I hope I can provide the same for her that Uncle Tony gave me. A safe escape where I felt loved everywhere I went and where I knew I could count on him.
“I’ll do my best to stay alive for you, honey,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes and walks away.
I get it.
I screwed up. Rebuilding this will take time.
Which is pretty much the entire story of my life right now.
Chapter 2
Flint Jackson, a.k.a. a man who wishes he’d stayed in bed this morning
Parsnip is in a mood as I steer her back to Wit’s End, once I’ve finally found her hiding in the sparse woods by the creek, but it can’t be helped.
There’s no way Maisey Spencer can handle what needs to be handled with that cow, and if I don’t deal with it, it’ll only get worse.
Which is why Parsnip and I are headed back to bury the danged thing for Maisey and her teenager.
Might as well. Gonna hurt tomorrow already from getting thrown, so it’s not like burying a cow will make it much worse.
“Simmer down,” I tell my palomino quarter horse, who was really Tony’s old palomino quarter horse, which I won’t be telling Maisey. Care too much about the animal to leave her fate in the hands of a woman who hasn’t been to this ranch in twenty years and whose most recent claim to fame was not getting run over by a lawn mower that she should’ve heard coming on the series finale of that stupid show she did with her even more stupid ex-husband. “Wasn’t a real mountain lion. Don’t see those too often around here. And if it was, it would’ve gone for the cow first.”
Probably.
Fact that the bear was noshing on it suggests it’s past its prime and has probably been there for a few weeks.
At least.
Gross-ass animal.
I probably should’ve found the dead cow sooner, but I’ve been spending more time helping Kory next door and less time checking out all fifty acres of Wit’s End on a regular basis. Ride the fences and check for breaks so we can fix those? Yes. Check in on the mostly empty house that Maisey had cleared out by an estate-sale company instead of tackling herself? Of course. Ride out to the closed-up bunkhouse just in case a wandering cow met an untimely death over there?
No.
Parsnip snorts and keeps trotting. We round the corner of the single-story, dirty off-white building, expecting to see nothing but a cow carcass.
Instead, there’s a denim-clad, heart-shaped ass sticking up in the air while its owner bends over and inspects something on the dry, cracked ground near the dead animal.
Unfortunately for me, I watched enough of Dean’s Fixer Uppers to recognize that ass.
Camera loved to zoom in on her at that angle anytime she was bent over doing any of her handyman work.
’Scuse me.
Handyperson work.
Tony didn’t like to let me forget it either. That man was damn proud of her, no matter what stupid stuff she did on her show and no matter that she never had the time to come visit.
Or even the decency to show up for his funeral.
When Parsnip and I get close enough to her, two things click in my brain.
One, that cow is definitely old Gingersnap, who always loved pulling what Tony called a jailbreak. Kory told me he hadn’t seen her in a while after the fence went down a month or so back. Just assumed the old lady had finally found her freedom and was living her best life however she wanted.
Figured we’d eventually get a call that she’d broken into someone’s house a hundred miles away, because that would’ve been just like Gingersnap.
Instead, apparently she was here.
Wind didn’t pick up the scent, and I’ve been in and out the past few weeks enjoying the last bits of summer vacation, helping friends in town with various projects, and getting ready to start the school year.
That second thing that clicks in my noggin? Maisey’s holding a measuring tape.
Not just holding a measuring tape but using it to take dimensions.
“You planning on listing it on eBay, or you trying to figure out how deep to dig the hole?” I ask while I pull Parsnip to a stop beside her.
She jerks upright and squints up at me. I know full well the sun’s blinding her from this angle, and I also know full well she does, in fact, know how to use a shovel.
Seen her do it enough times on that show.
Never out here on dried-up ranchland, though. And never well.
Am I being an ass?
Yes.
Do I have reason to be?
Beyond the fact that she got me thrown off my horse this morning, yeah. Got a few reasons.
Given that she inherited a ranch that should’ve been left to the town, has been a hoity-toity pain-in-my-ass landlord over email for the past year, missed Tony’s funeral, and showed no interest in coming here at all until she randomly emailed two weeks ago, with all the exclamation points, telling me that she’d decided to move out here with her daughter and embrace hobby-ranch life, yeah.
Yeah, I think I have reason to be.
Last thing we need is a city slicker and her daughter getting themselves into trouble this winter—or before, apparently—and expecting all the townspeople to bail them out.
Last thing I need, that is.
I know how this goes.
Flint will handle it. He’s close. Reliable. Capable. He’ll make sure they don’t die of stupidity in all the elements they’re not used to out here.
Sorta like I just got thrown off my horse helping them chase off the world’s least scary bear.
Freaking Earl.
“Mr. Jackson.” She smiles at me as though she’s genuinely glad to see me, but I know that smile. It was on my television every week from the time she started her little show until Tony left us. Her straight, brownish-blondeish hair, bright-blue eyes, white freckled cheeks, and Cupid’s bow mouth shouldn’t take me by surprise, but they do.
Probably because she looks every bit as fresh right now in the heat rising around us as she does when she’s all made up for the cameras on her show.
And that’s irritating.
Is she out here measuring for a hole under the full morning sun in makeup?
What’s the point of that?
“Thank you again for your help this morning. I’m happy to report that I’ve now had two more cups of coffee. If that bear walked up into my yard right now, I’d be able to handle it on my own without screaming. Much. Probably. Whew. Is it hot out here? It’s the elevation, right? Makes the sun feel hotter? Easier to lose your breath until you get acclimated? I forgot that part.”
“Understandable, seeing how long it’s been since you took the time to come out here.”
Her smile drops all the way, and the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a scowl forms on Maisey Spencer’s face.
I momentarily feel like a heel.
But Tony used to worship this woman, while she never made the time—ever, not in the six years that I’ve been back in Hell’s Bells—to get out here and see him. And calling him?
Nope.
I’d ask on occasion while we were watching that damn show, usually after she tried to hammer something with the wrong end of the hammer or dropped an open bucket of paint on original hardwood floors in an early 1900s fixer-upper. Talk to her lately?
And it was always the same answer. Nah. She’s too busy for a crazy uncle like me.
Shocked the hell out of me when he left her the ranch. Always wondered if he’d known his time was short, if he would’ve changed that and left it to the town and the school like he always said he should.