Sea Of Grass (5 page)

“Tess! You have a foul mouth, young woman.” He sighed and his daughter grunted again.

“He’s an asshole, Dad. He’ll do anything to get the Double R. He’s just angry because I got the better of him with Tom a few years ago.” She laughed again. “Remember how red in the face he got when Tom told him we were buying exclusively from him?”

In spite of himself, Jed laughed along. “He almost blew a gasket. Thank God for your degree in business from that fancy college of yours.”

“It was worth all the years of studying marketing and business just to see the look on his face. He wanted Tom’s store, as well. The money-grubbing old fu…”

“Ah, ah, how in the hell are you ever gonna get married with a mouth like that?”
 

Tess heard the serious tone behind the laughter. She glared up at him. “I’m not getting married,” she gently reminded him.

Jed took a long patient breath. Tess gave him a stern “don’t start this again” look, and he let out a sigh of resignation.

“I want a grandson.”

Tess gave him an incredulous look. “A grandson? Dad,” Tess started. Her father groaned and hid his face in his hand. “I know I’ve been gone for a while, but did we forget one teeny tiny fact?”

Jed groaned more deeply and did not respond.

Tess hid her grin. “Dad?”

“What?”

She laughed openly then and walked up to his horse. Reaching up, she tugged at his arm until he looked down at her. “I love you, and you know I’d do anything for you.”

Jed beamed. “Rick Cunningham is still single.”

“It’s Cumberland, and I’m still a lesbian.”

Jed grimaced and shut his eyes. “Still? I thought maybe you’d have come to your senses.” He opened his eyes and chuckled. “No, huh?”

“No.” Tess smirked and put her hands on her hips. “You’ll have to adopt.”

She was pleasantly surprised when her father let out a hearty laugh. “So much like your mother. Just as sarcastic and independent as she was.” He stopped and frowned for a moment. “Come to think of it, you’re just like my mother. It’s in the Rawlins women’s blood, I suppose. God help us all.”

“Yes, it’s a curse. C’mon, get down from there. You look tired. Take the car home. I’ll ride Daphne.”

“You remember how?”

Tess glared as he slid off the mare and stretched his back. She gave him a stern look. “How long were you riding this morning?”

“Oh, hush. I’m fine. I can’t stay off a horse for too long. You know that,” he said seriously. “I remember the days when I’d ride the range all day and into the night.” Jed looked around and smiled. “I was happiest out here in the open with my brothers and your granddad. Being in the house sometimes makes me feel closed in and restless.”

Tess said nothing as she took the reins from him. She watched him stretch his back; he looked so tired.

“I remembered how your mother and I would ride together at sunset and watch the moon as it swept across the grassland. Just as my mother and father did and his before.”

They stood in silence for a moment almost, Tess thought, out of respect. Finally, Jed reached over and kissed Tess on the cheek.

“That’s what I want for you, sweetie. Someday to have someone—”

“To ride into the sunset with?” Tess grinned innocently.

“Yes. Even if it’s another woman and I don’t get a grandson. I love you.”

Tears leapt to her eyes. “Thanks, Dad.” She sniffed loudly as she mounted the horse, ignoring the deep groan. “I love you, too. Now get back to the house.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He mumbled back, “Just as bossy as your mother.”

Chapter 4

Tess rode Daphne as hard as the old mare would allow or perhaps as much as Tess could stand. She felt her thighs burning and her ass aching after only a few minutes. She enviously watched her father drive down the road leading back to the warm house and immediately thought of Chuck’s idea of her helping out with the cattle.

“He’s insane,” she said, deciding to take the shortcut across the grassland to the house. Haven’t been on a horse like this in years and he wants me to herd cattle, she thought, trying to ignore her sore ass and how her insides were being jostled around.

On the way, she slowed as she came near the old family house. It still looked in pristine condition, considering no one had lived in it for years.

Her great-grandfather Ned Rawlins married Lucy Rogers from nearby Missoula in the late 1880s. That’s where they got the name for the ranch, Double R—Rawlins and Rogers. Together, Ned and Lucy built the six-bedroom mansion in 1887. There were seven children born in that house; five survived. Her great-uncle Jeremiah was the last of five children who, as they grew, helped work this land. Tess’s uncles and aunts each lived in that house even after they married. Jeremiah was the only one who left. Jeremiah wanted to be a teacher, so he left for California, met his wife, and stayed on at the university, the same university—University of California at Berkley.

Still deep in thought, Tess slowed the old mare and trotted to the road leading to the big house that was now abandoned. The log house was enormous with a wraparound porch that gave it a wide-open look. Tess remembered playing on the front porch with her brother and cousins as her grandparents laughed and rocked on the porch swing. Times were lean in the sixties, and the Rawlins family pooled their resources and their love; they dug in, holding on to the land and the Double R Ranch.

Tess jumped off Daphne and tied her loosely to the front porch rail. She walked up onto the old wooden porch, amazed that the flooring stood the test of time and the Montana winters. The sound of her cowboy boots against the wooden planking echoed along the lonely porch. As she turned around, she leaned against the railing and looked out at the Bitterroot Mountains.

