by Jodi Thomas
The man walked toward the parking area at the side of the bunkhouse as Galem stepped onto the porch.
Cord waited until Zeb’s old pickup pulled away before he said, “You being my guardian angel, Galem?”
The cook smiled. “Maybe. That cowhand knows cattle better than any man I’ve ever seen. He’s honest too, but he won’t work for a fool like Bryce Galloway, who only wanted to play at ranching. When Nevada married Bryce, I knew Zeb wouldn’t hang around long, and he didn’t.”
“He can’t read.” Cord’s words were a statement, not a question.
“No,” Galem answered, “but the cows don’t notice.”
Cord laughed. “Thanks. He’ll be a big help walking me through the sale tomorrow. I’m pretty green.”
“He needs a job on land, not in feedlots, and he’ll help you build the herd. I think he was nervous coming out, being fired once from this place.”
“Tell the men that they all start fresh with me when they hire on. No past hanging on.”
Galem nodded. “No past,” he echoed.
Cord turned toward the house, knowing Nevada had been right about Galem. The cook had just filled a weak spot Cord had been worried about. He knew farming and land, but he didn’t know enough about cattle. Zeb wouldn’t need to read, just point at what to buy to build the best herd that had ever roamed the ranch.
After a few steps, he stopped and looked back at Galem. “Any chance you know a bookkeeper?”
“Nope, but you might ask around.”
Cord almost laughed out loud. He didn’t have anyone he knew to ask. If he asked anyone in town they’d probably have him arrested for speaking to them.
After a shower and a shave, he walked into the dining room in clean clothes. The table was set for one. Ora Mae had left a note. Little Miss’s food is in warmer. She said to tell you to go ahead and eat, she won’t be in until late.
He read the note twice, noticing Ora Mae had used the same nickname as Galem had for Nevada. He figured he’d have to hang around a lot longer than eight months before she’d let him use one, if ever.
Cord took his plate to the study and looked over past cattle buys. Every bone in his body hurt from work. He’d pushed the men, but he’d pushed himself twice as hard. At ten he could keep his eyes open no longer. He stripped down to his underwear and crawled into his side of the bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Deep into the night he felt the bed shift and knew Nevada had climbed in on her side. She might run around half the night, but she’d kept her word. She’d come home to sleep in his bed.
Chapter 10
MARCH 14
WINTER’S INN BED-AND-BREAKFAST
MARTHA Q PATTERSON WAS EXHAUSTED. WHEN THE FUNERAL director’s little talk with Joni Rosen didn’t seem to work, Martha Q knew she had to think of another plan for emptying her house of widows. She liked the idea of being an innkeeper. It somehow sounded romantic when she started, but since then she’d heard that the two happiest days of an innkeeper’s life are the day he opens his doors to the public and the day he closes them.
She needed rest, not more work, but the three widows showed no sign of leaving.
Even worse than having to get dressed and put on her face each day was the problem of writer’s block. They were slowing down her great career as the next top writer of sexy, intriguing, apocalyptic murder mysteries. She’d decided from the first to write a book with everything in it. Masochistic shape shifters who time-traveled into Rome as it fell. They ran around producing zombies in togas while they became wine experts. Her book would hit the best seller lists, she was sure of it.
Martha Q thumped her own forehead. She was getting off track again. She needed to plan.
Maybe ants or termites. The widows would hate that.
Red ants would send the ladies running. Or bedbugs. People hated bedbugs, thanks to the idiot who’d blown them up to puppy size and put them on the Internet. If the bugs had just been butterfly cute, no one would have minded. They’d just toss back the covers and smile as feathery bedbugs flew by.
Off track again.
Martha Q considered hiring a prowler, or a Peeping Tom. She grinned. That would make an interesting story if a Peeping Tom fell in love with an exhibitionist. They’d be neighbors. He’d wear out the grass between their houses and she’d save enough money on window blinds to replant. Every night, no matter the weather, he’d pull on his coat and stand in the flower beds until she turned out the lights after blinking three times, their secret code for I love you.
