The Rancher's Answered Prayer

“Could be worse,” Ryder reported. “I found evidence of bats.”

Tina surprised Wyatt by letting out a frightened eep. She hugged herself and asked, “Will they come back?”

“Hope not. I’ve blocked every entry point to the attic that I could find, including the hole in the ceiling. I’ll cover up the empty window, and tomorrow I’ll fix the ceiling, but the roof will need to be addressed before long because I also saw evidence of leaks up there.”

Tina muttered something under her breath, but Wyatt chose to ignore it.

“Good work,” he said to Ryder. “You and I can take the room with twin beds. Jake and Frankie can share one of the full beds.” He turned to Tina. “That just leaves you and Tyler.”

“We’ll share my old room for now. There’s only a twin bed, but I can make up a pallet on the floor.”

Wyatt had brought up her many suitcases, so he now carried them to the room with the pink gingham wallpaper, making two trips. Some of the bags had to stay out in the hall.

“I can’t vouch for the bedding,” he told her, as she began positioning suitcases around the room and opening them.

“I brought my own.”

“Thank God,” he said. “All we brought are sleeping bags, and I doubt Jake would want to share one with Frankie even for a single night. Kid’s a mini tornado in his sleep, all flailing arms and legs.” He chuckled, thinking of the nights he’d spent with Frankie when both Jake and Jolene had been deployed. If not for the overwhelming relief of having his brother return safely from the war zone, Wyatt might have been jealous of his brother for taking Frankie home with him. Then Jolene had been killed in a training exercise just weeks after returning home, and Wyatt’s envy had turned to grief.

Tina looked at Wyatt, her expression solemn. “Are you the kind of man who normally thanks God?” she asked.

Wyatt blinked and nodded. “I am.” To his surprise, her coppery gaze softened a bit before she turned away, a pair of worn jeans and a faded red tank top in her hands.

“Good to know. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to change. Then we can strip the beds and haul the mattresses outside to beat the dust out of them.”

Why hadn’t he thought of that? “Of course.” He backed out of the room and caught Jake by the elbow as he was heading downstairs, informing him of their latest chore.

While he and Jake manhandled the mattresses down to the porch to whack the dust out of them, Tina wiped down and swept out all seven rooms upstairs. Thankfully, she found additional bedsheets in the linen closet at the end of the hall. After tumbling them in the dryer to remove dust and anything else that might have found its way into the folds, she made up the beds. In the end, the sleeping bags weren’t needed, so Wyatt had her use those to make a comfortable pallet for Tyler.

Unfortunately, the dryer repeatedly threw the breaker in the outdated junction box in the laundry room. Worse, more than one outlet sparked noticeably when they tried to use it. So, after the sheets were refreshed, they turned off the electricity. Considering the poor wiring, a portable generator—if they could even find one—didn’t seem wise.

“Guess I’d better put an electrician at the top of my list,” Tina said tiredly as the waning sun threw shadows across the room.

“Looks like it,” Wyatt agreed. “We can manage with flashlights for a while. Tomorrow I’ll order some propane and see about changing the utilities into—”

“My name,” Tina said flatly, dropping down onto the chair.

Wyatt sighed but remained silent.

“For the record,” she went on, looking as weary as Wyatt felt, “I intend to divide two of the bedrooms upstairs into bathrooms. That will leave five bedrooms, though I intend to turn one of those into a sitting room that can be shared by the back two bedrooms. Just so you know.”

“That leaves just four bedrooms for six people.”

“Eventually, Tyler and I will sleep downstairs.”

“In what? The den?”

“The den can be divided,” she pointed out. “It’s an enormous room. And there’s the junk room.”

Man, he hated this added complication. He and his brothers already had enough to deal with. They didn’t need all this confusion, what with rooms being divided all over the house.

Lord, show me how to get through this, he silently prayed. Don’t let me say and do things I’ll regret. We need the ranch to work for us.

“Is there any food?” Tina asked, running a hand through her thick, spiky hair. “If so, I’ll start supper as soon as the water is heated.”

She had two huge pots of water on the stove for the boys’ baths, but the adults would have to make do with cold showers tonight.

“I’m afraid there’s not much here,” Wyatt informed her. She looked too tired to cook, anyway, but he didn’t say so. “Jake offered to head into town to pick up burgers for supper, if that’s all right with you.”

