Return to Oak Valley (30 page)

Sloan stopped before Maria, and, taking her hand in his, he kissed it extravagantly. “Madame, I thank you. My mouth thanks you. My stomach thanks you. We all thank you.” He glanced at Shelly. “Peanut butter sandwiches?”

Shelly shrugged. “Hey, I may be a modern woman, but you can't expect me to work cattle all morning
and
cook up a feast for lunch.” She grinned. “What I need is a house husband.”

Nick and Sloan groaned.

“You know that isn't a bad idea,” Tracy said as she sat down next to Sloan at the table. “I think I'll get me one. Be nice to come home after a hard day of wrestling cows and nasty mares to find a warm meal and handsome face waiting for me.”

Acey winked as he reached for the platter of baked chicken. “Sweetheart, you say the word, and I'll be happy to apply for the job.”

This sally provoked some ribald comments about old men and young women. Lunch was a raucous affair.

Toward the end of the meal, when they were all digging into Maria's tart apple pie, Tracy looked from Shelly to Sloan, and said, “I don't want to start anything, but aren't you two supposed to kill each other on sight? Ever since I came to the valley, I've heard tales about the Granger and Ballinger feud. Are you telling me it isn't true?”

Sloan and Shelly exchanged glances. There was an awkward pause, then Sloan said, “The feud was at its worst before the turn of the century—the rest of us have just sort of…kept up the tradition.” He made a face. “Ballingers and Grangers just naturally seem to find themselves on the opposite side of any question. In a place this small and remote, it creates bad will and tends to keep the old feuds going.”

Tracy looked from one to the other. “But you're here today—helping a Granger I might add. And Nick and Acey are both here.” She glanced at the two men. “Unless I'm mistaken, haven't both of you worked for Ballingers
and
Grangers from time to time? Isn't that a no-no?”

Acey snorted. “No, it ain't a no-no. Grangers and Ballingers might rub each other the wrong way, but the two families had to face the fact that the other residents had to be able to deal with both of them without reprisals, or the area would have been split right down the middle—and that wouldn't have been good for anybody.”

“The Ballinger/Granger feud,” Nick added, “is the stuff of legends, and like most legends, it all happened a long time ago.” He made a face. “Which isn't to say the families are the best of friends today.” He glanced over at Shelly. “Wasn't it in the seventies sometime that there was that plan to bring in a wood-burning electrical plant?”

Shelly nodded, wondering what Nick was thinking. This was his family, his history that they were talking about, and yet he had to pretend otherwise. From the expression on his face, she couldn't tell anything, but there was a look in his eyes that made her suspect the conflict inside of him. “Yes, that's right,” she said with an uncertain smile at Nick. “I was just a kid, but I remember all the yelling and shouting that went on.”

“That was the most recent time,” said Acey, “and it left a lot of hard feelings in the valley.”

Playing with his empty glass, Nick declared, “It's hard to explain to an outsider. There are several people in the valley related a generation or two back to both Ballingers and Grangers—and they tend to walk a careful line, not taking either side if they can help it.” He grimaced. “In fact they tend to not want to claim either family, since both sides disowned the sinners that dared to cross the line between Ballinger and Granger. These days for most of them the feud is just an interesting family footnote. Sloan and his family and Shelly and…” He stopped, looked at Shelly with bleak eyes, then muttered, “Shelly's the last of the valley Grangers, and when she marries or dies, hopefully as a very
old
lady, that'll probably be the end of the story.”

“Oh, I don't know about that,” Sloan murmured. He glanced at Shelly. “What about Grangers from New Orleans?”

“Roman? He's a Granger all right, but a New Orleans Granger.” She stared challengingly at Sloan. “So I
am
the last of the Oak Valley Grangers.”

“Not a very prolific family,” Sloan said dryly.

“Just because we don't breed like rabbits”—she smiled sweetly—“like some families….”

Hastily, Acey said, “Well, there you have it, Tracy. In the over a hundred years since the Ballingers and Grangers first laid eyes on each other, all of us in the valley have learned”—and he shot a dark look at both Sloan and Shelly—“to get along.”

