Huh. That made her heart a little sad for the man who lived here.
The room was painted the same dark gray as the bedroom, with matching white trim. When she looked up, she saw the ceiling was all exposed stained wood and rafters that gave this place a feeling of modern meets cabin-in-the-woods. The kitchen was all wood block countertops and matching cabinets. Brown and gray. Those were Franklin’s colors.
She sat on the couch and read the first few pages of his book but got bored quickly. She made three circles around the room and kitchen, looking at every sparse decoration before she started studying the wood grain in his kitchen table. God, this was a boring life.
There was probably way more fun stuff to do outside. Maybe he had pet goats.
In the kitchen, he’d set out a brand-new bottle of over-the-counter pain killers and an unopened bottle of water. Okay, he wasn’t trying to drug her, just alleviate her dang headache. That was nice. She broke the seal on the medicine and took three to try and get the pounding behind her eyes under control.
The pantry was stocked, and so was the fridge, so she made herself right at home and put together a few grilled cheese sandwiches and a thermos of hot tomato soup. Then she dressed in as many warm layers as she’d packed and pulled on one of the oversize jackets from the coat hook at the front door. It swallowed her whole but smelled good. She sniffed the collar. He had good taste in deodorant scents and soap.
Okay, mister I’m-only-a-one. Smelling good is at least two points.
She zipped up his jacket and grabbed the little cooler of food she’d packed, then made her way outside into the freezing cold blizzard. The wind took the door the second she opened it and nearly knocked her on her butt.
Jeez, the weather was a little intense in this part of Montana.
She slipped and slid across the icy porch and stumbled down the snow-caked steps into the yard. She made her way around the house to find his boot prints leading from the bedroom window. She found them, but they were already being filled in with snow.
Go fast!
She couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of her. She hugged the cooler to her chest, pulled up her hood, tucked her chin against the stinging snow hitting her cheeks, and stepped in every boot print he made. Up ahead, there was a big barn.
Relieved that she wasn’t going to be traipsing around the woods lost in a snow storm, she jogged the rest of the way to the open sliding doors.
A voice reached her ears. Franklin’s voice. It echoed through the cavernous barn and she froze in the open doorway, listening.
“I won’t do that…because that’s not what you do to people!” Was he on the phone? “Yeah well, you don’t have a soul, so this argument is pointless…I’m trying. I’m trying!”
Maybe he was talking to his girlfriend or something. Lucky sumabitch had cell phone reception in here?
Curious, she tiptoed as quietly as she could down the straw littered aisle between two rows of stalls toward the sound of his deep, snarly voice.
The last stall surprised her. It was a chicken coop, complete with a gate that stretched all the way to the ceiling, instead of just a third of the way like the others.
There were six chickens staring right at her. Franklin was in the middle of the little flock with a pitchfork in his hand, scooping hay off the floor and into a wheelbarrow.
“You have chickens in a barn,” she said.
With a fearsome snarl, Franklin twisted around and she saw his face for the first time.
He’d lied to her.
He wasn’t a one at all.
He had a full beard and perfect high cheek bones. His nose was straight and his eyes were blazing silver under his light brown eyebrows. His hair was short on the sides and messy on top, and his teeth were all straight and white. She could tell, because he was baring them right at her.
“How did you get in here?”
“Uuuuuh, the door was wide open?”
“I mean without me hearing you?”
She’d never before met a man who could growl every word like this.
“You said you’re a one, but honestly you are closer to a nine. I would say ten, but I deduct points for rudeness.” She lowered her voice. “It makes ya less attractive if you’re a douche.”
“Pretty sure a douche wouldn’t have saved your life. Go back inside.”
“I’m bored.”
“Go be bored inside.”
“I am inside.” She grinned brightly and held up the cooler. “Besides, I come bearing gifts. I made food.”
The man frowned and looked around the chicken coop frantically. When he spied his face mask, he rushed to put it back on.
“I’m not feeding you if you wear that dumb thing.”
“I have rules that I have to—”
“What rules?”
“Rules you wouldn’t understand. You shouldn’t be in here!”
“Can I clean that out?” she asked.
“Clean what out?” he asked, exasperated.
“The chicken coop. I’ve never seen one in a barn. I always wanted a chicken.”
“You always wanted a chicken. Just a single chicken?”
“Yes. Do you know they have tutus for chickens? And little harnesses and leashes where you can take them for walks?”
He was handsome even when he glared at her. “I’m going to go back to work now.”
“Why do you have them locked in the barn? Don’t they need sunlight?”
He growled again. Growled! Like an animal. “They can get sunlight during the day,” he said, jamming a finger at a small opening in the wall.
She pulled open the gate and let herself in.
“What are you doing?” he demanded as she scooted past him.
“Hi little chickie,” she crooned to a brown one that followed her. What a cutie. “This one loves me!” she called over her shoulder as she went to examine the little trap door that was latched into place above the cut-out in the wall. She knelt down and stared out the little opening. There was an entire enclosed coop outside, complete with what looked like a chicken jungle gym and swings that hung from the roof of the coop. He liked his chickens, but the trap door that kept them in here was made of iron bars.
This man was complicated.
“You built a chicken prison,” she said, pointing at the iron bars ready to close on the escape hole like a little guillotine.
“It’s not a prison. It keeps them safe at night from…predators.”
She laid on her belly again and stared out the little hole into the snowy abyss outside of the chicken wire. “What kind of predators?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” he murmured.
The brown chicken pecked her cheek and she yelped at the pain.
“See?” he said. “She doesn’t love you. She pecked you.”
“She kissed me,” Gwen corrected, rubbing the sting on her cheek. “Her love is just violent.”
“Your positivity is annoying,” he grumbled.
“Maybe I’m trying to grow a personality.”
He leaned on the pitchfork he was holding and sighed up at the rafters of the barn. “I’m sorry I said that. Can you please stop bringing it up?”
“Only if you eat lunch with me and teach me about chickens. And maybe give me one of your chickens so I can pretend it’s mine until I leave here. It would be nice to talk to something other than my blow dryer.”