A Broken Cowboy Read online

  A full two hours passed before Mimi felt anything close to pleased with the kitchen, but finally elbow grease and lots of soap won out. She put away her recently purchased supplies, and went to make up the couch to sleep on, vowing to get to the loft upstairs first thing in the morning. As she rested her head on her new pillow and stretched out her weary body, she turned over on her back and looked up at the beautiful high ceilings of her cabin. Mimi squinted her eyes at the strange black markings dotting the ceiling, hundreds of small black ovals, then ran from her home screaming again as one of the markings moved. Several other bats stretched out their wings as she screamed, obviously alarmed by the noise. Mimi snatched her blanket and pillow off the couch and ran out, slamming the door behind her.

  The next morning, Mimi was awaked by the feeling that she was being watched. She opened her eyes and yelled again as a face appeared only inches from hers.

  “You sure do scream a lot,” Gabriel said. “Why are you asleep on your porch?”

  Mimi tried to stretch but the pain in her back was too great. She sat up, her brown kinky hair standing up in every direction. “Because there are bats in my house,” she explained somberly, fighting back tears as part of her new policy of not crying ever again about her home. “Between the bats, the raccoons, the squirrels, and the snakes, I figured I might as well live outside since the outside has decided to come in.” She pulled her blanket around herself to ward off the chill, and because this stranger was eyeing her shirt a little too familiarly for her liking.

  “Oh. That explains your second round of screaming yesterday. Why don’t you just get rid of the bats?”

  “And how do you propose that I do that?” she demanded, too tired, weary, and heartbroken to remember her manners.

  “With a broom.”

  “A broom? I’m just supposed to go swatting at those things and hope they don’t attack and land in my hair?”

  “That’s a myth. Bats don’t nest in people’s hair.” Nothing seemed to faze this man, not even Mimi’s complete lack of knowledge about the animals that took her place in the house.

  “Fine. I’ll get a broom and start chasing out the bats.”

  “Be sure and open all the windows first or they’ll just fly around the room getting mad. As for the snakes, they’re only there because you have mice.”

  “Mice? I didn’t know about the mice.” She took a deep breath and held it, refusing to let this get her down. Besides, what were mice compared with bats and snakes?

  “Oh sure. Make sure all your food stuff is put up in containers. Better yet, you might want to keep it in the refrigerator.”

  “I will, thanks,” Mimi replied in a defeated voice. “Hey, this outhouse over here…that’s not the only bathroom, is it?”

  “Of course not,” Gabriel answered with a completely blank expression.

  “Oh, thank goodness. That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.” Mimi breathed a sigh of relief and smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours, but it was short lived.

  “You now own five hundred acres of bathrooms,” Gabriel replied before turning and walking away.

  Mimi forced herself to make good on her new vow: no more tears. But that was a promise that she feared she would break over and over, every single time a new and strange piece of news fell in her lap. And from now on, screaming was to be reserved for life or death situations. Unfortunately, she broke that last promise when she ventured into her outhouse, pulling open the door and seeing the massive spider web built so thick across the door frame that it almost blocked the view of the inside. Okay, NOW there’ll be no more screaming, she thought, taking a stick and knocking down the spider web before flinging the stick as far into the nearby woods as she could.

  Today’s the day I take back my house, Mimi thought as she put her hand on the knob of cabin a few minutes later. Those animals can either move on out or get used to having me as a roommate.

  After working most of the morning on the upstairs loft and successfully inviting most of the bats to leave—checking for their telltale droppings throughout the house—Mimi had most of a bedroom completed. The mattress might be worth salvaging since the former owner had never even taken the plastic off it, but she still dragged it out into the yard for some fresh air and to get the musty, closed-house smell out of it.

  Around what Mimi thought must have been lunchtime, she headed downstairs to the kitchen to begin making herself some lunch. She found a pot from the stash she had washed yesterday and began filling it from the tap, a little worried when the water didn’t pour out as readily as it had the night before and carried with it a slight brownish tinge.

  She set it on to boil and peeled some potatoes, throwing the peels in with the boiling water the way her grandmother used to when she made mashed potatoes. Then she opened one of the small packages of dried meat that Sarah had helped her pick out, slicing it and placing the pieces in a bowl with a little butter. When the potatoes were finally boiled, she drained off most of the water and dumped them in with the meat and butter, pleased with her first real home-cooked meal in her cabin.

  Mimi took her bowl and mug of coffee leftover from that morning’s pot and sat on her porch, pulling up one of the stumps to use it as a side table. She tested the remaining intact rocker with several pushes of her hand before gently sliding into it, eating her food and watching the clouds pass by overhead. Off to the west, darker clouds moved ominously in her direction, making her painfully aware that her roof needed patching. She finished her lunch and darted in the house, positioning a pot under each visible hole, ready to move them into more accurate position if the rain started up.

  Pots, Mimi thought to herself, there was a weird looking pot in the pantry when I was cleaning up last night. Mimi ran to the pantry and found the enormous metal pot with a hinged, locking lid, a spigot jutting out at the bottom.

