To the Studs

by Roxanne Smith

  Walk through dense woods with a perfectly clear path yards away? “Gavin Chambers hasn’t sold the cabin. I’m Neve Harper. He hired me to fix the place.”

  The rancher’s smile faded somewhat. “I suppose that figures.” He stuck out his hand. “Sorry to have startled you. You need anything, give me a holler. I’m over the hill there. If you head back down the mountain, the sign for Lady Killer Ranch is on your right. It’s easy to miss on the way up, what with how the road twists and turns.”

  Duke and his injury sprang to mind. “Actually, I could use your help. My friend—colleague—fell off the rotted front steps at the cabin. He fell on his side and can’t move from the pain in his ribs. He suspects he cracked one. What’s the quickest way to get an emergency responder up here, Yosemite?”

  Amusement glinted behind his steady gaze, belying the straight line of his mouth. He pulled a walkie-talkie from behind his back where it must’ve been clipped to his belt. Pretty handy in a place where cell phones were about as useful as a third butt-cheek. A bleep sounded when he pressed a red button on the side. “Miles, Tim here. Come in.”

  Loud static crackled in the air and startled a few nearby birds into flight. Their takeoff rustled the leaves overhead.

  “This’s Miles. What’s up?”

  “Send Owen to Beels Cabin, would ya? We got a fella needs first aid. He better bring Laurel ’round, too.”

  A moment of silence, then more static. “Sure thing, Tim. I’ll send them your way.”

  “Copy that.” Yosemite clipped the talkie back onto his belt and grinned politely at Neve. “All right, city girl. We ought to head back before your friend gets nervous. Or a bear sniffs him out while he’s helpless.” He turned toward the cabin.

  Neve groaned. Traveling away from cell phone service went against the point of having left Duke alone in the first place. She’d have to get in touch with Gavin after helping Duke. By then, Vince would have arrived with their location trailers, and at least Duke would have somewhere to rest. Not like he had any plans to do any real work, anyway.

  She stepped in beside the rancher. “Beels Cabin, huh?”

  “Says the town registry. I suppose Mr. Chambers can call it what he likes.”

  “I’ve named it Gavin’s Cabin. Couldn’t resist. By the way, I like your ranch’s name. Lady Killer.” She slid her gaze his way, a brow arched in query. “Is that indicative of the owner?”

  Timothy’s mustache twitched as his lips curved upward. “Well, now. I can’t go giving away my secrets to the first pretty lady I run into out in the woods. Some stuff you ought to find out for yourself, I reckon.”

  Neve returned his smile. He had a certain languid quality she admired in a man. Nice eyes when they twinkled, like they did now, lit with mirth.

  I’m here to worm my way into Gavin’s confidence, not make nice with friendly ranchers. Good point. Besides, she ate men like Timothy Hux for breakfast. “I don’t believe for a second I’m the first pretty lady,” she teased, despite her internal warnings. “But I’m sure I’ve got my answer.”

  He chuckled and issued a low whistle. “No offense, but you’ve got trouble written all over you.”

  Neve bestowed her best devil-may-care smile on her new friend and winked for good measure. “In permanent marker.” Okay, really, stop. “What else can you tell me about the cabin? If your ranch is a family gig, you should have generations of stories about the area.”

  He touched the rim of his hat, an affirmative gesture. “My great-great-granddaddy homesteaded this land. Back then, your friend’s cabin didn’t exist, and the property stretched from the hilltop on down to where the gravel road branches off from the highway. Now, legend says his boy—that’d be my great-granddaddy Ben—fell in love with one woman after he done got married to another.” He thoughtfully rubbed his chin. “A big deal at the time, ’course. As if an affair weren’t outrage enough, Florrie was, uh…the politically correct term is African American, but they were called worse things in Ben’s time. He made himself a pariah when he built the cabin for Florrie, right on his land, not a mile from the ranch proper, where he lived with his wife and boys. He even deeded her the land, too.”

  “The cabin hasn’t been bought back by the ranch in all this time?”

