“It wasn’t anyone’s fault,” he argued, “least of all Ellie’s.”
She took another sip of her tea. “I know you don’t like playing the blame game—”
“Because it’s a damn waste of time,” he butted in, setting his glass on the table.
She turned to where she was facing the table and leaned over it, her palms pressing into the wood. She continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “But in order to run a tight ship, you’ve got to find out where the weak links are.”
“Ellie’s hardly a weak link.”
She released the kind of cynical laugh that could make the most stoic person flinch. “What is her appeal to you?” she taunted.
He shrugged. “Nothing really. I just try to be nice to her on account of the fact that she’s, you know, a person.”
“She’s a housekeeper and an occasional ranch hand,” she snapped. Then, with a smile and another sip of her iced tea, she added, “And not even a good one at that.”
He rolled his eyes. “Aunt Jana, I don’t understand why you even bother.”
She turned her gaze on him, her eyes wide with feigned ignorance. “Bother with what?”
“Runnin’ this ranch,” he replied sharply.
“This ranch is my pride and glory. You know that.”
“You never liked this ranch,” he muttered darkly. “You’ve told Arlo yourself many times.”
She slammed her glass onto the table. “That’s just not true,” she sneered. “This ranch is my inheritance and will be my legacy.”
“You haven’t inherited anything yet,” he retorted, crossing his arms.
“You think this ranch will be yours, do you?” She laughed.
He reached for his glass again, murmuring, “I don’t have any right to it.”
She seemed to deflate, and her smile returned. She stepped closer to Everett, placing her warm, dry hands on either side of his cheek. “I don’t like it when we argue like this.” She hopped onto the tips of her toes and stretched her lips to reach his forehead, where she planted a sloppy kiss. “It makes me frown.” She then returned to lean against the table and stare out into the garden, her glass of iced tea in hand. “And frowning gives me wrinkles.”
“You are incredibly vain.” He chuckled then kneaded his hand into his forehead, trying his darnedest to get the mark of lipstick off it.
She smirked. “You have no idea how much of a compliment that is.”
He exhaled a sharp breath, then, sensing where this conversation was going, decided he’d rather talk about a wounded calf. “If it was anyone’s fault, it was Ian’s.”
“Ian?” she scoffed.
“What? Ian can do no wrong?” Everett quipped.
“Don’t make assumptions,” she scolded.
“You’re datin’ his father. How could I not?”
“I’m not seeing his father,” she argued in a harsh voice.
Everett chuckled.
“At least not officially,” she added.
He grimaced, then dropped his almost empty glass on the table. “Look, I don’t have time for this conversation anymore.” He wiped his hands on his jeans, then set off back through the garden.
He had only taken a couple of steps before he felt her grip digging into his arm. “Not so fast.”
He should have known she wasn’t going to just let him go. “What?”
Her pursed lips stretched into a hard smile. “Take a walk with me?”
“You say that like it’s a choice,” he mumbled as the two of them set out onto the cobbled path. They followed it down back the way that he’d come, but when they came to a crossroad, they went in the opposite direction of the house. Deeper in the brush, the vegetation got thicker. Trees that had been planted decades ago towered into the sky, anchored to the ground with thick trunks. Their fruits ranged from oranges and tangerines, to apples and pears and were spotted throughout the brush.
“I thought it might be a good idea to pick another bouquet for Arlo,” she offered.
He rolled his eyes. She didn’t think it would be a good idea; she thought that he would have thought it was a good idea. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. The way that she walked with him—an extra pep in her step, a smile pasted awkwardly on her face—made him exceedingly uncomfortable. She was trying to butter him up, but he couldn’t figure out why. “Arlo won’t even notice those flowers.”
“You don’t know him like I do.”
“Yeah, yeah. No one knows Arlo like you do, not in the least me,” he replied hastily.
“I don’t see why you have to get so heated about everything!” She pretended to be hurt.
“I’m not heated. I just neither have the time nor the patience to have the whole ‘you’re not blood’ conversation,” Everett replied. He could easily tell himself that it didn’t really bother him. He could repeat the words to himself over and over and over again, never mind whether or not they were true.
“This isn’t what this is at all.” Aunt Jana’s voice was level.
“So what is it, then?” he demanded.
Instead of responding, she slapped her hand across his chest, stopping him in his tracks. She then pointed at a bush of red and yellow roses just a couple of paces from the path. Everett followed her with his eyes as she stepped into the thick grass, retrieved a knife from her holster, then proceeded to snip off about fifteen roses. “This is about a chance for you to truly help this ranch.” She stepped back onto the path, her hand filled with roses. Pivoting on her heels, she headed back in the direction in which they had come.
He had no choice but to follow. “Sure, if running it day ‘n night isn’t helping it at all,” he retorted.
“Let’s not get confused about who’s really in charge here,” she warned.
“It seems that we already are.”
She glowered at him.
“C’mon Aunt Jana, when was the last time you patrolled the pastures, or fed the calves, or got in the dirt for anything other than your own garden? You wouldn’t even come to the branding earlier today.”
“You know how I hate watching that stuff. It’s brutal. There’s burning flesh in the air. The little guys are all squealing.”
