Winter at Mustang Ridge

by Jesse Hayworth

  “I’m on antibiotics.”

  She grinned, adoring him. “Which kill bacteria, not viruses. And, besides, in this case viral is a good thing. It means getting the sort of attention that snowballs, with two people each sending the link to a couple of their friends, who each send it to a couple of their friends, and so on, until a quadzillion people are talking about your video.”

  “Those are probably news reports. Not an old man talking about his family farm.”

  “Actually, it’s more like piano-playing cats and drunk- en bridesmaids falling into pools,” she said cheerfully as she unfolded Doris’s tripod. “Want to get started?”

  “Harumph.” He shot her a glare over a pair of reading glasses, and set his cattleman’s mag aside. “If more people turned off their computers and got their butts outside, we’d all be a durned sight better off.”

  Yet he was wearing creased jeans, a snap-studded shirt, and the fawn brown Stetson he saved for date night, and his thin white hair was slicked down on the sides, with wet comb marks showing where he had worked to get it tamed.

  “You’re absolutely right.” Jenny looked through the viewfinder, then made a face at the way the snow glare from outside was muddying things. “Do a one-eighty.” She twirled her finger. “I want the wall behind you as my background, not the window.”

  He scowled. “The window’s the best part. Have you ever seen anything prettier than those mountains?”

  “Sure, they’re pretty. They’re also really white. Someone sees that in the middle of summer, and they’re going to think it snows year-round up here.”

  “Anyone who thinks that is an idiot.”

  She did a finger twirl.

  Grumbling, he about-faced it, so he was looking out at his beloved mountains.

  She got the camera reoriented, took another look, and nodded. “Now we’re talking.” The pale wall color helped the eye focus on his face; the exposed beams that flanked him on either side made her think of log cabins; and the age-faded photos behind him—pictures of the ranch’s old chuck wagon in action during a roundup—spoke for themselves. “Okay. How about you introduce yourself to your fans-to-be?”

  His eyes took on a gleam. “Are you taping?”

  “It’s not really tape anymore, but, yeah, we’re rolling. So let’s start with who you are and how you came to be part of Mustang Ridge.”

  “I was born here,” he said simply, squaring his shoulders beneath his stiff-looking shirt. “Under a full moon in the hot of summer, when my daddy and the others were out in the fields, dodging storms to get the hay put up for winter. The way my mama told it, I was out there with them, not three days old, sleeping in a sling hung around her shoulders while she drove the big tractor, freeing up another pair of hands for the harvest.”

  Rather than telling him to keep it short, sweet, and quotable, Jenny let him roll with it, nudging him from one familiar story to another. Like how Jonah Skye had struck it rich, not on his gold claim, but filling an inside straight in a high-stakes poker game, and how his wife, Mary, had urged him to buy land instead of another claim.

  The minutes disappeared beneath the creaky cadence of his words, but by the time he got around to describing some of the roundups he had been on, first as a kid and then as the boss, his voice was starting to get scratchy so she called it quits.

  “You rock.” She plucked off his date-night Stetson and gave him a smacking kiss on the top of his head. “Seriously. That was awesome.”

  He craned to watch her disassemble Doris and the tripod. “When can I see it? When is it going to go typhoid?”

  “Viral. That’ll be up to Shelby and Krista, and probably won’t be for a few months. But how about I do some rough edits over the next few days, and we can all watch it together? Light a fire, pop some popcorn, pass some beers, that sort of thing?”

  “I’ll ask your gran to bake something special.”

  “Then it’s totally a date.” Jazzed by the interview, she snagged another peanut butter cookie and headed back to the main house with her camera bags slung over her shoulder and a bounce in her step as the video clips started to take shape in her head. It was easy to see where some of the breaks would go, and where a few nips and tucks could get them to the payoff faster. And although she had been planning on sticking with a straight interview format, now she was seeing where she could splice in some of the grainy old family photos that were up in the attic.

