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“You lucky dog. On a day like this, I’d give anything to go with you.”
“Tell Captain Durrant and hop in the truck.”
“Don’t I wish. How soon will you be back?”
“In a week.”
“Call me. We’ll watch some football and get a card game going with Holden.” Holden was the sheriff, and another single guy always up for a game of cards.
“That’s a plan.”
Their only plan. They lived in a town of just over 1,300 people. Without a woman on the horizon who suited any of them, none of them had much else taking up their spare time except work.
* * *
AT THE JACKSON HOLE airport on Thursday, Alex rented a car and headed for Whitebark, an hour and a half away. She would be leaving for New York day after tomorrow, but had a free day ahead of her now. It was only one in the afternoon. In the morning she’d drive back to Jackson Hole and stay at the hotel she’d already booked. They provided limo service to the airport.
After spending time in Colorado gathering information, she’d flown to Casper to attend the Wyoming Wool Growers Association conference. The people there had been helpful. She’d gathered a lot of useful information. One rancher had told her the best sheep person to interview in the Cowboy State was Royden Fielding.
He hadn’t been able to attend the conference. However, they had his phone number on file. She could call him.
Alex had done just that and had ended up speaking to his ranch foreman, Jose. When she told him why she was calling he said, “If you wish to talk to Mr. Fielding, it will have to be in person. He’s a little hard of hearing and doesn’t do well over the phone.”
“Oh, I see. Would he be available if I come later today?”
“Of course.”
Hmm. That was easy. “I’ll need directions to his ranch.” The man had accommodated her and they’d hung up. Then she’d booked her ticket to Jackson Hole.
She bought a hamburger in town. While she ate, she made a reservation at the Whitebark Hotel for the night, then headed southwest on Highway 191 beneath a cloudy sky. It had been beautiful weather up to today.
Alex had thought she’d never seen anything as magnificent as the Teton Range of mountains from the air until she found herself looking at the Wind River Range ahead of her.
She let out a gasp at the sight of peaks knifing into the rarified atmosphere amidst pockets of snow. According to the brochure she’d picked up, one of them, Gannett Peak, was over 13,000 feet. This was the sheep country the man in Casper had been telling her about?
Though she lived in New Jersey, she traveled quite a bit for her job and was stunned by what she was seeing. Whoever called this flyover country had never once come down to earth and put his or her foot on Wyoming soil or smelled such clean air. She inhaled deeply, appreciating the rugged, primitive beauty all around her.
When she reached Whitebark, she followed Jose’s directions to the Fielding Sheep Ranch. Alex drove to the front of the two-story ranch house and got out. To her surprise, an older woman walked out onto the front porch.
“Ms. Dorney?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Martha Loveridge, the housekeeper. Jose said to expect you. Come inside. Mr. Fielding is excited for a visitor.”
“Well, thank you. I’m thrilled he would allow me an interview.”
She picked up her briefcase and followed Martha inside the house to the living room. It had a cozy, warm feeling.
“Please sit down. I’ll tell him you’re here. He’s hard of hearing, so look at him when you speak.”
She nodded. Jose had said the same thing.
While she waited, Alex walked around looking at the framed pictures of different couples and children at different ages on horseback. There were rodeo and formally posed pictures, too, propped on the end tables.
She stopped when she came to the eight-by-ten colored photograph on the mantel. An impossibly gorgeous male, probably in his late twenties, was wearing a firefighter’s dress uniform. His luxuriant black hair and blue eyes stole her breath.
Who was he?
Chapter Two (#ub5d25701-51d2-5de8-8e29-2c11427b4fd5)
While Alex stared at the man in the picture, a little beagle came running in, sniffing at her.
“Oh...look at you.” She leaned over to pet him. “How cute.”
“Come back here, Otis,” a man’s voice sounded. She turned around to see who’d spoken. The housekeeper and a man with silver in his dark hair, probably in his seventies, had come into the room. He walked with a limp and used a cane.
