Not Your Average Cowboy

Where on earth am I? Meredith Bingham Turner pulled her generic gray rental car over to the side of the road-- what little side there was. Rolling down the window, she peered down the drop-off to her right and frowned at the scruffy vegetation and huge prickly cacti that stood with their arms raised toward the blazing Arizona sun. It was hot.Very hot.And she was very, very lost. Once again, she read the directions to the Rattlesnake Ranch that her friend Karen had e-mailed her, but something was still wrong, and there was no one around to ask for assistance. No cops. No pedestrians or joggers. No shoppers. No tourists. Just lizards, scorpions and tarantulas. She shuddered and quickly rolled up the window. She hadn't seen any of those creatures yet, but why tempt fate? Two weeks ago, Karen had called Merry and asked for a favor. "I know you're busy, but it's important. My brother is at his wit's end. With Caitlin's psychiatrist bills, Louise's and Ty's tuition and all... Well, we might just lose the ranch if we don't do something drastic. Besides, I read about you and that George fellow inCelebrity Gossiper,and it sounds like you need a break, too." Karen was right. She needed to get away from Boston and her corporation. She needed to get away from George Lynch, her latest "kiss and tell" ex-boyfriend. Whenever she thought of the headline in theCelebrity Gossiper:"Sensational Cook Not So Sensational in Bed," she wanted to scream. Merry did the only thing that she could do. She turned it over to her lawyers. "Of course I'll help," Merry had replied to Karen's request. "What do you need me to do?" "Help us turn the Rattlesnake Ranch into a dude ranch. I can take care of the business end, but I'll need decorating help, menu-planning, maybe you could help with publicity. An endorsement by you would guarantee a full house." "I'm coming up with ideas already," Merry replied. She was more than happy to help Karen. Karen had gone out of her way to help Meredith, a lonely introvert from Beacon Hill in Boston, loosen up at Johnson and Wales University. Those four years at J&W with Karen as her roommate had been the best time of her life. Karen was her only friend in the world. She could trust Karen with her innermost thoughts, feelings and problems and know they wouldn't end up in theGossiper. Maybe it wouldn't be too awful here in the desert. All she had to do was to come up with some decorating ideas, lend her name to garner some publicity for the launch of the dude ranch, and then she'd fly back home to Boston and her beautiful condo overlooking Boston Harbor. Karen believed there was a market for "wannabe cowboys," especially from the Northeast. Merry supposed that there were some city slickers who wanted to play cowboy for a week and go on trail rides and chuck wagon cookouts, even though it didn't sound like fun to her. Why would they travel all the way to Arizona? Then again, corporations liked that kind of thing for team building. Maybe that was the answer--attract the corporate crowd. Whatever Karen wanted, Merry would roll up her sleeves and do anything she could to help. Merry studied the map that the auto club had marked out for her and thought that she had to be somewhere on the little gray line between Dead Man Mountain and Galloping Horse Mountain. Wild West names were just so colorful, but she wasn't in the mood for colorful names. She needed better directions. She looked out of her rearview mirror. Not a car or a person in sight. Not a soul to ask how to get to Hanging Tree Junction--another colorful name. It would have been nice if someone had thrown up a sign at frequent intervals, so she would at least know if she was still in the United States and not in Mexico. Maybe she should just keep going forward. The sun would be setting soon, and she didn't relish driving on twisting and turWenger, Christine is the author of 'Not Your Average Cowboy', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373280360 and ISBN 037328036X.