Love in Romance Arkansas (5 page)

The man recoiled as if she had suddenly become a crouching leopard. In what she considered to be her good fortune, he maintained his distance, and silence, the rest of the flight. As they walked down the ramp, she couldn’t resist whispering over his shoulder, “Have a good day.”

She saw her friends clustered at the gate waiting for her. They had told her before she left that they wanted to hear all about her adventure. She set her hat squarely on her head and walked casually by without a glance their way. She heard remarks such as
where is she? She usually flies first class so she should have been here by now. Did she miss her flight?
One remark was
did you see the cowgirl come by? She looked like a working cowgirl, not a wanabe. Her jeans and shirt were well worn and those riding boots looked like they had seen a few miles. Her walk was purposeful, not the teasing walk of most women wearing tight jeans. All she needed was to be carrying a saddle and bridle. Hot chick, though.

She smiled to think that some of her friends had looked at her enough to note her clothes, yet had not recognized her. She walked back to the huddle of friends and asked, “Waiting for someone?”

Jenny received an eloquent letter from one of the developers wanting to buy her property. It contained the usual canned condolences about the loss of her grandfather and a glowing account of how his plans would benefit the community.
Yeah right, I’ve seen this garbage a hundred times and I’ve yet to see it help any community at all. The only one helped is the developer. Maybe he doesn’t know I’m a lawyer and doesn’t know I’ve already had the property appraised for the proposed use, not as a ranch. I’ll see what he has to say.

She flew out for the meeting that had been arranged at one of Little Rock’s finest restaurants. Mr. Smith was cordial and pleasant. His presentation was well polished and rehearsed. He had all the answers to questions about job creation, environmental protection and other concerns.
This guy seems to be on the ball, time to throw him a curve and see what happens.

“Sir, what do you plan to do with the house already on the property?”

“Oh, it will be demolished to make way for the county club house. We can’t have anything like that spoiling the view. Everything must be new and modern. Our clients don’t want anything to be out of place or old.”
Well, buddy you just stepped in it with that statement.

“What about the spring and stream on the property?”

“The upper half will be put into a culvert and covered over. The lower half will be ditched and hard surfaced to facilitate drainage to avoid flooding. We won’t tolerate the possibility of flooding in our plans.”
Well, you just got the other foot in it now.

“Sir, let’s just cut to the chase. Exactly how much are you offering for this real estate? No bells and whistles, the bottom line.”

“We plan to offer you a custom home designed just the way you want, lifetime county club and health club membership with some other benefits to bring your total package to about one point five million.”
Real generous he is, one point five million for a property on which he stands to make at least fifty million!

“Let me make myself clear. I’m not interested in any of the benefits you mentioned. What is your top dollar offer?”

“We are prepared to offer four mil cash, top dollar.”

“How does twenty-five mil sound to you? I know you stand to make about fifty big ones on this deal. I would think half would be a good share for me.”

Mr. Smith looked as if he would swallow his teeth for an instant, then recovered rather nicely. “Surely you must be kidding. There is no way we will pay you that much.”

“Then we have no deal. It has been nice talking with you. Thank you for the marvelous lunch. Good day, sir.”

“Wait a minute, you can’t just walk out of here. We’ve already spent too much money on this project for you to wreck it. We’ll put you out of business, take your land and leave you with nothing. You can’t push us around. We are too powerful for that.”

“Now that you mention it, be advised I’ve spent fifteen years of my career working land cases just like this. Know what? I’ve never lost a case yet. In case you don’t know it, the public takes a dim view of land developers. On top of that, I’m prepared to put the entire holding into the Public Land Trust Program so neither you, nor anyone else, will ever have a chance to get this property and destroy it with one of your so called developments. Again I bid you farewell, and have a nice day.”

