The Wrangler. Lindsay McKenna

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СКАЧАТЬ she’d left this ranch. She’d gone to college at eighteen. From there, she went into the Air Force. She was twenty-eight now. She’d only spent six years in the military and had been counting on making it to twenty years so she’d have a pension. “This ranch’s back is broken, Gus. The corrals are in terrible shape. The barn needs a new roof. I don’t see any cattle. I see a few horses out in one pasture. This place is not a moneymaker, it’s nothing but a money pit.”

      Nodding, Gus said, “After Buck died of a heart attack, your mother made a lot of poor choices insofar as hiring good wranglers. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know how to budget because Buck kept her out of the money and finances. He refused to let her know anything about the running of the ranch, and he took all his knowledge of keeping this ranch solvent to the grave with him. I tried to pick up the slack, figure out the accounting books, but there was only so much I could do.”

      Val recalled that time. “I celebrated when Mom told me Buck had died.”

      “No one can blame you, honey. But without Buck, this ranch went to hell in a handbasket. Your mom was depressed. No matter what kind of medication the doctors put her on, she spiraled deeper and deeper into a very dark place. I couldn’t talk or reason with her. She just locked herself away in her room.”

      Val’s heart wrung with pain over her mother’s decline. She hadn’t been there to help her. She’d run as far away as she could.

      “When it came to finding the accounting books,” Gus continued, “and then discovering all the places Buck squirreled money away, it took me a year to figure it all out. And your mother, by that time, had been diagnosed with the most virulent form of breast cancer and she died six months afterward.”

      Val recalled the phone calls, the fact her mother was drifting away from her. Val had felt abandoned and adrift. “I remember the funeral.”

      “Yes, and I remember telling you not to worry, that I could handle the Bar H. I felt at the time, I could bring it back bit by bit. But your mom chose wranglers like she chose Buck. They were young men who talked the talk but couldn’t walk the walk. That series of wranglers did nothing but allow the ranch to slide further into destruction. Good wranglers are worth their weight in gold.”

      “And then, you fell and broke your hip,” Val said. She saw what the Bar H meant to her grandmother because of the fierce look that sparked in her watery blue eyes. Her jaw was set. Val knew the bulldog feistiness she’d always possessed was there even at eighty-four. “But even if that hadn’t happened, no one person could ever run this two-hundred-acre ranch by themselves.”

      “No, I couldn’t. And then the hip replacement went wrong, and I’m stuck with this damned cane for the rest of my life. I can’t ride a horse or go out and mend the fences. So much was taken away from me when I broke my hip, Val. I grieved over this situation a long time before calling and asking you to come home. I don’t want to see this ranch sold, too. It broke my heart to sell ours. I cried for weeks over that decision. I was hurting so badly from Pete suddenly being torn away from me, too. We were a good team. The best of friends. And then, suddenly, in one moment, he was gone….”

      Val reached out and gripped her grandmother’s hand, its knuckles slightly enlarged with arthritis. “You’ve had to go through so much, Gus. I’m sorry.”

      “Oh, honey, I know you are. We’ve all gone through our share, it seems. When Cheryl would bring you to visit our ranch in Cheyenne, I couldn’t understand why you were such a shy shadow that hid from all of us. And every time Pete came near you, you were like a wild horse running in the other direction. Lord, how I wish I had picked up on your reactions properly. After the fact, I talked to a therapist about abused children. It was then I realized you were terribly wounded and wouldn’t trust any man. Not even my Pete. And he was one of the most gentle, loving men you could ever meet.”

      Dragging in a huge breath of air, Val felt as if the weight of the world was bearing down on her shoulders. “Gus, you can’t blame yourself for not knowing what was going on. I myself wish I’d done something. If only I’d called the sheriff. Or talked to one of my teachers.”

      “Don’t go there,” Gus warned her. “You were innocent in all of his, Val. You were a trusting, vulnerable child.”

      Hot tears wedged into Val’s eyes. With an angry swipe, she wiped them away. “I just couldn’t ever understand why my Mom lied to the doctors when she was taken to the hospital. She had a broken arm and collar bone, eyes blackened and both cheeks fractured. And she lied to them! She told them she’d been bucked off a horse, hit the pipe corral fence and then fell to the ground.” Gulping, Val stared helplessly at Gus. “They believed her! When you came here and told me that, I just felt like I was going to implode with rage.”

      “You were raised in a toxic environment, so you thought love was being beat. You never knew any different as a child. How could you?”

      “I’ve tried so hard to forget my past!” Val choked, the tears flowing down her taut cheeks. “When you asked me to come here, I threw up. I couldn’t hold back the fear, the memories avalanching me again.”

      Gus scraped the chair back, picked up her cane and hobbled around the table. Leaning down, she slipped one arm around Val’s shoulders and kissed her red hair. “You’ve had nothing but pain from the time you were born,” Gus agreed. “But you listen to me. You’re a Hunter. You have the blood of my family running strong through you, Val. I know this is the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but really, it isn’t.”

      Val lifted her head, the tears blurring her grandmother’s deeply wrinkled face inches away from hers. “W-what do you mean?”

      “Honey,” Gus said in a whisper, placing a kiss on her wrinkled brow, “the worst was living in this house when Buck was alive. He’s dead and gone now. I know you have the past to work through, but he ain’t here any longer. That makes this easier than the first eighteen years of your life, doesn’t it?” She gently held Val’s tearful blue gaze.

      “I—I don’t know.”

      “I do. Besides,” Gus said, gently wiping the tears from Val’s pale cheeks, “you have me. Together, you and I are a force to behold. We can bring this ranch back to life, and make it even better than before. We can make it beautiful, successful and you’ll have the money you need for when you want to retire.” Giving her a soft smile, Gus added, “Family should be a team, Val. Oh, it’s true, there’s always a rotten apple in every family barrel, but don’t walk away from it all just because of one person. Your ma put her heart and soul into the Bar H. Now, we’ll do the same. Together…”

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE SWEET SMELL of alfalfa hay entered Griff McPherson’s nostrils. He walked into the large, airy barn, carrying a huge baling hook in each of his hands. A ranch customer had backed his Chevy truck up against the lip of the wooden platform and was waiting for twenty bales to be placed onto its bed. Sweat trickled down the sides of Griff’s temples as he approached the first bale and quickly sank the long, sharp hooks into it. With a grunt, he hefted the eighty-pound bale out of the building and dropped it into the truck. He reveled in his strength, feeling close to the earth and to all life of late. Working at Andy’s Horse Emporium, a central place in the valley for ranchers to buy hay, feed and other supplies gave him deep and growing satisfaction.

      Just having a job in this sputtering economy made Griff feel grateful as he walked quickly back into the barn. His well-worn boots thunked hollowly against the graying oak plank floor. Andy had taken pity on him when Griff’s brother Slade had kicked him out of the СКАЧАТЬ