The Rancher's Homecoming. Arlene James

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      “Need any help getting dressed and to the table?” she asked, patting Wes on the shoulder.

      Rex knew his father hadn’t been out of his pajamas since he’d come home from the hospital.

      Rex could’ve kissed Callie then and there.

      Wes shook his head and rasped, “I’ll manage.”

      “I’ll help him before I go out and get to work on the baler again. The girls stocked up on groceries before they left, so I think you’ll find everything you need in the kitchen. If not, let me know. I’ll send someone back into town.”

      Nodding, Callie left to settle the baby and get started on her work, the little one riding her hip. Rex helped Wes dress in loose jeans and a soft T-shirt. Wes even combed his thick, sugar-and-cinnamon hair, complaining about the heavy graying at his temples and needing a trim.

      “We’ll get you to the barber as soon as you’re back on your feet,” Rex promised. Then he went out to tackle that old baler again.

      The Straight Arrow Ranch still baled the old small, rectangular bales and stored them in pole barns situated strategically around the property because only about 25 percent of its two square miles of land was suitable for growing fodder, and much of the range to the north and west was too rough for transporting the large, round bales to which so many ranchers had gone. Besides, they already had the storage facilities, so it didn’t make sense to fix what wasn’t broken, as Wes put it. Except that the hay baler was currently broken, and Rex wasn’t making much headway fixing it.

      Wes sat at the kitchen table when Rex came in for lunch, exasperated and determined not to show it. Story of his life lately. He saw no sign of the wheelchair that he’d rented, probably because Wes hated to use it, but Rex didn’t care how his dad had gotten to the table as long as he was there. He sent Callie a smile of thanks as he walked to the counter and helped himself to a tall glass of iced tea.

      “How did you know he loved Mom’s pimento cheese sandwiches?” he asked softly.

      She gave him the barest of smiles, whispering, “I’ve seen him eat three at a sitting.”

      Saluting her with his tea glass, Rex walked to the table. He silently congratulated himself on making a good hire.

      Church ladies had been helping them out since Rex’s sisters had left after getting Wes home from the hospital, providing casseroles and other dishes and sitting with Wes when called upon, but it had rapidly become obvious that they couldn’t continue to impose. The past couple weeks on their own had been rough, especially with the ranch taking more and more of Rex’s time. Rex honestly hadn’t expected to find someone to help so quickly, though. He’d only stopped at the café because he was hungry for a decent breakfast. Even before his sisters had returned to their respective jobs—Ann to Dallas, where she managed a hotel, and Meredith to Oklahoma City, where she worked as a nurse in the hospital where their father had been through surgery and would soon start chemotherapy—breakfast had been an issue. Even a well-stocked larder didn’t help if a person had no idea what to do with its contents.

      Callie knew exactly what she was doing. Neither of his sisters could hold a candle to her in the kitchen. Even his mother might have had her work cut out for her. Gloria Billings had been fun, loving and more than a little scatterbrained. Callie proved efficient, quick and affable, not to mention easy on the eyes. Wes certainly seemed happy with what was on his plate, and Rex hadn’t seen that in many months, even before they’d figured out what was wrong with his dad.

      Eventually Wes wiped his mouth with a napkin, saying, “Wish I could do better by this, Callie. Sure is good. Any chance you can put it up for my lunch tomorrow?”

      Callie turned from the big, old stove that had been Rex’s mother’s pride and joy. Gloria had loved everything about the rustic, sprawling, sixty-year-old cedar-sided ranch house, wrapped in deep porches and steep, metal roofing that Rex’s grandfather had built. She’d even loved the drafty, smoky, fieldstone fireplace that took up one whole wall in the L-shaped living and formal dining area. Smiling, Callie walked to the rectangular kitchen table and picked up Wes’s plate.

      “I think there’s enough left over for your lunch tomorrow, if that’s what you want. I was planning on Gloria’s chicken and dumplings for supper.”

      Wes sat back with a happy smile. “It’s been an age since I last had that.”

      “Gloria was generous with her recipes,” Callie said. “I use them all the time.”

      As she carried the plate back to the sink, Wes looked to Rex. “You did good, son.”

      Rex just smiled and gobbled down the last of his thick sandwich, as a thin wail rose from upstairs.

      Callie calmly moved toward the back stairs. A back hallway provided access to the stairs, a laundry room, mudroom, a small bath and what his mother had used to call her craft room. His dad had taken over the latter as his bedroom to spare himself a trip up the stairs after he’d taken ill. What had once been six small bedrooms upstairs had been remodeled into four bedrooms and two roomy baths, all with sloping ceilings.

      “If you need me, I’ll be in the barn,” Rex announced as Callie climbed the stairs.

      “Okay,” Callie called. “We’ll be fine.”

      “That baler still giving you trouble?” Wes asked with a shake of his head. “Wish I was up to helping you fix it.”

      “It’s okay, Dad.” Rex got to his feet. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

      His father sighed but laboriously pushed into a standing position. At sixty-two years of age and six foot four inches in height, Wes still stood a couple inches taller than Rex, but he felt perilously thin when Rex wrapped his arm lightly about Wes’s waist.

      He walked his dad down the hall into his bedroom, which now contained a rented hospital bed. His sisters had draped a sheer curtain over the window, but Wes preferred to keep that pushed to one side. Rex thought it was so his father could see his mother’s peonies. Even now, four years after her unexpected death, they bloomed in the shade of the old hackberry tree at the side of the house, though the flowerbeds badly needed weeding.

      Rex made a mental note to see to the flowerbeds—just as soon as he got the baler operating and the early hay harvest under way. He had to get the hay in or the cattle wouldn’t have the fodder they’d need to get through winter. The Straight Arrow covered 1,280 acres of prime ranchland, and a good portion of it had been sowed in sturdy grasses, but after several years of drought, even the good rains of the past year hadn’t allowed the range to fully recover. With Dad’s medical bills piling up—the insurance carried high deductibles and co-pays—the ranch couldn’t afford to buy more fodder than usual and still stay on a sound financial footing, which was why Rex would be paying Callie’s wages, though he intended for neither her nor his father to realize that fact. After all, he could afford it. Besides, he’d be practicing law again soon enough.

      Ranching had never been Rex’s chosen career path, but without the ranch, Rex and his sisters feared that their dad would simply give up. He’d taken their mother’s death hard, and they feared that his cancer would become an excuse for him simply to let go and join her in the next life, especially if the ranch faltered. Rex couldn’t let that happen. Though not as prosperous as in years past, the ranch remained on solid fiscal footing, and Rex intended to see to it that it stayed that way. As much as he disliked the СКАЧАТЬ