”

“No, it’s okay, Ms. Bingham admitted Linc didn’t make any promises. But from now on he’s only working with family groups. We’ll keep him so busy that his sorry ass is too tired to do more than crawl into bed.”

“That’s usually where the trouble starts,” Elizabeth said drily.

“Don’t remind me. And they say country dwellers are naive. Is Reid in the office?”

“I think so. I just got home myself.”

Mariah headed to the back of the house, weary though it was only the beginning of the season and she ought to be brimming with energy. Ranching wasn’t easy. There were droughts, floods, lightning storms, disease, harsh winters, ornery cattle, unstable beef prices and a wealth of other problems to juggle. Yet those problems seemed minor compared to managing a bunch of greenhorn visitors and cowboy wranglers.

“Hey, Reid,” she said, stepping into the office. Their parents had converted a storage room into work space when they’d started the ranch vacation business. Originally they’d needed only a phone, a desk and a file cabinet, but the business had changed over the years, as had technology. Now the office was cramped with the newest equipment.

“Hey,” her brother said absently. He was bent over a book, reading intently.

“Studying?”

“Not exactly.” He looked up and pushed back from the old desk. “The travel agency phoned while you were out. Amy is waiting for the computer repair service to arrive, so I cross-checked the reservations that came in this week to be sure they were confirmed.”

“I appreciate your doing that, but I could have taken care of it later and let her know,” Mariah murmured. “Amy works evenings.”

Amy Lindstrom was a neighbor and ran her agency from home, largely through the internet. Initially it had stung Mariah to be charged for a job she could have kept handling herself, but Amy had significantly increased the U-2’s bookings.

“Yeah, well, you can’t do it all. By the way, I saw that new kid you said was coming,” Reid said. “She’s a real piece of work, and her dad is wearing a fancy suit and tie. I’ll bet his clothes cost more than a prize horse and wouldn’t last an hour riding fence lines.”

“I talked to Burt and he mentioned you’d met the O’Donnells. Just do your best and remember they won’t be here forever,” Mariah said, the same way she’d told him for years. The thing was, Reid was sixteen going on forty. He didn’t appreciate city people wanting a taste of Western living, except those city people were the difference between the U-2 turning a profit or going deeper into debt each year.

The U-2 was a working ranch, owned and operated by the Weston family for six generations. Paying guests worked along with everyone else—not as hard as a ranch hand, and always under the care of a wrangler, but they worked. It was all about the romance of the West and being part of it for a while.

“Sis, they’re from Seattle.” Reid knotted his fists.

Mariah’s heart ached, recalling the boy who’d stood by his parents’ graves, furious with everyone and everything for taking away his mom and dad. They went through this each summer, the first time guests arrived from Washington State. Their mother and father had died because a vacationing Seattle investment banker was driving too fast and lost control of his car. His blood alcohol level was primarily responsible for the accident, but Reid also blamed the entire state.

“Okay, they’re from Seattle,” she said, carefully avoiding any mention of their parents. “Don’t go near them if it’s easier.”

He rolled his eyes. “That kid will want to hang around. I can tell.”

That “kid” was only two years younger than him, but Mariah understood why Reid felt older. Life and death were a daily part of their world.

It made you older.

“I’ve assigned wranglers to the O’Donnells,” she assured him. “You won’t have to spend time with them. Anyhow, you have classes and finals coming up. You need the grades to get into a good school, and the ones with pre-vet programs are terribly competitive.”

“I told you, I don’t want to go to college and I don’t want to be a vet.”

“Even if that’s true right now, you might change your mind. We have to talk—”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Reid cut her off. “Don’t worry, sis, I’ll get the grades.” He went out the door with a mulish expression.

As brother and sister, they were close in many ways, yet a wall rose between them when certain subjects were raised...like the future.

Stomach tight, Mariah went to the desk and saw Reid had been reading one of her books on equine diseases—she would never be a vet now, but that didn’t prevent her from staying current on veterinary medicine. As for Reid, though he claimed he wasn’t interested in going to veterinary school, she doubted it. He was bright, talented and set to graduate high school a year early the way she had done...and he spent all of his free minutes studying animal care.

