Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
PIPER
Someone fixed my porch step.
I'm standing on it right now, coffee mug in both hands, staring down at lumber so new it's still pale against the weathered boards around it. Solid. Level. Nailed clean into the supports with the kind of precision that says whoever did this has been swinging a hammer since before they could drive.
No note. No text. No grumpy rancher on horseback waiting for a thank you.
Just a step that won't eat my ankle anymore.
I take a sip of coffee. Look east toward the Rawlins property. The sun's been up for an hour, painting the pasture gold, and I can see a figure on horseback moving along the far fence line. Too far to make out features. Close enough to know exactly who it is.
Tate Rawlins fixed my porch step. At some ungodly hour before sunrise. Without being asked. Without telling me.
And he's currently pretending he didn't by riding his fence line a quarter mile away without so much as a glance in my direction.
Infuriating man.
I've been in Grizzly Ridge for four days now.
Got my workstation set up in the second bedroom, met Maggie at the diner in town who told me the pie is the best in three counties and she wasn't lying.
Bought groceries from Hilda's General Store, where Hilda looked at my cart, looked at my face, and said "You're the one next to Tate Rawlins" with the tone of a woman settling in for entertainment.
Four days, and I haven't seen my neighbor once since the fence line standoff. His cattle haven't come back through. The fence gap is fixed, proper this time, with new wire stretched tight between posts that are actually standing upright.
Also him. Obviously.
My phone buzzes on the porch rail.
Mom:
How's mountain life? Made any friends? Met any bears?
Me:
No bears. One very grumpy cowboy. He fixed my porch step while I was sleeping like some kind of aggressive Cinderella.
Mom:
Is he cute?
Me:
Mom.
Mom:
I'll take that as a yes
I pocket the phone, finish my coffee, and go inside to work.
Three logo concepts due by Friday for a brewery in Fort Collins.
The remote contract with my Denver firm pays well enough to cover rent and groceries with some breathing room, and the work itself is good. Satisfying. Something that's mine.
By noon, two concepts are done. My back aches from sitting too long in a kitchen chair that wasn't designed for eight-hour work sessions, and the cabin walls are starting to close in. I need air.
The creek seems like a good destination. My creek. On my property.
I pull on boots and a jacket, grab my phone, and head out the back door. Down the new step, which doesn't even creak. Across the yard through grass that really needs cutting. Along the eastern fence line where the new wire glints in the midday sun.
The creek is prettier up close. Clear water moving over smooth stones, shallow enough to see the bottom. Banks lined with wild grass turning golden in the September light. Cottonwoods leaning over the water with leaves just starting to shift from green to amber.
I sit on a flat rock at the edge of the bank, pull my boots off, roll my leggings to my knees, and stick my feet in.
Cold. So cold my teeth ache. But the sun is warm on my face, and the water moves in a rhythm that loosens something behind my ribs.
This. This is why I came here. For quiet that feels chosen. For a place that doesn't ask me to be anything other than what I am.
"You're gonna get frostbite."
My whole body jolts. Water splashes up my shins.
Tate Rawlins is standing on the other side of the creek, about fifteen feet upstream, arms crossed over his chest. He's on foot this time. Dusty jeans, work boots, a canvas jacket with the collar turned up. Hat pulled low.
"Jesus." My hand's on my chest. Heart slamming. "Do you just materialize? Is that a skill they teach at ranching school?"
His mouth twitches. Not a smile. A twitch. Gone before it fully forms.
"Checking the fence along the upper pasture." He nods upstream. "Saw you walk down here."
"Surveilling me now?"
"Hard not to notice someone wading into a creek in September."
"My feet are in the creek. That's not wading."
He drops his arms, walks along the opposite bank until he's across from me. Those hazel eyes move from my face to my bare calves in the water. Stay there one beat too long.
"Creek's cold this time of year," he says. "Snowmelt feeds it from the ridge."
"I noticed." My toes are going numb. I don't pull them out. "Wanna join me? Since you're so concerned about its accessibility."
That jaw muscle again. The one that tightens when I push back. He's got a face built for scowling, all hard angles, but the eyes give him away. They're warmer than he wants them to be.
Came to talk about the fence."
"Shocking."
