Chapter 2

A week had passed, and with it a new year had dawned. Melody sat in the room her friend Clara had given her. No rancher she contacted would give her a position as a horse trainer or breeder. She’d ended up taking a job helping Clara and Clyde by cleaning the rooms in the Bed and Breakfast. She was learning to cook some too by helping in the kitchen each day.

Melody had even gone to the judge to see if there was anything she could do to force Brent to let her work the ranch. She had been told that, as the owner, he had the right to choose his workers. The infuriating man had suggested she be a good little woman and bring Brent to town, marry him, and let him keep her as was fitting her gender. He’d laughed as she stormed out of the courtroom, making a comment about how her fire would keep some fella warm on a cold night.

When Melody got back to Clara’s she entered to find Brent sitting in the parlor talking with her friend and employer. She glared at him. “What are you doing here?”

Brent stood and faced her. “I heard this was where you were. I thought I’d come see if you have realized that being my wife is your best option?”

Melody’s hands went to her hips. “Have you realized that letting me continue to work raising and training the horses is your best option?”

Brent shook his head. “That’s not an option at all, Melody. You can’t do a man’s work without your Pa to help you. I don’t have the time or a ranch hand I’d trust to take his place. Why must you be so stubborn about this?”

“Me! Why must I be stubborn about this? Why must you be stubborn about this, Brent? My horses are raised and trained better than any horses in the state. But you can’t accept that I’m the one who raised them or trained them.

Just like every other idiot rancher who buys them from us, you are so sure Pa did the work and I just played pretend. But that wasn’t so, you go look at Pa’s records and you’ll see that after I started working the horses things changed. If you think the cattle kept our ranch a success, you’ll see soon enough when those who want horses trained my way stop buying horses from you.”

Brent shook his head. “Why do you insist on taking credit for what your Pa worked so hard to build? He should have listened to me and sent you back east to school so you’d have learned how to be a proper lady. Instead, look at you, refusing your natural place in life. I’ve half a mind to drag you to the judge and marry you, anyway. Then I could at least teach you to act properly.”

Anger flashed behind Melody’s eyes at the thought of this man laying one finger on her. “Just you try it! If you do, you’ll regret ever laying a single finger on me, Brent Cooke, I promise you that!”

Brent turned and headed for the front door. “You’ll come crawling back, Miss Hughes, if you want to keep your precious ranch you’ll have to. But don’t wait too long, I need a wife, and if it won’t be you, I’ll find one elsewhere.”

The door slammed as he left, and Melody collapsed onto the divan. As much as she hated to admit it, in a way Brent was right. No man would hire her to train horses. Unless she wanted to remain working for Clara and Clyde and be a spinster for the rest of her life, her only chance at owning the ranch was by marrying him. She said a prayer through her tears, asking God for another option, any other option, to have the life she always dreamed of. She just wondered if He even heard her prayers because she was losing everything that mattered to her, and it seemed God didn’t even care.

Tallis sat behind his desk and let his head fall into his hands. Almost nothing was going the way he wanted it to. His ranch hands had no clue how to cowboy without modern conveniences. That he refused to allow them to wear t-shirts and carry cellphones had caused several to quit, leaving him shorthanded. His foreman was threatening to quit because of having to use old-fashioned lassos, not the modern synthetic ones that slid easier through the hands. That all ranch work had to be done from horseback or horse and wagon was another point of contention. He had no clue how, not only cattle ranching, but they conducted life on a ranch in the nineteenth century. Less than two hundred years and already the skills were being lost.

He’d had to send back east to an Amish community to find anyone who made an old-fashioned wood-burning cook stove and oven. Now he had one being shipped to him, but he couldn’t find a cook who wanted to use the thing. What he needed were some cowboys who were willing to work old school, and he’d been having trouble finding them. Modern cowboys wanted to use modern methods.

If that wasn’t enough of a hassle, finding a contractor willing to take things back to their original condition and remove most, if not all, the modern conveniences was more difficult than finding cowboys and ranch hands. He sat there nursing a head full of problems and aching when there came a knock on the door. Tallis frowned, he wasn’t expecting anyone. If it was any of his family who come to check on him, they would have just walked in. He left the office and headed to the front door.

It surprised Tallis when that special feeling he got when something important was about to happen kicked. He saw the shadow of a man standing in front of his door. The men in his family had always had some sort of special gift they called the Calling. For some, it told them of danger they needed to stop, for his brother he just seemed to know when extra help was needed and showed up out of the blue. Usually right as someone needed that help.

Legend had it that Nugget Nate and Nathan Ryder both had it stronger than anyone before or since. And they knew not only when they were needed, but where they were needed. Often arriving in time to save a life or a town from outlaws or worse. All Tallis got was a feeling when something was important, and right now his whole body vibrated with that feeling. Whoever was on the other side of the door, they had important news.