Cowgirl Rescue (Selkirk Family Ranch Book 3)

by Irene Vartanoff

  She snorted. “Good one.”

  She set up smoothly, although she had exaggerated the amount of experience she had with climbing. At least she knew what wedges were, and how to use them. Anyway, this was a simple climb, only up forty feet of sandstone.

  Up she went. No, wait. This next group of rocks wasn’t holding onto the regular-sized cam. As she started to put weight on it, she felt it give.

  She backed down one hold in a hurry.

  “What is it?” Baron called from the ground. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she called back, although her voice came out thready from the adrenaline rush of almost taking a big fall. She searched in the backpack and found a different item, a spring-loaded special tube chock. That did it. In two more rungs, she gained the ledge where the cave was hidden. Of course there was a snake sunning itself. She shooed it away.

  The cave was tiny, not big enough for a grown person to sleep in, even a prehistoric person. She shone the flashlight of her phone on the back and the walls. No paintings or inscriptions. The floor showed no petroglyphs incised in the rock. No visible human habitation debris like fire pits or broken pots. Archeology depended on broken pots.

  Getting back down was easier and took half the time. Mostly, she was removing chocks and cams. Finally, she gained solid ground again. “That was cool.”

  Baron frowned at her. “It’s not supposed to be an adventure. It’s a scientific investigation.”

  To oblige her brother, Tess pursed her lips and faked being very sober as she gave her report on what she’d seen. She opened up her cell phone and showed him the photos she’d taken.

  “Good job.” He nodded at a couple of the shots. “That’s a relief. Now I can safely proceed.”

  Tess felt her chest expand. Praise from one of her brothers at last.

  Chapter 8

  Rolf took the long driveway off Selkirk property to the main road. A few miles later, he turned in to another long driveway, this one to Green Gables, the first of the veterans’ homes that JD had created, and the one closest to the Selkirk home. Like the other ranches that had been swallowed up by the Selkirk family many years ago, this one had a sprawling house and several outbuildings that had been rebuilt or built new to accommodate the medical staff. The veterans lived together, to reduce their tendency to isolate because of their PTSD. Semi-communal living was meant to break that habit. They did things together, relied on each other, just the way they’d done in the service. Living with guys who understood was important.

  The hardest home to configure and finish was for very seriously maimed vets. Hope House, which was a good ten miles north, was completely new construction. It had extensive physical therapy suites, with state-of-the-art resources to teach men how to regain control of their bodies and start living again. Half the guys there arrived in wheelchairs, but a lot graduated to canes and walkers.

  JD had established a third veterans’ home ten miles to the east for female veterans. It had filled up immediately, and had the longest waiting list.

  Female vets. Sometimes, he thought about Joey. He knew JD did, too. After the IED had blown Rob Wright to kingdom come and sent JD stateside seriously maimed, Rolf had still been deployed. He’d looked for Joey, who went MIA a month before. After a while, he couldn’t hack it any longer. He’d had nightmares every night, and finally someone had reported him. When the CO had handed Rolf his release papers, Rolf had given him an argument. “We haven’t found Joey yet. Let me stay until we do.”

  “She’s either dead, a prisoner, or hiding out somewhere. The trail has gone cold.”

  “She’s waiting for us to find her,” Rolf had insisted.

  The CO, a guy not much older than him, had looked at Rolf compassionately. “Your loyalty to your fellow solider is laudable. But you’re not in any shape to stay here any longer. You’re out. Go home and try to forget all this.”

  Rolf had wanted to argue further, but he’d said “Yes, sir,” and been dismissed.

  Some days, being around the vets was all that kept him feeling normal. They felt it, too, the strange disorientation of living far away from danger, yet still having the danger inside of them, always trying to get out. Waking them sweating and crying from a sound sleep. Or keeping them from being able to sleep.

  JD knew. That’s why each of the veterans’ homes had special paths built around them on the grounds, for those nights when being in a room felt stifling, and even staying inside a building was intolerable. Walking paths. They might as well be called night terrors paths. They were lined with a bit of passive solar lighting, just enough so a guy could find his way around. The dogs kept the critters away.

