Callaghan's Bride. Diana Palmer

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ More often than not, she set places only for Rey and Leo, because Cag spent more and more time away. They assured her that she wasn’t to blame, that it was just pressing business, but she wondered just the same. She knew that Cag only tolerated her for the sake of her domestic skills, that he hated the very sight of her. But the other brothers were so kind that it almost made up for Cag. And the ever-present Mrs. Lewis, doing the rough chores, was a fountain of information about the history of the Hart ranch and the surrounding area. Tess, a history buff, learned a lot about the wild old days and stored the information away almost greedily. The lazy, pleasant days indoors seemed to drag and she was grateful for any interesting tidbits that Mrs. Lewis sent her way.

      Then spring arrived and the ranch became a madhouse. Tess had to learn to answer the extension phone in the living room while the two secretaries in the separate office complex started processing calving information into the brothers’ huge mainframe computer. The sheer volume of it was shocking to Tess, who’d spent her whole life on ranches.

      The only modern idea, besides the computers, that the brothers had adapted to their operation was the implantation of computer chips under the skin of the individual cattle. This was not only to identify them with a handheld computer, but also to tag them in case of rustling—a sad practice that had continued unabashed into the computer age.

      On the Hart ranch, there were no hormone implants, no artificial insemination, no unnecessary antibiotics or pesticides. The brothers didn’t even use pesticides on their crops, having found ways to encourage the development of superior strains of forage and the survival of good insects that kept away the bad ones. It was all very ecological and fascinating, and it was even profitable. One of the local ranchers, J. D. Langley, worked hand in glove with them on these renegade methods. They shared ideas and investment strategies and went together as a solid front to cattlemen’s meetings. Tess found J. D. “Donavan” Langley intimidating, but his wife and nephew had softened him, or so people said. She shuddered to think how he’d been before he mellowed.

      The volume of business the brothers did was overwhelming. The telephone rang constantly. So did the fax machine. Tess was press-ganged into learning how to operate that, and the computer, so that she could help send and receive urgent e-mail messages to various beef producers and feedlots and buyers.

      “But I’m not trained!” she wailed to Leo and Rey.

      They only grinned. “There, there, you’re doing a fine job,” Leo told her encouragingly.

      “But I won’t have time to cook proper meals,” she continued.

      “As long as we have enough biscuits and strawberry preserves and apple butter, that’s no problem at all,” Rey assured her. “And if things get too hectic, we’ll order out.”

      They did, frequently, in the coming weeks. One night two pizza delivery trucks drove up and unloaded enough pizzas for the entire secretarial and sales staff and the cowboys, not to mention the brothers. They worked long hours and they were demanding bosses, but they never forgot the loyalty and sacrifice of the people who worked for them. They paid good wages, too.

      “Why don’t you ever spend any money on yourself?” Leo asked Tess one night when, bleary-eyed from the computer, she was ready to go to bed.

      “What?”

      “You’re wearing the same clothes you had last year,” he said pointedly. “Don’t you want some new jeans, at least, and some new tops?”

      “I hadn’t thought about it,” she confessed. “I’ve just been putting my wages into the bank and forgetting about them. I suppose I should go shopping.”

      “Yes, you should.” He leaned down toward her. “The very minute we get caught up!”

      She groaned. “We’ll never get caught up! I heard old Fred saying that he’d had to learn how to use a handheld computer so he could scan the cattle in the low pasture, and he was almost in tears.”

      “We hired more help,” he stated.

      “Yes, but there was more work after that! It’s never going to end,” she wailed. “If those stupid cows don’t stop having calves…!”

      “Bite your tongue, woman, that’s profit you’re scoffing at!”

      “I know, but—”

      “We’re all tired,” he assured her. “And any day now, it’s going to slack off. We’re doing compilation figures for five ranches, you know,” he added. “It isn’t just this one. We have to record each new calf along with its history, we have to revise lists for cattle that have died or been culled, cattle that we traded, new cattle that we’ve bought. Besides that, we have to have birth weights, weight gain ratios, average daily weight gain and feeding data. All that information has to be kept current or it’s no use to us.”

      “I know. But we’ll all get sick of pizzas and I’ll forget how to make biscuits!”

      “God forbid,” he said, taking off his hat and holding it to his heart.

      She was too tired to laugh, but she did smile. She worked her way down the long hall toward her room over the garage, feeling as drained as she looked.

      She met Cag coming from the general direction of the garage, dressed in a neat gray suit with a subdued burgundy tie and a cream-colored Stetson. He was just back from a trustee meeting in Dallas, and he looked expensive and sophisticated and unapproachable.

      She nodded in a cool greeting, and averted her eyes as she passed him.

      He stepped in front of her, blocking her path. One big, lean hand tilted her chin up. He looked at her without smiling, his dark eyes glittering with disapproval.

      “What have they been doing to you?” he asked curtly.

      The comment shocked her, but she didn’t read anything into it. Cag would never be concerned about her and she knew it. “We’re all putting herd records into the computer, even old Fred,” she said wearily. “We’re tired.”

      “Yes, I know. It’s a nightmare every year about this time. Are you getting enough sleep?”

      She nodded. “I don’t know much about computers and it’s hard, that’s all. I don’t mind the work.”

      His hand hesitated for just an instant before he dropped it. He looked tougher than ever. “You’ll be back to your old duties in no time. God forbid that we should drag you kicking and screaming out of the kitchen and into the twentieth century.”

      That was sarcastic, and she wished she had enough energy to hit him. He was always mocking her, picking at her.

      “You haven’t complained about the biscuits yet,” she reminded him curtly.

      His black eyes swept over her disparagingly. “You look about ten,” he chided. “All big eyes. And you wear that damned rig or those black jeans and that pink shirt all the time. Don’t you have any clothes?”

      She couldn’t believe her ears. First the brothers had talked about her lack of new clothes, and now he was going to harp on it! “Now, look here, you can’t tell me what to wear!”

      “If you want to get married, you’ll never manage it like that,” he scoffed. “No man is going to look twice at a woman who can’t be bothered to even СКАЧАТЬ