Matt knew he was weakening when she started to make sense. “We’re not a regular ranch,” he said heavily. He was tempted, and not only by the money. Jessica had been throwing “we” around. That meant she would expect to come along, too.
Jessica Fremont at Winter Ranch for two weeks was a dangerous thing. The more Matt was around her, the more he found to admire. After two weeks of admiring...well, it would be hard to say goodbye.
It was going to be surprisingly hard to say goodbye as it was.
“Look, I’m not expecting Dallas,” she said. “I just want Sam to ride a horse, see some cows up close, and maybe have a hayride.”
“We’re not a dude ranch, either. But you know something? A dude ranch is exactly what you need.”
“A dude ranch won’t have you and Black Star.”
Matt was flattered to be included. “How about if I plan to stay on here a few extra days—”
“Ten thousand.”
He shot a look at her. “Money doesn’t mean much to you, does it?”
Her face was set. “Of course it does. It’s just that my son’s happiness means more.”
Ten thousand dollars was a powerful lure. Everything in him was screaming, “Take it!”
It was a lot of money to Matt and obviously not more than pocket change to Jessica. Still. “That’s way too much money, Jessica.”
“It’s fair. I’m preventing you from selling your horse, so I should cover your financial loss. And this way, you wouldn’t have to sell Black Star, would you?”
Matt exhaled and drew his hands to his hips. “You fight dirty.”
She smiled. “I’m desperate. Please?”
Matt turned away, but Jessica stepped in front of him. “I’d promised, promised Sam he could go to a horse camp this summer, and this morning, my mother-in-law fixed it so he couldn’t. I told him I’d make it up to him. Please help me keep my promise to my son.”
A mother’s promise. Matt remembered a hundred promises his mother had made to him, all of them broken. She’d never seemed to mind, not like Jessica.
But he had.
“Okay,” he said simply.
He wished he didn’t have to take her money, but he’d made some promises of his own.
CHAPTER SIX
LIZ AND TARA’S PRESENCE allowed Rachel to have some cooling-off time, but the sisters left early the next day and Jessica knew her mother-in-law was still simmering.
“Bye, hon.” Liz hugged her. “I’m sorry I didn’t get one of those bachelors, but I know you’re going to have a real good time. Since you’ve been out of circulation so long, I left you a little present in your purse.”
“What?” At their knowing looks, Jessica’s mouth dropped open. “You mean a...a...” She looked around to see where Sam was.
“Condom. You can say it. It’s responsible.”
“You left her just one?” Tara asked.
“For the man she bought? Of course not.”
Laughing, they waved goodbye.
Jessica could feel her face heat and hoped Rachel hadn’t heard.
But even if she had heard, Jessica was in just the sort of rebellious mood to leave Liz’s present exactly where it was.
Rachel was waiting for Jessica in the kitchen. A cup of coffee sat untouched by her elbow.
“Are they gone?”
Jessica nodded.
Rachel drew herself up in the chair. “How could you? How could you drag the Fremont name through the dirt?”
Jessica let her get it all out of her system. When Rachel finally quieted, Jessica informed her that she and Sam were going to spend two weeks on her bachelor’s ranch in Texas.
Rachel hadn’t spoken to Jessica since.
Every penny she’d spent was worth it, Jessica had to remind herself several times a day during the next couple of weeks.
I’m doing the right thing.
Sam was beyond ecstatic. Rachel was beyond angry.
Jessica was beyond frazzled. The emotional strain between the three of them was wearing, but in addition, she had to prepare to take a vacation from Fremont Construction.
In all the years since she’d worked there, Jessica had never taken more than part of a day off, usually to go to a function at Sam’s school. Now she had to delegate a number of her duties, though she planned to remain in touch by phone.
She and Sam left for Winter Ranch early the morning after school was out. Jessica chose to drive. They could have flown and rented a car, but she wanted the time alone with her son. She’d bought some sing-along tapes and planned some side trips to caves and Indian ruins.
It would be a time to reconnect and to strengthen the fraying bond between them.
Naturally this idyllic plan was doomed by the reality of endless hours cooped up with a nine-year-old boy.
Sam informed her that the tapes were for babies and he didn’t care about caves or educational side trips climbing ruins. He wanted to get to the ranch and see Matt and Black Star and told her so endlessly.
So Jessica just drove and hoped Matthew Winston could stand being up on a pedestal for two weeks.
* * *
“NOBODY WANTED TO BUY Black Star? Are they crazy in Wyoming?” Frank had been at the barn when Matt arrived back at the ranch. Given the time of day, Matt was immediately suspicious.
He’d opened up the trailer and was backing out Black Star. “Best I can answer you is yes, I had some serious offers for Black Star, but I didn’t sell him—”
“Ha! You couldn’t go through with it. I should have known.”
Matt could have, and would have, sold Black Star, but he didn’t mind admitting that he was glad not to. “And yes, I firmly believe that folks are a little crazy in Wyoming. They’re certainly a different breed.”
“Ah.” Frank blocked the entrance to the horse stalls.
Matt had been leading Black Star in that general direction and was forced to stop. “What is it, Frank?”
