LITMIR.BIZ

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to sleep outside, but Ty wanted the company tonight. His house was equipped with a cabin kit, a switch inside for his generator, which was newer, quieter, more fuel efficient than the one powering Skip’s place.

      It rumbled to life in its shed behind his house and the lights came on. Ty went over to his desk and turned on the computer. He had to turn down that specialty-foods company toeing into the organic market. He wouldn’t be able to supply as much beef as they wanted. Because of the demand for hormone-free, antibiotic-free beef—despite a market recession—he was actually doing all right. But he wasn’t able to supply volume. Yet. That’s why the money went into his herd, equipment and ranch improvements. He needed to expand. Skip’s idea, really. Skip had been a financial whiz kid and a good business partner.

      Madeline, not so much.

      But she was fully within her rights being here, taking a look at the property, living in Skip’s house. Hell, she could live there forever. But Ty was within his rights not to work on that damned antique generator when it went down. That was her concern.

      Ty pulled a cast-iron pan out from under the stove and flicked on a burner, trying not to look out the window at the lights in Skip’s house. Lights that hadn’t been on for almost two years. If he’d known how all this was going to work out, he would have bought two cows, ten acres and continued to work at the feedlot.

      IT TOOK ALMOST AN HOUR for the hot-water tank to do its job. Madeline was too impatient to wait, so she started cleaning with paper towels and water, pretty much making mud on the silty counters during her first swipes, and then after rinsing the thankfully strong paper towels, eventually getting the surfaces clean.

      Once the counters were done, Madeline regarded the floors, also silt-covered. When she’d first set foot in the house, she’d wondered why there was no carpeting. She didn’t wonder anymore. Carpet would be a commando dust trap, even with a supervacuum.

      Right now she wished she had a SuperVac. Or a broom.

      Madeline pressed a hand to her forehead, then went to the counter where her cell phone was plugged in, for all the good it would do. She turned it on and found that it was still searching for a signal. Crap. She knew there’d been a signal at the turnoff for Lone Sum Road, because she’d talked to her grandmother, fending off questions about why she wasn’t finishing the semester at the college. Eileen knew about Dr. Jensen, but Madeline hadn’t yet broken the news that she, too, was under investigation. Connor and her cousins were under strict orders not to let it slip. Madeline didn’t want her grandmother worrying about her, so she’d intimated that she had a grad student who needed teaching experience, thus freeing her to take care of business at the ranch. Eileen had more questions, but fortunately Madeline lost the signal as she started up Lone Sum Road. It had been a good thing, too, since the last few miles had required all of her attention.

      She turned off the phone, set it back on the counter. Apparently if she wanted to make a call to Connor for moral support, she was going to have to drive to the bottom of the mountain to do it. Not tonight. She walked over to where her suitcases sat on the dusty floor. She didn’t want to open them for fear of getting dust on everything in them, so instead she paced to the curtainless window and stared out at the lights of Ty’s house, a hundred yards away. The ranch was set up so that they had their privacy. Skip’s house was close to the barn and Ty’s close to the gate.

      And both houses close to nothing else. The only sound was the generator, the source of her power, chugging away. How was she supposed to sleep with that noise?

      Skip? Explanation, please? How did you handle this? Why did you handle this?

      She probably wouldn’t be sleeping, so she might as well be cleaning. To do that she needed a few things Ty probably had. Madeline pulled on her coat and headed for the door.

      The generator was louder outside. She didn’t have a flashlight, and the ranch had no yard light, so she made her way to Ty’s house by moonlight reflecting off the snow. When she got there, she knocked and was greeted by loud, serious barking.

      A second later Ty opened the door, his dog regarding her suspiciously from behind the man’s long legs.

      Madeline tilted her chin up. “May I please borrow a broom?”

      Ty’s mouth tightened and then he nodded. He left the door open as he crossed to a utility closet in the kitchen. Madeline hesitated, then stepped inside, keeping her eye on the less-than-friendly-looking dog. Weren’t collies supposed to be friendly?

      “And a dustpan?” she called when Ty pulled out a broom.

      He reached back into the closet, pulling out a dustpan, along with a mop and bucket. He set the bucket on the floor and thrust the cleaning implements at her.

      “Anything else?” he asked in an expressionless voice.

      “Cleaner?”

      He didn’t say a word as he went to a kitchen cabinet and pulled out a bottle of 409. He walked back to where she stood, guarded by his dog, and dropped the bottle in the bucket. It landed with a small thunk.

      Madeline squared her shoulders. The guy did not like her. The message was oh-so clear in his closed-off body language, his refusal to speak. Well, she had invaded what he probably, erroneously, thought of as his turf. In a way, she understood his reaction, but it wasn’t going to have any effect on her behavior toward him.

      After she had gathered the cleaning supplies and stepped back out onto the porch, he finally said, “If you’re going to clean tonight, you’d better hurry.”

      She turned back with a frown. “Why?”

      “You have half an hour before I turn off the generator.”

      “I have what?” She really hoped her jaw didn’t drop.

      “Half an hour. We don’t have enough fuel to run your generator full-time, and frankly, it’s too old to run full-time.”

      “Does your power go off, too?” she demanded. Over his shoulder she noticed a computer sitting on the desk, a search-engine screen clearly visible. He had internet. She couldn’t even get a cell signal.

      “Of course,” he said, and although his expression remained passive, she had a feeling he was enjoying this.

      “When do you turn the power back on?”

      “In the morning for a few hours. Do you have a flashlight?”

      “In my car,” Madeline said in a faint voice as she weighed the ramifications of this new and unexpected information.

      “Don’t plan on using a lot of water while the gen’s off. No power, no pump.”

      Her eyes flashed up to his face. “Excuse me?”

      “You have a water storage tank, but it’s not huge. Don’t take a shower or anything.”

      For the second time that night Madeline was left staring at a closed door.

      Was he being serious? Or inventing rules to make her miserable?

      If he was… If he was, Madeline had no way of finding out. She was in over her head here, but damned if she was going to cry uncle.

      She lifted her hand and pounded on the door. For a second she didn’t think he would answer, but he did, swinging it open, a harsh expression on his face.

      “What?” he asked in a deadly voice.

      “Would you give me some warning before you turn off the electricity?” Madeline said calmly, making Ty feel like a jerk for growling at her. But damn it, he wasn’t used to having other people around, insulting his integrity, then knocking on his door and borrowing cleaning supplies.

      The sane thing to do would be to teach her how to operate the generator so she could turn the power on and off herself. It was hers, after all, but no one within sixty miles worked on the machines, so if it went down, it could be down for days. In the dead of winter. That wasn’t an option. He didn’t want her trying

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