LITMIR.BIZ

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the art of canning today. I’ll brave that weather and work out in the barn. I’ll see you at lunch.”

      Cat watched the tender glances between Val and Griff. How many times had she wished she had that kind of intimacy and love with a man? She had to be cursed. That was all there was to it.

      Gus slowly rose from her chair and Cat turned toward the elder.

      “Are you really up for teaching us today, Gus?” Cat knew she had arthritis in the hip she’d broken a year earlier and was moving a lot slower. Weather affected it, too, and today she was walking stiffly.

      “Of course,” Gus said, smoothing down the blue apron across her thighs. “I’m going to show you how to can corn, beans and tomatoes.”

      Griff sauntered out of the kitchen, threw on his cowboy hat, shrugged into his sheepskin coat and pulled the gloves out of the pocket. “See you ladies at noon.” He grinned and caught Gus’s attention. “What’s for lunch?”

      “I’m gonna make a big pot of chicken soup,” she said. “Talon’s gonna need something good and filling to eat and the rest of us can use a hearty soup on a day like this.”

      Griff leaned against the entrance, pulling on the gloves. “Miss Gus? Any chance you’re going to make homemade biscuits to go with that soup?”

      Gus grinned. “Just for you, Griff, I’ll make a batch.”

      “Thank you,” he called. “See you ladies later....”

      Val straightened and turned toward Gus. “He loves your biscuits. I wish I could bake them the way you do.”

      Gus patted Val’s arm. “Not to worry. I intend to be around until I’m at least a hundred. Griff will get lots of biscuits between now and then,” she said, and chortled.

      Cat laughed, finishing off her coffee. She loved being a part of the Hunter and McPherson families. And she was grateful to be hired as a part-time wrangler on her days off to help out Val and Griff. “Make lots, Miss Gus. I love hot, homemade biscuits with butter and honey on them, too.”

      Gus shook her head and gave Val a look. “We got a bunch of biscuit eaters on our hands, don’t we, Val?”

      “Yes,” Val said, smiling, “we do. I have a hunch when Talon gets better, he’s going to eat a lot of food. He’s so thin.”

      Cat washed out her mug in the sink. “He’s way underweight. I looked in his wallet and all he had was a twenty-dollar bill on him. That’s nothing.”

      Gus snorted. “He was makin’ sure Zeke was eating and he cheated himself in the process.”

      Cat rested her hips against the counter. “Why doesn’t he have more money?”

      Val shut the dishwasher. “Because he’s been sending most of his paychecks home to his mother, Cat. And when he got wounded and then discharged from the Navy, his source of income dried up. He’s out of work. Poor guy was probably trying to make it home before he ran out of whatever savings he had.”

      “Twenty dollars,” Gus grumbled. “That’s paltry. And why was he walking out in that consarned blizzard?” She shook her silver head. “Makes no good sense to me.”

      Val sighed. “Gus, he probably has post-traumatic stress disorder. Talon was in black ops. Those guys are bound to have it big-time.”

      Cat frowned. “And that means he couldn’t ride in a bus? Or fly in a plane?”

      Val shrugged. “He’s got a combat assault dog at his side. I’d imagine the plane or bus people wouldn’t want the dog on board. My guess is he’s hitched and walked to get back home.”

      Cat said nothing, but felt even more deeply for Talon. “And his mother has no money to loan him to get him from the hospital to here. Rough deal.”

      Val grimaced. “Being in the military is always tough, Cat. And Talon’s going to have his hands full once he gets back on his feet. Sandy’s in bad shape and the chemo is really taking her down. I worry....”

      Because she was a paramedic, Cat knew what chemo did, understood it took a poison to kill a poison, but the person suffered horrendously during the process. “I wish we could do more for Sandy.”

      Val picked up some of the mason jars from a box on the floor and started lining them up on the counter. “Talon is coming home at a terrible time. I’m worried he won’t be able to handle it all.”

      Cat bent down and put the last of the canning jars on the counter. She picked up the box and got it out of the way. “No one goes through life alone. Maybe Talon’s going to need support himself.”

      Val pulled open a drawer and drew out two aprons, handing one to Cat. “We all need help from time to time. He should go see Jordana. She’s an expert on PTSD and helped a lot of vets in this county.”

      Gus pulled out a huge kettle and set it in the sink to fill it with water. “Well, that young man has a job here at the Bar H. He’s a hard worker. And once he gets well, Griff is going to need a full-time wrangler to help him. Talon grew up on the Triple H, which was next to our ranch, and then Curt Downing stole it from under Sandy Holt’s nose for a song.”

      Cat remembered that Curt Downing was dead, shot by an escaped convict on a trail up in the Tetons. All his holdings, according to his will, went to a nephew by the name of Chuck Harper, who sold the ranch to an Easterner. And he was an even worse person that Downing had been. “I wonder if he’ll sell the Triple H?”

      Gus snorted. “I’m having Griff look into it. We need more land and it makes sense to buy it. The present owner did nothing with it except try to put condos on it. Thank the good Lord that the mayor said no to his plan.”

      Gus had made a lot of money off the sale of her own ranch on the other side of Wyoming decades earlier. She didn’t know exactly how much, but Griff had an MBA from Harvard and was now taking care of the woman’s money for her. Gus had told her one time that Griff was making her a lot of interest and she was very happy to have her son-in-law handle the finances. “If you could buy the Triple H, that would make Sandy and Talon happy.”

      Gus nodded, then became sad. “It was such a shame Sandy’s second husband, Bradley, died in that auto accident. He was in the process of expanding the ranch, doing good things with it. But Sandy wasn’t up to dealing with the ranch after his death. And then, suddenly, there was the cancer. Griff’s going over to see about the ranch after the blizzard is done blowing through. I’d really like to buy the Triple H. Fingers crossed.”

      Cat smiled to herself. Gus was a big thinker and dreamer. But she had the money, the smarts and Griff helping her to make her vision come true. Gus was unstoppable when she wanted something.

      Cat heard Zeke urgently begin to bark.

      “Uh-oh,” Gus muttered, peering toward the hallway. “That dog’s barking. Wonder what’s wrong?”

      “I’ll go see,” Cat said, hurrying out of the kitchen. Her heart amped up a little as she opened the door. Zeke instantly whined, wagging his tail at the doorway. He turned around and hurried to the bed.

      Cat frowned and quietly shut the door. Talon Holt was sitting up, his long legs hanging over the edge of the bed, most of the covers pulled aside. His maleness struck her. He was naked, his body massive and powerful even though he was underweight. His head was hanging almost on his chest, his large hands gripping the mattress to stay upright. Only a few blankets lay across his hard, thick thighs. His feet were large, his legs spaced apart as if to stop him from keeling forward and falling off the bed. She heard his labored, rasping breaths. Her eyes widened as she saw he’d yanked the IV out of his right arm, bright red blood streaming down his forearm. No wonder Zeke was barking.

      “Talon?” she asked, keeping her voice low and soothing as she walked toward him.

      He barely raised his head, his eyes slits as he regarded her.

      Cat

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