  Realization dawned on her that this pot served a very real function. She hefted the large pot to the front porch and placed it on a stump in the yard, opening the lid to let the rainwater in. Fresh water! she thought, mentally patting herself on the back for her own ingenuity.

  Gabriel appeared out of nowhere. “That’s for washing your clothes, silly,” he called out as he walked by, not even slowing down. She watched in silence as he continued on past her cabin on foot without stopping.

  Well, shoot. At least she could wash her clothes with the rainwater she collected, if it ever did rain. She went to ask Gabriel where he washes his clothes, but he was gone. She figured the smug little know-it-all probably beat them on a rock in the river.

  But he was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t possible, there was no way he could have disappeared in the field around the cabin that fast, so he had to be lurking nearby somewhere. Mimi felt the hair rise up on her neck, knowing that he was maybe around, ready to jump out and say something snarky. She could almost feel him near, which was a foreign, weird feeling, one that made no sense.

  This place had to be messing with her. She looked up at the rock formations and for the first time thought she saw hollowed out places that could be caves, caves that could hold just about anything. Mimi could almost feel other sets of eyes watching her, an unsettling feeling that made her glad for the first time that Sarah had insisted that she buy the gun. She looked over through the open cabin door and noticed where it hung on its pegs within easy reach, helping her be ready for anything.

  You won’t be ready if you’re not willing to shoot the damn thing, Mimi thought sourly. She took a deep breath, and knew she had to set up a target and practice if she was ever going to learn to stop being uncomfortable with it.

  Mimi dragged the now very handy stump out away from the cabin and propped it against a fallen tree trunk, then found a nail and pushed the paper target through it and used her boot heel to hammer it into the stump lightly. She set up the rifle the way Sarah had taught her, took aim, closed her eyes, and fired.

  Not even close.

  Luckily, the box of ammo came wit
h a lot of the little dull gray bullets. She tried again, once again not even hitting the stump, let alone the margin of the large paper target. Mimi kept trying, not one to let a little thing like complete and total incompetence stop her from working towards her goal.

  As Mimi lined up the site on the gun and took aim at the target, a large, weathered hand reached out and wound around hers, helping her hold the barrel steady in its warm grip. A second hand covered hers as her finger shook nervously above the trigger. Hot breath slid across her cheek as Gabriel’s face hovered beside hers, steadying her as she aimed.

  Mimi fought the urge to melt into his warm arms, painfully aware that this was the closest she’d been to a man—any man, let alone one as built and good-looking as Gabriel—in a long time. Failed love was the first thing on the list of what had been wrong with her life back home, so much so that she knew coming out here and living like a hermit would at least mean she couldn’t get her heart broken again.

  “Don’t close your eyes,” Gabriel said softly in the sexiest, huskiest whisper Mimi had ever heard. She couldn’t see them from this angle, but she could imagine his green eyes staring straight ahead, willing the gun where he wanted it to go. “Look at the target, line up the site. Let out your breath, and squeeze the trigger.”

  Mimi followed his suggestions as well as she could, finding it hard to concentrate on anything other than the feeling of him standing so close to her. She fired, and was amazed to see that the shot at least hit the target, if not exactly in the middle. She turned to thank him, but looked and Gabriel was nowhere to be found.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Life at the new ranch picked up the pace a little bit as Mimi’s dreams of quiet and rest fell apart, starting with that first rain storm. Pretty much every day after that was an exercise in keeping herself fed, clothed, housed, and safe. She was lucky enough to find a few precut pieces of board that she was able to nail place over the worst holes in the roof, enough to hold until a professional could come out and redo that whole thing. By the next time Sarah stopped by to take her to town, Mimi planned to have the small chicken clutch ready for a few layers and would get enough corn to feed them until she started planting things on her own. Beyond that, she ordered some seeds from an online nursery and worked at overturning the soil near the house, planning to put in a garden and start with some fall and winter vegetables.

  That small garden led to the final—and worst—surprise: all of a sudden there was no water. The faint brownish tinge coming from the tap quickly gave way to a full brown sludge, and then nothing. The spigot outside in the yard produced the same results. As Mimi stood staring at the useless spigot, wondering what to do, Gabriel appeared for the tenth time out of thin air, standing frighteningly close to her, looking down at the pipe jutting out from the ground as well.

  “Your well has run dry,” he said blandly, almost as though he was asking if there was a good price on lima beans at the store that day. Mimi blinked at the sudden sound of his voice, completely unconcerned as it was about the fact that she now had no water. No roof could be dealt with, and animal roommates could be worked around, but even someone as new as Mimi was to this lifestyle knew that no water meant she couldn’t live out here.

  “Oh. Isn’t there a spring around here somewhere?” she asked naively, fully intending to tote water, if it came to that. She wasn’t about to let the lack of modern conveniences stop her.

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  “There’s no spring? No creek? Not even a pond?” she demanded, getting more and more panicked as she realized there was no source of water close by.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “This ranch is called ‘The Watering Hole!’ How can there be no water?” Her breath was coming faster and faster as this final blow to her plans for the ranch hit home.

