“Oh, sure, he won’t hurt you.”
“Move, Mack. I need to wake up Crissie. Be a good dog, Mack.”
The dog slid out from under Crissie’s arm and rose to his feet. He gently nudged the sleeping girl. She opened her eyes and giggled. “Mack tickles.” She stood up. “Look, Gwen, he likes me. The man said he can come home with me.”
“He’s been fixed. I got his shot records, his bowls and most of a bag of dog food out in the pickup,” the man said hopefully. “I sure hate to think of ol’ Mack getting put down. People want puppies.”
“So you said.” Gwen had no intention of taking the dog.
“Mack’s my new bes’ friend.” Crissie hung on to the dog for dear life.
Gwen eyed the dog dubiously. He seemed to like Crissie, and he might be protection for the young girl. Gwen glanced at Jake Stoner. And for her.
His mouth twitched. “I’ll get Mack’s gear out of the truck.” As he passed Gwen, he said in a voice pitched for her ears alone, “With a dog of that size, you won’t have to worry about me attacking you in your bed.”
So he wasn’t just a cowboy. He was a mind reader, too.
Mack sat in the back seat with Crissie as they headed east out of Trinidad. After eating his ice-cream cone in two gulps, the dog had covetously eyed Crissie’s cone, but to Gwen’s relief he hadn’t snatched it from the little girl. Gwen decided to overlook Mack’s licking the ice cream residue off Crissie’s face. Crissie hadn’t minded. The child had wholeheartedly adopted the dog. Maybe keeping him wouldn’t be a total disaster.
“Kids on a ranch can get lonely.” Jake Stoner read her thoughts again. “The dog’ll make a good playmate and watchdog. You didn’t make a mistake taking him, Ma’am.”
“If the dog doesn’t work out, I’ll take him to the dog pound myself.” Out of the comer of her eye she saw the amused skepticism on his face. “I will. And don’t call me ma’am.”
He laughed. “You’re stuck with the dog and you know it. I don’t recall you ever got around to telling me your name.”
“Gwen Ashton.”
“Ashton. Your family been ranching around here long?”
“No. I inherited the ranch from a client of mine.”
Ah.
Gwen heard a wealth of meaning in the simple response. “There’s no ‘ah’ about it. I don’t care what you’ve heard, Bert and I were friends. Nothing more.”
“I haven’t heard anything. Why don’t you tell me?”
She didn’t need to explain anything to an employee. “I’m a Certified Public Accountant. I worked for a firm up in Denver, and became acquainted with Bert when I started doing his taxes.”
Glancing at the puffy white clouds piling one on top of the other over the dark mesa to the south, Gwen thought again how the stark beauty of this countryside went a long way toward explaining how Bert Winthrop, so conscientious about caring for his livestock, could set new standards in lackadaisical when it came to the paperwork involved with running his ranch. All the tax preparers who’d washed their hands of him probably never left their sterile cubicles to breathe deeply of the country air.
“He left you his place because you showed him how to get out of paying the government what he owed?”
“He left me the ranch because I love it as much as he did.” Beside the road sunflowers turned their faces to the sun. “I love the beauty and I love the history. I loved hearing Bert talk about his family pioneering out here on the high Colorado plains. They homesteaded and survived grasshopper plagues, Indian scares, bank failures and the ‘Dust Bowl’ years when the drought was so severe most of the topsoil blew away. Generations of Bert’s family were born, lived, and died on the ranch.” Gwen smiled reminiscently. “Until I met Bert, I never thought before about history as being someone’s uncle or aunt or grandfather. Some of his family actually came out here by way of the Santa Fe trail. Some fought in a Civil War battle down in New Mexico. Did you know there’d been a Civil War fight out here? I didn’t.”
“The battle of Glorieta Pass.”
“That’s right. And one of his ancestors hauled freight from a foot in New Mexico to a place up north of here on the railroad.”
“Ft. Union to Granada.”
“You must be interested in history, Mr. Stoner.”
“I’ve picked stuff up.”
“I never realized how fascinating it could be. Some of Bert’s relatives kept journals, and I’ve been reading them. Bert had roots and family which goes back over one hundred years in this area.” She slowed the car to make a turn. “I love the journals and wouldn’t part with them for a million dollars. I offered to make copies for Gordon, but he’s not the least bit interested. Not in them.”
“Who’s Gordon? Your ex-husband?”
“I’ve never been married. Gordon Pease is Bert’s nephew. He’s convinced I manipulated Bert into leaving me the ranch. That I took advantage of a senile old man. If he’d spent ten minutes with Bert in the past year he’d know the last thing Bert was, was senile.”
“What was he?”
“Lonely, I suppose.”
“So you were kind to him.”
“Bert wasn’t a pathetic old man who needed befriending,” Gwen said indignantly. “He enriched my life.”
“He left you a ranch because you listened to him?” Jake Stoner asked, skepticism filling his voice.
“He left it to me because he knew I’d love it. Bert married late, and his wife Sara died early. Bert should have remarried, but he didn’t, and all that’s left of his family is Gordon. Gordon moved to Colorado about five years ago and moved in with Bert for a short time. According to Bert, Gordon hated the ranch and everything about it. Gordon only wants the ranch because he thinks he can sell it and make a bundle.”
“You plan to sell it?”
“Never. All my life I’ve dreamed of my own home. A big house with a white picket fence. My dad was in the Air Force, and my mom would no more than get unpacked and it was time to pack up again. Mom and my brother Dan loved it, but not me. I wanted to settle. Mom says I take after my Grandmother Ashton. Both my grandfathers had itchy feet. They were always quitting their jobs and moving on to where the grass was sure to be greener. Grandmother Ashton hated it. She used to show me pictures and tell me about the home she grew up in back in Missouri.”
“With a white picket fence?”
“The fence is symbolic,” she said impatiently. “Putting down roots, that’s what counts. A place where a person belongs. So that no matter where you go, you know home is waiting for you to come back. I want a home which records our lives. I want marks on the wall showing how tall Crissie is at five and ten and fifteen years of age. I want to know that whatever weather I’m dressing for now, I’ll be dressing for the same weather five and ten Augusts from now. I want Crissie to be able to plant a tree and watch it grow for years and years.” Gwen gave an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry. My brother used to say I was a little irrational on the subject. It probably sounds stupid to a man like you who doesn’t like to stay long in one place.”
“There was a time when I considered settling down myself. Not too far from here. Even built myself a nice little place and...”
Gwen pulled into the ranch yard and parked the car. Then she turned to see why Jake Stoner hadn’t finished his sentence. He was staring in astonishment at Bert’s house. Her house. “I know it looks a little strange,” she said defensively, “but