Chapter 1 ~ Dove
“You’ve arrived.”
Dove glanced at her phone and reached over to shut off the GPS. She was grateful to have it because she never would’ve found this place otherwise. A lone house on the outskirts of a small town nestled in the mountains of Colorado. It was a miracle it was on the GPS at all.
The house that lay before her now, framed by her windshield, had belonged to her grandfather. It... it looked like a disaster waiting to happen.
“Seriously?” she said to herself, as if doubting it out loud would change reality. She was told to expect a quaint craftsman style home. What she saw was a simple country house that was very run down and not her definition of ‘quaint’ at all.
With a sigh, Dove pushed out of her car to have a better look. Autumn leaves littered the yard and clogged up the house’s gutters. The light blue paint on the siding was faded and peeling. Spider webs and bits of old hornet nests clung to the dirty windows. The porch steps creaked as she went up them and she was struck with the horrible image of the wood giving way beneath her. She’d snap her ankle on the way down! Hell, when was the last time she had a tetanus shot?
Thankfully, Grandpa’s steps didn’t collapse on her. The porch looked as worn as the rest of the house and was bare except for two chairs. The screen door squeaked as she pulled it open. She intended to simply hold it open with her hip while she got the house key out of her purse, but after staring at the old door for a minute, she crinkled her nose and decided against it. Her clothes were far too nice to be rubbing up against that grungy screen door.
She let it swing shut, which it did with a loud slap, and dug into her purse. Maybe she shouldn’t feel so judgmental about the place. She was just given it. The call came out of the blue. Her grandfather passed and, since he didn’t leave a will, his property and belongings defaulted to her.
Except what was she supposed to do with this house in the middle of nowhere? She lived in New York City, for crying out loud! There was no way in hell she’d leave that to live in the boonies. The sooner she could finish here and get back home, the better.
If only she could find the house key.
“Ugh, where is it?” she breathed out with a sigh. Oh wait. Oh, yeah, she put it in the glove box for safekeeping. She hated when she did that. Put something in a ‘safe place’ only to completely forget later. She rolled her eyes at herself, letting out a scoff that eased her tension, and headed back to her car.
The porch steps didn’t eat her on the way down either.
She went to her passenger side and was pulling open the door when she heard what sounded distinctly like a horse neighing. She perked up and gave a glance around. There it was again. Yep, that was totally a horse.
That didn’t come entirely as a surprise. She knew the property came with a stable. Grandpa had bred horses for a living. She just didn’t expect the horses to still be here. Wasn’t that, like, animal neglect or something? She thought someone official would’ve come to take them until Grandpa’s family could do something about them. Like the State or PETA or whatever. Clearly she had no idea how any of that worked.
A sudden worry filled her that the poor things were starving to death. Dove wasn’t a horse lover. She had never even ridden on one. To be honest, they scared her. But that didn’t mean she wanted them to suffer!
She dropped her purse onto the passenger seat and hurried off to find the source of that neighing. Where in the world actually was the stable? It wasn’t visible from the driveway. She noticed a road, leading off around the side of the house. It was a dirt road, damp and somewhat muddy from a recent autumn rain. Walking across it in her super cute ankle boots suddenly gave her pause.
Damn it, but what about the horses?
Gritting her teeth, she started down the road and tried her hardest to avoid the patches of mud. She was so focused on the ground that she didn’t even notice the stable until it was fully in view ahead of her. She glanced up and there it was, looking like a big red barn, run down like the house.
The stable doors were open, revealing a row of animal stalls on either side with a wide-open space down the middle. She couldn’t see any horses from where she stood, but she could hear them more clearly now.
She jumped and stopped in her tracks. There was someone in the stable.
Grandpa lived alone. There shouldn’t be anyone on his property. On her property. Who was this man? Whoever he was, he didn’t seem to notice her. He had a push broom in his hand and was sweeping what looked to be dirty straw across the floor of the stable.
Well, she needed to find out who this guy was, didn’t she? It looked like he was doing chores, so he probably wasn’t some hillbilly psycho killer like from the movies. She straightened her posture, holding herself high with the confidence of someone who was supposed to be there, and approached the open stable doors.
As she got closer, she got a better look at the man, and... damn. He wasn’t a hillbilly at all. He was a hunk! He was tall, easily over six foot. His long-sleeved shirt was rolled up to the elbows, showing off his muscular forearms. From the way the rest of his shirt hugged his body, she could tell that his broad build was probably solid muscle. His dark brown hair was long, falling over his shoulders, and it matched his thick beard. Everything about him looked strong and rugged. She never would’ve thought mountain man and sexy went together, but boy, did he prove her wrong.
And now here she was, gawking like a fool. She snapped herself out of it and reminded herself of what she intended to do.
“Excuse me,” she said, walking into the stable. “Who are you?”
The hunk paused with the broom and looked over at her, noticing her for the first time. His expression was difficult to read.
“Name’s Burley Johnson, miss,” the man replied, and even his voice was attractive. Was it hotter inside the stable or was that just her?
