Winter at Mustang Ridge (16 page)

“Hush,” Rose said primly, but with a thread of amusement. Slamming the rear door, she pointed across the street to the hardware store. “Next stop, paint.”

“I want white.”

“Which shade of white?”

Jenny would’ve argued that white was white, but her inner photographer rebelled on that one. “How about pizza? We could hit Harry’s for a Hawaiian.” She and her mom were the only two people in the family who dug ham and pineapple on their pies.

“Paint before pizza, young lady.”

Jenny hung her head. “Yes, Mom.” But she bumped Rose with her hip as they started across the street, and ducked a return hip check, dancing aside as laughter bubbled up.

Turned out this mom-daughter stuff wasn’t so bad, after all.

•   •   •

Jenny stayed up late and got up early to put the last few polishing touches on the clips of her gramps talking about Mustang Ridge. As she worked, new scene snippets kept sneaking into her brain, forcing her to jot them down so she could clear some space for the work at hand. Just past ten thirty, when she really needed to be heading out to meet Shelby at her in-home office, Jenny pushed away from the desk and blinked at the screen, where Big Skye’s weathered face was frozen in a John Wayne grin.

“Gotcha.” This time she said it out loud, putting the word to the certainty that had lodged itself in her belly. “Done and done.” And, damn, she was glad this hadn’t turned into an epitaph.

Rex’s tail thumped twice, giving her words a syncopated backbeat. The big dog was sacked out on his bed near the space heater, replete from all the bacon and toast that had snuck its way under the table during breakfast.

“Thanks, buddy.” She didn’t remember the last time she had actually built a film from the ground up, even a five-minute short like this one. Sure, she knocked off
Look what I’ve been up to!
clips every month or so and sent them to the family email loop, but that wasn’t the same as a fully produced piece.

It felt good. Really, really good.

As she was getting ready to leave, with her computer packed and ready to roll, the office phone rang.

“Leave a message,” she sang out, but then checked the caller ID, in case it was Shelby needing to rearrange things. The sight of Nick’s cell number in the display put a light, happy pressure in her lungs. She picked up the handset. “Hey, there! This is a nice surprise. I figured you’d be jammed up, trying to get all of today’s and tomorrow’s patients seen.” With the storm predicted to hit overnight, he had already cancelled his Saturday appointments.

“I am.” His voice, warm and mellow, came through the phone and seemed to surround her like a down parka that carried his warmth and scent. “I snuck out between an abscess and a tartar scrape so I could wish you luck on your presentation.”

Sweet warmth stole through her. “Thanks.”

“How do the clips look?”

“At the risk of total immodesty, they rock.”

“When can I see them?”

“How does tonight sound?”

“Sounds good to me. Let’s keep an eye on the storm, though. The weather hens are starting to do their the-sky-is-falling routine on this one, making blizzard noises and saying it might start more like late this afternoon. I guess one front stalled right on top of us, but the other one is moving faster than expected.”

“Nope,” Jenny said, “not going to happen.”

“What’s not going to happen?”

“I’m not going to let snow mess with date night.”

His chuckle carried down the line. “Alas, I don’t think the Wyoming weather cares about our plans.”

“You’ll see,” she predicted.

“How about I call you after I’m done with my patients, and we can go from there?”

“Sounds good. Right now, I should hit the road.”

“Me, too. My halitosis hound awaits.” He paused. “Drive safe, okay?”

“Will do.” She wanted to linger over the good-byes, but wasn’t sure how long it would take her to get out to Foster’s family ranch. “Thanks for the call.”

“Knock ’em dead.”

She hung up, grinning, and then slung her computer bag over her shoulder and patted her thigh in invitation. “Come on, Sexy Rexy. Last one out to the Double-Bar H is a rotten egg.”

The goldie lurched to his feet with a “whuff” and a wiggle, all but dancing with glee.
We’re going somewhere! Yippee!

