Half a Ranch, page 5
"Just a few more feet," Bret shouted over the still howling wind.
Mindy didn't look happy about it, but she nodded.
Finally he felt his way to the back door and held it open for her. The wind, frustrated with the loss of its prisoners, blasted its hottest, strongest gust yet, pushing Mindy straight into his arms. The two stumbled into the laundry room.
"Well will you look what the cat drug in?" Sharon's booming voice interrupted them before his mind could even begin to process how perfect Mindy felt against him.
"All the hands make it to safely?" he asked.
"Haven't heard from three of them. Johnny, Marvin, and Smitty."
"Figures. What do you bet that Smitty tries to find his way back through this and gets lost?"
Sharon shook her head. "From the looks of it, he wouldn't be the only crazy person out there. Winds blowing so hard it felt like someone ran a pickup truck into the house?"
"That was Mindy."
"Oh? I guess she just overpowered you. Took the wheel from your unwilling hands. Is that it?"
"We made it." Bret pushed the cat out of his way and opened the door to his room. I'm going to take a shower and then I'm going to have something to eat. If the dust is still blowing, I'll get on the radio and see if I can find what's going on."
He stripped off his shirt and tossed it into the laundry hamper.
"Put your name on your clothes and toss them in here," he told Mindy. "We do a couple of loads every day."
She didn't answer, so he looked to see if something else was wrong.
She was staring at him as if he had some kind of disease.
Of course. The shirt. She probably thought he was putting the moves on her again.
He thought back to their kiss in the truck. How had it started? With Mindy's legs tangled up among his own, his hands around her waist, one thing had led to another. He was almost certain that she had initiated things but maybe that was wishful thinking. The instant he had picked her up, all of his anger had been replaced by pure lust. Could he have projected his desire onto her?
"Oh," she finally said, still staring at him. "I think I'd better change in my room."
"Wherever you feel most comfortable."
****
Mindy didn't run to her room. Not quite. What kind of an idiot would stand there staring at Bret's chest as if she had never seen a half-naked man before? Admittedly, the only time she'd seen a body even close to as perfect as his, she'd been flipping through a fitness magazine at the supermarket.
She continued to beat herself up as she yanked off her sweat and dust-encrusted clothes, throwing them on the floor. Exactly what had she accomplished today? She had continued to antagonize her new partner, kissed him against his will, then risked both of their lives in a foolhardy drive through the dust storm. Was it just that morning when she had decided she would walk all over Bret because she was so much smarter than he?
Once she was naked, she stepped into the attached bathroom to take a shower.
She hadn't really paid much attention to the bathroom that morning. Before her first cup of coffee, she didn't pay much attention to anything. The green tile and worn shag carpeting spoke to her of years of neglect. The old ranch house, with its classic Craftsman style, deserved better. While she wouldn't live on the ranch long enough to enjoy it herself, she and Bret would certainly get a better price for their property if they made the old house reflect its historical past rather than its descent into the tasteless sixties.
The water turned reddish brown as it poured off her body and down the drain. Fine grit seemed to have invaded every pore, and she had to scrub herself again and again before she even started to feel clean.
At least some of the energy she expended on scrubbing was a futile attempt to wash away the sensation of Bret's strong hands grasping her, his body against her own. Still, what else could she do? If he had any interest in her, he would have let her know by now. Other than that initial, instinctive response to her kiss, he had been nothing but distant and professional with her.
Mindy emerged from the bedroom an hour later, finally feeling human again, if just barely. Maybe she was overreacting. Perhaps their shared adventure would bring her and Bret together in some way, at least enough to let them achieve a sensible business relationship for the short amount of time that they jointly owned the ranch.
"I think it was wonderfully brave of Mindy to drive home through that dust," she heard Sharon say as she opened the bedroom door.
Rather than barge in, she held back. What would Bret say if he weren't performing on her behalf?
"It's a miracle that we're alive."
"So why'd you let her do it?"
