Chapter Three
It was close to eleven at night when I snuck downstairs to paint.
The hum of a sewing machine as I neared the seamstress room—the old junk room—told me Bella was awake as well.
I crept up to the door, sock-covered feet already chilly as this old farmhouse had cold floors even in the summer and opened it.
Green eyes lifted from an orange sleeve being attached to a dress.
“You’re up late,” she softly said as I slipped inside, my sight darting to my new passion all waiting for me under an old sheet. Granny had given me a folding table for my metal cowboys. “Sheriff Rusty Britches calling your name?”
She liked to tease me a little. It was okay if Bella tormented me. She was my heart sister. I would do anything for her.
“Maybe,” I replied with a shrug and wiggled around her to sit at my table. When seated, my back was to hers. “That orange dress calling your name?”
“Silly man, it’s not orange. It’s yam.” The machine whirred along steadily then stopped.
“Aren’t yams orange?” I asked as I carefully lifted the sheet off my cowboys.
Over five hundred old tin cowboys were lined up facing forward, a hundred per line, not counting the fifteen horses that had come with the collection.
I’d placed three horses at the end of each line.
It bugged me that the other end of the line was missing three horses.
Dodge had told me we might be able to find some online but so far no luck.
Stumbling on this large hoard of tin toys from the early 1900s had been a real miracle.
An old farmer was selling his farm—sadly, a common thing now—and we’d gone to the auction. Baker had known the old man.
The ranch had picked up a hay tedder in good condition.
Dodge had bid on the box of toys after seeing my interest in the little silver cowboys stuffed into an old sack.
He’d paid more than I ever would have, but seeing they went for like eight bucks each online, his coughing up two hundred bucks was a good deal.
I would pay him back as soon as I had money aside.
Most of my pay was hidden in a sock in my dresser upstairs.
Easy to grab on the run. I’d bought paints online from a toy shop in Oklahoma City, some brushes, and had set up in here with the sewers a month ago.
“No, yams are yam-colored,” she said over her shoulder.
“I had an order from a lady on the city council for a fall dress to wear to the pumpkin festival next week. I’ve been putting it off because I hate the material she wanted.
Spandex is Satan’s most beloved material. Right up there with chiffon.”
“I bet Satan looks good in chiffon,” I joked as I took the time to count each cowboy.
Just to be sure they were all here. They were.
“I think I’m going to start working on this gunslinger,” I announced then gently lifted him from slot forty on row two.
Something about him just sang to me tonight. “He looks tough, don’t you think?”
I turned on my chair, a battered folding seat, to hold the tiny tin toy over her shoulder.
The sewing machine paused as she glanced at the gunslinger.
She’d just moisturized her face so her skin glowed in the light on the edge of her sewing table.
Bella was the prettiest woman I had ever met, right down to her tiny toes, which were always painted.
“Oh my, yes, he is fearsome! Like that character in the western video game you played for so long.” She gave me a fast peek through long lashes then smiled.
“Red Dead Redemption,” I said and got a nod. “Best western game ever.”
“So you kept telling me.” We both returned our attention to our projects.
I studied my gunslinger, trying to decide if he was a good gunslinger or a bad one.
If he were good, he’d get a white hat. If bad, a black hat obviously.
“You had a busy day today with Dr. Hennessee. He seemed to be quite attentive over dinner.”
I blinked at my tin sheriff. Yes, he would be a sheriff. I could paint a star on his chest. So a white hat. Like the Lone Ranger. Granny loved those old westerns. I had sat down with her one night, and now I loved them too. Especially Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and The Rifleman.
“He’s nice,” I mumbled and began searching through my tote of paints for white.
They were all lined up in the small carrier with cardboard dividers to keep the primary colors from the tertiary colors.
“Cute. Like really cute.” I felt that fizzy feeling start in my stomach just thinking of Aiden.
“He asked me to come to his office tomorrow to look at his notes. He said he’s sloppy and needs help a few times a week. ”
The old Singer slowed then stopped. I heard her chair creak as she wiggled around to sit sidesaddle behind me.
The house was quiet. When the heater kicked on in the basement, it made a thudding sound and would blow stinky warm air around.
Baker said he figured a mouse had gotten into the vents and died, which would account for the stink.
It would go away in a few more days, the eldest Baker brother had assured us.
“So he wants you to come to the office in town?”
