From the Boots Up

From the Boots Up

by Andi Marquette

Copyright © 2013, Andi Marquette

Cover photo by KKidd/iStockphoto.com

Cover design by Melody Simmons/ebookindiecovers.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including recording, print-outs, information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the author. This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead
or to business establishments or events is coincidental.

www.andimarquette.com

An Andi Land publication

One

May 1999

My weekend with Tex
Hollis began when I pulled into the driveway of the Lazy T-Bar Ranch west of
San Antonio. I knew this wouldn’t be an ordinary weekend when Tex cast a
critical eye over my shorts, t-shirt, and tennis shoes. Two days later, I was
as comfortable in jeans and boots as any of the buckaroos who spent their days
in the saddle—

M
eg laughed
and tossed the magazine back
onto her dad’s huge oak desk. She leaned back in her chair and braced one
booted foot on the desk’s edge. “Tex Hollis,” she said, sarcastic. “Sounds like
somebody out of a
Longarm
book.”

Stan looked at her over the top of his reading
glasses. “And since when did you start reading that?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Davey keeps a stash. He
gave me one to read one night, thinking I’d like the ‘plot’.” She grinned
wickedly. “The plot was way better than the sex.”

His eyes widened and she laughed.

“I told Davey that, and he never loaned me another
one. I think I ruined one of his fantasies.” She pushed back farther, regarding
him mischievously.

He cleared his throat. “Fantasy?”

“Please, Dad. You’re a guy. You were Davey’s age. You
know what guys think about.”

His cheeks reddened and he started moving papers
around on his desk. “If your mom heard that. . .” he said with exaggerated
sternness.

“She’d lose her religion because I know about sex.
It’d burst her bubble.” Meg moved her foot and let her chair legs fall to the
floor with a thump. And then her mom would haul out her Bible and start talking
about chastity.

“Well, moms were young women, too, and they don’t
like to think about their daughters running wild with young guys.”

“You mean like Mom did with you?” She asked
innocently.

The phone rang and he shot her a mock disapproving
glare that dissolved into a smile before he answered. “Diamond Rock Ranch. This
is Stan Tallmadge.” He clicked the mouse on the computer as he talked.

Meg reached across the desk for the magazine and
flipped idly through it again before studying the cover. A copy of
Spirit
, from Southwest Airlines. A pair of
worn cowboy boots with spurs stood on a workbench against a log cabin wall. A
nice photo, for a stereotype.

She glanced up at him. From the conversation he was
having, it sounded like the call was another reservation. They still had two
spaces available for guests this month and she hoped the spots filled. This
sounded like it would drop their space to one. Good.

She studied him then, noting the fine lines that
spiderwebbed from the corners of his eyes and the deepening creases around his
mouth. His hair, once as dark as a crow’s wing, had lightened to gray at his
temples, though she often thought about him without the gray, her attempt to
prevent him from aging.

The magazine cover advertised a story about Montana,
and how people could get an “Old West” experience at a couple of dude ranches
up there. She’d heard of them, and she wondered how the ranch owners had
managed to get covered in
Spirit
. The
Diamond Rock needed more coverage like that. Even more than what they’d get
from the reporter who was coming out to bother them next week. She turned the
page and a photo of a couple of men on horseback herding a few cattle caught
her eye. One of the men looked like her dad. She glanced at him again as he
continued to talk, doing the Diamond Rock spiel to the person on the other end.

Ranching was in his blood, just like it had been in
his father’s and in his grandfather’s before him. No other place on earth would
fire his spirit like Wyoming’s Medicine Bow Mountains. Meg knew that, and she
knew that if he ever left, it would kill him, just as staying was slowly
leaching the years from his bones as it got harder and harder to make ends
meet, to get enough paying customers for the dude ranch experience even while
he tried to work the ranch with fewer staff.

He looked at her, eyes the color of a summer
thundercloud, like hers, she’d been told, and gave her a thumbs-up. She smiled
and returned to her magazine, but she wasn’t really thinking about the article.
She took after her father in demeanor and physical appearance, she knew, and it
was a point of contention when her mother had lived there. But it was Stan who
had made Irene “pert near crazy” with his stubborn streak and independent
nature. Loyal to a fault, but unreachable in the deep down parts of his heart,
he’d driven Irene right back to Kentucky nine years ago, when Meg was sixteen.

