The Rancher Next Door Won't Stay Away

Chapter 1

Chapter One

SHELBY

The cabin looks like it's trying to die.

Not in a graceful, rustic way. Not sun-bleached wood and charming decay.

The porch sags left, the front steps are missing a middle board, and the roof has a patch of moss growing thick enough to qualify as landscaping.

The real estate listing said mountain retreat with character.

What it should've said was structurally questionable shack sold to a desperate woman who didn't ask for photos.

I turn off the engine and sit in my car for a full minute, hands still on the steering wheel, staring through the windshield at what I just spent the last of my savings on.

The drive from Denver took four hours. The last ninety minutes were a single winding road that made my ears pop twice and my GPS lose signal three separate times. My phone has one bar. One. And it flickers to zero every time the wind blows, which is constantly at eight thousand feet in October.

I could cry. That's an option. Sit here in this dusty Subaru with the check engine light that's been on since Pueblo and just let it out.

Instead, I pop the trunk.

Three suitcases. Two boxes of kitchen stuff I grabbed from the apartment. A bag of groceries from the last gas station that had anything besides jerky and energy drinks. That's it. That's everything I own that isn't currently being argued over by two lawyers billing four hundred dollars an hour.

The air hits me when I step out. Thin. Cold in a way Denver never gets, even in winter.

Pine and dirt and absolutely nothing else.

No exhaust. No restaurant grease. No cologne that costs more than my car payment because someone needed to impress clients at dinner parties I planned but was never allowed to enjoy.

Stop.

I grab the heaviest suitcase and drag it up the porch steps, skipping the gap where the middle board should be. The front door takes three shoves to open. The wood is swollen from moisture, or age, or spite.

Inside is dim. Dusty. A main room with a stone fireplace, a kitchen along the back wall, and a hallway that probably leads to a bedroom and bathroom. The furniture is covered in sheets that might've been white once. Everything smells like cedar and mouse.

I set the suitcase down and pull out my phone. Zero bars.

"Perfect."

The word echoes in the empty room. Flat. Bitter. A thirty-two-year-old woman standing alone in a cabin she's never seen, in a town she couldn't find on a map, talking to nobody.

My throat tightens.

I don't cry. I unload the car instead.

Three trips up the porch steps, dodging the missing board each time. Groceries on the kitchen counter, which is laminate peeling at the corners. Suitcases in the hallway. Boxes stacked against the wall.

The electricity is supposed to be on. The previous owner mentioned a generator out back for when the power goes, which according to the paperwork is "occasionally during weather events." Given that I'm in the mountains and it's late October, I'm guessing "occasionally" means "every other Tuesday."

I flip the kitchen light switch. Nothing.

I flip it again. Nothing.

I try the one in the main room. Dead.

My chest gets tight. It's just electricity. People lived without it for thousands of years. Those people also died at thirty-five from infected teeth, so maybe that's not the comfort I'm reaching for.

The generator is out back. I know this because I read the homeowner's manual twice on the drive up. In theory, I pull the choke, flip the fuel valve, and yank the starter cord. Easy. Lawnmower logic.

I find it behind the cabin under a tarp so weathered it cracks when I pull it off.

The generator is red. Or it was, once. Now it's rust and grime that suggests nobody has touched it since the previous decade.

The fuel tank has a cap I can't get off.

My fingers slip twice before I realize it's a twist lock, not a pull.

I twist. Nothing moves.

I try harder. My hand slips and my knuckle drags across the metal housing. Pain. Blood.

"Son of a..."

I suck the knuckle, tasting copper, and glare at the generator. Which, technically, does owe me money.

Twenty minutes. That's how long I fight with it. Choke pulled, fuel valve turned to what I think is the ON position based on a label so faded it could say anything. I wrap both hands around the starter cord and pull.

Nothing.

Pull again. A cough from the engine that dies immediately.

Again. My shoulder screams. The cord snaps back with enough force to sting my palms.