“Martha? I thought you said Alex Dorney was out here.”
“This is Alex.” She smiled at Alex. “Meet Royden Fielding.”
The older man shook his head. “Whoever named you Alex was crazy. With that blond hair and the face of an angel, you’re the most beautiful sight ever to walk inside this house.”
His over-the-top compliment came as a total surprise. “Thank you, Mr. Fielding. My legal name is Alexis.”
“I still don’t like giving a man’s name to a woman. Where did you say you were from?”
“New Jersey.”
“Ah! That explains it. Sit down and make yourself comfortable.”
Alex smiled inside. She would love to know what that meant, but decided not to pursue it and did as he asked. The adorable dog lay at his feet.
“Jose told me you wanted to get some information from me. Why in blazes would a woman from New Jersey want to talk to me about sheep?”
She opened her briefcase and pulled out a recent issue of the magazine. Alex handed it to him. “I write for this publication.” She explained about wanting to stay ahead of national trends in the food business and what it meant for the economy. “The little research I’ve done tells me there’s a rise in the demand for lamb, which is unusual. I’m out here to find out why.”
“It’s about time,” he muttered.
Again she didn’t quite understand his meaning. “Go ahead and scan some of the articles.”
“I’ll read yours here on seafood consumption.” He spent ten minutes perusing it before looking up. “You really know what you’re about, don’t you? How come neither mutton nor lamb was even mentioned as a protein source?”
“I had to quote the information I was given from a graph quoting comparisons of meat and fish, but I’m puzzled, too. That’s one of the reasons why I’m here.”
“But I’m the wrong person to help you with the kind of information you need.”
“Why is that? The administration at the Wool Growers Association in Casper said you’re the person who has all the answers.”
He laughed. “They were just pulling your leg.”
Disappointment swept through her. Maybe her subject being hard of hearing made it more difficult to do an interview. “Mr. Fielding—”
“The name’s Royden.” He cut her off. “You want the nitty-gritty of this business? You need to talk to my grandson, Wyatt. That’s his picture on the mantel.”
Alex hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him since she’d entered the room. “But he’s in a firefighter’s dress uniform.”
“He’s a rancher and sheepman first. Wyatt knows it all. He ought to, since I taught him everything.” The man’s gray eyes twinkled.
Her spirits were suddenly lifted again, but she did wonder why he didn’t want her to interview him. “Would he be willing to talk to me?”
“He would, but he’s up in the mountains right now at his camp.”
“How soon will he be back?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “That’s when I have to return to New York. My flight is already booked.”
“I thought you were from New Jersey.”
“I am, but my apartment and the magazine office are in Manhattan. Could I phone him?”
“He’s beyond cell range. Can’t you stay longer?”
“I wish I could.”
“For you to come all the way out here for a story does you great credit, young lady.”
Alex laughed. She hadn’t been called that since she was a little girl.
“Tell you what. I’ll ask Jose to drive you up to the pasture right now. You’ll have to stay overnight.”
“But I’m not equipped.”
“Have you ever camped out?”
“A few times at the beach with my family.”
He shook his head. “Not the same thing, but don’t worry. Wyatt will have everything to accommodate you. Jose will go back for you tomorrow afternoon. That way you can get an interview with Wyatt before you have to fly home. He’ll give you some angles you hadn’t counted on.”
Mr. Fielding had just offered her a solution and she was going to take it, even if it meant roughing it for a night! She would have to call and cancel her hotel reservation.
“If Jose will do that for me, I’d be very grateful to him and you.”
“You sit tight while I give him a call. I’ll ask Martha to find my wife’s sheepskin-lined parka along with her cowboy boots and gloves. You look the same size as my Ida. She passed away two years ago.”
“Thank you.” She studied him for a minute. “I’m sorry you lost your wife.”
“So am I. When I shot myself by accident out hunting it brought on her fatal heart attack.”