  Timothy shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t see no more point than my daddy did. Can’t farm this rocky slope. The land itself ain’t much to bother with, and you seen yourself the shape the cabin’s in. Seems like a lot of money to pay for more work to do.”

  “Whatever happened to Florrie and Ben? I’m having a hard time imagining it culminates into a happily-ever-after for anyone involved. Except maybe Florrie.” Single landowner? Relationship of love? Given the other options at the time for unmarried black women, it sounded to Neve like an ideal set-up.

  “Oh, definitely not Florrie. My great-granny, Lulu Hux, lost her mind over the whole thing. A few years after Florrie took up residence, Granny Lulu killed herself in a jealous rage, but not before taking Ben’s beloved Florrie down with her. Murdered her right inside the cabin. Then shot herself in the head with Ben’s pistol.” Another shrug. “So the story goes, anyhow.”

  Neve’s stomach flip-flopped. “Lady Killer Ranch doesn’t sound as charming as it did a minute ago.”

  Timothy’s soft laugh said it didn’t bother him much. “Locals sort of renamed the ranch after the murder-suicide went public. Ben wasn’t no hero, that’s for sure. A couple generations later, the story lingers about their ghosts. Granny Lulu can’t move on for guilt, and Florrie can’t move on for want of vengeance. I reckon both spirits are still around and running circles ’round each other. Not sure how that works, but ghosts weren’t never a care of mine.”

  “Wow.” Neve nodded. “I’ve jumped right into a Scooby-Doo plot. I’ll be sure to let you know if I run into any ghosts, one probably chasing the other with a fry pan or something.”

  “Heck, you better fetch me if you run into Granny Lulu. She’d be mad as spit if I didn’t stop by to say hello.”

  Duke hadn’t shifted his curled position on the ground at the foot of the offending steps. His head twitched as they drew near. “Neve? Is that you?”

  “Yep, and I brought back-up.”

  “Back-up?” His incredulous tone made her want to kick him. Maybe not directly in his injured rib but close enough to send uncomfortable reverberations through it. “We’re twenty miles from the nearest town.”

  Twenty-six, actually, but who was counting each and every tedious mile in between Red Hill, the closest point loosely termed civilization, and Gavin’s cabin? Not her.

  She bent over Duke again. His beard had picked up some dirt and a blade of grass. “Ungrateful whelp.”

  “From Red Hill, maybe, but not from the nearest ranch.” Timothy stepped around Duke to enter his field of vision. “Cracked rib, eh? Two of my best cowhands are on their way. They’ll get you taped up good, and you’ll be making firewood of them rotten steps in no time.”

  Neve tapped her chin. Not a bad idea.

  Duke stretched his neck to angle his face toward Neve and peered up through one open eye. “Did he say cowhands?”

  “Whispering won’t stop him from hearing you.”

  Timothy smiled and worked his hands into the front pockets of his impossibly tight jeans. They’d put any pair of leggings Neve owned to shame. “What works on a cow ought to work on a man. Bones are bones.”

  Duke let his head loll to the side like he’d given up on life. His sleek hair had come loose from the tieback and fanned around his shoulders. “Only you, Neve. Only you.”

  Twigs snapped from the direction of the trailhead as a couple in their mid- to late-forties hurried toward them. A pear-shaped woman with a head of dark corkscrew curls and the same style jeans as Timothy, complete with a seemingly identical buckle, led the way, followed by a man in similar dress. Dappled sunlight reflected off his bald head. The hair appeared to have scrambled from his head t
o become eyebrows, which were black and bushy like a skunk’s tail. He had a blue duffel bag in his left hand.

  “The cavalry has arrived,” Timothy announced. “This here is Owen Pritchard and his wife, Laurel.”

  A lot of dipping heads. Owen hitched his chin at Duke. “This your man, here?”

  No, it’s other guy lying on the ground in a fetal position. Neve checked her sarcastic response. “He tripped coming down the steps and thinks he has a cracked rib,” she explained as Owen handed Laurel the duffel bag and dropped to a crouch to examine Duke.

  Duke coughed and winced.

