He’d only been gone three days, but his heart was back at Lightning Ridge. He wanted his own bed and Dotty’s chocolate cake. He didn’t give a rat’s ass if his grandmother hired a dozen women. If that made her happy, then he’d write the paychecks out of his personal account, but when the permanent hire was put on the ranch payroll, he wanted someone who could protect those four elderly women. He’d rest easy if he hired someone who could pick one of them up and carry them to the hospital if they fell and broke a hip while walking into the ice cream store.
He sat down in the bleachers with his bidding card and took his phone out of his pocket. “Nana, how old was you when you wrote all those letters to that soldier?” he asked when she answered his call.
“I was a senior in high school and I read the letter that got stuck in the mailbox. In it he says that he’s got something important to ask me when I get out there to his ranch. We’d talked about me riding the bus out there when he got out of the service and I got out of school that summer. I really thought I was in love with him and he was about to ask me to marry him,” she said.
“And you never met him?” Greg asked.
“I have a picture of him in my box of letters up in the attic,” she said. “But I never did actually meet him or even hear his voice. We didn’t make phone calls in those days like we do now.”
“You kept letters from another man after you married Grandpa?” he gasped.
Clarice laughed. “Yes, I did. That part of my life had been over for two years, but I couldn’t throw those letters away. I took them to the burning barrel just before I married your grandpa, but something wouldn’t let me throw them in the fire. So I tied them up with some bailing twine and put them in the attic. I’d forgotten about them until today. Emily has her grandfather’s eyes.”
“How do you know that, Nana? Is the picture you have in color?”
“No, but I can tell they are blue and he told me they were,” Clarice said.
“This is just for a month, right?” Greg asked.
“Yes, it is. Did you buy that bull?”
“It’s the next one up on the block. How high should I go?” he answered.
“The sky is the limit. I trust your judgment,” she said.
That was Nana’s way of saying that he should trust her as well. If she and Dotty wanted to go on a monthlong cruise around the world, he would have booked it without so much as blinking. So if she wanted to hire Emily to drive her around and help out on the ranch for a month, then he wouldn’t fight her.
“Okay, then. And Nana, make Emily an offer she can’t refuse. It would be nice for you to have someone to take you and the ladies to all your beauty shop appointments and auxiliary meetings. Time to start bidding. I’ll see you late tomorrow night.”
“I love you, Greg. Drive careful now, and when you get home, don’t turn that bull loose in the pasture until I get a good look at him,” Clarice said.
Emily sat cross-legged in the middle of a king-sized bed in her hotel room and opened up her laptop. She typed Lightning Ridge Ranch into the search engine and immediately a link came up for the ranch website. There was a picture of Greg with a foot propped on a rail fence, one of Clarice sitting on the porch swing, but she wore a pretty flowing skirt and sweater instead of jeans and boots, and one of a whole pasture of Black Angus cattle. It had a page that told all about the cattle sale in the fall; how many cow and calf combinations, bulls and steers they’d sold. Yes, sir, it was a big operation; ten times the size of her ranch when it was at its prime. It would swallow up the little hundred acres that she had these days.
She flipped back to Greg’s picture. She stared at him so long without blinking that the image became fuzzy. What was it about him that made her heart flutter around in her chest? Was it the eyes?
She pushed the laptop to one side, picked up the remote, and hit the power button. The CMT channel popped up with a video of “I Feel a Sin Comin’ On” by the Pistol Annies. The volume was so loud that at first she didn’t hear her phone ring. It was the flickering light on the nightstand that caught her attention. She rolled to one side and grabbed it, answering without even checking the caller ID.
“Do I hear Miranda Lambert?” Taylor asked.
“Yes, you do.” Emily pressed the mute button on the remote.
“Did you find the lady that the letters belonged to? I bet you are in Louisiana tonight, aren’t you?” Taylor asked.
Emily sighed. “I did find Clarice and she’s offered me a job for a month. Her grandson has been after her to hire an assistant. Someone to help with the computerized ranch stuff, payroll, taxes, and then help drive her and her friends around when they need to go places. I think she just wants to hear more about Gramps, but I’m thinking about stayin’ on. You’ll never believe what happened right smack off the bat when I rang the doorbell.”
“You are shittin’ me,” Taylor stammered. “If you want to ranch, come on home.”
“I promised Gramps I’d take a whole month. And after all the times you’ve teased me with dead mice, I figured you’d get a kick out of that story.”
“You also promised him that you’d sell me the final hundred acres if you found something else you wanted to do. I don’t see that happenin’, the way you’ve hung on to this last parcel like a bulldog with an old ham bone. And darlin’, I hate cats, but I could kiss that old yellow critter for that trick. And since they’ve got mice on that ranch, don’t you think you better get on back here to God’s country, where you belong?” Taylor asked.
