Just a Cowboy

“Thank you.”

He smiled, an expression that lit up his face. “Let’s get this stuff over there, and come back for some more. You cook a lot?”

“Not really.” Not anymore. Life with Dean had meant dining out nearly every night, and when dining at home there’d been guests and a cook. Funny how that all looked to her in retrospect. But she didn’t want to think about that now.

It felt odd, after weeks on the run, to be trusting someone again, even if the trust only went as far as to let her new landlord lend her some things. Her nerve endings had been crawling for so long that she wasn’t sure they were capable of stopping.

But she was sure she had found the most out-of-the-way place on the planet, short of Antarctica, and something about this little town nestled in the middle of nowhere had suggested that she might be able to safely pause and catch her breath. She could be wrong, and she promised herself that at the first suggestion of danger, she would bolt like a rabbit.

One thing for sure: She needed a little time free from being constantly on the move. Even if it was only a few days or a week.

“I can’t thank you enough,” she repeated as he unloaded the boxes onto her kitchen table and suggested that they go back for more.

“No need,” he insisted reassuringly. “I’m not using these things and you need them for a few weeks. It’s really not a big deal.”

It was to her, but Kelly didn’t say so. Up to now, the only help she had received from anyone had been a few drivers who had given her a lift when she decided she needed to get away from buses for a while.

By the time Hank finished taking care of her, she had sheets, towels, pots, pans and some kitchen utensils.

“If you need anything else,” he said as he unloaded the last ones, “just give me a shout. I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, and I have plenty in storage.”

“You’re very kind.”

He shook his head, looking almost wry. “That’s what neighbors do. Although I have to admit, it’s not helping me work on my future as a crusty curmudgeon.”

That surprised a laugh out of her, and she liked the way his gray eyes seemed to dance in response. “Really? You want to be a curmudgeon?”

“Of course. I still have a long way to go. Haven’t been able to bring myself to yell at the kids to stay out of my yard … although I may get there when I lay the sod out front next week.”

“Why are you sodding?”

He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms. “Because if I seed, it’ll rain and wash it all away…and I really don’t fancy the idea of trying to scoop up all the seed in a spoon and sprinkle it around again.” He paused while she laughed quietly again at the image. “Or, if it doesn’t rain, the neighborhood kids I still can’t bring myself to yell at will be all over it, killing the shoots before they have a chance.”

“And that would make you yell?”

He sighed and ran his fingers through shaggy, dark hair. “No, it probably wouldn’t. So I’ll just avoid all the problems and lay sod. It should stand up to just about anything except a baseball game. Now what about food? You must need to get some. Just let me get that saddle out of my truck and we’ll go.”

“I’ve already imposed enough,” she said firmly.

“I need to go to the store anyway. I’ve been out on the range for about nine days. I’m afraid to open my refrigerator. Grab whatever you need while I get my gear stowed, then we’ll go.”

She followed him to the door, and once again noticed the way he limped as he walked back to his place. She wondered what had happened to him.

Then she told herself it didn’t matter. Two months, max, and she’d be out of here. Sooner if necessary.

So it really didn’t matter at all.

Chapter 2

It felt odd to have someone to talk to again. Someone she needed to talk to or seem discourteous. For the last several months she’d been on the run, exchanging as few words as possible with strangers, lying about her name and even keeping her communications with her lawyer as brief as possible.

She’d been living off cash from her mother’s estate, using pay phones and basically doing what she had heard was called “living off the grid.” All because she was getting a divorce. All because Dean had gotten furious with her and told her she wouldn’t live to collect a settlement, and then a few weeks later some guy had attacked her and tried to drown her.

Even the cops didn’t believe that Dean had been behind that. Even the cops. But she knew Dean in a way the cops didn’t. She had seen his ruthless side, and when it came to money, few were as ruthless as Dean.

She sighed, and the man in the seat beside her in the old pickup looked her way. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“No. Just feeling tired I guess.” Being tired covered a multitude of sins and failings, at least with people you didn’t know.

