Cowgirl in High Heels

CHAPTER TWO

RYAN HAD HAD his share of knocks in life, but he was having a hard time recalling a day where he’d had two big emotional wallops back-to-back like this.

Right now he had no idea where his father was, what he was doing or thinking or planning—although it had better not involve his mother—but he knew exactly where his brother was: lying in a hospital with a career-ending crushed leg. Ryan was more shaken by the accident than he wanted to admit.

For almost two decades, Matt had been his fiercest roping competition, and for fifteen of those years, he’d known they were half brothers, thanks to a painful heart-to-heart with his mother after that fistfight in the rodeo grounds’ john. That conversation had explained why Matt hated him so much—because he existed.

Well, Ryan was pissed at the situation himself. They shared a father, but Matt had been the son with a father in residence. Matt had been the son with the fancy horses and trucks and trailers. He’d enjoyed the kind of easy, charmed career that money made possible—right up until a few hours ago when that charmed career had come to a screeching halt, leaving the way wide open for Ryan to take his place in the National Finals.

Ryan didn’t feel good about that at all. The short visit to his highly doped-up brother in the hospital before he’d started the drive home hadn’t helped. All Matt had been concerned about was that Ryan not call his mother.

As if.

He needed a tall beer and about ten hours of sleep. Then maybe he’d be in better condition to deal with all the shit that had gone down today.

He turned down the two-mile-long driveway leading to the Rocky View Ranch, where he’d lived and worked since graduating high school. At one time, back in his great-grandfather’s day, the ranch had encompassed more than two sections and employed a dozen people. Most of the hands had lived in the bunkhouse, but there were two staff houses with their own corrals and outbuildings located half a mile from the main house, which gave the residents some privacy. The ranch manager and his family had lived in one house and the rural schoolteacher had stayed in the other for nine months out of the year.

Now the ranch was smaller by a section, the school had been bulldozed thirty years ago, and Ryan’s friends and coworkers, Jessie and Francisco Garcia, lived in the schoolteacher’s house. Walt Feldman, who’d owned the place up until a year ago, lived in the manager’s place next door. Most of the time, he was okay with that.

Most of the time.

Ryan still lived in the small three-room homestead house behind the barn on the main ranch that he’d moved into the week after graduating college with his degree in range management. It was hot in summer, cold in winter, way too cramped and right now he wanted to get there like nobody’s business.

Jessie and Francisco’s place came into view, lit to the max. Walt’s house, an eighth of a mile away, was dark. Ryan had barely registered how much he didn’t like that when Jessie stepped out of her house and waved frantically at him before trotting down the steps as he slowed to a stop.

“We have a problem,” she said as soon as he rolled the window down. “One of the family is at the house. She came this afternoon. Walt didn’t even tell me until she was already on the property. He called me from town and I was lucky to get the keys down to her.”

Well, shit.

“Do I need to go looking for him?” he asked.

Jessie shook her head. “Francisco called just a few minutes ago. No surprise that he found him in a bar, but I’m afraid if he brings him back here, Walt might try to go to the house. Scare the lady...get himself fired.”

Ryan pressed his fingertips to his forehead. It’d been one long friggin day and he’d been looking forward to that beer and some sleep.

“All right,” he said just as a loud “Ma-a-a” sounded from inside the small house. Jessie ignored her son’s plaintive call, her dark eyes holding on Ryan’s face as she waited for him to tell her how they’d handle the situation. One thing was for certain: he didn’t want Walt anywhere near the main house while he was drunk. Sometimes Walt didn’t remember who owned the place—or that he’d basically been sold with the ranch, along with the rest of them. Once, Ryan had found him asleep in the master bedroom after one of his benders. That would never do while the family was in residence.

“Ma-a-a!” Four-year-old Jeffrey stepped out onto the porch holding his bear by one ear. “I need you!”

“Sounds like you’re needed,” Ryan said as Bella and Emmie toddled out onto the porch behind their brother, one taking hold of Jeff’s bear, the other his shirtsleeve, before they simultaneously put their thumbs in their mouths. “I’ll take care of things and see that Francisco gets back home.”

