by Shey Stahl
A loud noise shakes the windows in the house.
“Did you hear that?” Morgan asks, sitting forward as his neck cranes forward toward the large windows overlooking the field behind my house.
I set my beer on the coffee table in front of me. “Maybe snow falling from the roof?”
He stands up. “No, it was definitely louder than that.”
I look toward the girls’ room, thinking one of them fell out of bed or a tree fell outside. With the winds nearing fifty miles an hour and the lights flickering every couple of minutes, I wouldn’t be surprised if the power goes out soon.
“It sounded like something hit hard,” Morgan notes, standing up.
We move around the house, trying to see what the noise was, when I notice what looks to be brake lights illuminating in the whiteout near the repair shop.
“That’s weird.” I reach for my jacket near the door to the garage and the keys to the side by side. “Looks like there’s a car up near the shop.”
Morgan sets his beer on the kitchen island and stares out the window. “Maybe Pops is up there checking on the storm?”
“Doubt it. His old ass is probably dead asleep right now. I’m gonna head up there for a minute to check it out.”
He nods and grabs his own jacket. “I’ll come with you.”
The repair shop is near the main road on our property, within plain sight of my house, so I leave the girls sleeping. Probably frowned upon by most parents to do this, but having them out in thirteen-degree weather seems like an even worse decision on my part. And it’s two in the morning.
Inside the garage, I start up the side by side and grab a couple of flashlights. Sitting in the driver seat, I pull my beanie cap down over my ears and zip my jacket.
Hitting the garage door opener, Morgan retrieves two more beers from the fridge and sets them in the cup holders. “You can never be too prepared.”
I smile and turn the key, the engine rumbling to life. Just as we’re getting ready to pull out of the garage, I notice both girls standing in front of the vehicle dressed in their snow gear.
Morgan laughs, shaking his head. “Where’d they come from?”
“They probably never went to sleep.” I frown because what the fuck? I lean to the left and hang out the side. “You took over an hour to get your pajamas on, and you get your snow gear on in five minutes?”
“Can we come?” Camdyn asks, eager.
“What are you doing up?”
Camdyn puts her arm around a very sleepy Sev. “We can’t sleep.”
I snort, noticing Sev’s pants and jacket are on backward, but she doesn’t seem to care. She stares at me as if she’s sleepwalking again. Sighing, I motion behind us. “Get in. Make sure you buckle up.”
They both hop in, and Morgan looks over at me. “Pushover.”
I put the side by side into gear. “Says the guy who bought Camdyn a five-thousand-dollar saddle.”
He shakes his head. “That’s what uncles do. Dads are supposed to stand their ground.”
“Uh-huh.” Right out of the garage, the wind and snow give us a beating. The shop is less than a half mile away, but it’s brutal, and the wind feels like it’s tearing my face apart. Forget breathing through your nose in the frigid air.
Thankfully the girls know the drill and have their faces covered with their jackets. The only thing peeking out is their little eyeballs.
Through the snow globe around us, I can faintly see through the windshield. I can’t be sure, but it looks like a car is in the side of the shop.
Morgan leans forward, squinting. “Is that a car?”
“Looks like it.” I adjust the wipers on the side by side and speed up on the trail we’re on, sliding around in the thick powdery snow pilling up along the path. It’s so thick we struggle to get through and even get stuck a few times. The girls squeal in the back with excitement, and though it’s late and I’m kinda drunk and shouldn’t have my kids outside, I smile because their laughter is worth it.
At the end of the trail, I glance toward the fence line as we approach the shop from the back. The fence is down, in pieces, and a set of tire marks lead to the shop.
Morgan shines a flashlight at the shop. “Well, that explains the noise.”
“What happened, Daddy?” Camdyn asks from behind me.
“I don’t know.”
“Looks like they spun out,” Morgan notes, reaching for his beer and his gun he carries everywhere he goes. You can never be too prepared when you live in the country. We once had a guy hit a buck on this road, came up to dad’s house, and pulled a gun on him. You get all kinds of crazy people out here.
I follow the tire tracks to see what looks to be a silver Mercedes 500 SL smashed into the side. All that’s showing is the back half. “Fuck. This is going to be expensive.”
I pull up to the front, shut the engine off, and pocket the keys. With both girls in tow, I unlock the shop door to make sure whoever it is that lost control is okay. Yeah, I’m pissed about the damage, but I certainly don’t want my girls seeing their first dead body. In person. We’ve discussed their viewing habits while with their uncle.
I motion toward the office. “You two sit in here while Uncle and I check this out.”
Flipping on the lights, Morgan sighs at the sight before us. “Jesus Christ.”
It’s a fucking mess. Blood and deer carcass is embedded in the windshield, and debris from the building surrounds it. While the shop wasn’t in the greatest condition before, now it has a hole in the side, a Mercedes plugging it, and a white-tail buck as a hood ornament.
Making my way around the side of the car, I notice a woman in the front seat moving around. She spots me and waves her hand out the window. “I’m so sorry if this is your shop, or your animal. But this fucker hit me first.”
I smile, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because here she just drove through the side of a building and she’s making jokes, or that I’m in shock and all I can do is smile because I’m pissed off. I survey the damage to the building. Siding. Roof. Maybe some structural damage.
