Maddie Inherits a Cowboy

by Jeannie Watt

  Ty replaced the metal cover and tightened a wing nut. He put his finger on a toggle switch next to a gauge, then paused a second.

  Madeline thought he was probably praying it wouldn’t start, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He flipped the switch and the machine began to shake as it chugged to life. And then the chug turned into a roar and the shaking turned into a steady vibration. Madeline automatically placed her hands over her ears and retreated out of the building. Ty followed, closing the door behind him and muting the sound. A little.

  “Loud,” Madeline said as she dropped her hands.

  “Welcome to life on a generator.” He started for Skip’s house and she followed. He stepped inside and went to the hallway, where he opened the furnace door and started banging around. A few seconds later a blast of heat shot out of the register next to Madeline. She stepped on top of it, sighing as the warmth blew up her pant legs.

  “How about the water?”

  “I’ll turn it on and get the hot-water heater going. Then…you’re on your own, although I have no idea what you’re going to do.”

  “I’m going to clean this place up tonight, and tomorrow we’re going to meet.”

  “What if it doesn’t work into my schedule?”

  “Then you’d better fit me in, unless you do have something to hide.” Madeline said it without thinking, then instantly regretted it when Ty slowly turned back to her.

  “You’re not much like your brother, are you?” Madeline opened her mouth to reply but before she could say anything, Ty added, “I never saw Skip go for the jugular like you do.”

  She was not going for the jugular. She was being truthful.

  “Maybe if Skip had been more like me, he wouldn’t have been in business with you and he wouldn’t…” Her voice trailed off. Ty swallowed—she saw his Adam’s apple move—then left the house without another word.

  Madeline stared at the door. She wasn’t sure what exactly had gotten into her, but was beginning to suspect, now that she’d met Ty, that she still wanted to blame him for Skip’s death.

  SHE WASN’T THE LEAST BIT like her brother in temperament or in coloring, true, but there were similarities. Facial expressions, the cadence of her speech, the faint accent.

  Except, regardless of what she said, Ty was right. She did go for the jugular. She pinpointed his weakest point and then thrust in the knife. She’d done it twice now—stabs at his honesty and stabs at his integrity. He had no doubt she’d twist the knife, too, if he gave her the chance. She looked the type, all high-and-mighty and so sure she was right.Alvin followed him to the house, then glanced up at him when Ty opened the door.

  “Yeah, you’re sleeping inside.”

  Alvin preferred to sleep outside, but Ty wanted the company tonight. His house was equipped with a cabin kit, a switch inside for his generator, which was newer, quieter, more fuel efficient than the one powering Skip’s place.

  It rumbled to life in its shed behind his house and the lights came on. Ty went over to his desk and turned on the computer. He had to turn down that specialty-foods company toeing into the organic market. He wouldn’t be able to supply as much beef as they wanted. Because of the demand for hormone-free, antibiotic-free beef—despite a market recession—he was actually doing all right. But he wasn’t able to supply volume. Yet. That’s why the money went into his herd, equipment and ranch improvements. He needed to expand. Skip’s idea, really. Skip had been a financial whiz kid and a good business partner.

  Madeline, not so much.

  But she was fully within her rights being here, taking a look at the property, living in Skip’s house. Hell, she could live there forever. But Ty was within his rights not to work on that damned antique generator when it went down. That was her concern.

  Ty pulled a cast-iron pan out from under the stove and flicked on a burner, trying not to look out the window at the lights in Skip’s house. Lights that hadn’t been on for almost two years. If he’d known how all this was going to work out, he would have bought two cows, ten acres and continued to work at the feedlot.

  IT TOOK ALMOST AN HOUR for the hot-water tank to do its job. Madeline was too impatient to wait, so she started cleaning with paper towels and water, pretty much making mud on the silty counters during her first swipes, and then after rinsing the thankfully strong paper towels, eventually getting the surfaces clean.

