by Liz Isaacson
The side door opened into a small kitchen area, with a U-shaped counter, a standard refrigerator he never used because he didn’t want to start the generator, and a sink. The biggest perk of the cabin was the running water, and Dylan liked the shower out here more than the one at his place on the ranch.
He unpacked his food and left it on the counter for later, wishing for at least the twentieth time that he had a dog of his own. Shane had gotten an Australian shepherd several months ago, and Cinna loved all the Royal brothers. Shane best, so she followed him all over the ranch. Dylan needed a companion like that, and he determined to get into the shelter again and see if they had any German shepherds. He’d looked several times, to no avail.
Life out in the cabin would almost be perfect if he had a dog to share it with. Once he’d gotten settled in the cabin, he headed out on the ATV to check the fences he’d just fixed. The brighter, newer wood seemed intact, as did the chicken wire he’d used to prevent even the smallest of foxes and coyotes from coming through.
He stood on the ATV while he drove, constantly moving his attention from left to right and back. The last thing he needed was to be caught unaware out here by a wild animal. Or a big rock he rammed his vehicle into. Or any number of other dangers that came when a man let his guard down out in the middle of nowhere.
The Texas sun beat down relentlessly, but Dylan actually enjoyed it. The heat, the sweat trickling from under the brim of his cowboy hat, the scent of dust in the air. There was nowhere he’d rather be than out here, doing this job.
“Okay,” he said aloud to himself. “There could be something better.” He gazed into the clear sky, not a cloud to be found. “Maybe if I was out here, doing this job, with Hazel….”
Four days passed before Dylan got another call. This time it wasn’t from the owner of the ranch, but an unknown Texas number. He’d spent two nights out at the cabin and hadn’t found any evidence of more creatures coming in and disturbing their herd.
Which was great, really. But he needed to get back out there in the next day or two and make sure things were still going well.
“Hello?” he answered, walking through his cabin toward the back door, hoping and praying with everything he had that it wasn’t his father, fresh out of the relationship he’d broken their family with, using a burner cell phone.
He was the only one home, but he’d always gravitated toward open space when talking on the phone. In general, he’d rather text than talk, but when a woman drawled, “Is this Dylan Royal?” with that edge of something non-Texan in the words, he was grateful for the modern invention of the telephone.
“Maybe,” he said. “If this is someone who’s never seen me dance with a baby.”
Hazel laughed, and he imagined the bright, free sound coming from her throat as she tipped her chin toward the heavens. He wanted to be there with her next time she laughed like this, and he couldn’t help the chuckles that came from his mouth too.
“I have some good news,” she said. “I’ve been assigned to your case.”
A smile burst onto Dylan’s face. He didn’t want to give away too much of the complete euphoria flowing through him so he grinned at the fields beyond the Cabin Community like a lunatic.
“I’m so glad our case got approved.” Very neutral, he thought. Nothing about her. “So what’s the next step?”
“I get to come out to the ranch and start the study,” she said. “It’s Friday today, so I’m wondering what your week next week looked like.”
Dylan thought he could maybe skip going out to the far zone tomorrow. “How about Monday?” he asked. “We can go out and get you all set up. How long do you need to be out there, making…notes or whatever?”
“Several days.”
Several days alone with her sounded fantastic, and Dylan worked to keep his thrumming pulse in check. “So maybe Monday through Friday?” he suggested. “I’ll just want to plan food and activities.”
“Activities?”
“Well, once you’re out there, there’s not a whole lot to do,” he admitted. It was why he’d worked on the doors, the curtains, the windows, the floor. “The herd is safe during the day. It’s at dusk and dawn that the observations need to happen.” A flash of pride stole through Dylan that he could even remember what she’d said she’d do during the case study.
“Right, dusk and dawn,” Hazel said. “What time should I be out at the ranch?”
He suggested ten, and she said she’d be there, and the call ended. As Dylan held his phone against his thigh, several questions ran through his mind. How had she gotten his personal cell phone number? Did she know what to bring out to the cabin? Did she have any nut allergies?