The sprawling pasture in the foreground wonderfully landscaped the majestic mountains in the distance. My God, she thought, this is heaven. Somebody, anybody, everybody should be enjoying this scenery, she thought as she rode back to the house.

She was starving, her mouth watering for one of Maria’s biscuits, when she heard Chuck’s voice booming from the kitchen.

“Quit? You can’t, Maria!” Chuck exclaimed as Tess walked into the kitchen. Maria nodded sadly as she dried her hands on the towel.

“What’s all the barking about, Chuck?” Tess asked, looking from Maria to Chuck.

Chuck ran his fingers through his hair and groaned. He pointed at Maria. “She’s quitting!” he squeaked out.

Tess was smiling, however, upon hearing the word, she frowned deeply. “What?”

“I must go home, Tess. I just got word. My cousin has left to help with his family. There will be no one left, so I must go.”

“Shit, Maria. Of course you have to go.”

“Thank you. As I said, there’s no one left now but me. I leave in a week. I’m sorry,” she said. Tess took off her hat and tossed it on the long table. “Take that off the table, young lady,” she said just as softly.

Tess frowned and grabbed the hat, hanging it on the back of the chair. “What are we supposed to do without you?” Tess asked. In an exasperated gesture, she ruffled her short blond hair. “I just get home and you’re leaving?”

“Don’t whine. I have a friend who knows a young widowed woman who is a cook in Helena. She needs the job and is very good. She’ll do fine until I return in the summer.”

“So you’re not quitting really?” Tess asked.

Maria gestured to the smiling and much relieved Chuck. “If he would stop crying like a baby, I was trying to tell him,” Maria scolded Chuck, who turned red and chuckled nervously.

“So this woman, is she as good as you?” Tess grumbled
childishly. “God, Maria, you’re family. What is Dad going to say?”

Maria winced. “I-I haven’t told him yet.”

“Are you insane? You’re leaving in a week and you haven’t told him? Oh, God, he’ll flip!”

“Flip? I don’t understand flip…”

Tess rolled her eyes. “He’ll be angry, very angry.”

“You tell him for me,” she said and grinned.

Tess gaped at Maria, then shook her head rapidly. Chuck threw up his hands and dashed out the door, unnoticed by both women.

“No, no, no,” Tess argued. “I am not telling Dad.”

“Tell me what?” Jed said from the kitchen door. Both women froze. Jed slowly walked into the kitchen, his fingers looped in the pockets of his vest. “Tell me what, ladies?”

Maria sighed and stood tall. “Jed, I must go back to New Mexico. My family needs me now. I’ll return in the summer.”

Jed blinked a few times. “Leave the ranch? What are we supposed to do?”

Tess tried to slip away.

“I have told Tess—come back here, child,” she said, glaring at Tess, who stopped dead in her tracks, “that a friend of mine has someone who is looking for a job. She’s a good cook, works in Helena, and is a widow. She has a young son, but he can work around the ranch. It will only be for the spring and midsummer. It will go by quickly. Then I’ll be back to take care of you… both,” she amended and looked away from Jed.

Father and daughter let out an unhappy resigned sigh. “When you go, I’ll drive you to the train station,” Jed said firmly.

Maria shook her head. “I’ll take the bus.”

“You will not. You’ll fly home. No arguing.”

Maria was looking at the floor. “I’m an employee, Jed.”

“You’re more than an employee here. I’ve told you that for years now,” he added softly.

Maria looked up with teary brown eyes. It was then that Tess noticed how attractive this woman was. She was slim and average height with deep silky brown hair with a few strands of silver running through it. Her high regal cheekbones were her predominant feature.

“I’ll take the train to Helena…” she said stubbornly.

Jed let out an exasperating sigh. “Are all you women so stubborn?”

“Yes,” Tess and Maria said at the same time.

“Fine. But you’ll fly home from Helena,” Jed said, wagging a finger in Maria’s direction. She nodded and grinned.

“Well, it’s all set,” Tess said sarcastically. “This will be wonderful. Maria will go home to New Mexico. Dad will be miserable until August. I’ll have to break in a new cook. Boy, she’d better be able to make biscuits like you do.”

Maria gave her a stern look. “You just behave yourself and do not get in her way and be nice.”

Tess grumbled. “I’m nice.”

“I mean be a lady, not the ruffian, ill-mannered tomboy you still are,” she said severely. Jed chuckled and avoided the scathing look from Tess. “It wouldn’t hurt you to wear a dress.”

Tess laughed out loud as did Jed. “A dress? Maria, I’m forty-nine. I haven’t worn a dress since—” She stopped and thought about it. So did Jed.

“I think you were three,” he said, and Tess nodded in agreement.

Maria rolled her eyes and waved her hands in defeat. She mumbled in her native Cherokee all the way out the door.

It turned very warm, for which Tess was grateful. She sat outside
the bus station in
Silverhill
. The new cook, Claire Redmond, was due on the ten forty from Helena. She had a good twenty minutes, so she stretched out her jean-clad legs and crossed them. Pulling the worn cowboy hat down over her eyes, she yawned and shifted in her seat; her ass was killing her when she thought of the riding she had to do with Chuck. As the morning sun warmed her, she wondered just how young this Mrs. Redmond’s son was and if he knew how to ride; she smiled at the prospect.