Buy a Cowboy (6 page)

The chuckle rumbled out of him at her question. “Cowboys need horses. It's for the horses.”

Faith's intent gaze turned toward him. “Is Gadfly there?”

Baya felt a little shiver of joy shimmer over him. These were the first words Faith had spoken to him directly. He wanted the moment to linger. “You like that long-legged mare, huh?”

Faith said nothing but for once, her expression wasn't distrustful.

“Yes, that's where we put her.” He moved to stand beside her and glanced at Bonnie as she moved forward with him. His arm pointed to the grassy area behind the stable where it stretched up the hill. “She's been eating her head off in that meadow.”

A smile swept over Faith's face, and her eyes lit with silver glee. “She'll love that. Will I be able to ride her today?”

The man looked over the scene. “I think by the time we have the truck unloaded we'll have to wait until morning. If we get it done tonight though, I'll have her brought in and saddled first thing after breakfast.”

The girl turned back to the valley and squinted toward the meadow, searching for a glimpse of the mare. She stepped back to slip her hand in his, and whispered contentedly: “Thank you.”

Baya held his breath his heart caught somewhere between thankfulness and fear. This had become his home. Here he could live the way he wanted, outside, nestled under these beautiful mountains in a green and rich valley. The strangers he had reluctantly included in his life would surround him. How it would turn out was more than anyone could guess.

Even so, he wouldn't have wanted to miss this moment or the feel of the warm little hand wrapped in his. His look grew fierce with the intense feeling that wrapped his heart.

Hope turned away from her sister and raised her hands up to be held.

Bonnie scooped her up with a groan as she settled the toddler on a hip. “You are getting too big to be toted, child.”

“Do you want me to carry her?” He moved with the question.

She smiled. “No. Thank you for giving us this first glimpse. It's very beautiful.” Her brow wrinkled in thought. “Is it a nice property? I never even asked anyone. The lawyer said it was a pretty little ranch in the mountains. What exactly do I have here?” She glanced up with quick guilt. “What do
we
have here?”

“
We
have one of the most beautiful ranches in the world. You never knew this?”

“Grams moved when I was sixteen. She came to see us but not often, and never after I married and settled in Florida. Mom and she were closer. They always planned holidays together. I think I just grew apart from them.”

“It isn't a large ranch, only twelve-hundred acres.” He paused. “That creek you see running down the center of the valley flows out of the snow covered gray mountains. It's freezing cold but very refreshing.” He smiled at Daniel as the boy tugged at his hand with an unasked question. “Yes. That is the stream we swim in.”

He turned back to Bonnie. “There is a road, little more than a trail that leads to several mountain meadows. You can't see them from here but that's where the cattle are. There's a smaller valley just over that ridge, a small natural hollow and a tributary that empties into the creek. The valley is lush and hidden behind a jumble of granite rock. The remuda lives there.”

He caught their puzzled looks and explained. “Horses, about twelve of them. There's an old stallion with mares and foals.”

Faith gasped and her face glowed. “Babies?”

He smiled and nodded before looking again at her mother. “There isn't much cattle stock. He must have sold a lot last year. What he has is really good stuff hidden in some really high meadows. We have the makings of a profitable ranch here. The first years will be tight, though.”

He had barely finished speaking when Bonnie bowed her head and murmured. “Thank you, God, for the safe journey and the chance at a new life.”

Baya felt the air around him still. A premonition of life altering changes gave his heart a kick as she brought God into the equation. He still hadn't made up his mind about how he viewed God, although he believed in the Almighty. Could the Creator of this magnificent world care for individuals, or was He just a permeating Spirit?

He looked once more out over the green valley before turning back to the family. “Maybe we should get a closer look at our new home. Let's move ‘em out.”

Bonnie smiled as she carried Hope back to the car.

Faith pulled her hand out of Baya's to follow her mother.