And her car… radiator, front end, windshield, airbag deployed.
I look to the woman again, stunned she’s alive. “Are you all right?”
She’s bleeding from her forehead and trying to get out of the car, only her door is pinned shut by our air compressor.
I move the welder in my way and then walk around the front of the car to the passenger side door. “You can get out this side.”
Morgan eyes the buck. “Nice. A lot less work to fill the freezer this way.”
The woman stares at him, handing me her suitcase in the process. “You’re welcome.”
Setting her bag on the floor, I yank on the door only to have it groan in the process. The woman manages to get out, and I notice the inside of her car before I look at her. Amongst the glass and blood from the deer are clothes and candy wrappers. “How’d you end up out here? You’re a ways from the highway.”
“I was planning to stop in Amarillo for the night and had to pee.” She frowns, wiping the blood from her face with the sleeve of her sweater. I hand her a rag from my workbench. She takes it and presses it to her head. “Then I couldn’t find my way back, and this jerk was standing in the road. Staring at me. I freaked out and now I’m here.” Rubbing her hands together, she shivers. “Goddamn, it’s cold here.”
I peel my jacket off and hand it to her. “Here, put this on so you don’t go into shock.”
“Gentleman. Wow. Didn’t think they still existed in this world.”
Winking, I take a look at her more closely as she shoves her arms into my jacket that’s three times too big for her. She’s tall, slender, bright blue eyes with thick dark lashes framing them, and despite the spark in her words, I can tell she’s in shock.
I move around the car to see my kids standing in front of us. Sev eyes the deer. “Can I have his spiky things?” she asks, a mouthful of potato chips.
I don’t even want to kno
w why this kid would want antlers. Probably to cast a spell of someone.
“I thought I told you guys to stay in the office.”
Camdyn digs through her own bag of chips. “We’re bored.”
Morgan yanks the deer carcass off the hood and onto a tarp he’s laid out. Camdyn frowns at the smear of blood on the hood. Camdyn looks up at the woman wearing my jacket and sniffing the sleeves. “Why you kill him?”
Why is she smelling my jacket? Maybe it stinks? I try to remember the last time I wore it. Today. All day pretty much.
“He killed himself,” the woman tells Camdyn, smiling at her kindly.
Sev reaches for the hood to touch the blood, and I have to grab her. “Don’t touch that, girly.”
“Why not?”
“Because.” I haul her into my arms and glance at the woman. “This is going to take some time to get out of here, and with the snow, that’s not happening tonight.”
“Is there Uber or something out here where I can get a ride into town?”
I laugh. “Not out here, honey. There’s no getting out of here tonight.”
“Oh, uh.” Her eyes dart around, her entire body shivering. “I can sleep in here then, if that’s okay.”
Morgan smirks. I hand him a “shut the fuck up” look. “We’re gonna get this buck out of here, and then we’ll figure out what to do.” I pull out a stool from near my toolbox. “Here, sit down.”
She does, staring down at her cell phone in her hand that’s useless out here. There’s sadness on her face. Probably because she smashed into the side of a building, and she’s scared, but it’s more than that. A protectiveness stirs inside me, and I want to wrap my arms around her and tell her everything’s going to be okay. I itch to move closer, envelope her in a hug, or more. A draw I hadn’t expected pierces through me, and I step back, away, unprepared for it.
The girls return to the office, and I help Morgan load the buck into the back of the side by side. He grins. “Where’s she going to go?”
My throat feels dry. “I don’t know.”
“She can’t stay with me.” He bites back laughter, lifting the buck into the back and squinting into the falling snow.
I stare at him, shivering in the cold and wishing heat into my hands. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want Carly taking me for everything I have, and if I bring her home, she will.”
I shut the tailgate of the side by side. “Where are your balls?”
“Shut the fuck up.” He scowls at me, knowing he only has one. “Why can’t she stay with you?”
“I have kids,” I point out, as if this shouldn’t have been obvious already.
“So?”
I blink slowly, my body frozen as we walk back toward the shop. “What if she’s a serial killer?” Look at her. No way she’s a serial killer. My reasons have nothing to do with my kids and everything to do with below my belt. A girl in my house that looks like that? Um, no. Bad idea.
“What, you think she’s hiding an axe up her ass? Don’t be a pussy.”
I don’t want to think about her ass, but I am now.
And then he says quite possibly the most insane shit I’ve ever heard come out of his mouth. “She can stay in the bunkhouse.”
“Fuck that,” I say before I can stop myself. I don’t know why, but the idea of her around a bunch of cowboys sends an instant summersault to my stomach and chest.
Morgan arches an eyebrow, smirking. “So she’s staying with you?”
“Better than a bunch of roughnecks that haven’t seen tits in years.”
He laughs. “That’s not true. Betsy gives them a show from time to time. And most of them are married.”
I eye my brother carefully. “Didn’t stop you.”
“You know.” He shoves me hard. I slip in the snow and land on my ass. “You’re being a real dick tonight.”
“Fuck you,” I mumble, picking myself up and dusting off my jeans. “You know what I mean.”
