Humbling Her Cowboy (Miller Brothers 0f Texas Book 1)

by Natalie Dean

  So, he took a deep breath and put his everything into running. He called back on his time in high school, when he’d been into just about every sport imaginable, controlling his breathing and form as adrenaline pumped through him.

  Closer. Closer. Closer.

  Then finally! Yes! He reached out, his hand gripping the back of the loose, black hoody and ripping it backward.

  There were several things that he expected to happen. One, for the runner to jerk to a stop, secondly, to be able to stop running himself.

  But neither of those things happened. Instead, the vandal twisted and jerked, never losing momentum and moving in such a way that their oversized hoody just swept off over their head. The sudden lack of weight had Solomon nearly toppling forward, and he almost crashed right into the dirt.

  Stumbling, he caught himself, and a few footfalls later he managed to get his legs under him and stand, still holding onto the piece of clothing.

  Solomon stared at it incredulously, trying to figure out why there wasn’t a person inside of it, but the distinct sound of someone climbing a fence caught his attention.

  He looked forward just in time to see the runner land on the ground in a crouch, a very tall chain-link fence between them. The runner rose to their feet, seemingly just as surprised as he was by the situation, and finally turned to face him.

  If Solomon wasn’t already shocked and confused, he definitely would have been then. Because it wasn’t some gangbanger staring at him. Or hardened criminal. Or even young delinquent. No, instead it was a young woman in front of him, her dark, dark eyes wide, her cheeks flushed red while the rest of her face was a light amber and her chest heaving in the tank top she wore. Her hair was wild, electric blue and green, very noticeable in the dark of the night, and her clothes had the deliberate grunge that seemed so popular lately.

  She was pretty—no, stunning—but it was the expression in her face that jolted him. She looked terrified, all caught up in the chase as well, but there was an edge of triumph to it. Like he had just challenged her and lost.

  Which he supposed he had.

  “Who the hell are you?” he heard himself asking, completely incredulous at everything that had happened.

  The triumphant look in her eye only grew that much stronger and her pink, full lips curled into a smirk. For a moment, he thought that she was going to answer him, but instead she just flipped him off, her fingernail chipped but painted a nuclear green.

  He opened his mouth to demand something more, politeness, or an apology, he didn’t really know, but she just laughed and darted off, quickly disappearing into the large, abandoned building behind the fence.

  No, no! Solomon roared back to life, his body taking off on its own. He ran to the nearest gate but found that it was chained and padlocked, far too much for him to do anything about.

  Cursing, he stood there for several moments, his own breath harsh in his throat, before his hands finally dropped to his sides.

  Whoever that woman was, she was gone, and he wasn’t going to find her. He needed to go get his watch and tell the church about the graffiti, so maybe they could scrub it off before it truly set in. But as he made his way to all those shallow people and their shallow building, her image burned itself into his head.

  Was she even real?

  She certainly didn’t seem like it.

  3

  Frenchie

  Frenchie was cold.

  Not even the pleasant cold that came after sledding and laughing with friends, followed by hot cocoa and huddling by a nice fire. No, it was the joint-achy, biting cold that sank into her bones and didn’t want to leave, making everything wet and miserable.

  It was September, so she didn’t know what she expected. The nights were getting breezy, but she would have been fine if she hadn’t lost her only protection to that strange jerk who had tailed her the night before.

  She couldn’t believe that happened. She’d just been tagging one of the most hypocritical churches in the whole city, not committing murder or arson. After all, they ran a food pantry and several charities supposedly, but all of her friends that went there were always turned away or chased off the premises.

  So much for being kind to the poor or showing Jesus’ love. As far as she could tell, the big fancy church and almost all of its attendants worshipped money more than that God they always talked about. Which was a shame; he seemed like a nice guy. Or at least his son was. She wasn’t quite sure on a lot of the details.

  She shivered again and sighed, rising from where she had been crouched down to eat her last granola bar. The best way to stay warm was to keep moving, so she might as well get going.

  She didn’t have a set plan for the day, but getting some food inside of herself would definitely be helpful. Rubbing her arms, she headed towards a nearby bakery, one that she knew gave away stale bagels at their close.

  And thankfully, she was friendly with the owner and knew that he always set some aside for her. There was a pretty high demand for his scraps considering the quality of his food, so she was pleased as punch that all it had taken was some general politeness and a sketch she drew of his sweet, older wife once to get on his goody list.

  She just wished she had her hoody.

  By the time she got to the bakery, she was chilled, her fingertips aching. She didn’t know what she’d do by winter if she didn’t get something warmer. Hopefully there would be a coat charity drive, and then she could get a secondhand jacket.

  “Hey there, Mr. Vanicotti. Ya got anything for me?”

  The elderly man looked over the counter, his grandson busy wiping everything down for close. “Ah, my Francesca! It is always so good to see you! You haven’t been visiting much lately, no?”

  “I had a gig traveling for a couple of weeks,” she said with a smile. “Was fed the entire time.”

