Marge gave Katie a beady-eyed stare. “Are you? You think you could work for a crabby old woman who’s demanding as all hell and set in her ways?”
“It’s your restaurant—you can be as demanding as you like. And your ways seem to be working, so why change them?”
Marge gave a bark of laughter. “She’s a diplomat, too. Look, I can’t pay you much, but you can live in the apartment over the Queen for free. It’s a little cramped, but I know Lucy’s kept it clean. And you’ll appreciate the location when you have to set up for breakfast—we have regulars who come in around seven. Want to give it try?”
“I don’t have any real experience working in a restaurant,” Katie said.
“You do now,” Lucy said. “You jumped in like a real pro today. I’ll stay on long enough to make sure you know the routine.”
“And I’ve been known to flip a burger or two,” Roger said. “We won’t let you fall on your face.”
Katie looked at their eager faces, her eyes stopping when they reached Luke.
“What do you think?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “I think you can do anything you set your mind to. You said you wanted a job cooking—here’s your chance.”
She smiled at him as if sealing a pact and turned to Marge. “I guess you’ve got yourself a cook, Mrs. Bowman.”
“Who?” Marge made a great show of looking around the dining room. “Just Marge, honey—my mother-in-law was Mrs. Bowman, God rest her soul.”
She reached for her crutches. “Lucy, I told my neighbor she didn’t need to pick me up—you’d give me a ride. Time to drag these old bones home. And you—” she pointed a crutch at Katie “—I’ll expect you to be moved in by tomorrow evening. I want Lucy to have a little time with her folks before she heads East again.”
“That’s okay,” Lucy said as she held the door open for Marge. “They’ll just put me to work if I’m out at the ranch full-time.”
The big room seemed very quiet after Marge and Lucy departed. Roger gathered the cups. “I’ll finish cleaning up, Katie. You take this cowboy home.” He stuck out his hand. “Glad to see you back, Luke.”
“Glad to be back.” Luke shook his hand. “You take care of this lady, you hear?”
“Like a prize calf.” Roger returned to the kitchen.
“I had a notion you might be kind of busy,” Luke said, “so I bummed a ride with one of the nurses coming off duty. Now tell me the truth—how did you like it?”
“My feet are killing me—I’ll need to buy some shoes with better support—I have a fierce headache from the noise of the exhaust fan and I burned my wrist reaching over a hot skillet.” She held out the wounded hand for his inspection. “And I loved it. I really enjoyed myself.”
“Sort of how we feel when we look at a pen full of calves all tagged and branded—beat-up and worn to a nub, but happy with a good day’s work.” He grasped her hand and dropped a light kiss on the burn. “To make it better, darlin’,” he said.
He pivoted his chair. “We’d better get home before they send out a posse looking for us.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LUKE SAT MOSTLY in silence on the ride to the ranch while Katie chattered about her afternoon’s adventures in food service. Of course he was pleased she would be working at the Queen, but he would miss her. She would be moving into Durango come morning—no more sitting at meals with the family or riding beside him across the ranch. In a short time, she had become family—more than family.
He gave himself a sharp mental slap. Katie needed running room, a chance to grow her identity, and he needed to concentrate all his energy on rebuilding and recovery. After all, Durango was only an hour away, and if she did end up getting a divorce...
“So how did your therapy go?”
He started to wave off her question with his usual breezy disclaimer, but he longed to share his elation, the simple joy of feeling pain in his useless limbs.
“It hurt,” he said.
Katie veered his vehicle into a dusty side road and turned to face him. “It hurt? Your legs hurt? You felt—”
He nodded. “I get electric stimulation to keep the muscles from wasting, and I could feel it today. Twice, both legs.” He swallowed hard. “First time I’ve been able to feel anything more than spasms since that bull stomped on my back.”
She grabbed his left hand in both of hers. “Oh, Luke! I’m so glad for you. Does that mean—”
“It means I shouldn’t get my hopes up, but it’s a start.” He laughed. “I’ve stumbled into an electric fence a time or two, but I never thought getting zapped would be something to celebrate.”
When they reached Cameron’s Pride, they found Shelby waiting outside the barn. “I know you’re tired from your PT,” she said, “but could you ride out to the cabin? Jake and Missy are checking the roof and I can’t raise Jake on his cell phone—you know what the reception is like out there. Tell him Art Duffy is on his way to look at our yearlings. I can entertain Art when he arrives, but Jake will have to dicker with him.”
“Sure,” Luke said. “I’ll go change into my boots while you saddle Dude for me.”
“Mind if I come along?” Katie asked. “I may not get another chance to ride for a while.”
“Be glad to have you,” he said, happy for more time with her before she moved to Durango.
“Then I’ll saddle Rooster, too,” Shelby said over her shoulder.
Ten minutes later Luke rode out with Katie by his side. “Art Duffy pays top dollar for our yearlings,” he said, “but price negotiations are always like a summit meeting. He won’t deal with anyone but Dad, so we need to pick up the pace a little.”
He leaned over and pulled the reins a little shorter in her hands. “We’re not going to gallop full-out, just a nice easy lope to get there a little faster. Rooster’s as easy as a rocking horse—just lean forward a little and move with him.”
