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Mr. Markham’s eyes popped. “You ran over one of their herd?”
“No.” Brooke winced at the poor choice of words. “I met Daisy as she blocked my way across the road. Gunner Buckton came by and helped get the bison out of the road so I could get home.”
The big man chuckled. “Well, that’s a bit easier to understand. I couldn’t quite see how you turned roadkill into a social call.” He leaned forward. “I take it you received a chilly reception?”
“At first. And most definitely from Gunner. Gunner Junior, that is. He iced over the minute he worked out who I was. Then Audie decided to do her native Texan animals report on bison, and I didn’t see how I could let an opportunity like that get away.”
Mr. Markham raised an eyebrow. Brooke meant an opportunity for hands-on learning for her daughter, but clearly her boss had other interpretations.
“I had Audie call and ask to see the bison because I was sure he’d refuse me,” she continued. “Only, Audie reached Adele first, and Mrs. Buckton warmed to the idea of a visit right away—maybe because she didn’t yet know where I worked.” Brooke shifted her weight. “They don’t think very highly of DelTex. They think Ramble Acres will eventually spread to take their land.”
The vice president took off his reading glasses. “Oh, that’s no news to me. These ranchers are passionate about their land. Most times that’s a good thing. Only, sometimes the public good clashes with that stubbornness, and forward-thinking developers like ourselves have to make unpopular proposals.”
“I know.” It was one of the reasons Brooke had a job—sometimes the public needed education, or awareness, or just flat-out convincing that a development was good for everyone. Part of what she did at DelTex was to help local folks see past the temporary inconveniences of development and embrace the long-term advantages. Or in cases like Ramble Acres, see why some private land was going to be needed to make way for the infrastructure to support a large-scale project.
“And that’s why we pull in the local leaders to get those proposals green-lighted. You know the song—everybody wants a highway, so long as it doesn’t cross the back forty that’s been in their family for three generations.”
Brooke was indeed familiar with the conflict. She’d spent the past four months fine-tuning presentations for DelTex execs and the involved local politicians. Infrastructure almost always needed land, and that was a surefire recipe for public conflict. “It did end well, if that’s what you’re asking. Audie had a wonderful time, and Adele is just like I imagined her.”
“Adele Buckton is a grand, gracious lady. She and Gunner Senior became fixtures in this part of Texas back when I was younger than you.” Mr. Markham folded his hands on his dark marble desktop. “I’ve always thought Adele would see reason much faster than Gunner Junior. That boy has his daddy’s stubborn streak, that’s for sure.”
Brooke thought of the tall, commanding rancher she’d spent time with and found that boy nowhere near a fitting term. “I know the basics of the project, Mr. Markham, but what exactly is it you want from the Bucktons?”
Mr. Markham stood up and motioned for Brooke to join him in front of the large map that took up most of one office wall. He ran a finger down the highway Brooke had traveled on Friday afternoon, the one where she’d met Daisy. “This is Buckton’s place.” He tapped the finger on the east side of the highway. “Over here is Paul Larkey’s ranch,” he continued, shifting his finger to the west side. “And here is Ramble Acres.” He pointed to the site of Brooke’s meeting, a large, upscale housing venture getting ready to go up northeast of both ranches. It was a multimillion-dollar development, sure to be the jewel in the DelTex crown once completed. Mr. Markham had been working on the project—which hadn’t even broken ground yet—for the better part of four years. Brooke’s presentation had dozens of bullet points about its potential positive impact on property tax revenues, schools and local commerce. In fact, the push to break ground on Ramble Acres was the main reason she’d been hired.
Mr. Markham ran his fingers down a thin blue ribbon running across all three properties. “Here is what all the fuss is about. We need access to this water system as part of the Ramble Acres drainage plan—storm-water runoff, that sort of thing. Nothing chemical or even remotely detrimental to the land, just the ability to utilize the waterway. But it’ll swell that creek with all that water once everything’s up and running, so we need Buckton to sell us the creek and the land around it.”
“And he won’t?” The answer to that question was pretty clear.