“If it’s so brutal, why do you always make an event out of it?” he demanded. “You think it’s horrible, but you want the whole town to see it.”
“Everett, you know the branding has always been a town event. You know how important this ranch is to Canton County.”
“I know how important showin’ off this ranch is to you,” he retorted.
When they reached the back doors again, she stepped in front of him, putting herself between him and the doors. “Look. I write the checks. I keep the lights on. Thus, I’m in charge.”
“You only do all that stuff because Arlo’s too sick to.”
She scoffed, then turned around and yanked the doors open. He followed her into the cool sunroom, then slumped onto the bright-orange couch, while she made her way to the small vegetable sink in the center of a small counter off to the corner of the sunroom. “That doesn’t matter.” She snipped off the ends of the roses then placed them in a vase that had been stowed in a cabinet on the back wall. “When he’s eventually gone, it’ll be all mine anyway. It practically is now.” She then filled the vase about halfway with the water from the vegetable sink, placed in the roses, and approached the couch with it in her hand. “I’m having a reporter come out to the ranch next week.”
“Good for you,” he muttered as he took the vase from her and stood up, fully intending to get himself out of her presence as soon as possible.
“Well, it’s not just good for me. It’s good for the ranch as well. Look, she’s going to be staying for a while now, because she wants to get a full story of what it’s like to be a part of one of the oldest ranches in the Texas.” Her eyes glossed over, as if merely thinking about the mass of money she could make brought her pleasure. “So I want you to show her around.”
Everett rel
eased a painful, slow breath. His muscles tensed at the thought having to lug some city slicker around with him all day, as if he didn’t have enough people to be responsible for already. “You can show her around.”
“Don’t be silly. I have important daily matters to attend. None of which happen out in the range. No. I’ll need you to do it, because you’re already out there every day. It just makes sense.”
He bit his tongue and tried his best to refuse her in the most polite way possible. “I would love to be of service, but I do not, at this time, have the resources to train her, even the minimal amount that would be required for her to keep up enough to follow me around every day.”
“Yes you do. You’ll find the time and you’ll find the resources.”
He set his jaw. “And if I don’t?”
“If you can’t find the resources, and the time, to show this guest around the ranch, I might just misplace the resources I need to keep you staying in this house.”
Everett didn’t bat an eyelash. “You wouldn’t throw me out. And even if you had it in you, Arlo wouldn’t let you.”
“I can handle my father,” she scoffed.
Seeing the resolve in her sharp gaze and realizing that she was right about Arlo, who, for all of his love of Everett, was simply too infirm to vouch for him, he backed down. “All right. I see your point.”
She nodded, then turned her attention to the stack of magazines sitting on the glass coffee table in front of the couch. She could barely hide her satisfaction.
“Well, how long is she staying?” he demanded.
She snatched up one of the magazines, then flipped the cover open. “For the duration of the summer,” she replied in a nonchalant voice.
Everett blinked twice, then, with stiff legs, turned and left the sunroom. As he traversed the complex hallways, crossed the expansive courtyard, and entered the west wing of the massive ranch house, his mind was whirling with horror in anticipation of the summer. He regularly loved the summer months, because it meant an endless amount of days riding out on the range sitting on top of his favorite horse just watching the cattle be cattle. It meant work days that ended when the sun went down and nights of drinking and partying with the ranch hands and their friends and girlfriends. Now he was going to have to stress himself out showing this girl around. Goodness, how was she ever going to understand or even appreciate Rock Creek Ranch? She’d have to have lived there her whole life, have worked the land and watched it evolve with the seasons and the years. She’d had to have watched a whole batch of cattle be born, grow up, and then grow old and die. She’d have to actually care about the ranch, not just the fad of cowboys and the allure of money. That’s what Aunt Jana did. She was turning this ranch into some sort of hotbed of cash, changing ranch hands into circus animals and the land itself into some big starring character of a trivial reality show.
Everett climbed up two flights of stairs to the third floor of the west wing. He slowed his steps as he walked down the narrow, secluded hallway that led to Arlo’s room. Once he reached the door, he stopped to take his hat off and shove it between his arm and his side. He knocked on the door twice, quietly. When no one responded, he entered anyway. He peeked his head in first and caught a glimpse of Arlo sitting in his grandfather’s chair, which was situated right in front of the large bay windows that overlooked the entire range. From this angle—standing just inside the door with a vase in his hand—Everett could just see the old man’s silhouette. His bald head, covered in a thin, peach-fuzz-type layer of hair, lay on the head rest of the chair, the top of his head glimmering in the sun. His right arm sat neatly atop the chair’s arm, but his left arm hung just over the left arm, his wrist bent ever so slightly, and a cigarette that had been smoked about halfway sat just between his pointer and ring fingers.
“Aw, Arlo,” Everett muttered as he stepped farther into the room, stopping only to place the flower arrangement on the side table next to his iron bed.
Arlo didn’t respond.
Everett stepped cautiously up to him, standing between him and the window. He was relieved to find that Arlo’s chest was rising and falling with the rhythmic breaths of slumber. With a sigh, he reached down and carefully pried the cigarette from his hand. From up close, he could see that it was still lit. He put it out on the small ash tray on the window sill, then turned his attention back to Arlo.