"Yeah, that was a mistake. I was sure she’d back off once she saw how bad the visibility was."
"You always underestimate us women, don't you?"
"Call me crazy. For some reason I can't get this notion out of my head that people should choose survival over death."
"I'll call you a lot worse than crazy. I think Lucy knew what she was doing leaving half the ranch to Mindy."
"Don't get me started on that. I earned the whole thing and now I'm going to have to earn it a second time. I didn't spend the last ten years of my life for this."
Eavesdropping, Mindy decided, creates its own punishment. She shut her bedroom door loudly, and strode into the dining room.
"Oh, dear. I think I hear something boiling." Sharon disappeared.
"Run the well dry?" Bret asked.
"That's it," Mindy shot back. “Got another one so I can finish?”
He shook his head. "Never mind." Then he handed her a thick sheaf of paper. "I'd like you to take a look at these appraisals. Once you’ve got a basis in the facts, we can talk about a fair selling price."
Mindy stared at the paperwork. Obviously he thought an irrational woman like her would be intimidated by the legal mumbo jumbo. Too bad for him, she'd minored in math. Numbers generated no fear in her.
"Great."
"Feel free to talk to the bankers and make sure that you understand the legalese. Of course you can stay here as a guest for a couple more days."
Mindy felt the temperature rise, but this time her heat wasn't driven by lust. "Let me get this straight. I own half the ranch, but you are going to allow me to stay on as a guest? I suppose you'll yank the invitation if I don't stay out of the way or make any trouble for you. And as a bonus, I have your permission to actually talk to a banker about how much my own property could bring in the open market. Have I got it right?"
His face darkened. "You seem to hear what you choose. I haven't made any secrets about my plans. I want this ranch and I'm willing to make one hell of a fair offer for your share of it. Look outside. Right this minute, the ranch is blowing away. We haven't had a drop of rain in two months and the cattle are getting close to starvation--"
"I think you mean dehydration, not starvation."
Bret's huge hands tightened around the back of the chair until his knuckles turned white. "You think I'm ignorant, don't you? Maybe I am, compared to a school-teacher like you. But I've been around ranching my whole life. Cattle don't die of thirst. We pump water for them. That's what those windmills are for. But if it doesn't rain, the grass doesn't grow. So, they drink as much as they can hold but they still starve.”
“Why not buy—“
“We're a ranch, not a feedlot. Sure we can bring in some hay, some corn, hold off the day of reckoning for a while."
"Why not pump a little more water and irrigate."
He shook his head in obvious frustration. "Haven't you ever watered a lawn? If we tried to pump enough water to irrigate even a couple of thousand acres, we'd need a hundred times more pumps. Even if we could afford that, we’d dry the aquifers so quickly they'd take decades to replenish. Then the cattle really would die of thirst."
"Oh." She was vaguely aware of the role that water, or rather its lack, played in the southwest. In Nebraska, floods rather than drought caused most of the problems.
"This place is in hock up to its eyeballs because your aunt ran up some big medical bills and because she made some poor investments," Bret continued. "It'll be hard to get anyone with any sense to lend us more money on the place. That's why I offered to pay you over time. As far as I'm concerned, you can stay here as long as you want. I don't care whether you call yourself a guest, a visiting absentee landlord, or whatever. Just try not to distract the cowboys too much. I need them ranching, not sitting around waiting on a pretty woman."
Mindy lost count. How many words had he strung together? And all directed at her. Whatever happened to the inarticulate cowboy type? Perhaps Bret had decided to give another side of his manipulative nature a chance.
"I wasn't raised to sit in bed eating bonbons," she told him. "As long as I own half of this place and as long as I'm staying here, I'll expect to be treated like an owner not a guest. I'll work just as hard as anyone else."
Bret shook his head. "I was afraid you'd take that attitude."
"Get used to it."
"Ranching isn't like other businesses. Cattle don't have a clear concept of weekends, and a dust storm like this can erase a decade of hard work."
