by Lesley Jones
His laughter cuts off, and his eyes narrow on me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I search around in my pockets for my phone, find it, open the saved email from Alma-May, and shove it in his face. He snatches it from my hand and stares at it; I have to hold in a laugh as he moves the phone farther away from his eyes so he can focus better.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, you can say that again.”
He shoots me a look, well, it’s more of a death glare actually, so I give him one right back.
“We cancelled all the bookings.”
“What?”
I take my phone back from him.
“Guys, can we take this up to the house? I’m kinda freezing my ass off out here,” Nelson asks.
“My pleasure,” the homeless old cowboy, who’s obviously too vain to wear glasses, replies before he turns and walks up the driveway.
Nelson sends the two officers home and walks beside me up to the house as I tell him about my renting the place for the next six months and exactly what happened when I turned up here tonight.
I ENTER THE CABIN BEHIND Sheriff Nelson and follow him into the kitchen. Homeless man is opening a beer, he offers one to the sheriff but ignores me, so I take one anyway.
I don’t look in his direction, but I can feel his eyes burning holes in me.
“Before you both start hootin’ and a-hollerin', you might want to remember that I’m the one with the badge, and I’m telling you both to be quiet unless I ask you a question. Are we clear?”
I feel like a little kid being told off, but I nod as I take a swig from the beer bottle. The beer’s shit and warm, but I’ve made a point of taking it without permission, so there’s no way I’m leaving it.
“Carmichael, why are you here?”
“It’s my house.”
“Yeah, I heard Ms Emily left it to you, but I thought you lived in some big fancy place in Aspen?”
“Well, yeah, I do. But I decided to come down and take a look at the condition of the old place. I was thinking of renovating before deciding whether to sell it or rent it out like Emily’d been doing the last few years.”
I stare at the woodgrain pattern on the timber floors and start to feel sick at what he—Carmichael, the cowboy—is saying.
“Miss Elliott has emails to show that she paid to rent this place out for the next six months. How’d that come about?”
“Well, I don’t know the answer to that, Nelson. After Emily died and I found out she left the place to me, I asked Alma-May at the rental agency that handles the bookings to cancel everything after October. I assumed that it’d been done.”
I watch Nelson rub his chin as both he and I take in what the not-so-homeless cowboy is saying.
Emily—God rest her soul—died and left this cabin to the homeless cowboy who is neither homeless nor a cowboy, but calling him one seems to piss him off, so I’m sticking with it. I rented this place for the next six months, my booking should have been cancelled by the not-so-efficient Almay-May, but somehow wasn’t, and now, here we were.
“I booked this place a while back and paid for the whole six months up front. Nobody contacted me to let me know of any cancellations.”
The sheriff’s radio crackles out what sounds like a voice disguised as static, and he replies, confirming that he’d cancelled the ambulance that had been called for my benefit.
While he’s distracted, I take a sneaky look at the cowboy and get so busted because he’s glaring right at me.
“Is there no way you could put off the renovations, Carmichael? Give Ms Elliott here some time to make alternative arrangements with regard to her accommodation?”
“No!”
“I’m not making alternative arrangements. I paid to stay here.”
We both speak at the same time.
“I’ll refund you. You’re not staying here.”
“Well, I’m not getting out. You’re obviously local; you can find somewhere else to kip. Surely, there’s someone out there willing to put up with your arsehole-ness.”
He moves to step towards me, all six odd foot of him and his very nice body. I put my hands on my hips and stare him down—or up—whatever. He stops when Nelson steps between us.
“Not on my watch, Carmichael. You might be a world-famous hotshot to some, but I remember the skinny kid that had manners and wouldn’t dream of putting his hands on a lady.”
Cowboy flinches at that comment, while I’m left wondering why he’s a world-famous hotshot. I’m pretty clued up on celebrities—it’s kinda my job to be—but I have no idea who this dude is.
Not a Scooby.
