curled his fingers around to her palm. Having a partner felt so good, and Ward didn’t want to go back to being single ever again.
Yep, he thought. Definitely falling hard for her already. Better slow down, Ward.
The problem was, Ward didn’t know how to slow down. He didn’t know how to fall shallowly. He fell fast, and he fell deep, and having Dot in his house, at his side every minute of every hour for the past two days, had definitely accelerated their relationship.
“I’m glad y’all have cellphone service,” Huey said. “All right.” A big sigh came with that. “We’ve got some damage and things we’re dealing with down here in town, but I saw the pictures Ace sent. I’m getting a crew together, and we’re going to come up there and see what we’re really dealing with. We’ll get you guys situated and the road all worked out. I mean, you’ve got to be able to get on and off your property.”
“Yes, we do,” Bear said, along with a couple of other people.
Ward folded his arms, because Huey had only stated the obvious.
“I’m dealing with some things right now,” Huey said, clearly distracted. “My crew can’t come in today, as I’ve already assigned them out, and several people have personal issues to deal with too. We’re looking at Wednesday or Thursday.”
“You’re kidding.”
“That’s two or three days from now.”
“We can’t wait that long.”
“How much food do we have?”
“Stop it,” Bear bellowed, and the chaos that had broken out quieted. He glared around the room, and a growly, glaring Bear was best avoided. “They’ll come when they can come. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“We should start to clear the ranch road,” Cactus said, his voice half the volume of Bear’s.
“You can certainly try to do some of your own clearing,” Huey said over the phone. “I honestly wouldn’t recommend it. You have no idea what the ground is like underneath the debris. What we think happened, just based on the pictures and what Ace described, is that everything froze in the storm, right? Then today, the sun came out and things started to thaw. You’ve got that hill at just the right angle, and something thawed underneath in a way that the ground below couldn’t support the stuff above it. So the top layers sheared off. They slid down. Basically, your slope there from where all your homes and buildings and the ranch are is unstable. It could slide again. You could clear the road and get buried.”
Huey stopped then, and this time, no one said a word. Down the table a bit, Wilder babbled and chewed on a pen Ward would’ve taken from the child. He was probably going to bite right through the plastic and burst the ink sleeve inside. Then Oakley would be dealing with that on top of a landslide that had trapped dozens of people on the ranch.
Ranger stood up. “We won’t clear the roads. We won’t do anything but look at that landslide.” He leaned both hands into the table and gazed around the room, his eyes sharp and perfectly clear. “We need full agreement on this.”
“Yes, sir,” Ward said in a loud voice, drawing several pairs of eyes. He didn’t mind the spotlight when he knew what he was doing. He felt wildly out of control, but he happened to agree with Ranger. The last thing he needed was to order his cowboy crews to start digging and then send them all to their deaths.
No, thank you.
He released Dot’s hand and stood up too. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and said, “We have plenty of food and water here. Our sinks and toilets work. We have power and fuel. We can keep taking care of our animals and land. We won’t go near the drop-off zone—and I hate to say it, but that includes the cemetery.” He paused, because he could not fathom losing the family plots where his ancestors were buried.
Reality could be a bitter pill to swallow.
“All we can do is pray that Huey and his crew will be able to come help us quickly,” Ward continued. “That they’ll be able to preserve the cemetery and help us dig out the landslide safely. Preacher and I are in charge of fourteen cowboys, plus you lot. That’s a lot of people to be responsible for, and I for one am not going to ask them to put their lives in jeopardy when it’s absolutely unnecessary.”
“I agree with Ward,” Cactus said.
Preacher stood