“OK, I can understand that,” Tracy said, pushing aside her crumb-scattered plate, “but what about the principals—actual Grangers and Ballingers.” She pointed to Sloan and Shelly. “Like those two.” Despite Acey's intervention, the interplay between Sloan and Shelly hadn't escaped her.

Sloan made a face, and Shelly wiggled uncomfortably. How
did
one explain about her and Sloan? Shelly wondered. She didn't understand it herself. She peeked at Sloan—he didn't appear to be willing to offer an explanation either. There was a small silence, but before it became awkward, with a rueful smile, Shelly said, “It's a weird relationship—I'd be the first to admit it, but not
every
Granger or Ballinger is at the other's throat. As Nick mentioned, there have been cases of Grangers and Ballingers marrying—also, as Nick said, usually causing a lot of teeth gnashing and disapproval from the two families. Jeb Delaney's maternal grandparents are an example. When they got married, from what I've heard, it brought all the ugly feelings out in the open again and for a decade or two, emotions ran strong again.”

“Of course,” Sloan said, “you have to remember that Jeb's grandmother, a member of the New Orleans branch of the Granger family, was engaged to Shelly's grandfather's brother at the time. When my great-uncle, Matt, ran off with her—just days before the wedding, I might add—it caused a huge scandal. And you can't just blame the resulting uproar on the Ballinger/Granger feud—any family would have been outraged.” His gaze rested on Shelly's face. “I know I'd be out for blood if someone stole my bride—unlike Shelly's great-uncle, I'd have hunted good ole Matt Ballinger down and killed him…and taken my bride back.”

“Whoa. You're telling me that a Ballinger stole a Granger bride and the world didn't tip on its axis?” Tracy asked, looking impressed.

“Hell, honey,” Acey answered, “Ballingers and Grangers have been stealing each other's brides and grooms since the very beginning—that's what caused so much of the bad feeling.” He scratched his chin. “And one or two other things that I'm too polite to mention in front of ladies.”

Tracy stared. “Let me get this straight.” She pointed to Sloan and Shelly again, who both looked as if they would have been more comfortable having open-heart surgery—without anesthesia—than sitting right here. “You two are actually related—way back?”

Sloan shrugged. “Way back, yeah.”

“Way,
way
back,” Shelly added. “So far back it almost doesn't count.”

Maria, who had been silent during most of the conversation, rose to her feet. After picking up several empty plates, as she walked to the sink, she said, “Well, I think the whole thing is all very silly. Ballingers and Grangers have always acted like spoiled little children—they each want what the other has simply because the other has it.”

No one argued with her, and the subject was dropped. Leaping to their feet, they all helped clear the table and would have remained under Maria's feet trying to be of use if she hadn't shooed them out of the kitchen like a bunch of pesky flies.

“Go. Go,” she ordered. “You will only slow me down.”

After thanking her for lunch, they meekly followed orders and trooped outside. Since the work was basically done for the day, in a very few minutes, thanks and good-byes said, with a friendly wave, Tracy pulled away. Nick, Acey, and Sloan loaded the two horses, Sloan lingering to talk to the two men. Shelly, intent upon putting some distance between herself and Sloan, wandered to the barn, to the office, giving the others the excuse that she wanted to file the paperwork on the cows.

Standing in the doorway to the barn office, Shelly stopped and looked around, a feeling of nostalgia winging through her. The barn office had been her father's sanctuary, and despite her mother's repeated request that he move it into the house, he'd insisted upon keeping it right where it was. She smiled. All his old cowboy cronies didn't think twice about stopping to jaw a while when he was out in the barn office, but they'd have hesitated to do so in the house—one of the reasons, she now suspected, he'd clung so stubbornly to it. There had been an old kerosene heater to knock the chill off on winter days, and the high roof and the heavy timbers of the barn kept it cool in the summertime—although she remembered that there'd also been a couple of fans kept handy for blistering August days. The office was spacious, and a big pot of bitter black coffee had always been kept simmering on an ancient hotplate. An old refrigerator just outside the door usually had some beer or soft drinks in it for anybody who dropped in.