He does. Those guys, I’m not sure what their morals are or if any of them have ’em. We have one girl on the ranch, if you can call Betsy a girl. Sure, she has tits and an ass, but she’s been ridden hard and put away haggard. Twice my age, she talks like a trucker, has spent way too much time in the sun, and her hands are more calloused than mine. Married or not, I’m pretty sure every cowboy here, aside from me and Morgan, has fucked her a time or two.
I shiver at the thought of Betsy naked. Nope. Not an image I want.
Inside the shop, the girls follow us back to where the woman is staring at her bloody car. This chick wearing my jacket, I can think of some things I’d like to do to her. I let my eyes drift from her dark hair to her leather boots to the skintight jeans she’s wearing.
She spots me and the corners of her mouth turn up. “Sorry about all this.”
Do you notice the way I shift my body toward hers and unintentionally breathe in? That’s a man who hasn’t had any in a while. “I have a couch. You could stay there.”
Her shoulders lift and then fall, my jacket on her looking like it’s going to swallow her whole. “Okay.”
Camdyn tugs on my hand. “She can sleep with us.”
I stare at Camdyn and Sev, who is now sound asleep in Morgan’s arms. “You don’t even know her,” I whisper.
“Neither do you,” she whispers back. “She can sleep in Sev’s bed.”
“Where’s Sev going to sleep?”
“I don’t care.”
And sadly, she doesn’t.
I help the woman with her bag when she reaches for my hand. “Thank you. My name is Kacy Conner.”
I shake her hand, fighting through the urge to bring her body flush with mine. “Barron Grady.”
She stiffens, eyes falling to the girls. “Barron Grady?” she repeats, as if she’s heard my name before. “Thanks for letting me stay with you tonight.” Her words come out forced, and I chalk it up to the cold, but there’s something in her tone that’s off.
With Kacy in the back with the girls, we drop Morgan off at his house with the buck and then head up the road to my house. I drive faster than I usually would with the girl in the side by side, but it’s so fucking cold I fear my balls have become ovaries at this point.
It’s when we pull up to the house and are inside the garage I think maybe I’ve made a bad decision. I watch with rapt attention as she peels my jacket off and hands it to me. I discretely check out the outline of her breasts and the curve of her waist. The plumpness filling her jeans in the back and the insane urge I have to grab her and haul her onto my lap.
Okay, balls are back, but so is my semi. Fuck. This is going to be harder than I initially thought.
Literally.
Maybe I should have let her stay in the bunkhouse.
No. Fucking. Way.
With a capital F!
KACY
What the fuck was I thinking? I know who he is. It’s obvious. How in the world did I manage to run into him out of all the places I could have crashed into a deer?
Oh, right, I wasn’t. But have you ever heard the sound of someone’s voice and have your knees weaken?
I have now. In Tara’s husband. Ex-husband? No, he refuses to sign the papers, so definitely still married. I wonder if he knows about her getting engaged. Or that she’s desperate to tie the knot with the actor dude that she’s sent the papers back three times in the last few months. All the while, Barron refuses.
I should tell him that I know who he is, that his wife’s the biggest bitch in Brentwood, but knowing I won’t be staying long, leads me to believe I shouldn’t. What’s a little white lie from a girl that’s not planning on staying in this town?
He has kids, for Christ’s sake. I should keep my mouth shut and not invade his privacy.
So I remain quiet as he puts his kids to bed for what he tells me is the second time tonight, and hands me a blanket, a pillow, and warmth I hadn’t expected from someone like him. I think I had in my head that he’d be just as col
d and aloof as Tara, but he’s not. There’s a kindness to his eyes, a gentleness with his kids, and the way he looks at me, well, I know what a man does when he’s attracted to a woman, and I bet if I climbed on top of him, he’d have no complaints.
After returning his jacket to him, my body smells like him—leather, smoke, grease, all things southern and manly.
Damn it. Of all the places I could have crashed my car, why’d it have to be his shop?
Sighing, I peer out the large windows in what appears to be his living room. It’s a nice house. Nicer than I would have expected by the way Tara made him out to be some kind of country boy living in the sticks. A grand floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace draws my attention to the middle of the room as the rest of the home seems built around it. A dwindling fire cracks in the background, the orange flame captivating, giving almost a serene feel with the snow falling in the distance.
“The couch isn’t all that comfortable.” His presence behind me startles me, and I jump at the sound of his voice. “But it’s better than a cold shop.”
I turn to face him, digging my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. “Does it usually snow like this?” I ask, trying to make conversation and ease the awkwardness.
He shakes his head but doesn’t make eye contact with me. “Not usually like this, but every once in a while, a storm rolls through.”
“Like tonight,” I note, smiling. I take in his facial features holding my attention. Dark hair that’s matted to his head from his beanie. High cheekbones, straight nose, strong, defined jaw. Like a Southern, bulkier version of James Dean with a scruffy face and mysterious dark eyes. He has the look Hollywood tries for, but he has effortlessly.
He motions me forward and into his kitchen, where he’s holding a wet towel and a first-aid kit beside him. Knocking his knuckles on the counter, he smiles. “Let’s take a look at that cut.”