“Off track again,” she mumbled as she reached for her bowl of chocolate-covered peanuts.
Half a bowl later she realized every single plan she came up with to send the widows away would also hurt her business. She liked people, with their secrets and stories, coming into her home, making her feel as if she had a big family and wasn’t alone.
But she also admitted she was a fair-weather liker of people. It was grand when they came on weekends or even odd days of the week. It was the every-day thing that bothered her. She needed a vacation. Maybe she’d drive up to Kansas and stay at someone else’s bed-and-breakfast.
The doorbell pulled her out of her worrying and away from the now-empty candy bowl.
“Darlene,” she yelled up the stairs where she thought the newest housekeeper might be. “Stop eating my candy.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be down in a minute to fill it back up.”
“Thank you,” Martha Q said over her shoulder as she rushed to the door. One of the widows probably forgot her key, or maybe a few of the half dozen things she’d ordered from the shopping channel had arrived. Every time she couldn’t sleep it cost her twenty-nine ninety-five plus shipping. The cleaning products, Christmas lights, and one-size-fits-all cuddle pillows never looked the same in daylight as they had at two in the morning, but the anticipation kept her hoping.
She pulled open the heavily carved door as she plastered on her best smile.
The nice-looking man on her porch didn’t appear as if he came as part of any midnight deal. Tall, well built, thirty-five maybe.
“Yes?” Martha Q straightened to her proprietor pose. “May I help you?”
He ducked his head slightly as he faced her; a smile sparkled in bedroom eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead, Mrs. Patterson, but I hoped you might have a room for a weary traveler. I’m here on business for a few days. I was told this was the best place in town, though I never had a chance to visit during the short time I lived here a few years ago.”
After seven husbands, Martha Q had learned to mistrust flattery, but the sound of his whiskey-smooth voice made her wish she hadn’t given up drinking. “We do have a room, but I’m afraid it’s on the third floor.”
“I could use the exercise.” He smiled again, and she thought he might be an actor playing a part. She knew she could read people, even if she sometimes read them wrong. That didn’t change the fact that she could usually read them, and this one seemed to be printed in smaller type than normal. Like the last crossword puzzle in the book, he wouldn’t be easy to figure out.
Maybe he was a famous actor; after all, if he hadn’t appeared on Gunsmoke, she probably wouldn’t have seen him. Maybe he was here scoping out sites for a new series or a reality show based on innkeepers.
Martha Q rattled her head, hoping to shake a few brain cells awake. This guy had never worked a day in his life written all over him. “I’ll show you the room. Mr.—”
“No need to look it over. I’ll take it,” he answered, a bit too fast.
She noticed his leather hand-tooled bag already at his feet. Cocky, she decided, like her first boyfriend, who’d always carried three condoms in his pocket. But this one was much better-looking than any guy she’d ever dated, and he was dressed like he had his clothes made just for him. “Come on in, Mr. . . .” She tried again for the name.
“Bryce.” He smiled with his too-perfect teeth. “Bryce Galloway.”
“Any chan
ce you play loud music and stay up all night smoking and swearing?”
“No. I’m pretty quiet.”
Martha Q sighed. “I was afraid of that. I take two nights in advance. Every third night is free and breakfast is at eight thirty.” She opened the door wider and invited him in, having no faith that he’d have any effect on the widows. He was too young and too smooth for them to give him a second look. Widows like a man who’s lived long enough to have a few bad habits and rough corners they can work on. The first husband might be married for love or even lust, but the second one was usually a fixer-upper.
The good news was that now the inn had only one room left vacant. The bad news, she’d be the first woman in history to scrub her nose off trying to get her makeup removed every night.
Bryce Galloway might be easy on the eyes, but having another guest would simply mean more work.
