Giving her a thoughtful look, he murmured, “You’re right. A lot of men don’t give women the credit they’re due, but Chase always has. I think it’s because his mother, who was probably a feminist long before the word was ever coined, influenced him profoundly.”
“Mary hasn’t let her gender detour her at all. She’s built, quite literally, an empire in this valley.”
“And, like a woman,” he added, “the place has bloomed under her leadership. There’s no one in town who is jobless. She pays a fair hourly wage, too. Far more than what most grocery stores ever offered their hardworking employees.”
“I hope that someday, when I have this ranch and farm under control and working, that I can do the same for my employees,” she said wistfully, munching on a salty chip.
“In some ways, you remind me of Mary.”
Brows raising, she said, “Oh?”
“You’re a visionary like she is. You can look at this land of yours and see gardens, vegetables, fruit trees, and how it will all work together. Mary does the same thing. And she has people around her that can show her how to accomplish what she wants. Last year when Cari was hired to start up a beekeeping company, it was Mary who found her and brought her here. None of us knew what it would take to make this valley a known commercial honey producer, but Cari did because she’d done start-ups in many countries around the world. Mary and Chase laid out their plans, their vision, to Cari and she brought it all together.”
“Experts are worth their weight in gold,” Dana agreed.
“Has Cari come to you about having hives on your ranch yet? I know you discussed it with her at the dinner.”
“Yes, we did. And I want to give her some land on the eastern side of the ranch, well away from the main area here, and the animals. With all our fields and the flowers, Cari felt about a hundred hives with the accompanying beekeepers, which she would hire, could be maintained here.”
“Bees are good for everyone and everything. The fact that no one in this valley uses pesticides, GMOs, herbicides, or any other type of soil enrichment except natural ones, is why. Bee die-off is directly connected to those poisons.”
“I detest them, myself,” she muttered, scowling.
“What’s up this afternoon for you?” he wondered.
“Tracy sprung a surprise on me. We’re going to lay out a foundation for a henhouse. I love chickens. We can use the eggs.”
“Is Mary wanting to buy the eggs?”
“No, I just want about a dozen hens, is all. Enough for us, here,” and she gestured toward the kitchen.
“Nothing like fresh eggs,” he agreed.
“We go through half a dozen nearly every morning,” Dana said, finishing off her sandwich and wiping her fingers on a paper napkin.
“That’s because we work hard for ten hours a day,” he said. “Good thing we’re young.”
“Seriously,” she agreed. “I hope you don’t think this is too personal, but I have so many questions I’d like to ask you.”
Colin felt his gut clench a little. “I’ll try to answer them.” He saw instant surprise in her expression, her eyes widening.
“Where were you born?”
“Outside of Billings, Montana,” he said. “My family has had a pretty large spread and cattle ranch out on the plains west of the city about fifty miles.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Shaking his head, he said, “No . . . only child, but believe me, not spoiled.”
Smiling a little, she said, “I was an only child, too. You grew up on a ranch and I grew up on a farm.” Hesitantly, she whispered, “I feel a real kinship with you, Colin, and I was trying to figure out what experiences we might share between us.”
“Curiosity was killing you, right?” He couldn’t help but tease her and saw a flush across her cheeks, realizing that this meant more to Dana than he first realized. Taking the teasing out of his voice, trying to be serious, he said, “I feel the same about you. There’s a nice, comfortable energy between us. And it’s been there since I met you.”
Sitting back, she whispered, “Really?”
“Do you feel it, too?”
“From the beginning. I mean, it was almost as if meeting you was like meeting an old friend from my past,” she admitted.
He shook his head. “That’s kind of amazing. That’s how I felt about you. Where were you born?” he asked.
Hesitating, she said, “Fairfield, Oregon, in the Willamette Valley.”
Colin felt her tensing. He didn’t see it, but he felt it. Why was she always so gun-shy about discussing her family? Of course, he wasn’t much better, was he? But he’d gone through a war and the PTSD had blindsided him. Looking at her, she appeared, on the surface, to be a very attractive woman, used to hard work, responsible, and possessing a lot of kindness, which drew him powerfully. He decided to ask, “You wanted those two corrals put up. I know you’re a vegetarian, so you’re not going to raise cattle here, right?” He instantly saw her relax, her shoulders dropping, that darkness that came to her eyes, dissolving.
“No cattle. I grew up riding horses,” she admitted, putting the plate aside and folding her hands on the table in front of her. “I’ve dreamed of having them again.”
“How many?”
“Two. Horses aren’t happy if they are alone. They’re herd animals. I figure as I make some money, I can buy two of them here in the valley somewhere.”
“What gender?” He smiled a little, watching her eyes become dreamy looking.
“I like mares. Oh, I know you guys don’t, but I do.”
“Now, wait a minute,” he said, holding up his hands. “The horse I use from the Three Bars string is an older mare named Dolly, and she outclasses the boys every time.”
Dana regarded him. “Seriously? You’re not joshing me?”
“Not in the least. Yeah, I take razzing from the other guys, but Dolly is twelve years old, a barren mare, and she’s good or better than any gelding those guys ride. Matter of fact, it was Mary who was in Casper about a decade ago on business and she saw a bunch of mustangs being sold to a chicken product plant.”
“Oh, no!” Dana’s eyes went huge at the same moment she pressed her hand to her mouth. Those horses were heading to be slaughtered and made into dog food. Her stomach turned over at the thought.
“Mary bought all of them at the auction, had them trucked back here, and she gave them to seven different ranches. Dolly was one of those mustangs. She’s small, fourteen and a half hands high, wiry, tough, and so smart. All the ranchers got an influx of mustang blood and to this day, most of them are still working hard every day on the ranches around the valley.”
“Are there any more mustangs available, then? Younger ones?”
“Logan Anderson has a small herd. He’s always got some for sale, some already broken. After we get the barn built and get some hay bales and straw in there, how about driving over there and we can look at them?”
“I’d love to do that, but I have to be careful with my money, Colin.”
“I’m sure he’ll give you a fair deal, so don’t worry too much about that.”