“Thanks, Ry. It’s bath night.”

Jessie stepped back and Ryan put the truck into low gear, easing the horse trailer forward as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He punched the number three with his thumb and Francisco answered almost immediately.

“Found him.”

“Drive him to my mom’s,” Ryan said. Lydia would keep Walt contained until he sobered up. “I’ll take it from there.”

“If I can get him into the truck. He can barely walk.”

“Want me to call Mitch?” Ryan asked. His bull-riding friend had helped contain Walt on a previous occasion.

“I’ll get someone here at the bar to help me.”

“All right,” Ryan said. “Let me know if you have any trouble.” As soon as he hung up, he punched his mother’s number and explained the situation.

Lydia Madison responded with a heavy sigh, which Ryan read more as resignation than annoyance. “The extra room’s ready for him.”

“Want me to come back to town, help you with him? He’s upset about the new owners coming to stay at his house.”

“Get some sleep,” Lydia said. “He’ll be okay in the morning. I’ll feed him some ham and eggs, keep him here until you or Francisco can come and get him.”

“I’ll see you then,” Ryan replied. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Get some sleep!”

He’d do his best because tomorrow was probably going to be one hell of a day. The owners would undoubtedly want to talk to Walt—they always did—and Ryan needed to make sure the guy was in decent shape for the meeting, which was never an easy task.

The hell of it was that he had no idea how long the owners planned to stay, and he was only going to be on the ranch for a few days before he had to leave again for the next rodeo halfway across the state. He didn’t want to add more to Jessie and Francisco’s workload, but the chances of Walt coming to terms with his demons by the weekend bordered on nonexistent.

Sometimes he wondered if the old man was ever going to get over having to sell the ranch. Would ever forgive himself for overextending, borrowing recklessly and then having it all come crashing down on him during a perfect storm of drought, wildfire and recession.

Enter the rich people.

If there’d been any way for Walt to support himself other than staying on as manager, Ryan would have quit and gone with him. But no one wanted to take on a seventy-year-old cowboy who’d lived on only one property for his entire life—a guy whose management methods had been behind the times until recently, which hadn’t helped when he’d started to get into trouble.

Walt blamed only the times.

Ryan never argued with him, though he had cause. Walt had been the closest thing to a real father he’d had.

Ryan rounded the last corner before the main house and, sure enough, the lights were on...seemingly all of the lights. The house was long and low, with a roofed porch on three sides. Walt’s grandfather had built the place and his father had added on. It was spacious and comfortable and Walt had always been so proud of his house—so of course Mrs. Bradworth had plans to gut the place before they took up permanent residence.

If they took up permanent residence. And lasted. Most rich transplants stayed an average of five years before the brutal Montana winters convinced them to use their hobby ranches as summer getaways and hunting camps.

Ryan rolled to a stop next to the barn. He’d already grained PJ and rubbed him down before starting the long trip home, so all he had to do was unload him and put him out into the pasture with his buddies before collapsing onto the sofa with a beer. Maybe get that sleep his mom had spoken of.

Ryan waved the horses back and led the big gelding through the gate and released him. PJ put his nose down, blew at the grass then ambled off as Ryan coiled the lead rope.

Normally he would have left the truck right where he’d parked it, but not tonight. The Bradworths had requested that there be no parked equipment in sight while they were in residence, and since Mrs. Bradworth was a bit of a stickler for rules, he didn’t want to do anything to set her off—even if he’d probably have the truck moved by the time she rolled out of bed. During the week they’d stayed, shortly after purchasing the place and saving Walt’s financial ass, he’d never known them to show signs of life before 9:00 a.m.

Ryan parked behind the barn, with only the nose of his truck offending the Bradworths’ view. He walked toward his dark house, his steps slowing before mounting the one step leading onto his porch as he caught sight of a shadow moving across the curtained bay window of the main house. A second later the shadow, obviously female, crossed again, going in the opposite direction.

