The Handyman and the Barkeep (Snow Creek Ranch #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

“Tomás Angel Ricardo! If you miss the bus again, I’m gonna nail your toy box shut until Christmas!

” Malcolm Montgomery shouted up the stairs at his nephew, because his sister Melissa couldn’t.

She was in the kitchen wrangling her other three kids through a rushed breakfast so all four made it to the bus stop on schedule.

Neither Malcolm nor Melissa had time to drive the kids to school again, and the bus driver did not wait.

He heard a muffled shout from overhead, and then small footsteps thundered down the stairs.

Tommy appeared dressed haphazardly in blue jeans, a Spiderman shirt and mismatched socks.

The kid was going to wear shoes, so Malcolm didn’t worry about the socks—as long as he could find both of Tommy’s sneakers in the jumble of shoes by the back door.

“Don’t nail my toys!” Tommy shouted as he bolted past Malcolm, down the hallway to the kitchen.

Malcolm snickered inside his head, making a silent joke about not nailing anything lately.

Chance, Colorado, was a small town compared to some of the places Malcolm had lived, and his prospects for a hookup were small and only getting smaller.

The only place anyone seemed to be getting lucky was up at Snow Creek Ranch. Or so he heard.

Sometimes, he considered a change of occupation from local contractor/handyman to ranch hand/cowboy, so he could apply for a full-time job at Snow Creek.

He loved the land up there, which reminded Malcolm of the ranch in Wyoming he’d briefly worked on.

And ever since Lucas Barrett took over last year, he and foreman Jesse Knox were making some positive, queer-friendly changes.

Making it the kind of place Malcolm wished had existed here when he was in high school.

But Malcolm enjoyed his occupation too much. He could choose his clients, meet new people, make his own hours, and set his own rates. And there was the slight issue of his recent fear of horses—not something he had ever admitted to anyone, least of all the guys up at the ranch.

“Monte, you taking your lunch?” Melissa shouted down the hallway.

He followed the sound of his older sister’s harried voice to the kitchen. Spacious when empty and cramped when containing two adults and four kids, every inch of space seemed occupied by moving bodies gathering up backpacks and lunch bags, while scarfing down toaster pastries or granola bars.

“No lunch today,” Malcolm said. “Howie said he’d feed me out of the kitchen for part of my fee.”

“Make sure it’s not a big part, the water bill is due next week.”

“It won’t be. Howie’s fair.” While cash paid the bills, Malcolm didn’t mind bartering with the clients who always treated him fairly. He wanted integrity to rule his life, not money. Not like their parents.

Melissa’s cell phone began shrieking. “Bus! Now!”

Malcolm tried to shout goodbyes and have-a-good-days at his two nieces and two nephews as they barreled out the back door, bleating similar messages in return.

He loved those kids to bits, and he was honored his sister trusted him enough to help her raise them after her husband’s death… but man, they were loud sometimes.

Exactly why he lived in a camper parked in her backyard, instead of the space she’d offered in the den.

“Rest of the coffee’s yours,” Melissa said.

She slid past him with her own insulated mug in one hand and a tablet in the other.

Her strawberry-blonde hair was perfectly done, her makeup flawless, a colorful smock cinched over her clothes.

“The girls are gonna start showing up in ten minutes. If these appointments don’t kill me, I’ll see you around four. ”

“See you around four.”

She slipped through the kitchen’s side door into the attached beauty salon her late husband Tomás, Sr., had built for her in the garage.

A gift on their first wedding anniversary.

She was the only hairdresser (stylist, according to his oldest niece Amy, she was a stylist) in Chance, and the home business kept her pretty busy.

Today was a bride and three bridesmaids, getting their hair done for an afternoon wedding in Fort Collins. Malcolm was glad to have his day booked up, too, away from home.

He poured the rest of the coffee into an insulated travel mug from an east coast convenience store.

Melissa liked to tease he was drinking cancer out of that ten-year-old mug, but he couldn’t part with it.

Making sandwiches at that store had been his first post-Chance job, and he had so few sentimental objects from his time living with his mother in Pennsylvania.

After making sure he had his phone, the right tools in the bed of his pickup, and his big Coleman cooler full of iced water, Malcolm drove away just as the first bridesmaid showed up.

On the drive through town to his first job, Malcolm munched on a caffeinated protein bar—probably his new favorite invention—in between sips of coffee.