Worry and a feeling of helplessness nagged at her. Reid shouldn’t have such tough decisions to make at his age, but there didn’t seem to be anything she could do to fix it. Maybe if their father hadn’t given up after the accident, if he’d tried to survive his own injuries, things might be...

No.

Mariah shook her head guiltily.

She still struggled with the memory of her big, strong dad turning his face to the hospital wall when he learned that his wife of twenty-four years had died instantly in the collision, the light in his eyes vanishing until he was almost unrecognizable. The doctors had thought he would pull through, yet a day later he was gone, too, and she’d been so angry with him for wanting to die more than he wanted to live for the rest of his family. For her and Reid.

Nobody discussed it; after the funeral, Granddad had said that Reid didn’t need to hear loose chatter. He was suffering enough. That was fine with her—admitting how she felt was the last thing she’d wanted.

Sighing, Mariah walked down to the mess tent. It didn’t make sense to be angry with someone who was dead, and it wasn’t as if Sam Weston had committed suicide. He’d just...given up.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” she called, forcing a smile.

The cooks waved. The guests, in varying degrees of fatigue from working on the range, waved, as well.

“Oh, my God,” said the new bride of one of their annual visitors. She sat, wincing as she made contact with the bench. “My fanny hasn’t ever hurt this much. Who’d have known that riding a horse would be so painful?”

Mariah nodded with perfunctory sympathy—it was a complaint she’d heard dozens of times over the summers. “You’ll get used to it. We have a dispensary if you want aspirin or liniment.”

“It isn’t that bad, but I can’t believe this is my honeymoon. Whatever happened to rose petals, silk sheets and chocolate-dipped strawberries?”

“If it helps, Chad says you’re being a real sport about the whole thing.”

The other woman grinned; she was as open and uncomplicated as her groom. “Actually, I’m having a ball. We’ll be back every year, but I won’t object to an occasional weekend in the Bahamas.”

Mariah tried not to laugh...though groaning was a distinct possibility, as well. She’d already moved the newlyweds due to the noise they were making at night. It was fortunate the U-2 didn’t have more children visiting at the moment, or some parents would be explaining things they weren’t quite prepared to explain.

“Whoa, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Susan said, staring at the rear of the tent.

Mariah turned and saw a tall, well-built man standing next to a sullen teenager. The girl’s hair looked as if it had been trimmed by a weed whacker and it was a peculiar shade of streaky black, ending in purple tips. Apparently she was going through a Goth phase because she also wore black from head to toe, including her lipstick. Her T-shirt was ablaze with silver studs in the shape of a skull and raggedly cut to display her midriff...which seemed to have a spiderweb tattooed over it.

A tattoo?

Distaste filled Mariah, but it wasn’t for the teenager—it was for the father who’d allowed his daughter to do something so permanent to her body when she was still a child. Echoes of her grandmother’s urging to be patient rang in her ears and Mariah squared her shoulders. Fine, she shouldn’t make snap judgments. She wasn’t doing a stellar job of parenting Reid, either.

Mariah approached the mismatched pair. The man was in his mid-to-late thirties and attractive in an uptight sort of way, with brown hair and eyes. He was intense, focused and had a rock-square jaw. As for the girl, she might be pretty beneath her clothes and I-don’t-give-a-damn-what-you-think air. It was hard to be sure. Together they were the most unlikely twosome she’d ever seen going on a ranch vacation.

“Hi, you must be Jacob and Kittie, but Burt Parsons tells me you want to be called Caitlin,” she said to the teenager, trying to ignore her bizarre appearance. “I’m Mariah Weston. Welcome to the U-2 Ranch. I hear you’ve met my brother, Reid.”

“Yeah. He says I’ll scare the horses,” Caitlin said resentfully.