  The dogs. Phantom had adopted JD and now flew with him to Cheyenne. Every vet had a choice of a dog or a cat as a companion. They’d figured out how to deal with noises and allergies and the rest. Caring for a dog meant that the vet had a responsibility. That was healing. He had Phantom’s brother living with him. Shadow was good company, and the dog didn’t mind when Rolf woke from a nightmare yelling. It still happened, despite all his talk therapy to get rid of his PTSD. Some things were too deep to talk away. He was better off now than he had been, but he was still not like ordinary civilians. Sure, he was a civilian now himself, but being a soldier changed a man.

  He could take his dog with him if he left the Selkirk ranch. But where would he go? Where could a man go who had no home anymore? A man who was unfit for a home, anyway?

  The afternoon was usually a quiet time at the veterans’ homes because so many veterans napped. They weren’t old, but they had problems with getting to sleep, or with sleeping through the night, and by afternoon it caught up with them. Rolf sometimes took a siesta himself.

  Some of the guys were playing cards, others watched television, and in another room, three men were playing bluegrass to a small but appreciative audience. One of the musicians strummed his banjo with lightning speed.

  Down the hall, he finally located the person he had come to see. Tanisha Robinson was an unlikely transplant to Wyoming, but she claimed to love it. The former VA hospital therapist and certified social worker had moved her whole family, including her elderly grandmother, her daughter, and her granddaughter, from Cheyenne to the ranch. They lived in one of the renovated cabins built next to the old ranch house that now was Green Gables.

  Tanisha hugged him to her ample bosom. “You’re looking good, Rolf. Why don’t we see you at the Thursday night meeting anymore?”

  He’d forgotten how she always went right to the point. “I’ve been kind of busy. Managing the ranch, you know.”

  She leveled a clear-eyed gaze at him. “There’s always time to keep your mind in good shape, son. You know it takes constant work.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t need more therapy.”

  She tilted her head and let him ramble on, a tolerant expression on her dark-toned face. When he finally stopped giving her a line of bull, she said, “The therapy sessions aren’t merely for the bad days. Come on a good day, and share your hope and optimism with the others.”

  She was right. If his success would possibly motivate anyone else, or even give another vet an inkling of a way out of the darkness, he owed it to forget about his pride and talk to them. Talking had helped him, though it went against the grain. None of the guys really wanted to talk about those times. The memories were active in their heads all day and night as it was.

  “I’ll do that,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’ve got a question for you. Has Big Mama mentioned anything about strange vehicles coming by?”

  Big Mama was what Tanisha called her grandmother. The old lady was a tiny birdlike thing who liked to sit on the front porch of the cabin, day and night, in a rocking chair. There wasn’t much to see, but Tanisha claimed Big Mama enjoyed the peace and quiet of the half-barren, mostly empty countryside.

  Tanisha nodded, obviously puzzled. “Why, yes. Just last week she said she’d heard a big truck go by at three a.m., an outlandish hour. I didn’t
know what to make of it. Thought she might have been dreaming.”

  “Do you remember what day of the week it was?”

  “A Tuesday,” she said firmly. “I know because that night I had choir practice and I got home late and slept hard. Otherwise, a truck as big as what she described would have woken me. I heard a truck two nights ago. Wasn’t sure what it meant. In fact, I might have heard it twice.”

  “Which direction did the truck go first? Into the ranch or out?”

  Tanisha couldn’t tell him. He asked a few more questions, thanked her, and promised again to show up for Thursday night therapy sessions.

  A truck going onto the property and then leaving. Or coming from the property and returning? Could be either. He considered all the various possibilities. Without direct evidence, there was no way of telling whether employees were stealing or it was strangers.

  If the trucks Tanisha and Big Mama heard were the rustlers, how did they get from Green Gables to the cattle? The fields and the pens were far distant from that veterans’ home.

  Tess had mentioned old ranch roads this morning. Maybe her idea was correct. He’d check out some maps, try to come up with a likely route. If the truck really was the rustlers.

