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In the silence, he smiled. Of all the mistakes he’d made in his life, Lillie was his only blessing. Five years ago his father had been furious when he’d learned Charley’s girlfriend was pregnant. Eventually, Davis Collins had accepted them getting married, but he’d never invited Sharon or Lillie to the ranch. Davis Collins had never even seen his only grandchild.
A year after Lillie was born, Sharon left Charley, saying motherhood wasn’t her thing. Charley had another fight with his dad when Davis found out Charley planned to keep the baby. He’d agreed to pay tuition and nothing more. Davis had simply said, “She’s your mistake, not mine.”
So Charley worked thirty hours a week and carried a full load. Sharon’s parents, the other grandparents, agreed to keep Lillie on Charley’s rare visits to his father’s ranch.
Charley had survived almost two years taking care of Lillie alone. He’d almost made it to the end of college, when he’d have had his degree and could have forgotten about any family but Lillie. He’d thought his father would turn over the ranch to him and move permanently to Dallas. Maybe Davis would even accept Lillie, eventually.
Then Charley messed up again. But he’d had no thought of sleeping with his father’s brainless fourth wife until she walked into his room and his brain shut off.
Charley climbed out of his makeshift bed on the couch and walked to the fridge to get a bottle of water. The floor in the apartment creaked so loud he was afraid it might wake up the little princess.
Neither the water nor two aspirin could take his mind off his mistakes. He remembered that at first he’d hoped his father would cool down. After all, Davis himself bragged about sleeping with other men’s wives. Even after his dad kicked him off the ranch, Charley thought he’d go back to school and finish his last semester. But no money came in for tuition. He scraped all he could together, but Lillie got sick. Between doctor bills and missing work, he couldn’t make ends meet. He took incompletes, planning to return to college as soon as he got on his feet. But there was Lillie to take care of, and a kid can’t live in the back of a car and grow on fast food. And then his car was towed.
He finally gave up trying to survive and stay in school. He borrowed enough to buy an old pickup and made it back to Crossroads. Now Lillie was five and he was no closer to finishing the last semester. No closer to getting his life in order.
He stared at the ceiling as though it would give him an answer to the problems he faced, but no answer came.
He’d sworn off women for good. He’d probably never live down what he’d done with his stepmother even though his father was now married to wife number five. Folks in this town had long memories. So he got up every morning and did the jobs he hated because of Lillie.
He climbed off the couch again to check on her, something he did every night no matter how tired he was.
After pulling the cover over her shoulder, he went back to his bed.
That first year, he remembered, she’d cried for her mother. Charley made up his mind that she’d never cry for him because he planned to be near and no matter what mistakes in life she made, she’d never stop being his daughter.
In the stillness over the bar, Charley counted the jobs he had lined up for the next week. Day work on two ranches for one day each, hauling for the hardware store on Wednesday, stocking at the grocery any morning he could.
His ex-wife’s parents, Ted and Helen Lee, helped with Lillie when they could. They’d take her to kindergarten on the mornings he had to leave before dawn, and pick her up on the days he didn’t get off work early enough. But every night, Charley wanted to be the one to tuck her in.
Sharon’s folks were kind people. They hadn’t heard from her in over a year and that had been only a postcard saying she was moving to LA.
The old couple didn’t have much, but they were good to Lillie and him. Some days Charley thought the kid was their only sunshine.
He smiled as he drifted to sleep. He had a very special standing date come morning. Sundays he’d make pancakes with Lillie and then they’d saddle up her pony and his quarter horse and ride down into Ransom Canyon while the air was still cold and the day was newborn. They’d ride and talk and laugh. He’d tell her stories his grandfather told him about the early days when longhorn cattle and wild mustangs ran across the land.
When they stopped to rest, she’d beg him for more stories. Her favorite was all about the great buffalo herds and how, when they stampeded, they’d shake the ground.
She’d giggle when she put her hand on the earth and swear she could feel the herd headed toward them.
Charley would laugh with her and for a moment he’d feel rich.
CHAPTER THREE
Jubilee
February 22
DAWN WAS BARELY up over the Lone Heart Ranch when Jubilee Hamilton heard the first knock on the downstairs back door.