  Once the counters were done, Madeline regarded the floors, also silt-covered. When she’d first set foot in the house, she’d wondered why there was no carpeting. She didn’t wonder anymore. Carpet would be a commando dust trap, even with a supervacuum.Right now she wished she had a SuperVac. Or a broom.

  Madeline pressed a hand to her forehead, then went to the counter where her cell phone was plugged in, for all the good it would do. She turned it on and found that it was still searching for a signal. Crap. She knew there’d been a signal at the turnoff for Lone Sum Road, because she’d talked to her grandmother, fending off questions about why she wasn’t finishing the semester at the college. Eileen knew about Dr. Jensen, but Madeline hadn’t yet broken the news that she, too, was under investigation. Connor and her cousins were under strict orders not to let it slip. Madeline didn’t want her grandmother worrying about her, so she’d intimated that she had a grad student who needed teaching experience, thus freeing her to take care of business at the ranch. Eileen had more questions, but fortunately Madeline lost the signal as she started up Lone Sum Road. It had been a good thing, too, since the last few miles had required all of her attention.

  She turned off the phone, set it back on the counter. Apparently if she wanted to make a call to Connor for moral support, she was going to have to drive to the bottom of the mountain to do it. Not tonight. She walked over to where her suitcases sat on the dusty floor. She didn’t want to open them for fear of getting dust on everything in them, so instead she paced to the curtainless window and stared out at the lights of Ty’s house, a hundred yards away. The ranch was set up so that they had their privacy. Skip’s house was close to the barn and Ty’s close to the gate.

  And both houses close to nothing else. The only sound was the generator, the source of her power, chugging away. How was she supposed to sleep with that noise?

  Skip? Explanation, please? How did you handle this? Why did you handle this?

  She probably wouldn’t be sleeping, so she might as well be cleaning. To do that she needed a few things Ty probably had. Madeline pulled on her coat and headed for the door.

  The generator was louder outside. She didn’t have a flashlight, and the ranch had no yard light, so she made her way to Ty’s house by moonlight reflecting off the snow. When she got there, she knocked and was greeted by loud, serious barking.

  A second later Ty opened the door, his dog regarding her suspiciously from behind the man’s long legs.

  Madeline tilted her chin up. “May I please borrow a broom?”

  Ty’s mouth tightened and then he nodded. He left the door open as he crossed to a utility closet in the kitchen. Madeline hesitated, then stepped inside, keeping her eye on the less-than-friendly-looking dog. Weren’t collies supposed to be friendly?

  “And a dustpan?” she called when Ty pulled out a broom.

  He reached back into the closet, pulling out a dustpan, along with a mop and bucket. He set the bucket on the floor and thrust the cleaning implements at her.

  “Anything else?” he asked in an expressionless voice.

  “Cleaner?”

  He didn’t say a word as he went to a kitchen cabinet and pulled out a bottle of 409. He walked back to where she stood, guarded by his dog, and dropped the bottle in the bucket. It landed with a small thunk.

  Madeline squared her shoulders. The guy did not like her. The message was oh-so clear in his closed-off body language, his refusal to speak. Well, she had invaded what he probably, erroneously, thought of as his turf. In a way, she understood his reaction, but it wasn’t going to have any effect on her behavi
or toward him.

  After she had gathered the cleaning supplies and stepped back out onto the porch, he finally said, “If you’re going to clean tonight, you’d better hurry.”

  She turned back with a frown. “Why?”

  “You have half an hour before I turn off the generator.”

  “I have what?” She really hoped her jaw didn’t drop.

  “Half an hour. We don’t have enough fuel to run your generator full-time, and frankly, it’s too old to run full-time.”

  “Does your power go off, too?” she demanded. Over his shoulder she noticed a computer sitting on the desk, a search-engine screen clearly visible. He had internet. She couldn’t even get a cell signal.

  “Of course,” he said, and although his expression remained passive, she had a feeling he was enjoying this.

  “When do you turn the power back on?”

  “In the morning for a few hours. Do you have a flashlight?”

  “In my car,” Madeline said in a faint voice as she weighed the ramifications of this new and unexpected information.

