An Unlikely Rancher

“I guess so. Can we eat first? I’m hungry.”

“Sure. I’ll fix cheese sandwiches from stuff in the cooler and slice an apple for dessert. Tomorrow we’ll find a store and shop to fill our refrigerator.”

“Mommy, why isn’t our house near other houses like where we used to live?”

“This is a ranch and we need more land to raise birds as big as the ostriches.”

“Where are houses with other kids?”

That question stopped Jenna. She cleared her throat. “Soon we’ll hunt up the school where you’ll go in September. And I saw a park on the map the Realtor gave me. I’ll bet kids play there.”

That seemed to satisfy Andee, but it made Jenna wonder why she hadn’t given more thought to how isolated they’d actually be living here.

No, we’ll be fine. Pioneer women survived in much more isolated conditions.

They ate a light lunch, then lined the cupboards, a chore that took most of the afternoon. “Andee,” Jenna said as she pressed down the last piece of contact paper, “I need to look over Mr. Martin’s notes on how to care for ostriches. While I do that, why don’t you color?”

The girl ran to her room and came straight back with two picture books.

Jenna understood that Andee didn’t want to be out of her sight given that she’d left the child with her grandparents for a week after the funeral while she’d visited the ostrich farm in Georgia.

A farm, she might add, that looked much more prosperous than this one.

Then they’d moved in with Rob and Melody, and Jenna had hoped things would settle.

Stifling a sigh, she opened the envelope and started to read.

There were instructions about gathering eggs every other day and choosing some to put in incubators for hatching, similar instructions to those she’d gotten from the Georgia couple. She knew that eggs not sold to a wholesaler stayed in the incubators for forty-two days.

It seemed straightforward. It was as she’d told Melody: raising ostriches wasn’t difficult.

Oscar Martin apparently had derived income from four markets: the sale of eggs, feathers, meat and leather. The last two involved aspects of the business that didn’t appeal to Jenna. But it looked as if the manager was used to handling the meat and leather production for Martin. And it didn’t seem as if the man’s salary would break the budget Jenna had set up for herself.

“Before the sun sets, Andee, I want to inspect the pens, the hatchery and get a closer look at our ostriches. Would you like to come along?”

Nodding, the child closed her book, slid off the kitchen chair, picked up her bear and then reached for her mom’s hand.

“Oh, nice,” Jenna said as they left the porch. “There’s a slight breeze. It’s still hot, but that gives us some relief.”

“Ostriches are funny-looking,” Andee announced. “But they have pretty eyes,” she added, stopping to stare at the three birds that had ventured close to the fence. “They kinda look like Big Bird.”

“They do at that. Look at their long eyelashes.” Jenna pointed to one peering at them over the fence. “Each adult eats about three pounds of food a day,” she said, consulting the notes she’d brought with her.

“What do they eat?” Andee asked. She shifted her stuffed bear.

“Um, mostly grass. I suppose that’s why it’s much greener in the pens than in the yard around the house. We’ll be sowing grass seed in the empty pens, which explains why there are so many empty ones. When the grass comes up, we’ll move the birds and reseed the pen they were in.”

Jenna opened the door to one of several sheds that were really small barns. “Good, these bins are labeled. I see the grass is supplemented with alfalfa and corn that has vitamins mixed in it.”

“What’s supple...supple... What you said?”

“Supplement means ‘added to.’ Like we eat salad with our meat and potatoes. And I give you chewable vitamins as a supplement.” They left the shed and turned to the next page of notes. “The man who owned these birds said they do best living outside in the fresh air. But they need exercise. Each pen is big so they can run around.”

Andee ventured closer to the pen of milling birds. “I like being outside, too. Maybe I can play with them, Mommy.”

“Well, we will have to see about that. Perhaps you can pet some of the babies. I saw eggs under the lights in the incubators, but it doesn’t look like we have any smaller than some juniors in that pen farthest from the house.”

As she finished speaking, a small plane rose out of the direction where the earlier plane had disappeared. This one climbed higher and didn’t fly directly over them. Even so, she knew the noise of an engine winding up could put some of the birds in a flap.

Jenna watched the plane until it became a speck in the distance. The Georgia couple had told her that ostriches were excitable. And Martin, too, had indicated in his notes that being overwrought could lead to disrupted egg production.