Reid could be right, only it wasn’t diplomatic to agree. Mariah sat on the edge of the table. “He helped birth a lot of those horses, so he’s very protective. A horse doesn’t understand why someone looks or smells different than they’re used to, and he worries how new people will affect them.”

“Oh.” Something flickered in Caitlin’s eyes, a blend of powerful emotions that seemed to go beyond normal teen angst. “Birth them...you mean, like, clean the babies up?”

“We do whatever they need. If we’re lucky, we mostly get to just watch. It’s incredible seeing a horse being born.”

Caitlin shifted her feet.

“I can loan you some outfits if you don’t have any ranch clothes,” Mariah offered. “Things that might be better for working with animals. We keep extras on hand in case they’re needed by our guests.”

“I don’t... Whatever.” Caitlin spun and marched from the tent as if the short conversation had exhausted her supply of civility.

Mariah stood, unsure of what to expect from Jacob O’Donnell, though his corporate attire and unbending stance weren’t the best signs. Up close she saw lines around his mouth from stress or frequent smiling or both. Right now he wasn’t smiling.

“As I was saying, welcome to the ranch,” she repeated. “You may want to borrow suitable clothes yourself to use while you’re—”

“I know Kittie can be trying, but your brother could have been friendlier to her,” he interrupted. “We’re paying good money to be here.”

Mariah’s temper, frayed by dealing with a distraught guest and a randy ranch hand, threatened to flare again. “My brother feels responsible for the horses—both for their well-being and for our guests’ safety. He gave his honest opinion. I’m sorry it upset Caitlin.” Reid took on too much responsibility for a boy of sixteen, but it was one of the realities of growing up on a ranch. She wouldn’t add to it by asking him to pamper their guests as if they were staying at a fancy resort.

“Your parents should speak to him.”

“I’m Reid’s legal guardian.”

Jacob O’Donnell regarded her narrowly, but she couldn’t read anything in his remote gaze. “You’re what, twenty at the most? You can’t be old enough to take charge of a teenager.”

Mariah shrugged. “I’m twenty-seven and I’ve been his guardian for four years.”

“I see. I suppose you have a degree in child psychology to run this kind of place?”

“What kind of place?”

“A place for teenagers with...issues. Like my daughter.” The words seemed forced from Jacob O’Donnell’s chest. His pride was clearly on the line.

Through the entrance Mariah could see Kittie sitting on a small knob of ground, curled in a defensive posture. “We should talk privately, Mr. O’Donnell.”

He followed her with a frown. Mariah headed away from the mess tent and out of sight of Kittie before stopping.

“I think we have a misunderstanding,” she said. “This is a working ranch. Guests can remain in their tents if that’s what they choose to do, but we don’t have activity directors, swimming pools, tennis courts or other entertainments to keep them occupied—basically, none of the luxuries or frills that some folks are used to having. Our visitors come to the U-2 to experience ranching. Plain and simple.”

“I know it’s a working ranch.”

“You also seem to think we’re a facility for troubled children. We’re not, so if you require that, or feel we should put everything aside to wait on you the way they do at an exclusive spa, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.”

A muscle twitched in Jacob’s cheek. “I have friends who said it helped bringing their son here.”

Mariah hesitated.

Granddad often told her she’d inherited more than her temper and red hair from an Irish ancestress; he claimed she’d gotten Great-Great-Grandmother Eileen’s fey instincts, as well. And her instincts were telling her to get rid of Jacob O’Donnell, except she couldn’t evict every obnoxious guest—especially guests who’d paid in advance for a six-week stay at the ranch.

“I’m glad your friends had a good visit to the U-2,” she said finally. “But if you want things to change for Caitlin, you need to do something about it yourself.”

“What is that supposed to mean? I’ve been going crazy for months trying to do something...anything that might work. That’s why I’m here. Believe me, a site with such primitive accommodations would be my last choice for a vacation.”

Primitive?

Mariah’s back went rigid.

He made it sound as if they were making guests dig their own privy holes and bathe in the creek. It had cost a fortune to have commercial restroom and shower facilities built at the ranch—she knew exactly how much, because she’d signed the checks.