  “Oh really? Not enough. You need more. Too skinny.”

  She laughed, wondering if she let him get away with saying that because he was old or his accent made him so lovable. “You think everyone is too skinny, Mr. Vanicotti.”

  “Not my wife! She is perfect in every way. You should be like her. Have man treat you right, get fat.”

  Frenchie laughed again. “I’d love to get fat, but you know how it is nowadays. Protein is expensive and you can only eat so many carbs.”

  He huffed. “I have never heard such blasphemy. This is why you’re too thin. Everyone needs more pasta.”

  “All right, all right, I get it. I’ll do my best.”

  Frenchie normally would never stand for someone shaming her body, but in truth she was thinner than she liked to be. She could see it in her face in the reflections on windows and in the mirrors of gas station bathrooms. Her skin hung a little too much on her, and her once-full muscles were withering.

  She’d always had an athletic figure, loving sports and dance, but she could feel herself wasting away. If she didn’t get a better diet soon, she was pretty sure she would become unrecognizable.

  Which would be a shame. She liked herself most of the time.

  “Well here, these will help. I made sure to save all your favorites that don’t sell.” He went to hand the bag to her, then paused. “Wait here one moment. I return.”

  For the slightest of moments, she was worried that he was going to leave her high and dry as he shuffled to the back, but it was only a few minutes later that he was returning, the bag looking slightly fuller.

  “You take this and be careful now. Is getting cold. Where is coat?”

  “I must have left it at home,” she said with a bit of a chuckle.

  “Ah, don’t do that. You must take care of you. Too skinny, no heat.”

  “No heat is right.” She held up the bag. “Thanks for everything, Mr. Vanicotti.”

  “Of course, sometime come for dinner, yes? My wife yells at me every time you go.”

  She chuckled at that, but then apprehension crawled up her spine. It was one thing to accept food from a kind stranger
; it was another entirely to go into their home and be stuck there in unknown territory. “Maybe in a bit. I’ve got some errands to do.”

  “Right, right. You always so busy. I think you maybe run the city.”

  “Hah, maybe I do.”

  “If that’s so, what am I doing giving you free bagels? It’s you who should be giving me free things, yes?”

  They shared a laugh, the mounting tension broken, and Frenchie excused herself before it could go uncomfortable again.

  In part of her mind, she knew she likely had nothing to worry about from the Vanicottis. But another part of her mind reminded her of just how many times she had trusted people before and how it had ended up hurting her. There was only so much a girl could fall for before things started to become her fault, and she wasn’t interested in continuing to be life’s fool.

  She pulled one of the bagels out of the bag before shoving the rest into her backpack. It wouldn’t necessarily end well for her if someone saw she had so much food all at once. They could take it, or maybe think she had actual money on her to buy things. Neither of those situations would work out for her, so she preferred to eliminate them entirely. Perhaps some would call her overcautious, but she found there was rarely such a thing as overcautious when one was a young, unaccompanied woman in the city. Especially a woman with a knack for trouble.

  Frenchie smiled crookedly to herself as she made her way to the park. It wasn’t that she went looking to make mischief intentionally. Often, she was too exhausted for anything of the sort. But there were certain times when all the drudgery, all the constant chasing down money was too much for her and she needed to do something to strike out at all the hypocrisy and inequality in the world.

  But she wasn’t smart, she wasn’t well-spoken, so her tagging would have to do. Besides, it wasn’t like that ridiculously rich church wouldn’t be able to fix it the very next day. It was unlikely they would even understand her message. A lot of those rich types were so detached from reality that they didn’t understand what it was like for the majority of the population.

  She reached the park, her skin prickling from the cold. But enjoying the mildly stale bagel was mostly overpowering the unpleasant sensation. Casually, she ambled to one of her favorite spots, a wooden bench overlooking one of the many popular walking paths of the park. There was a weeping willow behind it that dramatically cut the windchill during the cooler months and provided shade during the hottest parts of the year. There were almost always people walking along the path or sitting on benches along it, so she always had subjects to draw.

  She scanned the area, looking for something to inspire her. It didn’t take her long to find a pregnant young woman who looked like she was in her early twenties. She had her hair up in a messy bun and was sitting contentedly, her eyes closed and her hands on her stomach. She looked so peaceful, so full of energy and something magical, that Frenchie immediately put her pencil to her paper, pausing only to put her headphones on and start her music.

  Perhaps there were better things for her to do than draw. Maybe she should have been busking, or even begging for some change, but sometimes drawing felt like the only proof that she actually existed. That she mattered in the world and had any sort of effect on reality. Far too often it was so easy to feel like she was detached from society. Just some sort of castoff that life had decided wasn’t worth it but wasn’t kind enough to get rid of.

  She continued to muse as she drew, her pencil flying across the page. She wondered if she was always meant to be an observer, always on the outside of everything. Or if somewhere in the grand, cold world, there was something more meant for her.

  But she should know better than that. Daydreaming about something more always left her feeling worse than before. Hope was a dangerous drug in her profession.

