Cowgirl Next Door (Sutter's Hollow Book 3)

by Lacy Williams

  "Are you sure you don't want to just see what she wants?" Aiden asked.

  "I'm sure."

  "I mean, if somebody that gorgeous were standing at my front door..."

  Noah ended the call before he said something he'd regret. Aiden had been his assistant for four years. In all that time, he'd never asked Noah about his personal life—or lack thereof. Those uncomfortable conversations were left to Mom, whom Noah spoke to at least twice a week.

  The pounding stopped. Thank God.

  He played another birdcall. Shrreet, trill trill. That wasn't right either.

  The distraction had cost him. He had to fight harder to play the birdcall from that morning in his memory.

  He startled when his phone rang again.

  Aiden. What now?

  "Uh... She says she's not leaving until she talks to you."

  Who said? Aiden's statement didn't make sense. "What?"

  "The lady just texted me," Aiden explained. "And said that she isn't leaving until she talks to you."

  Noah's temperature spiked. Of course she would have the number from when Aiden had called her.

  "I don't have time for this."

  Sure, he was done with his recording for the day, but he refused to allow the distraction. If he made nice with neighbor-lady today, she'd expect him to come over for coffee. Be neighborly.

  What a load of crap.

  Aiden knew what this recording job meant to Noah. He'd worked his butt off to make a name for himself as a narrator. It'd taken years, but now he had fans. He'd become a commodity, a voice that popular romance authors wanted to hire.

  He'd gotten lucky and been awarded a contract—the current audiobook he was narrating—for up-and-coming romance author, Mercy McDane. She loved his voice so much that she'd promised him a three-book contract for her upcoming trilogy. A lucrative contract that would make the hospital bills he'd been languishing under for years disappear. He hadn't actually signed the contract yet. But Ms. McDane had promised it was coming after this production wrapped.

  He needed to stay on schedule, ahead of deadline. Which meant he needed zero distractions. Not crazy neighbor ladies.

  "She sounds serious,” Aiden said. Then, “Wait, there's another text coming through."

  When Aiden spoke again, Noah heard the hesitation in his voice. "Uh... She says she can outlast you. She says she's done it before, and that it's no use trying to wait her out."

  There was a beat of silence, and he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. Whoever was out there… she knew him.

  "What’s her name?" After the sheriff's deputy had refused to help, Noah had thrown the whole thing at Aiden. He'd left it to his assistant to dig up his neighbor's name and phone number.

  "Let me check." Noah heard paper shuffling on the other end of the line. "It was like... Jillian?"

  "Jilly Tatum?" His new neighbor was Jilly Tatum?

  "That's it. Jilly Tatum."

  His memory supplied an image of her, almost like a yearbook photo. Elfin nose, a smattering of freckles. Jilly had been a firecracker, her eyes always sparkling. They'd been rivals, so when she looked at him, the sparkle had always been a spark of competition.

  Back in high school, she'd had long, blonde hair. But moments ago, Aiden had said she had short hair. He tried to modify his memory-Jilly, but it didn't work.

  It hadn't been long after the accident had stolen his sight that the faces in his memory began to get fuzzy. It was almost jarring to get hit with a memory now.

  He had a mental picture of Jilly, but Aiden’s image was a complete blank to him. They'd worked together for years and he knew through experience that Aiden was intelligent and quick thinking and hard working. He knew the tenor and inflection of Aiden’s voice. He just didn't know what the man looked like.

  Aiden's voice jarred him from his thoughts. "Do you want me to text her back? Or...?"

  Or Noah could open the door. The Jilly he'd known in high school never backed down from a challenge. By refusing to open up, he was issuing her a challenge. It was as if he was daring her to wait him out. To keep knocking.

  Part of him wanted to know how long she'd stay out there. All night? With her kids in tow?

  Even though she lived in Galveston now, Noah's mom made it a point to keep him updated on all the local happenings. He'd tried to tell her he didn't care, but she never believed him. And social media made it too easy for her to stay connected with her Sutter's Hollow friends.