Ryan stopped at his porch and stood, the rope and halter hanging from one hand, watching as the shadow moved back and forth. Back and forth.

He had a bad feeling about this.

A pacing woman was never a good sign.

* * *

THE SOUND OF the engine, followed a few minutes later by the hollow clang of a metal horse-trailer door opening, had come as a welcome relief after hours of silence. Less than five minutes after the truck had pulled in, the night was once again quiet, but Ellie felt better knowing that there was another human being within shouting range. She’d thought she’d been prepared for isolation when she’d embarked on this trip, but she hadn’t realized just how isolated she would feel in the big house surrounded by nothing but trees and fields and strange noises. The satellite TV wasn’t hooked up yet, so she had nothing to watch. The internet service was also disconnected, and her phone only worked in certain parts of the house.

Alone.

With her thoughts.

But worse than being alone, she felt disoriented. Unfocused. The only other time in her life when she’d felt this unsettled had been when her mother had dropped her off at boarding school with the clipped assurance that she’d like it there and she would make friends. Her mother had been right. She’d met Kate and bonded within a matter of days, but here she didn’t foresee any bonding occurring—not unless Jessie Garcia turned out to be a lot friendlier than she first appeared.

You didn’t come to the ranch to bond. You came to get a grip.

But here she was in her new sanctuary, where she’d assumed that the peace of the surroundings, the distance between her and Nick—the now happily married father of her baby—would give her some perspective, yet she felt exactly the same in a different environment. Angry, scared, unfocused.

The situation still seemed unreal. And the baby who had so disrupted her life seemed equally unreal. So far she’d had no symptoms of pregnancy other than sore breasts, but she’d been assured that the baby was real by trained medical personnel. Twice.

When would it feel real?

Soon, she assured herself. Everything would fall into place and she’d know what to do. She just had to acclimate to her new surroundings and then make a plan. Once she had a plan, she would feel better. More grounded and able to make decisions about the next steps in her life.

But her brain wasn’t listening and her thoughts continued to tumble over one another.

When she couldn’t focus, Ellie moved, but there was no treadmill at the ranch, so she couldn’t run until she was exhausted as she’d sometimes done in her town house when work pressures got to her. She ended up walking the floor, focusing on making slow, even steps, clearing her mind, ordering her thoughts.

The house was sparsely furnished, so pacing was easy—she probably could have jogged if she’d wanted to. When Milo had bought the ranch, the owner had become the manager and had moved his belongings to the small staff house that Ellie had passed on her drive in. Angela had bought some bare-bones furniture to see them through their first visit—bare bones to Angela anyway: two expensive leather chairs, a pecan dining-room set, a bureau and a bed with a wrought-iron headboard for each bedroom. Most of the linens were still in their original wrappers and the towels had price tags on them. Angela was no cook, so the kitchen was also bare bones—to the point that Ellie wondered how’d they’d eaten during their stay. There was, after all, no takeout close by.

Earlier in the day Ellie had busied herself making the bed, taking an inventory of her food supply, familiarizing herself with her deserted surroundings, although she didn’t stray too far from the house and its untended yards. Frankly, she’d expected the house to be prepared for her when she arrived—and was certain that Angela had, too—but something had gone awry. She could live with that. People made mistakes. The lack of communication between Mr. Feldman and Jessie might have an easy explanation. She hoped it did. There was still no ranch staff to be found, but as Jessie had said, it was Sunday.

After eating a dinner of canned soup, she’d tackled the office, the one place that had been left fairly intact after the owner had moved out, hoping to find employment records that Milo had thought might be there—or any records that she understood—to help fill the evening hours. No luck. And then once night had fallen, she’d pulled the curtains and sat in one of the leather chairs and stared out across the room. The silence had almost hurt her ears. She’d tried reading on her phone; listening to music. Nothing helped with the thoughts jumbling on top of one another, so finally she’d resorted to pacing.

She preferred running—toward a goal if possible. And that was the problem. Until she had a goal, a written plan, she wouldn’t be able to relax.

So instead she continued pacing, trying to order her thoughts.

