Julianna Morris - The Ranch Solution

“It’s safe. I only hit concrete dividers, not other vehicles,” he said, teeth gritted. He didn’t want to say something he shouldn’t...which unfortunately he’d already done a few times over the past few months. Jacob hurried to the stairs, his head pounding. What a nightmare. Kittie had gone from being a normal high-school freshman at the beginning of the year to a teenager-from-hell at the end.

Was it his fault?

Was it drugs?

The possibility haunted him. Kittie’s mother had become dependent on medication by the time she died. A muscle ticked in Jacob’s jaw as he remembered how the pills had made Anna so dazed she’d barely recognized anyone. They had hoped a donor heart would become available in her rare blood type, but she hadn’t lived long enough for a transplant.

At Kittie’s school, Jacob parked in front of the administration building and went to the principal’s office; he’d gone there so often lately he could have made it blindfolded. Kittie sat in her usual chair, arms crossed over her abdomen, looking angry and defiant.

“I didn’t try to burn down anything,” she announced, her body language screaming that she didn’t care whether he believed her or not.

“That’s right, she just tried to hide the cigarette she was smoking without putting it out,” said a grim Mr. Williams. He was a liberal administrator, but everyone had their limits.

“Smoking?” Jacob asked incredulously. “We’ve talked about this. I thought you had better sense.”

“Like it matters.” Kittie sank deeper in her chair. The private school she attended didn’t have a uniform, and she’d pushed the envelope on their loose dress code in so many ways that the envelope looked more like a punching bag.

He hadn’t put an end to the nonsense because the school psychologist had advised him to let Kittie “express” herself.

Well, hell.

The experts obviously didn’t know what they were talking about. Not one of those experts had come up with a decent explanation of what was going on with his daughter, and they certainly hadn’t done anything to help make things better.

Jacob listened to twenty minutes of Mr. Williams’s ranting about out-of-control teens, silently accepted his daughter’s expulsion and endured an “interview” with the police detective who’d investigated the fire. Officer Rizzoli didn’t crack a smile the entire conversation, and Jacob’s nerves were wound to the breaking point by the time he returned to his Mercedes with Kittie in tow. She slumped into the passenger seat and scowled at her belly button.

“I’m getting my nose pierced,” she declared.

“Over my dead body.”

They argued all the way home.

When they finally arrived, Kittie disappeared upstairs into her bedroom; a few seconds later her music roared to life.

God in heaven.

Head pounding, Jacob looked wildly around the living room as if an answer could be found in the furniture. What was he going to do?

Smoking?

Fire in the girls’ locker room?

What was next?

Specters of teen pregnancy, STDs and drug overdoses raced through his mind, turning his stomach to ice. He’d tried grounding Kittie, taking away her computer, TV and various other privileges.

There didn’t appear to be anything physically wrong with her according to the doctors they’d seen. The counselor he’d consulted seemed baffled, and the only advice she’d had for him was to give it time. His own parents had told him to be patient, that all kids went through a rebellious stage, but he didn’t think this was normal rebellion.

Besides, he’d passed the expiration date on his patience; he was now operating on raw nerve.

Jacob headed for his home office. Like the living room, the office provided broad windows, overlooking a panorama of Lake Union. During the day he could sit and watch the seaplanes arrive and depart and the sailboats skim across the water, while at night the surrounding hills glistened with city lights. The stunning view usually pleased him, a reminder that he had succeeded and could afford to give Kittie the best of everything.

Yeah, the best.

At this rate he was going to need the best lawyers to defend her.

Jacob considered pouring himself a drink. Instead, he sat down in front of the computer and typed in the website address his friend Gene had given him. He stared long and hard at the travel-agency home page before clicking the U-2 Ranch link. When Gene and his wife were having trouble with their son, they’d taken him for a ranch vacation in Montana. Since then they’d raved about the U-2, claiming the experience had done wonders for Wes...sort of a boot camp for kids with problems. They’d even taken it in stride that Wes had broken his arm on the trip.

Jacob pressed his thumbs to his aching temples. Was he desperate enough to try something that could put Kittie in harm’s way? They’d always lived in the city, and the description of the ranch didn’t thrill him—five miles from the nearest town, gravel road into the ranch, guests slept in tents, everyone worked, food served communally, no designer coffee...

He grimaced He was addicted to good coffee, but if it helped Kittie, he’d live without the stuff forever.

Then he read the next part.

No smoking.

No exceptions.

Before he could change his mind, he took out his credit card and started typing.

CHAPTER ONE

“WE’RE ALMOST THERE,” Jacob said, glancing at Kittie, garbed entirely in black, including her nail polish and lipstick. He’d decided to deal with her abysmal wardrobe later; getting her out of Seattle had been a big enough struggle.

She blew a bubble with her gum and stared ahead silently.

“You’ll be able to ride horses there. You used to enjoy riding. Remember?”

“Whatever.”

He gave up and checked the GPS for how much farther they had to go. They’d flown to Billings, Montana, in an O’Donnell International company jet. Upon arrival Jacob had rented a car for the rest of the trip.

Along with losing her MP3 player, Kittie’s punishment for smoking and accidentally setting fire to the girls’ locker room was having to pay for the damages out of her allowance and composing a written apology to the school. An acceptable written apology, since Kittie could easily make an apology sound more like an insult.

Oh, yeah, and she was grounded for life, plus ten years. Jacob had told her if she shaped up during their trip, he might shave a few years from that part of the punishment.

Kittie hadn’t even blinked.

Tough love sounded clichéd, but he was desperate. He’d try anything.

Guided by the GPS, Jacob turned onto the U-2 Ranch road and after a mile came over a hill. Laid out in a shallow valley were the ranch buildings and, on the opposite slope, an array of white canvas tents. He winced—he hadn’t slept outdoors since he was a boy. A ranch vacation was a far cry from the Caribbean resort where he’d taken Kittie for Easter a year ago.

Jacob pulled to a stop in the parking area. There was plenty of space, likely because the school year hadn’t ended for kids who were still attending classes instead of being expelled.

“Hello, there,” called a voice as Jacob opened the trunk of their rental. The speaker was a white-haired man who looked older than the hills. But the weathered cowboy had steel in his face; he might be a worthy match for a surly teenager. “I’m Burt Parsons. Welcome to the U-2 Ranch. You must be the O’Donnells.”

“Duh,” Kittie said sarcastically.

Burt didn’t seem surprised. “And you have to be Kittie.”

Without a word, she spit her gum to the grass.

Before Jacob could say something about it, Burt gave her a stern look. “We don’t allow littering here,” he informed her. “Put it in the trash.”