  4

  Solomon

  Solomon couldn’t get the girl out of his head.

  Which was crazy. And he knew it was crazy. And yet, that was exactly what was happening.

  He told himself that he was mad that she was defacing property that his family had put so much money into. That her vandalism was a direct mark on his father and their legacy. That she was some hooligan trying to entertain herself by ruining something others worked on.

  But none of those things rang true.

  Not that he knew why the girl wouldn’t get out of his head. He just knew that she was stubbornly embedded in his thoughts.

  His phone buzzed, and he checked it to see it was a picture message from Samuel. Opening it, he saw a happy selfie of his eldest brother and his new girlfriend, a poor farm hand from Aunt Annie’s and Uncle Douglas’ Miller Ranch up in Montana. Dad was absolutely livid about it, but Solomon thought it made sense.

  He saved the picture to his phone; he always liked collecting moments where his family looked happy. For some of the wealthiest people in the city, he couldn’t help but feel there weren’t many moments of pure joy for them. They were all so busy, or stressed, or trying to prove themselves.

  But saving the photo just reminded him of the girl again, and he swiped to the photos of her work he had taken.

  Again, he had no idea why he had taken those. He had paid for a cleaning company to come spray-blast the walls and had been there when they arrived. But as they had set up their equipment, he’d been compelled to document at least something of her work before it was erased from reality entirely.

  He looked at the photo again, seeing a story there even though it was only half finished. There was so much character to the figure that she had finished, he wondered what it would have looked like if she had a chance to complete whatever she was going for.

  An alert sounded from his desktop and he shook his head, setting his phone face down on his office desk. He was in the middle of overlooking the negotiations they were entering into with a different health insurance company. The McLintoc Miller Ranch was considering switching to a new company that would save them considerable money, but he wanted to make sure the change was worth all the headaches it would cause.

  He had no doubt that several of the workers would be miffed about it. They would complain about having to change primary care physicians and who knew what else. But there wouldn’t be any decrease in care, supposedly, and there could potentially be a lower deductible, but Solomon wanted to triple check that that was the case before they moved any farther forward.

  Of course, Dad was irritated with that, but there were some things that Dad would have to deal with. Making sure that the workers wouldn’t be losing quality of care for a few thousand was absolutely worth it.

  But try as he might to return his attention to the files in front of him on his computer, he couldn’t concentrate. He found himself reading the same words over and over again ad nauseam.

  Well, that wasn’t helping him at all, and he needed his full mind if he was going to go over something so important. So instead, he headed over to his email where there would probably be enough busywork to get himself back on track mentally.

  But instead, one of the first things he saw was something from his younger brother. Clicking on it, he saw it was a link to an article about the event that he had just attended at the megachurch.

  It was fairly banal, as such things went, but embedded toward the end of it in the “related links” section, he saw a headline for “Rising Graffiti in Affluent Parts of City.”

  Huh, that definitely seemed relevant to everything that was happening.

  Before he thought better of it, he was clicking on the link and waiting for it to load. Although he had stopped her from finishing her mural, he could definitely recognize her style on three distinct pieces. All of them were chock full of political or religious iconography, and he could see the messages she was trying to get across. One of them was two rich, celebrity looking busts of a man and a woman dripping in jewels while several people in rags looked up at them in awe. There was a more abstract one of a post on social media about “thoughts and prayers” with hundreds of
likes while a wounded man lay bleeding out on the ground below it. The other one was just a young girl, but several parts of her body had arrows pointing to them and labels as to how they were deemed dangerous or inappropriate to society.

  It was an awful lot to get across in graffiti, and yet she did. And for some reason, those messages—as clear as they were—irritated him to no end.

  Why? That didn’t make sense. He could listen to political rhetoric from every side of the aisle for hours with a banal smile and agreeable expression. But her art didn’t allow for that. They made him feel…

  Guilty.

  And he didn’t like that feeling at all.

  He hadn’t done anything wrong. He couldn’t help that he was born a Miller. He couldn’t help that his father was incredibly rich and that he himself had a knack for growing their business.

  And yet he felt somehow responsible for the discord in the images that he was seeing, and that disquieted him.

  He ended up staring at them for far too long, thinking about why he was being affected by something as simple as street art, and what that meant, when slowly a pattern began to float up from the data he was absorbing.

  An idea coming to him, he started plugging the addresses into a map until he had them all marked with red clusters. Sure enough, his hunch was spot on, and all three of the ones he recognized—and several he didn’t—were all within a mile and a half of a local park, the one that had all the water and cool-down areas for when the heat was really scorching. It had been a big deal on the news when that project had been launched, and cases of heatstroke among children and runners had gone down considerably.

  But, as a result, during the few months of cooler weather, those areas generally went unused by a majority of the public and had become a sort of hang out for teens and ne’er-do-wells. The girl and whoever else was tagging were probably using that space as a meetup area, or at least a planning one. Nothing else made sense.