Ellie didn’t know what time she’d finally crawled into bed and fallen asleep, but she did know what time she woke: nine o’clock on the nose, when her phone rang. She rolled over in her unfamiliar bed to answer it.

“Hello, Ellie? How are you finding Montana?” her aunt inquired in her languid voice.

“So far, so good.” Ellie lay back against the pillows and pushed her hair away from her forehead with one hand.

“Have you talked to your mother yet?” Which was code for, Have you told her you’re pregnant?

“Not recently.” Nothing new there. She’d traveled the globe without much contact with her mother, and vice versa. She was actually closer to her aunt, which was rather sad, considering the fact that Angela wasn’t going to win any Mother of the Year awards herself. But she was slightly less self-centered than her sister.

“What do you think of the house?”

“It’s...rustic,” Ellie said, feeling it best not to mention that she’d found herself unable to imagine either her aunt or her uncle living there.

“I know,” Angela said on a groan. “I have some work ahead of me. Sorry about the lack of furniture.”

“There’s enough for me,” Ellie said. “By the way, I can’t find the employment records.”

“They should be there...somewhere,” Angela said absently, telling Ellie exactly how important such things were to her.

“I can’t find the employees, either.”

“Really? Then who’s running the ranch?”

“Good question.” Ellie rubbed her fingertips over her forehead. “Do you have any idea what’s involved in running a ranch?” She was curious whether Angela had any inkling at all, or if they were both equally clueless.

“No idea. This is Milo’s baby.” Angela spoke with tolerant affection and, indeed, she was devoted to her husband, who in return showed his love by giving her everything she wanted.

That said, Angela hadn’t been all that broken up about her husband’s retirement being delayed after he’d been named chief of staff three months ago, and Ellie understood why. Angela did not have a rural bone in her body. Milo, on the other hand, had appeared torn between accepting the job he’d always wanted and retiring to his ranch to take over operations. Ultimately, though, he chose the job he’d been striving for his entire career—and therein lay the rub.

There were a lot of unknowns about the Rocky View Ranch that needed to be addressed. Such as could it be more profitable? Was it being run well? Her uncle had put off getting immediate answers to those questions, leaving the existing management in place after the purchase, thinking he’d be there within a year to observe operations and make decisions. But now things had changed, and that was where both Ellie and the consultant came in.

“Milo’s baby is beautiful,” she said to her aunt with a slight smile. “I’ll find out what I can about operations, fill him in.” This was not her field of expertise, but employees were employees and efficiency was efficiency. And until she figured out her next steps in life, she’d have plenty of opportunity to observe.

“Exactly what we wanted, dear. You really are doing us a favor.”

Ha. They were doing her the favor. Ellie was about to say something to that effect when the back door rattled, startling her.

“There’s someone at the door,” Ellie said.

“Maybe one of your lost employees.”

“Maybe,” Ellie said. “I’ll talk to you later.” She set the phone on the table as she passed through the kitchen to the back door, which rattled again as the tall dark-headed kid who stood outside knocked.

“Jessie wanted me to bring you this,” the boy said, holding out a box. Ellie automatically took it, noting that the bottom was warm just before the spicy pumpkin scent hit her nostrils full force and made her stomach roil. “It’s a pie,” he added helpfully.

“Thank you,” Ellie said, looking around for a place to set the box out of olfactory range. “I’ll, uh, just put it in the fridge.”

“It’s warm. Jessie says it’ll do something funny if you put it in the fridge before it cools.”

“Okay, then,” Ellie said, setting the pie on the counter as she tried to gain control over her stomach. “I’m Ellison Hunter.”

“Nice to meet you,” the boy said as if by rote. Someone had taught him manners.

“And you are?”

“Oh. I’m Lonnie. I live one place over.”

Well, that explained nothing. “Do you know where Mr. Feldman is?” she asked, noticing that the truck that had been parked next to the small house was now gone, although the long horse trailer was still there.

“No.”

“How about Mr. Madison?”

