At Wolf Ranch Read Online Free PDF

window at the ranch and stare at it for hours, playing with their dolls or a game of chess. She’d loved to beat her sister at Chinese checkers. The memory made her eyes glass over. She blinked the tears away. Plenty of time to grieve later. Right now, she needed to get to the ranch and find out what her sister had been doing here.
    “If you don’t mind, I’m happy to pay you for your trouble.”
    “No trouble at all to drive a pretty lady wherever she wants to go.”
    “Thank you. I really appreciate this.”
    She gathered her belongings, paid her bill, leaving Bev a generous tip, and followed Travis out of the diner into the frosty weather. The sun had set and the snow fell against the backdrop of the dark night, highlighted by the diner and city lights. The snow quickly covered her hair and clothes. She shook as much off as she could before climbing into Travis’s truck cab. The smell of sweat, dirt, and manure, along with the stench of tobacco from the beer bottle in the cup holder filled with chewing tobacco spit, assaulted her nose. Her stomach lurched. She wrinkled her nose and cracked the window to let in some fresh air.
    Travis slid behind the wheel and gave her a leering smile. She sat up straight and folded her hands in her lap, her bag and tote stuffed at her feet. She sighed out her relief when he pulled out of the parking lot onto the main road and headed out of town. Though the heater in the old truck worked, it barely took the edge off the crisp air coming in through the cracked-open window. She gave up the fresh air in favor of warmth, especially with her wet hair and feet.
    She finger-combed the wet strands away from her face, trying to get the last of the ice out. Travis took his gaze from the road to roam it over her from head to foot.
    “So, what brings you to these parts? You don’t look like you’re from around here. Where are you from?”
    She wondered if he’d shut up and let her answer. Not that she wanted to, but if keeping him talking kept him from staring at her breasts and his eyes on the icy roads, she was all for chitchat.
    “I flew in today from New York City.”
    “I took you for a city girl.”
    What gave her away? The suede boots. Her too thin slacks and sweater. The full-length coat more suited for a night out to dinner in the city than a snowstorm.
    “Why are you headed out to Wolf Ranch? Wolfs haven’t been back since the plane crash. I heard they might sell the place. Is that why you’re here?”
    The pain of her parents’ death felt as raw today as it did when she was fourteen. Today, though, that pain mixed with the loss of her sister and the dreams they’d had for their future together, finally taking the helm of all their parents left behind.
    “Um, yes,” she choked out. “The company sent me to check on the house. For the family.”
    “Are they thinking of selling?” he asked again.
    No way would she ever sell the house. In her mind, it held all the memories of her and Lela with their parents. Those were the happy days when her father didn’t work and her mother didn’t rush off for luncheons with friends. At the ranch, it was just family.
    God, how she missed those simpler times.
    “No. The ranch will always belong to the Wolf family.” Well, to her. She was the only one left.
    “That’s what I thought. So, how long are you staying? Did they ask you to check on anything else besides the Wolfs’ home?”
    That sounded odd, but she didn’t know what else her family owned here besides the house. If memory served, they’d only ever come to spend vacations together, riding the horses in the spring and summer and skiing in the winter.
    “Right now, my only concern is the house. Why?”
    “No reason. Just making conversation.”
    The tires rolled on over the road and she focused on the fluttering snow and hoped they didn’t hit a patch of ice and crash. That would make her uncle happy, and the last thing she wanted to do was please him in any way. No,