Page 19 of Take Me Away, Cowboy

It wasn’t just the talking either. Owen hadn’t ever known anyone who looked like Paige, either. He went to bed with thoughts of kissing her soft, supple lips, imagining her hands fisted in his hair pulling him down to her, her tongue teasing his.

She’d tasted of caramel and spices from the island, of the rum she’d brought back. Of sunshine.

The last thought he recalled having before he fell asleep was of whether or not Paige’s skin would be as soft as the rest of her, if she tasted the same everywhere else.

That was it, and he was out like a light until his alarm rang at four thirty in the morning. He hadn’t relied on that alarm in months, years even. Hadn’t needed to, since he never really slept.

That morning, though, he threw on a pair of boxers and work jeans with two jagged tears in the knees. He left his shirt off, feeling a wicked heat hangover from the night before. Despite the small window AC unit he’d installed in his bedroom, the temperature in the house hadn’t dipped under eighty. It was like being in the Kuresh Valley in summer again—sans the RPGs and M16s aimed at him, of course.

He threw on his boots and a ball cap—forward facing this time—that at least blocked against the sun that reflected off the mountains. Damn if it didn’t trap all the heat on the top of his head, though. His mop of hair wasn’t helping, but he didn’t have the heart to cut it just yet. After a decade and a half of high and tights, growing out the hair was as much part of letting go as the rest of it.

Owen poured a half a cup of coffee, added a Splenda, then topped the whole thing off with milk to the brim. He needed the caffeine to go directly to his system, needed coffee he could chug. He hoped that and the granola bar he nabbed from his half-empty pantry would be enough to tide him over until his morning walk of his property was through.

Normally he’d take the property line at a stroll, but today he wanted it over with. He had big plans that didn’t take the farm into account. He’d done the groundwork on the crops already the week prior, and whatever was falling to shit on the house and barn he could take care of another day, his deck included.

Today, he wanted to take the horses out for a spin. He’d been hesitant to let them go wild on the trails he’d discovered on his evening runs because of the heat, but he still wanted them to get a chance to stretch their legs a little. The weather promised temps that dipped into the low eighties that afternoon, so he’d just take it slow.

Plus, he had a mind to take Paige out for the ride, if she’d forgiven him, that is. He liked the idea of her beside him, of talking to her. And yeah, maybe also watching the way she managed a horse, or how the horse would manage her. The way her body would look bouncing along a rustic mountain trail, the tight jeans she’d wear that would complement her perfect ass.

What he really wanted was the opportunity to find out the answer to what her skin tasted like, one of the first things he awoke thinking about. But that didn’t come overnight.

He gulped down the coffee and milk, not caring that he couldn’t savor it today. He needed to get that woman out of his head, for a little while at least. Work would do the trick.

He pushed open the screen door and walked out into the already eighty-nine-degree heat.

The rain better come in soon, or this would be a crap year for corn, not to mention the fire season come fall. He’d read in the local paper the morning prior that the moisture was down 22 percent from last year, 34 percent overall in the past five years. Not a good time to own a farm, he gathered between the lines.

Oh well. Too late now.

On the way to the fields he stopped by the barn to check in on the horses.

He reached above the first stall door with a handful of oats but got nothing for his efforts. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, hoping to rile her from sleep, but still nothing. He peeked in and saw his mare, Justice, laid out on the oak-chip-covered floor. She lifted her head, looked up at him with eyes that said, “No amount of food is worth being up this early,” and laid her head back down with a snort.

“I get it, darlin’,” Owen sang down to her. She was his gift, the one earthly being that had walked him off the edge of a dark, unforgiving cliff after his injury, the death of his men. A big part of his move to Banberry was so she could have the freedom to roam. “It’s hot as the devil out, and I don’t expect you’re wanting to be up moving this early anyway. I’ll bring you a treat when I get back. I don’t want you to be jealous, but I have a woman I’d like you to meet.”

At that admission, Justice raised her head and whinnied, then turned so she didn’t face Owen anymore.

“Fine, be that way, but I’m going exploring with or without you this afternoon, and I’d really like you to come along. We’ll be hitting the ridge you tried to take me up a few days ago.”

He dropped the oats back into the bucket outside Justice’s stall and popped his head in to see how Ares, his gelding, was doing. Getting the same response from him as his sister, Owen left the barn grumbling about the lazy horses, more anxious than ever to get chores done.

Begrudgingly, Owen started walking the fence line first, shoving at the posts, checking for rot, for weak beams, making sure they’d hold out through the winter. He rounded the corner on the south end of his property and stopped short, his arms raised up in the air, muscles tensed, his mouth open wide in surprise.

“Come the fuck on!” he screamed. “Are you kidding me?” He kicked the dirt, sending a cloud of dry dust into the air. Coughing, he waved the air in front of his face and walked up, shoulders hunched, to a thoroughly destroyed section of fence. Not just destroyed, butdemolished. Like a bull had taken it down after being zapped by an electric prod.

Fuck.

He ran his hands along a jagged piece of pine that sprung out from the ground like it had grown that way. Except it was supposed to be sitting snugly in the post that lay on its side, covered in dirt next to him. Tangled barbed wire was strewn at his feet in a mess that could only be described as catastrophic.

Owen knelt down and picked up a bit of dirt on the top of the post, the part that was supposed to be as tall as his shoulders, rubbed the soft sand between his fingers. Short, black hairs fell on his palms.

Shit. Bear. Maybe plural.

“Goddamn it to hell,” he muttered, walking in the gap to survey the damage. Sure enough, he found prints as big as his hand in the arid ground, downed bushes and shrubs in their wake. At least, as far as he could tell, the barbed wire looked trampled more than dragged, so he guessed there wasn’t an injured bear somewhere on his property.

He’d walk the whole plot later when this was taken care of, just to be sure. Only one set of prints led away from the downed fence, so that eased his mind enough to walk him back a few paces from the mental ledge he stared down.

He made it to the last row of corn before the forest’s edge. Thankfully this time, the black bear—most likely a mature male—skirted the edge of his crop and went for the berry bushes that fell behind them. He couldn’t take the risk that he’d be as lucky the next time.

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