Font Size
Line Height

Page 20 of Small Town Hero

“I f you decide to run, I’m only going to call the police.”

Gunnar felt overburdened and bone weary. But that was nothing new. And now he had gone and saddled himself with the most irritating urchin he had ever known.

Birdie Lennox had been sneaking around his property for the past three weeks.

He knew that she didn’t think he’d seen her, but he had.

On multiple occasions, skulking around the stables and a few of the different pastures.

He knew her family well enough to know that she was up to no good.

Hell, no good ever came from a Lennox being on Parsons land.

But unlike his father, he had the ranch set up with technology so if somebody tried to rustle one of his animals, he would have proof.

As he did now.

The alarm had gone off while he’d been down at the Cowboy Bar, looking to pick up a date for the evening.

He did that rarely, very rarely, and the fact that Birdie had cockblocked him on top of everything else just made him mad.

She was right—it was unusual for him to be up past ten p.m., and if he was, it was with a goal in mind.

But instead, he’d had to come back here and deal with an attempted theft.

His father had hated the Lennox family for as long as Gunnar could remember. He had given multiple soliloquies about the dangers of that dissolute family, and their lack of morals. The Parsons family was the salt of the earth. His father had said that often too.

They worked hard; they did the right thing. Always right. And rigid as hell.

Gunnar had often wondered if there was some middle ground there.

Between what his father viewed as the right thing and the way the world actually worked.

But as long as Jan Parsons was alive, there was no broaching that subject.

There was no room for shades of gray. The world was black, or it was white. For the most part, Gunnar agreed.

But that small percentage of the time he didn’t . . .

His father would have called the police on Birdie.

He would have said that she deserved it.

He would’ve said that there were no circumstances under which a crime like this could be forgiven or overlooked.

The thing was, Gunnar couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

She was wretched. And definitely a product of her upbringing.

Hell, in much the same way that Gunnar was.

He didn’t have it in him to forgive something like this wholly and completely. There would have to be consequences. But the girl needed a job.

“Do you have a vehicle here?”

She shook her head. “No. I was going to ride the horse home.”

“Right. Well. Let’s head on back up to the house. We can put Alfalfa Sprout back in her stable.”

“Pegasus.”

“You don’t get to name my horse.”

“Listen, Gunnar, there is right and there is wrong. Alfalfa Sprout is wrong.”

“I’m not going to stand here and take lectures on right and wrong from you.”

“You never were one for taking lectures. Only giving them.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah. In fact, I remember the time that you came and gave all of us a dressing-down out at the swimming hole because we were on your family’s land.”

“You little termites were trespassing.”

He could remember happening upon Birdie and her friends swimming there when they were probably about thirteen and Gunnar was fifteen. He’d run them right off after yelling about property lines.

Against his will, he and Birdie had a history.

You could just send her on her way. You could pretend that this never happened. Because your dad is dead, and he’ll never know.

But everything in him rose up against that. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t just let her off the hook when . . .

What she was doing was just wrong.

And he couldn’t stand for it.

Besides, she had cut a hole in his fence, and she needed to fix it.

Also, he was working on expanding the ranch, and he could really use an extra pair of hands.

He was missing his dad a lot. Every time he looked at the ranch finances and realized they were dwindling.

Because his dad had done things the way he had always done them and had never wanted to change.

No, he thought he knew better. Jan Parsons was always convinced that he knew best, and no one else could ever tell him a thing.

Well, that had left him with a ranch that was less and less profitable every year. Which was why Gunnar was expanding. It was why he was getting a bison herd, trying to enter the specialty marketplace so that he could actually be competitive.

And yeah, Birdie was a woman, so it wasn’t like she could lift anything heavier than he could, but he knew that she was capable, mean and stubborn as they came. All things that would come in handy while building fences and clearing out brush.

The way he saw it, he could have his pound of flesh, make progress on his project, and finally get repayment from a Lennox.

