sighed. “I’ll never be too busy for rodeo. I’m hoping to go pro when I graduate.” She loaded up plates and glasses on one arm. “What can I get you two to drink?”
Caroline asked for water, Ford ordered a soda and Angie went on her way, which left them facing each other across the table. “Glad to be back in town?” Caroline asked him.
He gave a rueful smile. “Something of a challenge, I admit. The locals are ready to plan your life out for you, aren’t they?”
“Oh, yes. Not to mention telling you exactly what you did wrong in the past.”
“But surely you don’t hear that often. You were everybody’s favorite rodeo queen.”
She rolled her eyes and frowned. “Hardly.”
“Oh, definitely. That’s how I remember you—prom queen, homecoming queen, rodeo queen.” Her expression didn’t lighten. “You won all the votes, every time.” For good reason, since she’d been the prettiest girl in the school.
Not to mention the daughter of one of the richest ranchers in Johnson County. “Is your mother doing well? Your brother still riding bulls?” He wouldn’t bring up her dad. They were likely to have very different perspectives on George Donnelly.
She met his gaze, and he was surprised to see sadness in her eyes. “I haven’t talked to Reid for...a while. My mom says he’s doing okay, but will be retiring from the rodeo pretty soon to come back and work on the ranch with Daddy.”
“That’ll be...interesting.” As much as he enjoyed working with his own family, Ford didn’t envy Caroline’s brother a life with his father as his boss. His own dad had spent ten faithful years working at the Donnelly ranch and, from what Ford remembered, George Donnelly had been a tough taskmaster.
He also remembered how, just months after his mom’s death, Donnelly had fired his dad without a second thought. The resulting downward spiral had cost him and his brothers their remaining parent. Though Donnelly couldn’t logically be held responsible for his dad becoming an alcoholic and killing himself in a car accident two years later, his indifference certainly hadn’t improved the situation.
But the Marshall boys had turned out just fine without anybody’s help. Wyatt’s strong hand and determination had seen them through. In the end, the only people you could rely on were your family.
“Working with my dad is a challenge,” Caroline said, in an unexpected echo of Ford’s thoughts. “I’m not sure Reid will stick it out. He can be pretty volatile himself.”
Angie reappeared with their drinks. “What can I get y’all to eat? Chicken fried steak is the special today,” she announced. “Comes with mashed potatoes, green beans and Kate’s homemade rolls.”
“Sounds great,” he and Caroline said in unison. Again.
“That’ll be two.” Angie wrote on her notepad. “Back in a bit.”
When Ford looked over at Caroline, she had set her forearms on the edge of the table and leaned a little toward him. He gathered they were about to get down to business.
“We’re here,” she started, “because I want to tell you what I’m planning. This is a project Garrett and I are very excited about, and I think the Circle M Ranch would be the perfect setting to use.” Her expressive face wore the prize-winning smile he’d never forgotten.
Ford drew a breath and relaxed into his chair. “Okay, I’m ready. Go for it.”
She talked without stopping for at least fifteen minutes while Angie delivered their plates and refilled his drink, while he ate and Caroline took a bite here and there. Ford listened and didn’t interrupt—she was clearly in the moment and very prepared with numbers and details, genuinely committed to her plan. Only when she actually finished and sat silent for almost a minute did he try to get a word in edgewise.
“You’ve worked hard on this.”
She nodded, chewing a bite of her steak.
“And you’re really driven to succeed with it.”
Another even more vigorous nod of her head.
“So let me go over what I’ve understood from your presentation. You want to start up a summer program for at-risk teenagers—the ones who have gotten into trouble at school, or with the law, or who have problems at home, like documented abuse. Not hardened criminals, but kids who still could be rescued and sent in a different, safer direction.”
“That’s right.” She took a sip of water. “I’ve screened all the children I work with very carefully to identify the right kids for the group. I don’t want to put anybody at risk. I just want to give them a different experience, a chance to see that they can succeed in life.”
“Right. And the kids in your program will reside at the Circle M, where they would be expected to learn how to do ranch work—riding, herding, roping, feeding, treating...whatever is on the schedule for me and my brothers to do, the kids would also do.”
“Yes. I know they would have a learning curve—none of them have a ranching background.”
“So they would have to learn how to ride, and ride pretty well. They’d have only a couple of weeks to acquire the kind of skills it takes a ranch hand several years to master.”
“You would be doing the main part of the work, but you’d be doing it anyway, so it’s not a loss for you.”
“As long as they didn’t do anything dumb and hurt themselves.”
“Well—”
“But you’re expecting us to be there to protect them and see that they don’t get injured, along with doing our own work.”
“I know it’s asking something extra, but I’ll be there, too, so I could do a lot of the supervision and help out—I was a pretty good roper in my day.”
“Sure. And you were a champion rider. I get that. What about the legal liabilities? Will the parents sign a waiver and a consent form, just in case something does happen?”
“People stay at working guest ranches all the time, Ford. They agree to hold the owner and the ranch workers blameless in case of injuries or...or death...if something happens. We would cover the Circle M and the Marshalls the same way. The parents would agree to it. And we’d have a medical consent form in case we needed care fast.”
“There is no fast medical care in Bisons Creek.”
“Ah, but there you’re wrong. We have a doctor coming to town this summer, and she’ll be opening her own clinic. If something happened, we’d be just a few minutes away.”
“Progress is wonderful,” he said drily. “So these kids, who aren’t the most upstanding citizens, are going to live and work at the ranch for three months, with access to our animals, our equipment, tools and house. We’re supposed to trust they won’t do any damage or take anything. We have computers, you know. Cell phones. TVs and radios and audio equipment. There’s beer in the fridge, whiskey in the sideboard. But you believe your kids will be immune to the temptations.”
Caroline was quiet for a moment, staring
