Normally, Ranny would have been very interested in her legs, and in the rest of her beautiful body, but the enormity of what he'd done had finally settled in during the long trip, cramped up in his hiding place. He did glance occasionally at her legs as her skirt crept up in spite of her attempts to keep it patted down, but he was so distracted that he didn't really take in how beautiful this woman was, nor did he get aroused. Laura needn't have worried. Ranny had far too much on his mind to think of women.
So they rode in silence, Ranny asking once, "How much longer until we get to your place?"
Monty replied, "Less than a half hour now, and we'll be there."
Ranny reached over without asking and turned on the radio. He turned the dial past Spanish stations, Christian stations, and syndicated canned national talk show stations until he found one playing pop music. But when the DJ broke in with an announcement about a shooting at the Cow Palace, Ranny snapped the radio off and sat in sullen silence. Monty and Laura were silent too, each thinking their own thoughts and wondering how this would all play out. They had been reassured when he didn't explode at the rest stop incident, but they had no assurance that he would always treat them that leniently.
Shortly, they turned off the freeway onto a two-lane county road, which meandered along the edge of the foothills, the road builders not wanting to cover valuable flatland with a road. Monty had to drive more slowly here, aware of the long trailer behind and its valuable cargo of bulls. Then they turned off onto an even narrower road, which butted against the county road in a T. This road had no painted line to divide lanes. It hugged the edge of the hills even closer, so that it wound in and out, the straight stretches rarely as long as a few hundred yards until the next curve appeared.
They bumped over the steel rails of a cattle guard, and Ranny broke the silence by asking impatiently, "Are we ever going to get there?"
"We're on the ranch now - it's on both sides of the road. We'll be at the house in a few more minutes," Monty replied.
Laura was impressed by the apparent size of the ranch, but didn't say anything. Ranny, however, sneered, "So you must really be a rich bitch to have this big a spread."
"No, it's just a little place," Monty lied. "And I inherited it, and there's no money in raising cows." He didn't want this man to get any ideas about robbery or kidnapping.