He didn’t want to spend five days out in the cabin without a hot meal, and he resolved that he would indeed need to make a trip out to the far zones so he could take out a hot plate, some simple cookware, and enough gas to keep the generator going for five days.
After all, he could eat protein bars and day-old muffins for a day or two. But Hazel certainly shouldn’t have to.
Chapter Four
Hazel gazed at herself in the mirror on Sunday morning, the bright white gems in her necklace making her much more sophisticated and chic than she actually was. She slipped three diamond—okay, cubic zirconium—studs in the holes in her ears, each a different size.
She liked dressing up. She liked shoes. She liked wearing her fun, flirty fit-and-flare dresses to church. The one she wore today was black and white leaf patterns that blended and blurred as the skirt extended to her knee. She’d paired it with the simple diamond-like jewelry and a simple pair of bright yellow heels.
She hardly ever got to wear heels on her first dates, because she stood five-foot-nine without them. But to church, she always wore heels. She hadn’t had a relationship get to sitting-by-each-other-at-church since Peter, so there was never any threat of towering over her boyfriend.
McKayla had called twice before Hazel couldn’t take it anymore and had picked up the phone. She’d listened to her best friend apologize about Peter and ask silly questions about Dylan.
Hazel hadn’t given any specifics, not even the man’s name. So she thought he was cute.
“More than cute,” she murmured as she slicked on a layer of clear lip gloss. She picked up a pair of yellow reading glasses she got at the drug store for five dollars and set them on her nose. Perfect. This was the absolute perfect outfit for church, and she told herself over and over she hadn’t taken this much care just in case she happened to see the strikingly handsome cowboy from Grape Seed Ranch.
Definitely not. She put this much effort into her appearance every Sabbath Day.
She arrived at the church seemingly at the same time as everyone else, inching forward as families, couples, and singles crossed the parking lot in front of her. After finding a space in the back, she headed for the door, grateful and glad for a job that allowed her most weekends off. For friends to sit with. For the gentle reminders of faith, family, and forgiveness she found inside the gray and white building.
There had always been a plethora of cowboy hats in the congregation. Hazel had honestly never looked for a man at church, but today, she did. A particular man, with coppery blond hair peeking out from under his charcoal-colored cowboy hat.
It was impossible to find him in such a short time, and before she knew it, the minister was standing up and McKayla was waving her forward like she was an air traffic controller.
Hazel slid onto the end of the bench just as Pastor Gifford welcomed everyone with his jovial smile and booming voice. She sighed, a happy little sound that signaled she’d made it through another week without too many catastrophes.
“What’s with the glasses?” McKayla hissed, her hand now firmly planted in Jason’s.
“They match the shoes.” Hazel lifted one leg so her friend could see the heels.
McKayla smiled. “Of course they do.” She turned her attention to the front of the chapel as Pastor Gifford start
ed talking about a few people in their congregation that needed help. Signups for food and visits were in the hall outside his office, and Hazel listened for the names of those in need.
When Pastor Gifford said, “And Widow Berneau has asked for help in her gardens and someone to talk to. Be as generous as you can,” before continuing with his sermon, Hazel wanted to get up and go sign up right then.
She adored Maggie Berneau, a little old lady with more fire than energy whom Hazel had signed up to visit on a whim. Now the older woman was one of her best friends, had taught Hazel how to bake bread, and could always make Hazel laugh. She’d stop by even if the signup list filled up.
A tug of guilt pulled against her conscious. She should’ve been over there to visit before now. It shouldn’t take a church signup sheet to get her across town to Freestone Street to check in on her friend.
As soon as the sermon ended, she hurried to the table and waited behind a couple of other women. She studied Maggie’s sheet, realizing she’d be out of town all week. In the end, she signed up for a slot that afternoon and one next Saturday before heading out and getting on home.