  “Don’t plan on using a lot of water while the gen’s off. No power, no pump.”

  Her eyes flashed up to his face. “Excuse me?”

  “You have a water storage tank, but it’s not huge. Don’t take a shower or anything.”

  For the second time that night Madeline was left staring at a closed door.

  Was he being serious? Or inventing rules to make her miserable?

  If he was… If he was, Madeline had no way of finding out. She was in over her head here, but damned if she was going to cry uncle.

  She lifted her hand and pounded on the door. For a second she didn’t think he would answer, but he did, swinging it open, a harsh expression on his face.

  “What?” he asked in a deadly voice.

  “Would you give me some warning before you turn off the electricity?” Madeline said calmly, making Ty feel like a jerk for growling at her. But damn it, he wasn’t used to having other people around, insulting his integrity, then knocking on his door and borrowing cleaning supplies.

  The sane thing to do would be to teach her how to operate the generator so she could turn the power on and off herself. It was hers, after all, but no one within sixty miles worked on the machines, so if it went down, it could be down for days. In the dead of winter. That wasn’t an option. He didn’t want her trying to move in with him.

  “I’ll knock on your door. You don’t need to answer.

  Just get into bed before the lights go out.”

  “Thank you.” Madeline gathered her supplies and trudged off down the path through the snow to Skip’s house, the mop bobbing as she walked. Ty watched her for a moment before closing the door.

  When he went back to his work—a rural development grant for pasture improvement—he couldn’t concentrate.

  He doubted he’d be able to focus as long as Skip’s sister was on the property, and that wasn’t good, since she appeared to be putting down roots.

  Ty waited until he couldn’t stay awake any longer before letting himself out into the cold to turn off Madeline’s generator. The porch steps clunked under his boots as he climbed. He gave two loud raps, then turned and retraced his steps, hands thrust deep in his pockets. He hadn’t bothered to put on gloves. He didn’t want to talk to Madeline and he didn’t trust her not to open the door and either ask a question or make an observation. Sure enough, he heard the door open behind him, but pretended he didn’t. A second later, it closed again. Bullet dodged.

  He waited in the barn for a couple minutes to give her time to settle, then flipped the toggle on the generator. The house went dark. He hoped Madeline had gone straight to bed, as he’d suggested. But he had a sneaking suspicion, given the flashlight beam arcing through the interior of the house, that she hadn’t.

  Welcome to life off the grid.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  OKAY, SKIP. I WANT ANSWERS.

  Madeline burrowed deeper into the sleeping bag she’d laid out on the leather sofa. She hadn’t folded the couch out into a bed, for fear of the amount of dust she might find inside. She hadn’t started cleaning, either, not wanting to suddenly find herself in the dark. But for some reason, Ty had waited almost an hour before turning off the electricity. Wasted time.She wasn’t sure what exactly she’d expected when she got to the ranch, but it wasn’t this—a dusty, empty double-wide with intermittent electricity. When Skip had said they generated their own power on the ranch, she’d had a romantic vision of solar panels and twenty-four-hour-a-day electricity.

  Madeline was tough. She had generations of Yankee blood flowing through her veins. But over those generations, the Yankees had become accustomed to showering whenever they pleased and lighting rooms with a flip of a switch. She was slightly ashamed for needing those things when she prided herself on being up to any challenge, but it was the twenty-first century. Native American tribes at the bottom of the Grand Canyon had electricity and internet.

  She’d certainly be talking to Ty about the power situation. Why didn’t the ranch have solar power? Or wind generators instead of these diesel monstrosities? Cost was undoubtedly an issue, but had he even looked into it before spending so much money on the ranch? Was he unaware of the benefits of twenty-four-hour electricity?

  If Madeline had been able to see, she would have made a note.

  A melancholy moan from somewhere outside the double-wide brought Madeline upright in her sleeping bag, hands clutched to her chest. Her eyes, which had been drifting shut, were now wide-open as she stared into the darkness, listening.

  What on earth…?

