An Unlikely Rancher

by Roz Denny Fox

  Jenna jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “I have some in my bathroom medicine cabinet. Do you have a headache?”

  He rubbed a hand over his thigh. “No, I...uh... The doctor cut some shrapnel out today.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize you were still undergoing treatment. Wait here. I’ll bring you a couple of extra-strength capsules.”

  Flynn started to decline, but she’d already dashed away. He set the glass on the counter and adjusted his sleep shorts. They looked as decent as if he had on swim trunks. He couldn’t help noticing that Jenna wore something pink and silky that swirled around her knees.

  She turned on the overhead light and set the capsules on the counter next to Flynn’s glass. Her gaze lit on his bandaged leg. “Do you need a new dressing? That looks bloody.”

  She bent for a closer inspection and Flynn felt her warm breath on his skin. His stomach muscles tightened. “It’ll be okay until morning. The nurse put on a pressure bandage... I should leave it. I’ll buy some bandages and switch to them tomorrow.”

  Straightening, Jenna indicated by a sweep of her hand that he should take the pills. “I didn’t realize you had fresh injuries.”

  Flynn swallowed two capsules with water, then shrugged and gestured with his glass. “Not so fresh. It’s been almost a year since our chopper was shot down. It was our bad luck to hit the ground near a land mine.”

  To avoid Jenna’s wide eyes, he turned away and decided not to tell her how the enemy knew how to shoot down a chopper so it landed on or near a roadside bomb filled with nails, tacks and glass.

  He put his glass in the dishwasher. “Don’t waste sympathy on me. My best friend and another good guy didn’t make it out.”

  Jenna clutched the front of the frilly robe she’d hastily put on. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I know how that is.”

  “Yeah, well... Listen, I didn’t mean to remind you of your loss. It’s late. Time to turn in again. Oh, hey, how did you make out today?”

  Afraid she’d been caught watching the play of his shoulder muscles, she wished she’d gone straight back to bed after giving him the pills. “On the plus side, I hired a new part-time worker. A Vietnam vet... Barney Fisk. He’s never worked with ostriches, but he came by this afternoon and he’s okay with my terms. And his references checked out.”

  “I’ve run into Barney at the Legion. He’s a decent guy.”

  “Good to know. Uh, but...the bank refused my loan request.” She ran that last part of the sentence together.

  Flynn leaned on the counter. “Turned you down? Why?”

  “I’m not creditworthy.”

  “You mean you owe too much on your mortgage?”

  She heaved a sigh. “I don’t have a mortgage, which is why I don’t have savings to draw on. The story I got is the bank doesn’t lend money on farms because they’re too risky.”

  “Farms are too risky, huh?” He shook his head. “Let me guess—Frank Hart.”

  She did a double-take. “Yes. How did...?”

  “Knew him from when farm kids weren’t beneath him.”

  “Well, I never had credit in my name, either. I handled our family finances, but everything was in Andrew’s name. At the time I had access to everything I needed. If I had it to do over...” She let that trail.

  “Don’t worry,” she quickly added. “Before I left my sister’s I applied for my own credit card. It should arrive soon. And I have a second avenue I’m considering.” She paused, trying to find the words to reassure him. “I wish I had more positive news.”

  He shrugged. “We’re making do. Beezer’s happy. Did you see he’s sneaked into Andee’s room again?”

  “No, but I’ve no doubt she encouraged him. I’m fully aware you paid to have a place of your own.”

  “I trust you’ll get it ironed out.”

  She bobbed her head, then motioned toward the arch. “Uh, ranch work begins early. Guess I’ll get back to bed. Just shut off the light above the stove when you head upstairs.” She turned off the overhead light, plunging them in shadow.

  “I’ll go up, too. The pills have helped already. What do we say...first one up in the morning brews coffee?”

  Jenna folded her arms. “You’re saying that because I already tipped my hand about getting up early. By the way, I bought you a new box of Froot Loops. And I capitulated and let Andee buy Cap’n Crunch.”

