Page 59 of Boston (Coral Canyon: Cowboys #12)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-NINE

C ash left the pharmacy with three new prescriptions and zero patience.

He hated being sick on the best of days, and with the weather being as gorgeous as it was, and his move-in date to Jet McClellan’s parents’ house that day, he certainly didn’t have time to deal with a head cold or a sore throat or a cough or any of the things that had been plaguing him since last week.

“Bronchitis,” he scoffed out.

Despite that, he and Boston had managed to have a spectacular send-off for Beth on Sunday at the vacation rental, and Cash had slept for fifteen hours afterward before finally admitting defeat and heading to the Insta-Care.

He’d only packed one bag to take with him up to Dog Valley, because he could go back to the vacation rental and get cleaned up and get the rest of his stuff anytime in the next nine days. He simply wanted to do it all in one day and not have to go back and forth.

“But it’s not like you have other things to do,” he muttered to himself, because he really didn’t. He didn’t want to go back to the house tonight, though, because Boston had planned a romantic dinner for him and Cora.

They’d made up in the mountains, and Boston had said he’d spoken with her, and she didn’t have to live on-site at Silver Sage. In fact, she’d told him that she’d prefer to live off-site, so she could separate herself and have a home life and a work life the way regular people did.

Cash wondered if she could really do that, but she wasn’t his girlfriend, and he just wanted his cousin to be happy. Boston had signed the paperwork for The Seventy-Seven and then immediately demanded that Cash start thinking of another name.

Right now, all he could focus on was driving, as the Apple Highway curved through forests and orchards, and the last thing he needed on top of being sick was a busted-up truck.

A round of coughing shook his shoulders, and the moment he could, Cash pulled into a gas station and ran inside to get something to eat and a sports drink.

Back in his truck, he fumbled to open the prescriptions, ripping right through the instructions.

One of these he wasn’t supposed to take and operate heavy machinery, and he told himself that he would be at the house in another five minutes, and it would take two minutes to walk in and collapse into the bed if that was what he had to do.

He hoped not. He wanted to explore the property and check out the different rooms. He wanted to see if he needed to do any yard work, and Jet had texted to say that his mom had turned off the air conditioner completely.

The enormity of tasks in front of Cash felt monumental, and he hated this part of himself that got worked up over simple things like turning on a thermostat and observing the length of the lawn.

He read the directions on the pill bottle for the cough medicine, and he threw back two pills and then one for the congestion. He hadn’t been able to sleep well before last night’s dead zone, and he already felt ready for another nap.

“Ten minutes,” he muttered to himself, and he got back on the road and navigated to the address his friend had given him.

He had a code for the garage so he could pull in, so he got out, tapped that in, and waited for the brown door to rumble up. Thankfully, this was an extra-long and extra-wide garage, and his truck fit inside.

He got out and grabbed his overnight bag from the back seat, and then went up the few steps and into the house, tapping the button to close the garage door as he went.

The front lawn had looked plenty short, and Cash took a moment on the cusp of the luxury kitchen in which he found himself standing. “Wow, this is a nice house.”

The air had definitely been turned off, and though Jet’s mother had just left on Saturday, the house held a staleness that made Cash’s lungs squeeze. Or maybe that was the bronchitis.

He moved, taking his bag with him as he walked through the kitchen, drinking in the high-end finishes of hardwood floors and quartz countertops.

He found the thermostat only a foot down the hallway, and he pushed the COOL button to turn it on. Something clicked and then hummed, and Cash turned toward the front door. He stepped that way, where he found a formal living room with a piano, a love seat, and a desk in it.

Jet said his dad worked for Springside Energy, and Cash knew that Graham Whitaker owned that company. They seemed to have plenty of money, and so did the McClellans.

Cash whistled appreciatively as he walked back into the living room and saw the gorgeous view through the back windows.

The back of the house faced west, and above the pines in the backyard, the Tetons rose in all their glory.

His brain didn’t feel too fuzzy yet, so Cash flicked the lock on the sliding glass door and stepped outside.

The morning sun currently heated the other side of the house, leaving the backyard in coolness and shade. An expansive deck extended from the back of the house, and Cash grinned at the built-in hot tub only three steps to his left.

“I am the luckiest man in the world,” he said.

“Or the deadest.”

Cash sucked in a breath and jumped away from the female voice that had come from behind him.

