Page 5 of Oops I Fell For The Rancher Next Door

"You bought the place."

"I bought the place."

"Without seeing it first."

Her chin lifts. "The pictures were very convincing."

"There were pictures?"

"One. Of the fireplace. From an angle that made it look like a ski lodge." She glances at the peeling laminate, the water stain on the ceiling, the window with the cracked pane. "Turns out angles are powerful."

I don't laugh. But it's close.

"Power company said they'll send someone Thursday," she adds. "So two more days without electricity. The water works, though. Barely. Pressure's low."

"Pipes haven't been run in a while. Might need to bleed the lines."

"I bled the lines this morning. Watched a YouTube video before I lost service."

Something catches in my chest. She drove four hours to a cabin she'd never seen, sat in the dark without power, bled her own pipes from a tutorial, made instant coffee on a gas stove while it was twenty-eight degrees outside. All without asking anyone for help.

That's survival mode. And I've been around enough spooked animals to know what it looks like.

"What'd you do before you came here?" The question comes out before I think it through.

Her face goes flat. "Marketing."

"In Denver?"

"Does it matter?"

"Just making conversation."

"I'm not great at conversation."

"Me either."

That gets a real reaction. Not a smile exactly. More like the muscles around her mouth deciding whether to let one through. They don't. But they thought about it.

"So what do you do?" she asks. "Besides deliver unsolicited firewood and diagnose generators."

"I run cattle. About forty head on the property east of here. Do some work for my family's operation too." I take a sip of the coffee. She wasn't wrong about the taste. "Been on this land five years."

"Five years alone up here?"

"The cows don't seem to mind."

Her eyebrows lift. Almost. "That's a lot of quiet."

"That's the point."

She looks at me for a beat too long. Whatever she's seeing or deciding, I don't get the verdict. She pushes off the counter, crosses to the window, and stares out at the tree line.

"Your fence has gaps," I tell her, because someone has to. "South side especially. Coyotes will come right through."

"I know. I saw them this morning."

"The gaps?"