ambling walk, lazy grin and naughty blue eyes beneath the brim of the cowboy hat.
Cal kicked the two gates open and then gestured. “Ladies first.”
She pulled past the gate and waited for him to climb back into his truck. He shifted into Drive and followed her over the hill and down the path.
Her first impression was that Bud had been right. The Triple J was a piece of heaven on earth with wide, waving pastures, dotted with occasional scrubby brush. Shady trees she couldn’t identify framed a rippling pond, and a picturesque red barn sprawled not far away from several paddocks and a low building that looked like a hall of some sort. Situated to the right was a white farmhouse with a huge porch that sagged, broken windows that yawned and a roof covered by blue tarp signifying a leak. A skin-and-bones nag looked lonely in the far pasture, and when Maggie rolled up next to the house, about eight cats scattered from the yard, reminding her of a drug bust she’d once seen in a bad part of Philly.
Her heart sank.
“Shit,” she whispered as the tiny worm of an idea that she might have been gifted a new future shriveled up.
“Well, this is it,” Cal said, hopping down from his cab and slamming the truck door.
Maggie climbed out, shielding her eyes. “This is not what I expected.”
He surveyed the run-down ranch house. “Never is, is it?”
Truer words were never spoken.
“What’s with all the cats?” she asked.
“Dunno, feral cat problem?”
“Feral cat,” she repeated, walking over to the lonely horse.
“On the bright side, you probably don’t have much of a rat problem,” he said.
“Mmm,” she said, looking over the horse that looked as if it hadn’t been fed in weeks. She lifted a hand to its nose, though she’d only ever touched the nose of a pony at a friend’s birthday when she was eight years old. The horse blew out a gentle breath. “Is this horse malnourished?”
Cal walked to the beast. The horse turned toward him as if it knew he could be trusted. It blew again as he stroked the coat with his strong hands. “Hey, now, old gal, hey.”
His words soothed even her.
“Nah, she’s just old. Ain’t ya, girl?” Cal slapped a hand against the horse’s neck. “Let’s check the barn.”
She turned to the red barn and noted the graffiti scrawled across it. Some very naughty words along with the rendering of a giant penis graced the front. “Nice artwork.”
“Yeah, the kids in town come out here to drink and screw. This old place has probably seen more action than a Reno whorehouse.”
The barn doors had been busted open, so Cal didn’t have to fetch the bolt cutters again. Empty dusty stalls and an old tractor met them. Bags of feed spilled over. Several cats peeked out and she heard mewling kittens somewhere in the dank hay. “This is a mess. What in the hell has this Lowery guy been doing with the money I moved into the ranch accounts each month?”
Cal shrugged. “The animals are alive.”
“You sure? I didn’t see the thirty head of cattle that supposedly roam the ranch.”
“Probably in the back field. Shade trees there and it’ll be plenty hot today,” Cal said, wiping a hand over his brow. The back of his T-shirt already showed dampness.
Maggie didn’t want to show her disappointment in front of the cowboy...if he even was a cowboy. Just because a man wore boots, a hat and Wranglers didn’t mean he was a cowboy. In her limited experience thus far, lots of Texans wore cowboy stuff no matter what their profession. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Sell it. It needs work, but you can get something out of it. I don’t know much about the real estate market, but it’s good acreage.”
Of course, selling the ranch was the smartest option. Wasn’t like she was actually interested in owning a ranch, but the terms of the will made it complicated. If she kept the ranch for five years, the title would be hers. If she sold it, the profit would be split with the Edelman children, with her only getting a fourth of the sale. Maggie’s first thought was to hold on to the property for the required years, but she didn’t have the money needed to both maintain a ranch and support herself in Philadelphia. If it hadn’t been so dilapidated, the money netted from the sale would be plenty to help her start a new life, but as is...
She sucked in a deep breath. “How do I find Mr. Lowery?”
“Try the bars.”
“Which one?”
“All of ’em.”
Great. Bud had been paying a drunk to take care of the place. The old man’s pride and joy, the surprise bequest he’d left her, had been abandoned for a bottle of whiskey.
Piece of heaven her ass.
Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can sell, but I’ll have to fix it first. No one’s going to make an offer on something needing this much work.”
“Sure they will. Sell it ‘as is.’”
She leveled a look at Cal. “Would you buy this place?”
“Shit, no.”
“Exactly. That will be everyone’s response. And since I need the money this place will bring, I want top dollar. How much do you think this place would be worth with over three hundred and fifty acres and a decent—” she tossed a glance at the pathetic house “—house?”
Cal looked at the house, squinting his eyes. “Well, it’s a big house. If you repaired it, painted it, upgraded some things inside, you’d probably get a couple of million easy. Land’s prized around here, but a working ranch, spiffed up...”
“So you don’t know?”
“Not really. Like I said, real estate’s not my thing.”
Which made her wonder—what was his thing?
But what did Cal matter at that moment? She had bigger fish to fry. Her original plan when she’d left Philly had been to stay a day or two, scatter Bud’s ashes and make the decision on what to do with the Triple J. Of course, she knew the right decision would be to sell the place. But Bud had talked about the Triple J with such wistfulness, describing nights in front of the fireplace, rocking chairs on the porch and lovely vistas. In the back of her mind, Maggie had wondered if the ranch could be a place to belong even if she didn’t know a gelding from a stallion. She could finally have something that was all hers, silly as it sounded.
The Triple J would be sold. Maggie would take her part and head back to the East Coast. She could stay with her aunt until she found her own place. And though she’d sent her résumé to several companies and already netted interview requests, she’d been kicking around the idea of starting her own consulting firm. She was particularly skilled in creating and facilitating successful board meetings. If she could parlay that skill into a company
