LITMIR.BIZ

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He grinned. “She’s got a hell of a temper, Fred. Who’d have guessed?”

      Fred chuckled. “She’s full of surprises lately.”

      “That she is. I’ll be in touch.”

      Leo was gone and Fred let the emotion out. He hadn’t realized how much his family ranch meant to him until he was faced with the horrible prospect of losing it. Now, it would pass to Janie and her family, her children. God bless Leo Hart for being a friend when he needed one so desperately. He grabbed at a tissue and wiped his eyes. Life was good. Life was very good!

      Fred was still up when Janie got home from work. She was tired. It had been a long night. She stopped in the kitchen to say good-night to Hettie before she joined her father in his study.

      “Hettie said Leo came by,” she said without her usual greeting. She looked worried. “Why?”

      “He wanted to check on his bull,” he lied without meeting her eyes.

      She hesitated. “Did he… ask about me?”

      “Yes,” he said. “I told him you had a job working in a restaurant.”

      She stared at her feet. “Did you tell him which one?”

      He looked anxious. “No.”

      She met his eyes. “You don’t have to worry, Dad. It’s none of Leo Hart’s business where I work, or whatever else I do.”

      “You’re still angry,” he noted. “I understand. But he wants to make peace.”

      She swallowed, hearing all over again his voice taunting her, baiting her. She clenched both hands at her sides. “He wants to bury the hatchet? Good. I know exactly where to bury it.”

      “Now, daughter, he’s not a bad man.”

      “Of course he’s not. He just doesn’t like me,” she bit off. “You can’t blame him, not when he’s got Marilee.”

      He winced. “I didn’t think. You lost your only friend.”

      “Some friend,” she scoffed. “She’s gone to spend the holidays in Colorado,” she added smugly. “A rushed trip, I heard.”

      “I imagine she’s too ashamed to walk down the main street right now,” her father replied. “People have been talking about her, and that’s no lie. But she’s not really a bad woman, Janie. She just made a mistake. People do.”

      “You don’t,” she said unexpectedly, and smiled at him. “You’re the only person in the world who wouldn’t stab me in the back.”

      He flushed. Guilt overwhelmed him. What would she say when she knew that he was going to let Leo Hart buy into the ranch, and behind her back? It was for a good cause, so that she could eventually inherit her birthright, but he felt suddenly like a traitor. He could only imagine how she’d look at him if she ever found out….

      “Why are you brooding?” she teased. “You need to put away those books and go to bed.”

      He stared at the columns that wouldn’t balance and thought about having enough money to fix fences, repair the barn, buy extra feed for the winter, buy replacement heifers, afford medicine for his sick cattle and veterinarian’s fees. The temptation was just too much for him. He couldn’t let the ranch go to strangers.

      “Do you ever think about down the road,” Fred murmured, “when your children grow up and take over the ranch?”

      She blinked. “Well, yes, sometimes,” she confessed. “It’s a wonderful legacy,” she added with a soft smile. “We go back such a long way in Jacobsville. It was one of your great-uncles who was the first foreman of the Jacobs ranch properties when the founder of our town came here and bought cattle, after the Civil War. This ranch was really an offshoot of that one,” she added. “There’s so much history here!”

      Fred swallowed. “Too much to let the ranch go down the tube, or end up in the hands of strangers, like the Jacobs place did.” He shook his head. “That was sad, to see Shelby and Ty thrown off their own property. That ranch had been in their family over a hundred years.”

      “It wasn’t much of a ranch anymore,” she reminded him. “More of a horse farm. But I understand what you mean. I’m glad we’ll have the ranch to hand down to our descendants.” She gave him a long look. “You aren’t thinking of giving it up without a fight?”

      “Heavens, no!”

      She relaxed. “Sorry. But the way you were talking…”

      “I’d do almost anything to keep it in the family,” Fred assured her. “You, uh, wouldn’t have a problem with me taking on a partner or an investor?”

      “Of course not,” she assured him. “So you found someone in Colorado after all?” she added excitedly. “Somebody who’s willing to back us?”

      “Yes,” he lied, “but I didn’t hear until today.”

      “That’s just great!” she exclaimed.

      He gave her a narrow look. “I’m glad you think so. Then you can give up that job and go back to college…”

      “No.”

      His eyebrows went up. “But, Janie…”

      “Dad, even with an investor, we still have the day-to-day operation of the ranch to maintain,” she reminded him gently. “How about groceries? Utilities? How about cattle feed and horse feed and salt blocks and fencing?”

      He sighed. “You’re right, of course. I’ll need the investment for the big things.”

      “I like my job,” she added. “I really do.”

      “It’s a bad place on the weekends,” he worried.

      “Tiny likes me,” she assured him. “And Harley comes in at least two or three times a week, mostly on Fridays and Saturdays, to make sure I’m doing all right. I feel as safe at Shea’s as I do right here with you.”

      “It’s not that I mind you working,” he said, trying to explain.

      “I know that. You’re just worried that I might get in over my head. Tiny doesn’t let anybody have too much to drink before he makes them leave. Mr. Duncan is emphatic about not having drunks on the place.”

      Fred sighed. “I know when I’m licked. I may show up for pizza one Saturday night, though.”

      She grinned. “You’d be welcome! I could show you off to my customers.”

      “Leo wanted to know where you were working,” he said abruptly. “He wanted to come by and see you.”

      Her face tautened. “I don’t want to see him.”

      “So I heard. He was, uh, pretty vocal about the way you snubbed him.”

      She tossed back her hair. “He deserved it. I’m nobody’s doormat. He isn’t going to walk all over me and get away with it!”

      “He won’t like you working at Shea’s, no matter what you think.”

      “Why do you care?” she asked suspiciously.

      He couldn’t tell her that Leo might renege on the loan if he knew Fred was letting her work in such a dive. He felt guilty as sin for not coming clean. But he was so afraid of losing the ranch. It was Janie’s inheritance. He had to do everything he could to keep it solvent.

      “He’s my friend,” he said finally.

      “I used to think he was mine, too,” she replied. “But friends don’t talk about each other the way he was talking about me. As if I’d ever gossip about him!”

      “I think he knows that now, Janie.”

      She forced the anger to the back of her mind. “I guess if he knew

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