“Works for me. I’ll hit the grocery store tomorrow and buy some food.”

Wyatt’s stomach applauded that plan. He just hoped she could actually cook. If not, they’d be back to living on canned goods, cereal and the limited fare from the town’s single eatery. Wyatt had fond memories of the old diner, but he wouldn’t want to eat there three times a day.

“You didn’t seem to bring much in the way of housekeeping supplies,” Ryder commented, rubbing his dark head with a thin towel.

She shook her head, her short chestnut hair flopping over her eyes. Pushing aside the glossy strands, she said, “Didn’t have much to bring, but surely Dodd left enough pots and pans to see us fed.”

“I wouldn’t count on it, but we should have everything you need,” Wyatt told her, heading toward the bathroom. “In fact, I don’t know where we’re going to put all the furniture.”

“You’re moving in furniture?” Tina squawked in obvious surprise.

Actually, they had enough furniture for two households, but he kept that information to himself for the moment.

“Don’t get in a huff,” he said, coming to a halt. “The moving company will store our things until the bunkhouse is ready. You’ll have plenty of room for your furniture.” That came off as surly, which was not his intention. Before he could soften his remarks, however, she wearily lifted the back of her forearm to her brow.

Sighing, she muttered, “I don’t have any furniture. This is it for us.”

Wyatt frowned. “What? Not even a TV?”

She shook her head again. “Nearly everything was rented, and what wasn’t, I sold.”

Suddenly, Wyatt felt guilty because he’d silently grumbled that she’d brought more suitcases than he and his family together.

“Besides,” she said, keeping her gaze averted, “I didn’t have room for anything else.”

That was the truth. The car had been stuffed. He’d assumed that the bulk of her goods would follow, but now he remembered something she’d said earlier.

One man has already taken me for everything I owned, and I’ll never let that happen again.

Apparently, she’d left her marriage with very little. Wyatt had been under the impression that belongings were divided equitably during a divorce. Maybe she and her husband hadn’t acquired much, but she and her ex should have had at least four or five years to acquire a few furnishings.

Had her ex sent her and her son into the world without the necessities? Wyatt frowned at the thought. Not that it was any of his business. Besides, he disliked the curiosity that her situation aroused in him. In fact, he disliked her, though he couldn’t honestly say why.

This situation wasn’t her fault, after all. When it came right down to it, what she did with this house was no business of his. The house and everything in it belonged to her. But what on earth had Dodd been thinking when he’d created this mess?

Wyatt hurriedly showered and dressed. He decided not to shave, despite his scruffy appearance. Staying clean-shaven was a near impossibility with his heavy beard, and he wasn’t eager to attempt a smooth shave with cold water. Plus, with daylight fading, he needed to leave time for the others to clean up.

Tina was next and dressed in fresh jeans and a baggy T-shirt. With her hair wet and her subtle makeup scrubbed away, she could have passed for sixteen. For the first time, her hair looked as dark as her gracefully arched brows.

She had the most amazing skin he’d ever seen. Her big, almond-shaped eyes were a bright shade of light brown, somewhere between amber and copper. Wyatt had to work at not staring.

Relieved when she went back into the bathroom to scrub the tub, he got Frankie ready for his bath. Then he helped Ryder carry in the hot water and fill the tub. After adding cool water to achieve the perfect temperature, Tina bathed the boys together and dressed them in pajamas.

With his dad gone to get dinner, Frankie crawled up into Wyatt’s lap at the old kitchen table while Tina scrubbed the table top. The odd domesticity of the situation felt both peculiar and satisfying at the same time.

He hadn’t shared a house with a woman in the nearly twenty years since his mother, Frances, had died, leaving him a fifteen-year-old with younger brothers, aged ten and five, to care for. Their father had been devastated after the auto accident that had taken his wife. Once he’d recovered from his own injuries, Albert Smith had buried himself in work and grief. The job of raising his younger brothers had chiefly fallen to Wyatt. Long before a heart attack had taken their father, almost six years ago now, Wyatt had assumed the role of family patriarch.

Jake’s wife, Jolene, had been the only significant female influence to enter the Smith realm in all the years since Frances’s death. As a soldier, Jolene had been as much warrior as woman in Wyatt’s estimation, so in many ways, she’d felt like one of the guys.