Three hours later, she knocked on Maggie’s door with one hand while the other kept a sour cream crumb cake balanced. The front yard needed to be mowed, and weeds had started popping their heads through the dirt in the flower beds.
Though she was excited to see Dylan again, Hazel couldn’t help wishing she’d be around this week to help with the outdoor spring cleanup that needed to happen.
“Mags?” she called when the older lady didn’t come to the door. She pushed it open and called again.
“Coming! I’m coming.” She appeared a few moments later, her wrinkled hand gripping the doorframe as she entered through the back door. Her snow-white hair was flatter than Hazel had ever seen it. When she saw Hazel, her whole being lit up. “Oh, Hazel, dear.”
Hazel set the cake on the kitchen counter and embraced the woman who was at least a foot shorter than her. “Why didn’t you call me?” she asked, holding onto Maggie’s slight shoulders and looking down into her face. “I would’ve come set your hair ages ago.”’
“Oh, pish posh,” Maggie said, waving away Hazel’s concern. “I know how busy you are.”
Hazel wasn’t that busy. “I made a sour cream crumb cake,” she said. “And I’m going to run home and get my curlers. We’ll get you all set while we catch up.”
“It’s not—”
“Maggie.” Hazel ran her fingers through the woman’s hair. “This is just not okay.” She grinned as she said it, hoping Maggie could feel the love and affection she had for her. “Please let me do this for you. I’m going out on a job all week, and I won’t be back until Saturday.”
“All right.” Maggie turned and hobbled into the kitchen. “I’ll put together some sandwiches to go with the cake while you’re gone.”
“Perfect.” Hazel hurried home and grabbed the items she needed. In a previous life, before Peter, she’d done hair out of her home. Sometimes the sting of missing hit Hazel hard, and sometimes she could walk by the beauty chair she’d stored in the car port without a single thought.
Today, she hesitated. She’d cut McKayla’s hair in a pinch, and once she’d told Maggie she used to set hair as easily as breathing, she’d been doing the older woman’s perms every three months.
She hadn’t even realized so much time had gone by. Sadness combined with guilt, and she vowed to set a calendar reminder in her phone so she wouldn’t forget about Maggie again.
Back at Maggie’s, she got to work while Mags chatted about her neighbors, her sister down in Tampa, and how much she loved listening to the birds singing in the morning.
“Speaking of birds,” Hazel said. “I met a man who can whistle just like them.”
“Is that so?”
“Yep, right here in Grape Seed Falls.”
“Who is he?”
“Oh, just a cowboy out at the Carver ranch. He’s, well.” She shrugged. “He’s part of the job I’m doing this week. He’s got some wolves or coyotes or something killing their cattle, and I’m going to do a case study on it to see if we can keep all the animals alive.”
She didn’t need to mention how utterly devastating Dylan was. Maggie wouldn’t know who he was, and Hazel didn’t need to sound like a schoolgirl with a big crush—even if she was one.
“Those boys out at Grape Seed Ranch came and did all my yard work one day,” she said. “Last fall. Nice bunch of men, they were.”
Why that didn’t surprise Hazel, she wasn’t sure. She had limited experience with anyone at the ranch, but the men she’d met seemed like the type of guys who’d show up with shovels and rakes and leaf blowers and take care of business.
She being the oldest, with only four younger brothers to talk to for advice, Hazel didn’t have a lot of opportunities to talk about her feelings, her crushes, or her heartaches. She talked to her mom every week, but for some reason, she hadn’t mentioned Dylan yesterday while she scrubbed her bathrooms and ran a duster over the end tables and other surfaces in her house.
He was a delicious secret, one she didn’t want to reveal quite yet. Sure, she’d said something about him to McKayla and Jason, but she hadn’t mentioned Dylan by name, savoring that for herself.
Maggie started talking about her daughter and granddaughter, and Hazel kept her on that topic for a while. Loretta was only a few years older than Hazel herself, but she had four children and lived in a suburb of Dallas.
