Page 4 of Oops I Fell For The Cowboy Next Door

Because tonight my brain won't stop replaying auburn hair and bare feet in the grass.

Piper Langdon. Stuck her hand out over the fence line with a smile bright enough to short-circuit a power grid. Blue eyes that telegraphed every single thought before she could catch them. Freckles across her nose. A flannel slipping off one shoulder showing skin that's never seen a day of ranch work, smooth and golden in the late afternoon light.

And a mouth on her. Lord.

Your cattle are in my yard, and I'd appreciate it if you'd get them out.

I yank the wire tighter. A barb catches my thumb. Blood beads along the pad and I wipe it on my jeans without looking.

She doesn't know what she's talking about. That creek has been part of my water rotation since my father ran this ranch. Before that, my grandfather. We've been Rawlins on this land for three generations, and some woman from wherever she came from doesn't get to show up with a year lease and tell me where my cattle can drink.

Bucky nudges my shoulder with his nose. Impatient.

"Yeah," I mutter. "I know."

The ride back to the barn takes fifteen minutes along the upper fence line. Sun's dropping fast, pulling the temperature down with it. September in Montana means warm days that collapse into cold nights without warning, and by the time I unsaddle Bucky and turn him out into the paddock, my breath is visible.

Barn chores take another hour. Feed. Water. Check the heifers in the south pen. One of them's been favoring her left front leg for two days, so I crouch in the straw and run my hands down the joint, checking for heat or swelling. Nothing obvious. Probably stepped in a gopher hole. She'll work it out.

The house is dark when I walk up. Always is. I stopped leaving lights on three years ago when Rachel packed her Subaru and drove back to Billings, leaving a note on the kitchen table that said she loved me but couldn't love the silence.

Fair enough. The silence stayed. She didn't.

My boots come off at the door. Habit. Mom would've killed me if I tracked mud through her kitchen, and some lessons outlive the teacher. The kitchen's clean because I cleaned it this morning. Counters wiped, dishes done, one plate in the drying rack. One mug. One set of silverware.

Chili's in the slow cooker, been going since five a.m. The whole house smells like cumin and peppers. I ladle out a bowl, grab a beer from the fridge, and eat standing at the counter because sitting at the table for one is something I stopped doing a long time ago.

My phone buzzes against the counter.

Mom:

Happy Tuesday sweetheart. Sun's been gorgeous in Billings. Aunt Carol says hi. Call me this weekend?

Me:

Will do. Love you.

Short. She'll worry if I don't respond. She'll worry anyway. She's been worrying since Dad died, since she moved to Billings to be near her sister, since I took over the ranch at twenty-two and never left. Twelve years of worry from a hundred miles away. She calls every Sunday. I answer every Sunday. We talk about weather and cattle prices and whether the roof needs patching, and she never asks if I'm lonely because she already knows the answer.

The chili's good. Always is. My grandmother's recipe, passed down through two generations of Rawlins women to a man who eats it alone at his kitchen counter every Tuesday because routine is the only thing between him and the kind of quiet that starts feeling permanent.

I rinse the bowl. Put it in the drying rack next to this morning's plate.

The porch calls me out after dinner the way it always does. I drop into the rocker with a second beer, the wood creaking under my weight. From here I can see the fence line, the pasture, the dark shape of the cabin next door where a light glows in the kitchen window.

She left it on.

Stupid to notice. Stupid to care. But I do notice, and the light makes the whole east view look different. Warmer. Less empty.

Piper Langdon, standing in her yard with her bare feet and her attitude, telling me the creek is on her property. She's right. Technically. The fence marks the boundary, and the creek sits on her side by a good thirty feet. But that fence was put there by a landlord who never visited, and the previous owner, old Dale Mackey, didn't give a damn where my cattle drank as long as I kept the driveway plowed in winter. Dale owned the place for six years before the quiet finally won. Sold it, moved back to Missoula, and the new owner turned it into a rental without setting foot on the property once.

She won't last three.

Women like her never do. City women with clean boots and big plans. They come for the mountains and leave when the pipes freeze in January. When the power goes out for three days in a storm. When they realize that quiet isn't peace. Quiet is just another name for alone.

The light in her kitchen stays on.

My jaw tightens.