Her father's office had been a casual meeting place for many of the local ranchers. Often, when very young, she'd come out here and found the place full of bewhiskered, tobacco-smoking or -chawing men wearing battered cowboy hats, faded blue jeans, and manure-stained boots, all of them sitting around and talking about the hay crop, the calf crop, the weather, someone's new horse or cow dog. She clung to that memory, as she did to one of the few other clear recollections she had of time spent with her father. The memory of skipping out to the barn office and peeking around the doorway to watch him work at the massive oak desk that still sat at the far side of the room drifted through her mind. He always seemed to sense her presence, and he'd look up from whatever paperwork he was doing and, with a big smile, call her in to visit him. She'd climb into his lap and prattle away about her doings, or listen rapt as he told her some funny little story about the cattle. Sometimes he'd hand her the crayons he'd kept in his top desk drawer just for such visits. “Draw me a cow,” he'd say, a smile in his voice. “A real, real purty one. Just for Daddy.”

She didn't know how many cows she'd drawn for him during the short time she'd had him, but it must have been a bunch, she thought with a bittersweet pang. Josh had found a stack of them in the bottom drawer of the desk after their father's death and had given them to her when she had been about sixteen. The first budding of my artistic talent, she mused wryly…and her father had treasured them.

Swallowing the lump that rose in her throat, she walked into the office and sat down behind the desk. Laying aside the paperwork she carried, she ran a caressing hand over the smooth surface of the desk. Her dad's desk. She felt close to him here, and if she closed her eyes, she'd swear that she smelled the faint scent of tobacco that had surrounded him and heard the deep rumble of his voice. Tears welled in her eyes, and she wondered what he'd think of her plans. He'd approve, she was confident of that much, and she figured he'd probably be pleased that his old office wasn't abandoned, gathering dust and cobwebs anymore.

Ignoring work that needed to be done with the rest of the barn, during the last couple of weeks, she'd spent every spare moment she had in the office, cleaning it, painting it, stocking it, going through files, making it hers. A good used refrigerator had replaced the old one just outside the doorway; a coffeemaker and a microwave now sat on the bank of new almond-colored metal cabinets. The pertinent files were in pristine order in the two oak filing cabinets her father had used, the wood dark with age. After their father's death, Josh had moved everything into one of the rooms in the old house that he had made into an office—who knows how much history of Granger Cattle Company had been lost when the house had burned down. Josh had been able to save some things, though, and through the Angus Association had been able to get duplicates of the most important papers—those he had placed in his office in the new house. She grimaced. And she had just spent a couple of days carting many of those same papers back out to the barn office. Guess she was more like her dad than she realized.

She glanced around, liking what she saw. The walls were painted white, and the floor was varnished pine. The wide window that looked toward the back of the house and driveway was framed with new blue gingham curtains; a narrow bookcase she'd swiped from Josh's office sat underneath it. Nick had picked up four wooden chairs in various designs from a used furniture store for her in Ukiah the last time he'd been down there, and they had been placed about the room. She'd ordered a small brown Naugahyde sofa from the JC Penney catalog—it should arrive next week at the Penney's store in Ukiah. A new Angus magazine and several pamphlets and cattle supply catalogs lay scattered across the top of an oval table she'd raided from one of the extra bedrooms. She'd also absconded with a couple of lamps and a night-stand. The office, she decided with satisfaction, looked pleasant and efficient. She frowned. She'd need a computer and would have to get hooked up to the Internet during the next month, and before winter she'd have to do something about heat, but at least that was one decision she could put off for a while.

Her mind on all the other things she'd need to do soon, she rose to her feet, picked up the papers she'd brought in with her, and crossed to the filing cabinet. It only took a few minutes to file the papers, and she made a face at the half-empty drawer before she slammed it shut. The one file cabinet was empty, and this one didn't have much in it either. But it would, she promised herself. Granger Cattle Company was going to grow. She had big plans for it.

She turned away and stopped, startled to see Sloan standing in the doorway, his black cowboy hat in one hand dangling near his knees. How long had he been standing there? It gave her a funny feeling to think of Sloan watching her when she was unaware of it.

Ignoring the leap in her pulse, she smiled politely, and asked, “Can I do something for you?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew that they were a mistake. Sloan's slow, distinctly carnal smile told her exactly what he was thinking. Her chin lifted, and her eyes narrowed, daring him to say what was on his mind.