“What? I would never...I wasn’t gonna put my hands on her, even though she ripped half my beard out and sure as shit ain’t no lady.”
I stand my ground, hands on hips as I remain staring at him. As much as I’d like to, I don’t say a word. If I get lippy and he decides to kick me out, I have nowhere to go and no car to get there.
His eyes dart over my face and then travel down my body. He leans back against the worktop, crosses his long legs at the ankle, and takes a swig from his beer, never taking his eyes off some part of me.
“Son, it’s late, and I’m tired. It’s freezing cold outside with a snowstorm the size of Texas due to blow in and cause havoc for the next week at least.” Nelson pauses, lets out a long sigh, and takes off his hat before raking his fingers through the grey hair covering his head. He looks between the cowboy and me before continuing. “This is a big house. Surely, you could see your way clear to letting Ms Elliott stay here until she finds somewhere else?”
“I can’t stay here with him—” I bite my lip so hard I taste metal. What I really want to do is tell him to poke his shitty cabin as far up his arse as he can get it.
“You’ll be safe here with Carmichael; I promise you that. He might be an arsehole, as you so eloquently put it, but I’m pretty sure he’s still honourable.” Nelson gives me a wink. “Known him since he was a kid. He pretty much grew up in this house before he went off to college.”
I feel sick with tiredness and frustration. What the fuck am I supposed to do?
My gaze shifts back to the cowboy, and I watch as he chews on the bottom left corner of his lip, still frowning at me.
“Bedroom at the end of the landing, you can lock the door from the inside. The bed isn’t made up, and the room’ll be freezing, but if you open up the vents, it might be warm in about an hour. There are blankets in the closet outside the door, and it has its own bathroom.”
“Well, there ya go. That wasn’t too difficult, now was it?” Nelson points his hat in my direction. “Carmichael has my number, if you have any problems finding somewhere tomorrow, or need a ride to pick up a rental car, you be sure an’ let me know, Ms Elliott, ya hear me?”
“Thanks, I will. Thanks for everything, you’re a diamond.”
“Well, I’m not so sure about that, but it’s my pleasure, sweetheart.” He pauses and turns to the cowboy. “Now, you be nice and remember your damn manners, else you’ll have me to answer to.”
The cowboy gives a curt nod. “Yes, sir.”
Nelson lets himself out, leaving the cowboy and me to stare at each other in silence.
“Thank you for letting me stay.”
He shrugs his big broad shoulders, and I so wish he were skinny, scrawny, and as ugly as his personality, but he isn’t. He’s fit as fuck, and I just have to deal with that fact.
“Wasn’t a lot of choices, was there? Where the fuck were you going to go at this time of night in the middle of a storm?”
“I ain’t actually got a Scooby, that’s why I’m saying thanks.”
He stares at me blankly. I give a quick nod, turn, and head up the stairs.
T HE ROOM IS SO COLD that I have to fight off a polar bear just to get through the door. The vent for the heating is on the ceiling, and I can’t reach it. I don’t want to ask for any more help from the man downstairs, so I’ll have to go cold. I get
lucky in the bathroom, the vent is on the floor, so I open it and heat instantly starts to fill the room. I find some sheets and blankets in the cupboard on the landing and start to make the huge bed. That’s when I remember my cases are still outside.
I really don’t want to go back downstairs and face the cowboy, but I have no choice. My new luggage came with a lifetime warranty covering a lot of things, but I have no clue if snow damage is one of them.
I head back down the wide staircase and out the front door. The cases are so light that I’m able to push two of them at once. I place them inside the hallway, but in my rush to collect my third case, I turn, step one foot out onto the snow-covered veranda, and feel my foot slip right out from under me. Stupidly, so bloody stupidly, I put my hands out to either side of my hips, falling heavily to my right, I land partially on my already battered bum cheek and partially on my arm. The pain that shoots through the back of my hand and my wrist is excruciating, and I give out a cry.
Fuck my life. Fuck this night, and fuck snow and ice. Fuck Emilys who die and inefficient Alma-Mays. And absolutely fuck big, bad, brooding fucking cowboys.
