Part Time Cowboy. Maisey Yates

property before.

      The fact that she was leasing a business on it now would have been funny if she didn’t just feel horrible, stomach-cramping nervousness.

      But then, she figured facing past demons was supposed to be scary. She wouldn’t know for sure since she’d spent years avoiding them. Six months ago, that had changed.

      Working with people dealing with grief and loss was always impacting—there was no way around it. But one very grumpy older woman who’d lost the house she’d been in since the 1940s had forced her to think about things she’d always avoided.

      “Home is wherever you are,” Sadie had told her.

      Maryann, whose every decade on earth was marked clearly in her snow-white hair and the deep lines etched in her face, had scowled at her. “Home is where I raised my children. Where my husband breathed his last breath. I don’t know who I am outside those walls.”

      “You’re still you. I’ve spent a lot of my life moving from place to place, and I take my essence, my soul, or whatever you want to call it, with me wherever I go.”

      The other woman had waved her hand in dismissal. “You can’t know, then. You’re a vagrant in your own life. If nothing matters to you, how can you sit there and tell me that something I poured the past sixty years of my life into is meaningless?”

      And that was when she’d realized...as a crisis counselor she’d helped so many people deal with loss. Either the loss of a loved one, the loss of a marriage or, very often, the loss of a home, and she’d realized that all that advice had been thin. Rootless, because she was.

      Because nothing was permanent in her life. Because not one thing had the kind of deep resonance and meaning for her that Maryann’s home had for her.

      She’d never before been quite so conscious of the transient nature of her life. But in one blunt sentence her patient had reduced the past ten years to a tumbleweed in her mind’s eye, while Maryann’s own past had risen up like a redwood. Towering, significant. Rooted.

      After that she’d felt so aware of how alone she was. That she’d let every friendship she’d left behind wither on the vine and die, that she’d done a crap job of making new friends since she’d moved to San Diego. That her last boyfriend, Marcus, hadn’t been missed from the day she’d rolled him out of bed and out the door for the last time.

      Those revelations had led to online perusals of Copper Ridge. Which had led to an ad she hadn’t been able to get out of her head.

      Long-term lease. Perfect for a private residence or bed-and-breakfast.

      From there, she’d examined her savings, done estimated profit and loss based on exhaustive research of similar businesses, and before she’d quite realized what she was getting herself into...she’d committed. Committed to leaving the career she’d spent more time in school for than she’d spent actually practicing.

      For the first time in ten years, she’d agreed to an extended time frame in one location. And for the first time in ten years, she was headed back to the one place she’d ever called home.

      Of course, now she felt like she was approaching doom. Which she didn’t think was at all dramatic. Since she was never dramatic.

      Except for when she was dramatic.

      From the backseat, she heard Tobias, more commonly known as Toby, let out a plaintive meow. The entire road trip had been endured with growing indignation by her cat. But then, she paid the rent, so he had to deal.

      “Sorry, bud,” she said. “I have the thumbs, I man the can opener. That means you have to stick with me. And if that means moving up the coast, it means moving up the coast. At least I didn’t fly and throw you into cargo.” Which, during their many moves together, had been a necessity on occasion. Toby wasn’t a fan of air travel.

      The cat didn’t respond to her attempts at mollifying him. Which didn’t really surprise her. In many ways, she was much more dependent on him than he was on her.

      Sadie looked out at the expanse of evergreen trees that lined the road, a rich, velvet green that she hadn’t found anywhere outside of Oregon. California was sun and palm trees, deep blue ocean and heat. It was beautiful, but in a different way.

      Copper Ridge was all majestic mountains, shades of green and steel-gray sea. Not the kind of beach you hung out on in a bikini unless you were a local. The wind was cold and blew the sand up hard and fast, the grains biting into skin like little teeth.

      It was its own kind of beauty, that was for sure. She’d been all over the United States. From the Deep South to the East Coast and back west again, and nothing had ever been quite like this. She’d never thought she’d be back.

      But she was. And the dread was ever encroaching.

      Suddenly, the car engine started to growl, and she pushed down the gas pedal, hoping to feel it rev again, only to be disappointed.

      “Oh, frickety frick,” she muttered as she pulled to the side of the road and the engine went totally silent.

      Gas had apparently been needed sooner than expected.

      She leaned forward, pressing her head against the steering wheel. “I knew it was doomed. I knew I was doomed!” She straightened up and looked backward at Toby. “Don’t start. Don’t get judgey.”

      Toby did nothing but stare at her with green eyes that were extremely judgmental despite her command. “You suck, cat,” she said, reaching down and digging for her purse, then feeling around for her phone.

      She pulled it out and saw one bar of service. Oh, right. Because that’s what you got for moving away from civilization and settling in the absolute sticks.

      She tapped her fingernails against the side of the phone and contemplated who to call. She didn’t really know anyone in town anymore. Her own parents had moved away ages ago, and she wouldn’t call them even if they hadn’t.

      Thankfully, she could get roadside assistance, but what a freaking pain.

      She pulled up the browser on the phone and typed tow trucks into the search engine, then grimaced as she watched the little wheel up in the top left-hand corner of the phone spin, and spin and spin while it tried to grab hold of a satellite signal for long enough to pull up some results.

      “Oh, Copper Ridge, you’ve bested me before, you aren’t allowed to do it again.” She kept her eyes on the phone and then growled at it, setting it on the passenger seat while she leaned over and pulled a stack of papers out of the glove box. She had to have a number for her insurance on hand at least.

      Somewhere. It had to be somewhere.

      A loud rap on the glass behind her shot a shock wave through her and she whipped around, releasing her hold on the stack of papers, sending them flying through the car, where they settled in both the front and backseats.

      She looked around at the mess, then at the knocker. On the other side of the glass was a man in a tan uniform, a gold star on his chest, sunglasses over his eyes. What she could see of him was...well, hot. Which was the last thing she expected, because she’d been living in San Diego for a few years, the land of the beautiful, and rarely, if ever, was she so overcome by a man’s face that all she could think was “hot.” But maybe that had to do with the recent startle. She was just a little dazed, that was all.

      He pointed downward, an authoritative gesture that took her a minute to attach meaning to, mainly because something was pulling at the back of her brain. A memory that was attempting to come to the forefront.

      She blinked and tried to get herself together, tried to get herself back into the present. She pushed the button on the door and the window slid down, removing the barrier between herself and Officer Hottie.

      “Hi,” she said. “I’m out of gas. But I have roadside assistance so...I mean, I’m okay. Except I don’t have very good cell service. So I was looking for... Well, anyway, did you stop for a reason?”