Maddie Inherits a Cowboy

She’d soon find out.

As she traveled east, her cellular service popped in and out, mostly out, so she was surprised when she got a call. It was Connor, her research assistant and the only person, according to Skip, who was more of a tight ass than she was—which was why Madeline was glad she had him. If she forgot some detail, she was certain Connor would catch it.

“Where are you?”

Madeline took in the barren landscape. “Quite liter ally in the middle of nowhere. I’m driving to the ranch.

It’s more than four hours from Reno.”

“I tried to call three times.”

“Bad service here. You should see this place. Mountains and flat. That’s it. I’ve driven for more than thirty miles without seeing a house.” Madeline shifted the phone to her other ear. “What’s happening there?”

“Nothing on the professional front, but I went to visit your grandmother.”

“How is she?”

“Rambunctious.” Madeline felt a surge of relief.

Rambunctious meant no bronchial relapse. “There’s been complaints from the apartment next door. Loud music—”

“She’s losing her hearing.”

“Parties.”

“Give me a break.” Connor might be a detail guy, but he had a sense of humor.

“I tried to talk her into the iPod again, but no luck. She refuses to wear headphones.”

“Well, as long as she doesn’t get kicked out.” Grandma Eileen, also a professor of anthropology, lived in a retirement complex that catered to the academic set. She was seventy-two years old and very active. Madeline’s many cousins made sure she was never lonely, but it was Madeline and Skip that had a special bond with Eileen, who’d taken them in when their parents divorced and went to find themselves on different continents. Her grandmother was also the reason Madeline had been able to make peace with what had happened to her brother.

Grieve now or grieve later, Eileen had said, but she wanted Madeline to understand that she wasn’t going to escape the process. She hadn’t escaped, but after a year she had reached acceptance. The stage where she could remember Skip without sharp pain.

“Thanks for taking my visit,” Madeline said. Connor, who had next to no family of his own, considered him self one of the grandkids, so she knew it was no chore. “Are you sure there’s no news on the Jensen front?”

“Noth—” A sharp beep cut off Connor’s reply. No signal. Madeline snapped the phone shut.

An hour later she pulled into Winnemucca for gas. It was hard to believe she was still in the same state and that she’d passed through only two towns of any size since leaving Reno. The emptiness, the vastness of this land, was daunting. Not only that, it was damned cold and snowy. This was not the desert she’d envisioned from her brother’s enthusiasm about his new home. The mountains were pretty, much more rugged and barren than the ones she was used to, but other than that, what had Skip seen in this country?

Madeline adjusted her collar against the wind and screwed the gas cap on. According to the GPS, she had another hundred and eighty miles—and two more towns—to go before reaching her target destination.

She was nearing the town of Battle Mountain when it began to snow, and during the sixty mile drive to Elko what should have been an hour’s drive turned into an hour and a half.

Ty might have been angry when he’d told her to bring food, but Madeline took him at his word. As soon as she hit Elko, she stopped and bought a bag of groceries—mostly cereal and cookies. Carbohydrates fed the brain.

When she left the store, she was glad to see that the skies were clearing, although there was a good six inches of unplowed snow on the road. She loaded the groceries into the car and wearily got back in. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to reaching the ranch, but she was looking forward to not driving anymore. It had been one long day. And it was only half over.

THERE WAS NO WAY in hell that a car, even one with all-wheel drive, should have made it up Lone Summit Road after a snowfall. But damned if Madeline Blaine didn’t climb out of a Subaru Outback and wade through the drift to the gate at the end of the driveway.

Ty tipped back the brim of his black felt hat and watched from the corral where he’d just fed the bulls. A full minute later he knew he had to go help her. What kind of a person could navigate that road and then not be able to figure out a gate latch? Apparently one with a doctorate in anthropology.

He muttered a curse and trudged down the snowy drive with Alvin, his border collie, at his heels, walking in the same track Ty created. She was obviously het up to see the ranch, so see the ranch she would. He had a feeling when she was done that she was going to wish she’d believed him.

Madeline did not give up on the latch. She continued to wrestle with it right up until he stopped on the opposite side of the gate.

“Need help?” he asked mildly.

“What do you think?” she snapped.

You don’t want to know what I think…. “I’m surprised you made it,” he said after he pulled the mechanism that released the latch—the mechanism that Madeline had been pushing for all she was worth. She lifted her chin slightly when she saw how easily the latch sprang open.

“What do you mean?”

“The snow, the ruts, the road.”

She made a face. “I grew up in New York. I can drive in the snow and I don’t need one of those to do it.” She pointed at his four-wheel-drive pickup truck parked next to the barn a hundred yards away.

“Bully for you,” he muttered as she trudged back to her car and got inside. He and Alvin stood clear as she drove past, and then Ty shut the gate. Madeline had parked next to the truck and was out of the car, standing in the snow, when he and Alvin caught up with her.

“I’ll show you Skip’s house.”

“Thank you.”

She followed him as he broke trail through the calf-deep snow to the double-wide closest to the barn. Skip had lived in the newer of the two prefab ranch houses. Both were roomy, with three bedrooms and two baths and, under normal circumstances, quite comfortable. These were not normal circumstances, though. Skip’s place had been uninhabited for almost two years and Ty had a feeling Madeline wasn’t going to find the place all that inviting. Oh, well. He’d told her not to come.

Ty walked up the stairs and opened the door.

Madeline stalled out at the bottom step. “I assume there are no mice inside? It has been empty for some time.”

He had managed to keep the mice out so far—no small feat in the country—with a lot of caulk and steel wool. He figured that if he ever expanded to the point that he could hire help, or if he got another partner to buy into the operation, he’d need to keep the house up.

Perhaps that had been a mistake.

“No mice. I check frequently.” It was still hard for him to go inside Skip’s place, and cleaning it out had been a hell he never wanted to have to repeat.

Madeline slowly climbed the stairs with a suitcase in each hand. Her concern about mice only reinforced his belief that she wasn’t going to last long at the ranch, but he had to give her credit for not flinching at the amount of fine silt that had worked its way in through the edges of the windows and settled. One of the joys of desert life—even in the high country.

The only furniture in the two front rooms was a leather sofa that pulled out into a bed—in case Ty had company who wanted privacy, which was laughable because Ty never had company—and a small kitchen table with two chairs. The other rooms were empty.

Everything had been shipped home or sent to charity.

“I sent the bedding and towels and stuff to Goodwill.”

“I know,” she said briskly. She walked through the house, the floor squeaking beneath her steps. “I brought a sleeping bag.”

“You’re really staying.”

Her eyebrows lifted, as if in surprise, but the reaction seemed forced—quite possibly because of where she would be staying. The house was not inviting. “I told you I was.”