Just a Cowboy

“Yeah, I hadn’t pulled them down, either.” He paused at the steps to his porch and looked at her. “I’ve always heard that the first thing women do in a new place is put up curtains. Never believed it before.”

“Well, you can believe it now.” Nor did she have any intention of telling him why those curtains were so important to her.

“I guess not all stereotypes are stereotypes,” he remarked. He tugged a key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door.

The house smelled a tiny bit stale, having been closed up for a while, but it wasn’t a bad stale. Just faint hints that meals had been cooked here, that someone had lived here and been away.

It had a similar layout to her place, although it was a bit bigger. And the signs of a woman’s presence still dominated. She guessed that he hadn’t been able to part with a lot, including dotted Swiss curtains with ruffles, cheerful rag rugs and picture frames holding bunches of dried flowers.

He led her down the hallway, much longer than the tiny one in her place, to a large kitchen. Unlike hers, this one had been modernized with new cabinets, a dishwasher, a stainless-steel stove and a matching refrigerator.

“Let me get some boxes,” he said, and disappeared through a door.

She waited, looking around, and felt her throat tighten unwillingly. This place practically shouted “home,” unlike the mansion she’d left behind. Sometimes she wondered how she could have been so stupid and blind.

Hank returned a couple of minutes later with a box under each arm. “I think a lot of what you need is already here.”

He set them on the table and she moved closer to look as he opened them.

“Ah, I do have a memory,” he said wryly as he revealed a drip coffeemaker, some dishes and flatware.

“This is terribly kind of you,” she said honestly. “I’d have managed.”

“I’m sure you would have, but when you have a neighbor, it’s not always necessary. And if you’re only going to stay a few weeks, it just makes sense to lend you my extras.”

“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 (#ulink_2aba4f69-5e23-5058-a50b-85e506030a62)

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?”