  Noah would've remembered if Mom had mentioned Jilly getting married. And Aiden had said her last name was still Tatum, her maiden name. As far as Noah knew, she was single.

  So where'd she get the kids?

  No. He didn't want to know. Not how long she'd stay out there. Not why she was a mother now.

  He wanted her gone.

  "I'll touch base with you later," he said to Aiden.

  He braced his hands on the desk and stood. He was so distracted by his frustration that he almost walked into the doorframe. It was only the sudden awareness, like a pressure against the skin of his face, that made him freeze mid-step. He brushed his fingers against the wall to assert his orientation, then strode through the door. Down the hall, toward the living room and beyond it, to the front door.

  Right now the silence in his head was so full it was almost like white noise.

  Was he really going to do this? He hadn't faced anyone from his past—anyone from that night—in eleven years.

  He hesitated with his hand on the knob. Before he could think better of it, he turned the knob and opened the door.

  There was an audible gasp from somewhere to his left. Air moved as if one of the bodies standing on the stoop had shifted. Away from him?

  His gut tightened. This was a mistake.

  "Hello, Noah," Jilly said before he could shut the door. "It's Jilly."

  "I know," he growled.

  With the way she'd pounded on his door, he'd expected her voice to be strident. But it was just the same as he remembered, drawing his attention to her as if she had him in a tractor beam or something.

  They'd clashed from the start.

  He'd been a ball of nerves, starting at a new school in the middle of the semester. He'd taken the first empty seat he'd come across in English class. Turned out it was her seat, which she informed him with a sass his thirteen-year-old self hadn't begun to appreciate. They'd gotten into a standoff when he sat back and crossed his arms and refused to abandon the desk.

  They'd butted heads all of sophomore year in literature class, where he was opposed to every single one of her viewpoints—and vice versa.

  He'd made a practice of stealing her favorite parking space outside the gymnasium.

  They'd fought for high scores on tests across multiple subjects all through high school.

  In senior year, when her friends Callum and Cord had become his friends, she'd allowed him into the small group with bad grace. They’d argued over pizza toppings, what movies to go see on the weekends. They’d argued over everything.

  Right up to the end.

  Now, all those memories, previously kept stuffed in the recesses of his mind, rushed forward, choking him.

  * * *

  "Is it okay if we turn on the light?" Without waiting for permission, Jilly reached through the doorway and flipped on the porch light.

  Her other arm was wrapped around Lindsey, who clung to her side, silent and shaking.

  Moments ago, when Noah had appeared in the dark doorway like an apparition, the girl had gasped and latched onto Jilly. She'd had to work to contain her own gasp. In the dark, Noah's powerful presence was frightening.

  Until now, she'd never considered whether he turned on the lights after dark. She had tried hard not to think about him at all.

  The light illuminated shoulders and arms that looked as if he spent time in a gym every day. He'd been a beanpole in high school, but the years had been very good to him, giving him breadth that stole her oxygen.

  She
raised her gaze to his face.

  She'd been prepared for scars, but the surgeon who'd done his reconstruction must have been excellent. There was only a small white scar beneath his left eyebrow. His eyes were a rich brown; his pupils were inky pools, too large for the porch light shining in his face.

  She saw the flinch he tried to hide and felt a painful punch of guilt in her gut.

  Focus.

  "These are my kids," she said. "Casey, PJ, and Lindsey. Guys, this is Noah. We went to high school together."

  The children were silent.

  Noah was as a movable as a mountain, his arms crossed over his chest and his face like granite. His foreboding attitude was about what she'd expected after the message he'd sent through his assistant.

  But this wasn't about him. It was about the kids.

  She sent a pointed look at Casey and PJ. They pretended not to see it as they continued to stare mulishly at their feet.

  "We have something we’d like to say to you." She tried to effect the same look Mama had given her when she'd stepped out of line. She aimed it at the boys in turn.