Frank rubbed his hands together. “It is like this, Matthew. Black Star, he is such a fine horse, I expected you to have no trouble selling him, and thus a vacancy occurred in our happy family.”
“Frank!” Matt stepped around him and pulled open the double doors.
A zebra now occupied Black Star’s stall.
“What is that lovesick zebra doing in here?”
Frank’s mustache quivered. “It would make a person cry.”
“I understand that sentiment completely.”
He gestured. “They are so happy now. Like Romeo and Juliet. Antony and Cleopatra. Marco, the living skeleton, and Butterball Betty, the fat lady.”
All doomed relationships just like this one. Matt exhaled. “We’re talking about a zebra and a mule!”
“Matthew, have you no heart?”
Behind him, Black Star snorted. Shelby, the zebra, and Tobias, the mule, looked at them soulfully.
Soulfully? Frank was getting to him. “Shelby and Tobias have had their fling and it’s time for her to go home.”
“True love can’t be denied,” Frank said.
“Sure it can. It is every day.” Matt led his horse away and climbed into the truck to get the saddle. “I’m going to exercise Black Star. In the meantime, I want you to muck out his stall completely and scrub it down. Get rid of the zebra scent.”
“We could make room in the stable.”
Matt gave him a look. He didn’t want to make a big deal of it, but this constant encroachment by the circus people was going to have to stop. “The wood in that next-to-last stall is still rotten, unless you rebuilt it while I was gone?”
Shaking his head sadly, Frank said, “Other things occupied my time.”
Matt supposed he’d be hearing about the “other things.”
&nb
sp; A chattering sounded from the hayloft and Caesar swung across the rafters and landed on the divider between Tobias and Shelby.
“Even Caesar is pleading their case.” Frank put a hand over his heart. “Let them be together.”
This was ridiculous. “Frank, Black Star hates that zebra since she bit him. He barely tolerates old Toby. Now, clean up the stall!”
Matt left without telling him that Jessica and Sam were coming.
He’d probably regret that.
It was suppertime, but Matt needed a ride on Black Star as much as the horse needed to be ridden. As he rode, he saw his ranch as Jessica and Sam would see it: weathered and worn.
He knew he shouldn’t be so hard on himself, but coming from Lost Springs with its abundant labor pool and fresh paint, Winter Ranch looked shabby.
The house, built of a creamy-colored native stone, wasn’t so bad, though the trim could use some paint and the interior could be spiffed up some. But it was clean; Lita saw to that.
Jessica and Matt would be staying there. He’d give Jessica Barnaby’s old room. Though it was the master suite, Matt hadn’t gotten around to moving in yet.
Maybe he never would.
There were a couple of other bedrooms, but one had become a catchall and Lita sometimes stayed over in the other. Sam would stay there, since the bunkhouse was only opened during the winter when the circus folk’s kin came to visit.
Matt rode Black Star toward the ravine that provided a natural divide along the northeast section of the ranch.
It was June and the land should be all green and grassy. Instead the vegetation was scrubby and a bare trickle of water moistened the cracked earth. Paw prints scarred the banks, including a set of huge round ones, which told Matt all he needed to know.
With the water so low, the circus animals were crossing over into ranch land. Normally he’d just ignore it, but with grazing land stressed, he didn’t want to find that what cattle he had left had become dinner for the tigers.
The circus people were supposed to keep the animals on their property. That was the deal. Matt crossed the ravine, not at all surprised to see gaping holes and trampled fence posts. He’d been known to repair the fence, himself, even though it wasn’t on his side.
Once past the ravine, Matt entered the cluster of homes by the back way. He rode past the animal pen that marked the dead end of the dirt road leading from the highway about a mile up ahead.
The pen was empty. Great.
Matt walked Black Star along the road, peering into the wooded area lining it. Several mobile homes sat on the right, a few free-standing houses were scattered to the left. Old traveling circus wagons parked here and there added a splash of color. He could hear the laugh track from some TV show, and the incessant clank from Tom Andersen’s iron workshop sounded in time to Black Star’s gait.
The whole community looked like a retirement village, which was what it was, he supposed.
About thirty years ago, the circus people had built a large warehouse to store tents and props during their off season. The structure had been added to now and then and currently served as a community center.
Matt headed here, looking for Krinkov, who’d been the owner of a Ten-in-One, a collection of traveling carnival acts, and was more or less in charge when Frank wasn’t around.
Matt found him playing cards with Rafael, a former sword swallower, and Dominic, the human pin cushion. After a glance around to see if any animals lurked in the shadows, he dismounted.
“Matthew! You still have your horse.” Krinkov gestured to the other men. “Did I not wager as much? And would no one wager against me?”
The men shook their heads.
Krinkov smiled at Matt, his lips barely visible through his long gray beard. “You owe me fifty dollars for the lost wager. But since you are my good friend, I will give you a chance to win it back and more.”
Heedless of the game in progress, he gathered the cards, shuffled them and fanned them out across the folding table. “Name a card. If I don’t pick it, then I will give you a hundred dollars.”
