Page 19 of His Wilde Little
Jace smirked and had a little shimmy strop walk. “Since you put it like that, I suppose I’m like the best person they knew, and they would go to war for me if I asked them.”
“Ok, maybe take it back a notch.”
“Don’t make me set the alpacas onto you.”
This was a much nicer vibe. Playful and fun. “You already promised you wouldn’t let them, since I’ll be helping you with your fear of horses.”
As we walked to the shed, which I’d seen briefly on the tour around the ranch, but we hadn’t gone inside. It was a bigbuilding that looked like it had seen better days with the paint chipping and peeling away from the wood.
“This place is going to be crawling with spiders,” he warned me.
“I’m fine with. them,” I told him. “Or is that for you to tell me you want me going in first.”
“Oh my god, you already know me so well,” he giggled.
“Almost like that taste of you stuck with me,” I quipped, but he either didn’t hear, or was good at masking his facial expression suddenly.
The shed was a graveyard for everything the ranch no longer had any use from, filled with large plastic boxes of what seemed like paperwork, and other large metal appliances just laying around collect rust. Bicycles and even a motorcycle were hiding amongst it.
Jace stayed outside the door, just pointing and telling me to look in certain places. “They must be in a box somewhere.”
“Does anyone ever come in here?” I asked, moving one large clear plastic container to see another.
“Nope. Only if my mom knows something is in here and we basically do roshambo to see who has to come in here with her and find it,” he said. “I always win, so I never come in. Usually Olivia, or dad but he will use his back as an excuse to get out of the heavy lifting stuff.”
After moving a couple boxes and being covered by a layer of dust from above, I found a box. It was labeled blankets. I pulled it out and hauled it to the doors for Jace to help me out with it.
“I guess he wasn’t lying about this,” I said. “Now I need to find some space heaters, if you want to go through this.”
He winced slightly. “What if there’s like a nest in there just waiting to jump out at me?”
“You can’t be scared of some insects,” I said, popping the lid off for him. “Please look for some substantial blankets. Remember, these are for horses. I’ll do the real work.” I winked at him. It wasn’t exactly an intentional wink, but it happened, and I could see the way it eased him.
He rummaged through it as I went deeper into the shed in search for some space heaters. I would’ve already hoped stuff like this would be readily available considering they lived here where the weather got cold and the rain felt like it was sinking into your bones.
“Do you have any idea where they might be?” I called out to him.
There was no response. He was quiet. Too quiet, almost like he’d left me. I stepped away from the pile of hunking metal that loomed in the corner to see him on his knees in front of the plastic container hugging at a quilted blanket.
“You good?” I asked.
“I thought I’d lost this,” he said. “Smells a little, but it’s—” he pulled it away from his nose. “It’s mine.”
“Ok, so not for the horses then.”
He laughed. “Oh no, this was mine from childhood. I didn’t even know where it went, and one day I guess I just forgot all about it.”
Blankets spilled out of the container as he’d dug deep into it for that one. “Well, let’s find some for the horses as well,” I said, “and do you know where these heaters might be?” I did a quick glance to my watch. “We don’t have long left before they’re supposed to get here.”
He pointed at the other side of the shed. “We get them out in winter, so should be close. They might be covered, actually.”
“In what?”
Rubbing his face with the quilted blanket, he was not thinking about the radiators at all. “Like maybe a blanket.”
And to my surprise, that’s exactly where they were. Two big space heating radiators were covered in fleece blankets and seemingly tied together with bungee cord. “And they still work,” I mumbled. They must’ve done, and if they didn’t, it would be a priority.
Jace threw all the blankets back into the box while keeping hold of the quilted one. He dragged it along to the stable while I carried the two space heaters, almost dropping them a couple times in the process. They were quite heavy. I didn’t know what state they were in, but they seemed protected with the cover so that was a huge bonus.
