Page 78 of Take Me Away, Cowboy

“I don’t think anyone’s expecting that, Owen. We’ve got Brad, and…” She trailed off on her own this time and he wondered where she was going with that line of thought. There wasn’t anyone else. Farm life was hard on a good day, and most of the time folks could barely hold their own, let alone lend a hand when a neighboring farm needed one.

“Why is it so damn hard for you to just say ‘thank you’?” His hands settled back on his hips, but Owen had no intention of trying to draw attention to himself anymore. Now he was just pissed. What was it with this woman? Why was she so hell-bent in shoving people aside, him especially?

“I just don’t want you thinking you have to,” she sputtered. “Not after you and I, well, you know.”

Her voice trembled, and while a strong part of him wanted to reach out to her, soothe her, the other, more dominant part of him, didn’t care anymore. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Guilt beat against his chest like a beast trying to break free.

“I don’t. Your dad’s done a lot to help me get on my feet and I’ve got the time this season. Not everything’s about you, Paige.” He yanked his shovel out of the ground, pulling so quickly and so strongly that it dislodged from the dry earth and half flung him back towards his house. He grunted and stormed off towards his patio. He no longer cared that it was just before noon.

He needed a beer, dammit.

“Thank you again for fixing my doorbell,” she called after him, her voice weak. It was the one part of her that he’d expected to bounce back immediately after the surgery, but it never had. He wasn’t sure how much of that was physiological and how much could be blamed on fear it would all come crashing down around her again.

He’d never know, would he? They’d always just be the hot fling she’d had on one of her trips home, followed by the neighbors that awkwardly waved at each other from their own land. The path that had worn down between them over the course of the summer would grow back, all but erasing their brief, but important to him, affair.

He threw up a hand, not wanting to turn around for fear that the heat pressing against the back of his eyelids would spill over. Like hell he wanted her to see him like that.

At his back door, though, he snuck a look in her direction, her head bent down, her chin to her chest, hands in her pockets. She still looked like a hot mess, but now it wrenched at his heart like it hadn’t back there. She looked sad, small. Like the disease she fought hadn’t left her unscathed.

Jesus, she was still killing him but there wasn’t any reward. What the hell kinda deal was that? He took off after her, cursing under his breath the whole way down the dirt path that led directly to her door. It was shut already, but he rang the bell, cringing when he heard the trill like he was standing under the goddamn dinner bell at basic training. Sheesh.

He’d set out to buy the most obnoxious ringtone the hardware store had on the shelf, and he’d doubled over with laughter when he’d tested it. But that was before he’d found out she was at the hospital with a drunk brother and an injured father.

Hearing it continue to build until he actually winced with pain at what it might sound like inside, he made up his mind. He’d replace it, dammit. He’d started out wanting to help her fix what she couldn’t, but he’d let his emotions get in the way. Again.

He rang it again when she didn’t come down—because where else could she be—but when he heard tires tearing through the gravel along the side of the house, he jogged over just in time to see the silver bumper of Paige’s mom’s car enveloped in a cloud of dust.

Shit. He threw up his hands in the air, waved them in his face, to keep the cloud of dust from his face.

Too late, per usual. He didn’t want to alienate her entirely, he just couldn’t be with her, not when she wasn’t sure she belonged in Banberry. Not when he was so sure he did. It was a recipe for disaster, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still care about Paige. In fact, he doubted that part of him would ever go away.

Ugh. He was toast. Apparently, not unlike Paige’s driveway, which he noticed had two deep ruts torn through when the dust settled.

Damn, they needed more rain. The valley hadn’t had any moisture since the day he and Paige’d gotten pinned down on the ridge. That was a long summer without water; it didn’t bode well for the upcoming fall or winter, either. He ran a hand through his hair, the dust from the day rough on his fingertips.

Owen made the quick trip down the path to his house to where he’d left the shovel, point down in the dry ground. He snatched it up and jogged back to Paige’s driveway, intent on at least making right what he could.

When he was done raking and shoveling the rocks Paige had ripped from their place in the drive, Owen didn’t stop there. Before he realized it, he’d been to town and back and the obnoxious doorbell hung from its guts. The one Owen bought to replace it had a nice, gentle sound, a trill that let the homeowner know they had a guest without alerting the whole neighborhood as well.

Honestly the first one was more Paige. Loud, obnoxious, really let the world know she was there. Not that he’d ever tell her that, though. He laughed, screwed in the cover plate over the new bell.

Thinking of the way her delicate fingers would touch the bell when she got home, he tested it himself. He could barely hear the chirp that might as well have been a songbird as an electronic gadget.

In that way, the new doorbell was as much Paige as the old one. She was complex, so many versions that all added up to the miraculous woman he couldn’t shake. For crying out loud, he still went out of his way to make her happy, even knowing there wasn’t a future for them.

He sighed, bending down to pick up the box, the old hardware from the ground. When he stood up, Owen’s eyes landed on the ladder that still lay prostrate next to the barn. He closed his eyes, imagining what it must have been like for Marge to see her husband working one minute, then laying on the ground, helpless, the next.

He flashed back to images of Paige falling off the horse, of her slide down the hill, of the hospital visit that changed all their lives—hers the most.

That moment, the one where he’d thought he’d lost her, flickered back and forth behind his eyes each time he blinked. In fact, it was the nightmare of almost losing Paige that had replaced those from Afghanistan now that she was gone, unable to help him stave off the demons. The irony was anything but humorous.

He understood the pain her mom must have experienced thinking she’d lost her husband.

Before he could think twice about it, Owen stood by the barn, then up on the ladder, inspecting where Alan might have been working before he fell. A screw bent half out or in its hole. Owen tilted his head back. What had Alan tried to do? The shutters and window lay on the ground. It seemed like Alan had a plan before he’d fallen, but he couldn’t figure out the damned puzzle.

He scratched his head, dry grass and a few pieces of dirt falling onto his shoulders.

It was a faulty shutter system, which was as simple as getting a new set of wood to screw into the siding. But it wasn’t that simple. The window and the siding didn’t fit right, either. He could replace the whole thing, but he doubted the old oak that faced the north slope of the farm could withstand the surgery it would take to make that happen. He’d have to replace the whole siding, and at that rate, he might as well level the barn and start over.

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