“Yep.” I found the white paint right off. “Tomorrow. He wants to show me around and meet Wendy. She works the desk. He’s nice. I like him. He doesn’t tell me I ramble on endlessly about dumb things. That’s the sign of a good man, right?”
“Yes, he’s very nice. Very glib. Very promiscuous if what Baker says is true.” I felt her gaze on the back of my neck.
“He sleeps around.”
“So they say,” she whispered before laying a hand on my shoulder.
I wanted to shake it off because I knew she was going to start badmouthing Aiden.
So what if he slept with a lot of men? He was beautiful and funny and kind to animals.
And wore overalls better than any other man I’d ever seen. “I know you have a crush on him.”
“I don’t. I just want to lie in his arms and kiss his jaw. Is that so bad?”
“No, honey, no, it is not bad. I want that too. A big, strong man to cradle me to him to keep me safe. It’s a lovely fairytale, but we know it’s just that. A story. Not reality. No one can keep us safe but us, Ford.”
“I know. And we’re safe here.” I spun to face her, our eyes locking. “Aiden is safe.” She made a wary face. “He is. He’s Baker’s best friend. He’s a veterinarian. He’s safe. I like him. I trust him.”
“See, that’s what I’m worried about. Does he deserve your trust? What would you do if he made a move on you?”
“That will not happen. Aiden is too smart and too good-looking to want to be with some idiot from Brooklyn who only got a job because his stepfather took pity on him. Like, how could a man with a college degree want to be with some loser like me?”
“You’re not a loser. You are the best and truest friend a sorrowful fuckup like me could ever ask for,” she whispered. I threw an arm around her. Pulling her a little closer, I could smell her hair, all fresh and flowery.
“You’re not a fuckup,” I said beside a petite ear with two small pearl studs. “You’re talented and beautiful and loving and filled with sunshine and butterscotch.”
That made her giggle gently. She kissed my cheek and sat back, my arm still resting around her thin neck.
“Yes, that’s me. Sweet as butterscotch and just as sticky.” I nodded. Yeah, I’d gotten stuck in the quagmire of my dearest friend’s poor choices, but I’d sooner be bound with her than without her. “Just be careful with Aiden. I know he’s charming and attractive, but he’s also a known…libertine.”
“You’ve been reading too many Jane Austen books again.”
“Guilty. Just be careful, please. I don’t want to see you get hurt. I’d have to kick him in the face if he used or abused you in any way.”
“That wouldn’t be ladylike.”
“Sometimes you have to remove your earrings to lay an asshole out.”
“Violent.” I chuckled. She gave me a peck on the cheek. “I’m a full-grown man.”
“I’m aware, but your heart isn’t as rough and tough as your exterior. Your heart is a tender bud that the wrong man could crush with ease.”
“Okay, I’ll protect my bud as long as you protect yours.” Her perfectly plucked brows knotted. “You know what I mean. Linc is crazy stupid over you.”
“Lincoln,” she whispered, her gaze softening. Then the dreamy look was gone, replaced by the mask she donned like she used to arrange those expensive wigs on her head nightly. “Neither of us is in any place to tumble into romance.”
That was true. We were living on borrowed time. Still, a little friendship with the sexiest man in blue overalls wouldn’t harm me. Everyone needed friends. Sometimes we all needed a little more.
***
“Is this the last box?” I asked Dodge as I toted an egg box filled with bricks by the feels.
“I think so. That goes in the kitchen. It’s some of the pots and pans I had in storage,” Dodge explained with a wave at Ollie’s kitchen area.
“Who stores pots and pans?” I grumbled while straining under the weight of what must be cement stockpots.
“People who don’t want to sell their set of Le Preset signature enameled cast iron set in soft lapis,” Dodge called over his shoulder.
“I don’t even know what lapis is,” I grunted, heaving the box to the counter and taking a second to catch my breath.
“It’s a shade of blue,” Linc replied while plucking a cold bottle of beer from Ollie’s fridge then offering it to me. I shook my head. Baker and Hanley strolled into the kitchen through the back door, looking pretty kissed out to me. Lips puffy, eyes glassy. “Nice of you two to join us.”
“We were taking shit into the garage,” Baker replied.
Linc tossed a frosty bottle of Miller to him and then one to Hanley.
I made do with cold water from the tap. Beer made my head foamy, like it was light as the suds on the top of a mug that could be blown off with ease.
I disliked feeling foamy. Also, I was driving as soon as I got the go-ahead from Dodge.