Page 31 of Cowboy in Colorado
I move beside him, standing at the barn door watching the vicious monstrosity of the storm, and I am hyperaware of his size and strength; he is a strange, intoxicating mixture of wise and rough and calm and wild, and just being this near him makes me feel shaky, in much the same way I was nervous standing face to face with an angry, wary Demon. “The storm?”
He nods, arms crossing over his chest. “Yeah. Seen some pretty bad storms before, hail and even a couple twisters, but this? This is insane.” He gestures outside, at the thick white haze of hail, rain, and wind. “The cabin is right there, but until this lets up, it’s not safe to leave the barn. It's maybe thirty feet, but in this crazy shit, it may as well be a mile.”
He turns to look at me, and now his expression is unreadable. “Looks like we’re stuck here together.”
I’m soaked to the bone, shivering, bruised from the hail and aching from another mad gallop, and yet all I can see, all I can hear, all I can feel is the pounding of my pulse in my throat, in my chest, the coursing of heat between my thighs.
Stuck here together.
With a man as wild as the charging, rearing stallion he faced down.
It was no longer just the chill in my bones making me shiver.
8
Will crosses his arms over his chest, breathing slowly and watching the storm. He is utterly still, but for the rise and fall of his chest, and the watchful flick of his summer sky eyes. He’s a creature of nature, less a man and more something born and bred of all the wild things—horses and eagles, wolves and antelope. His stillness is not waiting, not coiled, or pent up, it’s simply…stillness. Completely and utterly in the moment, at peace with himself and his world.
I’ve never been so aware of being out of place, with my absurdly expensive custom silk suit and three thousand-dollar shoes, my diamond-and-platinum Bulgari watch, my entire world waiting impatiently for me out beyond this place. I cannot be that still, cannot simply stand and justbe, the way Will is right now.
“How do you do that?” I ask, the words tumbling out unbidden.
He turns his head just so, enough to indicate I have his attention. “Do what?” His voice is low, deep, quiet, calm, soothing.
“Just stand there like that, so still?”
He smiles, a tiny ghost of a curve to his lips that I almost doubt I’m even seeing, and yet it lights up his entire being. “It unnerves some people. My parents thought I was slow, when I was a kid.”
I snort. “What?” I cannot possibly fathom how you could mistake the intelligence in him.
“Even as a baby, I only cried when I was hungry or needed a diaper, my mom said, and even then, I’d stop once the basic need was met. Otherwise, I could just lay in the bassinet or whatever and be fine. As a kid, I would sit out on the porch and just…look. My capacity for stillness made them think maybe I was a little learning impaired, or whatever they call it these days. Once I started school, it became apparent I was plenty smart, I just wasn’t prone to…excess movement, I guess.” He shrugs. “No secret to it, really. You just have to slow down your mind.” He glances at me then, doubtful. “Harder for some than others.”
“That feels like a dig.”
“Just a comment, take it how you will.”
A silence wreathes between us like vapor, thickening into a fog. He just watches, unmoving, arms crossed, legs braced apart, head high—still. The storm rages, lightning flashing again and again, close and far, thunder cracking loud and close and distant and then quieter. The hail continues to fall thick and hard, until white balls of ice coat the ground like snow, piling up and up, the sound of it falling now making a clicking and cracking sound.
“How long will the hail last?”
He shakes his head. “Dunno, no way to tell. Never seen a hailstorm like this before.” He breathes a sigh. “A lot of good folks are being ruined right now.”
I frown at him. “What do you mean?”
“Our livelihood on the Bar-A Ranch is livestock. They can take shelter, they can survive hailstorms. We’ll be fine. A few younger or older animals may die, but it’ll be within the scope of our typical mortality rate.” He gestures at the hail. “Farmers? Not so much. This hail is going to absolutely decimate entire crops. Utter ruin.”
I blink, taking in what he’s saying. “The crops can’t take shelter. If the hail can hurt or kill people and animals, what chance does a field of corn or whatever have?”
He nods. “Exactly. You follow that much at least. What you may not realize is how huge a gamble farming is. You ever see those huge combines and tractors they use?” I nod, and he waves a hand. “Those things cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They have millions of dollars, literally, tied up in equipment debt, which they roll over and roll over year after year, putting it off and putting it off, gambling on each crop to pay their bills. Then along comes a freak storm like this, with hail the size of golf balls and baseballs, and those guys are in their houses and barns, totally helpless, watching their lives get ruined. They won’t get a harvest, they’ll have nothing to sell, and those bills will come due, and they won’t have any way of paying them.”
“Sort of like stock trading.”
“Wall Street, you mean?”
I nod. “Yeah. I know men who have put up their entire net worth on a stock, based on a tip or something, gambling that the value will rise and that they can sell at exactly the right moment to make the most profit…and instead of that stock jumping like everyone expected, it tumbles, for a plethora of reasons beyond anyone’s ability to predict, and that entire investment is torpedoed. Zeroed out. Total loss, and then some. Fortunes are made and lost in seconds on Wall Street, and yet the average person only sees the numbers on the TV screen with no real understanding of what it means for those on the other side.”
“So you’re into that whole scene, then?” Will asks, and I get the sense that he’s feeling me out, taking my measure. “Stocks and bonds or whatever? Day trading?”
“No, not really.” I hesitate. “I mean, I have a few investments, but they’re all stable, long-term things. I don’t play the game.”