“I wasn’t cold to begin with,” she replied. “Let’s try the road before we cross any mountains.” Definitely combative, he thought.

  “OK, city girl, here we go.” He turned across the corral to the gate, which he pulled open and gestured for her to pass through. “Ladies first.” She gave him a look as she passed by then directed Spitfire slightly left with her reins to go around the end of the barn.

  When he caught up after closing the gate, she looked at him again. “Just because I’m new here and haven’t ridden your way does not mean you have to treat me like some sort of lost child. I am an adult, and I have no trouble with the weather today.” He felt himself flush slightly at her rebuke because he knew he had been needling her. Why not? She seemed to have a sense of humor, and he liked her. He’d been looking forward to helping her with riding, and for that matter, to any time he might see her during his workweek. “Just treat me like one of the guys. I want to learn how to do this, and I do appreciate the time you’re taking, OK?”

  “Right, Shel. I apologize. I’ll do my best, but I can’t treat you like one of the guys ’cause they all know how t’ ride. When I came here five years ago, I took all kinds of crap because I wasn’t much further along than you are now. I’d never owned a horse or worked on a ranch, and let me tell you Dave didn’t cut me any slack when I had t’ go out on the horses. So I had t’ learn fast, and I want you t’ get at least t’ the point you can go out on a horse and be OK with it.” He directed her to turn right on the road. “I’m sure in another month or two it’ll seem like second nature.”

  “Thanks. I’d like that. I won’t wimp out on you. Oh, and by the way, back where I came from if I went out on a day like this without my ears covered my mom would send me back in. Your ears are looking kind of pink.” She grinned.

  “In the tradition of rough tough men on the frontier, I’ll be fine,” he replied, smiling back at her. “Let’s trot on down this road and keep our horses on good footing.” She nodded and gave Spitfire a gentle dig with her heel as they continued along the rutted ranch road.

  “How was your workweek?” she asked him once they were headed back to the barn. “I only saw you come in the once. Spring a busy time for you and your guys?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Equipment can have problems when it thaws out, so we have a schedule for checkin all the remote sites in April and May. That’s almost done. Cattle are done calving, but the bison are in the middle of it, and sometimes one of my guys gets called away t’ help.”

  “Are the ants having babies?” she asked.

  “Don’t think so. Management hasn’t decided whether or not t’ keep ’em as a long-term project from what I’ve heard.”

  Her face fell. “I thought they were going to keep breeding them,” she said. He shrugged. No one had told him anything beyond there being no calves. Everything he heard from the guys who managed the herds was that they’d not miss the ants one bit. Big and mean summed them up, and the guys were tired of them.

  “Is your fence project starting?” Shel asked. “Some delivery receipts got put through the ranch system by mistake. It looked like materials are starting to show up.”

  “They’re stagin stuff down there, maybe another week they’ll start t’ crew up. Take a lot of men t’ get it done in three months.” It would be tough, he thought. “How’s it goin in the office?”

  “Oh, just the usual paperwork. I mean, that’s what we call it, but there’s hardly any paper. Everyone has a tab except half the time they forget to use it. Like Dillon, in the barn, I practically have to do it for him.” Matt laughed at that, imagining Dillon, a lifelong cowboy in his fifties at least, trying to work a tab.

  “I don’t think he’s ever been in a room with both a pencil and a piece of paper at the same time. Mary does all that sort of thing for ’em. But he surely does some fine work in leather. You’ll never get him t’ go electronic.” She nodded. Their conversation went on about this and that, while Matt watched her, mainly how she rode and managed Spitfire but not completely.

  By the time they were back at the barn and had the horses put away, it was after eleven. They’d taken twice the time of the planned one-hour lesson, but he was in good spirits. Shel caught on quickly, and she’d had no trouble with today’s outing. As they put away the saddles and bridles, she told him it had been fun.

  He asked her if she had plans for the rest of the weekend, hoping they could meet in Great Falls that evening, but she said that she was going to a play at the community college with some friends and doing something else she didn’t specify on Sunday. When she asked him if he had plans, he laughed and said he and Ronnie were going to see a band playing at one of the big saloons in town.

  “Do people in Boston know country music? Up here it’s country with a cowboy twist,” he told her.

  “I’m sure some people do. There’s certainly all kinds of music in the city. Me, anything I can dance to I like. Do you dance?” she asked with a grin.

  “I’ve been known to. Not sure I’m an expert, but I can keep myself movin. Mostly country, but I dated a woman once who was obsessed with swing. That was a slog, I tell you! She worked me like an animal till I was good enough I didn’t embarrass her in front of her friends.”

  Shel laughed. “Like riding lessons?”

  “Kind of.” He laughed. “I’d be embarrassed if you got tossed in front of the ranch hands. My rep’s on the line. Don’t fall off when other people are around.” He made an anxious face, and now they both laughed.

  “Tell you what, one of these weekends we’ll go out,” Shel said. “You find the dance floor, and I’ll buy a couple of rounds.”

  **

  In the early evening Matt and Ronnie drove to Great Falls in Matt’s truck. They were going to get dinner and see some music at a sports bar in town. Ronnie had a new girlfriend who was going to meet them there and had promised to bring a couple of her friends along as well. It looked to be an entertaining evening of socializing, music, dancing, and maybe getting lucky.