Like it or not, Jenna decided, first thing tomorrow she needed to locate where the planes were based and register a complaint.

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING, electing to breakfast at the café she’d seen in town, Jenna gave the waitress their orders for pancake combos and then casually added, “We’re new to the area. Yesterday I saw a couple of small planes in the air, but I don’t see an airport on the map my Realtor gave me.”

The waitress paused. “Airport? There’s none closer than El Paso. Oh, wait. I almost forgot, one of our hometown boys recently moved back and has reopened a defunct private airpark about twenty minutes out of town.” She popped her gum and stabbed a finger in the direction of Jenna’s ranch.

Later, after their breakfast was paid for, Jenna managed to extract from her the name of the road to the airpark. They buckled in and set off.

The road to the airpark was gravel and littered with potholes. After she hit a particularly bone-jarring dip, she muttered a prayer that she wouldn’t blow a tire or break an axle on the Cherokee.

Her sister had been right about that, too. Her old car wouldn’t have survived this treacherous drive.

At last she topped a small rise and looked down on a weather-beaten facility. Definitely the airpark, because runways marked by reflectors fanned out from the opening of a low-slung multiplane hangar.

Slowing, Jenna saw a plane parked outside what might be an office. She braked when she caught sight of a man standing on a ladder, his head buried inside the open airplane engine.

Setting her emergency brake, she fought an unexpected kick to her stomach. It shook her to see the lean man in an olive-drab military jumpsuit, the type Andrew and his fellow flyers wore.

She fumbled with the key as she shut off the motor, grappling with her feelings.

Andee unfastened herself, threw open the back door and raced toward the ladder yelling, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

“No, no, sweetheart.” Scrambling out, Jenna registered the shock on the mechanic’s face as he straightened, dropped a tool and nearly toppled off his tall perch.

Jenna caught up with Andee just short of the ladder. She dropped to her knees, arms encircling her daughter even as her heart spiraled.

The blond stranger’s short-cropped, trying-to-curl hair didn’t resemble Andrew’s dark buzz cut. But he had those clear blue eyes—flyer’s eyes. Eyes the exact shade of a perfect sky for flying. It was the attribute that had first attracted Jenna to Andrew.

As the stranger descended the ladder, Jenna controlled her fast-beating heart as she cradled Andee, who by then had discovered her mistake and had begun to sob.

“Shh, sweetie. Mommy’s right here.” Even as Jenna’s gaze lit on the stranger’s scuffed boots, she heard his taut voice above her.

“Lady, I don’t even know you.”

Moving her inspection up his long legs, past narrow hips to a wider chest, she mumbled, “I’m so sorry. It’s your flight suit. My husband was an Air Force pilot. Andee’s barely six. I’m afraid she hasn’t fully grasped that her daddy’s...uh, in heaven.”

Jenna hugged the child tighter and kissed the top of her curls. She saw the man yank a red rag from his back pocket and wipe his greasy hands. And in the moment before he took a step back, she thought she saw those gorgeous blue eyes cloud with pain.

CHAPTER TWO

FLYNN’S LEGS STILL felt shaky from his near slip off the ladder. His bad leg had buckled when the kid had run toward him calling “Daddy” as if she meant it. That had more than rattled him. Now, though, looking at the attractive woman who’d announced she was an Air Force widow brought back memories he’d wanted to forget.

Such as the duty visit he’d paid to his best friend’s pregnant widow after he’d gotten out of the hospital. Chip’s widow had wept throughout his twenty-minute stopover even while she’d demanded to know how he’d survived the crash when her husband had come home in a casket.

Yes, Chip had been the pilot assigned to fly that mission. Also true, Flynn knew his best friend hadn’t slept well the night before. Maybe the outcome would have turned out the same if Flynn had volunteered to fly. But maybe it wouldn’t have. And that continued to haunt him.

Now this woman and child brought everything hurtling back. What did she want? Flynn hoped it wasn’t flying lessons. He didn’t think he could teach a service brother’s widow to fly.

“Is she okay?” he nervously asked the woman who stood once the little girl’s crying had tapered off.

“She’s better. The concept of permanent loss is difficult for a child to grasp,” the woman said, leaning over to blot the child’s tearstained cheeks with a tissue she’d pulled out of her blue jeans.