“All right,” he said. “Thanks for calling. We’ll see
you next week.” He hung up, satisfied. “Full up.”

She grinned at him and placed the magazine back on
his desk, relieved. “So when’s that reporter coming in?”

He leaned back in his chair and stroked his mustache
thoughtfully. He looked like an old-style cowboy with it, especially when he
wore his hat and duster. She thought he resembled Wyatt Earp.

“Hopefully next Friday, still. I got a call from the
editor out there this morning and the writer she wanted broke her leg. So she’s
trying to rustle someone else up on short notice.”

Meg hid her concern. It was already Wednesday. Next
Friday was just over a week away. “Will she be able to get somebody else to
come instead?” A story in the
Los Angeles
Times
was too important. They needed the publicity.

“She’s working on it.” He tried to hide his own concern,
too, but she read it in his eyes. “Might have to delay the story a little bit,
if she can’t find anybody on short notice.”

“How long?”

He gave a little shrug. “She said maybe a couple
extra weeks. Then there’s another window of opportunity in July. Which won’t be
too bad.”

The dude ranching season pretty much ended here by
mid-August as fall started creeping in over the mountains. Stan needed this
publicity, because it wouldn’t only serve for this summer. It would continue
for the next season, and the article would be on the Internet, so they could
use it in more of their promo.

“Did she say who the reporter might be?” The one that
had been scheduled was originally from Idaho, and Meg had talked to her briefly
on the phone. She sounded nice, and she’d grown up in a ranching town, so Meg
figured she’d “get” the Diamond Rock, and she’d be able to really nail that in
her story.

“Nope.” He shrugged again. “I’m sure she’ll find someone
who’ll do a fine job on the story. It’ll work out.”

“Hope so.”

He narrowed his eyes then. “And you’ll be damn
hospitable. I don’t want to have to be telling your mom why the story that gets
published in the
Los Angeles Times
is
about somebody’s bad experience at the Diamond Rock.”

“Why would you even think that?” She looked at him,
hurt.

“I know how you get,” he said, more gently. “You
don’t suffer fools and, unfortunately, you’ve got some of your mom’s temper.
But in this case, I need you to suffer.” He smiled at her. “No practical jokes
on the greenhorn.”

Her mother’s voice echoed through her mind.
“Damn it, Stan! Would you get that girl in
hand?”
She sighed. “I’m not sixteen anymore.”

“No, but twenty-four ain’t that far off.”

“Twenty-five.”

“Not yet, missy. Next week. And I can still turn you
over my knee. So no bullshit. We need this publicity.” He tried to look
forbidding but a twinkle danced in his eyes and she relaxed.

“Well, since I’m such a loose cannon, can I not be in
charge of the reporter?” She didn’t mind playing babysitter, but if she didn’t
have to, that was fine with her. She hoped whoever the
Times
lined up had at least a little outdoor experience.

“The way I see it, whoever they send will be here for
a week and they’ll want a ‘full range’ of ranching experience, and they’ll
observe and ask questions. They might or might not want a tour guide. And
you’ll be an official Diamond Rock liaison, so every day, I expect you to be
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with the reporter. Just treat whoever it is like a
regular registered guest. You’re good with that, hon. They really do like you.
Don’t think of it as being under the microscope or something.”

“Great,” she said with a sigh. She imagined them all
dressed up like on the set of
Bonanza
and she groaned softly.

“I know. It’s kind of a pain in the ass, because we
do have to mind our manners even more, and you don’t know for sure what’s going
to end up in print. We’ve got to make it so this reporter can’t resist writing
a great story about the DR. In fact, we want this reporter to come back every
chance he gets. Or she,” he corrected himself.

“I know. Don’t worry.” She reached over to the
neighboring chair to retrieve her hat. “You don’t think whoever it is will be
like the writer of this story”—she gestured at the magazine, “and change
your name to something like ‘Slim Thompson’?” She was only half-teasing.

He pursed his lips, pretending to think. “I’m hoping
for something like ‘Dutch Walters’. And maybe you’ll get to be ‘Cherry
Goodnight’.”