“Not yet. He’s not budging, even though he’s got two other water sources on his ranch, and I know he could use the money. His neighbor Larkey has already said he’d sell. Only, because Larkey is downstream of Buckton, his yes doesn’t do us any of good without Buckton’s land.”
“Sounds like a standoff.” She could easily see that happening, given the personalities involved.
Mr. Marhkam pushed out a breath. “When Gunner Senior died, I thought maybe we could get through to Adele. She’s the kind of woman who can grasp the bigger picture, and quite honestly, I wasn’t even sure she’d keep the ranch. It would have been too much for her to run alone, and all her grandkids had scattered.”
Now the pieces were fitting together. “And then Gunner Junior showed up?”
Mr. Markham picked his finger up off the map to point it at Brooke. “He’s convinced I’m out to steal his land—all of it, not just the sliver we need—and there’s been no convincing him otherwise.” The businessman looked pointedly at Brooke. “Until now, maybe. I take the fact that he let you onto the ranch as a good sign. I hope you realize you are in a unique position to do a lot of good here.”
He wasn’t wrong in his thinking. Brooke knew that many conflicts of this nature were best solved by a series of face-to-face meetings. Arranging such meetings was a large part of what she did best for DelTex. Ideas and corporations never solved problems as well as people sitting down and talking to each other. Only such sit-downs were often hard to accomplish when one—or both—of the parties dug in their heels, the way the Bucktons had done.
“I’d like to help, sir, but have you met that man?” She shrugged, remembering Gunner’s glaring eyes. “I doubt I can convince him of anything.”
“Oh, don’t doubt yourself. You’ve capitalized on a bit of good fortune and done what I haven’t been able to do—gotten a conversation started. That’s always the first step. I know you know how these things work—relationships first, agreements later.” He put a hand on her shoulder, walking them back to his desk. “Do you think you can take the open door you managed to get and crack it open a tiny bit farther? Do whatever you think will keep the lines of communication open—with either Gunner or Adele. Use whatever budget or resources you need, and fend some of the grunt work off to other staffers if you need to free up your time. Help us reach this goal, Brooke, and you’ll have proven yourself an invaluable asset to DelTex.”
Up until this morning, Brooke hadn’t felt very important at DelTex—just another junior staff member trying to make a name for herself. Now Jace Markham was looking at her as if she had the makings of a key player. His regard kindled a glow of satisfaction Brooke hadn’t felt in a long time.
In the two years since Jim’s death, Brooke had always felt as though she was just getting by, just eking out an existence. Maybe this year would be the time she’d finally start going somewhere, start setting a real career in motion, become the parent and provider that Audie needed her to be. Was it so far-fetched a notion that God sent Daisy into the road that day to launch a chain of events that might make a real difference in her life? In Audie’s? In the whole county by way of Ramble Acres? “Absolutely, boss,” she said, picking up her folders. “I’m ready to take on this challenge and show you what I’ve got.”
* * *
“Gunner, honey, come in here and look at this!”
Gunner pushed his chair away from his desk—piled high this Wednesday morning with paperwork—and headed into the kitchen. There he found Gran at the computer he’d hooked up for her earlier this year. “Did you crash the hard drive again, Gran?”
Gran pulled off her reading glasses to frown at Gunner. “I did no such thing. I’m reading my email.”
Gran had asked for the computer so she could keep up with Gunner’s three younger siblings. Most days it was a good thing that Gran regularly corresponded with Gunner’s sisters, Ellie and Tess, and Tess’s twin brother, Luke. Other days, it just sent new reasons for everyone to stick their nose in his business, thanks to Gran’s incessant “updates.” I suppose I ought to be glad she hasn’t learned to text on a smartphone yet, Gunner told himself as he peered at the computer screen.
“What is that?”
Gran pshawed at him and swatted his shoulder. “It’s a drawing of Daisy. Anyone could see that.”
Gunner squinted at the brown blob and noticed it had horns and feet. And a wide cartoon smile with pink hearts around its head. “Never seen a smile like that on our Daisy.”