“To begin with, all ranches have mice. And I’d kiss a mouse on the nose before you’d kiss a cat. And about sellin’ the ranch, it ain’t never goin’ to happen, Taylor. I’m not selling the last of Shine Canyon to you. And those promises go two ways, remember. You have to sell my land back to me a hundred acres at a time as I get the money saved up. My roots are firmly planted in that dirt out there. I’ll be home in a month.” She could visualize his dark brows knitting together in a fine line over his light blue eyes. “Are you lighting up a cigarette? I swear, they’re going to give you cancer just like they did Gramps.”
“He was eighty years old,” Taylor said.
Emily heard the click of a cigarette lighter and then the whoosh as Taylor blew out a stream.
“If I come home will you quit smoking?” she asked.
“If you’ll come on back to Happy, I’ll think about it,” he answered.
“Gramps said I was supposed to take a month and figure out what I really wanted before I make a decision. I reckon I can do that working for Clarice as well as I can sitting on a sandbar. Besides, I heard it rains a lot during this time of year in Florida. You won’t quit until you are ready anyway, so don’t be usin’ your smokin’ as blackmail,” she said.
“I knew you couldn’t survive a whole month away from the smell of hay and cattle any more than I can survive a whole day without a cigarette,” he said between puffs.
“I don’t want to watch you die like Gramps did,” Emily begged.
Another click of a lighter and Taylor said, “I know, darlin’. And I promise I’ll quit on my thirtieth birthday. You know I keep my promises always, and I’ll be thirty next fall, so how’s that?”
“If that’s what I can have, then I’ll take it. Taylor, I have to do this. Please understand, but also know that I meant it when I said my roots are in the land out there. I could never leave it completely or I’d wither up and die. I just need this month to regroup,” she said.
“I know, and it’s okay. This dirt, it ain’t goin’ nowhere. It’ll be right here when you come home, and you’ll have family around you to help you settle those roots even deeper.”
Emily swallowed hard to get the baseball-sized lump out of her throat, but she kept the tears at bay. “I’ll call every couple of days. Things all right out there?”
“It’s fine, Em. I’ll look for you to be home by calving season, or else sell this place to me. I brought Old Bill and the other dogs over here to our place so I don’t have to go over there and feed them every day,” he said.
“Thank you, Taylor,” she said.
“Night, honey,” he said.
Emily pushed the button to hang up and laid the phone beside her on the bed. She could always depend on Taylor and Dusty to help her, and she could take a job in Amarillo for a steady income to supplement growing a few calves and as many acres of alfalfa as she could plant. There was comfort in knowing that.
***
By mid-morning Greg and his big black bull were just inside the Conroe city limits sign. He fished his phone from his shirt pocket and punched in Jeremiah’s business number.
“Conroe Investigative Services, may I help you?” a feminine voice asked.
“Could I speak with Jeremiah please? This is Greg Adams.”
“I’ll patch you right through to him. He’s been expecting your call.”
In seconds Jeremiah’s big booming voice came through the phone. “Hey, what’s happenin’? Mama said you might call today because you’d be comin’ through town. Got time for coffee? I’ll meet you out at the coffee shop on the highway.”
His size, looks, and voice didn’t match. He was short, bald-headed, and slightly overweight, but his voice made him ten feet tall, bulletproof, and movie-star handsome. In a crowd there wasn’t one thing that made him stand out from anyone else. Maybe that’s what made him such a damn fine private investigator.
“I know just the one you’re talkin’ about. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Greg said.
Greg parked behind the coffee shop where they’d made room for a couple of semitrucks, and Jeremiah pulled his dark SUV in beside him. Greg shook the legs of his jeans down over his boots. Jeremiah adjusted the collar of his black knit shirt and pulled on a black leather jacket.
“You still don’t look mean even in black leather.” Greg laughed.
“Well, you just barely look like a cowboy even in boots and a Stetson. It’s good to see you. Been a while.”
They didn’t shake hands but did a man-hug in the middle of the parking lot.
“Dotty fusses that you don’t come home often enough,” Greg said as they headed inside the shop.
“I hear it on a regular basis. Don’t tell Mama, but I’ve got a girlfriend. She’d have me married with three kids and the president of the PTA within twenty-four hours.” Jeremiah laughed.
Greg stepped up to the counter and ordered two black coffees. “You still drink it the right way? You haven’t gone all double latte with skim milk, have you?”
“Still drink it black.” Jeremiah nodded. “I talked to Mama last night. She told me a story about your nana and an old boyfriend’s letters. Clarice has offered the girl who brought her the letters a job at the ranch.”
They found a table in the corner and sat down across from each other.
“Nana needs someone to help her. She’s eighty and we don’t let her drive anymore. It was tough on her to let her license expire, but she’d had three fender benders and I was afraid the next one wouldn’t just be a fender bender. It’s only for a month, and then she’ll see how nice it was and let me hire some real help,” Greg explained.
“Givin’ up her driver’s license was the toughest thing Mama did. I think it was even worse than giving up the bourbon.” Jeremiah chuckled. “I’ll be home for the church bazaar, and I’m bringing Stacy to meet Mama. I want to surprise her.”
“And you don’t want to listen to all that sentimental shit between now and then, right?” Greg laughed with him.