  Tuesday and Thursday. Not on the weekend. Didn’t mean anything, but it did suggest the ranch employees were not involved. They tended to hang around the place on weeknights. If someone took a sudden trip, the others would notice.

  On a big place like this, paying attention was important. It had been five or six head before he’d left for California. Easy to assume one of the hands had miscounted. Now the rustlers were getting bolder, thinking their thefts had gone undetected. Despite the huge size of the Selkirk ranch, the systems Robert Selkirk had put in place kept good track of the animals. The rustlers would be caught.

  He wanted more information before getting police backup and setting a trap. It wasn’t as if the rustlers could just drive up a huge truck and start pushing cattle inside. That was noisy, time-consuming, and easily detected if there were ranch hands around. Rustling on this scale had to be efficient. How far into the ranch property was the truck going? The farther in, the more risk the rustlers took. Who kept an eye on the men’s comings and goings? Wouldn’t somebody notice that Joe or Jack or Davis was absent on a weeknight?

  Not Davis. If he’d wanted to do it, the perfect time would have been while Baron was in charge. Baron was a good man, but he sure wasn’t cut out to be the boss of this operation.

  Nor was Rolf. He liked the people stuff, working with the hands and managing who did what. He didn’t want the heavy responsibility of making the business decisions that affected hundreds of people. JD handled all that, but soon, what with needing to stay in Cheyenne with Paula, JD would turn more of his attention to his major interest, taking care of veterans with PSTD. He’d never promised to run the place forever, as far as Rolf knew. So why couldn’t JD deal Tess in? She had the business brain to run the place, and unlike her brothers, she wanted to.

  Should he try to convince her brothers to give Tess a chance?

  Chapter 9

  Tess was driving back toward the main ranch house when she saw Paula’s plane landing. She detoured to the air strip. JD wasn’t there. Paula expertly landed her small plane. A couple of ranch hands arrived to service the plane and get it ready for the next takeoff.

  Paula climbed out, slowly and carefully. She looked pale and ill.

  Tess rushed to embrace her. Her best friend felt too slender and fragile “Paula. Are you feeling sick?”

  Paula took a breath and seemed to steady herself. She flipped back her curtain of chin-length, straight dark hair. “It’s good to be on land. I felt as if I was having a very unwelcome massage. Too much vibration.” She put a hand on her protruding belly protectively.

  Tess called one of the hands to help her lead Paula to a folding chair. “Sit down and rest. I’ll get Davis to bring over a vehicle that won’t jolt you.” She swiftly made the call, still alarmed at Paula’s paleness. “Pregnancy doesn’t agree with you.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But I want JD’s child. I want a family.”

  Tess leaned down and put an arm around Paula’s shoulders. “You’ve got us all. You’re a Selkirk now. You even changed your name to ours. Addie didn’t.”

  “I wanted to belong to JD. To be one of the family.” Her face showed her pain and chagrin. “But I’m having trouble adding to the number of Selkirks. Your mother did, too, she told me, but this is worse. I’m worried I’ll never be able to carry a baby to term.”

  “Then why are you flying at all?” Tess straightened and put her hands on her hips. “Isn’t that a strain you shouldn’t risk?”

  “JD wanted me to come get him.”

  Tess shook her head. “You always did make yourself a doormat for JD. Sure, you put up a good front before you got together with him. Since then, he’s been the cock of the roost.”

  “He needed to be the man. He’s a strong man still, despite his losses.” Paula obliquely referred to JD’s war injuries.

  “At the price of your babies? Tell him to get another air taxi service. It’s not as if our family doesn’t have the bucks to hire another pilot. I’ll bet half the veterans in the homes were pilots in Iraq. They’d probably be happy to fly JD anywhere.”

  “I—I’ll think about it.” Paula was uncharacteristically hesitant. She must be feeling much worse than she let on.

  Davis drove up in a sport utility. “It’s got good springs. We can take it slow, too.” He helped lift Paula into the high-riding vehicle. That she let him was telling. Paula was always so full of energy, so independent and self-reliant. Today she was a shadow of her former self. Except for the baby bump.

