High Country Cowgirl

“Hey...”

He turned back to her.

“Do you mind if I keep Tater with me tonight?”

He couldn’t believe how long it took him to process that question. He was just used to having Tater with him.

“Sure,” he finally said. “If it’ll make the night better for you.”

“Gracias.” Bonita said, the word of thanks rolling off her tongue in a way that sounded mighty pleasant to his ears.

“De nada.” His you’re welcome came out stilted and heavily accented, but it made her smile, and he liked to see that smile.

With one final nod to his client, he left the barn and headed out to the rig. He planned on taking a quick shower, climbing into the sleeping bunk above the front cab and getting at least eight hours of shut-eye. He was lucky that he could fall asleep on a dime, and now that he didn’t have to worry about walking around the rig in his boxers, he could get comfortable and get down to the business of sleeping.

* * *

Morning came too early for Bonita. Soon after Gabe gave her the bad news about her three o’clock wake-up time, she finished her wine, made sure Tater had one last visit to a grassy spot on the lawn, said good-night to her new friends and then retreated to the guest room. After a long, hot shower and going through her nightly routine of brushing her teeth and putting on her face creams and brushing all the tangles out of her waist-length hair, as she always did, she called her parents to say good-night.

“I have to get up at three o’clock in the morning,” Bonita complained to her father. No matter how far into adulthood she got, she still went to her dad for comfort when life seemed unfair.

“And I’ll be subjected to another ten hours of country music, which feels like a form of torture.”

“I don’t even know why you insisted on going,” her father said. “I told you I trusted the man.”

“I know,” she acknowledged. “I didn’t.”

“How about now? You’ve spent the day with him. What’s the verdict?”

Bonita knew exactly what her father was driving at. He wanted her to admit that she was wrong.

“He seems competent,” she admitted, not saying the words you were right, I was wrong.

“Then come home now,” George suggested. “You’re right there near Columbus. I’ll send my pilot to come pick you up. There’s an executive airport there—I’ve used it before. If you’re not happy, come home.”

Yes, she didn’t want to get up at three o’clock in the morning. Who did? And, yes, she dreaded the hours of monotonous highway and basting in the music of every country artist known to mankind, but it hadn’t occurred to her—not once—to throw in the towel.

“I’m not unhappy.”

“You could have fooled me, mi corazón.”

Did she want to take her father’s offer and bail on the trip? Gabe was more than competent. He knew how to handle horses, that was easy to assess after a day. The way he handled a flighty, excitable horse like Val had been impressive.

“I’m just talking.” She backpedaled a bit. “Val is my horse. I’m responsible for him now. I’m going to stick it out. This is far from the worst experience I’ve ever had to go through.”

After those words, they both were silent and Bonita knew exactly what her father was thinking: her mother’s illness was the worst thing either one of them had ever gone through and the worst was yet to come.

“Is Mom awake?” Bonita was the first to break the silence. “I’d like to say good-night.”

“She asked the nurse to put her to bed early tonight.”

Bonita had been lying back on a stack of pillows, but she sat up instinctively. “Is she okay? Do I need to come home now for her?”

“She’s fine,” George said and for the first time Bonita heard weariness in her father’s voice. “It’s been a bad day... She has those. Tomorrow will be better. If you want to stay with Val, your mom will be fine until you return.”

After she hung up the phone with her dad, Bonita spent some time catching up with friends on social media. She sent a friend request to Janice—they had struck up a friendship in a short time and they both wanted to keep in touch—and then she shut off the light.

Bonita had been an insomniac for years. Even with the three glasses of wine, she was wide-awake listening to the sounds drifting up the hallway from the kitchen, staring at the ceiling.

It felt as if her life had taken some odd turns of late. She was in a farmhouse in Ohio, getting ready to head off to Iowa with a cowboy she didn’t know all that well, instead of starting her first year of medical school. Her mother’s illness was a major driving force for her eventual return to the pursuit of a medical degree. She wanted to be able to help other families whose lives had been turned upside down, much as hers had, by a single diagnosis. Bonita didn’t regret putting her dream on hold to spend time with her mother in her final years. Her only regret was that she hadn’t come home sooner.