“Yeah, I’m a little worn out, too,” Hank said. “But it won’t take long to get you some food. Enough for a day or two. We can always come back another time.”

She was still trying to absorb this helpfulness. She wasn’t used to it—not anymore. In the world she had just left, you paid for help or you didn’t get a whole lot of it. Heck, even her few girlfriends thought she was nuts to leave Dean. But they didn’t know.

And in retrospect, she wasn’t sure their lives were all that much better. Did a woman have to sell her soul to live in comfort, belong to a country club and move in the right circles? Maybe so.

The main thing she wondered about was how she could ever have thought those things were important.

She cleared her throat, trying to think of something casual to say. Had she even lost her capacity for pointless conversation? After so many years of it, she would have thought it was engraved in her brain.

Except the man sitting beside her didn’t seem like the type who would appreciate the inanities that had made up so much of her social life over the last eight years.

“Why,” she managed finally, “do you think Ben rented me the house if you didn’t want him to yet?”

“I plan to ask him. But, as I said, the real estate business isn’t exactly booming around here. We got that new semiconductor plant five years ago, and for a while it looked like we were going to become the kind of town people didn’t keep leaving.”

“But?”

“But they laid off about two hundred people last fall. Doesn’t seem like much until you see all the empty apartments and houses, and see the way local businesses are struggling again. Boom and bust. Story of this town from the beginning.”

That at least gave her an opening. “How’s that?”

“Well, first they found gold up there on Thunder Mountain.” He pointed to the looming mountain range. “That played out in about ten years. Then came a kind of heyday for ranching. Lots of cattle, lots of wide-open space, enough water, believe it or not. Those were the days of the big spreads, and folks in town were just here to supply ranchers’ needs basically.”

Kelly nodded. “And then?”

“Raising cattle got out-of-sight expensive, people wouldn’t pay the price, beef got shipped in from Argentina and things turned kind of black around here for a while.”

“And now?”

“The ranches are mostly smaller, some folks still make money off beef, some are raising sheep, others horses. Then we got the semiconductor plant, and for a while there were plenty of jobs for young folks, and people with special skills moved here and we kinda grew again.”

“But now it’s bad.”

“Now it’s rough. The way it is everywhere, it seems. We thought we might get a ski resort up in the mountains, but that folded up pretty fast. We aren’t close enough to a major population center to have a load of people drive out here, and while we’ve got an airport, it would need a major expansion to bring in enough skiers. I guess you could say we didn’t have the kind of money necessary to make ourselves attractive.”

She nodded, absorbing what he was saying. “So everyone here is hurting?”

“Not really. We’ve just gone back to our belt-tightening ways. We get by on what we have—it’s not like we’re going to dry up and blow away. I guess it’s just kind of an interest of mine, to think about how this town starts to grow and then shrinks back again. It’s almost like breathing.” He chuckled quietly.

“That’s a different way of looking at it. But I agree. This place doesn’t look like it’s going away. The first thing that struck me about it is that it seems to have always been here.”

“Not quite always, but well over a century now. Was that what made you decide to stay here? Because we sure don’t seem to have a lot to offer most people, at least ones who didn’t grow up here.”

She hesitated, trying to find a way to put into words what had made her pause here in her journey, without revealing too much. “I guess…well, the place just feels…” She hesitated again and then gave a nervous laugh. “It’s sounds stupid, but when I got here what I felt was reliability. You know, like you could always count on this town.”

He turned into the grocery store lot and parked before he spoke. “Maybe that’s a good word for it,” he said finally. “Reliability. There’s a lot of that around here.”

Then he paused. “Well, except for Ben Patterson. I told him that place isn’t safe yet.”

“Maybe he just figured it wouldn’t be a problem because I wanted it for such a short time.” She bit her lower lip. “Look, if you want me to move, I will. But it’s just so hard to find a place that doesn’t want to tie me into a long-term lease.”

