style="font-size:15px;"> Toni laughed. “Why should we be tired when you did ninety percent of the driving? Once we get to the ranch, you deserve a nice long rest, Dani.”
“We all do.” Somehow Dani didn’t think any of them would get much rest, but she wouldn’t rain on their parade. “Why don’t I pay the check and we can get out of here? Until we see the place, we won’t know what we’re talking about.”
“Uhh…”
“Uhh…what?”
Again those surreptitious glances, and Granny said, “It’s a little complicated—the directions, I mean. There are two ways, the long way and the short way. The long way is complicated, but the short way is practically a secret, from what the lady who runs this place told us.”
“Are you saying we need better directions?”
“Or a guide,” Toni said, grinning. “Come on, Dani, cheer up! We’re almost there—Gone To Texas! The promised land. Remember?”
“I remember.” Dani told herself she was being ridiculous, but ever since that brief conversation with the cowboy, she’d had the oddest feeling that something wasn’t quite right at the Bar K. “I’m just being silly,” she added. “Stay here while I pay the bill and get decent directions.”
Rising, she picked up the check and took the few steps to the cash register. She handed it to the pleasant-faced woman behind the counter, along with a twenty dollar bill.
The woman smiled and shook her head. “It’s already taken care of,” she said.
Dani frowned and glanced at the table. All three women shrugged; none of them had paid the check. “I don’t understand,” she said. “None of us—”
“Jack took care of it,” the woman announced. “Y’all come back, hear?”
Jack. The cowboy. This couldn’t go on. Dani marched up to where he sat at the counter, grinning.
She was steaming. “Look,” she said shortly, “I can’t let you do that. Tell me how much our bill was and I’ll…” She fumbled her wallet out of the pocket of her jacket, hoping she’d have the exact change.
He shook his head. “My pleasure,” he said.
“Dammit, Jack, you can’t—”
“It’s done. Short of making a scene, there’s not much you can do about it.” His calm, almost patronizing expression didn’t waver.
Dani gritted her teeth and took a deep breath. He was right, but how dare he put her in this corner? “Okay,” she muttered, “you win this one. Thank you very much, but don’t you ever do this again.”
“No, ma’am, I sure won’t.” Clear hazel eyes crinkled at the corners. “Anything else I can do for you?”
“There certainly—is.”
His grin widened. “Just name it.”
“Can you give me directions to the Bar K? My family seems to think it’s at the end of a labyrinth or something.”
“Umm, not too many labyrinths in Texas that I know of. It is a little tricky to find if you don’t know your way around, though.”
“You can draw me a map.”
“I can do better than that.” He rose from the stool.
“There is nothing better than that,” she flared. “Wait. Grandma always has paper and pencil in her purse.”
“Don’t bother.”
“But—”
“I’ll lead you there.”
“I don’t want you to show me the way,” she objected in alarm. She really hated how he was pushing in, mostly because she found him so damned attractive.
“Yes, you do.”
“Don’t tell me what I want!”
“Dani,” he said in that lazy drawl, “you do, you just don’t know it yet. Trust me on this—when you get your first look at the Bar K, you’ll be damned glad to have me around.”
Dani’s stomach dropped to her knees and she could only stand in dumb alarm while he waltzed around her to introduce himself to her family. That lump of dread had just turned into a boulder.
2
KEEPING JACK’S PICKUP in sight, Dani drove down dirt roads, through miniforests, over hills, until suddenly the Bar K Dude Ranch lay spread out before them.
The ramshackle Bar K. A sudden silence fell, and then from the back seat of the Jeep, Toni uttered a faint, “Oh, dear.”
A tight-lipped Dani braked in a large gravel parking lot in front of the ranch house. To the right lay several outbuildings and a barn; to the left a number of log cabins and a swimming pool, empty and sad in the March sunshine.
The first word that leaped into her head was paint. The Bar K was in dire need of paint, preferably many coats of it. The house itself, although a pleasant sprawl with a wide front porch running the entire length of the building, looked shabby and unloved. The outbuildings were equally neglected and the barn was practically gothic.
Granny cleared her throat. “You girls will be amazed at what a little elbow grease will do for this place,” she announced in a determinedly cheerful tone.
“But the brochure…!” Niki wailed.
Dani opened her car door. “It’ll look like the brochure again,” she said grimly. “I’m afraid it’ll take more than elbow grease, though.”
“Whatever it takes,” Toni said, “we’ll see it gets it. We’re not afraid of a little hard work.”
“Or a lot, for that matter.” Dani climbed out and stretched, trying not to give in to panic when she thought of the state of their bank account.
The road from Elk Tooth, Montana, to Hard Knox, Texas, had been a long one. Without waiting for the rest of them, she hurried around to open the door to the trailer and back Sundance out. By the time that was accomplished, everyone had alighted and Jack had joined them.
His expression, Dani thought, was evasive, to say the least.
“So what do you think?” he inquired, his tone guarded.
“Uhh…” Toni licked her lips. “It’s a little more…run-down than I expected.”
He nodded. “That’s true, but the underlying structure is still strong. After Miss Elsie died, Wil did kind of let things go—” He stopped short. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound critical of your father.”
“Feel free,” Dani invited. Tossing the rope lead over the horse’s neck, she grabbed a hunk of mane and swung up.