* * *

Gabe was already in the barn with Val when Bonita shuffled into the barn, blurry-eyed and running on only two hours of restless sleep, carrying Tater in one hand and rolling her suitcase behind her with the other.

“He’s been fed.” The cowboy seemed to forget to engage in the social routine of greeting each other before getting down to business.

“Good morning to you, too,” she said grumpily.

Gabe glanced at her before he kept on shoveling the manure out of Val’s stall. “If you want to grab his shipping boots, I’ll get him ready to load.”

Bonita checked to make sure the gates between the barn and the outside were closed before she put Tater down. She gathered up the tall, padded shipping boots and carried them over to Gabe.

“Hi there, Val.” She reached out and let the horse smell her hand. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s being a horse.” Gabe knelt down by Val’s hind leg and secured the shipping boot.

Val was throwing his head, backing up to avoid Gabe and acting like he was going to bite her.

“Hey.” Bonita pushed the horse’s mouth away with her hand. “He’s a lot more mouthy than I remember.”

Gabe finished his job and stood up. “He’s got a few bad habits.”

He looked fresh and crisp. He was wearing his usual button-down shirt, tucked in tightly, straight-leg denim jeans, cowboy boots, a cowboy hat and a leather belt with an oval silver buckle. It was indecent to look that put-together and awake in the middle of the night. In contrast, she had barely managed to get her hair into a ponytail, and she was wearing a baggy sweatshirt and jeans with no makeup. Her eyes were puffy, her face felt puffy—she needed coffee and some sort of food to help settle it.

“I don’t suppose breakfast is in our future?”

“I doubt we’re going to find anything open for a while. I’ve got some rations in the kitchen. You can help yourself.”

Gabe was ready to go. She stepped out of the way so he could lead Val out of the stall. She quickly scooped up Tater and followed behind with her suitcase. Again, it took Gabe several tries to get him in the trailer.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him. Candace swears he’s never had any loading issues.”

Gabe shut the back of the rig and secured it. “He’s got them now.”

There it was again, that little gnawing sensation in her stomach about her new horse. He was such a beautiful creature; maybe it was just going to take some time for them to bond.

“Goodbye, Hobby Horse Farm,” Bonita said as they slowly pulled out onto the desolate road. It was so dark that it didn’t feel like morning to her at all. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to say one more goodbye to Janice.”

“She’s not a morning person.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I love this time of day. No people. No traffic. It’s the best time to travel.”

Deciding not to argue with an obvious morning person, Bonita took Gabe up on his offer and found some breakfast bars in the kitchen. She also discovered that Gabe had made a pot of coffee and it was still warm enough to tolerate.

Tater found her bowls of food and water while Bonita searched for some creamer for her coffee.

“Do you have any creamer?”

“I drink it black.”

“Shoot.” So much for coffee.

With a bottle of water and a breakfast bar in hand, Bonita slumped into the passenger seat.

“You know, my father wanted me to fly home from Columbus. There’s creamer on the jet.”

“Hard to keep an eye on me from the sky.” Gabe didn’t crack a smile, but she believed that he meant for there to be humor laced with truth in that statement.

“I’m not keeping an eye on you,” Bonita retorted quickly. Then, she revised her answer a bit a second later. “I was keeping an eye on you.”

“That seat leans back,” Gabe told her. “Why don’t you shut your eyes and try to get some more sleep? I promise I won’t screw anything up until after you wake up.”

She didn’t know if he was trying to avoid her grumpiness or was sincerely concerned for her well-being, but it didn’t matter. It was a good idea and she took him up on it. She finished her breakfast bar and water, then leaned back and closed her eyes. It seemed that Gabe didn’t listen to music early in the morning, and that suited her just fine. She felt herself drifting to sleep but was awakened by Tater yipping next to her. Not opening her eyes, she reached down, felt for the little dog and lifted her onto her lap.

“Go to sleep,” she mumbled. Those were the last words she wanted to utter until the sun rose and it was officially morning.

* * *

Gabe drove for hours without his usual music in the background. Bonita had fallen asleep quickly and he didn’t want to disturb her.

