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A heavy breath caesture of irritation, he shoved the papers onto his desk, then reached for his hat to jam it onto his head and follow her out of the roo to detain him “It’s business, Tara” He sharply brushed aside her veiled protests and left the house with Jessy

Not a as exchanged as he clier side while Jessy slid behind the wheel With s it away fro east from the headquarters She showed hi-boned lines of her profile, her skin tanned brown and sun creases spreading out from the corner of her eye

For a long time, the only sounds were the rush of wind over the truck and the loud huun rack mounted across the cab’s rear , a fixture in nearly every ranch vehicle The grass-covered plains yellowing under the summer sun were a blue s the road Ty thoughtfully rubbed his er, as he tried to guess at the unknown destination

“Where are we going?” he finally asked after they had turned onto the highway, then shortly turned off of it again to burown track

“We’re almost there” She was equally abrupt

The rutted tracks disappeared into a tangle of thistle-choked weeds The truck bounced to a stop when it ran out of trail in the middle of nowhere Jessy switched off the motor and climbed out of the pickup without explanation I it and swinging down

A debris of rotted, broken wood and torn strips of black tarpaper was scattered about the weeds It appeared to be an old duround for trash Ty looked around hiust and scantly concealed irritation for being brought here

“Watch where you step,” Jessy advised him when he started forward “There’s an old cistern buried around here somewhere”

“What is this place?” His glance sliced to her

“This is where your grandmother

used to live,” she told him “She was a homesteader”

Ty looked again at the scattered debris He knew little about his grandmother, other than the fact that she had died shortly after his father was born There was so little he knew about his faeable about his farated nerves that were already irritated

“In those days, they called theaze was turned out to scan the sparse and scrubby plant life “I wanted you to see what the plow did to this land It used to be covered with grass—as thick and tall as the grass you find today on the Triple C”

His glance ran over her tight-lipped and angry expression She stood tall beside him, stiff with resentment When she turned her narrowed and clear-eyed look on hith in her features, clean of any makeup

“Look at it,” she ordered “Because this is what happens when you rip up this earth It’s eroded and windburned; not even the weeds can hold it together Three hundred acres could maybe support one cow”