Page 94 of Theirs to Hunt (Girls Like Us #1)

He smiled, the smallest tug at the corner of his mouth. “Alright then. Welcome to nowhere. Drive safe, Ms. McKinney. And just a heads up, cows have the right of way. This is open graze, so if you hit one, you reimburse the landholder what they would have cost.”

She blinked. “I have so many questions, but I won’t keep you.”

And with that, he tipped two fingers off his brow and walked back to his cruiser, leaving Kate and Boone in the quiet hum of her still-running engine.

Boone looked at her, then out the window like you got off easy.

Kate adjusted the volume and pulled back onto the road, this time under the limit. The welcome committee had spoken.

She eased off the gas and let her Nissan Titan settle into a more reasonable pace. With Boone’s head still hanging out the window like a second side mirror, Kate took in the view.

The road curled along the river, clear, cold, and moving quickly.

A bald eagle swooped down to grab a fish.

Rocky outcrops jutted up like ancient sentinels, shadows settling deep in the creases between canyon walls.

Buttes in the distance caught the fading light, warm gold against the cooling sky.

This wasn’t the kind of place you moved to for convenience.

It was the kind of place you ran to when the world had gotten too loud.

She passed a narrow field where a half-dozen deer stood grazing. One raised its head, ears twitching, and watched her with the blank-eyed calm of something that had seen a hundred trucks roll past and only cared about the ones that didn’t.

Then came the town.

Wooden sidewalks. A pair of teenagers sitting outside the ice cream parlor with melting cones.

A pickup parked outside the brewery with a dog asleep in the bed.

She rolled past a weathered building that had once been a hardware store and now claimed to sell both antiques and beef jerky.

Across the street, the lights were still on at a pizza place with a faded sign and a hand-painted sandwich board that read: “Closed Mondays. Still no pineapple.”

She smiled.

At the edge of town, just before the road started stretching again, a taco truck sat under a floodlight in a gravel pull-off. The windows were open, music playing low, something Spanish and old and warm.

Boone let out a hopeful whine.

“Alright, alright,” Kate muttered, pulling over.

She ordered three tacos, carnitas, al pastor, and one mystery special, and grabbed two cold cans of Diet Coke from the cooler. The woman running the truck barely looked up, just handed over the foil-wrapped goods with a tired nod and a “welcome to town, honey.”

Kate smiled again, genuine this time. “Thanks.”

Back in the truck, Boone watched the bag like he could smell every spice through the wrapping. She passed him a tortilla chip to hold him over.

They rolled out of town in silence, the radio quiet now, Bon Jovi a memory. The taco smell filled the cab, and Kate watched the signs for side roads. She was close. Somewhere past the next bend was the dusty driveway that led to her new beginning.

She spotted the mile marker and eased her foot off the gas.

“Almost there, Boo,” she said, more to herself than the dog, but Boone thumped his tail against the seat like he had been waiting for this moment all day.

Her driveway was next on the left. Two rust-streaked mailboxes stood at the edge, one with her name taped on in fading black Sharpie. In the last blush of sunlight, she was grateful she was heading east and not west. At least she wasn’t driving straight into the glare.

She turned onto the shared gravel driveway, crossing a narrow bridge over a shallow, winding creek. The truck’s tires crunched across the wooden planks, the sound sharp in the quiet. Kate stopped just past the bridge and let herself breathe.

To the right, the land opened wide into a sun-drenched meadow, now cast in evening gold.

Pines clustered in the distance where the high desert pressed against the forest line.

A group of deer had emerged to graze, their movements slow and deliberate.

Two fawns stuck close to their mother, ears flicking, soft bodies barely visible in the tall grass.

Across the field, a small herd of belted Galloways grazed like living storybook illustrations, black and white like giant, shaggy Oreos. One red and white cow stood among them like a misprinted page, watching Kate’s truck with the same suspicion she reserved for salesmen and uninvited visitors.

“Now that’s a welcome,” Kate muttered, reaching down to scratch Boone behind the ears. He whined, eyes tracking every animal like he wanted to memorize the whole field.

She nudged the truck forward. The gravel road climbed gently as it began to split. The fork was marked only by a leaning wooden post and a faded blue sign nailed to a tree. The realtor had told her a local deputy lived the other direction. She went right.

This was what she wanted. What she had worked for.

Enough land around her to breathe. A good well, tested and flowing strong.

