Chapter 3
He grinned as he followed Nikki into the living area.
“Not so keen on Wayne’s attentions are we?”
“Not sure what you mean,” she said as she went into the kitchen. He trailed after her, his confidence increasing with every step. “It’s just that the man is interested in more than fixing your window. And you don’t seem to reciprocate the feelings.”
She huffed a sigh and then turned to him. “Wayne French’s family and mine have been in the region since our ancestors came out to mine and work on the railroads. My great-grandfather some generations back bought land and so did his. For some reason, he’s living in the 1800s when children of ranchers marry to consolidate their holdings.”
“I don’t think that’s the only attraction to him.”
“You don’t know Wayne,” she muttered. “He has several thousand acres and I have the only land not his in this end of the valley.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Anyway, he’s been hinting broadly for a couple of years now and I keep hinting back that I’m not interested.”
She opened a door he hadn’t noticed at the back of the kitchen and he wondered at his lack of attention to detail. Hank would have his hide if he knew.
She returned with a small laptop and closed the door securely behind her. After setting the laptop up on her table she turned to him and offered him a cup of coffee. When he declined, she sat and started typing. “The internet is lousy here but I have to have something for my business. Cross your fingers it’s working right now.”
“Do you have a satellite provider?” he asked and sat next to her.
“No, it’s wireless but it’s also iffy at best. I’ve considered using a satellite program but right now, I can’t justify it.”
“What is your business?” He wondered, since she could technically raise her goats without the internet, though in this technological age, it was inconvenient.
“I sell goat milk products, lotions, soaps, and so on.”
“You make money at that?” Dylan’s look of surprise brought a chuckle from Nikki and she glanced at him before turning back to the computer.
“I do, at least enough to pay a few bills and the goat’s milk doesn’t go to waste. That and the pecan and pepper crops have kept me just above water. I guess I should consider remote work but I’ve tried not to go back to the work I was doing before I moved back.”
“And that was—”
“Five years ago and I worked in accounting for a big company in Albuquerque. Granddad wanted to keep the ranch in the family so I came home when he passed.”
“Do you miss the city?”
“Not really. Well, convenience, I do. I can’t go to a restaurant or grocery store on a whim. When you live here, everything has to be planned.”
“You’re from the city?”
“My parents lived there until they died in a car accident. Grandad took me in when I was five. I loved living here with Grandad when I was young. Moving back was the right thing to do.”
“No other family?”
“I think my father had some distant cousins in the east, but no, no other family. My mom was an only child and my grandmother passed away before I was born. I have some distant cousins on the coast too, but the family wasn’t close after that branch of the family moved out of state.”
As she typed, Nikki became intensely aware of the man sitting beside her, his gaze intent on her. When he didn’t say anything for a minute, she asked. “You said you were visiting your sister. Are you from the area?”
“No. We were military brats, so we were raised on bases all over the world. I remember Hawaii, Spain, Florida, and Italy, among others.” He chuckled. “Merry, my sister. said she was going to marry a farmer, so she’d stay in one place. And then she met Dan at one of the bases.”
“And how does she like living here, in the country?”
“She’s like me. She can live anywhere, as long as she’s with Dan.” He fiddled with a pen lying next to a notepad. “They’ve got a couple of kids, she works part-time at the kid’s school and they’re happy.”
“I guess that’s all we can wish for,” she said and concentrated on trying to get online for a few minutes before closing the laptop with a snap. “No luck.”
Dylan pulled out his phone and started punching in numbers. Within a couple of minutes, he’d found a supplier in the city that could provide the windows. “Are you set on getting glass instead of replacing the whole window?”
She eyed the phone longingly then focused on the conversation. “I don’t know. I guess it depends on the difficulty and the prices.”
He shrugged. “I’m not a carpenter but I can do basic stuff. And I’ve helped Dan work on their house lately. If we plan on getting windows instead of glass I can do the work on replacing them and we can take your truck and pick up the supplies today.”
She stared at him, unsure if she should be upset at his take-charge attitude or just grateful for the help. She decided on gratitude. Within the hour, she was driving down her dirt road and toward Douglas and replacement windows.
By the time they’d bought the windows and supplies to replace them, ate an early dinner, and stopped for additional groceries (when had she decided to have him stay on the ranch?), the sun was nearing the horizon. Nikki’s truck bouncing on the road reminded her that she needed to check the shocks the next time she had extra money in her account. But that wouldn’t be soon, with the price of the window replacements. Thank goodness the goats had kidded well this year.
