Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
The Hart Ranch was almost as Meredith had pictured it, with neat wooden fences concealing electrified fencing, improved pasture land and cattle everywhere.
There were also pastures with horses, and there was a barn big enough to store a commercial jet.
But she loved the house itself, with its graceful arches reminiscent of Spanish architecture, and the incredible number of small trees and shrubs around it.
In the spring, it must be glorious. There were two ponds, a decorative one in the front of the house and a larger one behind the house in which a handful of ducks shivered in the November sun.
“Do you have goldfish in the pond?” she asked excitedly as Rey stopped the car in front of the house on an inlaid stone driveway.
“Goldfish and Koi,” he answered, smiling reluctantly at her excitement. “We have a heater in the pond to keep them comfortable during the winter. There are water lilies in there, too, and a lotus plant.”
“Does the other pond have goldfish, too, where the ducks are?” she wondered.
Leo chuckled. “The other one is because of the ducks. We had to net this pond to keep them out of it so we’d have some goldfish. The ducks were eating them.”
“Oh, I see.” She sighed. “It must be beautiful here in the spring,” she said dreamily, noting the gazebo and the rose garden and stone seats and shrubs around the goldfish pond.
“It’s beautiful to us year-round,” Leo told her with lazy affection. “We all love flowers. We’ve got some more roses in a big flower garden around the back of the house, near a stand of pecan trees. Tess is taking courses in horticulture and she works with hybrids.”
“I love roses,” Meredith said softly. “If I had time, I’d live in a flower garden.”
“I suppose cleaning rooms is time-consuming,” Rey murmured sarcastically as he got out of the car and went in the front door of the house.
Leo glanced at her curiously while Rey was out of earshot. “You clean rooms?”
“I don’t,” she told him with a sharp grin. “But I’m living down to your brother’s image of my assets.”
Leo pursed his lips. “Now, that’s interesting. You sound like a woman with secrets.”
“More than you’d guess,” she told him heavily. “But none that I’m ashamed of,” she added quickly, just in case he got the wrong idea.
“Rey doesn’t like you, does he?” he murmured, almost to himself. “I wonder why? It’s not like him to pick on sick people.”
“I’m not sick,” she assured him. “I’m just battered, but I’ll heal.”
“Sure you will,” Leo promised, smiling. “You’ll be safe here. The only real chore you’ll have is baking. By the time you’re completely back on your feet, your father will be sober and in counseling, and your home life will have changed drastically.”
“I hope so,” she said huskily.
He watched her eyes grow tragic and haunted. He frowned. “Meredith,” he said slowly. “If you need to talk, ever, I can listen without making judgments.”
She met his clear dark eyes. “Thanks, Leo,” she said with genuine gratitude. “But talking won’t change a thing. It’s a matter of learning to live with…things.”
“Now I’m intrigued.”
“Don’t push,” she said gently. “I’m not able to talk about my problems yet. They’re too fresh. Too painful.”
“And more than just your father, or I’m a dirt farmer,” he drawled.
She shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Anyway, just take your time and let the world pass you by. You’re going to love it here. I promise.”
“Am I?” She watched Rey come back out of the house with an elderly lady in tow, wringing her hands on her apron.
“That’s Mrs. Lewis,” Leo told her. “We talked her into coming back to bake biscuits for us, even though she’d retired, but now we’re losing her to arthritis. She’s going to show you the ropes. But not right now,” he added quickly.
“No time like the present,” Meredith disagreed with a smile. “Busy hands make busy minds.”
“I know how that works,” Leo murmured drolly.
Rey opened the back door and helped Meredith out. “Mrs. Lewis, this is Meredith Johns, our new cook. Meredith, Annie Lewis. She’s retiring. Again.” He made it sound like a shooting offense.
“Oh, my, yes, I’m losing the use of my hands, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Lewis said. “Glad to meet you, Miss Johns.”
“Glad to meet you, too, Mrs. Lewis,” Meredith replied.
“I’ll take your bag to your room, while Mrs. Lewis shows you around the house,” Rey added.
“She just got here,” Leo protested.
“And there’s no time like the present to show her the house,” Rey replied.
“That’s just what she said,” Leo sighed.
Rey glanced at Meredith, who gave him a wicked grin and followed along behind Annie Lewis, who was making a valiant effort not to ask about the terrible bruises on Meredith’s face.
“It’s a big, sprawling house, and it takes a lot of cleaning,” Mrs. Lewis said as she led Meredith down the long hall and opened doors to the very masculine bedrooms both with dark, heavy Mediterranean furniture and earth tones in the drapes and carpets.