“Y
ou should see the databases they’re running here!” Krista gushed along the storm-static’d cell connection. “They’re seriously drool-worthy.”

With twenty minutes until her meeting and only a couple of miles left to drive, Jenny had pulled the Jeep over to take her sister’s call, killing time while Rex hung his head out the window, seeming delighted to scan the winter landscape from inside the warm vehicle. “Is that all that’s drool-worthy?” she asked. “Lame.”

“I’m here to learn how to ramp things up a notch at the ranch, not add a notch to my bedpost.”

“Which would bring you up to a grand total of, what, two notches?” Krista’s one serious relationship had been in college, and there hadn’t really been anyone since then. Which was another way the two of them differed—Krista did Deep and Meaningful in the guy department, while Jenny, well, didn’t.

“Speaking of notches,” Krista said, paralleling her thoughts, “how are things going with Nick? Have you seen him since the two of you played Search and Rescue?”

“Are you asking me to kiss and tell?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“Whether the kisses are worth telling about.”

Most definitely
. But where she and Krista usually told each other anything and everything, now Jenny hesitated. “How about this—you find someone to kiss out there in Cali, and report back. Then I’ll tell you all about things with Doc Hottie.”

Krista hooted with laughter. “Doc Hottie? Oh, I am so calling him that the next time he’s out to the ranch.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Why not? You’ll be long gone.”

Ouch
. Unable to argue the point, Jenny said, “Uh-oh, I’m down to eight minutes. I don’t want to be late meeting Shelby.”

“Don’t stress over it. She’s figured out that time is relative out in the backcountry.”

“Still. I’m going to get going.”

“Are you dodging the question?”

“Don’t make me do the
sssssss . . . You’re breaking up . . . sssssss
thing. Besides, this meeting is for your advertising project. I’d think you’d want me to be on time.”

“So go already. But don’t think I missed your not so subtle subject change. I want details, sister. Preferably juicy ones I can use for blackmail when I get home.”

“
Ssssss
 . . . What was that? I think the clouds are messing with the signal.”

“Fine, be that way. I’ll talk to you later.” Laughing, Krista killed the connection.

Refusing to replay too much of that particular conversation—or her own responses—Jenny said, “Hey, Rex, you want to get your head back in here?” When the dog complied, she buzzed up the window and got them back on the road.

The Double-Bar H took up a shallow bowl of a valley that was undoubtedly “ooh, stop and look” gorgeous when everything was green and lush. Foster had bought the family acreage back from an absentee owner just this past summer, and he and Shelby were renovating the place from the ground up while living there. According to Shelby, they had floors, a table and a couple of chairs, plus heat and WiFi—and what more did they need?

Jenny liked her already, and not just because Foster was head over heels.

Shouldering her computer bag, she headed along the shoveled path to the main house, with Rex right behind her.

The door opened as she came up the steps, and a vivid brunette stepped out, seeming not to notice the cold, even though she was only wearing jeans, thick socks, and a fuzzy sweater. Spreading her arms wide, she said, “Jenny! I’ve been dying to meet you! And Sexy Rexy!”

“Shelby, hi!” Coming up the last steps, Jenny did the hug-and-air-kiss thing. “I feel like I already know you.”

“I know what you mean, but I didn’t want to say it because I thought it would come out like ‘Krista and I are friends, therefore you and I are friends.’ I didn’t know if you were touchy about the twin thing.”

Feeling that whole-body relaxation that came from meeting a kindred spirit, Jenny shook her head. “Not so much anymore, and I wouldn’t have taken it like that anyway, coming from you. It’s because we’re working on a project together. If you’re lucky enough to get along, working together breaks down the barriers fast. If you’re not lucky . . . well, then the project is pretty much guaranteed to be a headache, or worse.”

“Been there, done that. But why are we standing out here like half-frozen fools? Come inside. It’s a disaster area, but it’s home.”

Shelby waved them through, giving Rex—in full wriggle mode—a thorough head rub on the way by.