They pulled into the driveway as the sun was dropping behind the mountains, sending the desert around them into dusk. Quickly, they unloaded the windows, storing them in the utility building and then Nikki showed Dylan the ranch hand house at the edge of the property where he’d stay for the night. She’d cleaned it last month, clearing the debris that naturally occurred in an old shuttered building. To her relief, other than a still, stale scent, the one-room hut was in a liveable state.
“If you’ll come over I’ll get you some linens and essentials.” She led the way to the back entrance of the house and through the mudroom. The scent of her lotions hit them like a wave upon entry and Dylan stopped in his tracks.
“Your lotions?”
She chuckled and answered. “Yep. I have to let them sit and season for a couple of days before I do the final bottling. Sorry for the strong scent.”
“It’s just a little strong where there’s so much of it.” He accepted the pile of sheets, blankets, and pillows then followed her to her bathroom, off of the bedroom. As she put together a collection of soap, shampoo, and other bathroom essentials, Nikki was aware of him perusing her bedroom décor.
Simple, with sand and white colors, the room was her haven after a long day’s work. Her clothing was in the closet or chest, where it belonged, with only her lightweight robe draped over the easy chair, her Bible and notebook resting on the table beside the chair. Nikki wondered what he thought of her, from her surroundings.
He’d left the house after checking the doors and the window. She watched as he traversed the short distances in the house and checked the “weak” areas. After he’d exited the house, she wondered if he’d walked the perimeters of the house. Later in the evening as she finished her nighttime routine she realized, she did feel safer.
Dylan kepthis expression blank as he knocked on Nikki’s back door the next morning. He’d made the decision not to disturb her when he found the goat last night, now he wished he’d gotten the thing over with. The expectant look on Nikki’s face just intensified the emotion when she opened the door.
“Ready to get started on the window? I’ll be happy to see the sun again, instead of the inside of a piece of wood.” At his look, she paused, then frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to tell you something,” he said and looked down at the ground, aware of his reluctance to hurt her in any way. He’d told fellow soldiers of wounds and deaths, of missions that would inevitably end in their harm. This had to be one of the hardest things he’d ever conveyed. “One of your goats is dead.”
“What?” She reached in for a light jacket hanging on the pegs inside her door and then stepped out, pulling the back door closed behind her. “Show me.”
When she started toward the goat enclosure, Dylan stopped her. “This way.”
He turned to go to the side and then the front of the house and she followed with a confused expression. “But, the goat house—”
“It wasn’t in the goat house,” he said. “It was in the front.”
“They got loose? How?” She glanced over her shoulder at the goat house, with the other goats and kids milling around. Even Dylan, with his lack of knowledge of the animal, could see the anxious movements and bleating the goats were engaging in. Somehow, they knew one of their own was no longer there.
At the edge of the yard, on a metal fencepost now stained with blood, rested the head of a small goat. Nikki gasped, then let out a cry that seared Dylan through. She ran to the post and with a single finger, touched the top of the small head. “Gopher,” she whispered.
“Gopher?” he asked, laying his hand on her shoulder.
“He loved digging holes,” she murmured, her finger still on the goat’s white topknot. “Would you take it off, please?”
“We can’t, honey. I need to call the state police.”
“Because of a dead animal?” She scoffed. “It’s an everyday occurrence around here.”
“Not like this, I bet,” he replied then took her hand and led her to the shaded portico where he pressed her into a chair. “Let me get through to the police then we need to talk.”
It took the police an hour to get to the house, in which time the flies and other insects had started swarming around the remains. While they waited, Nikki had insisted on checking on the other goats, and Dylan had acquiesced to the point of letting her go to the enclosure but not to touch the gate or locking mechanism that ensured the canny animals remained in their space. She fed the goats through the wire, then checked on her chickens, called to the burros that pastured near her house, and then insisted on looking for the rest of the goat. “I searched last night. I didn’t find him,” Dylan replied.
“You found Gopher last night?” She glared at him. “And saw fit not to tell me?”
“I didn’t want to disturb you. You’d already turned out your lights by the time I found him.”
“It’s my ranch, my property. My animals,” She started then deflated as quickly as her anger had erupted, “And I wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it then either.”
As they sat watching the plume of dust near the ranch, Dylan asked the question he’d delayed putting forth for over an hour. “Who do you think is doing this, Nikki? Could it be Wayne?