Fearless. Diana Palmer

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ my car,” Glory said at once, very pleasantly.

      “Don’t be absurd,” he growled. “I have to go to the hardware store to pick up some more stakes for the tomato plants,” he told the small, dark woman. “Give her a room and tell her how we work here.”

      Glory opened her mouth to protest his attitude, but he whirled and strode out of the room without another word. The front screen door banged loudly as he went out it.

      “Well, he’s a charmer, isn’t he?” Glory asked the older woman with a grin. “I can hardly wait to settle in and make his life utterly miserable.”

      Consuelo laughed. “He’s not so bad,” she said. “We don’t know why he took over when Mr. Wilkes resigned. The boss—that’s Mr. Pendleton, he lives in San Antonio—told us that Rodrigo had lost his family recently and was in mourning. He came here to pick up his life again.”

      “Oh, dear,” Glory said quietly. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have been so sarcastic toward him.”

      “It rolls off his back,” the woman scoffed. “He works like a tiger. He is never cruel or harsh with the men who work in the fields. He is a cultured man, I think, because he loves to listen to DVDs of opera and classical music. But once, we had a worker get into a fight with another man, and Rodrigo intervened. Nobody saw him move, but in the flash of a light, the aggressor was lying on his back in the dirt with many bruises. The men don’t give Rodrigo any reason to go after them, since that happened. He is very strong.”

      “Rodrigo?” Glory sounded out the name. It had a quiet dignity.

      “Rodrigo Ramirez,” she replied. “He worked on a cattle ranch down in Sonora, he said.”

      “He came from Mexico?”

      “I think he was born there, but he does not speak of his past.”

      “His accent is very slight,” Glory mused. “He speaks Spanish, I guess.”

      “Spanish, French, Danish, Portuguese, German, Italian and, of all things, Apache.”

      Glory was confused. “With a talent like that, he’s managing a truck farm in Texas?”

      Consuelo chuckled. “I, also, made this observation. He led me to believe he once worked as a translator. Where, he did not say.”

      Glory smiled. “Well, at least this is going to be an interesting job.”

      “You know the big boss, Jason Pendleton?”

      Glory nodded. “Well, sort of,” she amended quickly. “I was more friendly with his sister,” she confided.

      “Ah. Gracie.” Consuelo chuckled again. “She came with him once. There was a cat with a broken leg lying beside the road, a stray that hung around here. Gracie picked it up, blood and dirt and all, and made Jason take her to the nearest vet. She was wearing a silk dress that would cost me two months wages, and it didn’t matter. The cat was what mattered.” She smiled. “She should marry. It would be a very lucky man, to have a wife like that.”

      “She doesn’t want to get married,” Glory said. “Her real father was a hell-raiser.”

      “Hers and Jason’s, you mean…”

      Glory shook her head. “You see, Jason and Gracie aren’t related. Her father died when she was in her early teens. Her stepmother married Jason’s father. Then her stepmother died and Jason’s father married again.” She didn’t add that Jason’s stepfather was also her own stepfather. It was complicated.

      Consuelo took off her apron. “I must show you to the guest room.” She turned, and only then noticed the cane, half hidden behind Glory’s jean-clad leg. Her eyebrows met. “You should have told me,” she fussed. “I would never have let you stand like that while I gossiped! It must be painful.”

      “I didn’t notice. Really.”

      “The room is downstairs, at least,” Consuelo said, leading the way past the pantry shelves, into the living room, and through a far door that led to another hall, which ended in a bathroom opening into a small, blue-wallpapered room with white trim.

      “It’s lovely,” Glory told her.

      “It’s small,” Consuelo said. “Rodrigo chose it for himself, but I told him he needed more room than this. He has two computers and several pieces of radio equipment. A hobby, he said. There is a small desk in the study that he uses, but he prefers his bedroom when he’s doing the books.”

      “He’s antisocial?”

      “He has nothing to do with women,” Consuelo replied. She frowned. “Although, there was a pretty blonde woman who came here to see him one day. They seemed very close. I asked. But he ignored the question. He does not talk about himself.”

      “How odd.”

      “You are not married, or engaged?”

      Glory shook her head. “I don’t want to marry. Ever.”

      “You don’t want children?”

      Glory frowned. “I don’t know that I should try to have them,” she said. “I have a…medical problem. It would be dangerous.” She sighed. “But since I don’t trust men very much, it’s probably just as well.”

      Consuelo didn’t ask any more questions, but her manner with Glory was gentle.

      THE TRUCK FARM WAS HUGE. There were many fields, each with a separate crop, and the plantings were staggered so that something was always ready to harvest. The fruit trees were just being picked. Peaches and apricots, nectarines and kiwi fruit were first to harvest. The apple trees were varieties that produced in the fall. In between were berries, dewberries and raspberries and blackberries and strawberries.

      “I’m going to be busy,” Glory exclaimed when Consuelo pointed out the various surrounding fields.

      “We both are,” the older woman replied. “I was thinking about giving up this job. It’s too much for one woman. But two of us, we can manage, I think. The jams and jellies and pickles will add a lot to our revenue if they sell. They’re popular with tourists. We also stock them at the local florist shop, and they’re put in gift baskets. We have a processing plant for the organic vegetables and an online shop that our warehouse operates. They ship orders. But this is early days for our specialty canning. I’ve only managed to do the usual things, fruit preserves and jellies. I would love to do small batches of organic corn and peas and beans as well, but they mostly do those at the processing center in bulk. Besides, those require the pressure cooker to process and more time than I have had since Rodrigo took charge. He is a dynamo, that man.”

      “Pressure cookers make me nervous,” Glory began.

      “We’ve all heard terrible stories about how they can explode,” Consuelo chuckled. “But this is a new age. They all have fail safe controls now a days. Anyway, we won’t use them here. Let me show you what we’re working on. It’s an easy job.”

      EASY. THE WORK WAS. Glory’s hip pained her, and she spent some of her time on a heating pad. But Consuelo found her a stool and she adjusted to the new physical demands СКАЧАТЬ