While the house wasn’t quite a disaster area by Jenny’s definition, it definitely smacked of a renovation, complete with the smell of sawdust and latex paint. The open-concept living, dining, and kitchen areas were a patchwork of old surfaces and new drywall, suggesting they had recently been the smaller, interconnected rooms of the usual family ranch home, circa eighteen-something. The furniture was equally mismatched, with a folding table and aluminum chairs taking the place of what would be a breakfast bar when the granite went in, opposite a pretty oak buffet that would probably make Jenny’s mom drool.

It was a mishmash, admittedly, but Jenny could see what they were going for, and that it would be amazing when it was done. Better yet, a blanket of warmth wrapped around them as they entered, making her sigh with pleasure. “Oh. That’s nice. I’ll take a project-in-progress as long as I’m not freezing my butt off.”

“Me, too, which is why we splurged. Put radiant heating in the floors as soon as humanly possible, and hooked them to the big solar panels on the roof.” Shelby glanced out a window. “Not that there’s much in the way of sun today. Here. I’ll take your coat.”

“Boots off?”

“Your call. With a kid, a dog, and a cowboy who’s known to forget his spurs, I’ve given up on keeping the floors pristine.” Her tone was fond, her face soft.

“Lizzie’s at school?”

“For a few more hours yet. She didn’t want to miss another day, which is a very nice change from how she was back in Boston.”

“I’d like to meet her.” Shelby’s nine-year-old daughter was the reason Shelby had come to Wyoming in the first place. Foster, though, was why they had stayed.

“Check your barn on the weekends. She’s usually out there with Foster—or, rather, with the horses.” Shelby’s lips curved. “Krista’s yearling, Lucky, is a particular favorite of hers. She was there when he was born. Anyway, let’s go into my office.” She gestured to the dining area, where a gorgeous mahogany table with ball-in-claw feet was covered in a drop cloth and a layer of books, papers, and a sleek laptop hooked to a flat-screen monitor. “Rex can have the dog bed. Vader won’t mind sharing.”

The goldie did his two and a half circles, flopped down, and started gnawing on a well-used bone.

Jenny looked over Shelby’s setup with interest. “I would’ve thought a workspace would’ve happened before even the floors. Home business and all that.”

“That was the original plan, but I decided I wanted warm feet more than a real desk. It’s funny how quickly I went from Type A ad exec to ‘work at home, uh-oh, the UPS guy is here, better put on a bra.’”

Given the way the other woman was rocking a pair of Wranglers that looked like they’d been made for her, along with a sweater that screamed “cashmere” and “European,” Jenny had a feeling that was an overstatement. “You don’t miss it?”

“Miss what, the city? The pressure? The rush-rush-rush, and the feeling that my career hangs on every meeting, every concept?” Her teeth flashed. “Heck, yes, I miss it. Sometimes I miss it so much that I drive into Laramie just to breathe the exhaust and buy overpriced coffee from a cranky barista.”

Jenny laughed. “Done that.” Though in her case it usually required a two-day trip on dirt roads and puddle jumpers, not just a few hours on the highway.

“The trade-off is so worth it, though, to live in a place like this, raise my daughter here. And, honestly, could you see Foster in Boston?”

Jenny thought about it, surprised that the answer wasn’t immediate and easy. “You know what? I have a feeling he’d do okay. He’s a smart guy. Adaptable, though he hides it behind that
why are you in my space?
scowl. At least he used to. Less so since he met you.”

That got her a considering look. “It took me a while to see that part of him—he even offered to come back east with me, so we’d have a chance to see if we could make it work. In the end, though, there was more for me here than there was back home, so we stayed.” Shelby looked utterly at home in her skin and her space as she pulled a rolling desk chair up to the dining table and sat, tucking her feet underneath herself.

“Boston’s loss, Three Ridge’s gain.”

“You’re sweet to say so.”