Alex’s eyes closed tightly for a minute while she tried to take in the gravity of those tragedies. Despite the importance of following through on this assignment for the magazine, she had a feeling his life’s story would be more amazing than any information she could glean from his grandson about sheep.
* * *
BY LATE AFTERNOON the wind had picked up. Wyatt eyed the roiling clouds and noted the drop in temperature. By nightfall a storm would hit. He might have known the great weather couldn’t last. Thank heaven he and Pali had brought down the last third of their thousand head of sheep to the seven-thousand-foot area of scrubland. The Fieldings owned some of it and leased additional acres.
Wyatt would keep the sheep at this elevation until mid-November, then take them down to the irrigated fields where the ranch’s crops were grown.
Only three ewes had been lost. His grandfather would be ecstatic to hear about that. Tomorrow they’d have to examine each animal and take care of those needing immediate attention.
While Wyatt was straightening up his camp for the impending storm, Gip started barking. A minute later, Wyatt saw Jose’s white truck coming up over the ridge. He honked the horn. The noise brought Pali out of his trailer.
Wyatt’s heart failed him. Something must have happened to his grandfather, otherwise Jose wouldn’t be here. Unable to bear the thought, he headed toward the truck. But as he got closer, he saw that Jose wasn’t alone. He’d brought a blonde woman with him, maybe midtwenties. What in the hell?
When the truck stopped, she jumped down from the cab in jeans and a T-shirt. The cold wind that was growing stronger by the second molded the fabric to her beautiful body. She was also wearing his grandmother’s cowboy boots and carrying her parka, of all things.
His gaze traveled upward to her oval face with green eyes as lush as the patches of grass growing in the mountain passes. Her hair was cut in a cute, short style that the wind kept rearranging.
Gip ran over to Jose who got out of the truck and lowered a suitcase to the ground.
“I’ve brought you a visitor. This is Alex Dorney from back East. She came to the ranch to talk to the boss, but he sent her up here to see you. Since this storm is going to hit soon, I need to get back down the mountain. My kids are home for a few days. I’ll be back tomorrow to get her.” With those words of explanation, he got into the truck.
“Wait a minute!”
But Jose was too quick for him. Within seconds he’d started the engine and taken off.
Wyatt turned to the woman, who cocked her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fielding. Your grandfather said there was no service up here to alert you I was coming.”
The old man must he losing his mind!
Judging by her accent, this woman was a New Yorker. “He was right. We need to get you out of this wind before the downpour starts.” Noticing that Pali had gone to his camper with Gip, Wyatt grabbed her two cases and headed for his three-man tent.
She followed him inside. The roar of the wind tugging on the canvas told him this was no small mountain squall that would pass over in an hour. He knew in his gut they were in for the kind of violent early-fall storm he hadn’t seen for at least ten years.
* * *
THANK HEAVEN HE’D had the tent custom made with two entrances. The one could be used for emergencies, in case he was forced to cook on his old Coleman stove and needed the ventilation. He hadn’t used it this trip because he and Pali cooked in the trailer.
As for the heater, it had a hose connected to a hole in the tent that allowed ventilation to the outside. Because of the warm weather, Wyatt hadn’t bothered to set it up. Who would have thought he’d need any of the equipment this trip?
He lit a lantern and turned to her. “While you change into the warmest clothes you’ve brought, I have things to do, but I’ll be back. Make yourself comfortable.”
Wyatt reached for his parka and stepped out of the tent, zipping it up before he raced to his truck. He undid the tarp to unload the gear he hadn’t anticipated needing because he would have stayed with Pali. Already he could feel rain droplets. The deluge was about to start.
After making several trips to the tent, he’d grabbed everything necessary and retied the tarp. Just as he stepped inside, the heavens opened. When he glanced at his breathtaking visitor, she was sitting on his camp stool wearing his grandmother’s parka and Justin cowboy boots.
She looked up at him. “Your grandfather sent these clothes with me since I didn’t bring a coat. I didn’t think I’d need one with such beautiful weather everywhere.”