If he never did anything more, this might be enough to make his father proud of him.

Even from beyond the grave. But then again, maybe not.

Maybe it was impossible to make Jan Parsons proud.

“You ride on ahead of me, and I’ll drive behind you.”

He could see Birdie’s facial expressions, bathed in the headlights as she was. “How do I know you won’t run me over?”

He took a step toward her. “Because I would never hurt an animal. Just like you. Wretched thieving villains, on the other hand . . .”

“Great. I’ll make sure I keep the horse close by.”

“Do that.”

She rode slowly, and he knew she was doing it to bother him. To string out this interaction.

He watched the set of her bony shoulders as she rode, and even though he was looking at the back of her head, illuminated by his headlights, and all he could see was her shiny copper ponytail, he was absolutely certain that she was smirking.

Because Birdie was always smirking.

She always had that look about her, as if she knew that she was going to get the best of you. He hated that.

In fact, he had always hated her. Because when they were kids, he had never known what the hell she was going to do next. She didn’t follow a logical moral code. And he required that. You did things because they were right, you didn’t do them because they were wrong. The end.

Birdie was going to do whatever the hell she pleased.

Sometimes he hadn’t been sure whether he hated her or envied her. He knew better now. She was just annoying. There was nothing to envy.

Finally, after making the ride last far longer than was necessary, they arrived back at the barn. He got out of the truck after killing the engine and went to stand by the horse. He looked up at Birdie, who was indeed smirking.

“Well, here we are. I guess you should show me to my room.”

“There’s time yet. But you need to put away the horse you got out. I’ll supervise.”

Her smirk twisted into a snarl. But she got off the mare and led her into the barn. She was cooing and talking to it, and using the name Pegasus repeatedly to annoy him. He decided not to take the bait. Something he hadn’t been capable of when they were younger.

She took her sweet-ass time, but finally the horse was put away.

“Have you got a change of clothes or anything?”

She shook her head. “No. And my socks are full of hay.”

He looked down and stared at the pair of beat-up brown boots she was wearing. “Your socks?”

Then he looked back up at her, at her glittering green eyes, which shimmered like mean little beetles in the light of the barn. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Well, I’m not taking you back to your place tonight.”

“I don’t have a place,” she said. “Actually, I’ve been sleeping in the barn over at my dad’s. But he doesn’t know that.”

“You have a go bag?”

“Every shady character worth her salt has a go bag, Gunnar. But you wouldn’t know anything about that. You’ve never thought you might have to run.”

More than that, he’d always known he never would.

This ranch was his legacy, and there had never been any question of whose responsibility it was to take up that legacy.

When his mother and sister had died in a car accident back when Gunnar was five, it had left him and his father alone.

The ranch was theirs to uphold. Along with the code of the West.

That was all there was. It was all there had ever been.

“No.” He did feel a small surge of pity for her. He didn’t want to feel sorry for her. She was pathetic because of her own choices. If she didn’t want to be threatened with the consequences of her own actions, then she shouldn’t have stolen a horse out of his barn.

Anyway, as consequences went, his were pretty reasonable, if he said so himself.

“Then let me just show you to your quarters. I’ll bring you a pair of socks.”

“I can just sleep barefoot,” she said.

He didn’t know why, but that admission felt intimate, and he had never in his life wanted to be anything like intimate with Birdie. No, usually he just wanted to be distant from her, because every single time he had to deal with her, she was being a pain in the ass. This time was no different.

Though, maybe because he had gone out with the intent of hooking up tonight, he couldn’t help but notice that she really was a very beautiful woman.

It was a shame that looks so neat and fine were wasted on such a little weasel.

But she had beautiful coppery hair, freckles scattered across her upturned nose, and the kind of full, pretty mouth that would tempt a lesser man to sin.

Too bad Gunnar wasn’t interested in sinning.

“Suit yourself,” he said. “Come on.”

He turned around and walked toward the other end of the stable, to a door that led to the second floor. He unlocked it, opened it. “By the way, the trashed locks will come out of your wages too.”