  Davis drove them back to the ranch house slowly and carefully. When they reached the kitchen door, he insisted on helping Paula down, but she wouldn’t let him carry her into the house.

  Miss Betty burst out the door, wiping her hands on her apron. “What’s wrong?”

  “Paula’s not feeling well,” Tess said. She let Miss B usher Paula inside in her motherly way. Paula could use some mothering. Her own mom had died years ago and she always had to be strong with JD.

  Tess turned to Davis. She put a hand on his arm. “Thanks for being so careful. You’re a good guy to have around.”

  Davis tipped his hat. “Too bad some people don’t think so.” He gestured toward the cloud of dust that signaled Rolf’s approach on a four wheeler. “I’d better take off.”

  Tess rolled her eyes. “I’ll deal with him.”

  ***

  Rolf saw Davis leave in the SUV, but this time around was determined not to make a jealous ass of himself. In fact, he was ready to apologize to Tess, but her closed expression and resentful body language told him she didn’t want to hear it. Before he had a chance to open his mouth, JD drove up in his sport utility from a different direction.

  “Where’s Paula?” JD asked as he alit.

  “She’s inside, resting.” Tess narrowed her eyes at JD. “You shouldn’t have her flying right now.”

  JD said, “Butt out. Who asked your opinion about anything?”

  Tess bristled. “You’re totally selfish, but you’re not blind. Go take a good look at her.”

  JD started to curse her.

  Rolf said, “Hey, buddy. Watch it. Ladies present.”

  Tess had shrunk back at her brother’s vile words. Her expression was pinched.

  JD rubbed his face. “Sorry.” He turned fully to Rolf. “Stay for dinner. You brought Tess back here. You’re responsible.”

  He swiveled to face Tess. “Don’t think I haven’t heard about you talking to the hands. Stop interfering.” Without waiting for a reply, he slammed into the kitchen.

  Tess’s tense stance relaxed. She slumped. “That’s my graceless brother. Do you see why I wasn’t eager to come back here and let myself in for his nasty ways?”

  Rolf did, but he didn’t know what to say. “JD didn’t mean it.�
��

  Tess said, “Sure, he did. Come in with me. For Paula’s sake, we’ve got to knock some sense into his head somehow.”

  Once inside, Rolf saw that JD had changed his attitude. He leaned over Paula, clearly solicitous. Paula sat at the kitchen table, looking ill. JD glanced at Miss Betty for guidance.

  The former nurse said, “Been tryin’ to get her to lie down. Don’t bother goin’ upstairs right now. Put her on the couch in the den and let her rest.”

  Tactful of Miss Betty not to suggest that JD carry Paula upstairs. He was much better on his fake leg than when Rolf had first seen him use it, but JD wouldn’t want to risk being unstable with Paula in his arms.

  Paula shook her head. “I’m okay.”

  JD essayed a smile at his wife, but it was visibly overpowered by his concern for her. “It’s a big couch. I’ll lie down with you.”

  He straightened and pulled her up gently. He half-supported her as they went to the other room.

  Tess and Rolf looked at each other. She heaved a sigh. “Maybe he really does care about her.”

  Miss Betty said, “’Course he does, child. He don’t show his emotions much anymore, that’s all.”

  “He’s still happy to tear a strip off me whenever he sees me.” Tess said, sadly.

  That was nothing less than the truth. Rolf couldn’t say anything to make the situation come off better. JD had a bug up his whatever over Tess doing anything active on the ranch. Why?

  Tess pasted a smile on her face and started teasing Miss Betty. Rolf went to the ranch office to put in some calls and finish his day’s work.

  When they gathered for dinner two hours later, Tess had a drink in her hand. Paula looked better for having rested, although JD still leaned over her protectively. Tess sat silent, drinking martinis steadily and refilling her glass from a pitcher.

  Paula made an effort to ask Tess a few questions about her Hollywood adventures, but it was obvious she was distracted and too ill to listen to the replies. Rolf tried to keep the conversation going. Too many undercurrents. Miss Betty had sent them to the dining room, claiming she didn’t want them underfoot. Without her comforting bustle, the silence hung.