Maddie Inherits a Cowboy

The truck’s front wheel slowly spun.

Bing Crosby sang.

For a moment it had been too much to process, and then he’d realized that the radio in the demolished truck was still playing. Somehow. Bing’s rendition of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” was the only sound in the cold desert night, so out of place in the aftermath of a violent wreck.

And then there had been another sound—his own voice screaming for his friend, demanding that Skip answer him….

Ty opened his eyes and got to his feet. He’d go outside, away from the music, to collect himself. Great plan, but he hadn’t taken more than two steps when he saw her crossing the casino lobby. Madeline Blaine. Skip’s sister.

It had to be her, since the time was exactly ten and she was wearing black slacks, a short red jacket and a black-and-white-checked scarf, exactly as she’d described on the phone the day before. She zeroed in on him, although she had no way of knowing what he looked like, and made a beeline toward him. Ty took off his hat as she approached.

“You must be Mr. Hopewell,” she said briskly, extending her hand before he had a chance to speak. He took it briefly, knowing his own hand was probably ice-cold. It was the first time he’d met any of Skip’s relatives. The funeral had taken place back east, where Skip had grown up.

“Yes. I’m Ty.”

“Madeline.”

He was struck by how little she looked like Skip. Her hair was straight and dark, while Skip’s had been light brown and wavy. Her eyes were green; his had been brown. And Skip had been a big guy. His sister was on the small side, her features delicate. The only similarities he could see were the distinctive high cheekbones and fair skin. Skin that tended to fry under the Nevada sun. Skip had been forever sunburned.

She gestured at the chair where he’d been sitting a few seconds before. Ty obligingly sat and she took the chair kitty-corner to his, so they could face each other. Obviously Ms. Blaine was going to run this meeting. Ty just wanted it to be over. Hell, he wished he knew what it was about—and he wished Bing would shut up already, but the singer geared up for another verse.

Peace on the earth, goodwill to…

Ty ran a finger around the inside of his collar and Madeline Blaine tilted her head as she appraised him, a slight frown drawing her dark eyebrows together. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Fine.” Except for the guilt that was crushing him as Bing sang. Technically, Skip’s death had been an accident, but one that clearly could have been avoided if Ty hadn’t been so damned stubborn.

He’d reached the point after twenty-three months where he didn’t think about it as much—sometimes he could go several oblivious days at a time. But when he did think about Skip’s death, it ate at him.

He looked into Madeline Blaine’s clear green eyes, having no doubt about what had triggered him today. He hadn’t been looking forward to this meeting with Skip’s sister, and Bing hadn’t helped matters.

He cleared his throat. “Ms. Blaine—”

“Dr. Blaine.”

Oh-kay. She was a professor of anthropology at a small university somewhere in New York, but he hadn’t realized he had to use her title. “Dr. Blaine.”

“Madeline.”

Ty took a deep breath. “I hope you didn’t fly out here just to meet with me.”

“Why else would I have come?” She spoke quickly, with unexpected defensiveness. Ty was a guy who watched people and picked up signals. The signal he was getting here he didn’t quite understand.

“I thought you might have plans to do something else, to have some fun while you’re here.” Fun. Shit. Yeah, she should have fun while on a trip to settle her brother’s estate. “What I mean is that there’s stuff to do here in Reno.”

Madeline sat a little taller. “I came to meet with you,” she said, clasping her hands together. “About the ranch, as I’m sure you’ve surmised. The reasons we’re losing money.”

“We broke even this quarter,” Ty pointed out. And they’d had this same discussion on the phone more than once. He understood her impatience, but the cattle market wasn’t exactly booming right now—although organic beef was doing better than regular beef.

What he didn’t understand was how flying across the country to meet with him face-to-face was going to help. To use the guilt factor perhaps? No matter how guilty he felt, it wouldn’t make the cattle sales rebound any faster than they were.

But…whatever.

“The market is better than it was six months ago, yet that’s not reflected in the ranch profits,” Madeline said.

“There are things you need to understand.” Things he’d thought he’d explained before, but for some reason Madeline wasn’t getting it. “I’ve had to sink money into the ranch—money Skip would have had to sink into the ranch—to keep the infrastructure intact.” He’d refenced the property and reroofed the barn, eradicated weeds, worked on the roads. The ranch wasn’t in bad shape, but that was only because of the hours he’d put in after the accident, trying to forget the unforgettable.

Madeline nodded. Old news.

“Feed costs are up.” Which was a double killer when cattle prices were down.

“I thought you raised your own hay,” she said coolly.

“Not enough to feed the entire herd over the winter,” Ty replied, still wondering why they were having this discussion in the lobby. Yet another carol played in the background. But at least this way they could get the meeting over with and Madeline could go about her business, whatever it might be. There was no way she’d flown across the country only to meet with him in a casino lobby.

“Then perhaps you need to plant more hay,” Madeline said reasonably, as if pointing out a solution that had escaped him. But there was something in the tone of her voice that made Ty shift in his chair.

“The fields can only be irrigated during the spring because of the power and water situation, so that limits the amount of hay we can grow. And living off the grid, generating our own power, is expensive, what with ongoing generator maintenance and repairs and fuel.”

She leaned back, studying him for a moment before saying, “I want to see the ranch.”

Ty frowned. If he had known that, he would have sent photos. Real photos. The ones Skip had posted on his social websites had been misleading. They hadn’t exactly shown anything except a spectacular view and cattle in the field. He’d probably sent his family the same pictures.

“In person,” she added, reading his mind.

If Ty’s teeth hadn’t been clenched so tightly, his jaw would have dropped. “It’s a five-hour drive.”

“I’ve leased a car.”

Leased? As opposed to rented? He felt a knot tightening in his stomach. “Look, Ms…. Dr….” Ty gave up. “It’s your right to come look at it, but I don’t see how it’s going to help. It’s a long trip and then you’ll just have to turn around and drive another hour and a half back to the closest town for the night.”

“I plan to stay on the ranch.”

Somehow he managed to say, “Why?” rather than “Are you nuts?”

Madeline pulled her shoulders back, making her posture even more upright. “Because I want to know exactly what’s going on. I want to see how the operation runs and try to figure out why it isn’t making money. Skip was no fool. If he went in with you, then the business, the property, must have had merit.”

She was correct. Skip was no fool. But he’d been a romantic and thoroughly swept up in the cowboy mystique. Organic beef raised in an isolated environment off the grid appealed to him. “The property is good for what we wanted.”

“Yet according to you, the property itself is part of the reason you’re not making money.”

“That and the market,” he said grimly. He rested his forearms on his thighs, holding the brim of his black felt hat between his fingers as he met her eyes.

“The problems you’ve outlined are all problems Skip was dealing with when he was alive, and yet the ranch made money…then.”

It was the way she emphasized the word then that finally clued Ty in.

“The ranch will make a profit again,” he replied in a low voice, his expression stony.