High Country Cowgirl. Joanna Sims

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      “I’m just talking.” She backpedaled a bit. “Val is my horse. I’m responsible for him now. I’m going to stick it out. This is far from the worst experience I’ve ever had to go through.”

      After those words, they both were silent and Bonita knew exactly what her father was thinking: her mother’s illness was the worst thing either one of them had ever gone through and the worst was yet to come.

      “Is Mom awake?” Bonita was the first to break the silence. “I’d like to say good-night.”

      “She asked the nurse to put her to bed early tonight.”

      Bonita had been lying back on a stack of pillows, but she sat up instinctively. “Is she okay? Do I need to come home now for her?”

      “She’s fine,” George said and for the first time Bonita heard weariness in her father’s voice. “It’s been a bad day... She has those. Tomorrow will be better. If you want to stay with Val, your mom will be fine until you return.”

      After she hung up the phone with her dad, Bonita spent some time catching up with friends on social media. She sent a friend request to Janice—they had struck up a friendship in a short time and they both wanted to keep in touch—and then she shut off the light.

      Bonita had been an insomniac for years. Even with the three glasses of wine, she was wide-awake listening to the sounds drifting up the hallway from the kitchen, staring at the ceiling.

      It felt as if her life had taken some odd turns of late. She was in a farmhouse in Ohio, getting ready to head off to Iowa with a cowboy she didn’t know all that well, instead of starting her first year of medical school. Her mother’s illness was a major driving force for her eventual return to the pursuit of a medical degree. She wanted to be able to help other families whose lives had been turned upside down, much as hers had, by a single diagnosis. Bonita didn’t regret putting her dream on hold to spend time with her mother in her final years. Her only regret was that she hadn’t come home sooner.

      * * *

      Gabe was already in the barn with Val when Bonita shuffled into the barn, blurry-eyed and running on only two hours of restless sleep, carrying Tater in one hand and rolling her suitcase behind her with the other.

      “He’s been fed.” The cowboy seemed to forget to engage in the social routine of greeting each other before getting down to business.

      “Good morning to you, too,” she said grumpily.

      Gabe glanced at her before he kept on shoveling the manure out of Val’s stall. “If you want to grab his shipping boots, I’ll get him ready to load.”

      Bonita checked to make sure the gates between the barn and the outside were closed before she put Tater down. She gathered up the tall, padded shipping boots and carried them over to Gabe.

      “Hi there, Val.” She reached out and let the horse smell her hand. “How’s he doing?”

      “He’s being a horse.” Gabe knelt down by Val’s hind leg and secured the shipping boot.

      Val was throwing his head, backing up to avoid Gabe and acting like he was going to bite her.

      “Hey.” Bonita pushed the horse’s mouth away with her hand. “He’s a lot more mouthy than I remember.”

      Gabe finished his job and stood up. “He’s got a few bad habits.”

      He looked fresh and crisp. He was wearing his usual button-down shirt, tucked in tightly, straight-leg denim jeans, cowboy boots, a cowboy hat and a leather belt with an oval silver buckle. It was indecent to look that put-together and awake in the middle of the night. In contrast, she had barely managed to get her hair into a ponytail, and she was wearing a baggy sweatshirt and jeans with no makeup. Her eyes were puffy, her face felt puffy—she needed coffee and some sort of food to help settle it.

      “I don’t suppose breakfast is in our future?”

      “I doubt we’re going to find anything open for a while. I’ve got some rations in the kitchen. You can help yourself.”

      Gabe was ready to go. She stepped out of the way so he could lead Val out of the stall. She quickly scooped up Tater and followed behind with her suitcase. Again, it took Gabe several tries to get him in the trailer.

      “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. Candace swears he’s never had any loading issues.”

      Gabe shut the back of the rig and secured it. “He’s got them now.”

      There it was again, that little gnawing sensation in her stomach about her new horse. He was such a beautiful creature; maybe it was just going to take some time for them to bond.

      “Goodbye, Hobby Horse Farm,” Bonita said as they slowly pulled out onto the desolate road. It was so dark that it didn’t feel like morning to her at all. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to say one more goodbye to Janice.”

      “She’s not a morning person.”

      “That makes two of us.”

      “I love this time of day. No people. No traffic. It’s the best time to travel.”

      Deciding not to argue with an obvious morning person, Bonita took Gabe up on his offer and found some breakfast bars in the kitchen. She also discovered that Gabe had made a pot of coffee and it was still warm enough to tolerate.

      Tater found her bowls of food and water while Bonita searched for some creamer for her coffee.

      “Do you have any creamer?”

      “I drink it black.”

      “Shoot.” So much for coffee.

      With a bottle of water and a breakfast bar in hand, Bonita slumped into the passenger seat.

      “You know, my father wanted me to fly home from Columbus. There’s creamer on the jet.”

      “Hard to keep an eye on me from the sky.” Gabe didn’t crack a smile, but she believed that he meant for there to be humor laced with truth in that statement.

      “I’m not keeping an eye on you,” Bonita retorted quickly. Then, she revised her answer a bit a second later. “I was keeping an eye on you.”

      “That seat leans back,” Gabe told her. “Why don’t you shut your eyes and try to get some more sleep? I promise I won’t screw anything up until after you wake up.”

      She didn’t know if he was trying to avoid her grumpiness or was sincerely concerned for her well-being, but it didn’t matter. It was a good idea and she took him up on it. She finished her breakfast bar and water, then leaned back and closed her eyes. It seemed that Gabe didn’t listen to music early in the morning, and that suited her just fine. She felt herself drifting to sleep but was awakened by Tater yipping next to her. Not opening her eyes, she reached down, felt for the little dog and lifted her onto her lap.

      “Go to sleep,” she mumbled. Those were the last words she wanted to utter until the sun rose and it was officially morning.

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