"Come on. Come on."

I brace my foot against the base and pull with everything I've got. The cord jerks but the engine doesn't catch. My foot slips on the wet grass and I land on my ass in the dirt, the starter handle still in my grip, breath coming hard.

Cold October air against my face. Dirt soaking through my jeans. A knuckle bleeding. No electricity. No phone signal. No one coming.

This is fine. This is exactly what I wanted. Alone. Off the grid. No one telling me what to eat, what to wear, what tone my voice should be when I answer a question about my own schedule.

I am free.

I am also sitting in mud with a dead generator and it's going to be dark in about two hours.

"Need a hand?"

The voice comes from behind me, low and unhurried, and I'm on my feet so fast I almost trip over the generator. My heart is slamming. My fists are up. Old reflex. Not from violence, just from someone being where I didn't expect them, making sounds I didn't hear coming.

A man stands at the corner of the cabin.

Tall. Broad across the shoulders in a way no gym produces.

Sun-streaked brown hair under a worn ball cap, pushed back on his head.

Flannel over a thermal, sleeves pushed to his elbows, forearms thick with actual muscle.

Calloused hands hanging easy at his sides.

He's got a jaw that looks like it was designed for clenching and eyes that are doing something between curious and careful, watching me like he hasn't decided yet whether I'm a threat or a stray.

Behind him, a horse. Saddled, loose-reined, standing in my overgrown side yard like that's a normal place for a horse to be.

"Who are you?" My voice comes out hard. Good.

He doesn't flinch. "Cade Holloway. I'm your neighbor."

"I don't have neighbors."

One corner of his mouth twitches. Barely. "Property to the east is mine. Starts about forty yards past your fence line." He nods toward the generator. "That thing hasn't run in three years, at least."

"I'm handling it."

His eyes drop to my bleeding knuckle, then to the mud on my jeans, then back to my face. He doesn't say anything. Which is worse than if he'd argued.

"I said I'm handling it."

"Heard you the first time." He takes a step closer.

Not toward me. Toward the generator. Slow, like he's approaching something skittish.

He crouches, turns the fuel cap with one hand like it's nothing, peers inside.

"Tank's dry. Fuel line's cracked. Gasket on the starter housing is shot.

" He runs a thumb over something I can't see from this angle.

"Carburetor's clogged. Been sitting too long without treatment. "

Great. Fantastic. A dead generator with a resume of problems.

"I'll figure it out."

He stands. Wipes his hands on his jeans. Looks at me, really looks, with those steady brown eyes that don't rush anywhere. "You got firewood?"

"I'll buy some."

"Where?"

The question catches me off guard because the answer is I don't know. I don't know where to buy firewood in a town I drove through in under two minutes. I don't know where to buy anything here.

"I'll figure that out too."

He holds my gaze. No irritation. No pity. Just patience that makes my teeth clench for reasons I refuse to examine.

"Hardware store on Main opens at seven. Ask for a generator gasket and starter cord." He reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a bandana that's been folded into a square, and holds it out. "For your hand."

"I don't need your bandana."

"It's bleeding on your shirt."

I look down. He's right. A smear of red across the hem of my white Henley.

Before I can respond, he sets the bandana on the edge of the generator, turns, and walks back toward the horse. Steps into the stirrup, swings up, settles into the saddle with the ease of someone who's done it ten thousand times.

"Power company's number is on the breaker box inside the back door," he says, not turning around. "They'll send someone tomorrow if you call before five."

He clicks his tongue. The horse turns. And Cade Holloway rides back across my property line like he's got all the time in the world and none of it is wasted on people who don't want help.

I watch him go. The horse picks its way through the brush along the fence, and he disappears into the tree line without looking back.

The bandana sits on the generator. Dark blue. Clean. Smells like hay and something warm.

I wrap it around my knuckle.

Just until the bleeding stops. Then I'm giving it back.