When she walked into the kitchen to tell her cook that there would be another mouth to feed for breakfast, Martha Q was surprised to see Mrs. Biggs’s grandson Border sitting at the kitchen table.
“Is it Sunday night already?” Martha Q said, as if she were really asking a question.
Border, unlike his friend Beau Yates, never knew how to take her. “No, Mrs. Patterson, it’s only Wednesday. I just came over to say hello to my grandmother.”
Martha Q frowned. The idiot thought she was senile. This day was going downhill. A change of subject was needed.
She sat down and cut herself a slice of the pie Border had already had half of. “Border, did you know that I was thinking about becoming a great writer?”
“No, Mrs. Patterson. That’s really something. I’ve never known a writer before. What are you working on?”
Martha Q hated questions about her work. “Well, I haven’t worked much yet. First comes the thinking.”
“Of course.” Border actually looked interested. “That’s the part I would have trouble with.”
“I have no doubt, but you know Beau and he writes songs. How does he get his inspiration?”
Border shrugged. “He says sometimes he feels like they’re already in his head and he’s just fighting to get them out. Like the other day I asked him about this girl who sometimes picks him up after work, and he said she’d been on the back roads of his mind. I found out later that them words were in an old song. I swear, he don’t just write songs, he talks them too.”
Martha Q knew she would get little help from Border. She finished off her slice of pie. “Mrs. Biggs,” she said to the cook. “Have you got an extra pie to send the boys? Maybe it’d help Beau write.”
“I’ll do that.” Mrs. Biggs smiled at her tattooed, two-hundred-pound, shaved-headed grandson like he was adorable.
Martha Q decided the pair were proof that love is blind, and with that thought came an idea for a story about a beauty who fell in love with an ugly beast of a man.
She made the mistake of telling Border her idea, and he said he loved that movie even if it was a cartoon.
Martha Q marched off, frustrated that a storyteller had stolen her great idea before she could even get it down on paper.
Chapter 11
MARCH 15
THE LINCOLN HADN’T SHOWN UP IN FRONT OF THE DUPLEX on Monday night, but Ronny trusted Mr. Carleon. On Tuesday when it came, she saw that Marty was still alive but too weak to wake. On Wednesday, he talked a few moments then drifted off. By Thursday, she wasn’t sure she’d find him alive. The week had been a roller coaster with little sleep. Even Cord McDowell told her she looked pale when he came in to mail Boxed B letters.
She sometimes wondered if Cord had guessed she was the one who made sure he got a newspaper mailed to him in prison after his folks died. She couldn’t think of another reason for him to make a point of speaking to her when he came in while he ignored everyone else. They were two usually invisible people who saw each other.
With the days at work and the nights at the hospital, Ronny realized she was wearing down, but she couldn’t stop. When someone is in the hospital, everyone around them dies a little. Each night she saw Marty, she felt his pain as she watched his life slipping away.
The newest rumor Ronny’s mother had started was that Ronny’s living alone, when everyone knows a girl should live with her mother until marriage no matter how late in life, had led to an unwanted pregnancy. Dallas Logan had a hard time pulling off the rumor because Ronny looked like she was losing weight, not gaining. Plus folks talked to Dallas Logan only long enough to plot their escape.
Ronny no longer worried what her mother told people. She’d said she never wanted to speak to Ronny again, and Ronny planned to do her best to honor that request. Dallas Logan didn’t miss having a daughter; she simply missed having someone to control and lecture. Marty had given Ronny the strength to walk away from her mother two years ago, and she’d silently thanked him every day. He’d pulled her out of hell, and even if she hadn’t fallen in love with him, she still owed him.
When the black Lincoln arrived an hour before midnight on Thursday, Ronny let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and walked to the open door, letting all her worries and problems slip away. Seeing Marty was all that mattered.
Mr. Carleon met her at the back door of the hospital, his face as stony as always.
“How is he?” She braced herself for bad news.