He found himself mesmerized by the tender mother-and-child moment.

Flynn hadn’t let himself fall for any woman since the one he’d figured he’d marry had dumped him. Saundra had made it clear that she’d expected him to stay in the military until he made full colonel and could provide her a better lifestyle than...well...than the one he wanted.

“You know,” he said, wading through his memories, “the concept of permanent loss isn’t easy for anyone.” When the woman didn’t respond, he quickly added, “My name is Flynn Sutton. I own this airpark, such as it is. What can I do for you?”

“I’m Jenna Wood. This is my daughter, Andee. I own the ostrich ranch beyond those hills.” She pointed and Flynn turned to look over his shoulder.

“Really?” he said. “I know a guy who raises ostriches somewhere over there. Well...we aren’t actually friends, more like we were introduced. I’ve never visited his ranch,” he said, gesturing with a hand.

“This whole county was mostly small farms when I was a kid. I left to join the Air Force and have only recently returned. Nearly all of my daylight hours have been spent clearing runways and readying hangars to house planes. I plan to teach flying, but for now I’m tinkering with my planes and renting out hangar space...” He caught himself babbling and paused. “Uh, do you own a small plane? Or...is it lessons you’re after? I won’t be offering classes for a while.”

“Oh, no to both. I’m here because a plane flew far too low over my pens yesterday. It scattered my flock, and I worry that if it happens again some of them could be injured. I came to ask if planes could take off and land from a different direction so as not to frighten my birds.”

Flynn frowned. “If your husband was a pilot, surely you know planes take off and land with prevailing winds. Anyway, this airpark had the runways already set when I bought it. But I’m only set up for daytime flying... Although, eventually I’ll install lights so my customers can take off or land at night, but—” Once again Flynn found himself running off at the mouth. “What I’m saying is, the lane directions are what they are.” He gave an offhand shrug.

Jenna filtered her fingers through Andee’s hair. The girl continued to cling so tightly to Jenna’s leg, she couldn’t have left if she’d been ready to give up and go.

“Could you at least ask your customers to not buzz my pens?”

Flynn spread his hands. “Sorry, I only rent to them. I’ve no say over where or how they fly.”

Pursing her lips, Jenna unwound Andee’s arms. “Then thanks for nothing, Mr. Sutton. The way you feel about planes, you may want to tell the plane owners that I fully intend to check to see if they’re breaking any city ordinances.”

Flynn started to say he doubted her ranch would be zoned in the city, but the woman had grasped her daughter’s hand and was prepared to leave.

Just then his dog loped out from the closest hangar. And after giving a couple of excited barks, the part sheep dog, part no-name breed bounded up to the kid and licked the lingering trail of tears off her face.

The woman shrieked and attempted to shield the girl. To no avail, it turned out, since the kid flung her arms around his mutt, instantly all giggles.

“It’s okay, don’t panic,” Flynn assured the woman. “I hoped when Beezer adopted me that clients and visitors might think he’s a guard dog. Really he’s a cupcake.”

“Mommy, he likes me.” Andee petted the dog’s shaggy gray-and-cream-splotched fur.

“I see that, honey. But...we need to go now. Please tell him goodbye.” Jenna shook out the tissue again and this time wiped the slobber off her daughter’s chin.

“’Kay.” The girl clutched the animal’s ears and pressed a kiss on his black nose. When she straightened, she resisted her mother long enough to offer Flynn a shy smile and a hesitant wave.

He lifted his hand in response and returned her smile. He loved kids. On his leaves he’d spent as much time as he could with his sister’s two boys. Really, kids had always figured in his future. A major reason why it was as well he and Saundra had split up.

Man, he needed to forget her. As he kept Beezer from following the cute little girl and her very pretty mother, he could’ve kicked himself for continuing to go back to Saundra.

Beezer rubbed against Flynn’s good leg and whined. “I know, boy. You like people. Sorry, fella, you’re stuck with me.”

After the Jeep Cherokee had driven a ways away, Flynn released his grip on the dog’s collar and briskly rubbed his furry sides. “Remember who found your skinny bones skulking around the hangar and took you in and fed you so that your ribs no longer stand out, you ungrateful mutt.”

He stood and looked after the SUV. “Don’t be swayed by a pretty face.”