“You’d think you were never eight the way you talk. I changed your diapers, cowboy. Don’t you ever forget it.” Gran touched the screen. “This is a thank-you picture from Audie.”
Brooke Calder now had their email addresses? That woman was even slicker than he’d thought.
“I gave Audie my email address when she was here so she could get in touch if she had more questions. I like that girl’s gumption. She had her mother send over this picture this afternoon.” She pointed to the little girl in the drawing, who had a cartoon-style dialogue balloon over her head, reading “Thank You, Blue Thorn!” in scrawling third-grade letters. With the period on the exclamation mark made from a blue heart bearing a smiley face. “At least some young people today still remember their manners. And look, she even drew you.”
Gran scrolled the screen and pointed to a tall figure wearing a cowboy hat—and a frown. The figure representing Gran was all smiles, holding a cane in one hand and a plate of cookies in the other. “Mom” and “Me” looked happy, too, with Brooke’s curls depicted as a halo of squiggly yellow lines.
“She’s got you pegged, I’ll give her that.” Gran chuckled.
“I was nice to her,” Gunner protested. “I didn’t frown...did I?”
Gran looked up at him. “You didn’t smile, either. You mostly looked as if the whole thing hurt like a toothache.” She put a hand on Gunner’s shoulder. “You went from wild child to serious man. I think you ought to settle yourself somewhere in between, don’t you?”
“This serious man has serious work to do. I can’t go around playing host to field trips.”
“Oh, then you’re in trouble now.” Gran pursed her lips and then scrolled up to the email that topped the drawing. “Audie’s teacher is asking if the class can come visit.”
The email included a message thanking Gunner, Gran and Billy for their hospitality and the contact information for Audie’s teacher, saying a Mrs. Cleydon was very interested in bringing the class out for a visit.
He pinched the bridge of his nose where a headache was just now starting. “I knew this would happen.”
Gran got that look in her eyes. The relentless one Gunner knew all too well. “You are going to say yes. I’m going to write her back right now and tell her we’d be delighted to host the class for an afternoon.”
Gunner crossed his arms over his chest. “Didn’t you say if I’m head of Blue Thorn I have to do the inviting?”
“Yes. The invitation should absolutely come from you.” Gran put her fingers on the keyboard. “Show me how to forward the email and you can reply.”
“I don’t want to be exchanging emails with Brooke Calder.”
“Really, though, wouldn’t you be exchanging emails with Audie and her teacher?”
“Through Brooke. I tell you, Gran, that woman is up to no good.”
She pointed to the frowning Gunner in Audie’s drawing. “That’s just your grumpy side talking. She seemed very nice to me. Sweet, even. I give a lot of credit to a young widow like her making her way in the world.”
Gran’s talent for getting everyone’s life story out of them in twenty minutes or less could be a real annoyance. “Gran...”
“You should help her. You should let those children come see how the ranch works. I’ve heard you go on and on about conservation and preservation. Well, here’s a chance to share those ideas with the next generation. Show these young’uns why they need to care about bison and land and ranches. Show them firsthand, not on that silly Yube-Tube.”
“YouTube, Gran. And as for conservation and preservation, have you forgotten Brooke works for DelTex? The Ramble Acres company that wants to shave off the back of our property so they can build a shopping mall?”
“Since when can’t you be nice to people you disagree with? It’s what’s wrong with the world, I tell you. That woman has to make a living somewhere—it’s not her fault, nor is it Audie’s, that her employer happens to be DelTex.”
His grandmother’s face took on the legendary Buckton stubbornness, a narrow-eyed I will not back down set of features Gunner knew spelled his surrender.
“You’d better bake a lot of cookies.”
She smiled. “Actually, I was thinking brownies. And ice cream. A regular ice-cream social out on the lawn.”
Two dozen sticky, squirmy, sugared-up third graders tearing up his front lawn. The thought was enough to make him want to move to the city and take up accounting. Blue Thorn was taking a lot more than he was prepared to give these days.
As if she’d heard his thoughts, Gran’s hand came up to cover his. “Your father would be proud of what you’ve done. Of what you’re doing.”
