CHAPTER SEVEN

“What’s a dude ranch?” Brett wanted to know.

The man called Charlie showed them the way in with a big flashlight—after Kendrick had gone in first to check the place out. Not until after he’d decided the house was safe did he allow Robbie, Brett, and Zane off the motorcycle. Charlie handed Addie flashlights to pass around—electricity hadn’t worked since his generator went out, he said.

“This is where city slickers come to pretend to be cowboys,” Charlie said in answer to Brett. “They help round up the cattle and such. Not that there’s any of those around anymore.”

“We’re not city slickers,” Zane said. “Addie, what’s a city slicker?”

Addie handed Zane a flashlight and showed him how to work it. “It’s someone who’s lived their whole life in a city and doesn’t know anything about the country. I’m not one, either. My grandparents had a little ranch when I was about your age. I learned how to ride and use a lariat. That’s a rope you throw around a cow to catch it.”

Kendrick said nothing at all. He looked around the house thoroughly, flashing his borrowed light on walls, beamed ceiling, and the large stone fireplace in the main room. He’d already locked the shotgun into a cabinet in a closet—he hadn’t wanted to hand it back to Charlie.

“Well, the slickers all used to come out here,” Charlie said as he took them through a door that led to a long hallway. “Celebrities too, to get away from it all. Guest bedrooms are back here.”

“You don’t have any guests now?” Addie flashed her light into the first room he opened, seeing a comfortable double bed in an old-fashioned bedstead. “It looks nice.”

“Not for a good many years, young lady,” Charlie said. “Bathroom’s in there.” He fixed his light on a door on the other side of the room. “Plumbing still works. It’s just the lights that go haywire. No, we haven’t had guests in—oh, ten years now. Not since Mrs. Charlie passed away. That’s what everyone called her. Mrs. Charlie. I called her Edna. Sweetest woman you ever want to meet.”

“I’m sorry,” Addie said. Ten years, and deep sorrow still filled his voice.

“She wouldn’t like it if I weren’t hospitable, so as long as you can put up with the busted generator, you can stay. You and your husband can sleep in here and the boys can have the big bedroom across the hall.”

“Oh,” Addie said, her face growing hot. “We aren’t—”

“That’s fine,” Kendrick broke in. “Thank you.”

Charlie turned away without noticing any hiccup. “No mice or snakes—I have a bunch of cats out there who keep down the critters. Coyotes come right up to the porch, though. They’ll eat cats, so the cats run and hide when they come. Here you go, boys.”

He opened the door to a large bedroom that had been lined with wood to look like the inside of a log cabin. A bunk bed filled one wall and a small trundle bed lay against the other. A soft braided rug stretched across the wooden floor, and shelves were filled with books and old-fashioned wooden toys.

“I know kids are lost without their Xboxes,” Charlie said, “or whatever they’re called nowadays, but you’d be surprised how many abandon them to play with the wooden horse and toy soldiers.”

Robbie and the two younger cubs walked into the room and looked it over as though they’d never seen anything like it.

Zane and Brett lost no time in swarming up the short ladder to the top bunk and perching there. Addie watched them in alarm for a heartbeat or two before she remembered they were cats, in truth. Would they land on their feet if they fell?