The Mechanics of Mistletoe - Liz Isaacson Page 0,14

still standing, and Bear closed his eyes and thanked the Lord. Micah Walker had been working on the house for almost six months, and there were only a few things left to finish up. Bear, Ranger, and Bishop had been living in it for a month and letting Micah work around them.

“We should check on the animals,” Bishop said, and Bear nodded.

“Judge, get Auntie Dawna, and take her and Mother inside,” he said to his brother. “Everyone else, let’s gather around and make a plan.” Judge wouldn’t be happy babysitting the older ladies, but he was the best with them, and Bear needed to know his mother was well-cared for.

“Okay, so we have cowboy cabins and our men to check on,” Bear said. “Stacy texted in to say he and the others were at the shelter closest to cabin four.”

“I can do that,” Cactus said, and Bear hid his surprise. Cactus was just like his name—tall and prickly. He lived alone on the far western edge of the ranch and hardly ever socialized with anyone in the family. Sometimes Bear actually envied him.

He nodded at his brother and continued naming buildings and animals that needed to be checked. “Take pictures,” he said. “Type up notes. Let’s meet back here in an hour and make a detailed list of what needs to be done.”

The group dispersed, and Bear stood next to his one and only sister. “Well,” Arizona said. She was fifteen months older than Preacher, but the two of them got along like oil and water. She lived with their mother in a small cottage, and Zona ran all the watering on the ranch. When she wasn’t doing that, she taught art classes for kids and adults, and if there was a mural on a wall in a barn somewhere, Zona had done it.

“Well,” Bear repeated. They didn’t say anything more.

“Let’s go,” she said. “We’ll check on Momma’s house, and then we’ll see if our chickens blew away.”

Bear had tried to keep everyone with at least one other person. He knew there were pitfalls around a ranch, and he didn’t want someone getting injured alone. He and Zona loaded up in his truck, which was just a tad bit dusty but otherwise fine and started down the road.

Shiloh Ridge sat up in the foothills, which meant they often had more pests than other ranches. He didn’t like cutting down trees, so their landscaping was a little different than other ranches as well.

Over the years, as the plots of land surrounding the ranch had gone up for sale, someone in the Glover family had bought them. They had at least six houses along the perimeter of the ranch from those purchases, which worked out since there were so many Glovers working the ranch.

Bear had five brothers and Arizona, and all the men worked full-time on the ranch. Ranger was the oldest in his family, and he had two brothers and two sisters. His sisters ran community outreach programs from the ranch, mostly for elementary school students and high school kids interested in interning at the ranch.

Together, the other ten of them worked the land that had been in the Glover family for one hundred and fifty years. His father had only one brother—Uncle Bull—and they’d had big families to ensure the ranch could move into the future. At least if Bear believed the stories his mother told.

“Trees here,” Zona said, and Bear brought the truck to a stop. Together, they dragged the felled tree off the road and continued around the curve. The way got steeper, and Bear peered through the trees as a dirt driveway came into view.

“Let’s check here.” He turned down the road, which led to a grouping of three cabins they currently weren’t using. Shiloh Ridge Ranch employed six full-time cowboys, but they’d needed many more in the past. He eased to a stop when he saw a flash of black out of his peripheral vision. “There are horses here.”

They hadn’t had any time to mark their animals or do much more than open the doors on the barns and gates in the pastures and hope they’d get somewhere safe. The last thing he wanted was for a horse to be tied up during a tornado, unable to get away from flying debris or out of a collapsing barn.

None of the structures he’d driven past had collapsed though, and while they’d all heard the shrieking wind and witnessed the dark, foaming green sky, Bear suspected they weren’t