  The huge collection had some gems in it, from nineteenth-century tintypes to her and Krista’s baby pictures, and she had only been through maybe a quarter of the file boxes. Who knew what else might be hiding in there? Besides, she had been talking about cataloging the collection for years now. With the office stuff more or less under control, maybe now was the time.

  She swung through the door and started shucking off layers, excited to get to work.

  A door slammed upstairs followed by hurried footsteps, and her mom appeared on the landing, beaming. She was wearing pale wool slacks and a plum-colored cowl-neck sweater that was nearly the same color as her dangling earrings and a shade darker than her lipstick. With her hair upswept and her eyes outlined in heavy swipes of mascara, she looked great, but seriously overdressed for painting trim.

  “You’re back!” she said, like Jenny had been missing. “Where have you been?” She came down the stairs in a rush and reached for the camera bags. “Let me get those. Which one do you need?”

  Jenny hooked them out of her reach. “For what?”

  “The reveal, of course. Didn’t you get my text? We’ve been waiting for you!”

  “You . . . oh.” A check of her phone showed that she had missed two texts.

  One was from her mom, letting her know that the bedroom was finished and she wanted to film the big unveiling. Which explained the stage makeup. The other, earlier message was from Nick: I’m dragging, but it was so worth it. Call you tonight?

  Grinning like a fool, she tucked the phone away. “Sorry. I had it on quiet mode while I was interviewing Big Skye.”

  “Do you have enough film left?”

  “It’s digital.”

  “Then let’s go!” Rose headed back up the stairs, calling, “Eddie? It’s time!”

  Jenny hesitated at the base of the stairs, but then shrugged and went with it. Who knew? Maybe she could get her mom on one of those “next great designer” shows. If nothing else, it’d keep her out of the kitchen for a while longer.

  11

  By the time Jenny got Doris set up once more, her father was there, looking tolerant in the blue pants, button-down shirt, and dark tie he wore on the rare occasion he needed to wear something other than work clothes. She started rolling but didn’t announce it, having learned that a minute or two of candid video could be a gold mine for honest images. Or blackmail.

  Her mom beamed up at her dad, hands fluttering in a small show of nerves. “Are you excited to see our new room, Eddie?”

  He brushed his lips across hers. “Absolutely.”

  Jenny glanced away from the viewfinder, throat tightening. Of all of them, her dad had the most reason to be irritated, yet he ate the crazy food and slept in temporary quarters without complaint, and when she had flat out asked him about her mother’s behavior the other day, he had gone into woodworker Zen mode, patted her hand, and said, “She’ll figure it out.”

  If he wasn’t frustrated with the way her mom had gone hobby junkie, why should she be? Who knew? He might even care about the difference between two nearly identical shades of green.

  “We’re rolling,” she announced. “What do you say I slip inside and set up facing the doors, so I can get some reaction shots when Dad sees it for the first time?”

  The next half hour was more fun than she would’ve expected. To her surprise, the pale green paint pulled the space together; accents of darker green and plum in the interiors of the built-ins and closets added some drama; and even the chicken coop–themed armoire made sense somehow, tucked into an alcove with
its barn doors open to showcase her father’s clothes.

  He got a real kick out of it, in fact, playing with the doors and drawers and exclaiming over the craftsmanship while her mother stood off to the side and beamed. Jenny shot them from every angle and prompted her mom to talk about the spindle-legged desk with its artfully arranged perfume bottles, and her foggy-day color scheme. She actually made a pretty good subject, telling little stories about her shopping trips and gazillion visits to the hardware store in town.

  “Okay,” Jenny decided finally, “that’s a wrap.” She powered down Doris and started putting things away while her father made a few more approving noises and then left, shucking off his tie before he was even clear of the door. Smiling to herself, Rose drifted around the room, brushing at invisible smudges and shifting knickknacks by millimeters. Enjoying the low-grade buzz that came from a solid shoot, Jenny said, “I’m going to get to work editing the clips of you and Big Skye. I should have something to show you by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Can you make it all nice, with music and everything?”