He couldn’t think of Tina Kemp that way.

It would be best then, Wyatt told himself, if he didn’t think of Tina at all.

As he entertained Frankie, Wyatt surreptitiously watched as Tina ruffled her damp hair with a towel. Women with short hair didn’t usually appeal to him, but Tina couldn’t have appeared more feminine.

The woman wasn’t just lovely—she was a beauty, which meant that this living arrangement was going to be a real trial.

Chapter Four

Jake finally returned home with supper, and Tina set out everything and got the boys situated at the table. Tall for his age, Tyler required no help reaching his food. Frankie, however, needed a lift. She found a small plastic tub sturdy enough to serve as a booster seat.

According to his brothers, Jake was famous for his hot showers, so no one was surprised that he came out shivering in his jeans and white T-shirt. Wyatt and Ryder laughed at him, bantering about bathing conditions in Afghanistan and the average military barracks. Tina was not surprised to learn that Jake was former military. Something in his manner marked him as a soldier; yet, Wyatt remained the undisputed head of this family.

Once they were all seated, Wyatt bowed his head. Tina froze in the act of unfolding the paper wrappings on her burger. She caught Tyler’s glance and put her hands together to show him that they were going to pray, something she’d let slide recently. Frankie obviously had been through this routine many times. Folding his chubby hands, he bowed his little head along with his father and uncles.

Wyatt glanced up at her. “Uh, would you like to say grace?”

Tina took the opportunity to prompt her son. “Tyler, maybe you’d like to pray over our meal tonight.”

Grimacing, Tyler bowed his head and intoned the familiar words. “God is great. God is good. Thank You, Lord, for this food. And maybe we can go back home soon. Amen.”

“We are home, son,” Tina corrected softly.

That unenthusiastic prayer stuck in Tina’s head as she ate her meal and the Smith brothers talked over the next day’s plans. With the house a wreck and the cattle gone, she couldn’t help wondering why they were even here. She thought about explaining her own situation and appealing to the brothers’ compassion in the hope that they would simply return to Texas. In truth, however, she needed their help. Actually, if not for Wyatt, she’d be quite happy with the situation.

What was it about him, she wondered, that disturbed her so?

It didn’t matter. She couldn’t see any option other than to follow through with her plan. Maybe Wyatt would be too busy with the ranch to waste time making her life difficult.

Vain hope, that. He was a man, wasn’t he?

On the other hand, despite the fiasco of the wills, Daddy Dodd had been a caring, stalwart friend when she’d most needed one. Maybe his nephews were more like him than first impressions had indicated.

Strange, but that thought brought neither hope nor relief. She could only pray that Wyatt would be so diligent about getting the ranch into shape that he stayed out of her business. Too weary to worry about it, she and Tyler retreated to their room as soon as it was dark. She slept surprisingly well, waking far later than usual to find Ryder frying eggs and bacon that Jake had journeyed back into town to purchase. Thankfully, Wyatt had already departed on ranch business, according to Ryder, who had no idea when Wyatt would return. Tina silently thanked God for that small blessing, and sat down with pencil and paper to discuss with Ryder what repairs were most urgently needed.

* * *

Wyatt shook the dusky hand of the man he had ever only known as Delgado. Relief bolstered his hope. They’d agreed to meet at the diner in War Bonnet, where both had enjoyed a decent breakfast and excellent coffee, while ignoring the obvious interest of the locals. They’d quickly come to terms about Delgado’s continued employment.

“I’m very glad to get you back at Loco Man,” Wyatt said as he pushed through the glass door to the sidewalk.

“I am glad again to work for a Smith,” Delgado replied.

The smiling vaquero’s once dark hair had turned to a dull salt-and-pepper shade that would soon be more salt than pepper, but he’d maintained his lean, ropy strength.

“Do you have time to drive around the ranch with me?” Wyatt asked. “Rex Billings has offered to take me to a sale barn in Tulsa to purchase horses in a few weeks, so we can’t ride.”

“Yeah, sí,” Delgado said with a grin. “We take my old truck. No reason to batter yours. No one better with horseflesh than a Billings, but we had ATVs in the barn, unless Dodd sold those, too.”

“There are two,” Wyatt confirmed, falling into step beside the ranch foreman, “but they don’t seem to run.”

