Jacob asked his daughter. Kittie had a thing for red licorice. He’d bet a thousand bucks she’d filled her duffel bag with the revolting stuff.
She just stuck out her chin.
“The lanterns are rechargeable,” Burt went on. “Bring them to the mess tent in the morning if they need a charge, otherwise you’ll be taking care of business in the dark. No candles—it isn’t safe. Flashlights are okay if you’ve got ’em. The bathrooms and laundry and other facilities are in the buildings to the left, and the mess tent is over there.” He pointed to a large tent with smoke rising behind it. “Folks are mostly gathered for supper already—we start serving in thirty minutes.”
“Thanks, we’ll be there.”
“No hurry,” Burt said. “Take your time and get comfortable. We don’t stand on formality.” With a short nod, he ambled toward the ranch house.
Jacob shot a look at Kittie. She’d assumed her defiant attitude, apparently having recovered from Reid Weston’s snubbing remark.
“I’m not shoveling any horse poop,” she announced and disappeared into her side of the tent.
* * *
MARIAH WESTON STALKED into the ranch house and slammed the door. She leaned against it and took several deep breaths.
“Problems, dear?” asked her grandmother.
“Nothing a two-by-four making contact with a certain cowboy’s privates wouldn’t fix. Hurt a guy where he lives and maybe you’ll get his attention.”
Dr. Elizabeth Grant Weston smiled resignedly. “Lincoln must have broken another heart.”
“Yes. We have yet another departing guest who hoped Lincoln had fallen in love with her and wanted to get married. For crying out loud, Linc keeps a supply of condoms in his shirt pocket! It’s pretty obvious what his intentions are. Did she really think he was going to change his ways and decide that wearing a wedding ring is better than being a carefree bachelor?”
“It’s been known to happen.”
“Cowboys don’t change—they just get older and stop having luck with the opposite sex.”
“Goodness, you’re in a mood today.”
“Can you blame me? I found Ms. Bingham smoking in one of the barns, so upset she almost set fire to the place.”
Elizabeth frowned. “Oh, dear. We don’t allow smoking. I wish we could extend the ban to chewing tobacco, but the ranch hands practically mutinied on the no-smoking rule.”
“I reminded her about the rules when I grabbed the cigarette and doused the smoldering hay. She apologized and the whole story spilled out in a hysterical swoop. Lucky me. I guess she just needed to tell someone. Linc always breaks things off at the last minute, but the women usually don’t take it this hard. Why are people so blind?”
“Patience, dear,” her grandmother urged.
Mariah rubbed her aching temples.
Patience wasn’t one of her strongest qualities. She did well with animals, not so great with people. Animals were straightforward; their emotions weren’t illogical. She felt sorry for Diane Bingham, but she honestly wondered how the woman could have imagined things working out with a cowboy. Diane was a born-and-bred city dweller with a taste for fast cars, sushi bars and nightclubs. She’d come to Montana on a whim and nearly gone crazy with the quiet before getting hot and heavy with Linc.
Linc had grown up on a horse, had never lived in a town with more than five hundred residents, probably thought sushi had something to do with sex and drove a decrepit truck from the 1970s that couldn’t reach fifty on a paved road.
The difference between ranchers and cowhands and most people was just too big. You might have a casual vacation affair, but you never expected it to become permanent. Mariah had learned that when she was fifteen and discovered that summer promises were too easily shattered...along with hearts.
Elizabeth patted her arm. “I’ll have your grandfather speak with Linc.”
“No, it’s okay, Ms. Bingham admitted Linc didn’t make any promises. But from now on he’s only working with family groups. We’ll keep him so busy that his sorry ass is too tired to do more than crawl into bed.”
“That’s usually where the trouble starts,” Elizabeth said drily.
“Don’t remind me. And they say country dwellers are naive. Is Reid in the office?”
“I think so. I just got home myself.”
Mariah headed to the back of the house, weary though it was only the beginning of the season and she ought to be brimming with energy. Ranching wasn’t easy. There were droughts, floods, lightning storms, disease, harsh winters, ornery cattle, unstable beef prices and a wealth of other problems to juggle. Yet those problems seemed minor compared to managing a bunch of greenhorn visitors and cowboy wranglers.
“Hey, Reid,” she said, stepping into the office. Their parents had converted a storage room into work space when they’d started the ranch vacation business. Originally they’d needed only a phone, a desk and a file cabinet, but the business had changed over the years, as had technology. Now the office was cramped with the newest equipment.
“Hey,” her brother said absently. He was bent over a book, reading intently.
“Studying?”
“Not exactly.” He looked up and pushed back from the old desk. “The travel agency phoned while you were out. Amy is waiting for the computer repair service to arrive, so I cross-checked the reservations that came in this week to be sure they were confirmed.”
“I appreciate your doing that, but I could have taken care of it later and let her know,” Mariah murmured. “Amy works evenings.”
Amy Lindstrom was a neighbor and ran her agency from home, largely through the internet. Initially it had stung Mariah to be charged for a job she could have kept handling herself, but Amy had significantly increased the U-2’s bookings.
“Yeah, well, you can’t do it all. By the way, I saw that new kid you said was coming,” Reid said. “She’s a real piece of work, and her dad is wearing a fancy suit and tie. I’ll bet his clothes cost more than a prize horse and wouldn’t last an hour riding fence lines.”
“I talked to Burt and he mentioned you’d met the O’Donnells. Just do your best and remember they won’t be here forever,” Mariah said, the same way she’d told him for years. The thing was, Reid was sixteen going on forty. He didn’t appreciate city people wanting a taste of Western living, except those city people were the difference between the U-2 turning a profit or going deeper into debt each year.
The U-2 was a working ranch, owned and operated by the Weston family for six generations. Paying guests worked along with everyone else—not as hard as a ranch hand, and always under the care of a wrangler, but they worked. It was all about the romance of the West and being part of it for a while.
“Sis, they’re from Seattle.” Reid knotted his fists.
Mariah’s heart ached, recalling