It wasn’t ideal that he had someone else to consider on this trip. He had his routine, his way of doing things to make the trips easier, but he also found some upsides to having a passenger. Even though they hadn’t passed the time talking, just having Bonita’s presence had made the trip go a bit faster for him. And she smelled nice—like lavender. In fact, the last thought he had before he fell asleep was how sweet Bonita smelled when he was sitting so close to her on that tack box.

She didn’t snore, but she mumbled several times in her sleep. He couldn’t make out the words, but he found himself wondering about Bonita Delafuente.

She wasn’t quite as one-dimensional as he had judged after their first meeting. Yes, she was entitled, as most people from wealthy families were, but she wasn’t a snob. The way she took to Janice and Hobby Horse Farm, the kindness she had shown to all of his friends, made him realize that he had labeled her too harshly. Bonita held herself a bit stiff, and her appearance was polished—her nails perfectly done and her expensive jewelry was part of the uniform—but she had a million-dollar smile and a laugh that made a man want to listen for a long time. And she was smart. That he especially liked. It wasn’t too often that he saw a woman go toe-to-toe intellectually with Janice, but Bonita did. Easily.

His client stirred in the passenger seat, making sounds that let him know she was waking up from her nap. Yawning long and loud, Bonita opened her eyes.

“What time is it?”

“Just after nine.”

Tater, who had jumped down from Bonita’s lap some time ago, heard her voice and raced up to the front from the back of the rig.

Sitting up, Bonita reached down to pet Tater. “I’ve been asleep for five hours?”

“Just about.”

She stretched her arms, groaned and then yawned again. “Coffee.”

That one word made Gabe smile. He didn’t know why he found Bonita’s grouchiness adorable instead of annoying.

“I’ll pull off at the next exit. Tater needs a break and we could use some gas.”

“How’s Val?”

“Eating hay.”

Out of habit, Gabe glanced at the screen to his right showing a live video stream of Val. If he was eating hay and making manure, most likely all was well with the Oldenburg.

Gabe had a feeling from his first meeting with Bonita that she had him written off as a dumb cowboy. It wouldn’t be the first time in his life that high-end horse owners had prejudged him. But his ability with horses spoke for itself and people who wrongly judged him usually paid a premium to hire him again. He’d seen a small shift in Bonita; yes, she was a skeptic or she wouldn’t have insisted on babysitting him on a road trip, but he felt her trust in him growing. And for whatever reason, in particular, he wanted Bonita to trust in him.

“Can I get anything for you?” Bonita asked after another yawn and stretch.

“No. I’m good.”

He had stopped to fill up the tank with fuel and give his passenger and Tater a break from the road. Bonita wasn’t used to road trips; she was used to taking a quick flight to her destinations on her father’s private jet. Traveling on the road could be tedious, he more than anyone knew that, and they would just be reaching the halfway mark when they would pull in to Grimes later on today.

As he watched Bonita walk toward the convenience store, her oversize sweatshirt swallowing the top half of her body and her long, ponytail swinging behind her, he was actually shocked that she hadn’t jumped at the chance to fly back to Bozeman. His first thought was that she didn’t trust him to get Val home safely, but then he reconsidered. Bonita appeared to be the type of woman who didn’t like to fail at anything. Perhaps leaving a challenging trip early would have been a sign of defeat to her. If he was right, he could respect that about her.

He was just wrapping up his business at the pump when Bonita rejoined him, carrying two fountain drinks and a bag full of donuts.

“I got some for you, too,” she said, unhappily.

“Thank you.” He didn’t indulge in sugar too much with the hours of sitting he had to do when he was transporting. But he wasn’t going to turn down a nice gesture on her part.

Still frowning, Bonita looked at her purchases. “Just look what this trip has done to me already. I’m in sweats, I haven’t brushed my hair, no makeup, and I’ve completely abandoned any semblance of a healthy diet.”

He was about to banter back, when Bonita suddenly started to run in a circle, screaming about a bee.

“Is it on me?” She was swiveling her head around from one direction to the other, trying to look behind her.

Gabe walked over to her to inspect the parts of her back that she couldn’t see. “It was just a little ol’ honeybee.”