“Go away!” she yelled and pulled the covers over her head.
How inconsiderate, she thought, pressing her eyes closed as if she could force herself to go back to sleep. Didn’t anyone in this flat, worthless country understand that she was in the middle of a nervous breakdown and she didn’t want to be bothered?
“Open the door, lady!” A man, obviously standing just below her window, yelled.
“No,” she answered.
“All right. I’ll leave the groceries on the porch. They’ll be rotting by noon.”
“Groceries?” She sat up. “Food?” She’d left her parents’ house three days ago eating nothing but carrot sticks and protein bars before she finally stopped at the little town called Crossroads to buy food. The grouchy grocer had hurried her, saying it was almost closing time.
She’d been too exhausted to hurry or care what time it was. When she checked out, the grocer interrogated her until he found out she was Levy Hamilton’s great-granddaughter, then he rattled off directions he’d called “the short cut” to Levy’s place.
She ended up lost for a few hours on back roads with no signs or even mile markers. When she finally pulled onto the ranch, she discovered she’d also lost the groceries. The back of her car, where she thought she had put them, was empty.
That had been two, or maybe three days ago. Since then she’d been crying, talking to herself and wandering around a big old house packed with things no one would even bother to sell in a garage sale. She’d rationed M&M’S the first day. Eaten peaches from the only can on the shelf the second day, then decided to sleep until starvation took over.
Nightmares of her Christmas with her parents would wake her from time to time. Her mom dispensing advice endlessly. Her father comparing Jubilee to her perfect sister. And Destiny dropping in like the evil fairy to show off. As if rich husband and new car weren’t enough, she brought in adorable twins. Destiny always was an overachiever.
Days of hiding in the room where she grew up finally ended with her mother’s morning lecture coming with a list of jobs in the area. “You have to have a goal,” her mother had shouted. “It’s not normal not to have goals, Jub, and right now my goal in life is to make sure you get one.”
Jubilee could think of only one goal. Leave. Which she did. She packed her suitcase and drove away with her mother still lecturing from the front steps. She’d put off her trip to the Lone Heart Ranch long enough.
“What’s it going to be, lady?” The cowboy interrupted her unpleasant memories.
Jubilee’s left leg caught in the covers as she fell out of bed.
“You all right?” he shouted.
“I’m coming,” she yelled back as she rummaged through her one travel bag for anything clean enough to wear.
If she died, someone would have to wash clothes to bury her. She didn’t even have clean socks. Everything she owned, except a suitcase of dirty clothes, had been packed in a moving pod in November.
“Food,” she said again as she grabbed at something, anything, to wear, fearing the cowboy and the groceries might disappear. Real food. Green vegetables. Fruit. Sweets. She stumbled to the window as she tugged on clothes. “Where’d you find my groceries?”
“You left them in the basket at the store in Crossroads two and a half days ago.” The man bellowed, sounding angry. “They stored them in the cooler thinking you’d return. When you didn’t, the manager hired me to bring them out.”
She straightened, putting on an old army green raincoat as a robe and a worn pair of socks she’d found in one of Grandfather Levy’s drawers. One had a red band around the calf and the other had blue stripes, but who cared.
When she leaned out the window, all she saw was the top of a worn Stetson. “I forgot them? I just thought they evaporated while I was lost, or fell out when I hit the hundred bumps in the road. I didn’t come back for them because I don’t think I could remember how to get back to town. I drove hours before I stumbled on this place.”
The cowboy looked up and she swore he growled. “Could you tell me your life story later? I’d like to set these groceries down.”
He lowered his voice, but she heard him add, “Lady, you’re only twelve miles from town, not lost in the Amazon jungle.”
She moved down the stairs and slowly neared the door, picking up an old umbrella as she tiptoed. The raincoat didn’t reach her knees, but it would have to do.
He must have gotten tired of waiting because he yelled, “You are Jubilee Hamilton?”
She opened the door a few inches and stared at a handsome man dressed in boots, jeans, a worn shirt and a cowboy hat. “How do you know that?”
He smiled at her. “You left your credit card at the store, too.” He studied her a minute, then asked, “You want these groceries or not? If you do, you got to open the door a little wider. If you don’t, I need to be getting back to town.”
