Page 4 of Take Me Please, Cowboy
“As well as late.”
She shook her head.“Stop being such a grouch and let me make dinner and everything will be fine.”Her voice was sharper than she intended, but she was tired of taking whatever her uncle dished out.
She’d never even met him until she arrived Memorial Day weekend, late May.It had been an interesting summer living here, and there were times her uncle was good company—well that was going too far.He was satisfactory company—but there were other times, like tonight, when she didn’t know why she was even here.
It wasn’t as if she was being paid to be his live-in companion.She was here as a favor to her parents, not that her dad would ever ask her to stay with his brother on the family ranch, but her mother had taken pity on Clyde and had also seen it as an opportunity for Ansley to get out and spread her wings a bit.So, here she was, trying to keep an eye on her uncle as his health had begun to fail and no one knew what would happen to him—or the Campbells’ Cold Canyon Ranch—which had been in the family since the 1930s.
At the sink, Ansley washed her hands before drying.“I was thinking of just making some chicken and pasta.Would you like chicken Alfredo?Lemon chicken?What sounds best?”
“Whatever is the fastest.I’m hungry.”
“They’re both quick.We’ll be eating in thirty minutes.”
“I don’t know if I can wait.”
“Then how about a yogurt to tide you over?”
His lips pursed.“I just want dinner.”
He reminded her of a small petulant child, and her lips twitched picturing him in a high chair, waving his fists, having a tantrum.“I know.The message has come through loud and clear.Since Alfredo is your favorite, I will do that.But are you sure you wouldn’t like a snack to hold you?”
“You’re being patronizing.”
“And you, Uncle Clyde, are being a little demanding,” she retorted, “but I’m going to put it down to low blood sugar or high blood pressure as I know you wouldn’t normally be so difficult.”Then she gave him her sweetest smile.“I’m going to quickly change, and I’ll be right down, and dinner will be ready before you know it.”
Then as Ansley headed out of the kitchen, she shouted back to him, “And my trip to Bozeman went really well, thank you for asking.I stayed to see them hang the painting on their conference room wall.It was pretty awesome.”
*
Forty minutes later,they were at the table finishing dinner when her uncle cleared his throat.“Did you take any pictures?”he asked, voice gruff.
Ansley blinked, confused.“Of?”
“Of them hanging your painting in the office.”
She slowly smiled.“I did.Would you like to see?”
He nodded, and she went to get her phone from where it was charging on the hall table.Returning to the kitchen, Ansley pulled her chair closer to his.“I took a half dozen, haven’t even looked at them yet, but this is Jackson Flint carrying the painting into the law office.Jackson is huge and that gives you an idea of just how big the painting was.”
“I don’t know him,” Clyde said.
“He’s been in Marietta four years now, maybe a little longer.He manages FlintWorks, the brewery his older brothers founded in Marietta’s train depot.”
“I knew the name sounded familiar.”
She flicked through a couple photos of the building maintenance moving furniture to clear space for the painting and then hanging it.“Here it is up,” she said, handing her phone back to him.“It really fills up the wall.”
Clyde studied the photo.“The Bridger Mountains.The west face.”
She nodded.“Mr.Sterba was raised at the foot of the mountains.He said it’s his favorite view.”
Her uncle was still examining the photo.“You did a good job.Must have taken you some time.”
“Weeks, but I enjoyed it.We don’t have mountains like this in Texas.”
“You don’t have any mountains in Texas.”
“We do have the Hill Country,” she said, turning off her phone.
