Duty to Protect by Roxanne Rustand

Author:Roxanne Rustand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

Though Jake told Emma it was Sunday and she could start working around the place tomorrow, she bustled through the main floor of the house all day, dusting and polishing furniture, vacuuming and washing the window panes on the inside.

By five o’clock, even Oliver had told her to stop working so hard, but then she got busy on supper, and soon the aroma wafting from the kitchen smelled so good that Jake had been back four times to ask her what she was making.

“Something easy and good. I hope.” She bit her lip and peered at the screen of the minilaptop she’d pulled out of her purse and placed on the kitchen counter. “If it isn’t, then I’ll really wonder about all of those five star ratings it got on this website.”

Jake thought about Oliver’s meat-and-potatoes rancher’s tastes. “This isn’t going to be too exotic, is it?”

“Don’t worry,” she said drily. “I can only work with what you have here, so you won’t be finding any escargot or calamari on your plate. But if I’m going to do much cooking while I’m here, I’ve got to write up a list and get to a grocery store before long.”

“Make the list and I’ll go into town tomorrow morning. There’s a chance of heavy snow predicted for tomorrow night, and after that it might be a while before we can get out.”

“The roads should be okay by the end of the week, though. Right?”

“As far as the snow, that’s hard to say. More snow is predicted for Wednesday and Thursday, and even after we clear our own roads there’s still over twenty miles of county highway to town.”

“Doesn’t the county take care of it?”

“Eventually, but we’re usually last on the list for the county plows. The Rocking K is the only ranch this far out on County 73, and the road dead-ends at the edge of the state forest.”

“There’s only one way to town?”

“There’s a network of low-maintenance roads through the foothills in this area, but they would take twice as long and they’re only plowed now and then.”

Her face fell. “So we could be snowbound.”

“Not necessarily. The weather pattern could veer off and dump snow on someone else, in which case Lane will be really disappointed.” Jake laughed. “Not that I blame him. I used to love school cancellations, too.”

She shivered. “But what if you need help…or really have to leave?”

“Don’t worry about it. We just prepare for the worst and hope for the best out here, weatherwise. As long as we don’t lose our electricity, it’s fine. Even then, we always manage.”

Lane ambled into the room and snagged a Pepsi out of the refrigerator. “But chores are about ten times harder,” he grumbled as he pried off the pop-top. “Just try and keep the water tanks open when it’s twenty below and the electric tank heaters aren’t working.”

He sauntered back down the hall to his room.

“Teenagers,” Jake said with a dry laugh. “He makes it sound like we have him out there with an ice pick.

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