Margarite set a salad on the counter next to the casserole, then held a plate out to Jodie. “He’d better be here.”
Jodie had tried to convince her that official cooking wasn’t necessary while her parents were gone, but Margarite was having none of that. She was paid to cook and she was going to put meals on the table—or the counter, as she’d done tonight, since they were eating buffet style.
After dinner there was still no sign of Mike, so Jodie went into her father’s office and opened the top drawer of the big oak file cabinet where Joe Barton kept paperwork for every employee that had come and gone since he’d bought his ranch three years ago. And there had been quite a steady stream of comings and goings. Jodie’s father was not an easy man to work for. He demanded a level of expertise and commitment that many people simply didn’t have anymore. Even Chandler had unexpectedly quit, which had in turn set off a major family argument.
Her father had immediately tried to cancel the European vacation her mother had been planning for almost a year. Jodie’s normally complacent mom had leveled threats, since she firmly believed her husband’s heart problems, which he refused to take seriously, stemmed from managing the ranch. Jodie had eventually come to the rescue, grudgingly taking a sabbatical so that she could look after the property during the eight weeks her parents would be touring southern Europe. It was the only way her father would agree to leave, and even then it had been an uphill battle convincing him to go.
“Damn it, I know it’s here,” Jodie muttered as she flipped through the manila folders, beating up her cuticles in the process. Her dad kept a hard copy of everything. She dug deep and finally found Mike’s file toward the back of the drawer and pulled it out. His cell number was there, so she dialed it from the office phone. No answer. Jodie jotted down the number and put the file away, telling herself not to worry. He was probably on the road, stranded somewhere with no service. It happened.
And it also meant that she and Margarite were about to embark on another adventure into veterinary care.
“Anything?” Margarite asked hopefully when Jodie returned to the kitchen.
She shook her head.
“I was afraid of that.” The housekeeper went into the mudroom, stoically put her feet, shoes and all, into rubber galoshes, and pulled a coat off the hook. Next came the giant black scarf, wrapped twice around her neck and knotted, the wool hat and finally gloves. Jodie had watched the procedure enough times during the past few days to know all the moves.
“Ready?” the older woman asked.
Jodie had already slipped her feet into boots and put on a coat. She could make it to the heated barn and back to the house without a hat or gloves.
Bronson limped painfully to the back of his stall when he saw them coming. He’d figured out that when Margarite showed up, a painful jab was soon to follow. Horses were a lot smarter than Jodie had first assumed.
She went into the stall and slipped the halter on the big horse, who gave her an equine look of sad resignation. Margarite’s expression wasn’t that much different as she entered the stall. She held up the penicillin bottle, stabbed the needle through the rubber opening and measured out the dosage. Then, needle in hand, she pounded her small fist on the horse’s hip a couple times to deaden the area, before she masterfully slipped just the needle into the muscle and attached the loaded syringe. Bronson bobbed his head up and down, but stood still as Margarite slowly pushed the plunger until it stopped, then removed the needle. As always, her face was pale when she finished.
“I hope Mike is here bright and early tomorrow morning,” she grumbled as they made their way along the snowy path to the house.
“He may even arrive tonight,” Jodie said, but she was getting a bad feeling about this. Mike should have called by now.
She tried to reach him two more times that evening from the ranch phone, and then, wondering if he recognized the ranch number and wasn’t answering on purpose, she dialed the number from her cell. A masculine voice said hello on the second ring.
“Is this Mike Bower?”
“Yes.”
“This is Jodie De Vanti. When are you coming back to the ranch?”
There was a healthy silence before Mike said, “I’m not coming back.”
Jodie’s temples started to throb. What the hell? “Why not?”
“I found another job up here, closer to my family.”
The throbbing intensified. “You do know that it’s common courtesy to give notice of resignation?” She spoke the last words through her teeth.
“I was going to call tomorrow after everything was firmed up here,” he confessed.
“And in the meantime, we’re left hanging, you coward.”
“Maybe if your dad wasn’t such a jerk, I’d still be there,” Mike said, and he had the gall to sound justified. “But he is and I ain’t.” He hung up the phone, and it was all Jodie could do not to throw hers across the room.
What an asshole, blaming her father, and not being man enough to quit properly.
Jodie weighed her phone in her hand for a moment, then carefully set it on the desk.
Okay. She could handle this. She was used to thinking on her feet. The only problem was she did it in a courtroom or while working with a difficult client. This was different.
“He’s not coming back,” Jodie told Margarite when she came in with a cup of tea.
The housekeeper stopped in her tracks and the cup clattered on the saucer.
“Hey,” Jodie said, trying to be as positive as possible, “is there any reason we can’t handle the ranch on our own until Dad returns? It’s only six and a half more weeks and so far so good … barring the horse incident.” She wasn’t wild about feeding in the subzero morning temps, but she’d do whatever she had to.
“Early calving.”
“What?” Jodie asked, her eyes getting round.
“The early calves. Sometimes the cows have trouble. And if there’s a blizzard, you can bet there’s a cow out there having a calf in it. Mike was out at all hours last year.”
Jodie went to the sideboard and poured two glasses of Malbec without bothering to ask Margarite if she wanted one. At this point they both needed a drink, and tea wasn’t going to cut it.
“I am so pissed at Mike,” Jodie muttered as she recorked the bottle with the crystal stopper. “At least he could have given some warning, the sniveling coward.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t leave sooner,” Margarite said matter-of-factly, accepting the glass after setting the porcelain teacup on the end table next to the leather sofa.
“Why?” Jodie asked. She had her own opinion—Mike was spineless—but was curious to hear the housekeeper’s take on the matter.
“Frankly, when things go wrong, your dad tends to fire from the hip. Mike and Chandler took a lot of heat over the past year.”
“Were