“How do you know that I trashed the locks?”

“Somehow, I just do.”

He started to walk up the stairs, and he did not hear Birdie following behind him. He paused and turned. “Are you going to kill me?” she asked.

“No. I’m almost damn near flattered that you think I might.” Because everyone knew that Gunnar Parsons had never set foot out of line in his life.

“You’re flattered that I think you might be a murderer?”

“I don’t know if flattered is the right word, actually. But it’s definitely something no one has ever asked me before.”

“You must live a quiet little life, Gunnar.”

Right. A quiet little life. Working the land sunup to sundown till his sweat soaked into the ground, doing his damnedest to honor not only his father’s memory but his mother’s. His sister’s memory.

He was the last of his family.

He had never struggled the way Birdie did, but he wasn’t a stranger to how brutal life was. He didn’t know if a man could call his existence quiet .

He opened up the door at the top of the stairs and revealed a neat bedroom that hadn’t had anyone living in it for a while. It had alternatively been used by employees, tenants, and for a while, him.

There was a desk up against the far wall, beneath the picture window, a small bed with a metal frame pressed against the wall next to it. Birdie didn’t seem all that impressed.

“You got an issue?”

“Just wondering how the accommodations compare to the ones down at the county jail.”

“We could do a little compare and contrast if you want, but I thought you wanted to avoid the police.”

She offered him a toothy smile, which felt somehow threatening. Too bad for her he didn’t find her scary. Just . . .

Birdie.

“Why don’t you get in bed.”

Her eyes went round, and her brows shot midway up her forehead. “Oh. It’s like that, is it?”

Her cheeks actually went slightly red before her brows lowered again, and he could see that she was considering something.

And right then, he understood. Right then, his gut started to churn. “That is not what I meant,” he said.

“Really? Because usually when a man asks me to get into bed . . .”

“Sleep. It’s late, and we have to get up early to work.”

“You sure?”

For a moment, he felt heat lick through his veins. For a moment, he could only stare at her. But just a moment, because then he came back to himself. Who he was.

“Yes. I’m sure. You’re going to have to work off your debt on your feet.”

The corner of her lips twitched. “Kinky.”

He ground his teeth together. “Go to sleep, Birdie. If you’re gone in the morning, I’m sending the cops after you.”

“You’re literally letting me sleep in the stable? You trust that I won’t take off with your horse again?”

“I don’t trust you. But I have alarms. And crucially, video, which you already know. You could try. But you won’t get very far.”

She seemed not to have much to say to that. He turned and left her standing there, and he didn’t give her a backward glance. He walked down the stairs and out of the barn, toward the ranch house.

It was a beautiful house. A house that had always been meant for a family, but had ultimately ended up just containing him and his father.

There were so many rooms that he never went in. Vacant bedrooms, a dining room. He just ate in front of the TV. By himself.

When he went inside, he reflexively pulled a bottle of whiskey out of the cabinet.

He marveled at the way his movements mimicked his father’s.

Jan hadn’t been an angry drunk or anything like that.

His drinking hadn’t caused the problems on the ranch—they were a result of a shifting economy and changing times.

But there was never a night his old man hadn’t used whiskey to help send him off to sleep.

He was just like his dad. Never anything that caused him to behave poorly. Never anything that caused him to treat people badly.

He never shirked his duties; he never forsook his morals.

But there was a quiet sadness in him that he couldn’t seem to talk about. As if grief was a moral failing of some kind, and a man couldn’t shed a tear without betraying weakness.

He could drink. He could sit alone in silence.

Push his feelings down.

Gunnar was totally aware of that. Even as he poured himself that drink. As he sat down in silence in the living room, in the leather chair his father used to sit in. What the hell had he done?

He had a cuckoo in the nest.

And no amount of drinking was going to make her go away. He’d set all this up, and now he had to deal with it.

He was not looking forward to tomorrow.