14
H eather held her breath while she waited for Aaron’s response. She’d spent the last day and a half convincing Matt to let her borrow his trailer, not that he’d put up any argument about her having it. No, his problem was that he didn’t want her to go to Wyoming. He didn’t want her spending time with Aaron.
If she didn’t love him as much as she did, it might have come to more than just the words she’d had with Matt over his attempt to tell her where she could go and who she could see. In the end, just as she’d known she would, Heather had won, and he’d agreed to let her borrow his trailer.
“I think that will actually work. I’ll have to check with Lurch, and maybe Tuck to be sure. Is the trailer 30 amp or 50?”
She wasn’t sure she liked how surprised he sounded when he said it might work. Did he expect her to come up with something that wouldn’t work?
“Um, I’m not sure. Let me ask.” Heather went to the bedroom door, opened it, and called out, “Matt!?”
“Yeah?” His voice came back from the front room.
“Is the trailer 30 amp or 50?”
“50.”
“Thanks!” She closed the door and put the phone back to her ear. “Did you hear that?”
“No I only heard your side.”
“He said it’s 50.”
“Good to know. I’m not sure we’ve got an outlet that will plug into, but I’ll look into it. I also need to ask permission.”
He seemed to be saying that last to himself, though Heather got it. You didn’t just set up a trailer on your boss’s land without at least asking first. Much less do it when some stranger would be staying there.
“How long you planning to stay? They’re going to want to know.”
“I don’t know. I don’t have anything keeping me here. I only came here to get away from Mobile and what was after me there. I can settle there as well as here. Maybe I can look around and find a job.” She didn’t know if he even wanted her around that long, but what if he did?
“I’d like that, but let’s not start off telling Lurch that.”
“Would he have a problem with it?”
Aaron snorted. “Not likely. You met him the other day, right?”
“I think so.” Honestly, she’d met so many people that day she couldn’t match names and faces in her head.
“He’s the guy with the Cajun accent.”
Coming from Mobile, she’d heard her share of Cajun, and with that descriptor, the man in question’s face popped up in her mind’s eye. “Oh yeah. I know who that is. I talked to him and his wife, but I don’t remember her name either. There were just too many new people that day.”
“No worries. Her name is Kerry, but that wasn’t the point. Any way he met a girl and moved her onto the ranch. So did Tuck, but since it’s his place, and they’re getting ready to go back to Tucson, I ‘m not sure that counts. Anyway, since Lurch and Kerry got together, we’ve had a couple of the guys who’ve found women that stuck. They’ve moved them into cabins on the ranch and it’s not been a problem.”
She wondered if there was a reason he didn’t have a cabin. Were they only built once there was someone to move into them? She had so many questions, but wasn’t going to ask them, not yet anyway.
“So how soon will you know?”
“A couple hours, tops, but I don’t want you coming all this way tonight. Is Iceman bringing the trailer?”
“Hell no.” She didn’t tell him she’d had to argue with Matt about what she was going to do or that he didn’t want her there. “I’ll bring it.”
“You good towing?”
She had to remind herself that he didn’t know what she’d been up to for the last ten years. He had no way of knowing that while yes, she’d gone to school, she had since found that she liked working with her hands better than being in an office. Fortunately, she’d found the best of both worlds when she’d decided to become a vet tech. In the south, that meant horses and sometimes cattle. She’d driven more trucks towing horse trailers, with a variety of passengers, than she could count.
Thankfully, her boss, Brandon, had been understanding when she’d called and told him she needed some time off. She’d told him it was a family emergency, and that she had to leave town and didn’t know how long she would be gone, or if she was even coming back. He’d told her to take as long as she needed and if it ended up that she wasn’t coming back, he’d give a good recommendation wherever she landed. She seriously loved that man, but he was a good thirty years older than her, and head over heels for his husband.
Wyoming was ranch country. She wondered how hard it would be to find a vet looking for some help.
“I can tow, no problem.” She might tell him more, later. If he ever asked.
Who was she fooling? He’d ask, it was just a matter of time. They’d been apart for so long; he simply hadn’t had time to ask about every detail of her life. And it wasn’t like she’d asked enough to know more than the vaguest idea of what he’d been up for all this time.
“Okay. I’ll take your word for it. Either way, it’s too late in the day to start that trip. I’ll talk to Lurch and get the okay, and let you know. You can take off tomorrow, or even the next day if you need longer to pack up and get ready. I want to see you, but I want you safe and comfortable more.”
Warmth pooled in her chest. She loved that he cared that she was safe, and that she felt safe. She couldn’t remember Mitch every telling her to be safe or even asking if she was okay. No, he’d dragged her along to meetings with those friends of his who talked about her as if she couldn’t hear them. She’d been more than uncomfortable, but when she’d asked to leave, Mitch had put her off. After that, she found reasons not to go along if she knew that was where he was headed.
“Will do. In the meantime I’ll start getting things ready. I’ll need directions for once I’m close. I can make it to Gillette, but I’ll need to know how to find you once I’m that close.”
“I’ll send that once I’ve got clearance from the boss. You sure you’re good with the trailer on your own? I can leave early and come help.”
“And then we’d have two vehicles here to get back. No. I’m good with the trailer. It won’t be my first rodeo.”
“What kind is it? Bumper tow, fifth wheel?”
“Technically it’s a fifth wheel.”
“Technically?”
“Matt’s modified it so now it’s a goose neck, which is good because my truck’s not set up for fifth wheel.”
“But it is for gooseneck?”
“Yep.” She decided not to elaborate. If he wanted to know, he would ask. But maybe he didn’t want to know. Maybe he assumed it was like that when she’d bought it. He also hadn’t seen her truck, so he had no reason to be curious about it.
“What have you been up to, other than trying to talk Iceman in to letting you come down here?”
Heather frowned. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That Matt tried to talk me out of going.”
“Lynnie, I talked to him at the run the other day. I know he’s worried about you. I am too.”
“I’m a grown woman. I can take care of myself.”
“I know that, and so does he. It’s not you taking care of yourself we’re worried about. It’s you trying to take care of that asshole you were seeing or some of the fuckers he was mixed up with, and failing. That’s what we’re worried about, and it’s because we care.”
The fight in her deflated like a balloon with a hole in it. How did you fight back against ‘because we care’? What kind of comeback was there for that? She didn’t have one and wasn’t sure she wanted to come up with one.
“I know. It just rankles. It feels like you’re both telling me I can’t do anything without a babysitter, and I haven’t needed a babysitter in longer than I want to think about.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not what it is, and I’m sorry it feels that way. We’re just trying to make sure you’re safe from that fuckwad. Are you carrying?”
Heather blinked. “Carrying?” What on earth did he want her to carry? She had a pocketbook, of course, but what else would he want her to have?
“Are you armed?”
“Oh. No. I hadn’t even thought about it.”
“Do you have one in your truck?”
“No.” She frowned again. Her dad had kept a pistol in his truck, but she never had, she’d never seen the need.
“Do you remember how to shoot?”
“Of course.”
“How long has it been since you’ve been shooting?”
“A few years, why?”
“I need to talk to Iceman.”
Heather frowned. “Why?”
“I want to make sure you’re protected. Is he around?”
“Yeah, let me go get him.”
“Thanks, Lynnie.”
Heather left the guest room she’d been sleeping in for the last couple of weeks and went in search of her cousin. She found him in the living room in front of the TV.
“Aaron wants to talk to you.” She held out her phone. Matt scowled but took it.
“Yeah?”