Rubbing his fingers against his cooling palm, he watched Bonnie bend over to put the baby in the station wagon. Mingled with the pleasure of watching her move was a faint feeling of bereavement in the loss of warmth from Faith's tiny hand. A tug on his pant leg turned him back to the grinning urchin at his side.

“We gonna let ‘em beat us?” Daniel pulled him toward the cab of the truck.

Laughing. Baya picked up the boy and tossed him into the front seat of the U-haul. “No way!” He shoved the vehicle in gear and pulled out onto the narrow road before Bonnie was strapped into her seatbelt. “Yippee-ki-yay! Let's go!”

The boy beside him dissolved into giggles before straightening with an attempt to mimic him.

They were still laughing when they turned into the dirt road.

He drove slowly so there would be a minimum of dust kicked back over the following car.

Once they had driven into the valley, the outbuildings became apparent. To the left a long bunkhouse stretched beside the roadway. The squared logs of the building softened the harsh wooden shape as the weathered gray blended with the leafy shadows of the trees around them. On the right, the barn stood two stories high. It looked like it had been transplanted from a Kentucky horse stable and sat stark in the bare pasture, naked of the old trees that surrounded the other buildings.

Baya eased the truck up the slight incline the house was built on. The clapboard of the field stone house under the trees was outlined in incongruous glaring white trim. Baya backed the truck up to the recently patched porch and got out slowly as he waited for Bonnie to arrive.

The boy scrambled backwards out of the truck cab and came to stand next to him.

While he watched the station wagon drive up, the boy faced the house in silence.

The vehicle stopped beside the truck and the front doors opened. Bonnie leaned on the door as she looked over the house.

The structure was old. It had probably been put up in the twenties. The two-story building with the steeped third floor attic was aged but solid.

He waited until she came to stand in front of the stonework steps.

“Maybe you should see the inside before we unload. Then you'll have an idea where to put things you brought and what you'll want to discard.” He spoke hesitantly, afraid she would be displeased with the house.

The furnishings inside were old as well. Not antiques, just old.

She looked at him blankly for a moment and turned her face back to the house. “I'd no idea it was so large. I thought a ranch house was long and low.”

“Most are. Several generations ago, the builders must have thought there were going to be children in abundance.”

“How many rooms?”

“I didn't count. I know there are four bedrooms and two baths on the second floor. There's water, but I'm not sure how well the baths work. The third story is jammed with old furnishings and junk in a divided room under the hipped roof. From what I can tell, your grandparents lived downstairs exclusively. They had a nice bedroom suite off the kitchen in what must have once been the old cookhouse. The kitchen is completely modern. The rest needs work.”

He paused and then offered his hand. “Come on. It's time to see inside.”

Placing her hand in his, she followed him up the steps. As they walked across the wide porch that ran around three sides of the house she withdrew her hand and pointed to the new wood. “You?” She looked up at him.

He nodded even as he wondered whether she withdrew her hand out of nervousness or actually needed it to gesture. “I tried to get as much ready as I could after Dick brought your horses. Until then I wasn't sure we were really going to get this far.” He opened the door and a smile teased the corners of his mustache.

Inside the entranceway, large archways opened to both wings of the house. The right side was set up as a dining room. The left side was one large living area that ran the length of the house. Heavily draped windows kept the light out and musty odors in. Following the line of the living room, a magnificent stairwell rose, from the entry, up half the wall, before turning sharply right to the second floor. The worn wooden floors where covered here and there with scatter rugs in areas of high traffic.

Bonnie moved toward the dining area and pulled the heavy drape cord causing the curtains to move in protest.

Sunlight pouring in was not kind to the bare floors. The old scarred table needed cleaning; dusts motes shifted uneasily in the golden light.

“Mom!” The boy came skidding to a halt in the entrance. “Way cool! Hey, Hope, we have upstairs this time! There's a really neat swing outside. Can we use it? It has a tire and everything.”

She raised a questioning eyebrow to Baya. As he nodded, she turned to look at her older daughter. “Take care of your sister. You stay with them, Faith. Don't go wandering off to the barn.”