  Tempted by thoughts of the Austin Powers theme, or possibly Darth Vader’s march, Jenny grinned. “I can probably come up with something. Do you have a title in mind? Ranch Reno, or Barnyard Bedroom, perhaps?”

  “Very funny.” But there was actual amusement in Rose’s voice. “Let me think about it.”

  “No prob.” Jenny shouldered her bags and headed out of the bedroom. “You know where to find me. Come on, Rex. We’ve got work to do!”

  As he bounded down the hall beside her, there was something very satisfying about his goofy, galumphing stride and the way he was so darn excited for everything. We’re going upstairs? Yippee! We’re going downstairs? Yahoo! We’re going to the bathroom? Awesome! She wasn’t sure whether it would be fun to have that much enthusiasm, or just exhausting.

  Her mom followed them into the hallway. “I was thinking . . .”

  “Yes?” Jenny said as she ducked into her bedroom to snag her laptop. When she turned back, her mom was standing in the doorway, looking around the room. Rex sat in the hallway with a doggy grin on his face. “You were thinking . . .” she prompted.

  “That we should do this room next. You and me together. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  Jenny’s heart probably didn’t shudder for real, but it sure felt that way. She managed not to say Dear God, no, but all she could come up with in its place was “Um.”

  “It’s a small space, so we wouldn’t want to do too much.” Rose crossed the room, wiggled the footboard, and then headed for the closet.

  “Mom,” Jenny said, but it was like her mother had suddenly gone into a decorative fugue, tuning out the rest of the universe while she paced off dimensions and muttered to herself about pink being a creative color. “Mom!” she said again, loud enough to make Rex twitch.

  “You don’t have to shout. What do you think of raspberry?”

  “Good on chocolate cake, not on walls. And thanks but no, thanks. I like this place just the way it is.”

  “You and I decorated it together for your fourteenth birthday. Don’t you think it’s time to let it grow up?”

  She didn’t know where the sudden pressure in her chest had come from, wished it would go away. “It’s a room. It doesn’t care what color it is.”

  “I do.”

  “Me, too, and I like yellow walls, white furniture, and dorky photos of myself.” Okay, so maybe she was digging in for the sake of digging in, but still.

  Her mother looked at her—really at her, rather than through her to something else—and gave a sad little half smile. “Nothing stays the same forever, sweetie.”

  Of course not, Jenny thought, working hard to stifle a pang. When she was fourteen, the ranch was overflowing with cattle, Krista was determined to marry Joey Fatone, and their mom worked a full week and volunteered with 4-H. “Talk to Krista,” she suggested, doing her best to keep the edge out of her voice. “Maybe she’d like to change up her room.” She managed a grin. “Midcentury tack room is so last year, you know.”

  “But—”

  “Sorry, Mom. I appreciate the offer, I really do. But I like things just the way they are.”

  • • •

  With his overnight patients tucked away, his paperwork done, a sandwich on one side of him and a beer on the other, Nick kicked back on his leather couch and did what he had been looking forward to doing all day. He dialed Jenny’s number.

  She picked up on the second ring. “Mustang Ridge Insane Asylum. Do you know your party’s extension?”

  He chuckled. “Crazy day?”

  “Nobody is dead, hospitalized, or incarcerated, so I suppose it could’ve been worse.”

  “Did an enormous Great Dane barf two pounds of ground beef and a package of craft-store googly eyes on you?”

  “Um, no. Did that happen to you?”

  “All those eyes.” He made a shuddering noise. “Hundreds of them, staring off in all different directions.”

  Her laugh vibrated on the airwaves. “That sounds . . .”

  “Creepy?”

  “I was thinking existential,” she said, “but creepy works, too. And no, my day didn’t include vomit or googly eyes, though there was an armoire that looked like a chicken coop.”