His gray eyes focused on her with an intensity that made her nervous. As if he were seeing things she was sure she hadn’t revealed. Then came the question she had hoped to avoid but had known, deep in her heart, she wouldn’t be able to.

“Why do you want to keep moving?”

It was, however, a question for which she’d already thought up the answer, weeks ago, just in case. “I’m traveling around the country is all. I finally reached a point where I could do it, and so I just decided to do it.”

To her it almost seemed as if he frowned, though she couldn’t point to a single thing in his face that changed. After a moment he shrugged. “Some folks have wanderlust, I guess.”

“It’s not exactly wanderlust. It’s just that…well, I might never get the chance to do this again. It seemed like a good time.” She hoped she never had to do this again, but that was a different story, one she wasn’t prepared to discuss with a stranger. Nor was she about to tell anyone that the only hope she cherished was that she had covered her tracks well enough. Sometimes she feared she hadn’t.

He seemed satisfied, though, and climbed out of the truck. She came around from her side and watched him stretch a little, as if things ached.

“Being a cowboy is hard work?” she asked, deciding to let him explain it any way he wanted.

“It can be, but damn, it’s great. Wide-open spaces, sleeping under starry skies, cooking over campfires. I like it.”

“Do you do it all the time?”

He twisted his back a little then shook his arms. “When there’s work. When I can.”

The answers sounded short, so she let it go. She was hardly likely to press him to go places when there were plenty of them she didn’t want to go herself.

They shopped separately and met back at the truck. She had only bought enough for a couple of days, but he seemed to have bought considerably more. She helped him load bags into the back of the pickup, and then they headed back to the house.

“You need anything else,” he said after he helped her carry her stuff inside, “you let me know. And don’t go scratching at the walls. God knows what’s under that paper.”

At that she laughed again, suddenly feeling better than she had in a couple of months.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“The idea of what could be under that paper. You’ve been talking about this house like it’s a ticking time bomb.”

A smile lit his face. “Maybe it is. Admittedly, the last folks who lived there made it to their nineties, so for all I know it’s the Fountain of Youth.”

She had a nice laugh, he thought as he headed back to his place, focused on finally getting that hot bath and that shot of bourbon. Or maybe he’d go over to Mahoney’s tonight instead and shoot the breeze with some of the regulars.

Of course, the problem with that was, inevitably, someone would get drunk enough to ask him about his firefighting days. And no matter how often he made it clear that he was just a cowboy now, there was always some jerk who didn’t get the memo, at least once he was a little drunk.

Most folks hereabouts had gotten the memo and didn’t bring up the subject anymore. And that was just the way he wanted it.

He shook the thought away. One of the best things he could say about Conard County was that folks tended to drop things you wanted dropped. At least to your face. They might gossip like mad among themselves, but they wouldn’t keep bringing it up to you.

And he didn’t want to think about that right now. In fact, he’d have been happy not to think about it at all.

Settling into the tub full of hot water, he released a sigh and turned his thoughts in other directions. Like Ben Patterson, with whom he was going to have more than a couple of words soon. And his new tenant.

Kelly Scanlon. He liked the name but her very presence raised a lot of questions. He had honestly believed that Ben wouldn’t be able to rent that place at any price, warnings attached or not. It was barely livable, and just knowing there was someone over there now made him feel like a grade-A slumlord.

He’d agreed to list it because Ben had been full of talk about how people never moved overnight, that listing it would be good because the place was going to be ready in a couple of months.

That had made sense to Hank. Let people know the property would be available down the road. He’d agreed when Ben had said most people planned their moves in advance anyway.

So, yeah, it had made sense. Certainly, he’d never expected a total stranger to turn up out of the blue wanting the place right now, in its current condition, for only a couple of months. Weird.

And that weirdness made him think about Kelly Scanlon. Her nervousness when she’d opened the door. That haunted look in her eyes. That kind of woman seldom went begging for anything. Men would trip all over themselves to look after her.

Or maybe not.

He sighed, let his head fall back against the rolled-up towel he’d strategically placed on the edge of the tub, and closed his eyes.

