“Okay.”
He glanced at her and realized that she was looking puzzled, as if he was making a huge case out of nothing. But it wasn’t nothing. He turned off the burner, and after about a minute, the pilot light went out. “And there’s the problem.”
“I see that.”
“As I said, I checked and the safety shutoffs are working, so you don’t need to worry about the pilots going out. But I don’t know what might happen if you have a burner turned on and it goes out. I haven’t cooked on this dang thing—never intended to. So I guess, what I’m saying is, don’t leave it unattended while you cook until I get the new stove in here.”
“I can do that,” she said with certainty. “I wasn’t planning on cooking anything tonight anyway, and if I do in the morning, I’ll watch it.”
“Thank you.” He lowered the stove lid and opened the oven. “This is the pilot for the oven, but I’d really prefer you leave this one alone. This worries me because it pours out a lot of gas fast, and if the flame goes out, you won’t necessarily notice and…well, you don’t need me to draw you a map.”
“No, I get it. But you don’t have to rush to get a new stove on my account. I can manage.”
He shook his head. “Ben rented this place to you. I’m responsible for your safety. That’s the beginning and end of it.”
“Thank you. I’ll be careful.”
She went quickly to get the coffee, afraid he might just stride out, and poured two mugs. He didn’t hesitate, much to her relief, but took one of the chairs at the chipped dinette and reached for a mug.
She replaced the pot before joining him, and wondered at her sudden need for companionship. Maybe it was just the strangeness of being in a house again. She hadn’t really thought about that when she’d decided to rent the place for a while, but she was thinking about it now. Unlike the motel rooms she had inhabited, this place had more windows and more doors. She kept thinking about that now as darkness approached.
“So you’re a firefighter?” she asked tentatively, thinking that would be a safe place to go.
Apparently not. It was almost as if his face shuttered, growing suddenly hard. Then he visibly relaxed. “Not anymore. I’m just a cowboy.”
“That seems like a big career change.”
“Not really. I worked as a cowpoke from the time I was twelve until I went off to the academy. Summers and vacations.”
She pulled up her knee, rested her chin on it, and wrapped her arms around her leg. “I can’t imagine. I’ve had a very different sort of life. Being a cowboy sounds exotic to me.”
At that, some of the hardness slipped from his face and he smiled faintly. “It’s dirty, hard, smelly work for the most part. But I’ve always enjoyed it. I’d do it more often if there was more work available.”
“Is it like the movies?”
“In what way? We’re outdoors most of the time, we pretty much work sunup to sundown. If we’re working with the herds, we sleep with them. If we’re working the fences, sometimes we have the shelter of a line shack if we want it. If it’s romantic at all, it’s the part where we sleep under the stars and sit around the campfire at night telling godawful stories. But the coffee is terrible, the food is pretty rugged and the nights can sometimes seem miserably cold.”
“I’ve only been camping a couple of times. I liked it.” She tried a tentative smile, glad to see he’d relaxed from whatever had made him so tense.
“So what do you do?” he asked.
“I’m…I was in charge of billing for a large medical practice. I moved up to office manager, too, a couple of years ago.”
“That sounds complicated. Did you like it?”
“Mostly.” She closed her eyes a bit, thinking back, trying to leave Dean out of the equation. It wasn’t easy. Her marriage to him had colored everything.
“Better question,” he said. “Would you like to do it again?”
“Maybe.” She let out a sigh and shook her head a little as she reached for her coffee. “That depends, I guess.”
“With what you feel like when you’re done traveling?”
“Pretty much.” That seemed as safe a way to put it as any. “I have time.” Two months, anyway. If she could make it that long. Once again, she assured herself she had covered her tracks. And once again some little corner at the back of her mind wasn’t so sure about that. Dang it, why couldn’t she put her finger on what worried her? Other than the fact that she hadn’t felt safe since that man tried to drown her in a canal.
Then he dropped the boulder that left her rattled to her very core. “What are you running from?” he asked.
She went hot and cold by turns as shock ripped through her. How had he known? What had she said? Had her most closely guarded secret been so obvious? When she managed to find her voice, she said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do,” he said quietly.
“You don’t know anything about me!”
“That’s true. And it’s none of my business, really.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“But the way you opened the door this afternoon, looking like a frightened gazelle, and renting this crappy place in a town in the middle of nowhere … Sorry. I don’t think you’re on a vacation.”
“It doesn’t matter what I am.”
“Maybe not.” He leaned back a bit in his chair, as if to give her more space. “I guess I’ve overstayed my welcome. I’ll be back as early as I can with the stove tomorrow, and after I get it in, I’ll probably work on the windows.”
He started to push back from the table, but she instantly felt bad. For the way she had just shut him out, for the rudeness she’d just displayed when he’d gone out of his way to be kind to her. But there was a bit of selfishness, too, because she didn’t want him to go. Didn’t want to rattle around alone in this house—not yet.
“Wait,” she said tautly.
He paused, the chair only an inch farther from the table than when he’d started to shove back.
“I’m sorry. I’m being rude.”
“Your business is your business.”
“I know but…you’ve been so kind, and you’re right—this is all crazy. And you’re probably wondering if I’m a criminal on the lam….”
He startled her by laughing. “By God,” he said, “that thought never entered my mind.” Still smiling, he cocked a brow at her. “Now that could be exciting.”
With all that had happened, with all she’d had to give up, she still had her sense of humor. A little giggle escaped her. “Are you that bored?”
“I don’t bore easily. But I have to admit, renting a house to a fleeing felon might be one of the most interesting things I’ve ever done. Not the kind of thing that happens every day.”
“No, it’s not,” she admitted, the smile still tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Sorry, I’m not running from the law.”
“No surprise there.”
She hesitated, then bit her lip a moment. Finally, she said, “I’ll tell you, but please don’t tell anyone else.”
“Gossip is far from my favorite thing. And you don’t have to tell me. I was just getting ready to tell you that I’m right next door if you need anything. Since you’re