Katie nodded, tight-lipped, and tugged her cap down over her forehead.
Luke spoke to Dude, who flowed forward in so smooth a gait Luke could have carried a full glass without spilling a drop. He cast a glance at Katie, who had relaxed her death grip on her reins, rocking in the saddle as if she’d been riding for years. He didn’t ask if she was enjoying herself. Her blissful smile spoke without words.
They kept up the pace through the lower pasture to the big metal gate closing off the open rangeland beyond. Luke slid the latch for Katie to ride through and then closed it behind them. They continued at a jog until they forded the creek and the cabin came into view.
Two horses stood in the corral. Jake and Missy sat on the porch roof with their legs dangling over the edge. A ladder lay on the ground.
Luke sat back in his saddle with a snicker. “I guess we know now why you’re AWOL. You got your phone, Katie? We need a picture of this.”
Jake scowled at them and turned to Missy. “Your Uncle Luke’s a mean man, honey. He’ll sit there hee-hawing like a jackass till we starve up here.”
“I can shinny down the post, Grandpa. Honest, I can.”
“No need, Missy.” Luke rode under the overhang and reached up a hand. “Just step down onto Dude, then you and Katie can put the ladder up for the old man.”
Missy clambered onto Dude’s back and then slid to the ground. Katie dismounted to help Missy prop the ladder up for Jake to descend.
“Thanks, I guess,” Jake said. “What brings you out here?”
“You, Pop. Art Duffy’s on his way to look at the yearlings. Shelby will keep him busy till you get there, but she was getting worried when you didn’t answer your p
hone.”
Jake sighed. “No help for that, I guess.”
“Get moving. We’ll close up here and get Missy home.”
Jake caught Blackjack, his black gelding in the corral, mounted and splashed across the creek before lifting the horse into a fast lope.
“I’m afraid to ask,” Luke said, “but what happened to the ladder?”
“I was helping Grandpa measure for new shingles,” Missy said, “and then a bull elk came and rubbed his fanny on the ladder till it fell down.” She pointed at tracks in the soft dust by the porch. “See? And I could have shinnied down the post, only Grandpa was afraid I’d fall.”
“Sure you could have, but we’d better get home before your mom gets worried. Check Babe’s cinch before you mount up.”
Missy nodded and caught her horse—a showy paint mare—swarming into the saddle nimble as a monkey.
Katie shook her head in disbelief. “She looks like she was born on horseback.”
“Nope, she didn’t get on her first horse till she was almost two.”
Katie laughed. “Practically over the hill.”
They rode three abreast while Missy entertained them with the misdeeds of Angus, her mother’s Maine Coon cat. “Angus sneaked out and killed a prairie dog and left it in the hallway and Daddy stepped on it in the middle of the night and said a lot of bad words.”
“I might have said a few myself,” Luke said with a straight face.
“Let’s race home,” Missy said when they reached the lower pasture.
“You know better,” Luke said. “We can lope a little, but no racing.” He leaned forward and Dude broke into his rocking-horse gait; Rooster and Babe followed his lead.
They dropped Missy off at her home, a compact version of the main log ranch house with its own small stable and corral. Jo met them outside. Missy launched into an excited account to her mother of being stranded on the cabin roof. “The elk was as tall as the ladder and he kept trying to reach up and hook us!”
“Uh-huh,” Jo said. “You’ve got your Aunt Lucy’s sense of drama, for sure. Now go take care of your horse.”
“Is Tom home?” Luke asked. “How’s his back?”
Jo shook her head in exasperation. “He should be lying flat until it settles down, but of course he’s at school. At least he’s agreed to use a cane—that tells me how much it hurts. The girl he carried feels guilty, but he told her he could have thrown it out just as easily shoeing a horse or wrestling a calf.”
“Missy’s a pistol,” Luke said as he and Katie rode on the home ranch. “Tom about broke his heart looking for her, but she’s his kid, all right.”
“Jo’s not her mother?”
“Her mother took off pregnant before he could marry her. Traci was bound to try for a singing career in Nashville—she had no notion of being a ranch wife. Sad story—she got killed during a mugging when Missy was just a couple months old. Jo located Missy right before an adoption got finalized.”
“I mistook her for Lucy’s daughter when I first saw her,” Katie said.
“Yeah, Lucy’s baby pictures convinced the Tennessee authorities Missy was a Cameron. We spawn one real redhead in every generation, like Dad before he went gray.”
“Missy and JJ are adorable,” Katie said. “I’ve wanted children, but now I’m glad it didn’t happen. I can walk away free and clear.”
“Tom’s two are a hoot,” he said. “I could use a couple or three myself.” With his extended family, he wasn’t worried about raising kids, even confined to a wheelchair. Grandparents and aunts and uncles would always be available to lend a hand, but the thought of never being more than Uncle Luke to Tom’s or someday Lucy’s kids saddened him.
They arrived at the home ranch in time to see Jake shake hands with Art Duffy, a bulky man with a snowy handlebar mustache, a silver belt buckle the size of a cow pie and ostrich-skin boots. He spotted Luke and reached through the barnyard gate to shake his hand.