“You don’t understand! Those little suckers hunt me down and sting me wherever I am! I’m not paranoid. They come after me in particular. I was stung three times last summer! You laugh, but it’s true.”

“Well, he’s gone now,” Gabe reassured her. “They weren’t bothering me.”

“Well...maybe you just aren’t as sweet as I am.”

Gabe opened the passenger door for her and gave a little tip of his cowboy hat. “There’s no denying that.”

Chapter Four

“Okay,” Bonita announced after taking a shower, changing her clothing and putting on some makeup. “Now I actually feel like a normal human again.”

After five more hours of travel, during which she was subjected to the full Willy Nelson catalog, they arrived at an equestrian facility in Grimes, Iowa. Considering the name of the town, Bonita was pleasantly surprised by the accommodations for Val. The stalls were a generous size and well maintained. There was a separate turnout paddock for Val, so she could be assured that he wouldn’t get injured trying to figure out his position in the herd hierarchy.

Once they got Val unloaded and settled and after they cleaned the mobile stall, which gave Bonita a chance to work off some of her junk food calories, Gabe found an overnight spot to park the rig. Part of the living area expanded outward with a simple push of a button, adding additional square footage to the kitchen and sitting area. The rig had solar panels on the roof, so Gabe could park the rig away from electrical hookups. He had found a spot to park the rig that would allow them to see Val in his paddock.

Gabe was sitting at the dining table, a table that resembled a booth in a diner with bench seats on either side. Bonita slid into the bench opposite Gabe, feeling refreshed and awake for the first time that day.

“What’s the plan for dinner?” she asked. In her family, food was important and meals were meant to be an event.

Gabe put down his phone and looked at her. Every time their eyes met and held, she was struck by how clear and blue the cowboy’s eyes were. She couldn’t always see them, for the brim of his hat, but when she did, it was a moment that lingered in her mind. There was a raw honesty there. And a kindness that always surprised her. She supposed she had a set opinion of men who wore cowboy boots and hats, and it wasn’t, upon reflection, a positive one. Gabe was, little by little, changing that opinion.

“I usually stock what I need.” He paused a second and then added, “I wasn’t expecting company.”

Bonita felt an immediate pang of guilt. She should apologize for barging in on the trip. She’d always had a difficult time apologizing—even when she knew she was squarely in the wrong, like now. The words I’m sorry just couldn’t find their way to her lips. Instead, she stood up, went over to the kitchen cabinets and started to assess the situation. After scouting the refrigerator and the cabinets, Bonita, who had been cooking since she was young, already had several dishes in mind that she could make for dinner.

“You have ingredients for fajitas, a breakfast burrito or steak and eggs,” she said as she wound her long, damp hair into a knot on the top of her head and secured it with a ponytail holder from the front pocket of her jeans. “What’s your pleasure?”

Gabe looked at her like he was caught off guard by her offer. “I have all that in there?”

“Yes. You actually do.” She laughed, feeling happy for some unfathomable reason. “You don’t cook?”

“I grill.”

“Of course. Well, I cook. Love to, actually. So let me make you dinner. It would feel like I’m being useful. What’s your pleasure?”

“Steak and eggs sounds good.”

“Coming right up,” she said with a smile. “How do you like your steak cooked?”

“Just barely dead, I suppose.”

“Rare it is.”

Gabe went out for a bit to speak with the manager of the facility. While he was gone, Bonita hummed while she located all of the cooking essentials she would need to deliver on the promised meal. While the steak was broiling in the oven, she found plates and silverware and set the table.

It made her feel content to be cooking, even in such a tiny kitchen. Cooking had been her connection to her family in Mexico—all of her aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins on her father’s side, most of whom still lived in Mexico, had taught her how to cook authentic Mexican food. Her mother, whose family was of European descent, hadn’t even known how to cook when she met Bonita’s father. But before Evelyn became ill, she could cook a wide variety of traditional Mexican dishes, the kind that always brought a smile to George’s face.

Bonita was just finishing the eggs when Gabe returned.

“Sorry about that.” He took his hat off and hung it on a hook just inside the door. “They’ve got a horse they wanted me to look at.”

