The Rancher's Prospect. Callie Endicott

sense?”

      “That shouldn’t be a problem, but I’d suggest using archival storage materials. A lot of paper today is acidic, so putting old documents into files without protecting them could be damaging.”

      “Get whatever you need,” Josh put in hastily. “We have an office supply store in Schuyler, and if they don’t have what you require, they can order it.”

      Walt jutted out his chin. “I’ll phone and tell the store you’ll be making purchases for the Boxing N. They can bill me.”

      The two men stared at each other in silent combat, and Tara didn’t want to find out how long it would take for one of them to back down.

      “That’s fine,” she interjected. “Walt, we didn’t talk about whether office records should also be computerized.”

      “No,” Walt replied immediately.

      “Yes,” Josh said at the same time.

      “You’re working for me,” Walt reminded her.

      “Then I’ll hire you, too,” Josh asked. “Everything needs to be computerized.”

      Tara’s head was beginning to ache; the tension between the two men was palpable. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but her sympathies were entirely with Walt.

      “Perhaps this could be sorted out another time,” she said finally.

      With a stiff, angry nod, Josh stomped out of the office building.

      Walt settled into one of the comfortable chairs at the opposite end of the room while she started to work.

      “My grandson is wrong,” he said after several minutes.

      “About what?”

      “Evelyn didn’t ask me to move my office out of the house. But I could tell cigar smoke bothered her, so I moved into this place.”

      The wistful expression in the old man’s eyes made Tara curious, but she didn’t try to probe.

      “That was thoughtful,” she answered.

      “I would have done anything for my wife...at least, that’s what I always claimed. She was an amazing woman. I should have...”

      His voice trailed off, and he looked at the window behind her, though she didn’t think it was the garden he was seeing. She’d learned the Nelsons had been in a terrible car accident the previous autumn; Evelyn had lingered for a few days before she passed, and Walt had been left with a painful limp. It was dreadfully unfair that he would have to spend his senior years without his wife. Again she felt that odd, powerful liking for the older man. His obvious loneliness reminded Tara of how solitary her own life was.

      Since he seemed lost in thought again, Tara returned her attention to the chaotic office. Organizing it would take some time. The system—such as it was—appeared to be limited to creating the piles of papers she’d seen the first day, along with battered boxes and paper bags. Instead of holding paperwork, the ancient filing cabinets were stuffed with a miscellany of items.

      After a while Tara glanced up and saw Walt had left. That made things easier. She combined several partial boxes so she’d have containers to unload the cabinets. Opening one of the file drawers, she pulled out a large tangle of leather straps.

      “What have you got there?” Josh McGregor asked.

      Tara jerked at the unexpected voice, her heart skipping. She made a mental note to keep the office door closed while she worked and to look for a bell that could alert her when anyone was entering. For such tall men, both Walt and his grandson moved quietly, and she didn’t enjoy being surprised. One coworker had claimed she was worse than a cat, jumping whenever startled.

      She examined the dried-up leather straps and metal pieces. “It appears to be old horse tackle.”

      “What a terrific place to keep something like that.”

      Though Tara silently agreed, she was annoyed by Josh’s wry tone. Equally annoying tingles shot through her as he brushed her arm, lifting the jumble from her hands.

      “I doubt this has been used for thirty or forty years. It isn’t worth much now, but I’ll see if there’s anything that can be salvaged.”

      She hesitated. The relationship between grandfather and grandson was obviously complicated, and they were putting her in the middle; she was starting to feel like a bone being growled over by two dogs. “I’ll discuss it with Walt,” she told him firmly.

      Josh’s jaw tensed in a way that was rapidly growing familiar; he and his grandfather both seemed to have the same ticking muscle on their jawlines.

      “Ms. Livingston, as I told you before, I own the Boxing N. My grandfather deeded it to me several months ago.”

      “How soon after he got out of the hospital?”

      Josh flinched. “The week after he got out of the rehab center, not that it’s any of your concern. He contacted his lawyer without telling anyone in the family what he was doing. Apparently he’s had the documents ready since my college graduation.”

      “And now you’re determined to show him who’s in command.”

      “That’s ridiculous, but a ranch has to have one boss, and Grandpa has made me legally responsible for everything that goes on here. I’ve got cowhands quitting because he keeps interfering, yet he no longer has the physical strength to do what needs to be done.”

      It was a reasonable explanation, especially the part about being legally responsible, but Tara still sympathized with Walt. He’d spent a lifetime running the Boxing N, and giving up control must be difficult.

      “At the risk of repeating myself, Walt hired me, not you,” she said evenly.

      “And, as I said earlier, I’d like to hire you, as well. If you’re organizing the records anyway, it makes sense to do the computer work at the same time. Right?”

      “I don’t care if it makes sense,” she declared. “What I do here is up to Walt, and he doesn’t want that. Would it hurt you to wait? Or are you trying to force equipment on him that he’s never used, hoping to push him out of the way?”

      “You don’t know anything about it. Whether you like it or not, I’m having a computer delivered this week, along with a scanner and the other equipment needed to move this ranch into the twenty-first century.”

      “Fine, but my using it depends upon Walt, so that equipment may not get a workout until you hire an office manager and shuffle him into an old folks’ home.”

      “I’m not trying to shuffle him anywhere,” Josh hissed. “It isn’t any of your business, but for your information, I’m trying to give him some dignity and still keep this place running.”

      “That isn’t what it looks like from my standpoint.”

      Josh closed his eyes in obvious frustration.

      “I’ll talk to my grandfather about the computer work,” he finally told her.

      “Talk or demand?”

      His jaw tightened again, but he picked up the armload of horse tackle and headed for the door without saying anything else.

      “There’s something I don’t understand,” Tara said before he could leave.

      He froze. “What?”

      “Walt has a huge amount of experience running a ranch, and caution isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Why are you so opposed to learning from him? Has the business really changed that much?”

      “You’d be surprised. As for learning from my grandfather, he can be challenging.”

      She smiled faintly, knowing it would annoy Josh. “Actually, I think he’s delightful.”

      * * *

      AS