  “If Beezer—”

  “She’s promised she won’t share people food with him ever again. I’m sure she’ll be a model child. Her aim is to get a dog after you guys leave.”

  Flynn flexed his knee, testing his bandages. “She puts me in mind of my sister’s youngest son. He always thinks one step ahead.”

  He snapped off the stove light and moved toward the door where Jenna stood. The only light came from the glow of the moon through the kitchen window.

  “Do I detect envy in your voice?” The setting felt too intimate and Jenna began to edge out of the room. “Say, are you divorced? You may have kids, for all I know.”

  “I don’t. Came close to marriage once... I like kids. I hope to have a couple someday. I’d like my business to be making money first.”

  “Plans can go awry,” Jenna murmured. “I hope spending time around Andee doesn’t change your mind about having kids. Her favorite word of the hour is why. Don’t let her drive you crazy.” She took a few steps down the hall.

  “Uh...my breakup was rough.” In the dark, Flynn almost stumbled over Jenna. He put out a hand, connected with her robe and pulled back fast. “Left me leery of... I don’t know what, really. If I’ve acted like a jerk—”

  “It’s okay. For the record, if Don Winkleman knows you’re staying here, he’ll probably think twice about giving me a hard time. If that sounds self-serving—”

  Flynn lightly touched her shoulder. “I don’t work far away. If he shows up and Fisk isn’t around, call me.”

  Jenna ducked out from under his hand, but still imagined she felt the imprint. “It’s not your problem.” She walked on past the stairs.

  “I mean it.”

  Her stomach reacted to his warm tone. “Andee complained to the librarian about having no friends here. Now we have one. Two, with Beezer.”

  She hurried to her room without looking back.

  Closing her bedroom door, she leaned her head against the cool wood, shivering.

  CHAPTER SIX

  FLYNN WOKE TO a room splashed with sunlight. He’d slept better than expected after his midnight rendezvous with Jenna. He stretched lazily, then realized it wasn’t the sun that had woken him but rather noises outside his partially open window. Focusing, he heard shrieks followed by a woman shouting “Shoo, shoo, shoo” and “No, no, don’t go that way.”

  He limped to the window and pulled back the curtain. The scene below had him grabbing for his pants. Ostriches were running free. They were everywhere. Staring down on his pickup, he saw a bird pecking the side mirror.

  Pulling on his pants, he shrugged into a shirt, then socks and boots.

  Another glance into the yard revealed several birds craning their scrawny necks to peer at their reflections in the darkened windows of Jenna’s SUV. She was dashing around, yelling and snapping what he thought was a dish towel.

  Every bird she herded back into the large enclosure sprinted past the covered areas to emerge from another open gate on the far side of the sheds. Jenna mustn’t have known that.

  He descended the stairs as rapidly as possible on his bad leg. He decided to go out through the laundry room, figuring that would put him behind the milling flock. Wrong! A hundred or so ostriches roamed alongside the house. Maybe twice that many wandered in the empty lot beyond the ranch’s developed property.

  Having no idea whatsoever how to move so many long-legged birds
back into confinement, but judging Jenna had the right idea, he turned back and grabbed a bath towel out of her laundry basket.

  He first checked his pickup mirrors to see they weren’t broken, then waded into the melee shaking his towel like a matador wielding a cape just to get through them. He was rewarded with seeing eight or so birds charge ahead of him toward the pen.

  Coming up behind Jenna, he called, “What happened out here?”

  She spun around. “If I only knew.” Her voice cracked. “I got up when my alarm went off and went to the kitchen to put on the coffee. I glanced out the window to admire the pink sunrise and two ostriches were looking back at me. I almost had heart failure.”

  “Your gates are all open. If you go close the far ones, I’ll steer as many birds as I can into the main pen.”

  “All the gates are open? How can that be?”

  “We can Monday-morning-quarterback after we get all the birds contained. Where’s your employee?”