Jenny visited the ranch several times during her first year of ownership. John knew she tried to come as often as she could. Her cadre of friends often came with her. She seemed comfortable with her friends, so much to the point he wondered about her. One girl, Susan, was always in the crowd even if the others changed. She had an almost possessive attitude toward Jenny and tended to try to exclude John as much as possible.
Wonder if she likes women better than men? Wouldn’t be the first time a nice looking woman preferred her own kind. Maybe that’s why she isn’t married. Be a shame if that is true. That gal has a lot to offer the right man. Flip side is that she deserves a decent man’s attention.
Her visits produced a number of amusing, embarrassing and enlightening experiences as she transformed from big city lawyer to ranch girl.

* * * *

Forgetting, or ignoring, John’s warning about walking across a bull’s pen, Jenny decided to cut across the #1 herd bull’s pen.
He won’t pay any attention to me since he is all the way at the other end of the pen.
Just as she reached the center of the pen, she heard a deep, rumbling bellow and looked up to see the bull walking purposely her way.
Oh my, I better hurry and get out of here. I’m too far to go back. I’ll make a run for the other gate.

Running proved to be a mistake. The bull bellowed again and broke into a surprisingly fast thundering run. The transformation from a docile animal to a charging beast was incredibly fast.
Girl, I guess you are going to learn how to climb trees right quick. There is no other place to go but up.
She sprinted toward the bull’s shade tree, jumped to catch the lowest limb and swung up as the bull rushed under her. He wheeled to look at her perched just out of reach. He began pawing the ground, throwing clouds of dust up into the tree as if to say, maybe I can’t reach you, but I’ll get you plenty dirty.

Now what are you going to do? I can’t roost in this tree all day.
She saw John headed her way in the ranch pickup.
Now I’ll have to listen to his kidding for the rest of the day.

John drove the pickup under the tree to keep the bull away. He leaned out the window, “What are you doing up there, hatching bird eggs?”

“Oh shut up and get me down. What do you think I am doing? I see what you mean about walking in a bull’s pen. Not the best thing to do.”

“Just drop into the truck bed, then you can scratch Bob behind the ears and make friends with him.”

“I’m not too sure I want to be friends with him. He seemed pretty irritated about my walking across his pen.”

She dropped into the truck bed and the huge bull poked his head over the tail gate and bellowed in her face. “Phew, bull you need about a gallon of breath freshener. What a stench! You think I should scratch behind his ears?”

“Sure, and watch his body language when you do.”

She reached toward the bull and he snorted, blowing slobber all over her. “What a mess!” As she scratched his ears, he seemed to melt. The harder she scratched the more he enjoyed it. He leaned against the truck and rumbled his satisfaction.

As they drove out of the pen he said. “When he’s in a pasture with a herd of cows, you can walk up to him and pet him like a dog. Any bull gets lonely and a little keyed up when he’s penned up.”

“In other words he gets horny,” she added much to his surprise.

“That’s about as good of an explanation as any.”

* * * *

On one visit, John had a stock dog trial to attend instead of the monthly rodeo. Jenny was torn between the rodeo, which she enjoyed, and the possibility of spending time with John. The decision really wasn’t a much of a decision.
Spending time with him is much more exciting than getting dusty and dirty in the rodeo arena. Besides, I want to watch his dogs work. He speaks highly of their ability. Bet they are fun to watch.

John loaded three dog boxes into his pickup as the dogs watched. “This time they’ll go around one time and then jump into the truck without being told.” The little dogs made one frantic run around the house and sailed into their boxes. “Okay, guys let’s go and herd some cows.”

The trial went smoothly during the single dog exercises. John’s dogs won two drills. Jenny was as proud as if they were her dogs. However, John and his dogs drew a particularly contrary lot of cows for the multiple dog session. The lead cow as an old hand at this little game and tried every trick to fool the dogs.

The dogs had the herd almost penned when a cow made a break for the open pasture. The lead cow, seeing the attempted break, made a break on the other side with the rest of the group. They literally ran over one dog and dodged another as they raced to the end of the pasture. The dog jumped up, shook himself and took off in hot pursuit. This time the dogs had the cows moving in the right direction and ran them straight into the corral.