Something was not right over there. The thought drifted through his mind, and since he hadn’t poured that shot of bourbon, he knew he couldn’t blame it on anything except instinct.

His instincts were sharp, honed by years of fighting fires. He never ignored them, unless someone else’s life was on the line.

And his instincts were trying to tell him that something was very wrong. Well, sheesh, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure that out, he supposed.

Woman comes out of nowhere—gorgeous woman, making it even odder—to rent a house just this side of condemned for a couple of months in a town in the middle of nowhere. Sure, that sounded perfectly normal.

He sighed again, sinking a little lower into the soothing water and raised his knees one at a time to loosen the kinks.

Okay, it was strange. It was also not his problem, beyond making sure she didn’t get hurt because of that house. Hell, was he ever going to roast Ben over some hot coals. How many times had he told the agent that the house was not completely safe?

It wasn’t likely to collapse on Kelly’s head, but things could happen. The termite damage, some of the dubious wiring, even a stove with a pilot light…

Dammit. He sat up suddenly, ignoring a spear of pain. He hadn’t gotten to that part. And he’d bet dollars to doughnuts that Ben had been real friendly and had turned the propane on for her. Not that it was all that bad. The thing had an automatic shutoff when the pilot went out, which was the only reason he hadn’t just ripped it out of the house already.

But still.

Oh, what the … He didn’t bother to complete the thought. The water was cooling down anyway, and he could take another bath if he needed to soak some more.

Rising, water sluicing off him in waves, he stepped out onto the mat and reached for a towel.

Five minutes later he was limping next door, water droplets still clinging to the ends of his hair.

Kelly didn’t want to answer the knock. It was getting dark outside, although the evenings were a lot longer here than she was used to. She didn’t even want to twitch a curtain back to look. She was well aware that all her attempts to evade a possible tracker might not have worked. Aware of all the times she’d had to present ID, then hit the road again the very next morning, following a crazy-quilt pattern around the country. What if her path hadn’t been random enough?

Even as she hovered in hesitation in the kitchen, she told herself that she was overreacting. No one knew where she was. She had tried to make darn sure of that. So the only person who could be at her door was her too-attractive landlord, the real estate agent who shouldn’t have rented to her or a kid selling something, and it was the wrong time of year for cookies.

The knock came again, more insistent this time, and finally she squared her shoulders and went to answer it.

Twilight bathed the world outside, the long endless twilight of the northern latitudes. The sun had gone down behind the mountains early, but that didn’t make the world completely darken. She had plenty of light by which to see Hank.

“I’m a fireman,” he said without preamble. “Well, I was.”

“Oh.” How was she supposed to respond to that?

“I’m just a cowboy these days,” he said rather insistently, “but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten everything.”

“Of course not.”

“I’ve got to tell you about the pilot light on the stove.”

Feeling confused, but strangely relieved to see him, she stepped back and waved him inside. For some reason she’d felt safer in cheap motel rooms than she felt in this house, something that surprised her. Maybe she’d found so much security in moving that she couldn’t feel it any longer when she held still. Or maybe there was a reason for the uneasiness that wouldn’t leave her alone. Maybe she needed to heed it until she could figure out where it was coming from.

“I just made some coffee,” she offered hesitantly.

“This won’t take but a minute.”

For some reason, as soon as they were in the kitchen, she pulled a couple of the mugs he’d leant her out of the cupboard anyway. “Black?” she asked.

“Yeah. Please.”

At least he hadn’t refused again. For the first time in ages she just didn’t want to be alone.

“Okay,” he said, lifting the stovetop to reveal the unadorned burners and gas lines. “The pilot won’t stay lit. I don’t know why, I don’t especially care because this thing is going. In fact, it’s going tomorrow and I’m putting in the new stove since someone’s living here.”

“I’m sure I can manage. You don’t have to do that on my account.”

His gray eyes pierced her. “Yes. I do. Gas is nothing to fool with.”

