She tossed and turned the entire night and was grateful that the following morning was a Saturday and she didn’t have to worry about school. When she got up, she half expected to find the man gone. Half expected to find that he had been a hallucination, some product of her fevered imagination brought about by watching too much sensationalized television.
She should read more. But then, she would just read sensationalized novels. She didn’t see the point of anything that wasn’t slightly sensational. She had spent her life relegated to mundane texts, with no TV and no movies. So now she liked everything to be full of action and sex. And if her life still wasn’t full of those things, it didn’t much matter. She could think about them anyway.
She got dressed, putting on a pair of jeans—something that was forbidden when she was growing up—and a sweatshirt. Then she crept out of her bedroom, down the hall. He was on the couch. On his back. And for one moment, she was terrified. Terrified that he had died in the night, and now she had a dead outlaw on her hands. She crossed the room quickly and sent up a prayer of thanks when she saw his chest rising and falling. He was alive. He was alive. It was okay.
She went into the kitchen and opened up the fridge, taking out a dozen eggs, and some bacon. Then she started the coffee and began to cook.
A few minutes later, she heard him stirring.
“You’re cooking?”
“Yeah. I thought you might be hungry. Especially since you weren’t able to eat anything last night. How are you feeling?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said.
He tried to move. “Like shit.”
“Sorry,” she said.
She didn’t know why she was sorry. She didn’t know why she cared.
With the pale morning light streaming through the window, he didn’t look any less dangerous than he had in the dead of night. And he was... He was beautiful. Shockingly so. The stubble on his face was nearly black, his jaw square.
His nose was blade straight, his lips sensuously curved. He was absolutely the beautiful villain from any number of British TV dramas, and she couldn’t help but stare. He had a scar on his face, noticeable because it ran through his beard and created a white line where there ought to be whiskers. He had another one on his lip, the only thing marring the perfection of his mouth.
Those things prevented him from being simply beautiful. They made him look roguish. Dangerous.
“Do you like eggs and bacon?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “What if I told you I was a vegetarian?”
“I wouldn’t believe you.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
“Do you like coffee?”
“I love coffee.”
“Should be a minute. Can you get up?”
He shifted. “Shouldn’t,” he said. “The stitches are pulling a little bit. Weird, because you would think that doing it from that angle would’ve produced a completely professional result.”
“Well, I could’ve done it for you.”
“Sweetheart, you looked like you wanted to keel over and die while I was doing that. I don’t think you could’ve done it.”
“I’m not a shrinking violet,” she said, frowning. “I had to defy my family to get where I am, and you might look around and not see much, but this is a life that I fought hard for. I had to learn to shoot and learn to do complicated first aid in order to take this job, because everybody on Four Corners Ranch needs to know how to contribute during an emergency.”
“Was that a threat?”
“Only if it needs to be.”
“Doesn’t need to be. I promise. You saved me. If I’d been left outside in that storm... God knows.”
“Well, I’ve never saved anyone before.”
“I hate to be an imposition, Miss...”
“Tala. Tala Nelson.”
“Tala,” he said. “I like that name.”
“Thank you,” she said, feeling warm for some reason. “And you are?”
“Clayton. Clayton Everett.”
“What is it that I’m going to do with you, Clayton Everett?”
“If you wouldn’t mind, it’d be nice if I could stay for a couple days. I’ve got money. I can pay.”
Clearly a man who didn’t know how to just... Take a favor.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “You don’t have to pay to stay with me.”
“There’s nothing in life that’s free, and I don’t take handouts. You know, unless I’m bleeding out on the ground. Then I’ll take a handout. But I aim to pay it back.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s the right thing to do. And I don’t know why, Clayton,” she said, his name feeling strange on her lips, “but I trust you. You’re not going to hurt me.”
“No.”
“And I’m not going to get you into trouble or put you in any danger. You can stay here. But you have to stay out of sight. I can’t have anybody at Four Corners knowing that you’re here.”
“What’s Four Corners?”
“It’s the ranch that we are on. Well, it’s four ranches, actually. But they operate as one. Garrett’s Watch, Sullivan’s Point, McCloud’s Landing and King’s Crest. We are on Sullivan’s Point. Staying in one of the houses on that piece of land. I’m the teacher.”
“The ranch has a teacher?”
“There are hundreds of employees, and we are out in the middle of nowhere. There’s a one-room schoolhouse, and I teach at it. And they really cannot know that the teacher is housing a potential fugitive, okay?”
“Got it.”
“So you can stay, but you can’t cause me any trouble.”
“I’m just going to lie low until I’m 100 percent. And then I gotta disappear. I gotta go where my brother can’t find me, where the law can’t find me. I have to go underground.”
“Won’t anybody else be looking for you?”
“My mom and dad are long dead. I used to ride in the rodeo, but I just retired this past season.”
“You’re a rodeo cowboy?”
“Yeah. One of these days, I’ll start a ranch of my own. But I’ll wait.”
“It seems unfair that your brother was able to mess your life up like this.”
“That’s family, right? Always happy to come in and fuck everything up.”