Jenny was at John’s side as he checked his dog. “Did he get hurt when they ran over him? That was scary to see, he might have been trampled.”

“I think he’s fine, no broken bones, and apparently no internal injuries. At least he isn’t bleeding from the mouth or nose. I’ll have to watch him closely the rest of the day. That happens sometimes. Most times the dogs win, but the cows won that one. That lead cow always tries her best to mess things up. Makes it interesting, though.”

One of Jenny’s first tractor driving jobs was mowing hay. The job was going nicely until she got to watching the mowing and not where she was going. Her first clue of trouble was the screech of tight wire being drawn across metal, followed by the pop of breaking fence posts. She managed to stop before running completely through the fence, but the wire was tangled under the tractor so she couldn’t back up either.
Now what have I done? Seems there is always something happening to make me look stupid. Guess I’ll have to call John and get out of this mess. I bet he is going to be mad about this.

John arrived in a few minutes. He sat in the truck for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” she asked. “Stop laughing at me and get me out of this mess.”

“The expression on your face and the way you are sitting on that tractor are rather comical. Wish I had a camera, that picture would be worth having. Let me cut this wire and pull it out from under the tractor.”

He quickly clipped the wire and pulled it out. “Now back up so we can set new posts and patch the fence. We’ll use this as fence building lesson. Hope it turns out better than the driving lesson,” and he laughed so hard he had to sit down.

“Okay funny man, you’ve had your laugh at my expense. Let’s fix this fence and move on.”

“Relax, Jenny, I’m laughing because I did nearly the same thing when I first learned to drive a tractor. Doug had a good laugh at my expense. Now I know why he thought it was so funny.”

Jenny moved to Arkansas in the spring of her second year of ownership. John knew the sale of her mother’s home and her condo had given her more than ample funds for a complete renovation of her quarters. The tasteful use of marble, granite, native stone and selected hardwoods yielded a décor of unusual beauty as well as utility. John thought everything showcased good taste, nothing was gaudy or trashy. Her friend, Susan, moved with her.

He watched her transformation from a city girl lawyer to a ranch girl. Her attitude changed from one of detachment to one of deep interest and fascination. She studied cattle bloodlines and breeding until she was knowledgeable in the subject. She accompanied him to seminars, where he was often the keynote speaker, stock shows and auctions all over the US and Canada.

He was amazed at how fast she grasped the complex system of cattle bloodlines and the relation of one line to another. He constantly tested her with breeding situations: Which lines do you cross to produce certain traits, say heat tolerance and calving ease, in a herd while maintaining fast growth, good feed conversion and high carcass quality? She soon knew the necessary crosses to produce the desired results. However, she still double checked her answers on the computers to be sure.

Not long after her move to Arkansas, John heard Jenny and Susan arguing. It wasn’t his nature to eavesdrop, but since they were on the deck right outside his den, it was hard not to listen. He sensed this conversation had tremendous implications for Jenny and for him as well. “Susan, don’t make me choose between the two of you. Why can’t we continue as we are?”

“Jenny, don’t be silly. I won’t share you with anyone and I don’t think he will either. Pick one or the other. I’ll stay with you and love you as only a woman can. Or you can go with him. He will want to get between your legs and get you pregnant, ruin your beautiful figure and tie you down with a baby while he flits around looking for other women. Didn’t you learn how men act in your last relationship? All that was missing was the baby part. Do you really want that?”

“I don’t think he is like that. He is respectful and he seems to care about me. He doesn’t appear to be on first one foot and then the other to get me into bed. He accepts me for what I am, not what I might be. He has talked a little about his desires and ideas. He wants something solid, not a flighty sexual trip. I think you have him pegged wrong.”

“Get real. All men are the same—get as much as they can from one woman and then go looking for another, or get as much as possible all the time from as many women as they can. A man will just break your heart and leave you with a kid or two.”