“No,” she agreed. He seemed to want her to come over, so she left the mugs on the table and went to stand beside him.

“This is an older model, obviously. It has separate pilot lights for the stovetop and the oven. I’m going to show you how to light them both. The stove also has an automatic shutoff if the pilot goes out when the burners are turned off. They built that safety feature in years ago.”

“Okay. Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. I haven’t been in a rush to pull it out because no one was living here and I checked the automatic shutoffs. They seem to work properly. So no gas leaks when the stove is off, even if someone turned the propane back on. I’ll bet Ben turned it on for you.”

“I don’t know, honestly. I didn’t even think to ask about it.”

Stranger and stranger, he thought. She’d moved in here without even asking how to get gas for the stove?

Opening the drawer beside the stove, he pulled out a box of wooden matches and struck one. When he turned on a burner, it lit immediately. “Yeah, he turned it on for you.”

“Okay.”

He glanced at her and realized that she was looking puzzled, as if he was making a huge case out of nothing. But it wasn’t nothing. He turned off the burner, and after about a minute, the pilot light went out. “And there’s the problem.”

“I see that.”

“As I said, I checked and the safety shutoffs are working, so you don’t need to worry about the pilots going out. But I don’t know what might happen if you have a burner turned on and it goes out. I haven’t cooked on this dang thing—never intended to. So I guess, what I’m saying is, don’t leave it unattended while you cook until I get the new stove in here.”

“I can do that,” she said with certainty. “I wasn’t planning on cooking anything tonight anyway, and if I do in the morning, I’ll watch it.”

“Thank you.” He lowered the stove lid and opened the oven. “This is the pilot for the oven, but I’d really prefer you leave this one alone. This worries me because it pours out a lot of gas fast, and if the flame goes out, you won’t necessarily notice and…well, you don’t need me to draw you a map.”

“No, I get it. But you don’t have to rush to get a new stove on my account. I can manage.”

He shook his head. “Ben rented this place to you. I’m responsible for your safety. That’s the beginning and end of it.”

“Thank you. I’ll be careful.”

She went quickly to get the coffee, afraid he might just stride out, and poured two mugs. He didn’t hesitate, much to her relief, but took one of the chairs at the chipped dinette and reached for a mug.

She replaced the pot before joining him, and wondered at her sudden need for companionship. Maybe it was just the strangeness of being in a house again. She hadn’t really thought about that when she’d decided to rent the place for a while, but she was thinking about it now. Unlike the motel rooms she had inhabited, this place had more windows and more doors. She kept thinking about that now as darkness approached.

“So you’re a firefighter?” she asked tentatively, thinking that would be a safe place to go.

Apparently not. It was almost as if his face shuttered, growing suddenly hard. Then he visibly relaxed. “Not anymore. I’m just a cowboy.”

“That seems like a big career change.”

“Not really. I worked as a cowpoke from the time I was twelve until I went off to the academy. Summers and vacations.”

She pulled up her knee, rested her chin on it, and wrapped her arms around her leg. “I can’t imagine. I’ve had a very different sort of life. Being a cowboy sounds exotic to me.”

At that, some of the hardness slipped from his face and he smiled faintly. “It’s dirty, hard, smelly work for the most part. But I’ve always enjoyed it. I’d do it more often if there was more work available.”

“Is it like the movies?”

“In what way? We’re outdoors most of the time, we pretty much work sunup to sundown. If we’re working with the herds, we sleep with them. If we’re working the fences, sometimes we have the shelter of a line shack if we want it. If it’s romantic at all, it’s the part where we sleep under the stars and sit around the campfire at night telling godawful stories. But the coffee is terrible, the food is pretty rugged and the nights can sometimes seem miserably cold.”

“I’ve only been camping a couple of times. I liked it.” She tried a tentative smile, glad to see he’d relaxed from whatever had made him so tense.

“So what do you do?” he asked.

“I’m…I was in charge of billing for a large medical practice. I moved up to office manager, too, a couple of years ago.”

“That sounds complicated. Did you like it?”