  They met up with Jeanette inside the Score Board. Matt was surprised when he met her: Ronnie was tall and slender, Jeanette shorter and plump, Ronnie was laid-back, Jeanette very energetic. She was excited to see Ronnie and threw her arms around him, and Ronnie seemed equally pleased to see her. She had brought two friends—Brenda and Valerie. They were all thirtyish, the two friends energetic like Jeanette, pretty, and ready to party with the cowboys.

  They settled at a table, Matt between Valerie and Brenda. Jeanette led the way with introductions. A few anecdotes about Ronnie that had them all laughing and got Matt talking with the women, who seemed as eager to get to know him as he was to know them. After dinner they moved to seats near the dance floor as the place filled up.

  Once the music began it was loud and crowded. Matt danced a couple of times with each of Jeanette’s friends before deciding to concentrate on Valerie, who was the better dancer, prettier, and friendlier. Brenda had no trouble finding dance partners. During a break in the music Ronnie told Matt that he’d get back to the ranch on his own tomorrow and disappeared into the crowd with Jeanette. Matt and Valerie continued to talk and dance for another hour and agreed at some point that Matt should drive her home.

  **

  A light snow had begun even before he and Valerie had left the Score Board, and it was still falling in the mid-morning when Matt started back to the ranch. There was enough to make the landscape white, but he knew it would be gone within an hour or two after it stopped falling. Sunday morning was colder than Saturday had been but with less wind. The cold brought to mind Shel’s riding lesson the day before and with it, a smile. He went through last night in his mind too. Valerie had been fun. She was pretty, energetic on the dance floor and in bed, and entertainingly chatty. If she called, he would be glad to see her again, but he didn’t think he’d be the one to call her. Plenty of flash, which was good for a Saturday, but not a lot of substance.

  He hadn’t had a substantial relationship with a woman since he and Jackie had broken up. Charlie, their son, had been less than a year old. There had been a few that Matt had hopes for, but nothing panned out. After each one he had wondered if breaking up with Jackie had been the right thing. In any case it was history now. Jackie had married and now had a second child of about two, a girl this time. He was thankful that they had remained civil, even friendly.

  Memorial Day weekend was a few weeks away, and Matt thought as he drove about what he had planned for Charlie’s visit. Camping, hiking, fishing. They’d have a great time, but it would just be a single weekend. Thinking about when the visit would end put Matt back into a melancholy.

  Charlie’s seventh birthday had been just a few days before, on Wednesday. After talking to him on the video link that day, Matt had been surprised by the loneliness he’d felt. He was tiring of the single life and was thinking about, more like wishing for, something with more commitment and depth. The Saturday-night Valeries of Great Falls weren’t going to do it.

  A real life, he thought, remembering his own childhood, would include a wife or partner, children, a home, and living in one place for many years. His parents still lived in the house where he’d grown up back in South Dakota, and his father still worked for the public works department there. How would he ever make that kind of a life happen, Matt wondered.

  The snow had stopped, and he could see the clouds thinning out. He had arrived at the ranch boundary, and he’d be home in ten minutes. The thermometer in the truck showed that it was still in the middle thirties, so he figured he’d stay warm inside, watch a baseball game, and do his reports in the afternoon. One of the burdens of modern business, writing reports, even out here on the ranch. He passed the headquarters area and barn, turned down the side road toward his prefab and thought about Shel again.

  She’s nice but kind of keeps to herself. Secretive. And she asks a lot of questions, never stops. Maybe that’s the way big city people are. This is too different a life from what she had back east. She’ll be gone by the end of the year.

  Chapter 5

  The book came up on her office screen as expected—a Western romance with a fragile flower of a woman and a very manly but not fully clad cowboy on the cover. Colin had sent her the file along with complicated instructions for loading it into her tab that involved dividing the book up and putting the pieces into different parts of the tab’s memory. He told her to bring it to work, plug the tab into her monitor, and read the book during lunch. The file contained a spider that would scan the ranch system and send information back to Colin’s techs so they could figure a way in. Shel worried about the ranch’s security system, but Colin said it would not be a problem.

  Her cover story was that she’d bought the book a year ago but had just loaded it onto her tab over the weekend. If anyone asked why she was taking lunch at her desk, she would say that the larger display of the monitor made it easier to read than her tab’s tiny screen.

  This better work, she thought. She dutifully read the cowboy romance for about fifteen minutes. It was complete crap.

  Then the screen went blank.

  Damn, she thought. As she leaned forward to fiddle with the controls, her tab rang with an incoming call. Her second screen went blank. There was no caller identification, but she answered on speaker anyway.

  “This is Shel.”

  “Am I speaking to Michelle Perry?” the caller asked in a clipped European accent, possibly French.

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “I am Jean-Pierre from AstroGene IT security department. Please do not touch your tablet device until I direct you. Do you understand?”

  “Uh . . . yes.” She was already panicking, her heart rate climbing. “What is this about?” She did her best to sound businesslike and, she hoped, innocent.