She lifted her umbrella. “How do I know you aren’t here to rob and rape me?”
He looked down at the ugly mismatched socks with a hole in the right big toe and then up to what she was sure was wild, dirty blond hair. “It’s tempting, lady, but I’ve sworn off women. Maybe some other time. As for robbing you, I could have already done that. I’ve got your card.”
Jubilee slowly opened the door. “I own this farm, you know.”
He carried in the first bags. “I figured that and it’s a ranch, not a farm.”
“Whatever.” She let her head bobble.
“Old Levy died several months back.” The cowboy didn’t bother to look at her. He just headed to the kitchen. “Heard someone say his big-city great-granddaughter now owned the place and all the land around. When I saw Hamilton on your card, I had a pretty good guess as to where to take the groceries even before the manager told me. You look just like Levy.”
Jubilee straightened. “I do?” She remembered her grandfather as bent over, bald and so tanned he looked as if his skin was leather.
“Yeah. Crazy.” The cowboy still hadn’t turned around to face her so she wasted the nutty cross-eyed look she made just for him.
She followed him to the kitchen. “You knew my great-grandfather? You know this place?”
“Sure. I used to come out and help the old guy. He wasn’t able to do much, but he didn’t mind telling me how. He paid good wages.” The stranger went out for another load.
She followed like a puppy. She was still too tired to make her mind work. Leaning on the umbrella, she simply watched.
When he brought in the last load, he removed his hat and nodded politely just like his mother must have taught him. “I’m Charley Collins. I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll miss the old man. He was always straight with me.”
“What kind of work did you do for my great-grandfather?”
The man called Charley shrugged. “He ran about fifty head. I helped brand in the spring and round up in the fall. Last year I helped him plant his spring hay crop. By the time we harvested, he was too weak to climb into the cab of the tractor. I made sure the hay got into in the hay barn.”
The good-looking man watched her. “You have any idea how to run a ranch of this size, Mary Poppins? It’s not big, but there’s plenty to do.”
She shook her heard. “Nope. Why’d you call me Mary Poppins?”
“It was either that or Paddington Bear. With a rain coat, an umbrella and those ugly socks, you could go either way on Halloween.” The slow grin came from a man who probably knew just how it might affect her. If he’d had new clothes and boots that weren’t scuffed, he could have been a cover model.
She frowned back. Nice try, cowboy, but forget it. I’ve been vaccinated against good-looking men.
His face became serious. “The work’s never done on a place like this. When you’re not farming to provide grain for winter or checking on cattle, you’re mending fences and repairing equipment. If you run cattle, they’ll need checking on every day. The fences need constant repair, and every time it rains part of them will wash out and your workload just doubles.”
“I was afraid of that.” She scratched her wild hair, feeling as if something must have crawled into it and set up house while she slept.
The guy just stared at her as if she was a baby kitten trying to walk on water. “You know, lady, you’re about four months behind already. You might want to think about selling the place and going back to the city. It would take a dozen men to get this place ready for spring in time.”
“I’m staying.” Lifting her chin she met his blue-eyed stare. She didn’t have to tell this stranger she had nowhere else to go. He’d probably figured that out already.
“Then I wish you luck, Miss Hamilton.”
She shook the cobwebs out of her brain and took a step toward her only chance. “Would you work for me? I’ll pay whatever he paid you. To tell the truth, I’m not sure where to start but I’ve got to make this work.” Even if it cost her all her savings.
“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “It’s a long way out here, and I only have one, maybe two days a week open. I don’t think one day a week would make much difference in this place and to come out on weekends I’d have to quit my bartending job. If I did that, I’d lose the free apartment that comes with it.”
Jubilee’s mind cleared enough to realize he was negotiating, not turning down her offer.
“There is a house over by the corrals. When I was a kid, a hired hand and his wife lived there. I don’t know what kind of shape it’s in now. If you’ll work for me five days a week, I’ll pay you five dollars more an hour than Levy did and throw in the house.” She knew she had to make it fair because no one else was probably going to take an offer to help farm on a place in the middle of nowhere.
She didn’t know much about this man, but he was honest or he wouldn’t have brought the groceries and her credit card. He was a hard worker if her great-grandfather used him regularly, and he knew the place.