I kick my legs out in front of me and bang my heels into the snow like a two-year-old having a tantrum. As I stare at the pitch-black sky, I scream in frustration at my predicament.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I don’t even attempt to hide the fact that I’m in pain and crying from my voice. “I fell. I think I’ve broken my arm. It really fucking hurts.”
There’s a moment of silence before I hear the sound of his big boots crunch on the snow beside me, then I give out a little yelp as he slides his arms beneath my knees and around my back and lifts me.
I bury my face in my own chest and let him carry me through the front door and into the kitchen, where he places me gently on the worktop.
“Which one?”
I finally look up at him. His jacket’s gone, but he has a long-sleeved T-shirt on. It’s in a mulberry kind of colour and suits his skin tone perfectly. Apparently, not even pain can turn off the fashionista in me.
“Which one?” he snaps at me this time.
“What?” I sniff.
“Fuck’s sake. Stop checking out my chest and tell me which motherfucking arm you think you broke.”
With absolutely no shame, I wail, “The right one.”
“Take your jacket off. I can’t see anything through your coat.” His voice is soft but doesn’t leave room for me to argue.
I unzip my Roxy duck down snowboarding jacket but then realise I’m a little incapacitated.
“Can you help me please?” I again sniff.
He helps me pull my left arm out, and then with surprising gentleness, he pulls the jacket inside out and releases my right arm from the sleeve.
I’m wearing a skin-tight Under Amour breathable top underneath. It’s a bit clingy, but I wasn’t actually expecting to be taking my jacket off in front of anyone tonight, so I dressed for warmth and comfort not to hide my boobs, which he has zoned in on.
“Stop checking out my chest and look at my broken arm, will you?” I use his words from earlier, and I swear I see his lips twitch behind that beard of his.
“I’m gonna have to cut this sleeve, it’s too tight for me to pull up, and your fingers are already starting to swell.”
“You can’t cut my top,” I whine.
“Well, I reckon you’ll have to take it off too then.”
His eyes, which are more of a golden colour than brown, are quite beautiful. Much like the rest of him.
“You’ll have to help me.”
His eyes widen, his brows rise, and we stare at each other for a few seconds. I have a vest on underneath my top, so it’s no biggie. He’s oblivious to this fact, and the perv thinks he’s gonna get a crack at the girls.
Got news for you, Cowboy, that ain’t gonna happen.
I unzip the funnel neck of my top, and the cowboy tugs on the left sleeve so that I can pull out my arm and lift it up and over my head. He then pulls, flipping the right sleeve inside out just as he had with my jacket.
“Shit,” we both say at the same time.
“I think I might need some ice,” I whisper as we both stare down at my already swollen wrist, hand, and fingers.
“I think you might be right. Good thing we have a whole county full of the stuff at our disposal.”
I look up at him, finding his eyes fixed firmly on my chest, and with my left hand, I pull his beard so that his eyes face my damaged arm.
“Oww, what the—”
“You think it's broken?”
“Can you wiggle your fingers for me?”
I wiggle my sausage-looking fingers, and they move slightly.
“A bit.”
“I think it might be severely sprained. Stay here while I get some—”
He stops speaking as he takes in the ink on my arm. I have a full sleeve on my left arm, which continues across my left shoulder, across my back, and around my right hip. It then travels all the way down my right leg—not that he knows that.
His eyes seem to dart over every inch of inked skin visible to him. I watch his throat move as he swallows, and I think I may actually have rendered him speechless—without even opening my mouth.
He clears his throat as his golden eyes meet mine. “Ice. I’ll get some ice.”
“You do that.”
Purely to take my mind off the throbbing pain in my wrist, I focus on his magnificent arse moving around his kitchen as he collects a tea towel from the drawer and heads towards a very large, very modern stainless steel side-by-side fridge freezer.