  Laurel joined in on the touching and poking and pressing. “Might be cracked,” she finally declared, gaining her feet, while Owen continued to study the injury. “Not broken, luckily, but check in with a doctor when you get back to the city. When y’all headed out?” She aimed the question at Neve.

  “We aren’t headed anywhere. We’ll be spending the next eight weeks working on the cabin and living in a tin can at the end of the gravel road, up where we parked our car. I’m Neve Harper.” She offered her hand, and Laurel took it. “This is Duke. He’s only around to consult. Nonessential personnel.”

  Owen’s lips pressed together and his eyes squinted in concern. “Well, Red Hill has a decent physician. Make the trip to town and follow-up with an x-ray to be sure. Soon as you can, hear? We’ll tape it to help with the pain, but only for a few hours. It’ll heal better without a wrap on it.”

  Duke nodded miserably.

  Laurel hunched down again beside Owen and they worked together. He pulled a roll of adhesive tape from the duffel, at least three times the width of the stuff you’d pick up at a pharmacy. Veterinarian supply.

  Timothy must’ve read her mind. “There’s a large animal vet on the other side of Red Hill, but we’re so far out we’ve had to learn a lot ourselves. Laurel and Owen ain’t schooled proper, but they handle minor injuries at the ranch. Your friend should be fine.”

  Duke croaked something.

  Unable to catch it, Neve kneeled at his side and leaned in close. “What’s that?”

  “You told him we’re friends?” He took in a ragged breath. “I thought you hated liars.”

  Chapter 4

  “Neve, tell me the truth.”

  She growled and bared her canines the way Darcy the Pit did when she ran into a strange dog she didn’t like. Hopefully, Duke would take the hint. “For the last time, Laurel and Owen didn’t give you horse tranquilizers. Besides, they both decided it’s a muscle thing. No injury to the bone, and you’ll be fine by the end of the week.”

  Reclined into a half-laying, half-sitting position after sleeping through most of yesterday afternoon and on through the next morning, Duke gingerly lifted his arm, not without a slight grimace, and ran his fingers over the dusky purple bruise roughly the size of his palm. “But there’s no pain. I slept straight through the night. How’s that possible?”

  “Obviously anything is possible if my name can be mistaken for Ned, and you and I are given a single location trailer to share for the next eight weeks.” She made no attempt to soften the bitter hem of the remark.

  Irritated hardly did her mood justice.

  How Duke managed to wake up from a thirteen-hour nap and look like something out of a dirty lady’s magazine didn’t help smooth her temper, either. The sleek black strands of his hair draped over his shoulder, coming to rest their tips across his nipple. She wanted to run her thumb over the tiny hard bud if only to see the look on his face.

  Such a waste of beautiful male. A loss to females the world over, but the fact didn’t dissipate her agitation with their set-up. “Like I said last night before you conked out, get used to the sofa. I’m not giving up the bed. And if you think Darcy the Pit loves you, try getting into the bedroom while I’m asleep.”

  His eyebrows rose in lieu of a hands-up surrender. The injury to his ribs limited his usual gesture-happy communication. “Hey, I’m not taking the heat for the trailer mistake. It’s not a big deal, anyway. The next eight weeks are going to fly by, and the sofa bed is perfectly fine with me. I’m not complaining, am I?”

  Well, I am. She’d spent thirteen years living alone—longer if she took into account her lack of siblings. Ever since moving out of her parents’ house and into her first apartment at nineteen. No dorm life for her. She’d have ended up in prison for murder long before completing her degree in interior design. For the first time in her grown life, she had to share personal space with another human being on a semi-permanent basis. “Eight weeks may not seem like a long time, but I’m sure it feels long when the bathroom is coed.”

  “I’m gay, remember? I’m supposed to be meticulous and well-groomed.”

  “Supposed to be?” Her arms were already crossed. She added a challenging lift of one eyebrow.

  He rolled his eyes, still puffy from long hours of sleep, and waggled his fingers at her dismissively. “Complain all you want. Me, I’m glad I’m not sharing with Vince or any of his guys.”