A house small enough to handle on her own but with enough room for her books, her thoughts, and a dog with opinions.

The outbuildings were already there, future-ready for livestock or projects she hadn’t dared plan yet.

And covered parking meant she wouldn’t have to scrape her windshield like a savage every icy morning.

It was hers.

Finally.

As soon as the truck stopped, Boone launched himself out the open door like he had been spring-loaded. Tail high, nose down, he hit the ground at a dead trot, snorting with excitement and weaving through the pines like he had a personal mission to catalog every scent in a three-acre radius.

Kate leaned against the doorframe and watched him go, arms crossed, a soft smile tugging at her lips. There was a kind of wild joy in him here that she hadn’t seen since the last camping trip before everything got loud. He moved like he belonged, like the place had been waiting for him all along.

“Knock yourself out, Boo,” she said under her breath.

Her eyes drifted to the porch. A pile of Amazon boxes sat stacked under the eaves, safe from the weather. The sight gave her a jolt of gratitude. This house might still be mostly empty, but it was hers. Clean slate.

She hadn’t brought much. When she left Tigard, she had sold everything that didn’t carry a story worth keeping. No point dragging a houseful of furniture into a new life when most of it was just dead weight. The twenty-two-year-old bed went first, no love lost, no good memories.

Instead, she had ordered a simple metal frame and a Tempurpedic mattress in a box. Assembly required, sure, but it beat wrestling a sagging mattress or paying someone else to do it.

The place still smelled like fresh wood and sawdust in places.

The floors had been refinished, and the contractor had done good work updating the bathroom.

She had asked for a big walk-in shower and an oversized cast iron tub, and somewhere in the process, he had talked her into expanding the porch to wrap around that side of the house.

“It’ll change your life,” he had said. And damned if he wasn’t right.

Now the tub sat outside on the extended deck, private, quiet, facing the trees and open sky.

She had added an instant propane water heater too.

Endless hot water, no chlorine stink, no fighting mildew.

A heavy-duty cover kept the critters out, in theory.

She would see how that worked out come spring.

But standing there now, looking at the fading light hitting the tub, the porch, the pine shadows stretching long across her land, yeah. It looked perfect. Not magazine perfect. Her perfect.

With a sharp whistle, she called Boone in. He came bounding back through the grass like a short-range missile, tail wagging. Still snorting, still grinning, he seemed to think he was the first explorer to ever map the back corner of the field.

Kate headed to the truck and grabbed his food bin, then snagged the foil-wrapped tacos and cans of Diet Coke from the passenger seat. Her stomach reminded her she hadn’t eaten since lunch, and tacos didn’t keep.

Bed and bedding tonight. That was the priority.

Tomorrow she would tackle the painting, figure out the rest of the box situation, and head into town to scrounge up a couch and a dining set. Nothing fancy, just something decent enough to hold a cup of coffee and a tired body.

She had time. No rush.

She had space now too.

And for the first time in a long while, Kate didn’t feel like she had to keep moving to survive.

She was exactly where she meant to be.

Inside, the house smelled like dust, cardboard, and potential.

She flipped on a few lights, dropped the tacos on the counter, and scooped Boone a bowl of food. He inhaled it like he hadn’t eaten in days, then trotted back to the front door, ready to resume patrol in case any trees had grown since he had last checked.

Kate ate standing at the counter, unwrapping one taco at a time, savoring the quiet. No cars. No sirens. Just the wind outside and the occasional creak from the house settling into the cool evening.

She started with the frame, metal and rustic matching the location.

Took her fifteen minutes and one barked knuckle to assemble.

Afterward, she dragged the mattress box inside, cut it open, and watched the thing puff up like a self-inflating raft.

Bedding thrown on, sheets wrinkled and still smelling faintly of dryer sheets from the store shelf.

She left the boxes and paint cans for tomorrow.

Later, she stepped out onto the porch with her second can of Diet Coke, barefoot, hoodie zipped up. Boone lay in the dirt, alert but relaxed, ears twitching toward some rustle out past the tree line.

The sky overhead was endless. No streetlights. No light pollution bleeding in from a neighbor’s garage. Just stars. More than she remembered seeing in years.

Kate took a long sip, leaned against the porch rail, and exhaled.

No deadlines. No drama. No furniture yet. But she would take it.

“You and me, Boo,” she murmured. “We might have pulled it off this time.”

The dog thumped his tail once in agreement.

Tomorrow she would start making it home. Tonight it was enough.