  “We have detected an unauthorized software agent attempting to penetrate our security barriers. This agent originated in your device.”

  “I just plugged it in to read my book on the office screen. Is that a problem?” Colin had told her in the beginning to play dumb if questions about her or the tab ever came up. He had her buy a used one so any problems could be blamed on the previous owner.

  “No, the book is not.” Her screen blinked, and she saw a man seated at a desk. He was about her age, handsome, she thought, with glasses and a very serious expression. Now he was on her second screen also. “Am I on your screen? You are on mine.” She nodded, hoping her fear did not show. “Miss Perry, this interview is being recorded for security purposes. Under section ten point seven of your employment agreement, your tablet device is now the property of B.a. Ranch LLC, an affiliate of AstroGene Corporation. Please pick up the tablet device and hold it in front of you so that I can see it. Do not unplug it.”

  She held it up, her hands trembling. He asked her to turn it around to show the back. I’m screwed, she thought. Colin said the spider would be invisible. Shit.

  “Thank you. You may place it on the desk. I am going to examine it. This will take a few minutes. You may leave your desk, but stay within speaking range of your device.” She nodded and rolled her chair back a couple of feet. At that moment the office door opened and Steve Wilson hurried in, his expression serious.

  “Hi, Shel. I hear there’s a problem.”

  “I guess. Something about my tab—”

  “Is this Mr. Wilson?” Jean-Pierre’s voice cut her off. She looked around the office and saw he was on the screens at the desk behind her, where Bridget worked occasionally.

  “Yes, this is Steven R. Wilson, ranch manager.” He looked at his tab then read off a long alphanumeric character string.

  “Thank you. Please remain in the room. Now, Miss Perry,” Jean-Pierre began. He proceeded to ask Shel a long series of questions about her tab, including where she’d purchased it, what apps she’d put on it, and how many times she might have left it unattended in public. Other than when and where she got it, she was able to answer his questions truthfully. After all, it was just a normal communication and data device. Everybody owned one. He showed her pictures from her personal photo cache and asked her to identify the people in them. He read through her personal messages to family and friends and asked her to identify the names. She thought she had wiped all of the pictures she had taken for Colin—the ant farm, screen shots of accounting information, and so on—but she didn’t really know how Colin’s apps worked. If Jean-Pierre found them, it would be the end for her.

  After fifteen minutes of questioning, Jean-Pierre told her to leave the room so he could talk to Steve. She waited in the kitchen for another ten minutes before Steve knocked and opened the door.

  “Shel?” he started. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to be suspended with pay until security figures out where this bad app came from.”

  “So, I’m fired?” She asked, in shock. She’d never had a disciplinary action against her, never an annual review—in any job—that said anything less than that she’d exceeded expectations. She knew the circumstances were different here, but she still felt humiliated.

  “I don’t believe for a minute you had anything to do with this,” Steve said, “but that’s the procedure, and I have to follow it. They said they’ll know by the end of the day. They’re really touchy about this sort of thing.” When he sent her home, he loaned her a spare pocket tab so he could call her when he heard from security.

  By the time she reached the ranch boundary she had calmed down. Stick my finger in enough sockets I’ll get zapped sooner or later. Guess that’s what I’m here for. When she got home, she went to the secure tab in the bathroom to contact Colin. There was already a message waiting for her, telling her what kind of new tab to buy and that his guy would be in touch within a few days to come and load his stuff into the new one. She called him.

  “How did that happen, Colin? You said it would be undetectable. And how did you already know it didn’t work? I have never been so embarrassed and humiliated in my life!” She went on like that, venting, for a minute.

  “I really am sorry, Shel,” he said. He sounded sincere. She didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but in the end, believing made her feel a little better. She told him she’d be in touch when she heard from Steve and ended the call.

  She had never seen anything like this at a job before—the instant response, the intrusiveness of the questioning, and the inspection of her personal data. She used her viewer to retrieve her employment agreement and was horrified by the degree to which the ranch and AstroGene limited her rights. Half of what she had talked about with the environmental group she had joined here could have gotten her fired. Steve called just before five.

  “Again, I’m sorry about all of this, Shel. You’re cleared to come back to work in the morning.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “What about my tab? What happened?” she asked.

  “Security thinks the bad app was already in your device when you bought it. You should go out and get yourself a new one. The ranch will reimburse you, and security will check it out for you tomorrow so you’ll know it’s clean.”

  Yeah, great, she thought. Now I’ll have a tab full of AstroGene bugs.

  **

  Saturday’s weather was warmer and cloudy with a small amount of rain in the forecast for late in the day. Compared to last week, it seemed like summer to Shel.

  For the day’s riding lesson, Matt had decided on the ranch roads south of the headquarters area. He took them in a large circle, covering about ten miles through the ranch, flat land as well as slopes and hills. They trotted mostly and walked some. After an hour, they took a break in a spot with a view of the mountains and the section of the Lewis and Clark National Forest that bordered the ranch on the south.

  When they resumed their ride, Matt explained that trotting is the most comfortable gait for horses to move quickly and can be maintained for quite a long time as opposed to a canter or gallop, both of which tire a horse quickly.