  PJ broke first. "We're sorry about ringing your doorbell." The younger cousin did look embarrassed.

  Casey remained stubbornly silent. He crossed his arms over his chest, looking just as stubborn as the man.

  "Casey." Some of her exasperation leaked out in her voice.

  "Sorry." But the boy didn't sound sorry.

  She sighed. That wasn't the apology she'd hoped for. Casey was still angry that she'd grounded them from TV for a week for playing their little prank. Now, she needed to stand her ground.

  She waited for several seconds, but Noah made no movement or sound. No sign that he accepted the apology, however badly given.

  She turned to the boys. "Noah works from home. So when you rang his doorbell, it was like walking into his office and interrupting him. Do you understand why that is rude behavior? Why we don't do that?"

  Casey stared off into the distance. PJ nodded, his eyes big in his face. At least one of them seemed to get it.

  She'd hoped for more from both the man and the boys.

  She pointed up the hill toward her farmhouse. "You guys start walking. I'll be there in a minute." She gently disengaged from Lindsey, who grabbed her brother's hand. Jilly turned on the flashlight app on her phone—should've thought of that when they were standing in the dark on his porch—and passed it to Casey.

  The kids started walking, the light bobbing ahead of them.

  Noah moved when she turned back to him.

  "Noah—"

  "Why did you come over here? I know Aiden told you to keep off my property."

  "Why didn't you call me yourself?" she asked. "Instead of calling the sheriff?"

  His expression was shuttered.

  She took a breath. Fighting with him wasn't going to help. "I'm fostering them. The kids. Casey's twelve. PJ's ten, and Lindsey’s seven. The two younger kids are siblings. Casey's their cousin. They're..."

  "They're troublemakers."

  She bristled. "They aren't. They've had a rough time. Been in the system for too long." They needed a real home, and she was determined to give it to them. If he called the sheriff again, their caseworker might get involved.

  "I don't care,” Noah said. “I don't want them—or you—on my property."

  He'd made that clear from the beginning. "I'm sorry we disturbed you. I thought... I thought that if we came over here and the kids met you, they'd see you're just a person. And they'd—"

  "Leave me alone? Have you ever met a twelve-year-old boy before?"

  He said it as if she'd purposely painted a target on his house. Couldn't he see she was doing the best she could?

  "I'll keep a closer eye on them."

  His sneer and the single eyebrow he raised told her exactly what he thought about that.

  She forced herself to swallow her indignation. It didn't matter what Noah thought. The kids were her responsibility. She was going to do right by them.

  She'd wanted a family more than anything. She had one now, and she wasn't going to let this cranky neighbor mess things up. She just had to make sure the boys didn't come over here again.

  "Good bye, Noah."

  He closed the door in her face.

  3

  Two days after the disastrous visit from his neighbors, Noah wrapped his narration at midnight. Much later than usual.

  Noah paid little attention to time. His day was done when his to-do list was completed. He stayed on task. Without his sight, there was no real watching the clock.

  Today, it'd taken him forever to get into his normal rhythm.

  He'd missed two lines because he'd been distracted. He'd recorded most of chapter seventeen with his gain at the wrong setting. He'd had to re-record it. He hated redoing work.

  And it was all Jilly's fault.

  He couldn't stop thinking about her.

  He hadn't treated her any differently than anyone else. He didn't want to deal with neighbors. He didn't even want to talk to acquaintances.

  But, for the first time, he felt uncomfortable about how things had gone down.

  Yesterday, as they'd gone through notes in the morning, Aiden had let it slip that the doorbell camera had recorded the whole thing, and that he hadn't cut the recording before he'd heard all of it. Noah had a witness to his interaction with his neighbors.

  Aiden hadn't criticized him outright, but his thoughts on the matter had been implied by his cool tone of voice and clipped words.

  So what? Aiden was Noah's employee.

  And Noah didn't have to care about his neighbor. Or her kids.

