Coming Home (6 page)

With those chores done, the outside began to call insistently to her. She ignored the siren call for a while, but knowing that in a couple of hours the heat would be blistering, she went outside, unable to resist the urge a moment longer.

Everywhere her eye fell, she could see labor—hard labor, and lots of money just pouring out of her checkbook, but it didn't deter her. She'd worked at the top of her game for years—with fees to match—and while she had lived well, she had also invested. If she spent wisely, she should be able to bring the place up to par—at least what
she
considered par—and with a bit of hoarding, still have a decent pad to keep the wolf from the door. She'd explained to her agent Marshall Klein that while she was more or less “retired,” she would do some charity gigs and if a
really
special job came up, and the mood suited her, she might accept it.

Smiling, she wandered around the front of the cabin. Stepping back, she eyed it. She had plans for expansion, but she didn't want to lose the character of the A-frame. Sam Tindale, the architect Sloan had recommended back in early May when the offer she'd made on the place had been accepted, was coming up this afternoon with the final plans. She'd approached Sloan first, since he was an architect, too, but with an expression of horror on his handsome face, he had re fused. “Absolutely not,” he'd stated bluntly. When she'd looked hurt, he added, “Do you remember that tree house we built as kids?”

“Yes,” she'd said slowly, the memory of their fierce fights on the way to go about it coming back. She'd even hit him with a board when he'd put a window where she hadn't wanted one. She'd grinned at him. “You're right. Our relationship will be much better if we don't work together.”

He'd hugged her. “My thoughts exactly.”

Escrow hadn't officially closed until last week—Aston had died in January and probate had taken time, but impatient as always, she'd set the paperwork in motion to start construction the instant her offer had been accepted. She had followed Tindale around as he had made the site inspections, sketching out the changes she wanted to make, and before she'd left for New York, he had magically transformed her ideas into reality—on paper. A contractor, Theo Draper, out of Ukiah had been chosen to do the work and he'd had the joy of dealing with the County Planning Department and getting all the permits. Roxanne didn't know how it had been accomplished, but to her delight, construction was to begin on Monday—and Sam and Theo had both warned her, that her
real
headaches would begin then.

Telling herself that they were just exaggerating, she left off her contemplation of the cabin and walked to the greenhouses that were situated around a bend, out of sight of the cabin. She knew the general layout andboundaries of the land, but beyond the cabin, she hadn't paid a lot of attention to the outbuildings or the property itself, so it was all an adventure for her. She peeked in the biggest greenhouse, noting the gravel floor, the slatted wooden shelving that ran the entire length of the building, and the black plastic piping draped overhead. Had Aston really grown marijuana in here? It seemed kinda bold to her. Wasn't growing marijuana a clandestine occupation?

Shrugging, she wandered over to the second building, discovering it was the same as the first, except smaller. Poking around outside, near the tree line, she found several half-used as well as new bags of chicken manure, peat moss, and some rolls of chicken wire. A dusty heap of tattered netting lay between the two greenhouses; closer inspection revealed that not only was it netting, but that it was camouflage netting. A
lot
of camouflage netting. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Aston had probably used it to make the greenhouses less noticeable from the air. Maybe he
had
been growing marijuana up here, Roxanne thought. Well, it had nothing to do with her. He was dead. She owned the property. And she wasn't, she muttered to herself, despite what a certain jerk in the sheriff's office might speculate, going to take up where Aston had left off.

Her almost twenty-acre bench was irregularly
shaped
and not exactly flat. It rose and fell in gentle swales; in some places it was as wide as seven hundred feet or more, in others it narrowed down to less than two hundred. Sections of it were wooded and choked with brush, some were open, a couple were swampy and damp, others thick with the ever-present yellow star thistle, blackberry vines, the occasional bull thistle, poison oak, and a variety of wild grasses and weeds. Mostly weeds, she admitted, as she brushed off several tiny burrs that clung to the legs of her pants. Some people called them “stick-tights” but in her family they were known as “beggar's lice.” She hated them. And star thistle. And poison oak. Walking back toward the cabin, she tried to decide which one she hated the most. Hard choices—especially between star thistle and poison oak. She finally decided that star thistle had her vote as most hated. Poison oak at least provided habitat and food for the birds. Star thistle did nothing but ruin the grazing and choke out natural grasses.

