"Kristenson, Agatha - The Rancher's Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kristenson Agatha)

it toward the house. She smiled and waved. They lifted a hand
halfheartedly. Poor things, they looked exhausted. City boys weren't
used to hard ranch work.

Kate hummed to herself as she washed the vegetables in the sink. She
could hear Eric Petersen and Angel Orellio in the office-family room a
few steps down. They were sighing and slapping their knees and
talking. It was almost like listening to horses or bulls snort when
they were hot and tired. She rushed down to refill their beer glasses.

"How about another beer, boys?" They both nodded dumbly, sprawled in
the leather director's chairs with their shirts off and their legs
spraddled out in exhaustion. Kate took their beer mugs and held them
in front of the spout on the old brown refrigerator door. The beer
refrigerator was indispensable on a ranch and Cole liked it here in the
office where he could get to it without having to go to the kitchen.

She poured theirs and then reached inside to get an icy glass for
herself. They hardly looked at her, just stared vaguely into space,
getting their breath.

"There you are. A few beers and a shower and you'll feel better."

Angel snorted, his black eyes snapping. He was a dark Indian looking
Mexican American boy, wiry and strong looking but with the concave
chest of the perpetual sloucher ... terribly handsome in spite of his
attitude.

"It will take more than a few beers. That heat will kill a man," he
said bitterly.

"Stop beefing," Eric advised, grinning. He had the quiet smiling
blondness that indicated his Nordic ancestry. A giant of a boy at
eighteen. He had fair almost white blonde hair and deep blue eyes that
crinkled when he smiled. Already his fair skin had reddened and burned
and was now turning to a deep tan. His shoulders were immense and his
hands like two rather dirty hams.

He was going to be fine. The foreman had told her that Eric worked
with a slow measured intensity and that he was strong as a bull. No,
it was Angel that was going to be a problem. He'd complained from the
moment she'd picked them up at the bus station. But then, heavens
knows what he'd had to endure in the city. Living in a ghetto with too
many brothers and sisters and only his foster mother to feed them with
a too small welfare check. Kate felt a rush of pity for him. She must
remember to tell Frank to go easy on him. And then she remembered.
Cole would be home tomorrow and he wouldn't go easy on anyone when it
came to working.

If only somehow she could make Cole see that the boys really could be a