Matt dismounted and glanced at the cards. “Tell you what. You tell me a card, and if I pick it, then you keep the animals on this side of the ravine.”
Krinkov narrowed his eyes. “Ace of Hearts.”
Matt stared at the line of red and white patterned cards. “It’s not here. There are only fifty-one cards on the table.”
With an imperceptible movement, Krinkov produced the card. “Barnaby taught you well.” He gathered up the deck, shuffled and redealt, unperturbed at being caught cheating.
Neither did the others seem to mind that they were playing with marked cards.
Whatever. “Now about the animals,” Matt began, knowing he would encounter indifference. “You’re going to have to keep them over here. I’ve got visitors coming to stay for a couple of weeks. A woman and her son. I don’t want them frightened.”
Their mood changed in an instant. “Matthew!” Krinkov stood and enveloped him in a bear hug. “For years we have wanted you to bring a wife to the ranch.”
“She’s not—”
“Katya!” Krinkov shouted over his shoulder to his wife. “Matthew has found a woman.”
“It’s not like—”
Dominic and Rafael congratulated him by shaking his hand and pounding him on the back.
In the meantime, tiny Katya came hurrying over. She’d been gardening on one side of the building while Carmen, Frank’s wife and her arch rival, had been gardening on the other.
It was a flower war where everybody won.
“Matthew, such wonderful news.” She pulled off her gardening gloves and plopped them on the cards. Again, no one seemed to mind.
“How did you meet your woman?”
Matt looked at the tiny woman and the smiling men. There was just no way to explain without them reading more into Jessica being at the ranch than there should be.
“Give me your hand,” Katya demanded imperiously in her singsong voice.
Rather than argue, Matt obediently held out his left hand.
Katya peered at it. “Matthew, Matthew.” She beamed, her face creasing into a hundred lines. “She may be the one. I see—”
“Get away from him, you old fraud!” Carmen walked as fast as her considerable girth and the cup of hot tea she held would let her. “You aren’t needed. Here, Matthew. Drink.”
With his free hand, Matt accepted a mug with tea leaves still swirling. They’d barely had time to dye the liquid a pale amber.
“Drink!”
One didn’t argue with Carmen, either. Black eyes flashing, she glared down at Katya.
The tea was still close to boiling and Matt blew on it. Carmen frowned.
“Don’t make him burn his tongue when his hand will tell us all we need to know,” Katya scoffed. “I see a child.”
“A child? A child?” Carmen jerked the tea from Matt and stared into the cup. She made a disgusted sound. “Drink more.”
“Matthew did mention a child,” Krinkov confirmed, and Katya rewarded him with a sweet smile.
“Is this so?” Carmen asked.
Matt nodded and sipped.
“Old fraud,” she said to Katya. “You were weeding your puny flowers right there and heard.”
Matt managed to gulp down enough hot liquid for Carmen to read the tea leaves. He swished around the dregs, then emptied the cup, holding it for a moment, before handing it to her.
Carmen was silent for so long Matt began to feel apprehensive, even though he didn’t believe any of this fortune-teller stuff.
“Well.” Carmen glanced at Katya. “Maybe you aren’t such a fraud.”
“You saw her, then.” Katya smiled triumphantly.
Carmen nodded, her chins jigglin
g. “Come, Matthew. Tell us about your woman.”
* * *
“THAT’S IT, MOM!” Sam shrieked, and pointed to an ornate iron arch over the entry gate by the highway.
Jessica would have stopped even if Winter Ranch hadn’t been clearly spelled out.
The arch was a gorgeous piece of work, obviously custom. She stopped the car and got out.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked.
“I want to take a look at the arch close-up.”
“Mom.”
“Come look, Sam.”
There was a Noah’s Ark-type parade of animals winding around the letters and detailed scrollwork in the columns on either side. Each column was different and adorned with what appeared to be symbols. They might have been cattle brands, but Jessica didn’t think so.
What she did know was that she wanted to track down the artist who did this work.
One of her jobs at Fremont Construction was to maintain a list of artists and craftspeople who could make the custom architectural details for which the firm was known. This ironwork was superb. She knew of three immediate commissions she could get for the artist.
“Mom!” Sam pulled her back toward the car.
“Okay, Sam. Remind me to ask Matt about his entry arch.” Not that she’d forget.
Jessica drove over a cattle guard and followed an unpaved road toward a line of trees that hid the land behind them and provided some privacy from the highway. Just above the tops, she could see a windmill and hoped that meant she’d find the ranch house soon.
About halfway through the trees, the road split to the right. An iron column bearing symbols like the one on the main arch marked the smaller road. Jessica slowed, then decided to stay on the larger road.
Once on the other side of the trees, she saw a cluster of buildings and figured she’d guessed right.
“Is that Matt’s ranch?” Sam sounded as though he’d found heaven.
“Must be,” Jessica answered with mixed emotions. Could anything live up to Sam’s expectations?
True, she hoped he’d lose interest in all things cowboy, but it was equally true that she didn’t want him disappointed.
Jessica drove on past a long, wooden structure that had seen better days and metal sheds that looked as if they were held together by the rust that spread over them.
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