She came around the bend, the greenhouses behind her and the cabin still several hundred yards away, when she heard a low, and to her, menacing bellow. She froze. The picture of a red-eyed rogue bull, snorting fire and brandishing a pair of horns six feet wide, flashed through her mind. Carefully she turned her head in the direction from which the sound had come. It was a matted thicket of pines and manzanita not fifteen feet to her left and as she stared at it, her heart thudding hard in her chest, there came another bellow, followed by the sound of a large animal crashing through the brush. A second later, less than ten feet them where she stood with her feet rooted to theground, the biggest, blackest cow she had ever seen in her life stepped out into the open. A tiny gleaming black calf wobbled into view behind the enormous creature.

Shelly's cow, she thought with one part of her brain. And calf. She swallowed. She'd grown up around cattle, but it'd been a long time since she'd faced one on foot. Cattle weren't nearly as intimidating from the back of a horse—especially a horse that could outrun them—but it had been ages since she'd seen one from that view either. Uneasily she remembered that even the gentlest cow with a calf could be notoriously unpredictable; they'd been known to charge and maul anyone unlucky enough to get in their way. Angus had no horns, but at the moment that was small comfort to Roxanne. With that huge head, the cow could smack her into the next county or leave her just a grease spot on the ground, that is, if the creature didn't trample her beneath those enormous hooves. Roxanne eyed the cow. The cow eyed her. Standoff.

Slowly, very,
very
slowly, Roxanne edged toward the cabin never taking her eyes off the cow. It didn't help her mood when the cow snorted and lowered her head and pawed the ground.

“Hey,” Roxanne said in a soft voice, “I'm leaving. Believe me, I don't want to tangle with you or your baby. You just stay right there and I'll just go into my nice, safe cabin, OK?”

Her voice seemed to soothe the animal and with every foot that increased the distance between them, Roxanne's feeling that she just might survive this encounter grew. When she guessed there was enough distance between them, and the cow seemed more interested in the calf than pounding her into dust, she turned and streaked like a bullet to the cabin. Reaching the cabin, she leaped up the two steps and flew through the door, slamming and locking it behind her. And promptly wet her pants.

A cow, she thought with a half-hysterical laugh, a damn cow made me pee my pants. Maybe I have been away from the country too long—maybe I should stay in New York.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes, she was still shaking her head over the incident, chagrined and embarrassed that a cow, granted a very big cow, had sent her fleeing to safety as if menaced by a horde of New York thugs. Wearing a pair of low-rise black jeans and a burgundy and white cropped top that showed off a nice expanse of her trim abs, she walked into the main part of the cabin. Finding her cell phone, she punched in Nick's phone number.

When he answered, she said, “Guess what I've got in my backyard.”

“I hope a big pregnant Angus cow,” he replied, recognizing her voice.

“Not exactly—she's had her calf. They both look good.”

“Great! What a relief. Keep an eye on them and we'll be over just as soon as we can get hooked up and the horses loaded in the trailer.”

Biting her lip, Roxanne hung up. Keep an eye on them? Yeah, right. Like she was going to risk life and limb again. She made a face. Well, she was. Cowardice didn't suit her. She took a deep breath and went outside. Hell, she reminded herself, it was
only a
cow…with a calf.

Keeping a wary eye out for the cow, armed with a shovel she'd found around the side of the cabin, she traipsed off to face her black-hided nemesis. She figured, if the cow charged and she couldn't outrun her, a couple of solid whacks with the shovel might convince the cow to go bother someone else. She'd only walked about hundred fifty feet from the cabin when the cow, calf at her heels, ambled into view.

Prepared this time, Roxanne didn't find the cow frightening. In fact, having gotten over her initial fright, it was obvious that the cow was more interested in her newborn calf and grazing than wreaking mayhem on a puny human. Leaning against a tree a safe distance from cow and calf, she settled down to wait for the cow posse.

