Hometown Hope: A Small Town Romance Anthology

by Zoe York

  “I know you’re tired, mama,” he murmured, “but we’re almost there. Just a couple more.”

  She responded to his voice, and with a low groan, she gave a big push. He pulled with it, and the foal’s head, neck, and shoulders appeared.

  “Atta girl, Diamond Dot.”

  The barn door opened just as the next contraction hit, and Gabe didn’t pay any attention to anything but the task at hand until a forty-year-old woman he knew well was standing beside him.

  “Fancy meeting you here, Sparky. Guess I’m going to owe you another dinner for doing my job, eh?”

  “About time you got here, Terri,” he grunted, now supporting most of the foal’s weight. “The party’s almost over.”

  “So I see. Need a break?”

  Gabe gave one final tug, and the foal came free. “Nope.”

  He lowered the newborn horse to the straw and let Terri take over, lingering several minutes while the veterinarian cleaned the colt’s nose and gave him a quick preliminary examination. Assured the foal was all right, he stepped out of the stall and over to the sink to wash the blood and amniotic fluid from his hands and forearms. A faint smile played upon his lips as the old relief and awe filtered through him. Thank God he hadn’t called to reschedule.

  Ms. Garrett joined him at the sink, holding out a towel. His shirt was tossed over her shoulder. No longer distracted by a struggling mare, he became acutely aware of her. She was pretty enough smudged and grimy, more adorable girl-next-door than blatantly beautiful—the type of woman he’d always found most appealing—petite and just shy of five and a half feet tall. Long, light brown hair was pulled back in a practical braid, and she had the kind of big blue, innocent eyes he’d never had much success resisting.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “I don’t want to think what would’ve happened if you hadn’t arrived when you did.”

  “It was my pleasure, Ms. Garrett.”

  “Please. Call me Annemarie.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She held his shirt out to him, and after he realized his T-shirt was stained beyond salvaging, he tugged the hem free from the waistband of his jeans and asked, “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all,” she replied and politely averted her gaze.

  He stripped out of his dank, gritty T-shirt and dampened a corner of the towel to wipe away the worst of the sweat, grime, and afterbirth.

  As he was stuffing his arms into the long sleeves of his denim button-up shirt, Annemarie glanced at him. Her cheeks flushed prettily, and she hastily looked away again but not before he saw her lips curve into a smile that made his pulse jump and his own face heat uncomfortably. More than once while he buttoned his shirt, her gaze shifted covertly to him. No sign of a wedding ring on the hand she held out to take the towel, and he’d heard no rumor of a boyfriend.

  She’s a client, he reminded himself. Single or not.

  Still, it was interesting to consider the possibilities, even if she was somewhere in the neighborhood of eight or ten years younger than him.

  “Terri,” he called to the vet.

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you need a hand here or can I get started on my job?”

  “I’ve got things covered here,” Terri replied, rising to her feet with a broad grin. “You did good, Sparky. Guess those ranching skills aren’t as rusty as you always say.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” Annemarie commented. “Looks like you’ll need to add one foal delivery to my bill.”

  The resignation he’d heard this morning returned to her voice, and the effect it had on him was even stronger this time around. “No charge for that. I’m just glad I was here to help.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was so quiet he barely heard her. More loudly, she asked, “Can I at least feed you since it’s highly unlikely now that you’ll get to eat before midnight otherwise?”

  “If you’re sure you don’t mind, that’d be great.”

  “You quite possibly just saved the life of my horse’s baby. Believe me, I definitely do not mind. Terri, why don’t you come up to the house when you’re done here, and I’ll feed you, too.”

  “I’d love to, but I have another horse to check on before I get to go home tonight. Can I take a rain check?”

  “Always. Come on, Cody.”

  The boy, who was in the stall with Terri watching everything she did with intense curiosity, slipped between the rails and led the way out of the barn. The tears had long ago dried up, and now he bounded ahead of his mother and Gabe having put the fear of losing his colt far from his mind. Oh, to be able to forget the heartaches and the worries so easily.