* * *

IT HADN’T ESCAPED Jenna’s attention as she’d helped strap Andee into her car seat that the airpark owner’s smile carved a dent in his right cheek that looked suspiciously like a dimple. She was a sucker for dimples. And military men had a way of turning the heads of females in her family, regardless of age. As her six-year-old had just proved.

Here she’d moved them across the country to get away from uniformed airmen only to find a hot-looking pilot owned a business a few hills removed from her new home.

Clamping her back teeth together, Jenna got in and drove off, ignoring how Andee kept waving.

“Mommy, why don’t we have a dog?” Andee asked once the airpark disappeared behind them in a ruffle of dust.

Jenna tilted the rearview mirror so she could see her daughter better. “Well, mostly we lived in apartments,” she said, not wanting to tell Andee that her father had repeatedly vetoed the suggestion of adopting a dog or a cat. Andrew had always been something of a neat freak. But he’d gotten more obsessive on his last few rotations home between tours.

“We don’t live in a ’partment now,” Andee responded.

“No, but I’m not sure if the ostriches would react well to a dog running around.”

“What if he didn’t run around? I could keep him inside the house with me.”

Jenna frowned and realized she wasn’t going to win this argument with logic. “You haven’t even seen baby ostriches yet. I’m counting on your help feeding the babies after they pop out of their eggs.”

“What will I feed them? We don’t have any milk or anything in our ’frigerator.”

“It so happens I see a grocery store in that strip mall across the street from the next stoplight. We’ll go there and buy some groceries—for us, not for the birds. Mr. Martin, the man who used to own our birds, left their food in one of the sheds, remember?

“Ostriches don’t eat people food,” Jenna reiterated after she parked and helped Andee out.

“This isn’t like our old store,” Andee said, standing inside the door as her mother found a grocery cart.

“We’ll probably have to get used to new brands, but the food will be the same. Besides milk, what can you think of that we need to get?”

“Pizza and pasketti.”

“Oh, you funny girl. You’d eat those seven days a week if I’d let you.”

“I like soup and cheese sandwiches, too, Mommy.”

“That you do. Here’s the soup aisle. It’s a good place to start.”

Jenna added up prices as they meandered the aisles. She hadn’t told her family, but she’d had to pay cash for the ranch. It was a shock to learn that she didn’t have a credit rating even though with Andrew gone so much she’d been the one to handle their budgets. She’d never questioned that their on-base housing and utilities had been in his name.

Before his death she hadn’t given much thought to what went on behind the scenes in banking. They’d had a joint credit card.

After Andrew’s death she’d had to apply for one in her name. The bank had issued her a debit card, which she’d needed to watch closely, since Andrew’s benefits had been frozen until the completion of the investigation.

Before their marriage, she’d lived with her parents. After, Andrew had been the sole breadwinner.

Now it was all up to her.

Andee, who had wandered ahead in the aisle, suddenly ran back and plopped a box in the basket.

“Whoa, there. What are you getting, sweetheart?” Jenna picked it up and was surprised to see it was a supersized box of dog biscuits. “Honey, we don’t need this. I said we might not be able to get a dog because of the ostriches. Run and put this back on the shelf, please.”

Andee pouted. “But I can feed Beezer when he comes to visit me.”

“Uh, honey...I know you liked Beezer a lot, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up. We don’t really know his owner. I can’t think of any reason why we’ll see him again. Put the dog treats back. I promise I’ll ask Mr. Martin, the man who owned the ranch, if having a dog would scare the ostriches.”

The girl clutched the box that bore the face of an almost dead ringer for the gray-and-cream-splotched dog she’d taken such a shine to. Then, long-faced, she dragged her feet back down the aisle, leaving her mother once again irritated over the unexpected consequences of her useless meeting with Flynn Sutton.

* * *

IT DIDN’T TAKE long to reach her card’s limit and pack the back of the SUV with groceries.

In short order they reached the ranch. That brought a smile to Jenna’s face—the very fact nothing in this town—even split in two by a major highway—was more than a dozen minutes from home. Most bases they’d lived on were huge and had taken longer than this to navigate from one end to the other.

Locked in thought, it took Jenna a few moments to register that a silver pickup with a skewed back bumper sat in the spot outside her home where she intended to park. She slowed as she noticed a man emerge from one of her sheds.