Meg grabbed the
Spirit
magazine off the stack of papers and threw it playfully at him.

He caught it and tossed it onto the desk, chuckling.
“You could change your middle name to Cherry before the reporter gets here. So
there’d be some veracity there.”

She gave him a look and started to get up.

“Your mom called this morning,” he said, as he leaned
back in his beat-up office chair. He folded his arms and regarded her with an
expression that was a mixture of concerned dad but acceptance for whatever
decision she might make.

She settled in her seat again, her Stetson in her lap.
She rubbed her fingertips over the black felt, waiting. She got her stubborn
streak from him, but hers was more pronounced. He’d told her she could outwait
a rock.

“You need to talk to your mom more,” he said after a
while. “She misses you.”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she studied the knotted
pine wood on the walls behind his head. He waited a few more moments then
leaned forward and picked up the copy of
Spirit
.
He flipped through it as she had done earlier.

“She’s your mom,” he said, without looking up from
the pages.

“She’s not really thrilled with me right now, as you
know.” She watched for his reaction, but his expression didn’t change.

“So don’t talk about that.”

“That’s all she wants to talk about. It’s not like I
make it a point to advertise my personal life.”

“Well.” He set the magazine aside and tugged at the
hair above his right ear, something he did when he was really uncomfortable.

Meg wished she hadn’t told him, either. Wished she’d
never said that the painful break-up she’d endured last fall was with a woman.
Since then, he’d struggled with it, and some of their interactions were tinged
with an unfamiliar stiffness.

“I’ll call her,” Meg relented.

“That’s my girl.” He said with obvious relief.

“But I drive her crazy. Even on the phone.” Her mom
always asked whether Meg was seeing any nice young men at school and Meg would
have to deflect those statements or tell her she was still getting over
someone. Irene knew it had been a woman because Meg had told her, around the
same time she’d told her dad. But since Irene had gone back to Kentucky, she’d
found the Lord, and this particular Lord didn’t care much for gay people. Even
those in your own family.

“She’s still your mom,” he said, tugging on his hair.
“Find something you’re both interested in and keep the conversation there.”

“Yeah,” she said doubtfully. She stood up and put her
hat on. “See you around, Dutchie.” She grinned at him and was out the door
before he could toss the magazine after her.

S
he decided
to put off the dreaded phone
call and walked instead across the swath of hard-packed earth between Stan’s
office and living space and the lodge, which had been the main ranch house
before her grandfather had converted it in the fifties to accommodate space for
kitchen and dining facilities that could have passed muster in a big-city
restaurant. Stan had upgraded it two years ago. New appliances, better
shelving, new pots and pans, new dishes. They’d even added a walk-in cooler.
Alice, the chef and “Kitchen Queen,” as she called herself, more than approved
of the changes. She’d been at the ranch since just before Meg’s mom had left,
and she thought of her as family, now, like a favorite aunt.

She went in through the front, and the rich, heavy
odor of cowboy chili greeted her, along with voices from the kitchen and the
sound of a knife chopping something. She blinked in the dim dining room, after
being out in the midday sun. Three long tables, decorated with blue-and-white
checkered tablecloths, stood parallel to each other in the center of the big
room. Each could seat fifteen on the benches, and some summers, they did. On
rare occasions, they had to add another table. Meg hoped it was that kind of
summer. The more paying guests, the happier her dad was.

She wiped her hands on her jeans and checked through
the stack of mail on the closest table then went into the kitchen, through the
swinging door that separated it from the dining room and entered Alice’s
domain, which could rival something in one of those high-end cooking magazines.

“Hey, Meg,” said Anna, Alice’s prep cook, as she
looked up from the cutting board on the island where she was chopping carrots.

“Hey.”

Alice emerged from the walk-in. “Hi, sweetie,” she
said with a smile that, in conjunction with her swept-up hair, made her look like
a glamorous 1940s actress, even when she had her cowboy duds on, as her dad
called them. Jane Russell, Meg thought. That’s who Alice looked like, though
her hair was a lighter color. She was in her late forties, now, but she was
just as pretty as when she’d started working at the ranch. Alice always turned
guys’ heads, but she was so down-to-earth that she didn’t seem to notice.