  “So, you know Terri?” Annemarie asked.

  Gabe nodded and held the barn door open for her and her son. “She’s my neighbor. And I wired her new veterinary hospital a few years ago.”

  “Ah. Cody seems like every small town. You know the kind—where everyone knows everyone else. I’m still getting used to that.”

  Sunset was just fading from the sky when they stepped outside, and Gabe’s watch said it was just after six. The longer days of spring and summer couldn’t get here soon enough. He was tired of the cold and dark, and the unseasonable warmth in the evening air was not helping.

  “It’s not as bad as some towns, but yes. I’ve always appreciated that.”

  “You’re from Cody?”

  “Technically, I’m from Meeteetse, but close enough. I went to school in Cody. Mind if I move my truck up by the house? It’ll take me a lot less time to get this done if I don’t have to pack my tools up the road.”

  “Of course.”

  They moved their trucks up to the cabin and headed inside.

  The front door opened into the living room. To the left was the kitchen and dining room, and to the right were the two tiny bedrooms and single bathroom. Like the exterior, the interior was dated and in need of renovations, but it was tidy, and Annemarie had decorated it simply in such a way to make the U-shaped structure look like a charming country cottage instead of the run-down homestead cabin it was. He wondered if she’d chosen the motif because it suited her or because it suited the house.

  As she led him across the living room to Cody’s bedroom at the front of the house, he noted a distinct lack of clues that might indicate she had a boyfriend. An instinctive and uninvited satisfaction surged, and he chided himself for it, but that did nothing to lessen it. He might not want a big family like his parents and siblings, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be a bachelor the rest of his life, and since turning thirty-one last May, the understanding that he wasn’t getting any younger had been nagging him almost as incessantly as his mother.

  “Like I told you this morning,” Annemarie said, “everything in the room is dead. The light, the outlets… everything.”

  Gabe nodded and squatted to investigate the outlet right inside the door. The telltale stink of melted plastic gave him a pretty good idea of where to begin.

  “Do you mind if I leave you alone to work so I can get dinner going?” Annemarie asked.

  “Not at all, but would you mind showing me where the breaker panel is first?”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry. It’s in the basement. Come on. I’ll show you.”

  He followed her into the dining room and descended through the trap door she propped open, ducking his head so he didn’t conk it on the low timbers. The foundation was concrete—crumbling with age in places but newer than the cabin, which he guessed had been moved from somewhere else. Before turning off the power to the cabin’s bedrooms, Gabe familiarized himself with the visible wiring. He was neither pleased nor surprised to note that the cabin appeared to have been wired entirely with repurposed extension cords. He and his old boss had come across more than a few jobs like this, usually outbuildings on ranches and farms.

  “There’s a right way, a wrong way, and a ranch way.”

  How many times had Gus muttered that in the years Gabe had trained under the grouchy old master electrician? More than he could co
unt.

  He climbed out of the basement. In the kitchen, Annemarie was rolling out what appeared to be homemade pizza crust. He nodded to her as he passed by. Cody, who’d been sitting at the dining room table coloring, trailed after him and sat on the bed to watch intently as he unscrewed the suspect outlet and lifted it out of its box. Sure enough, the wires behind it—more extension cord—were melted.

  “What happened?” the little boy asked.

  Gabe showed him. “The wires got hot and burned through.”

  “But why doesn’t the light work?”

  “This is the first outlet on the circuit, and with these wires burned, the electricity can’t get to the light or any of the other outlets. It’s a bit like your train over there. If you remove a section of track, the train can’t get to the other stops, right?”

  “Oh! Kinda like our road, too. It washed out this fall, so now we have to go through the big ranch. I wish we could fix it so we didn’t have to go by Tom and Sandy’s house, but Mom says we can’t afford to get it fixed.”

