Claire McEwen - Convincing the Rancher

She would not fall into self-pity just because the mayor of Benson was rude. Slaid Jacobs and his soon-to-be-homeless cows weren’t worth it. Tess shed clothes as she walked through the house, and by the time she was in the bedroom, all she had to do was throw on her running gear and grab her iPod. Then she was back out the front door.

She welcomed the freezing wind now. It was invigorating and cleansing, and it scoured any remaining wisps of self-pity from the hidden corners of her soul. Her mind cleared, her confidence flooded back and soon she was charging forward in the growing darkness, trusting herself to navigate the bumpy back roads of Benson. She was moving fast and on her own—just the way she liked it.

CHAPTER SIX

SLAID STARED AT the letter through a fog of sleep-deprived disgust. It was from the Bureau of Land Management—official notice that his grazing lease would be temporarily suspended due to the impending construction of windmills on the property. Perfect timing. He’d tossed and turned all night, emotions jumping from anger about the windmills to guilt at the way he’d laid into Tess yesterday. And now this. He slammed the mailbox and threw the letter into the cab of his truck.

Adding insult to injury, his lawyer was out of town for a few days. He knew that shouldn’t upset him; Matt was down in Los Angeles at a funeral and it just wasn’t right to be angry with someone for honoring their deceased aunt.

With the morning to himself and fury to spare, Slaid got behind the wheel and pulled his truck up to a pile of fence posts he’d purchased a few months ago. It was a good day for a sledgehammer, a posthole digger and a bunch of barbed wire. Loading the heavy wooden posts into the truck felt good. Pounding them into the ground would feel even better.

A noise had him glancing at the road that led from his ranch over a slight rise and back down to Benson. Jack Baron’s old truck appeared, rattling down the hill. Why such a rich guy drove such a beat-up old farm truck, vintage 1950s, was a mystery to Slaid, but Jack was a little quirky in his taste.

“Thanks for coming out here,” Slaid said as Jack descended from the creaky vehicle. He’d called his friend late last night, cross-eyed from staring at websites, trying to figure out how to stop the windmills. A few years ago, Jack had led a successful fight to stop a real estate development company from turning one of the most beautiful mountains outside of Benson into an enormous resort. Slaid wanted his opinion on fighting the wind farm. He just hoped that Jack’s marriage to Tess’s friend, Samantha, wouldn’t complicate things.

“Sounds as if we’ve got a problem on our hands.” Jack glanced toward the truck Slaid had been loading. “And a project. You want some help?”

“If you’ve got the time to spare, sure.” Slaid went around to the driver’s side and Jack swung up into the passenger seat.

“These windmills are going to be worse than I thought,” Jack said as they started up the gravel road that led out to Slaid’s farthest pasture. “I knew Tess was here to represent Renewable Reliance, but I had no idea their site was so close to town, or on your land.”

“Yeah, apparently she forgot to mention that.”

“She didn’t know either, Slaid. Look, I know you’re pissed. I am, too. But you’ve gotta be pissed at the right people. Tess doesn’t own that company and she doesn’t even want this job. Samantha told me her boss had to twist her arm to get her out here.”

His gut-churning guilt grew tenfold. Jack didn’t even know the worst of it—that Slaid had pressured Tess to stay in Benson when she’d wanted to go. He let out a long breath. “Yeah, I got that feeling. And I’ll bet Tess said something to Samantha about our argument yesterday. You must think I was pretty hard on her.”

“Well, she and Samantha talked on the phone a little last night. Tess mentioned that you were pretty angry, but if she was truly upset by what you said, she’d never admit it. Tess doesn’t let on much about her troubles to anyone.”

Shame combined with the guilt. “Maybe I did take things out on her.” They’d reached the old fence, its posts leaning and rotting, the wire rusted and sagging. Slaid parked the truck and cut the engine. They got out, and he tossed Jack a pair of heavy leather gloves, then pulled on a pair of his own. Once Jack unlatched the tailgate, they started pulling the posts from the back.

The talk turned to the fence for a few minutes. They pulled the most rotten section out entirely, loading the rusty wire into the truck and carrying the new posts over. Then they set to work digging out a few old posts that were still firmly cemented in the ground.

“This is crap work, you know.” Jack grinned at him over the shovel. “Don’t you usually pay someone to do this?”

Slaid slammed his shovel into the hard earth. “Just felt like a little manual labor. When I’ve got a problem to solve, a little sweat and dirt sometimes helps.”

Jack’s laugh echoed over the quiet hillside. “I know the feeling. I don’t think my ranch was ever in better shape than when Samantha showed up next door. I must have replaced half my fence line that fall. Then I got myself sucked into helping Todd with his crazy wild mustangs, and I even painted Jed and Betty’s barn for them.”

It was Slaid’s turn to laugh. “Man, you had it bad.”

They were silent for a moment, chipping away at the unyielding ground. Then Jack spoke. “So if you really want to fight this thing, we could use some outside help. Environmental groups for one. They want green energy but without migrating birds getting injured. They definitely don’t want the Sierras and the wild lands nearby covered in wind turbines.”

“Okay.” Slaid grunted as he dislodged a chunk of the old concrete with his pickax, the accomplishment giving him a flicker of satisfaction.

“And we should get the historical society on board. They can make the connection to what’s happened around here in the past.”

“You mean the water?”

“Yeah. It makes sense if we spin it right.” Jack jabbed his shovel into the loose dirt left by Slaid’s efforts. “First Southern California steals the water out of the Owens River and just about destroys the Eastern Sierra towns and ranches. Now they’re back, threatening to destroy our last untainted resource—the natural beauty that supports our tourist industry. Just so they can have more power down south.”

“How do we prove the power is going to Southern California?” Slaid asked, wiping sweat off his forehead with his sleeve.

“Because I bet when we get a good look at what this project entails, there’s gonna be a lot more power generated than they can sell around here. Trust me, most of it will be going down to LA.”

“But Renewable Reliance will just say that’s all speculation.”

Jack’s brows drew together as he considered Slaid’s point. “Well. They’ll have to answer our questions, at any rate. We’ll just hope they’ll answer them somewhat honestly.”

“Seem as if you’re saying our success might be rooted in how well we tell the story. We’ve got to get the media interested.” Slaid slammed his pickax back into the dirt. “But what if it backfires? I mean, this country needs clean energy. So how do we avoid looking like a bunch of ignorant, backward-looking people who don’t want to do our part?”

“I’m not sure.” Jack tried to wedge his shovel under the old post. “The thing is, I want wind power—in theory. I want my energy coming from a cleaner source. But do I want those windmills here in Benson? Nope.”

“I feel the same.”

“Samantha and I had an idea the other night. I don’t know if it would work for everyone, but we’re thinking of installing solar panels on our roof. Maybe this is a crazy idea, but what if everyone in town did it? We could prove that we’re not just saying no to wind power because we’re selfish. We’d be saying no because we already have our own source of clean energy.”