“They pro’ly just need gas and spark plugs,” Delgado surmised.

“I’ll have Jake look at them. He’s our mechanic. Meanwhile, your truck will do fine.”

This wouldn’t be his first time riding with Delgado behind the wheel. Crazy as it seemed, he’d once taken the passenger seat as Delgado had raced his battered old truck across a bumpy pasture while Uncle Dodd had roped a particularly troublesome stud from the truck bed. That was not a feat Wyatt intended to repeat, but because of it he had no qualms about letting Delgado take the wheel.

“Meet me at the house,” Wyatt instructed, “and we’ll go from there.”

“Yeah, sí.”

Wyatt chuckled at the familiar double assent. As a young boy, he’d assumed that ya-sí was the Spanish word for yes. Only later had he realized that Delgado frequently spoke in a combination of English and Spanish.

A few hours later, neither of them could manage a smile. As he brought the dusty old pickup truck to a stop beside the house, Delgado’s expression registered as much confusion as Wyatt’s. Dimly, Wyatt noted that in the intervening hours Ryder had repaired the floor of the porch, rehung the front door and replaced the broken glass pane. Wyatt’s immediate concern, however, was the puzzling condition of the ranch.

They’d driven past fenced acreages sown in what appeared to be a variety of grasses. Those large plots, some of them thirty and forty acres, didn’t even have gates to let cattle in to graze. Some were irrigated with portable, aboveground systems powered by rackety old windmills. Some were not.

“Was Dodd experimenting?” Wyatt mused. “Could he have been trying to figure out which grass was most hardy and would best support cattle?”

Delgado shrugged and shook his head. “He never say. When the worms got the cattle, some had to be put down. The rest we treat and sell. Then he start dragging in old windmills and drilling wells. ‘Times change,’ he say. And he start the grass, many kinds. He hire that Pryor kid to do it, the one with the farming equipment. And we build fence roun’ the grass.”

“Fences without gates,” Wyatt murmured. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Some say he lost his mind,” Delgado reported bluntly, “that he was loco like his great-grandfather, but I think no.”

The legend was that Wyatt’s great-great-grandfather had illegally paid others during the land rush to stake claims to the vast acreage that eventually became the Smith ranch. Then, when authorities called him on the scheme, he’d pretended not to understand the problem, no matter how it was explained to him, leading others to label him loco or insane. Wyatt somehow doubted that a reputation for insanity would have swayed the authorities, even back then, to simply allow Great-Great-Grandpa Smith to keep his ill-gotten gains. Nevertheless, he’d named the ranch Loco Man, with an apparent tongue-in-cheek reference to the rumors.

“I just wish I knew what Dodd was thinking,” Wyatt admitted on a sigh.

“So, we run cattle at Loco Man again, yeah, sí?” Delgado asked.

“We are most definitely going to run cattle at Loco Man again,” Wyatt confirmed, “but there’s a lot to be done before we can stock up. I think I’ll talk to this Pryor fellow to see if he knows what Dodd was up to.”

“Rex Billings, he’ll tell you how to find Pryor. He marry Billings’ sister.”

So, Pryor was Rex’s brother-in-law. That was welcome news.

After Delgado left, Wyatt walked into the main house to find Tina scrubbing a huge cast-iron skillet. She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and jerked her head at the old ice chest on the floor.

“If you’re hungry, I made some sandwiches. There’s fruit on the table and chips in the pantry.”

“Sounds good. Thanks.”

“The cooler has iced tea, too. I didn’t sweeten it, but there’s a sugar bowl next to the fruit bowl.”

Wyatt didn’t offer an opinion on that. Every real Texan knew that tea had to be sweetened while it was hot. He guessed they did things differently where Tina was from. After tasting the tea, though, he decided he could tolerate it unsweetened, as it was surprisingly mellow. He sat at the table and ate his lunch, pondering Dodd’s actions and trying not to watch Tina as she vigorously scoured the heavy pan. Finally, she rinsed the skillet and transferred it to a flame on the stove, which flared considerably higher than the day before.

“Guess the propane delivery came,” Wyatt said between bites of his ham sandwich.

She dried her hands with a towel, glancing at him. “It did.”

“How bad was it?” he asked.