“Dang, Luke—you’re looking good. I saw that wreck in OKC on TV. Guess it looked worse than it was—here you are riding high on a handsome horse.” He touched the brim of his cream-colored Stetson. “And with a fine-looking lady. Howdy, ma’am.”
Luke introduced Katie as a friend from Connecticut.
“You ever been out West before, Miss Katie? No? Well, you couldn’t pick a prettier ranch to visit anywhere in Colorado. Of course, I could show you some spreads in Texas...”
“Don’t get started on Texas, Art,” Luke said. “We’ll be sitting here till midnight.”
“Durn if you’re not right. I need to get on down the road.” He tipped his hat again to Katie and climbed into his arterial-red King Ranch F-150. His horn sounded a farewell—“The Yellow Rose of Texas”—as his truck rattled across the cattle guard.
Luke turned to Katie. “I’m right proud of you, Miss Katie—you kept a straight face.”
She burst into laughter. “Is he for real? The next thing I expected out of his mouth was ‘little lady.’”
“As real as can be, considering he’s from New Jersey. He made a pile of money in real estate, retired and moved to El Paso to start a new career as a cattle buyer. Now he has fun playing Texan for all he’s worth, which is considerable.”
* * *
DINNER TURNED INTO a celebration; Art had agreed to buy all the yearlings Jake cared to sell.
“And how would you have gotten down off that roof if Luke and Katie hadn’t come looking for you?” Shelby asked.
“I’d have let Missy climb down and ride over to the Bucks’ for help,” Jake told her. “Stop fretting, woman—I wasn’t planning to jump and break my neck.”
She stroked his back as she refilled his coffee mug. “Don’t mind me, Jake. I can’t spare you just yet.”
Luke watched their fond sparring, recalling his father’s patience in courting Shelby. He couldn’t see at the time why Jake didn’t just flat-out ask her to marry him, but maybe making haste slowly was wiser.
“I’d better pack up tonight,” Katie said. “I plan to be in Durango for the lunch rush. Lucy’s going to walk me through the morning routine for at least a couple days, but you should have your daughter back pretty soon.”
Luke groaned. “There goes peace and quiet.” And he’d have mighty few chances to see Katie since he couldn’t drive. Maybe it was just as well—otherwise he’d be hanging around the Queen, pesky as a mosquito, and neglecting his work here.
His dad unwittingly threw him a lifeline. “When I saw you guys come riding in this afternoon, I thought you were Jo, the way you looked in the saddle. You sure you haven’t ridden much before?”
“Not since I was twelve.” She smiled at Luke. “But I had a great teacher here.”
“You come back on your days off if you like,” Jake said. “We’ll put you on a horse with a little more go. We’re always happy to take advantage of guests to help move cattle.”
Luke had been cudgeling his brain for a way to invite Katie to the ranch, and now his father had taken the reins from his hands.
“You should have seen her face old Buckshot down,” he said. “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”
“How did your PT go?” Shelby asked.
Elation rose in his chest again; he cleared his throat and reached unconsciously for Katie’s hand. “I could feel the e-stim,” he said. “In both legs.”
Shelby grasped his other hand, and Jake jumped up to pound him on the back. “You’re gonna make it b
ack, son. I know you are.”
After dinner, Shelby left the kitchen to check the horses before nightfall and Katie went with her. Jake loaded the dishwasher, and Luke wheeled into the living room to examine the box of tax records Mike had left for him.
He had an idea that having real productive work would do much to carry him through the drudgery of rehab. The numbers on the check Mike had given him made him whistle, but when he broke it down by the hour, Mike hadn’t overpaid him.
He pulled the envelopes from the box and arranged them on the long table under the window where he’d worked on the first batch. Too late to start tonight, but he would dig in tomorrow once Katie left.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KATIE FOUND LUKE alone in the kitchen the next morning when she carried her bag downstairs. She had heard voices earlier, then silence, and wondered if he had ridden out to work somewhere on the ranch.
“Dad and Shelby are sorting the heifers we sold yesterday,” Luke said, pouring coffee for her. “But I thought I’d see you off on your new job. I don’t envy you—I’ll bet herding cattle is way easier than wrangling customers.”
“You’re probably right, but the cooking part will be fun, and I love the idea of helping keep the Queen open.”
“Marge has quite a local following, and tourists love the atmosphere—an authentic Wild West saloon. She stages chuckwagon barbecues, too, or did. She catered Dad and Shelby’s wedding party—Tom and Jo’s, too. I don’t know that she’ll ever start doing those again.”
“I could help with that,” Katie said. “I worked for a caterer in college. Catering is easier than restaurant cooking, I think—fewer choices, and you know in advance how much to prepare.”
“Shelby made up a big pot of oatmeal this morning,” Luke said. “Will that do you for breakfast?”
She dawdled over her oatmeal, drank an extra cup of coffee, knowing she needed to go yet hating to leave. In a few short days, she had come to feel so much a part of the ranch’s rhythm that moving on was already wrenching. At the same time, she was eager to start her next adventure, one that might develop into a real career.
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