It didn’t take a long time to get anywhere in Chance, unless you were driving out to one of the distant ranches.

The Saddle Up Saloon was a bit of a landmark in town, a fun mix of dive bar and honky tonk, with low lights, loud music, wide dance floors, and walls full of metal beer, gasoline, railroad, and advertising signs.

It was known for its mechanical bull challenge, which was proving impossible to win for the last seven years, but it also brought the occasional thrill seeker or internet influencer along to try and win.

The extra business always thrilled Howie.

Howard “Howie” Donohue had owned the place for as long as Malcolm could remember. A burly, confirmed bachelor with a white handlebar mustache, he was a long beard and generous “ho, ho, ho” from being a mall Santa, and Malcolm loved the man.

Howie had been the second person Malcolm had come out to when he was sixteen. And he was Iggy’s uncle, which sometimes made seeing Howie feel like pressing on a sunburn, but it was a necessary pain. Sometimes you had to press the sunburn to pay the bills.

The saloon didn’t open until two for the start of happy hour, so the gravel parking lot was empty.

Well, almost empty. Someone had left their dented Honda parked on the edge of the lot, so they probably had their keys confiscated last night.

Howie lived in a single-wide behind the main, square building, so Malcolm parked around back next to Howie’s wood-panel station wagon.

The thing had a different shade of tan on the hood than the body, and more rust than a barn find, but Howie wouldn’t junk it.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t replace it,” was Howie’s favorite saying.

Explained why Malcolm had been making frequent trips here to fix different things in the saloon and the trailer over the last few months. Nothing lasted forever.

He grabbed his coffee and tramped up the wooden ramp to the trailer’s front door. A ramp Malcolm himself had built last summer when Howie broke his ankle stepping into a pot hole in his own saloon parking lot. Howie had used one of those knee-walker scooter things for two months while it healed.

Malcolm knocked on the aluminum screen door then pressed the doorbell. He didn’t start to worry until the second press got no response, and he heard no creaks or movement inside the trailer. He hadn’t gotten the appointment time wrong, and Howie always met him here, not in the saloon.

Malcolm palmed his cell and called Howie’s.

It rang inside the trailer, eight times before voice mail kicked in.

Something thumped against the nearest window, the one in the living room.

An old plaid couch sat in front of that window.

Had Howie fallen asleep on the couch? Malcolm stretched out over the porch rail and knocked on the closed window.

Someone knocked back. Shouted.

Concerned jacking up his heart rate, Malcolm opened the screen door and twisted the storm door’s knob. Locked. Locked, and Howie couldn’t get off the couch to open it, or get up and answer his phone.

“I’ll fix the door, I promise.” Malcolm took two steps back, aimed with his right foot, and slammed it against the door, just left of the knob. Something cracked, so he hit it a second time. The slender door shot backward. Malcolm rushed inside.

Howie was sitting on the far end of the couch, a blanket pooled around his lap, a ratty yellow robe over his shoulders. His face looked…well, melted was the only thing Malcolm could think of. He blinked slowly at Malcolm, eyes hazy and just not there.

Jesus, did he have a stroke?

“Howie? Man, are you okay?” Malcolm sat beside him, already mentally preparing to call 911.

“Feel so weird,” Howie replied, his words almost muffled. Like his tongue wasn’t quite working. “Been sick. All night.”

“Do you need me to call an ambulance? Your face looks funny. Do you think you had a stroke?”

“No ambulance. Can’t afford it. Drive me? Clinic.”

“Not a chance, friend. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“Can’t afford—”

“This town can’t afford to lose you, Howie. You can barely sit up, you’re slurring your words, and your face looks like a nine-year-old’s art project. Hospital.”

“Okay. Saloon?”

“I’ll text Laurel later, once a doctor is looking at you. Until then, don’t worry about the saloon.” Laurel was a bartender, waitress, assistant manager—basically, the only other person Howie trusted to open or close the business. If they didn’t open today, they didn’t open.

Howie’s health was more important.

Something hard and cold buzzed directly beneath Iggy Donohue’s cheek.

The disturbance wasn’t enough to drag him fully out of a somewhat fun dream featuring himself and the two hot bears he’d seen at the club last night, so he rolled onto his other side and ignored it.

A few hours later, when the sun was in the middle of the sky where it belonged, Iggy rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom.