“Full of life.”
“Yeah.” The word didn't come out quite right. She'd planned it to sound cool and cosmopolitan, but her tone had a rough edge to it. “Yeah, she was that.”
“Stuff happens, right?” he said and shifted his arm a little, settling it cautiously against his ribs.
“Yeah, but . . .” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “. . . It was . . . you know . . . a long time ago now.”
“Sure,” he said and drew a deep breath. He sounded tired. “So I hear your boyfriend's a doctor.”
“Fiancé,” she corrected.
“Right. So what happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Ace student like you, I always thought
you'd
be the one with the MD after your name. Or maybe a DVM.”
Doctor of veterinary medicine. That had once been her dream, but Bradley thought she could do better. Large animal vets were notoriously overworked and underpaid. “Once Bradley gets his feet on the ground, he'll put me through school.”
Dickenson stared at her in silence for a moment before nodding and canting up his lips. “So then it'll be Dr. and Dr . . .” He paused, lifted a brow in question.
She scowled at him a second before catching his meaning. “Oh . . . Hooper,” she supplied.
“So you're giving up your ranch
and
your name?”
“I'm not giving anything up,” she said, her tone too antagonistic. “I'mâ”
“Just let me off here.” He nodded toward the cottonwood near the intersection. “No need to go any farther.”
“I'm not giving anything up,” she repeated. “I'm gaining something.”
“Sure,” he said, and pumping the handle twice, managed to wrench the door open with his left hand. “Hey, thanks for the ride, Case. Just let me know if you need any help. I'll be home for a while.”
“Yeah.” She pursed her lips and lied, not thinking about warm summer nights and strawberry wine poached by lanky teenagers. Once upon a time she'd been far too young to know that opposites might attract, but they would always make each other miserable. “Yeah. I'll do that.”
C
HAPTER
3
A
half mile later the Chevy's single headlight made a wide sweep as Casie turned onto the Lazy Windmill's bumpy lane. A piebald border collie slunk out from beneath the porch. An untilled garden, weathered outbuildings, and a house that listed noticeably southward appeared briefly before they were lost again in the anonymous darkness. A half dozen Hereford heifers could be seen peering at her from the cattle yards. After saving them from the neighbor's bloat-inducing alfalfa for the second time since Clayton's funeral, she'd confined them there to prevent further trouble. But they were running low on hay now and would need their fences mended before they could be turned out on fresh grass. Their eyes shone as red as the deer's in Puke's single headlamp. Their breath appeared as frosted quotation bubbles as she stepped out of the truck.
Jack reared up, bumping Casie's hand with his wet nose, reminding her again that the dog missed Clayton. She wondered vaguely if, despite the chasm of unspoken discomfort that had always existed between them, she did, too.
By the time she opened the trailer door, the mare had pivoted to face backward but made no move to disembark. Finding the abandoned twine on the floor, Casie placed it back around the animal's scrawny throatlatch and tugged.
The old gray stepped stiffly down, glanced around the darkened yard, then shuffled quietly in her person's wake toward the barn.
Feeling along the post to the right of the wide-flung, listing doors, Cassandra found the switch and turned on the lights. Only half a dozen bulbs had survived the dearth of attention since her father's decline, but that was enough to illuminate the rubbish stowed in every nook and cranny. The flotsam of the past several years had been discarded in heaps: a decrepit washing machine, two broken hoes, five lethal rolls of rusty barbed wire, and a host of old farm equipment.
The building was divided in two by a tall wooden fence. On the far side a couple dozen cows licked their newborns or ruminated quietly about life. One or two pushed their rumps in the air, then rose to their feet, glancing nervously at the horse before rumbling low warnings to their snoozing offspring. As for the mare, she took it all in without flinching, although the goat's welcoming bleat gave her pause.
Five molting chickens and one snooty goose flapped from the warmth of the Nubian's hairless back as he bobbled to his little split hooves. Grinning, he gazed at Casie from his tiny enclosure, hoping for an early breakfast, late supper, or any snack in between. Casie had learned four months earlier that the folklore regarding goats' appetites could not be completely dismissed. They would eat almost anything, tin cans not entirely out of the question.
“That's Al,” she said and urged the mare past the goat and his irritated entourage. “He's just here until that alopecia problem clears up.” Of course, he'd been there for nearly half a year with no improvement in the condition of his follicles thus far.
But that wouldn't be the situation with the horse. She had just bought the old plug to foil Dickenson and his fat buddy's sadistic plans. In a couple weeks, when the mare had put on a few pounds, Casie would find her a new home. Until then, of course, she'd need somewhere to stay. Luckily, Chip's old stall near the back of the barn was still reasonably sound.
Tugging the animal inside the twelve-by-twelve-foot pen, Cassandra latched the door and found a salvageable bucket in a pile of almost indistinguishable rubble. Rinsing it from a hydrant that remained miraculously intact, she filled the pail with fresh water before depositing it on the crusty bedding.
“Don't eat that stuff,” she warned, but the mare was nothing if not a survivor and had already lowered her head to do so. “Don't . . .” she began again, then hurried out of the stall and rummaged around until she found a mouse-chewed halter. Lengthening it to its last notch, she slipped it behind the horse's impressive ears and tied her to an eyebolt in the wall before searching for hay. Twenty grassy bales lay moldering in a dark corner.
She cracked the nearest one open. It was less than perfect, but certainly better than the mare was accustomed to. After shoving a quarter of it into a hay bag, Casie hung it from the wall.
In a minute the horse was munching, head cocked a little to the right. The angle suggested dental issues. Cassandra winced. Wonderful. She was going to have to sell her body at the local Whoa and Go in exchange for a loaf of bread, and the horse needed an endodontist.
But right now, she'd best get that moldy straw cleared away or she'd be dealing with colic and a host of other issues.
A half hour later, the stall was mucked and bedded. The mare, Bones, as Casie referred to her in her mind, was settled in, looking contented if a little surprised at this sudden change of fortune.
The sound of her masticating timothy was unexpectedly soothing, sparking a little flame of warmth in Casie's chest. But it was late and she was exhausted.
Finally, she trudged up the hill to the old farmhouse. The porch creaked as she crossed it. She stepped through the doorway and refused to let the circle of mold on the ceiling of the tiny foyer depress her as she wandered into the kitchen.
Come morning she would . . .
The phone rang, startling her from her plans. Nerves jangled through her. Who would call so late at night?
“Hello?”
“Cassandra?”
“Bradley! What's wrong?”
“Nothing's wrong,” he said, but she didn't believe him. She'd been in crisis mode ever since her mother's lymphoma years before and couldn't seem to switch tracks.
“Why are you calling so late?”
“I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Why?” Her tone was breathy with worry, but it wasn't as though she didn't trust him. Eighteen months was a long time to carry a grudge, and he'd promised never to stray again. The girl meant nothing to him . . . a one-night stand, really, and he and Casie had been at odds for weeks. Not that it had been
her
fault. But maybe if she had been more attentive . . .
“Because I miss you,” he said. For a moment his tone was reminiscent of the weeks following his confession, the weeks when he had tried so hard to win her back. Once the battle was won, things had returned to normal . . . but of course they would. That's why it was called normal. “I've been trying to reach you for hours. Where have you been?”
A sliver of guilt sliced through her both for her lack of trust and her newly acquired mare. She dropped stiffly into the nearest chair. “I took some tack in to sell at the auction.”
“Tack?” Bradley was unabashedly
city,
having spent most of his formative years in Philadelphia.
“A couple old saddles, show halters. That sort of thing.”
“Oh. Good. Did you get a decent price?”
Her stomach pinched up a little, reminding her she hadn't eaten since breakfast. “They hadn't sold yet when I left.”
“So the auction's tomorrow?”
She fiddled with the grimy telephone cord. Barring an act of Congress, Clayton hadn't been one to go for newfangled ideas like cordless phones or anything involving a satellite. Electricity was lucky to have found its way on to the Lazy. “No, it was tonight. It's just that I . . .” She glanced toward the door, imagining the gray mare being dragged about the sales ring like a decrepit old shoe. “I didn't want to stay any longer.”
“Merchandise usually sells better if someone's on hand to brag it up a little.” Five years her senior, Bradley had been in pharmaceutical sales before being accepting into medical school at the University of Minnesota.
“I suppose,” she said and drew a deep breath. “But there was this horse . . .”
“It was a livestock auction?”
“Yeah, the horses sell before the tack.”
“You didn't come home with another goat, did you?” The humor in his voice was edged with something a little sharper. Which was fair, of course; no one in her right mind needs a hairless goat, even if said Nubian did smile like a happy cherub when you brought him cabbage leaves.
“No . . .”
“That's good, because it's going to be hard enough getting rid of the animals you've already accumulated . . . and rent's due.”
“I know.”
“How long do you think it'll be before you can sell the farm?”
She didn't say anything for a second.
“Cassandra?”
“I'm not sure.”
“Have you found a realtor yet?”
She'd wrapped the coiled telephone cord around her pinky finger and regarded it studiously. “No. Not yet.”
He paused momentarily. “I know it's hard, Cass, and I wish I could be there to help you through this, but these rotations are murder. And your dad's been gone for weeks now. It's time to move on.”
Her stomach churned. “I need to get the place cleaned up before I can list it.”
“Isn't that what you've been doing?”
“Yes, but there's so much more to be done.” She hadn't been entirely forthcoming about Clayton's decline, even to Bradley. “The house needs a lot of repairs. Not to mention the fences andâ”
“Cass . . .”
She paused.
“Let's think about this logically.” He was using his patient father voice.
“About what?”
“The house. The property. How long did your parents live there?”
“I don't know.” She scowled, recalling her fuzzy first memories. Standing up in her high chair to see if she'd grown since dinner. Riding bareback on a potbellied pony. Her mother had been a barrel racer in her youth. Maybe she had even hoped her daughter would follow in her footsteps, but speed made Casie nervous. She'd been far better suited for the control needed for horsemanship, western pleasure, or other, more sedate, events. “It's been in the family a long time.”
“But your parents . . . they had it for thirty years, right? Maybe more?”
“Yeah. So?” Her stomach felt queasy.
“And Clayton died broke.”
“Times are hard, Bradley. Sinceâ”
“To hear your dad talk, times were always hard, Cass. While the rest of the world was investing and expanding and building portfolios, he was struggling just to stay afloat. I'm not saying it was his fault,” he added, but his tone suggested otherwise.
“What are you saying?” A little irritation had crept into her tone. Which was weird. She wasn't the one to be defending her father. She wasn't even sure she had
liked
her father. Neither was she certain he had liked
her
. But it had been her duty to help him out when he'd needed it. She'd tried to explain that to Brad a dozen times.
“I'm saying I don't believe anyone can make a decent living on that farm. Not in the traditional sense anyway. I think you should consider the possibility that no one's going to want to live in that house. No one's going to want to nickel-and-dime it on a couple hundred cattle and a few acres of barley.”
“Wheat,” she said.
“What?”
“We raise . . .” she began, but a noise from the basement startled her.
“Cass?”
“Yes?” She'd entirely forgotten about the lambs. Number 427 had given birth to triplets, not a number any rancher desired. Twins were best, but the young ewe had only wanted one of the three. So Casie had bundled the shivering twosome inside her coat and carted them into the basement.
“What's wrong?” Brad asked.
“Nothing. I'm just tired.” And the lambs were awake now. Awake and raising a ruckus.
“What's that noise?”
She considered lying, then felt horrible about it. Why would she lie? It wasn't as if she should feel guilty for Number 427's lack of maternal instincts. “The lambs are hungry.”
“Lambs?”
“I'm bottle-feeding a couple of newborns.”
“In the house?”
She closed her eyes and rubbed them with her left hand. “It'll just be for a day or two, but it was raining when they were born, and sheep don't tolerate wet conditions as well as cattle or horses orâ”
He laughed. “My God,” he said. “I've got rounds in the morning and a colonoscopy in the afternoon, but listen, don't worry about finding a realtor.”
Luckily, the cord reached the kitchen sink, allowing Casie to fill a bowl with powdered milk replacer and warm water. “I'm going to sell the place, Bradley. Really I am. I justâ”
“Of course you are. You're not an idiot. In fact, according to your GRE scores you're almost on par with me. But it sounds like you've got your hands full, so I'll make a few phone calls.”