the shower helped and he dressed and headed around the building for the dining room in the back. Most of the cowboys were already there, filling plates from the buffet line Cord Cully, a.k.a. Cookie, prepared for them each and every morning. He also fed the cowboys at lunchtime and dinner.
“Good morning, Flint,” Mac McBride greeted him as Flint fell into the line behind him.
“Back at you,” Flint replied.
He filled his plate with bacon and scrambled eggs, with biscuits and gravy and added a spoonful of fruit salad. He carried it over to one of the picnic tables where Mac sat with Jerod Steen, Clay Madison and Dusty Crawford.
Flint slid into the seat next to Dusty, who had recently welcomed a baby boy into his life with his wife, Tricia. “How’s that kid?” he asked Dusty.
Dusty beamed. “Growing like a weed. How’s the cabin coming along?”
Several months ago Flint had bought a couple of acres of heavily wooded land with a clearing perfect for a small house. The cowboys had all pitched in to help him build a cozy, two-bedroom cabin. It was the place he’d live in when he stopped being one of Cassie’s cowboys. And whether he liked it or not that time was quickly approaching.
“The furniture was delivered last week and all I have left is to finish putting up a porch and do some trim work,” Flint replied.
“It sure is a sweet location with all the trees and that little brook that runs through the backyard,” Mac said.
“Yeah, I got lucky in grabbing it before somebody else did,” Flint said.
“Do you need some help getting the porch up?” Jerod asked. “You know some of us wouldn’t mind coming out to lend you a hand.”
“No, thanks. I think I can handle it.” The last thing he wanted his friends and fellow cowboys to know about was his weakness...his chronic pain. Besides, he’d accepted enough of their help in getting the place up.
Cowboys didn’t complain, and at least for now Flint was still a cowboy. He didn’t want to think about what happened when he stopped being a cowboy because the thought scared the hell out of him.
Breakfast continued with talk about the hot months of summer and the lack of rain. They all discussed cattle and chores and whatever else popped into their minds.
“Flint, when are you going to find some nice woman to settle down with?” Dusty asked as they were finishing the meal. “You’ve got that great cabin, now all you need is somebody to share it with.”
“That cabin isn’t meant to be shared. Women are just too...too complex for me,” Flint replied. “I prefer the company of you all when I’m relaxing in the evenings. Besides, what are you doing picking on me? What about Jerod and Mac? They’re both single.”
“Hey, don’t get me in the middle of this,” Mac protested with a laugh.
“Me, neither,” Jerod added.
There followed a rowdy debate between the single men and the committed ones, then with breakfast over they all left the dining room to head out for their morning chores.
Thank goodness Flint had it fairly easy this morning. Sawyer Quincy, the newest foreman and one of Flint’s “brothers,” had delegated him to cleaning up the barn.
The morning was already hot and without a breath of a breeze. August in Bitterroot, Oklahoma, could be brutal. In the barn it would even be hotter. He’d need to remember to hydrate himself throughout the day.
He opened the large barn door and walked in. The barn hadn’t been cleaned up since the winter, when hay bales had been pulled out to take to the cattle and horses in the pastures.
Loose hay covered the floor, and bales were helter-skelter around the space. Flint grabbed a rake and began to work on gathering the golden strands into a pile.
As he worked he whistled an old country-western tune that Mac often strummed on his guitar when they gathered in the evenings in the rec room. Those times were when Flint felt the most satisfied, when in the company of men who shared his past, believed in the same core values as he and with whom he had so much in common. And he was going to miss those times when he stopped working on the ranch.
He consciously willed his thoughts away from thinking about his future because the unknown was too daunting to consider. He’d think about that when he absolutely, positively had to. Right now he just wanted to enjoy the smell of the hay and the knowledge that in a few hours he’d share lunch with the men and later that night a few of them would gather in the rec room for more laughs and music provided by Mac and his guitar.
Within an hour he had the hay on the floor swept into neat, small piles that he then bound with twine. He’d just grabbed the hay hook off the wall when he froze. He’d heard...a noise. It hadn’t sounded like the faint rustle of a mouse, although there were certainly mice and other small varmints in the barn.
He waited a minute and listened, but heard nothing more so he got back to work. The hay bales weighed about seventy pounds apiece. He began to straighten the stacks, using the hay hook when he needed to lift and carry them from one place to another.
He rounded one corner of the stacks of hay bales and gasped in stunned shock. She was nestled in a little cubbyhole provided by the hay. Her long, dark hair hung in damp ringlets around her heart-shaped face, and her huge blue eyes stared at him both in horror and in fear.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said as she hurriedly rose to her feet.
“Maddy, what are you doing here?” he asked in stunned surprise. Maddy Taylor...he knew her from the grocery store where she occasionally checked him out when he shopped there, but he hadn’t seen her for the past couple of months. What in the heck was she doing in the middle of the hay in the Holiday barn?
Tears welled up in her eyes. “Please, please don’t tell anyone you saw me.” Her trembling fingers plucked a strand of the hay out of her long hair. “Don’t tell anyone I was here.”
“But what’s going on?” Shock still fluttered through him at her very presence in the hot barn. How long had she been here and of all places, why was she here? “What are you doing here?”
“I... I was trying to leave town. I have to...to go anyplace but here. My car broke down and...and this was the closest place to walk to...and I just needed some time to figure out what I’m going to do.” The words bubbled out of her and her entire body shook like a frightened puppy.
Flint frowned, trying to make sense of what she’d just told him. “When your car broke down why didn’t you just try to catch a ride back to your trailer?” He knew she lived in a mobile home park on the wrong side of Bitterroot.
Her eyes widened. “I... I can’t ever go back there again.”
“Why? Why do you have to leave town?” Bitterroot was a big pond of gossipmongers, but he hadn’t heard anything about Maddy in recent days. What in the heck was going on with her?
“Please...don’t ask me. I can’t tell you. I... I can’t tell anyone.” Her eyes took on a frightened haunting. “I’m sorry for being here. I’ll just get my things and leave.” She turned and grabbed the handle of a medium-size, beat-up suitcase