That struck a raw nerve. Gunner and his father hadn’t seen eye to eye on anything in the years before his death. Not that Gunner had been around much to test that. He’d put Blue Thorn in his rearview mirror shortly after college, sick of Dad looking down his nose at the wild life Gunner loved. Dad’s expectations had smothered Gunner, and even Gran’s compassionate spirit hadn’t been enough to keep him on the ranch. With his mom gone when he was seventeen, Gunner saw no point in staying where he wasn’t understood. One by one his siblings had followed suit, heading off the ranch and out from underneath Gunner Senior’s judgmental glare until the old man had died years later practically alone and nearly bankrupt.
Gran had written Gunner then, pleading for him to return to the ranch and save Blue Thorn. He’d come for Gran. Gunner had come to prove Dad wrong about the kind of man he was, and to overhaul Blue Thorn with his own stamp. He wasn’t sure Dad would ever be proud of what he was doing here, but the sentiment raised an unwanted lump in Gunner’s throat anyway.
“Click on that green arrow there,” he said, not looking her in the eye. “That’s how you forward an email. I’ll invite them to come out, and you can stuff them full of whatever goodies you want.”
He felt, rather than saw, her smile. “You’ll have such fun, you wait and see.”
There’s where you’re wrong, he thought to himself, regretting the whole thing already.
Chapter Five (#ulink_683e7da3-b993-57bf-905e-d815f46f8f30)
Brooke scanned the rolling pastures of Blue Thorn Ranch as she drove down the road leading to Ramble Acres for another meeting Thursday. She’d never paid much attention to the landscape before in her frequent trips out to the development. Now she found herself watching the land roll by, looking for signs of the bison herd.
And, if she was honest with herself, she was watching for Gunner Buckton. After his email the other day, she had nearly picked up the phone twice to talk to him. She knew better than to judge someone by their emails, but even someone who wasn’t a specialist in communications could see the man was a mix of annoyed, cornered and reluctant. But he was at least trying to be cordial—even though it seemed to physically pain him. At least it was a start. Perhaps she could really be the key to paving a useful resolution to the tensions between the Bucktons and DelTex. If she could foster some understanding that would make Gunner feel less under attack, as well as be a face of compassion for DelTex, then everyone would win. Including her—for Mr. Markham had gone out of his way to say that a victory here would boost her career.
They were crafting a relationship with the Bucktons, she and Audie—that much wasn’t manufactured. Brooke genuinely liked the Bucktons, especially Adele. She enjoyed Audie’s enthusiasm, how she’d come up with the idea for a thank-you drawing and how Audie talked to anyone who would listen about “Daisy the mama bison and how my mom got me to meet her.”
The honest truth was that she owed Gunner Buckton a personal thank-you, and it was a plus for everyone if that thank-you was delivered face-to-face.
On that impulse, Brooke pulled into the ranch gate and pressed the intercom button. She wasn’t meeting anyone at the Ramble Acres site—just taking photographs and picking up some preliminary floorpans—so this was an easy detour. Besides, hadn’t Mr. Markham told her to use any time and resources she needed to foster the relationship? A kindly thank-you would be a wise investment of half an hour, if that.
To Brooke’s surprise, Adele’s voice came over the intercom.
“It’s Brooke Calder, Mrs. Buckton. Audie’s mom from the other day?”
“Of course I know who you are, honey. Are you at the gate?”
“I wanted to come say thanks in person, if that’s okay.” Was this an imposition? Pushy? It wasn’t like Brooke to second-guess herself in situations like this.
Her fears proved unfounded. “How nice of you” came Mrs. Buckton’s pleased reply. “I’d love to have a visit. Do you remember how to come up to the main house?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Okay, then. I’ll buzz you in. Come on up.”
Brooke felt as if she ought to ask, “Is Gunner home?”
“He’s out in the pens this morning helping with vaccines. And don’t worry, he doesn’t bite.”