“Nope, and not just because I like you.” Pulling up another chair, Jenny plonked down beside her and dug into her computer bag. “Like I said on the phone, I love the idea of forming symbiotic relationships with local businesses, not just on the Web site, but in terms of merchandise and services. Got a suggestion there, by the way: Kitty Cosgrove over at Kitty’s Kountry Kitch. It’s actually way cooler than it sounds, and she buys local as much as possible. Not to mention that she used to work at the ranch and is going to give me an interview.”

“Sweet. I’ll put her on the list.” Shelby rat-a-tatted the info into her laptop, typing blind while she watched Jenny hook up the secondary monitor, so they could both look at the on-screen images without bumping heads. “That’s quite a setup.”

“Betsy? She’s only really portable in the loosest sense of the word, but she’s got a memory like a thousand elephants and refuses to crash, no matter what I do to her.” Jenny patted the computer, which was darn near indestructible in its military-grade ballistic housing. “I’ve got her baby sister for when I need to move fast, but for stuff like this, she’s my go-to girl.”

“Any other thoughts on local vendors?”

“Not off the top of my head, but I can ask my mom for suggestions. She’s the champion shopper in the family.” Fingers skimming the touchpad, she pulled up the first of the files she had collated for Shelby. “I figure you and Krista have the vendor stuff pretty much nailed down, anyway. Your concepts really rock, assuming your photog—me—can pull it off.”

“I’m not worried. Krista showed me your work.”

“Please, not
Jungle Love
.”

Shelby chuckled. “I haven’t missed an episode since season two.”

“You should be ashamed.”

“It’s research. Pop culture, trends, that sort of thing.”

“Suuure.”

“Anyway. Krista showed me one of your documentaries, too. The one about U.S. doctors who went overseas to help out after that earthquake, and wound up triaging radiation workers at a failing nuke plant. . . . That was powerful stuff.”

“I should probably say something like ‘it’s old, just a film-school project,’ but I won’t, because I’m still darn proud of it.”

“You should be. Those images of the workers sleeping in stairwells between their shifts until the doctors and nurses pulled strings to get cots, along with supplies for the wounded . . . Well, it all stuck with me—that’s for sure.”

Nostalgia tugged and Jenny found herself smiling. “Thanks.” She hesitated for a second before she opened up the first file, the one with the pictures from her last couple of visits.
She wants pretty, not editorial
, she told herself, and went ahead and spun the second monitor toward Shelby.

“You’re wel—” Shelby’s jaw dropped. “Ohmigosh. You took all these?”

The screen showed thirty-five miniature versions of the high-res pictures she had selected. They ranged from long-range field-and-mountain landscapes that were
ooh-ahh
pretty but—at least to Jenny—ultimately boring, all the way to more interesting—and less advertising-relevant—close-ups of leaves and birds, and a few action shots of the herds that gave Mustang Ridge its name.

Arrayed together like that, she had to admit they were pretty darn impressive.

“Yep, over the last few years. It’s a habit, something I don’t always realize I’m doing. You know how some people have tics and twitches? Well, I take pictures.”

Shelby practically glowed. “They’re yours, free and clear? We can use them?”

“Yes, and duh. That’s why I’m showing them to you.” But her reaction was more than flattering. “I took this batch for my own entertainment, so they may not be geared in the direction you’re going. I’ll come back this summer to get some guest interviews, and can get some additional stills then. Unless that’s going to be too late?”

“We’ll be changing things up every few months, keeping it fresh, so I’m sure we’ll take you up on that. For a first pass, though, these are perfect. Better than I had even dared hope, and my hopes were pretty high after hearing Krista sing your praises.”

“Don’t get too excited until you’ve seen the rest of it.” Jenny paused. “Strike that. Feel free to get excited, but at the same time don’t be afraid to tell me where I’m hitting the mark and where I’m missing it.”

They went through the winter photos together, with lots of “what if we . . .” and “do you think it would work to . . .” and both of them taking notes on their computers.