Smith Ranch

Chapter 3: Truck

She assessed her truck again, biting her bottom lip Skyler let out a breath that she didn't know she was holding. Well, this would put a time crunch on her returning to Montana. Sudden joy went over Skyler that day, the fact that she did not have to go back to Montana and leave her niece with a whole bunch of guys that she didn't even know, and or trust. Made her pretty happy, besides she needs to bring back her truck to even get to work and she's not using a rental, her insurance doesn't cover that.

"I mean I can get the parts and fix it myself; I'm not taking it to a shop."

"What do you mean fix it yourself, half of these things need to be replaced."

"Look, I don't really wanna talk about it," she told him, her hands on her hips looking at her truck, still biting her lower lip and contemplating the costs of everything. Up in Montana her friend would usually come over and help her with these types of projects for her truck, she took good care of her truck, she's had it for a long time. Adam probably wouldn't understand the attachment that she has to her truck.

"I can help pay for a mechanic, is that what you need?"

Anger came onto her like flies on horse pope, she slowly turned to Adam. And Adam raised an eyebrow at her. He hasn't seen a woman look so angry at him for a very long time.

"I don't need you to buy me anything," she told him sternly, "I can handle it."

That said, she looked at him and then looked around the property, "is there a place that I can work on my truck? it'll take me a bit to fix."

"You can use the old shed," he told her, "But there are things that you might not be able to fix without taking it to a shop."

"I'll decide that" she said stubbornly, Adam could wrangle a bull, he could break in a horse, and more, but this woman he found to be stubborn. He wondered how stubborn his little sister was going to be. Though after saying something about the shed, she got into the truck, and he got into the Driver's side. There was an old country song playing as she hummed to it, she smiled as the song played, then started to sing it out loud. Adam looked over at her, and she was bobbing her head and patting her thigh to, George Strait, Write this down. He smiled, turning his head back to driving.

As they were driving Skyler was looking around at everything there was a big barn, pole barn, a bunkhouse that she noticed, a shell that was close to the chicken coop which was also near the pig pen. There was an old shed that was a little way from the big barn, which reminded her that she also needed to check on Dexter. He jumped out and she followed, it was old and there was a 1959 F-100, she looked at all the dust walking over to it and inspected it.

"Who did this belong to?"

"My grandfather's," he said, smiling, "We were fixing it together when I was a kid, but we never did get it running. He passed away when I was around 11. And Dad just couldn't look at it, so it stayed in here, I work on it when I have time."

Skyler looked at all the dust and all the tools on the ground, he hadn't worked on it for a very long time, she noted. There was room for one more vehicle in the shed and he backed in her truck dropping it off, she sighed looking at all the damage all the mud falling off. This is gonna take a while especially if it was just her working on it, if Jimmy was here, he'd be able to fix it. She might have to settle just facetiming him and him telling her what to do, getting upset, throwing things, well at least he won't be in his shop or there are more things to break.

After her truck was dropped off, she looked at Adam, "I'll start working on it sometime tomorrow at least but I do need to check on Dexter and make sure he's OK."

"Where's Savvy?"

"Sleeping she'll probably sleep till noon; she stayed up most of the ride only falling asleep for about an hour and then she woke up."