LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER THREE

      MERRIE FINISHED A preliminary sketch of Ren, one she planned to turn into a portrait of him later. He really was a striking man, she thought, studying it. But there was something more than just looks there. He was strong and independent and deliberate in the way he went about things. It was all there, in her sketch.

      She was so glad that Hurricane had received the care he needed. The vet really knew what she was doing. She’d go back out and check on him tomorrow. Meanwhile, she worked on sketching Ren’s portrait. She loved the hard lines of his face, the incredible masculinity that radiated from him. He brimmed with authority, but not like her father had. Her father had been cruel and domineering. Ren tended to dominate, too, but not in a cruel way.

      Delsey had told her that Ren almost never had a drink. But she was sure he’d had whiskey on his breath when he came to see her after her nightmare. He’d looked guilty and haunted after he’d snapped the belt and she’d run away from him. So there was kindness there, inside him. He just didn’t let it show. He was like a wolf who’d put his paw in a fire and drew it back at once, resolving never to go near fire again. Some woman had hurt him badly, Delsey had said. She didn’t think he was the kind of man who went through women in droves, like his brother, Randall. She liked Randall very much as a friend, but she’d never have wanted him for a boyfriend. He was flighty and he loved women. He never stuck with one for longer than a few weeks, and she was sure he’d never been in love. One day, she thought with laughter, he’d meet his match.

      She put a campfire and a wolf in the background of Ren’s portrait. It seemed to suit. She added lodgepole pines for a backdrop. She drew him in the shepherd’s coat and the wide-brimmed hat he wore around the ranch. He looked very lifelike, as if he could walk off the page of the sketchbook.

      She wished she had her paints and canvases, but those were back in Texas. She’d hesitated to use her cell phones, even though Paul had assured her they couldn’t be traced. And it wasn’t as if she could have her painting supplies sent up here, not without the risk of having someone notice where they were going. Paul had worried about the man Timmy Leeds had hired to kill Merrie. He’d sounded very professional, and Paul mentioned that he’d been in the business for many years. Men who weren’t competent got weeded out fast.

      Here, in Wyoming, she could forget for hours at a time that she was being hunted. She gave a thought to Ren and Delsey, and prayed that she wasn’t putting them in harm’s way just by living in the house with them. But, then, Randall had assured her that Ren had state-of-the-art surveillance and very capable bodyguards on the place. He’d also assured her that Ren knew exactly why she was here. It relieved her a little.

      She remembered that Ren had told her to go shopping for a coat. She’d have to do that. Maybe there was an art supply store in town. Wait, what about Amazon? She could have kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner. She had an account, with her brand-new credit card backing it up.

      She pulled out her cell phone, loaded the app and started shopping for supplies. It didn’t take long to find everything she needed. Now she just had to find a room to paint in. She’d ask Ren.

      But not today, she decided. He was bound to be in a snarly mood when he came in from working around the ranch. It amazed her how much there was to do on a ranch this size. There were buildings that had to be repaired, stalls in both the barn and stable that had to be scrubbed and filled with fresh hay, tack that had to be mended, machines that had to be worked on—it was a never-ending process.

      Then there were the cattle. In bad weather, cowboys paid even closer attention to them. The herds were checked several times a day by cowboys, who were expected to be out working no matter how bad the weather got.

      Most of the outbuildings, Delsey had told her, were made of steel. It was durable, and even snow that packed several feet in winter couldn’t collapse the roofs. There were lean-tos out in the sweeping fenced pastures, for the cattle to shelter in when the weather got rough, and those were also made of steel, with sloping roofs. Heated water troughs were everywhere. The men carried hay out to the cattle when snow got deep. It was placed in troughs with grates, so there wasn’t so much waste as the cattle ate. There were many corrals where horses were worked. Some were used to contain animals when they were due to be branded, tagged, castrated and inoculated. Those had loading chutes. Animals were herded down them either to trays used to work the calves, or to loading docks where the beef steers were loaded en route to other pastures or buyers.

      Merrie

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