  Washed out? Well, that explained the meandering route Annemarie had sent him on across the Grant Ranch. The remark about Tom and Sandy Grant made him curious and the part about not being able to pay to have the road fixed confirmed a suspicion that had been forming throughout the evening, but he left both topics alone. “Yes, just like that… except that the electricity can’t simply go around.”

  Gabe cut the melted section of cord out and had a new outlet wired and in place in a handful of minutes. Cody kept up a stream of questions, comments, and compliments, and Gabe’s face ached from smiling by the time he replaced the outlet cover. The boy’s animated chatter made the job a pleasant one. “All right. Time to turn the power back on and see if I did a good job.”

  Cody followed him to the top of the steep, narrow stairs to the basement, and Gabe hesitated at the sudden fear in the boy’s eyes.

  “What’s wrong, squirt?”

  Cody chewed his lip, staring into the dark maw of the basement with rounded eyes. “I don’t want the ghosts and monsters to get you.”

  “I didn’t see any down there before, but just in case, I’ll keep my flashlight in hand so I can bop them on the head if need be. Okay?”

  The boy nodded solemnly, and Gabe swallowed a chuckle as he descended the stairs. If Cody thought this was serious business, he would treat it with the same caution. He turned the breaker on and asked Cody to go see if his bedroom light was on. Rapid footfalls marked the boy’s sprint across the house and then his return.

  “It’s on!” he called.

  Gabe joined him in the dining room, holding his hand out for a high-five as he ascended the steps. Cody’s small hand slapped his, and the boy flashed him a grin before turning serious again.

  “No monsters?”

  “Not a single one.”

  Satisfied, Cody raced into his bedroom, and Gabe let out the chuckle he’d been holding in.

  “Your son is adorable, Ms. Garrett. Annemarie.” He shrugged. “Sorry. Habit.”

  Her lips lifted briefly. She slid the pizza into the oven and twisted the nob on the timer to set it before she faced him, leaning against the counter with her arms folded across her chest. Almost like she was hugging herself. It wasn’t his place, but he wished he could ease the worries weighing on her, to find a way to coax an open smile from her. He imagined she’d be downright beautiful without that shadow of heartache in her eyes.

  “I hope he wasn’t too much of a pest while you were working. I should’ve told him to leave you alone, but I had my hands full, and you didn’t seem to mind….”

  “I didn’t mind at all. I have over two dozen nieces and nephews.”

  Her brows shot up. “Big family?”

  “Six older brothers and one younger sister, and they all have between three and five kids.”

  “But you don’t have any of your own?”

  “Not yet.” He leaned against the wall across from her, crossed his ankles, and hooked his thumbs in his pockets. For a moment, he studied her with narrowed eyes. “You sound surprised.”

  She glanced sharply at him, then shrugged, but she flicked her gaze over him again.

  “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?” he asked.

  “Good. Maybe it’ll soften the blow of the bad.”

  “Cody’s room has electricity again.”

  “And the bad?”

  “This cabin desperately needs to be rewired and brought up to code.”

  “I was afraid of that, but… how desperately?”

  “Desperately enough that I’m almost surprised this place hasn’t burned down. As far as I can see, whoever wired it used nothing but extension cords.”

  Her face paled, and she hugged herself more tightly as she lowered her gaze to the floor.

  “Five minutes ago, I was relieved because Terri stopped by on her way out and said she wasn’t going to charge me for Diamond Dot’s delivery because you did most of the work before she even got here,” she murmured. “I can’t afford to have this place rewired.”

  The hitch in her voice and the resignation in her wide blue eyes when she met his gaze touched a deep corner of his heart, and he offered her a sympathetic smile even though she wasn’t looking at him to see it. “I need to clean up my mess and get my tools stowed in my truck, but let’s see if we can work something out after.”

  He strode away, intentionally denying her the chance to discuss the matter while his bad news was still so fresh in her mind. Let her absorb it for a while before I hit her with what it’ll cost.