She pulled a folded piece of paper from the hip pocket of her jeans and showed it to him. He lifted his eyebrows and made an executive decision.

“We’ll split the bill with you.”

Tina blinked at that. “You will?”

“Seems to me we ought to be sharing all the utilities. And paying for groceries. At least so long as we’re sharing the house.”

“I’m not going to argue with that.”

He bit his tongue to keep from blurting out how much that surprised him. Somehow he’d expected her to argue about every little thing, even when it worked to her advantage. Finishing his sandwich, he plucked an orange from the bowl on the table and sat back in his chair to peel it.

“Where are the boys?”

“Giving Ryder headaches, I imagine,” she replied. “He was supposed to put Frankie down for a nap before patching the ceiling in that one bedroom. I told Tyler not to tag along with them, but Ryder said he didn’t mind. Since Tyler and I are going to start his homeschooling tomorrow, I let it go.”

Wyatt nodded, unconcerned but puzzled. Ryder was good with Frankie. He didn’t see why Ryder couldn’t handle Tyler, too. On the other hand, he didn’t understand why Tina didn’t give the War Bonnet elementary school a chance. She had more than enough to do without adding homeschooling to the ever-growing list.

“I’ve always understood that the school here in War Bonnet is above average, with small classes, dedicated teachers and a solid curriculum. There was a time my folks thought about moving up here so my brothers and I could attend this school. If Dad’s business hadn’t taken off so well, I think they might’ve done it.”

After his mom’s death, his dad had almost sent him and his brothers here to live with Dodd. Wyatt would have welcomed that, but even at fifteen he’d understood that sending them away would have meant the end of Al Smith. Their dad had needed them as much as they’d needed him, so Wyatt had argued against the plan and promised to take on more responsibility than a fifteen-year-old ever should.

He wasn’t certain that it had made any real difference in the end. It seemed to him that all Albert had ever done was go through the motions until he’d just given up. Sort of like Tina was doing right now. She pretended great interest in the condition of the worn wooden countertops, scrubbing them with a rag, though they already looked cleaner than Wyatt had ever seen them.

“Semester’s already half-through,” she said, industriously rubbing away with that limp rag.

“What difference does that make? At least Tyler would have a chance to make friends his own age.”

“I know what’s best for my own son,” she snapped, whirling around to confront him.

Wyatt held up his hands in surrender. “I just wondered, that’s all.”

“Well, don’t,” she muttered, turning back to her task. At the last moment, she gave it up, tossing the rag into the sink.

Changing the subject, Wyatt asked, “Did Dodd say anything to you about planting grass?”

“Grass?” she echoed uncertainly. “Not that I recall. Why?”

Wyatt explained about the fenced fields of grass and the windmills. She shook her head.

“That doesn’t make a bit of sense.”

“Doesn’t seem to, but Dodd usually knew what he was about.”

She parked her hands on the edge of the counter behind her. “Like leaving you the land and me the house that sits on it?” she drawled sarcastically.

Maybe the old man had been losing it, after all. Wyatt pushed back his chair. “Think I’ll head over to the Billings place and see if anyone there has a clue.”

“Supper at six,” Tina told Wyatt, as he made for the door, “and it’s flashlights again tonight. Electrician can’t come until tomorrow.”

“At least there’s hot water,” he pointed out, pushing through the screen door, giving Tina one last surreptitious look before walking outside.

Why couldn’t he seem to stop staring at the woman? He saw women every day who he barely noticed. Now the prickliest one he’d ever encountered, the one who’d messed up all his carefully designed plans, had him gawking like a teenage boy.

Lord, whatever You’re doing here, he prayed silently as he strode for his truck, I wish You’d let me in on it.

God brought nothing to mind, however, as Wyatt drove toward Straight Arrow Ranch, so he supposed he’d just have to muddle through as best he could.

He caught Rex finishing up his lunch. His father, Wes, was there, along with the very fellow Wyatt most wanted to see.

Dean Pryor was a tall, muscular, fair-haired man with a ready smile. Wyatt could see why Delgado had referred to him as a boy. He had a sense of relaxed fun about him that was usually associated with carefree children. Still, no one could doubt Pryor’s maturity or resist the sparkle of his blue eyes. Wyatt imagined that he was just the sort to charm every woman he met. He happily answered Wyatt’s every question.