"Until two weeks ago, I was a teacher. Nothing you throw at me will offer more challenge and more risk than teaching children how to think."
Bret took half a step toward her. The look in his eyes held a lot of emotion, but she couldn't tell whether his thoughts centered on kissing her or strangling her. Half of her mind urged her to close the distance and find out.
The logical half won for once. She backed away.
"I suppose you want a horse so you can pretend to help with the cattle," Brad said. "Let's get this straight right now so we don't have to go into it again. This isn't like one of those books where the rich rancher just happens to have a couple of perfectly trained horses that need to be ridden for exercise. We do most of our work with trucks and all-terrain vehicles. You're welcome to take one of those out, but if you wreck it, I'll take it out of your half of the ranch."
"Don't worry about me. I'll find something to do."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"Are you two going to gab all night or do you want something to eat?" Sharon plunked a huge bowl of spaghetti on the dining room table then followed with an almost equally huge tureen of sauce.
"I'll be there in five minutes," Bret said. Without another word to Mindy, he turned and strode to his room.
"So what you going to do?" Sharon asked her as soon as Bret was out of sight, and out of hearing.
"I beg your pardon."
"It's no secret. You've got yourself half a ranch. You can sell out to Bret, or you can try to find someone else who'll take your interest off your hands. You'd want to find someone with a good lawyer, though. Bret wants this place bad, and he won't go easy no matter what you do with your half."
"Oh?" Evidently Bret had passed word of her aunt's will to the staff. Probably to give him an opportunity to position the news just right. "I don't know what I can do."
"As if you have a whole lot of choices." Sharon didn't sneer at her. Not quite.
"What do you mean by that?"
"That man always gets what he wants. He'll talk you out of your half quick enough."
Mindy bristled. She had begun to revise her estimate of Bret. Sharon's words put her back on track and also let her know exactly what the staff thought of her--helpless and ineffectual. She'd change their opinion.
"We'll see about that."
"Sure." Sharon turned on her heel and returned to her kitchen.
Chapter 4
The next morning, Mindy rose with the sun and a plan.
The sun didn't surprise her. She'd asked a few of the hands for more information about dust storms. While several had heard of storms lasting for more than a day, none had actually experienced one. Mindy guessed that Bret had been trying to scare her. Another mark against him.
She took the shortest shower on record and headed for the dining room.
The scene bore an eerie resemblance to yesterday's breakfast. Bret stood, half eaten biscuit in hand, pointing to a map stuck to the wall while the men looked on intently. Mindy guessed that this was an every-morning routine.
He looked incredible. For an instant she let herself wonder why he'd become a gigolo, and why he’d chosen such an inhospitable part of the world to do it in. A west Texas ranch is worth something, but half the land she’d passed looked abandoned. The odds of striking it rich had to be better in New York or Los Angeles. With his chiseled face, rock-hard body, and the leadership she saw the hands responding to, he could have been anything.
None of the men, she noticed, bothered to look up when she walked into the room; she didn't even warrant a frown from Bret. Evidently yesterday had accounted for her fifteen minutes of fame at Babbage Ranch.
"Any questions?" Bret asked the men.
Shaking heads and the stuffing of whatever they could find on the table into pockets and pouches followed.
"Perhaps our new co-owner would like to add a few words of encouragement," Bret said.
He hadn't missed her entrance after all.
"Uh. Since I don't know what you're doing today, I don't think I have a lot to offer."
That got her the actual beginnings of a smile from Bret. He enjoyed seeing her squirm.
"Then that's it, men. We need to know how much we lost in that storm. Sharon, make sure you stay within listening distance of the radio and forward regular reports. We can't afford to do this twice."
Sharon nodded.
Bret looked around, then grabbed his hat from the chair. As if this were the signal, all the other cowboys stood and clomped out of the house. In a few moments, the harsh roar of all- terrain vehicles filled the air. Bret, along with one of the other men, climbed into a pickup. Mindy watched through the dining room window. He gave her a jaunty wave as he headed out.