"The previous owner and I had an agreement." He shifts his weight, hands going to his hips. "He gave me creek access for the east herd. In exchange, I kept his driveway clear in winter, fixed anything that broke. Kept an eye on the place."
"Like porch steps?"
A pause. His gaze slides sideways. "Don't know what you're talking about."
"Somebody fixed my porch step while I was sleeping. Brand new lumber. Professional job. And since the only person within five miles who owns a hammer and has opinions about my property is standing right there, I'm gonna go ahead and say thank you."
He looks at me for a long moment. Something shifts in his expression. Not softer, exactly. Less guarded. "Step was a hazard. Couldn't leave it."
"You could have told me."
"Could have." He doesn't expand on why he didn't.
I pull my feet out of the creek, set them on the warm rock. My toes are bright pink. "So you want the same deal. Creek access for ranch maintenance."
"It's a fair trade."
"It is." The words surprise us both. His eyebrows lift a fraction of an inch. "But you know I can't sign anything official, right? I'm a tenant. You'd need my landlord for anything legally binding."
"I'm not looking for legal. I'm looking for your word."
"My word."
"That you won't block access. Won't call your landlord complaining about cattle. Won't make this a problem. And in exchange, I maintain the property. Same deal I had with Dale, except Dale could put it in a deed and you can't."
"So you're asking me to trust you."
"I'm asking you to let me prove you can."
He stares at me. Then he does something I haven't seen before.
He almost smiles.
Close enough that the corners of his mouth shift. That the hard line of his jaw eases. Close enough that something warm rolls through my stomach, settling low.
"You always this stubborn?"
"You always this difficult?"
"Yeah," he says quietly. "Pretty much always."
He crosses the creek in two steps. The water barely reaches his boot tops.
Suddenly he's on my side, on my rock, standing close enough that I have to tip my chin up to look at him.
He's taller than I remembered. Broader. Up close, his eyes have gold in them.
Amber flecks in the hazel that catch the afternoon light.
"Come by tomorrow morning," he says. "I'll write it out so we both know where we stand. Won't hold up in court, but it'll hold up between us."
"You're inviting me to your house?"
"I'm inviting you to my kitchen table for coffee. Don't get excited."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
We're too close. Both of us know it. Neither of us moves.
His gaze drops to my mouth. Holds there for one second. Two. My lips part on a breath I can't control. The warmth in my stomach tightens into something sharper.
He smells like hay.
His hand comes up. My pulse spikes. But his fingers stop just short of my jaw, hovering, close enough that I can feel the heat from his skin without contact. Then he pulls back. Steps away. Puts distance between us so deliberately it feels physical.
"Tomorrow," he says. "Six a.m."
"Six in the morning? That's not a meeting time, that's an ambush."
"Cattle don't sleep in, Piper."
My name in his mouth. Low, rough. Like it costs him something to say it. Like he's been thinking about saying it since the last time he rode away from my fence line.
I swallow. "Fine. Six."
He nods once. Turns. Walks back across the creek, water parting around his boots, and heads up the opposite bank toward the tree line without looking back. Same as last time. Always moving away. Always leaving me standing here with my pulse doing things it has no business doing.
I watch him until the trees swallow him up. Then I sit on the rock for a long time, letting the sun dry my feet, pressing my thumb against the spot on my jaw where his fingers almost landed.
Almost.
That almost is going to be a problem.
The walk back to the cabin takes five minutes, and I spend every one of them arguing with myself.
He's rude. He's territorial. He showed up at my creek to argue about water rights again.
But he also fixed my step, offered a fair trade, and looked at my mouth just now with an expression that said he was doing math in his head about all the reasons he shouldn't kiss me.
He came up with enough reasons not to. Barely.
I step onto the new porch step. Solid under my boots. Something he built for me before sunrise because he couldn't leave a hazard. Because he was protecting someone who didn't ask for protection, in the most stubborn, roundabout way possible.
Inside, I sit at my kitchen table, open my laptop, and stare at the blank screen.
Six a.m. tomorrow. His kitchen and an agreement.
My reflection stares back at me from the dark monitor. Flushed cheeks. Bright eyes. A woman who moved to the mountains for peace and quiet, and is currently losing an argument with her own heartbeat over a man who communicates primarily through scowls and acts of unsolicited carpentry.
"You're in trouble," I tell my reflection.
She doesn't disagree.