  She checked her watch. “I don’t know. I asked him to be here by seven. With the luck I’m having, he could’ve quit.” She started to move off, but the kitchen door banged open.

  Andee, still in her nightie and disheveled from sleep, emerged holding her bear. At her side lumbered Beezer. He gave a little yip followed by a low, excited bark.

  Jenna changed direction. “Yikes! Sweetie, take Beezer back inside. We’re trying to get the birds into the pens.”

  “Why?”

  Jenna’s sputtered response came too late. The dog charged down the steps and, with ears flying, began nipping at the legs of huddled ostriches. The surprised birds strutted fast into the enclosure.

  “Will you look at that!” Flynn exclaimed. “Hurry and shut those far gates.”

  “Will he hurt them, or get hurt?” she asked as she wove through clusters of birds.

  “He seems to know what he’s doing,” Flynn responded, watching her shut the next gate and then all the remaining open ones.

  Rushing back, Jenna paused to check on Andee before she helped drive the ostriches inside. “I’m so rattled I forgot they only kick forward.” She saw Flynn continue to snap a striped bath towel behind four prancing birds. But combined, their efforts were minuscule compared to the amount of ostriches the zigzagging dog brought to the pen.

  “How does he know to do that?” she asked, blowing out a breath as Beezer raced off to round up another set.

  “Damned if I know. Being part sheep dog, herding is his natural instinct. Hey, watch the gate. Don’t let them dart out again. Open the gate when Beezer and I bring in a new batch. He’s headed to the field. I saw birds at the side of the house.”

  “Let me go—you’re limping more. You stay here and man the gate.” Jenna noticed he wasn’t overjoyed at being sidelined. But he did as she asked.

  “Mommy, let me help!” Andee hollered from the porch.

  “No, the birds are way bigger than you,” Jenna said as she skirted the porch. “I know they only have two toes on each foot, but the big toe is more like a claw.”

  All at once an airplane rose above the foothills. Its sudden appearance stampeded birds loose in the field before the plane swooped low and flew the full length of the pens, creating panic there, too. The plane cleared the house, banked in a half circle and made a second pass, sending more birds into frenzy. Jenna stopped to watch.

  Flynn gestured with both arms until the plane pulled up and flew off to the west.

  “It’s that same airplane that scared me ’n the ostriches the other day!” Andee shouted. “The man driving it made Beezer lose a whole bunch of birds.”

  “I believe it is,” Jenna said, shading her eyes to watch the red-and-white plane fade to a dot. “Andee, honey, I’d like you to go inside. Dress in the shorts and shirt I laid out on your toy chest. Then you can come back out and watch Beezer work. But stay on the porch, please.”

  Andee let the screen door slam shut, causing the nearby birds to flap wildly.

  “Do you know that pilot?” Jenna demanded of Flynn.

  “Yeah. He rents a hangar from me.”

  “Does he hate ostriches? Or does he get turned on by watching them panic?”

  Flynn widened the gate to let the twenty or so ostriches Beezer had shepherded into the grassy pen. Closing it, Flynn stopped to pat his head. “Good dog. Go round up more birds.”

  Beezer bounded away to nip and nudge while steering clear of kicks aimed his way.

  “Are you ignoring me because you’re afraid I’ll cause trouble for the pilot and lose you a client?” Jenna demanded.

  “Look, he’s a young guy. Cocky and immature, but I don’t think he’s malicious. I’ll speak to him again. He may have seen birds outside the pens and flown low for a closer check. We don’t know he didn’t plan to report the problem to authorities.”

  “Oh, he wanted to be helpful. Right.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m going to chase some out of the field. When Andee comes out, make her stay put. So far the birds haven’t pecked us, but I got drilled by one the other day. I want her to like the ostriches. I want her to like the ranch.”

  Flynn nodded, still looking up into the sky.

  It took the two of them and Beezer another hour and a half to collect all of the birds. Luckily, with the land being so flat around them, they could see when they had them all.

