“When the True Love was strictly a working ranch, Belinda was the only cook, but now she supervises a staff of three,” Freddy said.“She’s been working here for fifty-one years.”
“Fifty-two,” Belinda corrected in her lilting voice.“I came in March and it’s already May.”
T.R.received the news uneasily — a foreman whose ancestors homesteaded the ranch and a cook who’d spent at least two-thirds of her life here.There was some serious entrenchment at the True Love.He’d be wise to keep his plans for the property to himself for the time being.
“Dexter came in with the mail a few minutes ago,” Belinda said.“I put it in your office.”
“Thanks, Belinda.”
“Duane and I passed him on the road,” T.R.told her.“That seems like quite a hike for a man who has to use a walker.”
Freddy’s back stiffened.“Dexter Grimes was the best team roper and the finest ranch foreman in southern Arizona until his stroke ten years ago.I think your husband can manage a little walk to the mailbox, don’t you, Belinda?”
“I think that walk is what’s keeping him alive,” Belinda said.
T.R.groaned inwardly.The news just got worse and worse.There was no doubt that Belinda and Dexter Grimes were like a second set of parents to Freddy.
“I’ll get you that lemonade,” Belinda said.“Anything to eat?”
Freddy glanced questioningly at him.
“No, thanks,” he said.
“Maybe some sandwiches for the trail, Belinda,” Freddy said.“As soon as Curtis shows up with a change of clothes for Mr.McGuinnes, I’m taking him out for a ride around the ranch.”
Belinda paused.“ All around the ranch?”
“I want to make certain he knows what he’s thinking of buying,” Freddy explained.“Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”
Belinda looked over at T.R., and he had the feeling she was trying not to laugh.Maybe she couldn’t imagine that a city slicker like him could ride a horse.“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” she said, and hurried toward the back of the house just as the front door opened.
Curtis, a lanky blond cowboy of about twenty-eight or nine stepped inside holding a pile of clothes.Duane followed, carrying T.R.’s suitcase, brass-edged briefcase and sport coat over one arm.He had on another pair of boots, equally as scruffy as the ones he’d loaned T.R.
Duane turned to Freddy.“Where’re you puttin’ him?”
“In the John Wayne Room,” Freddy said.
Duane ambled off down a hallway to the right.
T.R.started after him.“I can?—”
“Never mind,” Freddy said.“Duane will set you up down there.He knows to check around for scorpions and black widows.You might not know where to look.”
T.R.controlled a shudder.“You have much problem with that?”
“Not much,” Curtis said.“Except for this time of year.The black widows mate about now and lay their eggs.Once they get what they want from the male spider, they kill him, so if you see a web with this petrified shell of a spider in it, that’s the luckless husband, and his widow’s around somewhere.”
T.R.could do without the explanation, coming as it did on the heels of watching a castration.
But Curtis seemed determined to give a lecture in natural history.“And the scorpions, see, they come out at night.The big ones aren’t too bad, but those little ones pack quite a?—”
“Now, Curtis,” Freddy said, laying a hand on his arm.“Mr.McGuinnes won’t be sleeping a wink if you carry on like that.”
“Please call me T.R.,” he said.He’d had enough of this Mr.McGuinnes stuff.
“Initials seems kind of silly,” Curtis said.“What do they stand for?”
“Thomas Rycroft.”
