Chapter 9
834 Words
Chapter 9
“What?” This time, she performed as any irate female would. She fisted her hands on her curvy hips. “Where’s the gorgeous shaded cabins, the lake, the green grass and rolling hills, or how about just some patio furniture? I’m going to kill her.”
“What the hell, lady? This ain’t some five-star resort. Take it or leave it. You want some upscale, fancy place, you’re in the wrong part of the country. No idea where you’d get a harebrained idea like that. I knew it was a mistake when some realtor called to rent one of my cabins to some woman. I generally only offer them to my customers before we head out on horseback.” Jed wasn’t going to admit that he was counting on that money to cover some of the materials he’d ordered to get a new roof on the house before the rain started. His mood wasn’t about to improve as he hurried in the barn, his worn boots scraping the cement floor. He was fighting against the urge to kick something, but he realized that the plywood stall doors and almost everything inside was leaning or tied together with string or wire—it wouldn’t stay standing if he let loose.
“If I could just borrow your phone, please, I assure you I’ll get this straightened out and—” She was dogging his heels, and the whiff of her perfume was doing little to calm him.
He cut her off and growled, “Phone’s in the office in the back. This a local call?”
He didn’t turn around as he strode into a cramped room to an old metal desk, which had been shoved against the plywood wall, and pushed the stacks of bills and papers aside until he uncovered the old rotary phone. He lifted the receiver and made sure there was a dial tone before handing it to her.
She blinked a couple of times, probably in amazement that someone still had a rotary phone, something that would tie a person down to one room. But the phone cost Jed not a red cent, and that was all he cared about. He hated those cordless phones, anyway, always getting lost. This way, he always knew where the phone was.
“Thank you. I’ll be quick. And it’s a toll-free number, so no long-distance charges. See?” She held up the printed piece of paper, which he couldn’t read from where he lingered in the doorway. He paused and watched when she bent over and dialed, and that was when he was treated to a hint that this woman could outshine all of the New York models—if she wore some sexy low-cut gown, she would bring every man in a two-block radius to heel. No, she was even better than one of the skinny cover girls, because this foxy thing had some meat on her bones and wouldn’t break apart. He would bet his last dollar on it.
“Andrea, this is Diana,” she said into the phone.
Jed listened from the closet-sized tack room beside his office. The walls were a thin sheet of plywood and blocked no sound.
“Well, that’s just the thing. There has to be a mistake. I think you booked the wrong place or you gave me wrong directions, because where I am is in a shithole dustbowl.…”
He grabbed a wooden peg from a box on the floor, one he’d been meaning to hammer into the wall to hang for saddles. He wedged the peg into the hole he had drilled, grabbed a hammer, and banged it the rest of the way in, hoping… Hell, he didn’t know what he hoped. He just knew that this pretty, young thing couldn’t see past her nose to all the work he’d done here, bringing it up from the rat’s nest it was when he bought it. Shithole dustbowl… Who did she think she was, looking down her nose at him and all that he had done? His life hadn’t been handed to him, which wasn’t something he could say of his brothers and cousin.
Diana felt panic lick the back of her throat as she stood facing the empty doorway, holding the disconnected receiver. She rested it back in its cradle and followed the noise to a closet beside the office, where the cowboy pounded a piece of wood into the wall before propping an old, worn saddle over two sturdy pegs. He didn’t face Diana, continuing to hang up tack, reins, and halters, and he grabbed a stack of worn horse blankets on the floor outside the closet.
“Well, did you straighten out your mix-up?”
She cleared her throat. “It appears it’s my mistake. This is what was arranged—”
“Look, lady, are you staying or going?” He brushed past her and out of the barn, into the hot midday sun. “Makes no difference to me either way.”
He wasn’t sticking around to hear what she had to say, and her face burned at how rudely he had dismissed her.
Diana swallowed and strode out of the barn behind him. “I’m staying,” she replied.
- Writer