Hazel had never felt even so much as a twinge of jealousy when she listened to Maggie talk about her daughter. But today…. Today something had changed. She wasn’t sure when, and she had no idea exactly what, but something had changed.
She’d grown up in a loud household, with lots of love and laughter, but she’d never really envisioned that life for herself. Her father and all four of her brothers ran their family carpet cleaning business, while their mother worked in the office, keeping financial records, arranging jobs, and holding everything together. Her mother was exceptionally skilled at that, and Hazel, well, Hazel wasn’t.
But she smiled at Maggie’s stories, asked questions about Loretta—who she’d met on several previous occasions and felt like she was good friends with—and spent a perfectly enjoyable afternoon with an old friend.
The following day found her at Grape Seed Ranch, her heart bobbing strangely in her chest as if it had come unanchored sometime during the night. She hadn’t arranged a meeting place for her and Dylan, but he’d mentioned he lived next door to the cabin where she’d met with everyone last week.
So she pulled up to the one next door and found a pretty Australian shepherd lounging on the grass at the bottom of the steps. “Hey, there.” Hazel crouched down to scrub the pooch behind the ears. “Is your daddy here?”
If Dylan was half as good with dogs as he was with babies, Hazel might propose by the end of the week.
Bootsteps sounded on the porch above her, and the dog got to its feet. “Cinna, come,” a man said, and the shepherd did exactly what her master said. She glanced up, her best smile on her face, only to find the co-foreman from the other night. Shane, if she remembered right. Not Dylan.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m looking for Dylan.”
“Oh, he’s over at the guest house. Or the homestead.” Shane gazed into the distance, his fingers absently running through his dog’s fur.
“We were supposed to meet at ten,” she said.
He brought his attention back to her. “He’ll be ready, I’m sure. It’s only quarter till.”
“Mind if I wait here?” She gestured to the steps, already moving toward them.
“Be my guest,” he said. “Want some coffee?”
She already felt over-stimulated, so she declined. Past the cabins, she caught movement as cowboys went about their chores, as a pair of people worked with a pair of horses out in a pasture without saddles or ropes.
The air smelled out here the way it did in town after it
rained, which was hardly ever. But the crispness of it was somehow preserved out here, with the straw, the animals, the cool grass.
Minutes later, the sound of an approaching ATV met her ears, and her heart took flight at the cowboy driving it. She stood and slicked her palms down her thighs, hoping she’d packed all the right things. This wouldn’t be her first foray out in the wilds of Texas Hill Country, and she knew enough to bring sunscreen, bug spray, lots of water, extra clothes—especially socks, incase they got wet—two pairs of boots, a couple of hats, and any special snacks that would make the days bearable.
Dylan was grinning before he came to a stop. He leapt from the ATV and approached her with the joyful clip of a man who’d been dying to see her. Could that be true? Hazel’s heart beat like it certainly could.
“Hey, there,” he said, stopping a healthy, respectable distance away. “I thought you might show up here. You’ve got a bag?” He glanced around, and she practically darted toward her truck parked in front of his cabin.
“Yeah, a duffle. Are we riding that thing out?” She lifted the army green duffle bag from the back of the truck. “Is my truck okay here?”
“If you want to leave the keys, Shane or Austin can move it. My brothers.”
“You and your brothers all work here?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Wow, could his shoulders be any broader? His hands any bigger and more powerful as he took her bag from her and slung it over his back. She handed him her keys. “Probably best to leave these so they don’t get lost.”
“I’ll leave them for Shane. Then he can move the truck if its in the way.” He dashed off a grin before taking the steps two at at time up to the porch. “Hey, Cinna-Winna. Where’s Shane?” He opened the door, her bag still swaying on his back. He said something undiscernable and laughter came out the front of the cabin.
Hazel tucked her hands into her back pockets and waited for Dylan to come back, her eyes straying to the idling ATV and the tiny seat which she’d share with him.