Brooke indulged in a chuckle as the long metal gate rolled on its gears and drove her car down the curving lane. Today the pastures were mostly empty, but far off to her left, Brooke could see groups of bison moving about. Under a clear blue sky and among the bright green spring grass, the animals looked right out of a Western landscape painting. They drew her eye in a way cattle herds had never done—it must have been the size of them, the slow way they moved. Majestic seemed a grandiose word, but it was the one that came to mind. At least they looked that way from a distance. Stubborn had been her first impression of Daisy, and for good reason.
She drove past the barns and pens, wondering if Gunner was looking up to mutter something inhospitable as he saw her little car drive by. “I’m being nice, I’m capitalizing on a prime opportunity and I’m keeping the lines of communication open,” she reminded herself as she parked on the gravel circle in front of the house’s wide porch.
Adele pushed open the front door and gave a big wave. She seemed genuinely happy to see Brooke. Maybe Mrs. Buckton didn’t get many visitors anymore and was glad for the company. It would be hard for such a people person as Adele Buckton to be isolated all the way out here. Brooke’s public-relations side even mused that Adele might be a perfect future resident for Ramble Acres, where she’d have friends and shopping and things to do right outside her door but would still be close to the ranch.
“I’m tickled you decided to stop by!” Adele called out as she worked her way down the stairs. “I was so pleased with Audie’s drawing, I had Gunner show me how to print it out, and I put it on my refrigerator.”
“That’s so sweet,” Brooke said as she got out of the car. “Audie will love to hear that. She draws all the time.”
“Well, all my grandchildren are a bit big to be playing with crayons, but I’m looking forward to the day when my great-grandchildren fill my fridge with drawings.” The old woman’s eyes sparkled. “Got none of those yet, but I’m a patient gal.” She poked a bony elbow into Brooke’s side with a wink. “I do hope some of my four grandchildren give me some great-grandbabies before the Good Lord calls me home.”
“Gunner has three siblings?”
“A brother and two sisters. They’re scattered all over the country right now. Gunner was the first to come on home, but I pray the others will follow in their own time.”
Brooke found she liked Adele Buckton more and more. Her own mom was kind, and she’d been incredibly supportive in the first months after Jim’s death, but she lacked the vibrancy Adele had. Mom always seemed tired and annoyed with the world, whereas Adele looked as if she couldn’t wait to get out into it.
“You were so kind to say yes to Mrs. Cleydon’s field-trip request. I was in the area, and I felt I ought to come by and say an extra thanks in person.”
“Oh, well, then you ought to be thanking Gunner. He’s the one who extended the invitation.”
“Somehow—” Brooke leaned in “—I have a feeling he was put up to it.”
Adele pulled back in mock surprise. “My, but you are as sharp as you look.” She squeezed Brooke’s hand. “I like to think an old gal like me still has some weight to throw around now and then.”
Brooke could only laugh. “Well, I’m glad you did. Audie talks about nothing else.”
Adele headed toward the door. “Oh, good. Come on in. I’ve got some iced tea in the fridge.”
They ended up sitting on the porch for a spell—with Brooke’s affection for the delightful matriarch growing every minute—before the tall figure of Gunner came out from beside the barn and stopped at the sight of the baby-blue hatchback. Brooke watched his whole posture change, as if his spine hardened right before her eyes. His steps slowed as he turned toward the house, and Brooke felt his eyes burn suspicious holes in her chest, even from a distance. He did not welcome her presence, and it showed all over Gunner’s face.
Adele either didn’t see—which Brooke highly doubted—or chose to ignore her grandson’s annoyance, instead waving as if she had a grand surprise for Gunner. “Look who’s here!” she called out.
“I can see.” Gunner’s voice was low and tight. “Field trip’s not for another week, Ms. Calder. What brings you out our way again?”
“I had an appointment,” Brooke replied, pressing on even when Gunner’s eyes broadcast I’m sure you did, “and I wanted to say thanks to both of you. In person. For our visit and for welcoming the class. I know it’s an imposition.”
It sure is, Gunner’s tight jaw said despite his easy, “It ain’t much trouble.”
