the floor while she was gone, but he was still pissed about her assumption that he would fix things ASAP for her. More than that, he was irritated that she was there at all. He’d leased the place, and therefore it should be his...but Karl was a longtime friend of his grandfather’s, and had given Cole a healthy break on the farm’s lease. The least he could do was play ball for the undoubtedly short period that Ms. Taylor Evans would be in residence. Which was another good reason why he wouldn’t fix the floor. The more uncomfortable she was, the quicker she’d be out of here. But if Karl asked him to fix it, he would.
Hell, if she asked him to fix it again, he probably would.
The wrench slipped and he banged his knuckles. Shaking his hand and cursing, he then braced his hands on the edge of the baler and let out a breath. It sucked being a decent guy sometimes. Decent guys tended to get taken advantage of. Miranda had taken advantage of him whenever she could, and since he had a conscience as well as a younger sister to protect, he stuck things out on the ranch until Jancey finished high school. Then he told Miranda he was through. The look on her face had been rather satisfying. And even though he no longer managed the ranch, he still had a stake in the place. A stake that Miranda would dearly love to relieve him of.
“Good luck with that,” he muttered.
Once upon a time, the Bryan Ranch had been a joint venture between his father and his uncle. They hadn’t made a lot of money, but they’d eked out a living—and then his uncle married his second wife, Miranda, who proceeded to talk the brothers into increasing their profits by turning one ranch into a guest ranch and leaving the other as a small working ranch for the entertainment of their guests...and to keep Cole’s father happy.
The plan worked. Miranda turned the guest ranch into a popular vacation and retreat destination, making most of the family miserable in the process—everyone except for her husband, who loved her blindly until the day he died. Cole’s father had immersed himself in the working ranch and ignored the guests and everything associated with them, so after graduating from college, Cole had become responsible for the trail rides, the outfitting, the cattle drives—anything that involved animals and guests. He was good at his job, and enjoyed it until his father died and Miranda went power mad. Everything had to be cleared through her and everything had to be perfect. Not just regular perfect, but exceptionally perfect—which was a direct quote from his step-aunt.
After their father died, Jancey had stayed in the family home while Cole had spent most of his time at the main guest ranch, a half mile away so that he could be on call—Miranda’s idea, even though Jancey had been only a junior in high school at the time. The arrangement worked for the most part, if one didn’t mind the animal-population explosion that had occurred once Jancey had the working ranch to herself. Whenever possible, Cole had escaped to his family home to spend time with his sister. Jancey was better at looking after guests than he was, which was why she had continued working at the ranch, saving money for college, after he quit.
Bottom line, the ranch made money and he and Jancey got a cut. But the price they’d paid in emotional turmoil was ridiculous.
Which was why he wanted to be alone, and the fact that he wasn’t ate at him.
Maybe Jancey was right—maybe he was suffering from post-Miranda stress disorder.
* * *
TAYLOR DROVE PAST the hotel parking lot where she’d been robbed, then made her way to the sheriff’s office. After dropping off her list of stolen items, and knowing full well that she needn’t have bothered because she was never seeing any of that stuff again, she returned the trailer, then headed to the building supply store two blocks away.
Taylor pushed an oversize cart along the aisles, feeling remarkably out of place. She’d never been in a building supply store—not one that didn’t also sell appliances and curtains and flowers in addition to lumber and hardware. She cruised the aisles, though since there weren’t many, it didn’t take that long. She bought thick plastic and duct tape, then, since she was in no hurry to get back, she stopped at the coffee shop on the other side of the parking lot and took her time sipping a chai latte.
Chai was her go-to calmer-downer, but instead of relaxing as she sipped the hot, sweet tea mixture, she found herself drumming her fingers. Abruptly, she closed her hand and dropped it into her lap, where it clenched into a fist.
Plastic and duct tape and a couple of gnarly cats were all that would stand between her and the rodent population of the Eagle Valley.
How was she supposed to sleep with that kind of a threat hanging over her head? Meanwhile the guy who probably didn’t care about rodents slept in the mouse-proof house.
Her fist clenched even tighter, and Taylor made a conscious effort to unclench.
It was clear that her grandfather wasn’t going to suggest to Cole that he trade places with her, even after the month was up. Which meant that she was probably stuck in the bunkhouse hellhole until she got back on her feet.
Taylor started drumming her fingers again, then she picked up her phone and went to YouTube, searching for videos on repairing rotten floorboards. She scrolled through videos, watching pieces here and there, before concluding that her repair didn’t have to be pretty. It had to be mouse-proof. Who was going to see under the sink except for her?
And if things played out well, she wouldn’t be there for that long. The obsessive part of her brain wouldn’t have to grapple with the fact that there were messy boards under the sink. She’d spent the better part of the evening reading through job listings within driving distance of the Eagle Valley, so she had hope.
She felt better as she finished her tea. First she’d conquer home repair, then she’d find a job. Ever upward and all that.
Taylor got to her feet, shouldered her purse, tossed the cup into the trash and left the shop with a sense of purpose.
Forty-five minutes later she had short boards that the woman in the lumber department had cut for her, a box of wood screws, a cordless drill that made her feel kind of powerful and macho—and which had cost less than one of her bras—a hammer, just because, and steel wool for plugging extra space around the incoming pipe. She also had two mousetraps, just in case. Taylor smiled grimly as she pushed the cart through the automatic doors.
It was good to take control.
* * *
THE SOUND OF a drill brought Cole’s head up as he walked by the bunkhouse on his way to the barn, where he planned to start fixing the corrals for the three orphan calves he was taking off his sister’s hands. The drilling stopped, followed by a clatter and a muttered curse. When they’d spoken earlier about the hole under the sink, Taylor had seemed clueless about repairs, but judging from where the noise was coming from, she appeared to be tackling them herself.
None of your business.
Actually, in a way, it was his business. If it turned out that Taylor was handy with tools, then her assumption that he would fix her problem was going to irk him that much more. In fact, it had already irked him to the point that he single-handedly moved a mattress and box spring out of Karl’s basement and hauled them over to the bunkhouse so that he didn’t have to have any more contact with her than necessary. And if that mattress and box spring happened to be twin-size instead of the queen-size bed in the guest room, so what? A twin bed would fit her just fine, and maybe someday he’d have guests.
Cole forced himself to ignore the bang that erupted from inside the bunkhouse and walk on.
He’d