It wasn't more than a half hour later that she heard the sound of Nick's rig grinding up the road to her place. The cow had proven amiable, staying in view, and had been busy grazing, her calf, after nursing, napping on the ground beside her.

Nick, Acey, and Roman piled out of the pickup. With his white mustaches and smaller wiry frame, Acey looked like a little gnome as he stood between the two taller, younger men. Not for the first time Roxanne was struck by the similarities between Nick and Roman. Both were tall and lean and moved with the same smooth pantherlike grace. Both had thick black hair and green eyes that gleamed like emeralds. She smiled. And both were too damned handsome for their own good. Watching them, she wondered, as she had often, about the gossip in the valley that had long ago tagged Josh Granger as Nick Rios's father—which would have made him Shelly's nephew and likewise, although distant, a cousin of Roman's.

In the spring the valley had been stunned and avid to learn that Shelly's father, dead more than twenty years, was, at her request, being disinterred from his grave at a local cemetery and a DNA sample being taken. Everyone knew that Josh had been cremated after committing suicide in March, which had eliminated
his
DNA, but between the DNA of Shelly, her father, and to a much lesser extent Roman's, the truth about Nick's parentage could finally be proven…or not. Maria Rios, Nick's mother, was as closemouthed as a clam about the whole situation. She had always refused to confirm or deny Josh's fatherhood so the valley waited with bated breath for the results. To everyone's frustration, Shelly, Nick, Roman, Sloan, Maria, and even Acey, who probably knew the results of the testing, had gone around with sealed lips. Roxanne had tried to wheedle the information out of Sloan and had gotten a long, cool stare for her efforts. Privately speculation was still running rampant and the fact that Nick and Shelly were in a partnership together to reestablish Granger Cattle Company and Nick was living in Josh's house only added to the fuel. If Nick
wasn't
Josh's son, why were he and Shelly closer than two peas in a pod? And if he
was,
why wasn't the family admitting it? Roxanne took another look at the two men. If you asked her, she'd bet that Josh was Nick's father. Trouble was, no one was asking her. Or telling her.

The men split up, Acey and Nick walking to the rear of the stock trailer hitched to the truck, Roman heading in her direction. Two of Acey's cow dogs, Blue and Honey, leaped out of the back of the pickup and with tails wagging danced around the truck and trailer.

Leaving the others, Roman walked up to Roxanne. “Pretty exciting stuff, huh?” he asked with a grin. There was the faintest hint of the South in his words, and coupled with a feline grace and a handsome face, Roxanne, and half the female population, found him utterly charming. “Cows in the backyard,” he drawled, “bet nothing like that happens in New York.”

She laughed. “No, there we just worry about muggers, rapists, and murderers—little things like that.”

Nodding toward the cow and calf, he said, “Nick called Shelly before we left. She was
very
relieved. Don't be surprised if she and Sloan show up before we're through.”

Roxanne nodded. She knew all about Shelly's plans for Granger Cattle Company. At one time Granger Cattle Company had been a major player in the cattle market, but with Josh Granger at the helm, the entire operation had nearly gone belly-up. With Nick at her side, Shelly was attempting to reestablish the Granger Cattle Company. This spring Shelly had imported several cows that carried Granger blood from Texas and Roxanne knew that Shelly, Nick, even Sloan, had been anxious for the first of the calves to arrive.

“If I'm going to have company, guess I better go put on another pot of coffee.” She blinked up at the sun, realizing that the day was heating up. “Maybe iced tea would be better.”

“I'll help you.” Amusement glittering in his green eyes, he said, “Now if we just had one of Maria's apple pies, Acey would feel all this effort was worth it.”

Maria, Nick's mother, had been the housekeeper for the Grangers nearly all of her life and her apple pies were legendary. Recently, it had seemed whenever there was a crisis one of Maria's pies appeared from the freezer and once baked and devoured was a fitting end to the episode. Acey, in particular, thought it was a great way to celebrate…
any
thing.

Roxanne sent him a look. “I'm afraid you're going to have to settle for coffee or iced tea and granola bars—I wasn't planning on entertaining.”

Roman grinned. “A bit touchy this morning, are we?” Tongue in cheek, he added, “Not finding the country the bucolic paradise you thought it would be?”