Running Blind

L
IBBY
T
HOMPSON CROSSED
her plump arms and tried to look stern, which wasn’t easy considering the undeniable sadness she felt. “Don’t give me that look, A.Z. Decker. Those puppy-dog eyes haven’t worked on me since you were nine years old.” Not that he’d had puppy-dog eyes even back then, and he certainly didn’t now, but she’d learned a long time ago that the trick to handling him was to never let it show how blasted intimidating he was when he looked pissed and flinty-eyed, the way he did now.

Zeke glanced down and to the side, where Libby’s bags sat. They were a hodgepodge of hand-me-downs, three different makers, three different colors: red, brown, and black. The bags were all stuffed so full they bulged and threatened to split their zippers wide open. Everything she owned was in those bags.

“I gave you two weeks’ notice,” she said in her best no-nonsense tone, because if she gave an inch, in no time flat he’d have her talked into staying. She couldn’t let her guard down, not even for a minute. The trick was to remember that he looked at problems as things he could solve if he just didn’t give up, which was great if he was working on your behalf, and not so great if
you were on the other side of all that bullheaded determination.

“I tried to find a replacement,” Zeke growled, glaring at her accusingly, as if his failure was her fault.

“Really?” She snorted. “You put an ad in the
Battle Ridge Weekly
.” That was when she’d realized he hadn’t taken her seriously when she’d told him she was leaving, otherwise he’d have placed multiple ads in the newspapers in larger towns. As much as she loved him, that had really ticked her off. If he thought he could bulldoze her the way he did everyone else, then he was about to get his perception of the world rearranged.

“Two more weeks,” he bargained.

She blew out a breath of frustration. In her fifty-seven years, she’d faced down a lot, and never let life get her down even when she was widowed at a young age and left with a baby she needed to support. But from the time she’d first come to work here at the Decker ranch, she’d needed every bit of ability she possessed to stay ahead of Zeke. As a toddler he’d been a chubby, charming hellion; as a gap-toothed little boy he’d been a skinny, charming hellion; and since his teenage years he’d been a heartbreaker, with a whole lot of hard-ass thrown into the mix. He always got his way, but this time she simply couldn’t let that happen.

She’d been working at this ranch house for thirty-odd years, at first part-time and later, after Zeke’s mother remarried and moved to Arizona, full-time. She and Jenny had had their own rooms here, just off the kitchen. She knew this house as if it were her own, knew Zeke as if she’d given birth to him. His sisters had become a big part of her life, too, but they were both older, and Libby hadn’t played as large a part in their lives as she had in Zeke’s. For more than thirty years she’d cooked, she’d cleaned, and she’d blessed him out when he needed it.
She’d mothered him, mothered the ranch hands, and spoiled him rotten. And she was on her way out the door.

She sighed, and her gaze softened a little. “Zeke, I hate to leave you in the lurch, you know I do, but I promised Jenny I’d be there this coming weekend. She’s at her wit’s end, with Tim out of town on business more often than not and those three kids running her ragged, and another one on the way. She’s my daughter, and she needs me.”

“I need you,” he growled, then his jaw hardened as he finally faced the reality, once and for all, that she was leaving. “Okay. Damn it—okay. I’ll get by.”

“I know you will.” Libby stepped toward him, patted him on one cheek while she went up on her toes and kissed him on the other. She backed away, and was all business once again. “I think Spencer knows his way around the kitchen; he’ll do until you find a replacement. I left a couple of cookbooks on the kitchen table. The recipe for my beef stew is in the one with the green cover.” He loved her beef stew, always had. She felt more than a little sad that she might never make it for him again, but at least the recipe was there so
someone
could.

“Thanks.”

He didn’t sound very grateful; he still sounded pissed as hell. Well, he could just stay pissed, because she’d made up her mind. Ignoring his sour mood, she continued, “I filled the freezer with stew, a pan of lasagna, and corn bread. There’s a big pot of chicken and dumplings in the refrigerator for tonight. Once that’s all gone, you can either find another housekeeper or you can get your ass busy finding another wife. That’s what you really need.”