The young girl nodded as she walked to the staircase and looked up. Her hand rubbed the banister slowly. “Are we really going to live here?”

“Do you like it?” Bonnie asked.

The child turned to smile. “I always wanted an upstairs. I wanted to creep downstairs Christmas morning.”

A deep chuckled came from the doorway, Baya was surprised by the intensity of his relief. “Looks like you got what you wanted. This entranceway's large enough to put several trees in it.”

Bonnie shooed the children outside and walked back through the dining room.

The small room between the kitchen and the dining area had Baya confused. “What is this room?” He pointed to the glassed in cabinets.

“It was probably a breakfast nook and serving room for when there were guests.” She paused and cocked her head to one side. “I like the idea of a breakfast nook. It will keep the children out from under my feet in the morning.”

Baya's chest lost a tightness he hadn't been aware of having until it eased.

She walked into the kitchen.

Where the rest of the house was shabby the kitchen gleamed. It showed evidence of being completely revamped. The renovation hadn't stopped there. A door opened into an apartment room with an adjoining shower. Off the side door, a porch looked out over the mountain meadow behind the barn.

“They lived here,” she murmured to herself. “It is very nice. It is so Grandma. Where does this door go?” She moved through the opposite doorway and into the hall that ran to the back of the house. On her right, a door opened to a sheltered porch at the back of the house. From this porch, a latched door revealed stairs marching up to the second floor. She looked at Baya.

He grinned and made a bowing motion for her to precede him up the steps.

“Oh!” A smile grew slowly over her face as she stepped into the upper-glassed-in porch. “This is wonderful.”

Snowcapped mountain peaks rose in majestic beauty outside the windows.

“It's a sun porch, part of the master suite.”

She turned to him, a question defined by her raised brows. “What was that downstairs off the kitchen?”

“I think the stairs probably became too much for them on a daily basis, and they made a place downstairs rather than trudge up here nightly.” He moved his hands in a shrugging motion to suggest it was just a guess.

She turned back to the mountains. “I would have put in an elevator.”

He laughed. “Well, it is pretty bare up here. You may want to look around before you decide what to do next. I think the elevator will have to wait.”

She nodded as she moved to open the double French doors and enter the bedroom.

The floorboards here were not as worn as the downstairs were. Still, they would have to be finished to restore the rich red color they where meant to be. The room's wallpaper was peeling and gray. The long light fixture hanging from the high ceiling hung bare.

She moved on toward the bathroom tucked along the wall the stairwell butted into. The old claw tub made her smile. “You need a stepstool to get in this thing,” she said as her hand trailed over the cool porcelain.

“There are two of them.”

She looked at him expectantly.

He obligingly led the way out of the room and across the hall. He pointed behind him. “As you can see there is another outside porch at the end of the hallway. It has a wood shelf you can put a mattress on and sleep out, a very civilized type of camping.” He grinned down at her.

She stepped through a heavy-glassed door into a room serviced by the same stairs that led to the master bedroom. It would be simple to throw a bedroll or twin mattress on the shelf and sleep under stars.

Baya led her back to the hall and opened the first door on the left.

A large bedroom complete with a gas fireplace sat naked of furnishings. Two doors opened off of this, one to a walk-in closet and the other to a large bathroom that connected it to an identical room at the front of the house. Across the stairwell balcony another door opened onto a smaller bedroom.

“This room was probably the nursery. As you can see, it's joined by the bath to the master bedroom. It's the smallest room in the house.”

“It is still larger than any bedroom I ever had.” Bonnie looked around. “I thought there would be furniture.”

“They stored it in the attic. I think they were going to refinish the floors. Do you want to see it or do we have enough to get by tonight?”

“I have beds. They will be swallowed up by these rooms.” She stood frowning at the peeling faded wallpaper. “Were all the rooms wallpapered? I'm a little confused.”