“Does the school bus stop anywhere near here?”
He surprised her with his question. “I have no idea. Do you have a family?”
“A daughter.” He didn’t look happy about the offer. “If I worked for you, I’d take off time to get her to school, and when she’s here, I’d work around the headquarters so I could keep an eye on her.”
Jubilee looked around the yard. There was enough work within shouting distance to keep him busy for months.
“Fair enough.”
“I’d need to stable my two horses in the barn.” He glanced over his shoulder. “At least it’s in good shape.”
“No problem. There are a dozen stalls.”
He studied her. “Make it ten dollars more an hour and you got yourself a foreman, not just a hand. I furnish my own horse and gear. I’ll charge for a fifty-hour week, but I’ll work until the job is done. I’ll also hire men when needed and you’ll pay them the going wage.”
Jubilee thought of mentioning that ten more an hour seemed very high, but what choice did she have? Her savings were solid. Her car paid for. She might as well put it all into the pot. This chance was the only game in town.
She nodded.
He put his hat back on. “I’ll move in late this afternoon and be in for breakfast tomorrow morning. We’ll talk about where to start.”
“Breakfast?”
“That was the routine with Levy. We planned over breakfast and I worked until the job or the day was finished. Any problem?”
“No.”
“You can cook?”
“No, but how hard can it be?”
He smiled, and she realized how young he was. Maybe a year or two younger than she. But she didn’t miss the steel in his stare. He hadn’t had an easy life and she guessed he wouldn’t trust easily. That was fine with her, since she felt the same.
“I’ll bring a few boxes of cereal and milk,” he said as he moved off the porch. “You make the coffee. Tomorrow we’ll set a plan.”
She met his stormy blue eyes again. “Will you help me make this place work? It’s kind of my last chance.”
He nodded once. “I’ll help you, but you got to wear normal clothes, lady. Folks around here might cart you off to the hospital for dressing like that.”
“I’ll remember that, Mr. Collins,” she said, trying not to react to his insult. She thought of adding that she didn’t do friends, so don’t even try. Maybe they should keep the relationship formal? She wouldn’t tell him too much and he wouldn’t try to advise her on wardrobe choices.
What would be between them would be purely professional. She had a feeling he wanted it that way, as well.
As he drove away, Jubilee went back to bed, remembering how early her great-grandfather had served breakfast. Her last hope, before she fell asleep after eating half a dozen pieces of fruit and the entire bag of cookies, was that she wanted breakfast to be closer to brunch when they talked each day. Surely he’d agree to that; after all, she was the boss. She should be able to set a few rules.
CHAPTER FOUR
Thatcher Jones
February 23
THATCHER JONES RACED down the neglected dirt road as if he was an IndyCar race driver and not still too young to get his license. A rusty old sign marked the beginning of a ranch called Lone Heart. What had once been a heart-shaped brand hung lopsided on the marker.
He eased his boot off the gas a bit. He and his 1963 Ford pickup just might make this run before the rain hit. No one was at the ranch anymore; it should be easy to get in and out without anyone noticing.
Thatcher had been keeping an eye on a nest of rattlesnakes under the back cattle guard on this ranch for four months. Now there were new folks moving in near the pass and he was about to lose two hundred dollars if he didn’t act fast. To add hell to fury, a storm was blowing in from the north even though the day was hot for February.
The sheriff’s cruiser pulled out in front of him from nowhere. Thatcher cussed a streak of swear words.
He slammed on the brakes, leaned out the window and yelled, “Hell, Sheriff, get out of the way. My brakes are no good.”
Sheriff Dan Brigman didn’t budge and, judging from Thatcher’s experience with the law, he knew that Brigman wouldn’t change or move no matter how much he yelled.
He pushed on the brakes with both feet but had to pull off into the bar ditch to avoid a collision.
Once the beat-up old Ford finally clanked to a stop, Thatcher piled out of his truck with a stranglehold on the top of a grain sack.
“You trying to kill us both, Sheriff?” Thatcher shouted, challenging the lawman, even if he barely came up to Brigman’s shoulder. “I ain’t lived fourteen years just to die in a fiery crash with a cop.”