“Ryan? He’s probably gone.” The kid kicked at the step, looking as if he wanted to escape.

Not yet. “Gone, as in...”

“He had a rodeo this weekend,” the kid said as if that answered everything.

“How long does the rodeo last?”

“His part?” The boy screwed up his face. “Only a day usually, but it’s a long drive home.”

It was Monday. A workday in her book. Perhaps the employees worked flex time. Ellie had no way of knowing, since there appeared to be no records on the ranch other than a file folder with tax information.

“Great. Well—” she held out a hand “—it’s good to meet you.”

The kid grabbed her extended hand, pumped it once, hard, then released it. Ellie smiled briefly, waiting until the kid had started down the steps to the all-terrain vehicle parked near the front gate before rubbing her hands together to get the feeling back into the one he’d just crushed. The kid was almost to the bottom of the walk when he turned. “Hey, you might want to keep an eye out for Hiss.”

“Hiss?”

“He catches mice. He’s harmless.”

“Hiss is a cat?” Ellie asked, wondering why she needed to keep an eye out for it.

“A snake,” Lonnie called, then with a cheerful wave got on his ATV and started the motor.

“Great,” Ellie muttered. “Thanks.” Mr. Madison was at the rodeo, Mr. Feldman was nowhere to be found and she needed to watch out for Hiss the snake. She couldn’t say she was overly impressed with Milo’s ranch operations so far.

Ellie stepped back into the kitchen, then instantly turned toward fresh air as the pumpkin smell hit her. Taking a deep breath and holding it, she went inside, picked up the box with the pie and opened the sliding door off the dining room. She set the box on the back-patio picnic table, then quickly went back into the house. The smell lingered, not as strongly as before, but enough that Ellie knew she’d be spending some time at the other end of the house.

The baby suddenly seemed a bit more real.

CHAPTER THREE

“IT WAS BAD,” Francisco said as he took the cup of coffee Lydia handed him. “Not as bad as right after he signed the sale papers, but I think he can’t hold his alcohol as well as he used to.”

“If he’s going to do this every time someone from the family comes to the ranch... Well, that isn’t going to work at all,” Lydia said. “He’s going to—” She abruptly closed her mouth as the bathroom door opened, and then slow footsteps came down the hall.

“Son of a bitch,” Walt muttered as he walked into the kitchen, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “Where’s the truck that hit me?”

“The truck had a big Budweiser logo emblazoned on the side,” Lydia said as she folded a dish towel. “And you know better than to stand in the middle of the street in front of it. Sit down.”

Walt sat. He was a small guy, with a thin, wiry frame that had caused a lot of people to misjudge his strength in his younger days. “Who rescued me?”

Francisco raised a hand.

“I owe you.”

“Yeah, you do,” Francisco said. “More than that, you owe Jessie. It was bath night.”

“Sorry about that.” He raised red-rimmed eyes toward Ryan. “You’re quiet.” Ryan shrugged. “Did you win?”

“Of course he won,” Lydia snapped. “The question is, are you going to keep doing this?”

“What?” Walt blinked at her.

“What?” Lydia propped a hand on her aproned hip and waved her spatula at him. “Drinking yourself into oblivion whenever the Bradworths show up.”

“That’s not—”

“Bull. How do you want your eggs?”

“Scrambled.”

“How about you?” she asked Ryan, eyeing him carefully.

She had her mother radar on full force, having sensed something was off the moment he’d walked in the door with Francisco, twenty minutes before. There was no way he was telling her he’d had contact with the Montoyas. As far as he was concerned, that episode was over and done—unless, of course, his father did something stupid.

“I’ve got to get to the vet clinic pretty soon,” Ryan said.

“After you eat.”

“Scrambled,” he said. Another hard mother stare and then Lydia turned back to her eggs. Ryan scowled at Walt. “Francisco will take you home and then you’d better clean up—just in case this lady wants to talk to you.”

“Just like last time,” Walt muttered. When it’d taken Ryan a good day to calm him down after he’d discovered what Mrs. Bradworth had in mind for his ancestral home.