Page 28 of Tempting Fate
“Come in and I’ll put a pot on before I shower.”
She followed him into his tiny duplex apartment, surprised to find that it was quite tidy. Other than a sixty-inch flat screen that made the small room appear even smaller and a black leather couch, there weren’t a whole lot of furnishings. A couple of cheap posters and a hideous Nagel print of a short-haired woman with sunglasses hung on the wall.
“Where’d you get that?” She took a closer look and shuddered. “A nail salon?”
“A mobbed-up Russian gave it to me. It’s my most prized possession.”
She shook her head, because she didn’t know if he was being sarcastic or not, and trailed him into the kitchen “I don’t even want to know.”
He flicked a switch on a Mr. Coffee and pulled down a couple of mugs from the cupboard, handing her the one that said, “A fun thing to do in the morning is not talk to me.”
“I’ll be out in twenty,” he said, and disappeared behind a door Raylene assumed was his bathroom. Right off the kitchen was a funny place to have it. But the duplex was an old railroad apartment that was designed like a mid-century rail car. There were a number of them in Nugget. The town harkened back to the Gold Rush, but later became a hub for the Western Pacific Railroad. Now, it was a crew-change site for the Union Pacific.
She took the opportunity to snoop, first taking in the kitchen, which was even more sparse than the living room. Other than a few boxes of cereal, a container of protein powder, and a six-pack of beer, Gabe didn’t have much food. He had even fewer pots and pans. His dishes were an assortment of mismatched pieces that reminded Raylene of dime-toss prizes from the county fair. Again, everything was spotless.
His bedroom showed more promise. Pine log furniture, reminiscent of the rustic pieces at Rosser Ranch, filled the room. The bed was neatly made with a crisp plaid duvet, which had been turned under the mattress to form perfect hospital corners. A seaman’s chest with Gabe’s initials carved in the wood sat at the foot of the bed. At least a dozen framed photographs of what Raylene presumed was his family lined his dresser. She examined each picture individually. Pretty people smiled back, and Gabe’s parents looked so in love it took her breath away. The photograph was nothing like the Rosser family portraits her mother paid a high-priced San Francisco photographer to take. The sessions had been comical—and not in a good way. The three of them would dress in their Sunday Western attire and stand stiffly while the photographer snapped their pictures. Halfway through the ordeal, Ray would start complaining that he didn’t have time for “this bullshit.” One of the pictures, which Raylene liked to callAmerican Gothic IIbecause she and her parents looked equally as unhappy as the couple in the painting, hung above the fireplace until Ray was forced to sell the house to pay his dream team of lawyers. Raylene had no idea where the photograph was now.
“You don’t mess around, do you Ray?” Gabe entered with a towel wrapped around his waist and a second one slung around his neck and blew a catcall. “Straight to the bedroom without even buying me a cup of coffee.”
She eyed him, trying to act unaffected by his bulging biceps and his six-pack abs. “It’scoffee, notcawfee.”
“That’s what I said.” He removed the towel from his neck and snapped it at her, then pointed at the picture she was holding in her hand. “That’s my stepsister, Marie. She’s a bigwig at Morgan Stanley. You go through my underwear drawer, too?”
She would’ve if he hadn’t walked in when he did. Raylene put the picture down, squeezed by him, and went back in the kitchen to fill her mug with coffee. She filled his too and checked the fridge, hoping she’d missed the milk on her first pass. No such luck.
Not long after, he came strolling in, dressed, droplets of water still clinging to his light-brown hair. He leaned against the counter, dripping on the linoleum floor, making the kitchen shrink before Raylene’s eyes.
“So you want me to lug this thing all the way to the farm?”
“You said you would.”
“And I will.” He reached for the cup of coffee she’d poured him and took a sip. “I’ll install it too but I’m putting my name on the card.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, take half the credit, even though I did all the work.” It had taken her a month to come up with the right design. Nothing too flashy but with just enough zing. She’d had to consider Logan’s more conservative taste with Annie’s quirky sensibility and find a happy medium. And then there was the question of a name. After the Rossers sold the property to Lila Stone years ago, the property had become known as the Stone place. Since Logan and Annie bought it, everyone called it The Farm. So that’s what Raylene went with. The Farm. She’d worked hand in hand with a metal artist to get the gate and sign just right, incorporating Annie’s logo into the motif. The gift had cost an arm and a leg, depleting much of Raylene’s reserves, but it had been worth it.
“I’m okay with that.” He winked and something in her chest fluttered.
“We better get going then. I want them to have their present before the wedding.”
“Let me at least finish my coffee.” He continued to lean against the counter, holding and blowing on his cup.
She noted the size of his hands. Large, like the rest of him. Butch and her father, they’d had large hands, too. Raylene remembered feeling the sting of them across her face too many times to count.
“Hurry up.” She took her mug to the sink, washed it, and set it on the drainboard. “I still have to get ready.”
“You’ve got hours still.”
Annie had hired a local stylist to come to the house at eleven-thirty to do her, her mother’s, Maisy’s, Gia’s, and Raylene’s hair. There was a time when Raylene would’ve spent hours in front of a mirror, primping for an event like this. As the reigning Plumas County rodeo queen three years in a row, she had a reputation to uphold. And Ray liked her to make an impression. It wasn’t enough for her to be smart or pretty or an accomplished equestrian; she had to be the girl all the other girls wanted to be and all the boys wanted to bed. Unless that boy was Lucky Rodriguez.
Gabe put down his cup and grabbed his jacket. “Let’s do it then.”
Together, they went to Gabe’s storage shed where they loaded the framework, gate, and sign into both their trucks.
“Thanks for storing it here for me.” She’d arranged to have it shipped to his house.
“You’re welcome.” Gabe tied everything down in the bed of Raylene’s Ford while she dragged a bag of quick-set concrete out of the storage shed.
“You sure this will dry in time?”