Inside the house.

His nerves scampered through his body, making it hard for his mind to seize onto what was happening.

He saw the baseball bat first, actually, and he followed it down to a pair of tightly clenched hands with pretty pink fingernails.

His eyes dodged up to the woman’s face, and she wore a fierce determination there that told Cash he better not make one wrong move or say one wrong word, or his teeth were going to meet that baseball bat.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Who are you ?”

“Why are you in my house?” she asked.

“This is where I’m staying,” he said, and maybe those cough medicine pills had gone straight to his head, because this conversation was not helping her to lower the bat.

Confusion furrowed her brow, and she paused long enough for Cash to notice and appreciate her beauty.

She had hair the color of pine wood with different colors of brown, all shades of blonde and white and probably black, running through it.

It fell in loose waves around her shoulders, and her hazel eyes sent sparks of gold at him.

He backed up a step, surprised at the attraction running through him.

“I’ve got a gun,” she said. “So don’t think that if you get far enough away, I can’t hurt you.”

Before he could answer, the yapping of a small dog filled the air. It, too, came from inside the house, which baffled Cash, as he had just been in the house and neither one of them had been there.

A tiny Yorkie flew past her legs, and the woman said, “Sweetie, leave him alone.”

Sweetie did not listen to her owner at all.

She rushed at Cash, and with her four-pound body, jumped up and tried to touch his knees.

He chuckled and crouched down to scrub the tiny creature along her ears.

She rubbed her body into his palm, left and right, serpentining so that he could pet every part of her.

The yapping had stopped, which meant Cash could clearly hear the irritated sigh of the woman.

He looked up, grateful that she had lowered the bat. “I’m Cash Young,” he said. “And I really am going to be staying here. I’m house-sitting for the McClellans.”

Was it possible that Jet hadn’t relayed the message to his mother and she had gotten a house-sitter too? Cash certainly wouldn’t be upset if he got to spend some up-close and personal time with this woman….

“Come on, Sweetie,” she said, and she turned around and went back in the house. Her little dog listened then and went with her.

He pretended like she’d called him sweetie, and he did too. “Who are you?” he asked. “A concerned neighbor? You can call Jet; he’ll vouch for me.”

The woman threw him a scathing look over her shoulder. “No, this is actually my house.”

“Funny,” he said sarcastically. “I thought Jet’s momma would be a lot older than you.”

She went around the island and put the bat in the kitchen sink so that the handle was poking up. “ My momma is a lot older than me.”

Cash put the pieces together quickly, though he didn’t know Jet’s younger sister’s name.

Another round of coughing came at the most inopportune time, and Cash held up one hand as if to tell her just a minute while he hacked into his elbow.

He turned his back on her, wishing God would simply take this illness from him right now.

Please.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he gasped out between coughs, but he wasn’t fine.

The room spun, and the lack of air conditioning suddenly descended on him all at once, making his skin fiery hot.

He took a step toward the couch, knowing he was going down and he better land somewhere soft.

He made it and finally managed to catch his breath.

He lay halfway down on the couch, panting, as the woman came closer.

“My name is Lark,” she said, her voice much kinder than before.

“Cash,” he said again.

“I really don’t think you’re okay,” she said. “Your skin is kind of gray.”

“I just took some medicine.” He couldn’t quite get a whole breath. “I have bronchitis, and I’m not supposed to operate heavy machinery.”

She gave a light laugh that sounded like his favorite music. “I think maybe I should get you into bed,” she said. “Where were you going to stay?”

“I don’t know,” Cash said, and he closed his eyes again, because the sun was so bright. “I hadn’t checked out all the rooms yet.”

“My momma and daddy’s bed is the nicest,” she said. “Biggest room too, with a bathroom attached. Come on.” She reached for him, and Cash wasn’t sure how, but he got to his feet.

“My bag,” he said, his voice a touch whiny.

“I’ll get it for you.”

He leaned on her as she took him down the hall to the last room on the right. It was cooler too, as it sat on the back side of the house.

“No blankets,” he said, and he simply collapsed onto the bed and nestled his face into the softest, most comfortable pillow he’d ever encountered.

“You’re really pretty,” he said.

Lark laughed again. “Go to sleep, cowboy,” she said as she backed out of the room.

Cash had the distinct thought that he would do anything this woman asked him to do, and so he promptly fell asleep.