That was a safe gambit, because if there was one subject Zeke avoided, it was marriage. He’d tried it once, it hadn’t worked. By his way of thinking, he’d have to be nuts to put himself through the torture of trying again. He wasn’t a monk, by any means, and if he put himself
out to find another wife he’d find himself standing in front of a preacher in no time; he definitely wasn’t hard on the eyes, with those broad shoulders, green eyes, and that thick, light brown hair. The right woman would rise to the challenge of meeting him halfway—if he were looking for a wife, which he wasn’t. Why would he, when he’d been able to find sex whenever he wanted and Libby was here on the home front taking care of all things domestic? All he wanted now was a cook and a housekeeper, and that was a horse of a different color.

Not many women would be happy on a ranch in the Middle Of Nowhere, Wyoming. The nearest town, Battle Ridge, was an hour’s drive away and was damn near a ghost town these days, anyway. Well, not really; there were still stores, but ten years ago over two thousand people had lived there, and now there was only about half that many.

And the bus only came through twice a week. Libby was about to get on it.

“Well come on, damn it,” he said, reaching for the bulging red bag. “It’s time to get you to town. You’re right, we’ll find a way to get by until I hire someone to replace you. No one’s going to starve, and I can damn well do my own laundry.” He snatched up the brown bag, too, leaving the black one, the smallest, for Libby.

She couldn’t help it. Her voice softened some when she said, “You know, you could call your mother …”

“No,” Zeke said sharply. Well, she’d known that was a nonstarter. He’d love a visit from his mother, but if she came her husband—Larry—would tag along. Zeke didn’t begrudge his mother happiness, but he and Larry had never seen eye to eye. A few days were about all he could stomach; no way would he ask them to move in for a stay that could turn into weeks.

“One of your sisters, then.”

“No.” This particular
no
wasn’t as harsh as the first one
had been. “They’ve both got families, kids, jobs. Neither of them could take that much time away to stay here.”

“Kat might—”

Zeke snorted. “She’s got a business of her own to run. Why would she leave it to work here?”

“She could still cook some stuff for you to freeze, for emergencies. All you have to do is unbend enough to ask her.” Kat was a damn good cook, which was why she did so well with her little restaurant in Battle Ridge; she and Zeke were first cousins, so she’d help if she could, though her schedule was so crowded there was no way he could rely on her help to keep the hands fed full-time.

Libby opened the front door for Zeke, since his hands were full, and he stepped onto the porch. Half a dozen hands were waiting by the truck, waiting to say goodbye to the woman who had become a second mother to many of them. For a couple, she was the first real caring mother they’d ever known. There wasn’t a smile to be seen on any of those weather-beaten faces.

“Like I said, we’ll get by.” He shot a narrow-eyed look at Spencer, who shifted his feet and looked both guilty and confused, because he didn’t know what he’d done to earn the boss’s scowl. “Though we’ll be lucky if Spencer doesn’t give us all food poisoning.”

“Things will work out. They always do,” Libby said optimistically. She patted her hair, making sure all was in place, then rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek again. “I’ll be back for a visit every now and then,” she said, going down the steps to say good-bye to the ranch hands.

Z
EKE WASN’T AS
optimistic as Libby. As he drove her into town he tried not to growl his answers to her conversational chatter, tried to be happy for her, but—
hell!

He’d miss her. He couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been here. She was a spark plug of a woman,
short and wide, with the kind of spirit that drew other people to her. When other women were settling into their senior years, Libby was dyeing her hair a different color every other week—it was flaming red right now—and bossing everyone around, making plans to take her grandchildren on a hot-air balloon ride, and generally steamrolling through life. At the same time, she had the kindest heart he’d ever seen.