  “Falling under the category of ‘crimes against interior decorating’ I take it?”

  “Smart guy. I think I diverted Mom from tackling my bedroom next, though. I told her she should send in an audition tape for one of those design star shows. Said I’d help her.”

  “Devious. I like it.”

  “Hey, as long as she stays out of my stuff.”

  “And the rest of the craziness?”

  “In addition to some computer wonkiness, I had a conversation that was so circular it was a danged spiral, with a guest who didn’t want to hear that the ranch has a no-pets policy.”

  “That’s just common sense. The last thing you need is someone turning loose a city dog with a high prey drive in the middle of a herd of range cattle.”

  “Or to spend the whole week looking for Muffy Frou-Frou when she escapes from her cabin on day one. I get that, and you get that, but Mr. I Can’t Possibly Leave Killer at Home thinks I’m just being a pill.”

  “Give him the clinic’s number. We board.”

  “Already did. Gran said you’re the go-to in this situation. Why it took forty minutes to talk the guy off the ledge is still a mystery to me.”

  “We’ll put a silver star on his chart.”

  “Meaning that he’s a pain in the butt?”

  “Yep, silver if it’s the client, gold if it’s the patient. Safer than writing stuff like Beware: Cujo or Owns a new Mercedes, but constantly whines about the bill in the file where the client might see it.”

  “If I were you, I’d charge this guy an up-front annoyance tariff, because he’s guaranteed to be a pain. Not to mention that he probably hasn’t had Killer fixed or trained. He seemed like that sort.” Her sigh echoed down the line, but it was tainted with amusement. “How was your day overall? Get any bloodthirsty parrots in need of a pedicure?”

  “Fortunately, no. And no emergencies to speak of, either.” He settled deeper into the couch, nudged Cheesepuff away from his sandwich, and took a swig of his beer. “Let’s see. Skimming over the part where I hit Snooze way too many times and then doubled up on the coffee because somebody kept me up way past my bedtime, my day started with Ruth quizzing me on who I brought to the diner last night. I guess her spies must’ve reported in.”

  “Uh-oh. Busted.” Jenny didn’t sound upset, which he took as a good sign. “What did you tell her?”

  “That you and I had discussed hopping a plane to Vegas for a quickie wedding, but settled for burgers and Makeout Point instead.”

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “Just kidding. I told her you came out on a call with me and we grabbed dinner, and managed to avoid telling her when and where we were getting together next.”


  “Trying to avoid a stakeout?”

  “Wouldn’t put it past her. After that, I saw a Siamese cat with a flea allergy and an impressively large vocabulary, did a couple of routine vaccinations, and dealt with an elderly basset with ear problems. And then came Bobo, the Great Dane.”

  “Who puked googly eyes on you.”

  “And then, feeling better, attempted to lick my face.”

  She snickered. “Was that the high point of your day?”

  “Nope,” he said, shifting so Cheese could get comfortable sprawled halfway across his lap, halfway across the arm of the sofa. “This is.”

  “Awww. Smooth talker.”

  “Just calling it how I see it.” And there were far worse things than talking to a beautiful, interesting woman while his clinic-slash-house settled around him for the night. “I’m looking forward to dinner tomorrow.”

  “Me, too, even if ‘dinner’ turns into visiting a sick cow in the middle of a very cold field.”

  “Don’t even joke about it,” he said mock-sternly. “We’re going to dinner, darn it, and we’re going to make it all the way from drinks to dessert.”

  “Have some experience with interrupted dates, do we?”

  “Fewer than you’d think.”

  “I guess there’s not a lot of formal dating when you’re doing relief work, huh?”

  She would get that, wouldn’t she? “Not a lot of restaurant choices, and ‘your place or mine’ doesn’t have the same ring when you’re already living on top of each other.”

  “And, if it’s anything like being on a film crew in an out-of-the-way location, there’s a whole lot of hooking up without much in the way of pairing off, at least not long-term.”