“I do now. I thought most women wanted to be married.”
“Maybe in your world, but not in mine. But then I’m probably the only woman in the world that feels that way and you, the marrying kind of man, had to fall in love with me, the strong willed, independent, career woman.”
Jake sighed. “At least the question is on the table. I’m not going to take it off.”
“I promise I will consider your proposal. Please believe me that I have to get used to the idea. You are asking me to do a 180 degree turn in my world. That takes some thinking about. I need more time.”
He smiled. “Okay, okay, okay. We’ll see how things go.”
She turned the conversation away from making a commitment. “This ranch has possibilities. It has a nice setting, nice views. Probably the house would have to be replaced.”
“I’ll talk to the old man about some things that concern me. Like the new equipment and the fresh cow manure.”
“What?”
“New farm equipment and a pasture full of fresh manure don’t fit with an old man with a rundown ranch and one person coming in to feed two goats.”
“Let see if he’s found a deed or something that can tell us what he owns and doesn’t own.”
They found old man Lovejoy sitting on a chair on the deck, looking at the floor boards.
“Are you okay?” asked Jake. “Can I get you anything?”
The old man looked up. “Who are you?”
Jake sighed. This was going to be more difficult than he had hoped, but at least Fiona now had his very solid marriage proposal to consider.
On the way home Fiona’s thoughts circled not so much on Jake’s proposal but what she had not shared with Jake and that was her disastrous affair with Rob Calloway. They had been lovers when Rob was going through a difficult period with his mentally unstable wife. Not until after they had consummated their passion had she learned he was married. She broke it off but that didn’t last. He had said he would leave his wife, but then the doctors found the right combination of medications to keep his unstable wife on an even keel. And his two teenage children needed a father. A month before she had met Jake in Virginia, Rob had ended their on-again-off-again affair that had manifested in long sultry afternoons at her condominium. Occasionally they escaped on overnight excursions on his sail boat on the Chesapeake Bay. They had talked of business partnerships, of a future together. But that was never to be.
Her fondness for Jake couldn’t blossom and bloom because Rob Calloway still took up the region of her heart where romantic love resided. She had sealed up that region with a wall. Walls could keep emotions under lock and key, but more difficult was turning off her hormones. Jake triggered them for sure, and it had been all she could do to stay out of his bed. She might not be able to keep the hormones under wraps much longer. Jake was too sexy. She wasn’t the only one who thought so. She could see it in the way other women looked at him. How they flirted with him. He was a catch, no doubt about it. Susie and some of the other women might jump at the chance to be his wife. She had felt little pricks of jealousy about those women. She would keep that nice, solid wall around her wounded heart, but maybe let her roaring hormones loose.
Sammie had tried to entertain Opal on the trip to town to keep her mind off things. She had told Opal funny stories and sang songs to keep the mood light after the scene with Tillie. Sammie was more than annoyed with her sister. She’d have another talk with her.
In the house Opal said, “Sammie, I’d like to have a lie down. Will you see if Jake and Fiona are around? That’s Doc’s rig out there. They must have come to help. See if you can find them.”
Sammie helped Opal to her room, taking her purse and laying it on the dresser. Opal lay back on the bed with a sigh. “I feel so tired. So tired.” She closed her eyes.
Sammie stood by the bed. “Don’t you worry, Aunt Opal. Just rest for now.” She closed the mini-blinds against the glare and shut the door as she left.
She was glad Doc had come to help. He was one of the more dependable of the nephews, though he was no young man himself. The kitchen seemed to be in order. Queenie had left a note on the counter to say she had made beef stew that was in the crock pot for dinner. Rolls were in a bag in the cupboard. She’d be back in the morning. Dinner, at least, was off the list of things to do.
Sammie walked out the back door. In the distance she could hear the sound of farm machinery. It sounded like a rake. She had grown up on a ranch that her parents had tried to keep going for years while she and Tillie grew up. As far as she was concerned they had worked themselves to death, her mother teaching school and her father driving truck for a local business while trying to keep a herd of cows fed and watered. Calving season was the worst in the freezing cold weather of February and March.
How she detested the daily struggle of ranch life. It was the reason she went off to college, working her way through, getting a degree in computer science, ending up with a good job at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. Her mother had died of breast cancer. Her father followed soon after of a heart attack. She and Tillie had had to sell the ranch to pay off the debts. There was little left over. Tillie had bought a small, worthless spread and married a small, worthless man.
Samantha shuddered. She wanted no part of any ranch. She was only here because Opal needed help. Ranching brought nothing but bad memories. She owed her allegiance to Opal. This dear aunt always was kind to her, always provided a home for her after they had sold her parents’ ranch, always had seen that she had a little extra spending money when she needed it. She wasn’t going to let Tillie bully her way across the end of Opal’s life, not if she could help it.
Two days went by without another dramatic incident. No angry relatives showed up. No one tried to burn anything down. They didn’t lose any more cows. Fiona had marriage to consider. Jake had a new ranch possibility to think about.
Old man Lovejoy had found the deed while they were there, and they discussed the extent of the property. Jake was thinking about having someone survey the place. He was hoping to hear from the lady at the bank this week whether he could get a loan on Opal’s ranch that might turn into a loan on Lovejoy’s ranch. The sooner he could work out where he would live and ranch, the better it would be for him and Fiona, the girl he didn’t understand sometimes.
Curiously, old man Lovejoy had said he hadn’t leased the place to anybody and couldn’t account for the equipment in the shed. He had discussed this curiosity on the way home with Fiona. She came to the same conclusion he had. The rustlers were using the Lovejoy ranch as a base of operation.
“We should be watching his place,” Fiona had said.
“I’m not a security service,” Jake had said. “I’m a rancher.”
“True, but someone’s stealing from you, and it’s hurting your operation. We’re going to have to solve this mystery ourselves.”
“I’m already spread too thin.”
“True, again.”
They had left it there, but Jake had spent the better part of the last two days thinking about the strange things going on at the H Bar O. That was, of course, when he wasn’t thinking of Fiona.
On Sunday he invited Fiona to go to church with him. The pastor from the cowboy church had called Saturday night and asked Jake to fill in on the worship team Sunday morning since their regular guitar player was sick. Even with all he had to do, Jake said yes, because sometimes it felt good to be inside a church singing cowboy gospel songs. With the ranch and everything, it seemed he never had time to get away for Sunday services.