Would she still be here at the ranch? Ellie dropped her hands, stared down at the notebook again. Funny how getting nauseous over the pie had made the baby seem real, made her realize that she no longer half hoped that nature would take care of matters. She wasn’t ready for any of this, wished with all of her heart it hadn’t happened, but it had and she was going to deal with it. All of it. Babies, jobs, ranches. She might not be able to follow her old path, have her old life back, but she could make a new life, a new path. She just wished that as she did it, she felt more like her old self. Confident. In control.
The kettle started to whistle and Ellie closed her notebook. Instead of being confident and in control, she was afraid—afraid that she was never ever going to feel like her old self again. Afraid of being responsible for a child. Afraid of messing up.
And that was why she hated being alone right now. Too much time to think about just how afraid she was.
* * *
EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING Ellie managed to get hold of Milo at the hospital before he started work and to ask for more information about the ranch consultant.
“I didn’t get you that? I thought I forwarded the correspondence.”
“Maybe it got lost in cyberspace,” Ellie said.
“Or maybe I got busy and forgot,” Milo said. “Sometimes I don’t know what day it is.
“How’s it going there?”
“I’m settling in. I’ve met the employees and taken a look at the property. Now I’m going to observe day-to-day operations.” Although she’d yet to determine exactly how she was going to do that when the employees didn’t want her around.
“Excellent,” Milo said. “How’s everything else?” Meaning, of course, her pregnancy.
“I’m researching obstetricians. I should have an appointment by this afternoon at the latest.” It felt strange discussing OB appointments with her uncle, but Milo and Angela were the closest thing to grandparents as her child would probably have. Mavis would make the occasional appearance, but Ellie had no misconceptions about her taking a role in the child’s life.
Although she had heard of people doing better with their grandchildren than with their own children. Maybe...?
Ellie refused to get her hopes up.
After talking to Milo, Ellie spent the morning reading reviews of obstetricians in surrounding cities and towns, noting the pros and cons of each: distance, insurances accepted, patient relations. It’d taken most of the morning for her to compile a list of acceptable doctors, only to call the top three and discover that they were booked full. They wouldn’t be accepting patients for the next several months, although she could join the waiting list.
She didn’t have several months, and the idea of joining a waiting list seemed ludicrous under the circumstances. Ellie felt the beginning of panic as she hung up for the third time. Apparently patients of her top candidates saw the doctors long before they actually got pregnant—as in they’d planned to get pregnant. Well, that’d been the way Ellie had thought it would happen to her, too. She’d meet a guy, date until she was certain she wanted to spend her life with him, they’d marry, wait two years and then get pregnant. They would, of course, have one boy and one girl. That had been the plan.
It was so thoroughly depressing that it wasn’t working out that way for her. That she was going to have to scramble to find an obstetrician that met her standards.
Doctor number four was located in a smaller town close to the ranch, and when she called she was relieved to hear that they were taking new patients, but the soonest they could book a consultation would be in three weeks. Ellie took the appointment. She would have felt better, and more invisible, with a doctor in Bozeman or Butte, but people were going to find out she was pregnant sooner or later. She might even end up having the child here.
In a place where she’d alienated everyone in a ten-mile radius.
Maybe she needed to do something about that.
* * *
IF THERE WERE cows on that mountain, then they were doing a pretty damned good job of evading him. Ryan had spent almost ten hours in the saddle trying to find the strays, and he was beginning to wonder if someone had taken the animals. Whatever, he was late getting home and he still had to load PJ and drive two hundred miles tonight.
Ryan had just dismounted when he heard the door of the ranch house open and close. Great. The boss.
He continued to unsaddle the gelding as footsteps came across the flagstones, then crunched on gravel. Ellison stopped several yards away from him and for a moment said nothing.
“I don’t know if Lonnie took care of the snake,” he said, answering the question he was pretty sure she was going to ask.
“He looked for it, but couldn’t find it,” Ellison said. “You were gone a long time today.” She shifted slightly as he shot her a quick glance, wondering if the comment was a conversation starter, a criticism, or what. “I saw you ride away early this morning,” she continued. “What do you do on a horse all day?”
Conversation starter. Maybe the boss was getting lonely. “Today I looked for missing cattle.”
“How do cattle go missing?”
“Any number of ways. They can get through a hole in the fence. Gates get left open. Sometimes we don’t find them all when we move them to different areas.”
Ryan started brushing Skipper. “Walt says you’re bringing in a consultant,” he said without looking at Ellison.
“My uncle is.”
“Do your aunt and uncle plan to take residence soon?”
“They’d originally planned to move to the ranch at the end of the summer, but my uncle recently took a promotion instead of retiring.” Ellison’s expression told him that she wasn’t one bit surprised that her uncle had chosen work over retirement. “Now he’s chief of staff at his hospital and the move has been pushed back.”
“And you’re here to hold down the fort.”
“Milo wanted someone from the family here while the consultant did his evaluation.”
“And you happened to be at loose ends.”
“Yes,” she said, meeting his eyes as if daring him to ask more. A nerve touched there.
Tempting as it was, he decided not to press matters. “Do you know anything about this consultant?”
“He comes highly recommended.”
“By?”
“One of the neighboring ranchers.” He cocked his head and she added, “The Kenyons.”
“Is his name George Monroe?”
“You know him?” Ellison asked.
“I’m familiar,” he said flatly.
“You don’t seem too pleased.”
Ryan