  Breathless, Jenna called to Andee, “Come help me fill the water troughs. Afterward we’ll all go in and I’ll fix pancakes and eggs. Beezer gets an extra ration of his food,” she said, bending to stroke the dog’s heaving sides.

  “I should shower and go,” Flynn said.

  “You need to eat,” Jenna responded. “Unless you don’t like pancakes and eggs.”

  “Oh, I like them. There aren’t many foods I don’t like,” he said, wiping the sweat off his face.

  “Okay, then. Why don’t you feed Beezer and pour yourself a cup of coffee? By the way, I set a box of large bandages on the counter.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

  Jenna took Andee’s hand and went to unwind the hose at the big shed.

  In due time they were all seated around the kitchen table digging in to stacks of golden pancakes and a pile of scrambled eggs.

  Andee asked the question that had been on Jenna’s mind. “How did all the ostriches get loose?”

  “That’s an excellent question.” Flynn frowned as he raised a forkful of eggs to his lips. “I inspected one gate latch. It looked okay. I couldn’t see any way even curious birds could unlatch it. And for all four to be opened...” He shook his head, ate his mouthful and added, “It’s not logical that you or Barney would’ve gone into all of the pens yesterday and forgot to shut every one when you came out.”

  Jenna picked up her coffee mug. “I did show him how to harvest feathers. As I recall we only went in and out of the pen and the inside gate to the back pen, where we released the birds we’d finished.” She groaned. “Now the birds we took feathers from are mixed in with those not done.”

  “Do you think you should notify the sheriff?” Flynn blotted syrup off his lips with his napkin.

  She gripped her cup handle and tried to ignore how tempting his lips looked. “Uh...you think it’s that serious?”

  “Don’t you? If Beezer hadn’t been so adept, or if you’d been here alone, you’d probably be rounding up birds until midnight tonight. It’s pure luck that none of them stepped in gopher holes out in the field.”

  Jenna scraped back the hair that had fallen in her face.

  “Beezer’s so smart. May I give him a doggy treat?” Andee asked Flynn. “Mommy bought some at the store yesterday when we got new cereal.”

  “Maybe take him outside, since he tends to crunch dog biscuits all over the floor,” Flynn said.

  “Mommy?”

 
“Stay away from the pens. Tomorrow is egg collection day and we need the ostriches to calm down so they’ll lay a lot.”

  Andee carried her plate to the sink, then ran into the laundry room, where she emerged seconds later with a large bone-shaped biscuit. Beezer padded close at her heels and barely saved his tail from getting caught in the screen door as the girl dashed out.

  “He’s putty in her hands,” Flynn said, grinning.

  Jenna let a moment pass as they listened to Andee talking to the dog. Nervously pleating her napkin, she said in a low tone, “I didn’t want to bring this up with her listening, because she’s already afraid of Don Winkleman. Frankly, he’s the only person I can think of who might wish to cause me trouble. He did say I’d be sorry if I let him go, or something to that effect.”

  Flynn got up and refilled both of their cups.

  “I probably shouldn’t have fired him,” she lamented.

  He returned the pot to its burner and turned back to her. “I’ll track down Winkleman in town today and grill him.”

  “No, don’t,” she said. “I mean, it’s nice of you to offer, but if he is to blame, maybe letting the birds out got all the mad out of his system. Accosting him might just provoke him further.”

  “Maybe.”

  The screen door flew open. “Mr. Fisk is coming! He’s pushing his big bike. Can I get a bike like the one Brittany had?”

  “Not right away, honey.” Jenna got up from the table and began clearing it. She set everything in the sink and ran water over the plates and silverware.

  “Barney rides a bicycle out here from town?” Flynn dumped his cup in the sink.

  “Barney rides a Harley,” she said, turning off the coffeepot. “I asked him to shut it off and walk it in from the end of the lane.” She pushed open the screen door and jogged down the porch steps, leaving Flynn to follow behind her.

  “Sorry I’m late, Ms. Wood,” Barney called. “I camp out and don’t have an alarm. Generally the sun wakes me up, but this morning it didn’t.”