Page 80 of The Rancher’s One and Only

“Do you?”

“Well, yeah. All my friends are here, and half my friends are dead,” she said, gesturing back at Davey. “So, it makes sense for me to be here.”

What she did wasn’t just a job. It was a passion. And in a weird way, he related to her. Because he and Rowdy and Dakota had chosen their land all those years ago. Because they had chosen to work it and make a dream out of it. It wasn’t as lofty as what she did. But it was pretty good.

“Okay. You can go through the displays after we’re through with our meeting.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not dismissing you like you’re a kid.”

“I didn’t take it that way.”

He followed her up a suspension staircase and down the hall, where there were indeed some lovely glass offices.

When they arrived at the door, a woman sitting behind the desk smiled at them and gestured for them to come in.

“Hi, Candy,” Ernestine said. “Thank you for taking the meeting. I thought we would begin with Jax Noble, and our mutual pitch regarding the museum in Clear Lake.”

“Of course, Ernestine. How is your dig progressing?”

“That will be part of the meeting,” Ernestine said.

Candy looked amused, not annoyed. It was clear that Ernestine was going to be Ernestine, no matter who she was interacting with. She had a plan, and nobody was going to disrupt that plan.

“That’s actually conjoined with this pitch about the museum. What Ernestine has discovered is significant.”

“True,” she said. “I think that we’ve discovered the first evidence that the mastodon went this far west. I wonder what else I might find if I keep digging there. It has the potential to be significant. It was a hotbed of migration.”

“You’re telling me that you’ve made new migration pattern discoveries?”

“Yes. And what that’s going to teach us about the time period is invaluable. I’m seeing things that we’ve never seen. And the possibilities for an actual facility there… I think it would be great. Of course we would send displays here as well.”

His portion of the meeting was based around explaining the town, and the difficulty of it all. But he didn’t think that her boss seemed closed off. Still, when Ernestine was done with that part of the pitch, she sent him away quickly.

He smiled as he walked out of the room. And he intended to honor her request to actually look at the displays.

It let him see the finished product of what she did. The way that she used it for public education. So many of the write-ups were written by her. So many of the displays were contributed to by her. She was incredible in so many ways.

The importance of her work had never been more pronounced.

The meeting lasted hours. He was actually shocked. He had time to see most of the museum, and have a seat in the atrium with some ice cream from the cafeteria. He was beginning to get restless, when Ernestine walked in.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Well, it’s about the time you like to eat.”

That made him smile. “You would be a very good detective.”

“I’m a bone detective.”

“True.”

She seemed like she was fizzing with barely suppressed excitement, and he wanted to hear all about it. “Good news,” she said. “Candy is so, so pleased with the discovery. She also loves the suggestion of the work program, because there’s nothing I could do wrong right now. Having the museum attached to this, and giving them a chance to have a satellite location near the dig site, is big news. She’s offering me a huge promotion. Basically a codirector at the museum. The way that this will help with my research. With…everything.”

“And you’ll have your office.”

“I will. I… I will.” She seemed a little bit dented on that last one.

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, it’s just… I think it’s going to change the timeline of some things. And I don’t want to mess with the opening of your resort.”