“It’s too bad the accommodations don’t meet with your satisfaction, Mr. O’Donnell. However, they are thoroughly outlined on our website, so they shouldn’t have been a surprise,” she said coolly. “As for what I mean, you want Caitlin’s problems to somehow get resolved at our ‘primitive’ ranch, and yet you’re dressed as if you’ve just come from a board meeting.”

“I did come from a board meeting. We left for the airport immediately after it ended.”

“I see. That tells me a lot.”

She stepped backward as she saw Reid striding toward them, probably guessing this wasn’t a normal discussion between her and a guest. Her brother tried to protect her, but she didn’t need help. She’d learned to protect herself from pushy, overbearing guys a long time ago. She liked men who didn’t think the universe revolved around them. But it was a rare trait—one that Jacob O’Donnell obviously didn’t possess.

“I had to make arrangements to cover my business interests while I was gone, but my daughter comes first,” Jacob said in a stuffy tone.

“Then act like it. She won’t join in if you aren’t doing it yourself. This ranch isn’t a corporate boardroom. That ten-thousand-dollar watch won’t impress a herd of cows, and your custom-made suit isn’t the least bit appropriate for the physical work we do here.”

“I’m aware of that.”

Mariah belatedly reminded herself that working with the U-2’s guests was her job. It didn’t matter if she disliked them or thought they were pompous jackasses. On the other hand, she had no intention of playing babysitter for a spoiled teenager or of letting one of the U-2’s wranglers play babysitter. She had enough headaches.

“Well?” he prodded.

“In that case, the sooner you start participating, the better it will be for Caitlin. As I said, we have Levi’s and work shirts that you can both borrow. That would be a big move forward.”

“We brought our own gear, and if we need more, I’ll go into town and buy it. We certainly don’t need anyone’s loaners.” He strode off—bristling with snobbish arrogance—and Mariah had a childish wish he’d slip on a pile of fresh horse manure. That would trim him down a few notches.

Reid said something as they crossed paths, but O’Donnell didn’t pay attention.

Mariah wrinkled her nose.

City people bothered Reid; men with control issues like Jacob O’Donnell bothered her. The overt wealth, the expectation that everyone should jump at their bidding, the conviction that their money was worth more than anyone else’s...she’d met too many men like that when she was waiting tables at an upscale Los Angeles restaurant to earn money for school. She’d quickly found it wasn’t wise to accept gifts or excessively large tips from her male customers because of what they thought it would buy them later.

“Why aren’t you eating supper?” she said as her brother walked up to her. “Grams isn’t cooking because she needed to work at the clinic today.”

“I’ll eat after a while. What’s up with that O’Donnell guy? He’s got an attitude you can see from a mile away. I bet he’s going to be a pain in the ass.” Reid glared in the direction Jacob O’Donnell had gone, though he was no longer in sight.

“He’s a worried father. Cut him some slack,” she said. It was good advice for her as well, but there was something unusually annoying about Jacob O’Donnell that made it hard to follow.

“I’d be worried, too, if she was my kid.”

“Well, she’s not. Caitlin is probably just a little mixed-up.”

“How mixed-up?”

“I don’t know.”

Mariah looked toward the U-2 parking area where the O’Donnells’ rented Mercedes sat in conspicuous glory, sadly out of place among the usual SUVs and trucks and economy cars. How did they rent a Mercedes in Montana? And why would they rent one to drive to a ranch over dirt and gravel roads? Especially a black Mercedes that showed every speck of dirt.

Burt Parsons had told her about the dust-covered luxury car with a laconic grin. He was the ranch’s best wrangler—shrewd, unflappable and great with kids. She’d assigned him to the O’Donnells when she’d realized that Caitlin, age fourteen according to their online registration form, ought to be attending classes. It suggested she’d been suspended or expelled.

Apparently Mariah had guessed right.

Judging from the tightly wound state of her father’s nerves, Mariah suspected that Caitlin wouldn’t be welcome at her school for a very long time.