  Neve ignored him as he closed his eyes and appeared to attempt going back to sleep. She’d work better without him, anyway. She sat on the crooked bench seat of the dinette table and sketched an approximate representation of the cabin. Simplest floor plan ever—a square. Also a problem. Gavin probably expected some kind of private sleeping and bathing area. “We’re going to have to install walls,” she murmured. “At least two for a bathroom, if we’re doing a studio-apartment style with the bed open to the rest of the space.”

  Did Gavin want an exposed sleeping area? Would he entertain at the cabin, use it for a lover’s retreat, or only visit alone?

  She tapped the eraser end of her stubby pencil on the thick page. “I need to get with Gavin for a few details before I can draw a floor plan. Some stuff is obvious—there’s no insulation or essential bathroom fixtures. But I need information. Speaking of, didn’t you have something to tell me?”

  One of Duke’s eyes opened, a cobalt slit against his pale skin and dark hair. Did she imagine the hint of trepidation behind his gaze? “What are you talking about?”

  She furnished him with a flat stare. “Did you bump your head when you fell? You said, mere moments before your tragic fall, there was some ‘other thing’ you’d yet to mention.”

  A mask of relief stole over his face. So, she hadn’t imagined his apprehension. Curious.

  “Right, right. Uh, well, Gavin had some last-minute requirements he neglected to get included in the paperwork. It’s a small complication. Nothing we can’t cleverly work around, I’m sure.”

  Neve’s head flopped forward, chin to chest like a limp doll. “You mean another complication. Because there’s already a list.” She straightened and ticked each item off on her fingers. “A single location trailer to share, meaning only one of us is likely to return to Little Rock alive or in possession of all their limbs. You’re injured and, despite it not being as serious as we first assumed, still means at least a week of bed rest, so we’re already down a team member. Then there are the structural concerns and the cat-fighting ghosts and—”

  “Neve!”

  She blinked. His eyes were squeezed shut, lines gathered in the outside corners like pleats. She pushed buttons. It was her thing. And normally, people let her. Sometimes, they whined, pouted, flinched, or ran the other away…but they didn’t shout. She cocked her head to the side and waited.

  His face took on a pleading expression, an impressive feat with eyes shut. “You’re giving me a headache. Yes, there are problems with the cabin, and less than ideal living circumstances. Yes, this is going to suck, but it will suck a lot more if we’re both being assholes, which is what will happen if you don’t get off my ass.”

  “I thought you liked things on your ass.”

  “I’m serious.” His eyes popped open. “Vince brought a whole team with him. Maybe one of them would like the honor of being your whipping boy, but I’m not interested in the position.”


  She had to give him credit. He blended seamlessly between malleable and showing off brass ones that almost made her proud. One day, she’d find out exactly how far she could get away with pushing Duke Kennicot. But not today. So, she let her snarky thoughts on what positions he did like skitter through her brain without passing her lips.

  He smoothed his hand over his face, a show of weariness, and ended with a tug on his beard. “I can leave tomorrow. Head back to Little Rock and give you the job and the trailer. Everybody wins.”

  “Like hell.” Gavin’s deal had been set stone. No Duke, no project. If he left, she’d be sent back to town right behind him. “You and I are going to strike a deal.”

  He craned his neck to observe her with obvious suspicion. He searched her face and narrowed his dark blue gaze. “Stipulations?”

  Neve stroked her chin and took a moment to consider. What, precisely, did she need to accomplish here?

  Gavin ranked first in her lineup of priorities. The college boys and their easy brush-offs were no coincidence or mere habit she’d formed out of desire for hot, young bodies. Better an ending she expected than to let herself truly care for someone who’d leave her anyway.

  And men always left. Real men. Grown, reliable, responsible, dependable men—the ones who paid their mortgage on time and brought home flowers for no reason. Those men always left. At first, they loved Neve’s candid approach to life. They adored her unwavering dedication to honesty and truthfulness. They liked knowing where they stood, how she felt, what she did and didn’t like in bed—things a lot of women kept tied down. But eventually, they grew weary of confronting the truth, because the truth wasn’t always a pretty thing. They wanted to hear how special they were, how tough and strong, how big; the best she’d ever had, the cleverest, the bravest, the sexiest.