Before he became ill, Arlo Randall had been a force to be reckoned with. His wife had died before Everett had been born so he had single-handedly run the ranch and cared for his only daughter. Arlo was the only person who had ever been able to make his strong-willed daughter cower. It had been he who had insisted that Everett, though he wasn’t a Randall, come to live with them after the death of Everett’s mother when he was five years old.
“Aunt Jana wants to have a story done about the ranch,” he murmured. It was wishful thinking really. There was no way Arlo was going hear him, much less get up and do something about it. The man was too sick to ride his own horse.
Everett set his jaw and put his hat back on. After adjusting it to his liking, he left the room, gently shutting the door behind him.
Chapter Three
A week later, a short man with slightly reddish hair stood at the end of the arrivals area of Terminal B. He was clad in a short-sleeved, plaid shirt tucked into dark blue jeans kept up with a hefty leather belt. The buckle was at least three inches wide and looked like it was made out of copper, bronze, or weathered silver. Paige’s eyes fell on the piece of poster board he held up with her name haphazardly written in magic marker. She smirked and made her way to him.
The going was rough and slow considering she lugged one oversized luggage in her right hand, a carry-on in her left, and a huge backpack on her back. She had never gone away to anywhere for more than a couple of weeks, other than college, so the prospect of packing had been just one big mystery for her. Even so, she had managed to shove every single article of summer clothing, three bottles of shampoo and conditioner, two bottles of Dove body wash, various vitamins and pills—even though she always forgot to take them—and every single accessory she had ever bought, been gifted, or snagged from a friend. Maybe she had over-packed. Maybe she hadn’t. All she knew was that she wasn’t going to be one of those people—you know, the kind that had a laundry list of things they needed to get as soon as they arrived in a new place.
“Hey there! My name’s Connor.” The man lowered his sign and offered his hand, an inviting smile stretching across his face.
Paige pretended she hadn’t been on a flight for three hours and pasted the most excited smile on her face she could muster. She took his hand without hesitation and shook it. “My name is Paige. Paige Prescott,” she replied in a deliberate voice.
Connor let out a husky chuckle, nudged her with the sign, and said, “I already know that. Can I help you with your bags?”
Before she could answer, he had already reached out and grabbed her oversized luggage and her carry-on and was making his way through the crowd to the parking lot. She held on to the straps of her backpack and tried her best to keep up with him.
Once out in the fresh air for the first time in Texas, she paused to take in a couple of deep breaths. Even the air was different here. She could taste the scalding heat in the back of her throat—a heat she only saw on the hottest days of summer in Chicago. She gazed around her in wonder. The cars arriving to pick people up all looked like anything she would have seen on the streets of Chicago. What was different were the people. They walked around in denim while the temperature was already nearing 100 even though it was barely June. There were three men standing just outside the door wearing cowboy hats and smoking cigarettes. She hadn’t even left the airport yet and had already seen more cowboy hats in one place than she’d ever seen in her whole life.
“Paige!” Connor called from across the street.
She jumped at the sound of his voice and hastily crossed the four-lane pickup zone, following him into the par
king lot. They continued to walk through the maze of cars until they finally stopped in front of the biggest pickup truck she’d ever laid eyes on. It took everything in her not to burst out in laughter. She was being picked up from the Dallas airport by what looked like the best dressed cowboy in Texas; what’s more, he was going to drive her out to his ranch in an oversized pickup truck. What’s a city girl to do?
He threw her bags in the back, his brawny muscles lifting her heavy bags with little to no trouble at all, then held his arm out for her backpack. She struggled getting it off but finally handed it to him; he threw that in with the others, then rounded the truck, climbing into the driver’s side. Paige followed suit, yanking the heavy door open and hoisting herself into the passenger seat. She sat there, sinking into the comfortable leather seat and taking in her surroundings for a second. On the dashboard sat a short stack of papers, on top of which was a copy of her travel itinerary. A red, beaded rosary hung from the dashboard, the crucifix at the end of it swinging back and forth. In the drink holder were two clear covered cups with straws. They were full of what looked like iced tea. As if reading her mind, Connor grabbed one of the drinks and handed it over to her.
She took it with a grateful smile, taking a well-earned sip. The cool liquid filled her mouth, seeming to wake every taste bud—just the right mix of sweet and tart—before seeping down her throat. Without hesitation, she took another generous sip. “Mmmm,” she murmured to herself.
He threw the truck in reverse and backed out of the parking space. “Might be a tiny bit watered down thanks to the long drive, but even still, the best Texas has to offer. It’s good, isn’t it?”
“Oh my God, you have no idea,” she muttered, drinking even more of it.
“Oh, I think I do,” he replied as he grabbed his own drink and gulped some of it down.
She laughed. “Right. That makes sense.” Her laugh morphed into a sigh as she pressed her face against the warm window and burrowed into the seat, her drink wedged between her exposed thighs.
Dare To Love A Cowboy (Canton County Cowboys 2) Page 3