She pulled around the pickup, stopped and released her seat belt. She heard Andee doing the same. “Sweetie, stay in your seat for a minute. There’s a man, a stranger, over by the ostrich pens. He’s probably the manager the Realtor mentioned. However, I need to have a word with him to be sure.”

“Okay.” Andee leaned forward and pressed her nose against the side window. “Does he have a dog?”

“None that I see,” Jenna muttered. “If he is the interim manager, I’ll ask if he knows of any problems with us getting you a dog.”

“Yay. I hope he says it’s okay.” Andee settled back to slurp the chocolate milk they’d splurged on.

Jenna saw the guy pull a ball cap from his back pocket as she closed the gap between them. He adjusted it to shade his eyes from the midday sun and leaned on a pitchfork he’d carried out of the shed.

Stopping short, Jenna gave her name. “I’m the new owner,” she added. “I assume you’re the man Bud Rhodes said was taking care of the ostriches in his absence.”

“Yep. Don Winkleman. I didn’t come by yesterday because Oscar said you were due in. I expected to hear from you.”

“I didn’t know your schedule.”

“Been working some every day for two years. I wanted to buy the place, but Oscar needed all his money up front and I wasn’t able to get 100 percent financing. You’ll pardon me if I say you don’t look like a rancher.”

Jenna chuckled. “I’m still getting moved in. I have gloves and boots, so I’m sure I’ll look the part of a rancher soon.”

“Still, all the trappings don’t make you a rancher.” Don spat off to his right and wiped his mouth with a blue kerchief he pulled from a pocket in his overalls.

She couldn’t say she liked this guy’s tone.

He set the pitchfork against the shed. “I manage the place. That’s worth more money.” He abruptly named a figure substantially higher than what Oscar Martin had put in his notes.

The new amount he requested bowled her over. But Jenna refused to let his directness cow her. She figured the amount he’d named was for full management. She’d already planned that by working with him she’d soon be able to cut some of his current part-time hours. But she wasn’t about to share that idea with him now.

“I’m not prepared to pay more than Mr. Martin was paying you.”

“Sorry, that’s what my services are worth, little lady. It’s more than fair.”

Little lady?

Jenna studied his iron jaw. He thought he had her over a barrel. Maybe because she was new to the area or maybe because she was a woman. Either way his demand nettled Jenna. “Like I said, Mr. Winkleman, if you want to continue working for me, at the moment I’ll match what Mr. Martin paid you. At some future date I foresee needing less hours, though.”

“That’s not acceptable.”

“Well, you’re free, of course, to quit.”

The man appeared shocked, then his face hardened and he leaned toward her. “Nobody around knows this business like I do. You’ll regret letting me go.”

Still smarting from her failure to make any headway at the airpark, Winkleman’s attitude left Jenna doubly resolved to stand firm. “Please go. Tomorrow I’ll hire your replacement and drop off a check with Bud Rhodes for the hours you worked today.”

Winkleman took another step toward her and fisted his hands at his sides. “You won’t find anyone in town capable of filling my shoes. Soon enough you’ll come begging and it’ll cost you even more to get me back.”

Andee had silently left the SUV, made her way over and was now clinging to Jenna’s shirttail.

Worried that she may have been foolish to provoke this man she knew nothing about, Jenna deliberately set Andee behind her.

She’d never been more relieved to see a vehicle pull into her lane than at this moment. Whoever drove the newer blue pickup, their timing couldn’t have been better.

The three watched as it drove up and stopped adjacent to the Cherokee. Only then did it cross her mind that the newcomer could be a friend of Don Winkleman’s. Just in case, she eased her cell phone out of her pocket and prepared to dial 9-1-1.

What if this area doesn’t operate on 9-1-1?

Stuck between a glowering Winkleman and the blue pickup, Jenna’s heart pounded.

The door opened and Flynn Sutton, the airpark owner, emerged.

Andee let out a squeal. “Mommy, Mommy, look! Beezer did come to visit me. You said he wouldn’t, but I knew he would.”

Andee nearly mowed Flynn down in her haste to meet his seemingly equally excited dog.

“So it is you,” Flynn said, taking off his mirrored sunglasses as he approached Jenna. “I figured it had to be,” he muttered. “After you left I received a fax from my landlord. Oscar Martin said he’d sold everything and now I owe my rent to the woman who bought him out.”