  I'm fostering them.

  What kind of person took on a challenge like three kids old enough to get into mischief?

  The Jilly he remembered had been heading to college. Now, he couldn't remember which one. Had she finished her degree? If so, how had she ended up back in Sutter's Hollow? Her dad lived here, or had at least until last year when he'd retired as town mayor.

  Why wasn't she married? Okay, she hadn't actually said she was single. But the tension in her voice as she'd dealt with the boys had been real. If she was married, where was her husband?

  If she was single, she'd bitten off more than she could chew.

  It took time for him to learn a new voice. He couldn't see a person’s anxiety by the tightening of lips, their exhaustion by the droop of their shoulders. But he could hear the nuance of each note, if he listened closely. If he knew them.

  The older boy, Casey, was easy to read. He'd made no effort to hide his sarcasm and bad attitude. The middle one, the other boy, was harder to read. He'd been stubbornly silent at first, but when he'd spoken, Noah had sensed sincerity in his voice. He hadn’t known whether the little girl was there or not. If she was, she’d never spoken.

  As far as Noah was concerned, it was three against one. Jilly didn't stand a chance.

  Except he could still hear the snap in her voice. They aren't. Troublemakers, she'd meant. They've had a rough time. Jilly was a staunch defender. Maybe she'd overcome the odds and change the kids' lives.

  Still, he was angry that she'd forced him to open the door. Angry that she was in his head.

  She was the cause of the sense of unease that had plagued him all afternoon and into the night. Like a dull throb beneath his skin.

  He needed sleep. Needed to forget.

  He powered down his microphone and computer and stood from his desk chair, his knees popping. He wasn't as young as he used to be.

  As he moved through the house in his bare feet, he could feel the hints of cold air at the edges of the room. The weatherman had predicted a cold front moving in. Looks like he'd been right.

  He'd make a cup of tea and then go to bed. The slippery elm mix soothed his throat, and maybe its warmth would help soothe his tension.

  He filled the teapot from the tap and flipped on the front burner of the stove. He pulled a spoon from the silverware drawer and lined it up
on the counter next to his mug. Then came the bear-shaped honey jar from the pantry. Last of all, he took a tea bag from the small basket he kept on the countertop.

  He walked the small envelope between his fingers. Thanksgiving was in two and a half weeks. He would wrap production on this audiobook just in time for the December first deadline. And once he got the new contract for Ms. McDane, he'd be able to pay off the mountain of medical bills that had buried him after the accident.

  He'd finally be free.

  A thump at his back door startled him out of his thoughts.

  What was that?

  Occasionally, a possum or raccoon or some other critter tried to get into his trash cans. But they were all the way around the side of the house, and he hadn't had problems since he'd taken to leaving a cement block on top of the lids.

  He listened for several moments, but all he could hear was the water bubbling in the kettle. Another minute, and the whistle would blow.

  Nothing from outside.

  He ripped open the envelope and placed the tea bag in his mug, carefully draping the thread and tag over the edge. Before it could whistle, he removed the kettle from the burner, turned it off, and poured the hot water.

  Fragrant steam rose, and he breathed it in. Tried to push away all the uncomfortable thoughts crowding his brain.

  Whatever nebulous sense of peace he'd been reaching for dissipated as something scraped along the boards of his porch.

  Something was out there.

  Maybe he hadn't been born a farm boy, but he'd lived out here long enough to know whatever kind of critter it was, it was best left alone. He'd go out in the morning and check things out.

  Except he heard a meow.

  Not a kitten's meow.

  A tiny human voice saying, "Meow."

  He strode through the minuscule mud room and pulled open the door, half expecting to feel a cat brush by his calves and run inside.

  But it was a child who tumbled over the threshold and landed on his bare feet.

  His temper flared and then sputtered when he reached down, expecting a boy of ten or twelve. But when his hand connected with a shoulder, it was a much smaller one. And the weight on his feet was too slight to be one of the boys.