“I’ve been having a good time.” She turned the burner off and took the pan with the scrambled eggs off the stove. “I hope you like scrambled. I forgot to ask.”

“I’m not too picky.” Gabe sat down at the table. “That smells good enough to eat.”

“Well. I hope you like it.”

She made them both a plate and then joined him at the table. She knew from traveling with him that he was going to want water with no ice in his glass, so she had already taken care of that. Bonita already regretted the soda she had consumed, so she switched to water as well.

“This is the first real meal that’s been cooked in that kitchen,” Gabe told her.

She waited for him to take the first bite of steak, to give her a stamp of approval for the dinner, before she began to eat her portion of the scrambled eggs.

“Now, that’s good,” he said with a satisfied little smile. Her mother always said that a way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. So far, Bonita believed her mother was right about that. “Where’s your steak?”

“I don’t eat meat.”

“You don’t meet very many vegetarians in Montana.”

“You don’t meet very many vegetarians in my family!” Bonita countered. “My father thinks it’s sacrilegious to not eat meat, and trust me, none of my relatives in Mexico get it.”

Gabe cut a tiny piece of steak for Tater, who had been waiting, ears perked forward, at the cowboy’s feet.

“Is that who taught you to cook like this?”

Bonita nodded while she washed some eggs down with water. She wiped her mouth off with a napkin and then said, “Cooking and food is a big part of our culture. My mom didn’t know how to boil water when she met my dad, but she learned quickly. I’ve been cooking since I was a kid.”

“Well, you’re dang good at it. It’s rare for me to have a home-cooked meal on the road and it’s been two nights in a row for me this time around. So I thank you.”

“It was my pleasure. It’s the least that I could do seeing as I’m technically a stowaway.”

She meant those last words to be a roundabout way of apologizing. Gabe met her eyes, but he didn’t pick up on the cue and run with it. He just gave her a simple nod, as was his way she was discovering, and let the matter drop.

“I’d like to go check on Val after we’ve cleaned up,” she said. “I saw one of the hands take him to the stable and I’d like to see how he’s settling in to his stall.”

Gabe dropped his crumpled-up napkin on his plate. “You cooked, I’ll clean.”

“Are you sure?”

“I got the better end of that deal. Go on and visit with Val.”

Bonita took Gabe up on his offer and headed to the barn. She found Val in his designated stall at the end of the long aisle, eating hay.

“Hi, handsome boy.” She opened his stall gate and held out her hand to him so he could begin to learn her scent.

“There’s some grooming tools hanging on that hook if you want to use them,” suggested one of the stablehands mucking out a stall across the aisle.

“Thank you. I think I will.”

Bonita grabbed a body brush; she was glad to finally have some time to bond with Val. But when she started to brush his neck, Val nipped at her, backed up into the corner of the stall to avoid her and swished his tail, a sign that he was resisting her.

“I know you don’t think so now, Val.” She fought through the nerves she always seemed to feel around her new horse and kept on brushing him, not letting him rule the moment. “But you are going to learn to love me.”

She brushed his body, ignoring his grouchy attitude when she switched sides and asked him to move his feet. Then she combed his mane and his tail and finished by cleaning out each of his hooves. The entire time she worked on him, he tried to bite her, and his body language, from the tail swishing to stomping his hind hooves, was a sign that he had some behavior issues that they were going to have to work on.

“You look super handsome now, Val.” Bonita wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck and gave him a quick hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow. At a ridiculously early hour.”

While she was putting the grooming tools back in the bucket hanging outside the stall, Bonita heard Gabe’s voice nearby. She walked toward the sound of his voice.

He was standing next to what looked to be a full-blooded Thoroughbred in the large, indoor riding arena. He was talking to a couple of people who Bonita assumed to be the owners. She looked around and found that there were empty bleachers nearby. She climbed up to the midpoint in the bleachers and sat down.

“Everything we do with horses is pressure,” Gabe was saying. “We put a halter on them, it’s pressure. We ride them, it’s pressure. What they want is to be left alone and eat. That’s not how it’s going to be for them, but we have to understand what they want if we’re going to change their behavior. What is that you want this horse to be able to do?”