  Besides, he wasn’t sure what kind of deal he was willing to entertain. Even with a price break, he didn’t think she’d be able to afford it. A payment plan might work, but how far out would they have to set the pay-off date to make the payments manageable for her? It would take a solid week to rewire her cabin, and he hadn’t yet factored in materials. He couldn’t take that much time away from his full-paying jobs, especially if he decided to give her a price break. That didn’t mean he couldn’t give up some of his off time. It wasn’t like he had an active social life. He spent most of his evenings and weekends at home alone or out at his family’s ranch when he needed to scratch that particular itch.

  One thing was clear. He had to find a way to help her. His conscience wouldn’t let him ignore her even if he were inclined to try. And he wasn’t.

  You’re never going to get rich if you keep giving people breaks, he could almost hear old Gus grumble.

  Maybe not, but there are things that can make a man far richer than money.

  He stepped into Cody’s room to retrieve his tools. The little boy was thoroughly engaged with his Legos, building what appeared to be a multi-colored barn complete with an attached corral.

  “Glad to have your lights back on so you can play in here, huh?” he observed. He set his tools aside and joined the kid on the floor. “Whatcha building?”

  “A stable for Diamond Dot and her new baby.”

  Gabe picked up the toy horses that looked just like Cody and Annemarie’s mare and her foal. “I should’ve guessed. Have you and your mom thought about what to call him?”

  Cody shook his head. “I think I want to call him Angel even though it’s kind of a girl’s name.”

  “Why Angel?”

  “’Cause you came like an angel and saved him, and your name is Gabriel, and that’s an angel’s name, isn’t it?”

  Gabe stared at the kid, and it took him a second to reply. “Yes, it is, but how did you know that?”

  “My Grandma Garrett told me. She loves the angels.”

  “She’s never been much on religion,” Annemarie said, leaning against the doorjamb, “but, yes, she does love the angels.”

  How long had she been standing there? Long enough to have heard most of his conversation with her son, he guessed. He had no idea what she thought of it—her expression was unreadable—but she didn’t disapprove. A glimmer of surprise played across her face, and it was the
only hint of emotion in her expression.

  “Grandma says we all have a guardian angel looking after us,” Cody remarked.

  “I haven’t seen much to make me believe she’s right.”

  Annemarie said it so quietly that Gabe didn’t think she’d meant either him or her son to hear it. When he met her gaze, she flinched and her face reddened. Nope. He wasn’t supposed to have heard.

  “Pizza’s up,” she said gently before turning on her heel and striding away.

  Gabe glanced at Cody, but the boy’s eyes were wide with confusion. No information there, either. He rose to his feet and gathered his tools in one hand, offering his other to Cody. “C’mon, squirt. We’d best go get cleaned up for dinner.”

  All through the meal, Cody chattered away about Diamond Dot’s foal. He was so adorably animated that Gabe couldn’t help but smile. And the pizza was amazing. Forget frozen pizza. Even his favorite pizzeria in town wasn’t going to be nearly as appealing after this. He offered to help clean up dinner so Annemarie could get Cody ready for bed. She hesitated, uncertain.

  “Please,” he pressed. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble. I would’ve been happy with chicken nuggets.”

  She laughed softly, and for the first time, he got a glimpse of the brilliant spirit beneath the strain. Either she wasn’t used to someone openly helping her or she wasn’t used to accepting it. Maybe both.

  “Go take care of your boy. I may be a terrible cook, but I make up for it by being a pro at washing dishes.”

  A little more laughter and a little wider smile.

  At last she gave in.

  She’d already washed all the dishes she’d dirtied prepping the meal, so there wasn’t much to wash, and he finished long before Cody was out for the night. He returned to the dining room to ponder what kind of deal he and Annemarie could work out. There was only one solution he could see—a services trade. Electrical for bookkeeping. She was an accountant after all.

  The idea made him squirm. He kept his own books for a reason, but logically, that was a task it would be more beneficial to farm out to someone else. Of course, logic wasn’t the problem.