Daddy's Girls (4)

    He didn’t ask her to come and live with him in his house until Caroline, his youngest, left for college. After Kate graduated and returned, none of the girls were surprised to see Juliette living in the main house with him when they came home, and she was so gentle and discreet that none of them objected to her. She didn’t crowd them or force herself on them. Kate was the closest to her because they saw more of each other living on the ranch. All of them were puzzled why he had never married her, but Juliette didn’t seem to care and was satisfied with the arrangement they had.

She was ten years younger than Jimmy, fifty-four now, still beautiful, without artifice or makeup. Even in her mid-fifties there was an undeniably sexy quality to her, and a youthful style. She did the books at the ranch, and helped him run the livestock auctions, with Kate’s help. But he was more inclined to give Juliette credit than his daughter, although Juliette always reminded JT of how hard Kate worked at everything she did for him. He took it for granted since the ranch would be hers one day too, and her sisters’, though Gemma and Caroline wanted no part in the running of the ranch, or even being there. They had their own careers and were happy to be away from it. The ranch was Kate’s career, her passion, her life and great love, to the exclusion of all else, most of the time. She had no opportunity for romance, and didn’t seem to care. There weren’t many options in the Valley and the boys she had gone to school with were all married and had families by now, in their early forties. The girls she had gone to school with had been married for years. Their friendships had fallen by the wayside, as they had less and less in common, once her old classmates had husbands and kids. Her more serious romances in college could never have lasted. She knew they had to end. The men she had dated would have tried to pull her away from the ranch, and she wouldn’t let that happen.



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    Thad, their foreman, was like a brother to Kate, five years younger than she. They worked side by side much of the time. He was considered something of a player in the Valley, which she teased him about, especially when he looked like he’d had a long night, which happened often, especially after a particularly active weekend. He was classically tall, dark, and handsome, with dark brown hair and warm brown eyes, and looked like a poster of a cowboy. He even looked a little like her father had when he was younger. After nineteen years on the ranch, he seemed more like family than a mere employee, and he felt that way too.

Thad was the son JT had never had, and he treated him that way. He had come to work for a summer at eighteen, after seeing a notice for ranch hands on a bulletin board at the general store and feed store. He had called and had an interview, and after half an hour, JT was confident that Thad could handle the job well as a ranch hand, and maybe one day even as foreman. He lived in a cabin JT had let him build behind the barn. As the foreman, JT thought he deserved a better house now and had offered him one, but Thad insisted that his cabin was still adequate, even once he was foreman, since he was single at thirty-seven and only slept there. Like Kate, he was up before dawn, in one of the barns before six every morning, and outdoors, mostly on a horse, the rest of the time. He had the leathered skin of a cowboy, and Kate had a deep tan, which suited her. Gemma always warned her that her outdoor life would put twenty years on her one day. Kate didn’t care. She never used the beauty products her sister sent her to preserve her youthful looks. Kate laughed when she got them, never opened the jars and bottles. She left them in the boxes they came in, languishing under the sink in her bathroom.

    Kate’s small house was hardly bigger than Thad’s cabin, and she didn’t mind either. Her father wanted to build her a better house, but she didn’t want one. For the daughter of an important rancher, she was surprisingly modest. She and Thad enjoyed a warm friendship, which had built over many years while they worked together. She could have been jealous of him, because of the amount of attention he got from her father, but she respected Thad too. They worked well side by side, when they took on projects together. Thad was always willing to help her whenever he could.

After she had a piece of toast, half a banana, and a second cup of coffee, she showered and dressed, and walked into the barn at five-thirty A.M. to check on the horses. Everything looked fine. Thad had just come in when Kate got there, and they saddled up their respective horses, chatting about a fence near their grazing pastures that Thad said was down and she was going to look at. The fields were still green, but would be dry later in the summer, when fire often became a risk. There were professional firefighters nearby, and a large volunteer force of firemen who jumped in when needed. She knew all of them. She knew everyone in the Valley and they knew her. She was known as JT Tucker’s daughter, more than as herself. She was an accessory to her father, which was how he liked it, with the attention on him, and she accepted it.

    Her father came in as Kate tightened the saddle on her favorite horse, Bear, and the barn seemed instantly filled with JT’s presence.

“What are you up to today?” he asked her, and smiled at Thad. They had a kind of unspoken understanding, born of two men who respected each other. JT understood men better than women and found them easier to be with, except for Juliette.

“I’m going to check on some fences Thad was just telling me about. Out past the south pasture,” Kate told him.

“Why don’t you let the ranch hands do that?” he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the pot she had just made.