“The men aren’t messy, thank God, but they track in all that mud and dust and animal fur!
They had beige carpeting when I came here.
” She glanced at Meredith with a shake of her head.
“Red mud just won’t come out of beige carpet! ”
“Or anything else,” Meredith added on a soft laugh.
“They work hard, and they’re away a lot. But the foreman lives in the bunkhouse with a couple of bachelor cowboys, and they’ll look out for you.”
“I don’t know that I’ll be here very long,” Meredith replied quietly. “They offered me the job so that I can have time for these to heal.” She touched her face, and looked straight at the older woman, who was struggling not to ask the question in her eyes.
“Nobody will hurt you here,” Mrs. Lewis said firmly.
Meredith smiled gently. “My father got drunk and beat me up, Mrs. Lewis,” she explained matter-of-factly.
“He’s a good and kind man, but we’ve had a terrible tragedy to work through.
He hasn’t been able to cope with it except by losing himself in a bottle, and now he’s gone too far and he’s in jail.
” She sighed. “I tried so hard to help him. But I couldn’t. ”
Mrs. Lewis didn’t say a word. She put her arms around Meredith and rocked her in them. The shock of it brought the tears that she’d held back for so long. She wept until her body shook with sobs.
Rey, looking for her, stopped dead in the doorway of his bedroom and met Mrs. Lewis’s misty eyes over Meredith’s bowed shoulders. It shocked him to see that feisty, strong woman collapsed in tears. It hurt him.
Mrs. Lewis made a gesture with her eyebrows and a severe look. Rey acknowledged it with a nod and a last glance at the younger woman as he walked back down the hall.
* * *
Supper was riotous. Meredith had made a huge pan of homemade biscuits and ferreted out all sorts of preserves to go with them.
For an entrée, she made fajitas with lean beef and sliced vegetables, served with wild rice and a salad.
Dessert was fresh fruit and fresh whipped cream, the only concession besides the biscuits that she made to fat calories.
She’d also found some light margarine to set out.
“This is good,” Rey commented as he glanced at her. “We usually have broiled or fried steak with lots of potatoes.”
“Not bad once a week or so, but terrible for your cholesterol,” she pointed out with a smile as she finished her salad. “Lean beef is okay for you, but not in massive doses.”
“You sound like a dietician,” Leo chuckled.
“Modern women have to keep up with health issues,” she said evasively. “I’m responsible for your health while I’m working for you. I have to be food-conscious.”
“That’s fine,” Rey told her flatly, “but don’t put tofu and bean sprouts in front of me if you want to stay here.”
Her eyebrows arched. “I hate tofu.”
“Thank God,” Leo sighed as he buttered another biscuit. “I got fed tofu salad the last time I went to Brewster’s for supper,” he added with absolute disgust. “I ate the olives and the cheese and left the rest.”
“I can’t say that I blame you,” Meredith said, laughing because he looked so forlorn.
“Janie Brewster thinks tofu is good for him,” Rey commented.
“But she thinks he needs therapy more. He doesn’t like fish.
She says that has some sort of connection to his fear of deep water.
” He glanced at his brother with wicked affection.
“She’s a psychology major. She already has an associate degree from our local junior college. ”
“She’s twenty,” Leo said with a twist of his lower lip. “She knows everything.”
“She just got her associate degree this spring,” Rey added.
“Good. Maybe she’ll get a job in New York,” Leo said darkly.
“Why New York?” Meredith asked curiously.
“Well, it’s about as far east as she can go and find her sort of work,” Leo muttered. “And she’d be out of my hair!”
Rey gave him a covert glance and finished his fajitas.
Meredith finished her own meal and got up to refill coffee cups. She had a feeling that Leo was more interested in the nebulous Brewster girl than he wanted to admit.
“We need groceries,” she told them when she’d served dessert and they were eating it. “Mrs. Lewis made me a list.”
“You can use one of the ranch trucks to drive to town,” Leo suggested carelessly.
Her fingers toyed with her fork. “I haven’t driven in several months.”
“You don’t drive?” Rey exclaimed, shocked.
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I take buses.” Cars made her feel guilty.
“Why?”
She remembered a day she should have driven. The memories were horrible…
“Meredith, it’s all right,” Leo said gently, sensing something traumatic about her behavior. “I’ll drive you. Okay?”
“You won’t,” Rey replied. “You’re in worse shape than she is. Which brings up another point. You don’t need to be walking around town like that,” he told her.
She wasn’t offended; it was a relief. She even smiled. “No, I don’t guess I do. Will you do the shopping?” she asked him, her wide, soft eyes steady on his.