He scoops ice out of a drawer in the freezer and wraps the tea towel around it before heading back towards me and placing his makeshift ice pack gently on the back of my wrist.
“Hold this in place,” he orders. I do as I’m told—which, with a lot of concentration, this is something I am occasionally able to do.
I continue to watch him as he repeats his movements from earlier, only this time he slides the ice pack under my wrist.
He then proceeds to retrieve what I assume are a couple of painkillers from a box he takes from the pantry. He hands them to me, and I put them in my mouth before accepting a bottle of water he pulled from the fridge.
“You drugging me?” I question.
“Yep. They’re magic pills that stop you from talking, but they only work on beautiful girls. Not sure if you qualify.”
“Oh, and he’s a fucking comedian as well as a first aider. What other skills can you impress me with, Cowboy?”
He scratches at his beard and gives his head a slight shake. “You have a smart mouth for a little-bit, anyone ever tell you that?”
All the time.
“And you should quit with the cussing. It doesn’t become you.”
“Fuck you.”
“Charming.”
We stare at each other in silence for a few seconds, and I feel a bit mean for being rude. He didn’t have to help me out with my arm, but he did, and he did it with a gentleness that surprised me.
“So, where’d you learn the first aid skills?”
“Played a lot of football, got a lot of injuries, and learned how to fix myself up.”
“By football, I assume you mean that game where men wear lots of padding, run along carrying a wonky ball, knock other men out of the way until they reach a line, where they then proceed to throw down the wonky ball and score a point, or a goal, or something similar? Would that be the game you’re referring to?”
He folds his arms across his chest and leans back against the worktop opposite where he sat me.
“It would be the game that’s played something like the way you described that I’m talking about, yes.”
I nod and then shake my head. “Always puzzled me why you would call that football when so much of the game is played with the hands. The foot and the ball, rarely actually come into contact.”
“Well, what would you call it?”
&n
bsp; “Big-men-that-are-scared-of-getting-hurt-so-they-wear-lots-of-padding-while they-run-around-ball.”
“Now who’s being a comedian?”
“I’m female, so it’s comedienne.”
“What’s the difference?”
“We’re actually much funnier.”
That earns me a smirk, and I swing my legs while sitting on the worktop, basking in the satisfaction that I’ve almost made him smile.
His eyes, once again, roam up my legs, arms, and chest, causing goose bumps to race across my skin. He’s blatant in his perusal, and there’s absolutely no shame in his golden eyes as they meet mine. It turns me the fuck on.
“You cold?”
He gestures with a nod of his head towards my chest, and I know, without even having to look, that my nipples are erect enough to hang a coat on.
“My wrist is wrapped in ice, so yeah, I’m freezing.”
I’ll be fucked if I’m gonna look at my nips to confirm my suspicions, or if I’m gonna let him think that I’m embarrassed—because of course, I’m so not.
“Shit, my suitcase is still outside,” I blurt, suddenly remembering where I was heading when I slipped over.
“They’re in the hallway. I moved them to the bottom of the stairs. I’ll take them up for you when you head up.”
“Did you get the third one?”
“Third? I thought there were two?”
“Three. The third’s still outside, it’s where I was going when I slipped.”
Without a word, he leaves the kitchen, and I know he’s gone outside when I feel the cold air, let in by the open front door, dance around my legs.
The door slams shut. “Jesus, it’s fucking cold out there. Brr.” He walks back in rubbing his hands together, and it’s my turn to notice his nipples poking through his T-shirt.
“You cold?” I repeat the question he asked and gesture with my head in the same manner.
“Not as cold you, apparently.” His eyes are back to being locked onto my chest. I feign indifference and give a loud yawn.
“I need to get to bed. On top of enduring an eleven-hour flight and navigating US customs without being shouted at, I’ve been physically assaulted by a cowboy, had to take down a polar bear to get to my bedroom, and sustained a near fatal injury whilst battling severe and extreme weather conditions in an attempt to retrieve my luggage—all while having not had a wink of sooty in over twenty-four hours.”