“He’s awake but in pain,” Mr. Carleon whispered as he moved down the back hallways with her, almost running to keep up.
Ronny felt both happy and sad. She knew Marty had skipped some of his medicine so he could see her. Being awake meant pain.
She almost ran into his room but took a moment to calm, preparing herself for whatever might happen. Reason told her that one night he’d be gone, but reason didn’t reach her heart.
When she entered, three men blocked her path to Marty’s bed. They were all three tall and lean like runners. One, the oldest at about forty, wore khakis and a bomber jacket. Another, maybe five years younger, was dressed like a hunter, and the third seemed just as comfortable as the others in his suit.
All three stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Marty’s bed. They’d been waiting for her, for they showed no surprise. The urge to run washed over her, but she stood her ground. If they wanted her out of the room, they’d have to use force.
“You Ronny Logan?” the one in the suit asked, as if he were quizzing a witness.
“Yes,” she answered.
The man who looked like a bush pilot took a step toward her. His eyes were steel and his face weathered past his years. “You sure she can handle this, Marty? The little lady looks like a frightened mouse.”
The suit raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know about this one, Marty. She looks like she’d break under pressure. You need a bulldog, partner.”
Ronny had had enough. She might not be brave enough to talk to them, but she could try pushing through the line.
Bumping the suit’s shoulder and the hunter’s arm, she darted between them and rushed to the bed. Marty’s smile was all she needed to calm.
His fingers closed over her hand as he said, “She can handle whatever comes along. She made it through you three clowns, didn’t she?”
Ronny could see the pain in his eyes, but Marty smiled at her. “Honey, these are my three best friends. They were with me when I tumbled off the mountain. The one in the jacket is Ross. He thinks he’s the best pilot ever born. Ivan may look dumb in that suit, but he’s the best lawyer Austin has to offer. And last is Glen. He’s half mountain man, but he did manage to make it through med school even after I dropped out and stopped helping him, so we call him Doc. They said they’d come if I ever needed them, so I called.”
“We’re here to try and talk Marty out of his craziest idea yet.” Doc’s voice was low and flavored from the deep South.
“What’s that?” Ronny squeezed Marty’s hand, letting him know she was on his side no matter what the idea.
Ivan, the lawyer, took over. “He says he wants
to go home with you, if you’ll have him. Wants to set up housekeeping in Nowhere, Texas.”
Ronny couldn’t speak. She just stared at the three men.
Doc took over again. “He’s rallied the past few days since I’ve seen him. I’ll give you credit for that. And, considering his condition, if the move doesn’t kill him, then his chances aren’t that much different here or in Harmony. If he dies, he’ll die where he wants to be. While he’s living, he’ll be with you.”
“Right. You might want to think about this and join our side of the debate.” Ivan tugged off his suit jacket and stared at Ronny as if he thought she might not be stable. “If he lives longer than expected, you’ll be stuck with him, Miss Logan. Our Marty’s not an easy man to live with when he’s healthy, and when he’s in pain, he’s the devil. We should know. We carried him off the mountain after he broke his back. More than once we considered knocking him out with a right cross. If he wasn’t cussing, he was giving directions and pushing all of us.”
They all three agreed. The doctor picked up the debate. “He’ll need home nursing, round the clock, and machines. More as time goes on and his body begins to shut down. Near as I can tell, all the hospital is doing right now is trying to make his last days as painless as possible. It looks like the doctors and his brother are just waiting.”
“Have you given up on him?” she whispered, knowing that Marty was hearing every word even though he’d closed his eyes.
“No, Miss Logan, we didn’t give up on him on the mountain. It took us three days to get down to him and dig him out, then we lashed our skis together and carried him out. We know Marty like no one else knows him. He’s a fighter. This move may shorten his life, but he’s willing to take that chance. At the worst, it’ll make his last few days happier being with you. At the best, it might add some time, but you got to understand from the first, we’re counting time in days, not weeks.”
