The Last Ranch Read Online Free Page A

she’d stayed there with Matt on an unforgettable romantic weekend that still brought a smile to her lips every time she thought about it. But with money tight, she couldn’t afford such luxury. Instead, she stopped at a motor-coach inn on the street to the Rio Grande, where the international border separated El Paso from the Mexican city of Juárez. She rented one of the brick bungalows with attached garages shaded by a grove of trees and sheltered behind an adobe wall. Each bungalow came with a double bed, radio, telephone, hotplate, and coffeepot.
    At a nearby market run by a Mexican couple, Anna Lynn stocked up on some groceries. Back in the bungalow, she gave Ginny a bottle of cold soda pop, along with several children’s picture books she was using to teach her to read that she’d hurriedly packed in her suitcase before leaving Mountain Park. Then she brewed a pot of coffee.
    Ginny sat at a small table under the window that looked out at the walled courtyard, happy with her soda and books, reading aloud the words she’d already learned as she turned the pages. Recently, she’d started reading some of the Sunday funny papers all by herself. When the pot finished perking, Anna Lynn sipped her coffee and thought about the soldier who had greeted her outside the hospital ward. The man’s leer masquerading as a smile, the belligerent look in his eye, and his aggressive tone disturbed her. Had he been deliberately waiting for them? For what reason? To stop them solely to reassure them about Matt’s care made no sense.
    He’d given her the willies. Her instincts warned her that he was dangerous. Did it have something to do with Matt, or was heone of those monsters who raped and murdered women, or kidnapped and molested young girls like Ginny? She could think of no other reasons why a complete stranger would behave in such a threatening way.
    Anna Lynn decided not to bother Matt about it, but she’d keep a watchful eye out for the soldier with the angular, mean-looking face and long scar below his cheekbone. She turned on the radio just in time for the hourly news broadcast and joined Ginny at the table. After lunch and a nap they’d go to see Matt again and visit with his doctor. She wanted to know exactly how to care for Matt after his return home.

2
    Two days after his surgery, Dr. Beckmann discharged Matt from the hospital with strict orders that he was to be under Anna Lynn’s constant care throughout his recuperation, up to and including the fitting of his new eye. She wrote out instructions for Anna Lynn to follow, warned Matt against strenuous physical activity, and gave him appointments for follow-up visits at the hospital.
    Eager to go home, Matt’s only demand was that he be allowed to recuperate at the ranch. Anna Lynn readily agreed. Aside from her own Mountain Park farmhouse, she loved no place better than the 7-Bar-K headquarters perched on the remote eastern slope of the San Andres Mountains overlooking the Tularosa.
    At the ranch, Matt’s spirits continued to improve so much so that Patrick, who filled his free hours doting on Ginny, thought Matt was finally pulling out of the dark funk that had settled over him since his army discharge. Patrick even went so far as to suggest to Anna Lynn that it would do Matt a world of good if she gave up or rented out her Mountain Park farm and moved permanently to the ranch with Ginny. When she asked if this brilliantidea was his or Matt’s, he stammered something about it being a darn good notion nonetheless and huffed off to care for two of his old ponies, who lulled, fully retired, in the near pasture next to the corral.
    Over the years Anna Lynn had warned Matt that she neither wished to marry nor live full-time with any man. Having learned that arguing about it made no difference to her firmly held point of view, Matt hadn’t said a word about making their relationship permanent. Nonetheless, he seemed