“How long have you been in love with her?”
“Ma’am, I think this conversation is over.” His glance slid past her. “Ty and Jessy are headed this way. It looks like they’re ready to leave for headquarters.”
“I wouldn’t rush,” Tara said when he started to turn away. “It will only look suspicious.” Confident that Ballard would remain, she half turned to greet the approaching pair. “There you two are. I was just having the most interesting conversation with Mr. Ballard here.”
“Really.” With an unusual aloofness, Ty briefly nodded an acknowledgment of the cowboy’s presence. “I imagine he was telling you about his latest suggestion that Jessy just passed on to me.”
“Which one is that?” Tara asked to cover her ignorance.
“About getting an ad agency on board right away.”
The wisdom of the suggestion struck Tara first, then surprise that it should come from an ordinary cowboy. But she was careful not to let it show.
“I know. I’m surprised I didn’t think of it,” she admitted lightly, then turned to Ballard, her conviction growing that he was far from ordinary. “You are remarkably savvy about such things, Mr. Ballard.”
“It comes from experience I guess—that, and a natural curiosity. Over the years I’ve been around a good many of these big auction events, and I just naturally nosed around to find what all went on behind the scenes to put one of these things together.” With that, Ballard dumped the remaining coffee from his cup and tossed it into the wreck pan. “I’d better be gettin’ back to work.” He touched his hat to Jessy and Tara, and moved off.
Tara watched him a moment. “Who would have thought you would have someone so knowledgeable right in your own backyard? It might be wise to involve him more in the auction, Ty. His input could prove to be valuable.”
“Jessy just suggested the same thing,” Ty informed her.
“Then there are already two votes for Mr. Ballard,” Tara declared. “You might as well make it unanimous, Ty. Heaven knows, there will be hundreds of details to be handled. And with the ranch to run, you already have enough on your plate. You will need to delegate responsibility to someone. Maybe that will prove to be Mr. Ballard.”
“Maybe.” But the prospect didn’t appeal to Ty. He just couldn’t seem to shake his dislike of the man.
Chapter Eight
On a lamblike morning in late March, Ty stood with his father outside the old timbered barn, his sheepskin jacket hanging open. After a long and brutally cold winter with the temperature and wind chill hovering near the zero mark for days on end, the last patches of snow had finally melted, exposing the brown stalks of dormant grass. With the thermometer already registering above the forty-degree mark, the morning felt downright balmy.
The rough winter had created any number of construction delays in the remodeling of the old barn. Even now
there was considerable work to be done on the inside, but the exterior was all but finished. Ty studied the single-story addition that had been added to the side, noting the way it seamlessly blended with the original structure.
“It’s hard to tell where the old ends and the new begins, isn’t it?” he remarked to his father.
Chase nodded in agreement. “And to think we planned to bulldoze that old shed at South Fork this spring,” he mused. “It was a good thing Ballard went scavenging around the ranch to see what he could find after those lumber bids came in so high. We had some labor costs salvaging that shed, but we still came out dollars ahead.”
As reluctant as Ty was to admit it, Ballard had proved his worth on more than one occasion, both in the preliminary planning for the auction and in the construction of the facility. “Ballard never struck me as having so much business sense.”
“We never hired him to do more than rope and ride and mend fence. That makes it hard to judge whether a man is capable of more than that,” Chase replied. “Speaking of fences, did you see the quotes we got for new steel fence posts?”
“I saw them. They were a helluva lot higher than I expected.”
Chase grunted an agreement. “With the up-front cash we have to spend for this auction, we will have to make do with the fencing we have until next year.”
“Or late fall, after the sale.” A date in early September had been set for the livestock auction. “With any luck, we’ll recoup a big chunk of the money we have invested.”
“With the high hay costs we had this winter, we’ll need it.” Chase shifted his position, conscious of the immediate and sharp protest of his joints. “Ballard has things well in hand here. We might as well head back to the house.”
Turning toward the pickup parked nearby, Ty sent a glance toward The Homestead. “Tara said last night that she wanted to fly back to Fort Worth early this morning. She should be just about ready to leave.”
Together they crossed to the pickup. Any other time Ty would have walked from The Homestead to the old barn, but as a concession to his father’s stiffened joints, Ty had driven instead. It was a short drive up the slope to the big house that crowned the rise.
Parking in front of it, Ty climbed out the driver’s side and caught the sound of a vehicle approaching from the east. The morning sun was in his eyes, and he lifted a hand to block the glare of it. The minute he spotted the light bar mounted atop the sports utility van, he guessed at the identity of its occupant even before he saw the county sheriff insignia on the side.
“It looks like Logan. I wonder what he wants.”
“We’ll soon find out,” Chase dryly stated the obvious.