“Women! And the older they get the worse it is. Everything has to do with the heart and little with the head,” Jeremiah said.
“Says the man who is bringing home a woman to meet Mama.”
“Man, you know what I’m talkin’ about. You’re the one who’s going to be living with three women in the house now.”
“Three?”
“Clarice offered room and board with the job. I haven’t talked to Mama this morning, so I don’t know if she took the job or not. She’s a looker, though. Mama sent a picture of her. Pretty blue eyes,” Jeremiah said.
“And your new woman? She got blue eyes?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes they’re green. Naturally they are gorgeous brown.”
Greg cocked his head to one side.
“Contacts. She matches them to her mood. I don’t mess with her when she has green eyes. I just find something to do outside the office and leave it with her.” Jeremiah smiled again.
“So she’s your new secretary?”
Jeremiah nodded. “Six months now.”
“Is that a record?”
Jeremiah’s head bobbed again. “Oh, yeah, by a whole week. I think I’m in love.”
“You better know you’re in love before you bring her home, because you will be afterward.”
“Crazy ain’t it, the way we love those two old gals? Love ’em like they are our real mamas.”
Greg held out his cup and Jeremiah tapped his to it. “I was always more at home on the ranch than in Houston.”
“And I was a sinkin’ ship when Mama jerked me up by the collar and took me in after my real mama died,” Jeremiah said.
***
Nothing was as beautiful as a sunset in Ravenna, Texas. Bright yellow laced with orange, sprinkled with a bit of hot pink and some baby blue. No artist’s palette could ever string the colors together the way that nature did when the sun set out over the bare mesquite trees and scrub oaks.
Greg parked his truck out by the barn and jogged all the way to the house. He took the stairs two at a time. Cooking smells filling the house promised that Dotty had kept her word and made his favorite meal, which included hot yeast rolls and Southern fried chicken. But he flat-out had to hit the bathroom.
No one waited in the foyer when he started back down, so evidently he’d managed to sneak in without anyone knowing. He tiptoed across the foyer, leaned on the doorjamb leading into the dining room, and waited in the shadows.
Nana and Dotty’s voices drifted from the kitchen where they argued about whether it was time to pour the gravy in the bowl. Dotty said cold gravy was terrible and she hadn’t cooked all damn day for supper to be spoiled by putting it on the table too soon.
Nana said that he should be driving up any second. And then Emily carried a bowl of salad to the dining room table and Greg’s chest tightened. The picture did not do her a bit of justice. She was shorter than he’d imagined. Her waist nipped in above rounded hips, and her hair was so black that the light from the dining room chandelier gave it a deep blue cast. But it was her blue eyes and those kissable lips that kept him from blinking until his eyes went dry.
***
Emily hadn’t noticed a picture of Greg in the dining room, but there must be one sitting somewhere because she felt his eyes on her. A shiver danced down her spine as she scanned the buffet and the shelf above the archway for a photograph, but she didn’t see one. The only time in her entire life that she’d had a feeling like that was in the living room the day before and in the bedroom where his picture sat on the chest of drawers. So somewhere tucked away was a picture of Greg Adams. She had no doubt about it. She just had to find it.
It might be in the kitchen. Maybe on the refrigerator door that was covered with so many multicolored sticky notes that it looked like a circus tent. Dotty said that the pink ones were recipes, the yellow ones at the top were important messages, the ones at the bottom weren’t so important, the green ones were cute little sayings that she and Clarice liked, and the purple ones were… hell’s bells, she couldn’t remember what the purple ones were. Evidently everyone in the house had a sticky note fetish. Did she need to rush down to the office supply store and buy several dollars’ worth? She’d glanced at the notes but feared that it might be rude to read through them.
“Greg! You rascal,” Clarice squealed after she’d set the butter dish on the table. She dashed over to the door with her arms wide open and he picked her up and swung her around the room.
Clarice giggled like a girl. “You snuck in on us.”
“I came in the front door,” he said.
“Come and meet Emily,” Clarice said.
Emily couldn’t take her eyes off the cowboy. He was taller than she’d thought he would be, but there was no doubt by the swagger and the drawl that he was pure cowboy, not one of those wannabes that dressed up on Saturday night in boots and belt buckles to go to the local honky-tonk with hopes of getting lucky.
The vibes coming off him were like long, warm tendrils finding their way into her cold heart to warm it back to life. She imagined it turning from blue to a nice healthy pink inside her chest. She’d barely caught her breath when he set Clarice on her feet and crossed the room in a few long strides, his hand out.
“Pleased to meet you, Emily,” he said.
She put her hand in his. “Likewise.”
Time stood still. The clock hands didn’t move. Clarice became a statue. The sun hung on the horizon. Nothing moved.
“Nana said you decided to take the job,” he drawled and let go of her hand.
“Why did you come in the front door? Where’s the new bull?” Clarice asked.
In an instant, things were back to normal. At least everything but the feeling that Emily was dreaming and that she’d wake up any minute in west Texas.