The sheriff crossed his arms and said calmly, “What you got in the sack, kid?”
Thatcher had been told a dozen times not to hunt snakes off his own land, but listening wasn’t one of his talents. Neither was honesty. “I got cow chips. The Boy Scouts are doing a demonstration down in the canyon about how folks used to burn the dry ones so they could keep warm in the winter. This ain’t nothing but fuel for their fire.”
Brigman glanced at the bag and Thatcher prayed it didn’t start wiggling.
“I’ve told you, son, hunting rattlers is not something for a kid to be doing.”
“It’s cow shit, Sheriff. I swear.”
Brigman shook his head. “It’s shit all right. Tie that bag off and put it in the bed of your pickup. You’re not old enough to drive, and you’re out here in the middle of nowhere hunting rattlers in an old truck that might not even make it back to your place. I can think of a dozen ways I might find you dead.”
“I’m old enough to drive. I don’t have to sit on the blanket anymore to see out, and hunting ain’t dangerous. I’ve been doing it since I was ten. You just got to jitter when you reach for them so you’re a blur to the snake and not a solid target.”
“Who told you that?”
“My grandpa. He was a jittering fool, he’d been bit so many times.” Thatcher winked, giving away his lie.
“Get in the cruiser.” Brigman didn’t crack a smile. “I’m taking you home. But Thatcher Jones, I swear this better be the last time I see you on any road in this county.”
The boy walked toward the officer’s car. “You said I could drive the back roads out past County Road 111.”
“Yeah, but I’m guessing you had to cross at least four other county roads and one highway to get this far from your place.”
“You ain’t got no proof of that, Sheriff.” He knotted the sack, tossed it in the pickup bed and climbed into the front passenger seat of the cruiser, hating that it was starting to feel familiar. “You can’t arrest me unless you see me do somethin’.”
“That’s why I’m taking you home.”
Thatcher ran his dirty fingers through even dirtier brown hair. He hadn’t even made it to the Hamilton ranch. Hell, the snakes would probably be six feet long before he could get back. He sighed, knowing Brigman wouldn’t change his mind. “We stopping at the Dairy Queen before you drop me off back home, Sheriff?”
“It’s standard police procedure, kid. Double meat, double cheese.” Brigman started his car. “How’s your mom?”
“She died again last week.”
Brigman glared at him but didn’t say anything.
“She was at the tent revival over the Red into Oklahoma. Preacher pays her a hundred dollars every service to keel over and let the Holy Spirit save her. Not a bad gig. She only gets twenty-five for talking in tongues and fifty for coming in on crutches.”
The sheriff frowned.
“It ain’t against the law, Sheriff.” Thatcher saw it more as a sideshow and his mom did the entertaining. He changed the subject before the sheriff started asking more questions about his mom. “If somebody steals my truck, Sheriff, I’ll have you to blame.”
Brigman smiled. “If they do they won’t be hard to find. They’ll be dead on the road after they open that sack you got in the pickup bed. Bitten by cow chips is an odd way to die.”
They drove in silence all the way to Crossroads. Thatcher figured if he said anything the sheriff would start another lecture. Brigman could lecture the wheels off the fiery chariot.
Just as the lady handed them burgers through the drive-up window, lightning flashed bright and thunder rolled in on the wind. “Storm’s coming in early,” Thatcher said more to himself than the sheriff. He, like most farm folks, lived his life by the weather. It always surprised him that town kids woke up like chickens and headed outside without knowing or caring what was happening in the sky above. If rain or snow started, they took it personally, as if it was their individual plague and not the way of things.
“How about we eat these in my office, son?” Brigman turned toward Main Street.
“Not a bad idea, Sheriff. I seen the way you drive in the rain.”
A few minutes later, they raced the storm to make it into the county offices before they were both soaked.
They moved past Pearly Day’s front desk in the wide foyer to Brigman’s two-room office. Pearly’d gone home and apparently left her candy bowl unguarded.
She was the receptionist for all the offices housed in the two-story building and also passed as the dispatcher in Crossroads. When she left at five she patched all 911 calls to her cell. If anyone had an emergency they didn’t yell “call 911,” they yelled “call Pearly.”