The Ranch Solution. Julianna Morris

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СКАЧАТЬ a vacationing Seattle investment banker was driving too fast and lost control of his car. His blood alcohol level was primarily responsible for the accident, but Reid also blamed the entire state.

      “Okay, they’re from Seattle,” she said, carefully avoiding any mention of their parents. “Don’t go near them if it’s easier.”

      He rolled his eyes. “That kid will want to hang around. I can tell.”

      That “kid” was only two years younger than him, but Mariah understood why Reid felt older. Life and death were a daily part of their world.

      It made you older.

      “I’ve assigned wranglers to the O’Donnells,” she assured him. “You won’t have to spend time with them. Anyhow, you have classes and finals coming up. You need the grades to get into a good school, and the ones with pre-vet programs are terribly competitive.”

      “I told you, I don’t want to go to college and I don’t want to be a vet.”

      “Even if that’s true right now, you might change your mind. We have to talk—”

      “There’s nothing to talk about.” Reid cut her off. “Don’t worry, sis, I’ll get the grades.” He went out the door with a mulish expression.

      As brother and sister, they were close in many ways, yet a wall rose between them when certain subjects were raised...like the future.

      Stomach tight, Mariah went to the desk and saw Reid had been reading one of her books on equine diseases—she would never be a vet now, but that didn’t prevent her from staying current on veterinary medicine. As for Reid, though he claimed he wasn’t interested in going to veterinary school, she doubted it. He was bright, talented and set to graduate high school a year early the way she had done...and he spent all of his free minutes studying animal care.

      Worry and a feeling of helplessness nagged at her. Reid shouldn’t have such tough decisions to make at his age, but there didn’t seem to be anything she could do to fix it. Maybe if their father hadn’t given up after the accident, if he’d tried to survive his own injuries, things might be...

      No.

      Mariah shook her head guiltily.

      She still struggled with the memory of her big, strong dad turning his face to the hospital wall when he learned that his wife of twenty-four years had died instantly in the collision, the light in his eyes vanishing until he was almost unrecognizable. The doctors had thought he would pull through, yet a day later he was gone, too, and she’d been so angry with him for wanting to die more than he wanted to live for the rest of his family. For her and Reid.

      Nobody discussed it; after the funeral, Granddad had said that Reid didn’t need to hear loose chatter. He was suffering enough. That was fine with her—admitting how she felt was the last thing she’d wanted.

      Sighing, Mariah walked down to the mess tent. It didn’t make sense to be angry with someone who was dead, and it wasn’t as if Sam Weston had committed suicide. He’d just...given up.

      “Good afternoon, everyone,” she called, forcing a smile.

      The cooks waved. The guests, in varying degrees of fatigue from working on the range, waved, as well.

      “Oh, my God,” said the new bride of one of their annual visitors. She sat, wincing as she made contact with the bench. “My fanny hasn’t ever hurt this much. Who’d have known that riding a horse would be so painful?”

      Mariah nodded with perfunctory sympathy—it was a complaint she’d heard dozens of times over the summers. “You’ll get used to it. We have a dispensary if you want aspirin or liniment.”

      “It isn’t that bad, but I can’t believe this is my honeymoon. Whatever happened to rose petals, silk sheets and chocolate-dipped strawberries?”

      “If it helps, Chad says you’re being a real sport about the whole thing.”

      The other woman grinned; she was as open and uncomplicated as her groom. “Actually, I’m having a ball. We’ll be back every year, but I won’t object to an occasional weekend in the Bahamas.”

      Mariah tried not to laugh...though groaning was a distinct possibility, as well. She’d already moved the newlyweds due to the noise they were making at night. It was fortunate the U-2 didn’t have more children visiting at the moment, or some parents would be explaining things they weren’t quite prepared to explain.

      “Whoa, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Susan said, staring at the rear of the tent.

      Mariah turned and saw a tall, well-built man standing next to a sullen teenager. The girl’s hair looked as if it had been trimmed by a weed whacker and it was a peculiar shade of streaky black, ending in purple tips. Apparently she was going through a Goth phase because she also wore black from head to toe, including her lipstick. Her T-shirt was ablaze with silver studs in the shape of a skull and raggedly cut to display her midriff...which seemed to have a spiderweb tattooed over it.

      A tattoo?

      Distaste filled Mariah, but it wasn’t for the teenager—it was for the father who’d allowed his daughter to do something so permanent to her body when she was still a child. Echoes of her grandmother’s urging to be patient rang in her ears and Mariah squared her shoulders. Fine, she shouldn’t make snap judgments. She wasn’t doing a stellar job of parenting Reid, either.

      Mariah approached the mismatched pair. The man was in his mid-to-late thirties and attractive in an uptight sort of way, with brown hair and eyes. He was intense, focused and had a rock-square jaw. As for the girl, she might be pretty beneath her clothes and I-don’t-give-a-damn-what-you-think air. It was hard to be sure. Together they were the most unlikely twosome she’d ever seen going on a ranch vacation.

      “Hi, you must be Jacob and Kittie, but Burt Parsons tells me you want to be called Caitlin,” she said to the teenager, trying to ignore her bizarre appearance. “I’m Mariah Weston. Welcome to the U-2 Ranch. I hear you’ve met my brother, Reid.”

      “Yeah. He says I’ll scare the horses,” Caitlin said resentfully.

      Reid could be right, only it wasn’t diplomatic to agree. Mariah sat on the edge of the table. “He helped birth a lot of those horses, so he’s very protective. A horse doesn’t understand why someone looks or smells different than they’re used to, and he worries how new people will affect them.”

      “Oh.” Something flickered in Caitlin’s eyes, a blend of powerful emotions that seemed to go beyond normal teen angst. “Birth them...you mean, like, clean the babies up?”

      “We do whatever they need. If we’re lucky, we mostly get to just watch. It’s incredible seeing a horse being born.”

      Caitlin shifted her feet.

      “I can loan you some outfits if you don’t have any ranch clothes,” Mariah offered. “Things that might be better for working with animals. We keep extras on hand in case they’re needed by our guests.”

      “I don’t... Whatever.” Caitlin spun and marched from the tent as if the short conversation had exhausted her supply of civility.

      Mariah stood, unsure of what СКАЧАТЬ