town of Green Valley, the Montgomery Ranch. The family who owns it operates the Dude Ranch Experience. It’s a week-long tour that explores the ranch and lets guests get involved in the day-to-day life there. That’s what we’re going to do.”
“You can’t be serious,” my sister said.
“This was Uncle Lucien’s idea?” I asked.
“He inspired it,” he said. “We were playing golf the other day and got to talking about growing up. We were talking about missing Montana and how different it is here. It made us realize none of our children have ever even stepped foot in the state where we grew up. And definitely have no idea what it’s like to put in a good day of hard work outside.”
“Work?” Cecilia asked. Her voice was so thin now it sounded like it could crack at any second.
“So, that got me thinking,” Daddy said, glossing right past her question. “I started doing some research and I found the Montgomery Ranch. It looked perfect and they had spots in their next tour, so I scooped them up. I talked to Lucien about it, and he’s going to bring Rubin. It’s official, girls. We’re going ranching.”
Chapter 3
Sawyer
There was still a week before taking a group out for a tour and I was driving myself crazy trying to think of things to occupy my time. Sure, there was regular ranch work, but with Colt home, most of the work was getting done quicker, and since I had the full responsibility of the tours, my assignments were light as it was already.
Most of the time, I found myself tooling along, finding one of the brothers and hanging out with them not doing much while I waited on a tour. They didn’t seem to mind too much, since every one of them were grumbly bastards, and I at least kept them laughing once in a while, but I was getting bored.
Then, last night over dinner, Colt had offered to come join me on the Dude Ranch, and I was looking at not even having that to keep me fully busy. I liked working with my hands as much as I liked having fun, and with Colt there, I was going to have plenty of help and company, but I wouldn’t have as much responsibility. So, I had to figure out something to do just to feel like I accomplished something.
Also at dinner, I happened to overhear a conversation between Annabelle and Garrett. Usually, I tried to tune them out since they were so wildly wrapped up in each other that I could carry a checklist of gag-inducing couple sayings and have it all filled after spending an hour around them. However, I heard them talking about Hugh’s farm fence and how a big section of it needed to be rebuilt. It seemed like a big job, and I figured I’d head down there and help them out. Maybe it would get a day of idle hands out of the way.
I drove along the property until I saw the two of them working on the fence. Hugh’s truck was parked just off the road, filled in the back with lumber. And Hugh was there.
While he was under doctor’s orders to not over-exert himself, apparently, he wasn’t about to let the work get done without at least his supervision. He sat on the bed of the truck and sipped on a glass of water, his arm draped over a large cooler that most likely contained ice. I shook my head as I parked and got out next to him.
“Howdy,” Hugh said as I got out. Annabelle and Garrett had stopped for the moment, wiping sweat from their brows and walking over the fallen section of fence to me.
“Hey, guys,” I said. “Is this the broken fence you were talking about? It only looks like a couple hours’ job.” I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice.
“Oh, hell no,” Garrett said.
“No, this is just a small section that was also problematic. The big section is over there.” Annabelle pointed to a large swath of fence on the other end of the farm. It was completely broken down and busted and looked like it was about a half-mile long.
“Good lord,” I said.
“Yeah, it came down in that storm last week,” Garrett said. “This part of the fence did too, but it was the small one, so we hit it first.”
“Have you come to help out?” Hugh asked, hope in his voice.
“I did,” I said, “and it looks like