"I guess it's just the two of us today," Mindy said to Sharon.
"Leave me out of it," Sharon replied as she began clearing the dishes. "You heard Bret. He wants me near the radio."
So much for friendly chit-chat.
"Do you have a list of the places the ranch has accounts with?" Mindy asked.
"Yeah. Why?"
"As half owner, I think it's my responsibility to know what's going on. Do you have a problem with that?"
Sharon backed down. "No problem. I'll print you out a copy."
Sharon stepped into Bret's office, fired up an ancient PC and loaded a spreadsheet.
"Bret doesn't like anyone to come in here," Sharon told her.
"I can understand that," Mindy agreed straightfacedly. Bank robbers probably didn't like it when people came and watched them at work either. "I guess he'll have to put up with the disappointment, because I'm going to be living in here until I figure out what's really going on."
"Here's your list." Sharon handed her a torn off sheet of pin fed paper.
"Thanks."
****
Something had changed. Bret rubbed his tired eyes and looked at the house.
It wasn't his imagination. When he had left that morning, the house had been colored a dark beige by dust that had adhered to it after the storm. Now the moonlight glistened off freshly painted walls.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Mindy met him as he pushed his way into the house. "Take off your boots. I had the carpets shampooed." She gave him a smug smile. The streak of paint across her nose made her look cute rather than stunning, but he decided not to point it out to her right then. Besides, he actually kind of liked it on her. It made her a little more approachable.
"I don't think I asked for advice on my attire, but maybe I didn't make my question clear. What--have--you--done--to--the--house?"
She held her hands out from her body and spun around, a huge smile on her face. "It's amazing what a little soap and fresh paint do to a place, isn't it?"
"Amazing," he said. "Are you going to tell me what you're up to, or am I supposed to guess?" He tried to stay calm. Getting mad at Mindy made as much sense as getting mad at the dust storm. Like the storm, she was a boundless source of directionless energy. Right now, he wasn't sure which was more annoying, or more destructive.
"Oh, no. It wouldn't do to challenge our intellects by guessing, would it?" she shot back. "Let me explain. I had the ranch house exterior painted and the carpets shampooed." She spoke slowly, mimicking the way he'd repeated his question.
"Only the exterior? I'm surprised that you didn't have the inside painted while you were at it." Where had she gotten the money to pull this kind of stunt?"
"I thought about it. Then I took a closer look. Do you know that, underneath about ten layers of paint, this place still has the original wallpaper? I thought, why not return to that earlier look. So I found something that nearly matches the original paper and I bought thirty rolls. That should last us for a while. When we run out, we can order more. It's great. Next, I'm going to do something about the bathrooms. I can't believe how bad they are."
"You just happened to have the money for all of this lying around, right?" He abandoned the effort to hide his sarcasm.
"Of course not. I put it on the ranch's account."
Bret forced himself to take a deep breath. Even if she'd gotten a crew to work for minimum wage, paint and labor had to add up to hundreds of dollars. More likely, thousands. Of course Mindy probably got taken to the cleaners by the local workmen. The wallpaper would be hundreds more, but maybe he could return that.
"You never thought to ask my opinion?" he demanded. I'm the one who owns the other half of this ranch. Remember?"
"Just like you've been consulting me on your ranch management, right?" Mindy replied. "Get real. You're doing the best you can to make this place unsalable. I say tough. I intend to find out what it's really worth and get it. Then if you still want to make me an offer, more power to you."
He resisted the urge to strangle her; it wouldn't set a good example for the hands. "Bankrupting the place is a strange way to maximize its value."
"If a few hundred dollars worth of paint and wallpaper are going to put this place under, you'd be a fool to offer me seventy-five thousand. Face facts, Bret. I'm onto you. You'll have to come up with a better move if you want to stay in the game."
