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Thirty miles away at the Triple C headquarters, there had been no more than a whiff of rain smell in the air. Standing in the feedlot with puddles of water soaking into the sponge-dry ground, Ty looked at the destruction the storm had left in its wake. The carcasses of ten dead steers were crowded in a corner of the lot where they had bunched in a frightened, bawling mass during the storm, a large target for the ball of lightning that had exploded on them. The weight of their bodies had collapsed a section of fence, and the rest of the fat cattle in the lot had stampeded through it, three more steers trampled to death in the panicked melee. The sophisticated feeding machinery had been hit as well as the grain elevator. Half the grain in it was likely ruined by the inpouring rain.
The cost of the damage was staggering, none of it insured. With an operation the size of the Triple C Ranch, the theory had always been that it was big enough to absorb its losses. But there had been too many other drains on its reserves. There wasn’t anything left to cushion the blow.
“I don’t know what to say, Ty,” Arch Goodman offered grimly. “I’ll let you know how much grain we can salvage. With feed prices today, if we have to buy more grain, the fat cattle aren’t bringing in enough on the market to offset the increase. We’ll wind up going deeper in the red.”
“We’ll have to fatten most of them on grass and finish them with a couple weeks’ wor
th of grain.” It seemed the only viable alternative, even though it meant the cattle wouldn’t bring top prices. More and more, circumstances were pushing him toward another decision.
“You aren’t going to get top dollar for ’em that way,” Arch warned, voicing what Ty had already considered.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Impatience put a sharp edge on his reply.
Goodman stiffened slightly at the harsh tone. “Looks like they rounded up the rest of the steers.” He observed the trio of riders herding a small band of cattle toward the feedlots, his attitude stilted and cool. “I’ll go give ’em a hand with the gate.”
Tight-lipped, Ty simply nodded and covered his silence by lighting a cigarette while the man walked away. He shook out the match and dropped it on the wet ground where there was still enough moisture on the surface to make the match head sizzle faintly. A truck was backing into the yard to load up the carcasses of the dead cattle. Ty left the men to their job and angled to the fence to look over the steers being herded into an adjoining lot.
One was lame. The rest were probably a few pounds lighter from the run—valuable pounds. Ty made a climbing vault of the fence and stood on the other side to watch. Without conscious effort, he picked out Jessy among the trio of riders. When the gate had swung shut on the last of the animals, he waited. It seemed there was no end to the unpleasant decisions he had to make.
Jessy was on the outside of the riders as they came to the fence and dismounted. Her caramel hair was tucked under her hat, giving him a view of her long, slender neck. She gave him a clear-eyed look which skipped away to the feedlots. Then she turned her patrician-strong face to him.
“Some storm,” she remarked idly.
“Yeah,” he agreed. As he looked at her and heard the stiffness in their exchange, there seemed to be a lot of things he didn’t need to say. Yet some things had to be said to make it final.
“This just adds to your problems, doesn’t it?” Jessy said and looked again at the destruction the storm had left, some of it visible.
“Yes, it does.” He struggled to find an easy way to lead into the things he wanted to say to her. He didn’t want to be blunt.
“There’s been some grumbling among the boys. Some of them aren’t happy about the way things have changed lately.” She rested her gloved hands on the top rail of the fence, gripping it slightly and rocking back from it. “They claim they’re spending more time catering to your guests than they are cowboying.”
“They’re lucky they’re working at all.” Irritation made his response sound curt. “I can just barely cover the payroll for the regulars now. Have they been complaining to you about their working conditions?”
“No. I’ve just heard talk. I thought I’d pass it along in case nobody had said anything to you.” A shoulder lifted, attaching little importance to her knowledge of the issue.
And it did gall him a little to learn there was dissatisfaction among the ranks and he hadn’t known about it till now. “There’s not much I can do about it.”
Jessy eyed him through shuttered lids. She sensed that he’d managed to lose touch with some basic things, not so surprising considering the pressure and responsibilities that had been heaped on him of late. Not to mention the constant stream of guests that had been at The Homestead. It was all those other demands on his time that she’d blamed for his not coming by her place. But looking at him, at the aloofness he wore like a barrier, she wondered if those demands were the only reasons.
“I suppose not,” she said.
“Jessy—” Something in his voice flattened her heart, and she mentally braced herself. “What we had was good.” Past tense.
“Yes, it was.” She turned to meet him square on. “And I have no regrets.”
Ty had some, but it seemed pointless to voice them. “I never set out to hurt you. I know I have.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She slowly shook her head, her wide lips turned upward at the corner in a sad shadow of a smile. “I’ve always known she came first with you.” She’d known it much longer than he realized. The sting of tears was in the back of her eyes. She looked away at the horizon, squinting a little to keep them in check. “It’s probably best if I hand in my notice the end of the month.”
“You once told me I was free to go or free to stay, whichever I wanted. Now I’ll say the same to you.” Ty didn’t want to think of her being anywhere else but right here, where he could keep an eye on her and watch out for her. But it wasn’t his right to ask that.
“Thanks, Ty.” Her throat hurt, but pride insisted on a show of lightness. “I’d better get back to work before I’m accused of loafing on the boss’s time.”
When she climbed into the saddle, her head was held high. It was the only way to keep her chin from quivering. It hurt to breathe; it hurt to live. A long time ago her mother had told her that no woman had ever conquered loneliness. It was an endless battle, especially in these lonely spaces.
As Ty watched her ride away, he swore he’d never met a more honest woman. There had been no commitments, no promises between them, and she had not pretended she had been wronged by him. She was as honest about this as she had been about her emotions. He felt the lesser for it. But Tara’s ripe beauty waited for him—the kind men spun dreams around.
Halfway to the headquarters, he spied a wet-looking and bedraggled Cathleen riding her paint horse along the road’s grassy shoulder just ahead of his pickup. He slowed the truck to a crawl as he pulled alongside her.