  The plaintive bawl came again, sending a shiver up her spine before she realized the sound had to be coming from…a cow? Of course. Ranch. Cow.

  That sound was nothing like a moo. Not even close, but it had to be a cow.

  Madeline slowly settled back down into the bag, her heart still beating a little faster. The house was cooling off at warp speed now that the heat source was gone, so she pulled the soft nylon up to her cheekbones and thought about putting on her ski hat. She’d have to see about getting wood.

  Or go home.

  The thought shot from out of nowhere and Madeline quickly dismissed it. She’d made plans and she was following through. Besides, her lawyer was glad to have her on the other side of the country and not calling every day with a new angle of attack for her defense.

  She flopped over and pulled the bag up over her head, risking a headache from lack of fresh air, but her nose was getting cold.

  Toughen up.

  If Skip could handle living this way, then so could she…. Although when they were kids, Skip’s idea of a good time was camping in the swampy area behind the house and coming back cold, wet, dirty and tired. She’d preferred to curl up with a book and lose herself in another world while the rain beat on the windows.

  The thought of being out in the rain, battling the elements, had never appealed to her, just as living in the middle of nowhere didn’t appeal. She had a fiscal responsibility, however, to herself and to her grandmother, so she would muscle through the unexpected physical discomfort and learn something about this ranch she owned half of.

  She’d also…hopefully…keep her mind occupied and stop driving herself crazy with what-ifs about her career.

  TY WOKE UP SHORTLY BEFORE dawn. He stared into the darkness for a moment, letting his eyes adjust, before rolling onto his back and flopping an arm over his face. He felt like shit. The cold hopelessness that had engulfed him for so many months after the accident was back. In spades.

  No. He was wrong. It wasn’t the same. There was a sense of foreboding mixed in with the usual guilt and darkness. Ty ran a hand over the back of his neck, which was about as stiff as it had been for two weeks after the wreck, when he hadn’t been able to turn his head.Damn it, Skip, I’m sorry. I know you were fond of her, but I just can’t warm up to your sister.

  Alvin poked his cold nose against Ty’s shoulder and he a
utomatically ruffled the dog’s silky fur before shoving the blankets aside and getting out of bed. He shivered as he walked naked into the kitchen to turn on the generator and get some heat flowing. He went to the door and let Alvin out, realizing only as he was shutting it that perhaps he shouldn’t do that naked anymore—at least not while Madeline was on the property. Not that she could see much at that distance, but no sense taking chances or prompting complaints.

  How long was she going to stay? For real, that was, after she became acquainted with the actuality of life on Lone Summit Ranch. Days, he hoped. He should be so lucky.

  The smartest thing for him to do would be to give her whatever information she needed. Answer her questions, weather her insults, show her whatever she wanted to see and do it ASAP. Starting this morning. Then maybe she’d leave.

  That was the plan, anyway, but after eating a quick breakfast of coffee and toast with peanut butter, he couldn’t bring himself to knock on Madeline’s door and ask her when she wanted to go over whatever it was she wanted to go over. Instead he walked past the doublewide to the barn, where he started the tractor. Once it was running and he was ready to pull out and drive to the hay shed, he turned on her generator, holding his breath as always. The ancient machine coughed and chugged, then took hold.

  Duty done, he adjusted the scarf around his neck and pulled his earflaps down, then climbed into the driver’s seat. Alvin was already waiting on the empty flatbed trailer. He gave two barks, his way of communicating approval that at long last they were starting the real work of the day. As Ty put the tractor in gear, the little collie braced himself, his sharp gaze darting here and there as he guarded his trailer against any marauders that might try to hitch a ride.

  MADELINE’S EYES FLASHED open as the overhead lights came on. Normally she never slept this late—it was almost 8:00 a.m. eastern standard time—but she hadn’t fallen asleep until very, very late. In fact, she’d resigned herself to staring up at the dark ceiling, her nose getting colder as the temperature steadily dropped, and wondering if Skip had truly enjoyed living this way or had been too proud to admit he’d made a mistake.