  “There used to be a watering hole. Now there’s a mud puddle. That’s why the previous guy had a well dug. It’s dried up, so you’ll have to dig another one.”

  “Dig?” she asked, turning to look at him and taking in another glorious glimpse of his lightly tanned skin, the rugged and somewhat scary tattoos, and those stunning eyes. “I’m pretty new at this, but even I know that a well goes really far down, like fifty feet or sometimes more. I don’t have a way to dig a well.”

  “You’ll have to find some one to do it then.” And Gabriel walked away.

  “Wait up a second!” Mimi called, tired of his disappearing act. “Isn’t there someone in town who can do this? And a roofer, while I’m thinking of it? I could really use a handyman around here.”

  He stopped and answered her without turning around. “Ask in town for a guy to do your well. And I can fix the roof. But it’s not free.” Then he kept walking, like always without a backwards glance.

  When Sarah finally came for Mimi at the end of the week, the newbie rancher had more questions for her about the caretaker than she did about working her own farm. But those questions would have to wait, as pressing needs like shelter and water took over.

  Sarah gave her the names of some people they could call once they made it to town, but ruined Mimi’s good day with the news that digging a well was easily a few thousand dollars, as was putting on a roof, regardless of how well you knew the guy doing the job.

  “Speaking of how well I know him,” Mimi began, hinting that she had some questions about Gabriel, “how well do you know him?”

  “Hmm, not very well. I only used to see him from time to time, but that was before the former owner died. A few people in town think Gabriel may have had something to do with the old man’s death, if you know what I mean,” Sarah said knowingly.

  “What? What do you think?” Mimi asked, suddenly afraid as she remembered all the times that Gabriel had appeared as though silently stalking his prey, only to stand far too close to her before running off.

  “Well, promise you won’t tell a soul…” Sarah began, her voice dropping somewhat as she looked around to make sure Gabriel wasn’t already standing near them.

  “I swear…”

  “You promise?” she asked, her eyes getting very wide as she dropped her voice to a near whisper.

  “I promise,” Mimi answered, leaning close. Concern had already spread over her face.

  “I’m just teasing,” Sarah said with a laugh at Mimi’s expense. “The old man had cancer, they just found it too late because he didn’t go to the doctor regularly. I was joking!” She laughed in a good-natured way, then realized she’d upset Mimi. “Oh, I’m sorry, I was only playing! Gabriel is harmless, really. He’s just…quirky. And a little weird. More than a little but he’s okay.”

  “What exactly do you mean by quirky? My mama was quirky, and she’d shoot you for touching her remote control.” Mimi was still sour from falling victim to Sarah’s joke, and she leaned back against the truck seat and crossed her arms.

  “You know, little things. Gabriel things.”

  “What is that supposed to mean? I have a few ideas about that guy, but I’ve never heard the term ‘Gabriel things’ before.”

  “Well, you know…like how he won’t come inside. Ever.”

  Mimi raised her eyebrows, having never noticed that about him but remembering the way Mr. Munroe had talked about it. She had dismissed it at the time.

  “Really. Try it,” Sarah continued. “Next time you see him, invite him in. Or better yet, ask him to reach something down for you. He won’t do it, I swear.”

  “Wow, I never paid attention, but now that you mention it, I’ve never even seen him come up on the porch. But what about his own cabin? He lives somewhere else on the property, right?”

  “Oh yeah, he lives out there but he doesn’t live inside. Your cabin, your barn, and anything right there on your plot are the only buildings on the site. He might go into one of the caves, I guess, if it gets really cold, but I know that he stays outside even in the rain. We’ve seen him over on our place from time to time, soaking wet and walking along like it’s just any other s
unny day.”

  Mimi wrinkled her forehead, worried about what she was hearing about the strange guy who was state-appointed to live on her property. But how dangerous could he be? He took a minute to teach her to shoot, why would he do that if he had plans to hurt her? And he did offer to patch her roof. If he wanted her gone, he’d just let it cave in over her head.

  “And you know,” Sarah said, smiling slyly, “he’s not so bad to look at either. I don’t know how he keeps that six pack as toned as it is, but it must involve ripping tree trunks out of the ground and doing reps with them. And that hair, I just want to run my fingers through it.”

  “I swear I hadn’t noticed,” Mimi said aloofly, hoping Sarah couldn’t see through her lie. The truth was Mimi had actually thought of Gabriel quite a bit lately, especially at night when she was alone in her cabin. Sarah hit the nail on the head when she said Gabriel was good looking. It had surprised her that she felt that way, since Gabriel was the first white man she’d ever really thought of as sexy.

  They arrived at the first of several stores and Mimi bought her supplies, having a better idea of what to expect now that she’d been living out there for a couple of weeks. She managed to get some names of reputable people who could help with her well situation, and looked at supplies in the hardware store to get an idea of how much to budget for her roofing materials. The two projects were more than she’d bargained for, and she was glad that Krystal had emailed her telling her she’d had two offers on the condo already and that the money for Mimi’s car was already in her bank account. That money would go to buy the materials and to pay Gabriel a reasonable fee.