Chapter Two
Generally,the only people on the ranch up before me were the great horned owls that lived and called to each other during the night. This morning, however, someone was pounding on my door at four in the morning. I normally rolled out at four-thirty and valued my sleep so whoever this was knocking had better be missing a limb.
“Fucker,” I grumbled, threw a hand out, and managed to locate the bedside lamp. My fingers grazed the base and the room was illuminated. I groaned, rolled over, and came face to face with a set of hairy red balls.
Bane was snoring, lying on his back on the pillow that I never used. The tip of his bent tail flicked a time or two. No one was sure what had happened to his tail. We assumed a horse or cow had stepped on it as he was always prowling the barns looking for a mouse or a lover.
“Not the first thing I need to see,” I grunted as the hammering continued. Fearing it was an emergency—we had those on the regular when it was calving season but that was now over—I kicked at the blue cover and stumbled out to the door in my boxers. The cabin was dark as night, clinging to the ranch like a needy toddler. I skirted around the sofa and coffee table. “Lighten the fuck up! I’m coming!” Wrong foot day number two had arrived.
The hammering subsided. I reached the door without stubbing my toes on any furniture or the two short steps leading out of the sunken living room, flicked on the light on the front porch, and flung the door open after flipping the deadbolt. I hated locks. When I first arrived here at the Prairie Smoke Ranch a thousand years ago, nothing had ever been locked. There had been no need. Now, with the influx of people coming here to hunt and fish, everything had to be padlocked. It was a sad testament to humanity and far too big of a reminder of the city life that I’d left behind.
I expected to see a young Native American man standing there with a stricken look. That was usually what I found when I’d been roused from my bed. What stood on my front step was not a Native American ranch hand. It was a…what the hell was the term they were using now? Yuppie? No, that’s not it. Hell, the word had fled my sleepy brain. The blond man on my stoop looked more like a reject from a Beach Boys video. Did they make videos or were they done and over before MTV became a thing? Shit, who knew. He was tall, angular, tanned, and dressed in a tank top that read SMILE LIKE A DINO that had a grinning T-rex on it, baggy black board shorts, and sloppy leather sandals. His lean cheeks were coated with new golden whiskers and he had a bun. A bun. A man with a bun had woken me up. What the ever loving fuck? Was someone pranking me? It wasn’t April first but still Kyle was known for his stupid ass practical jokes.
“Are you lost?” I stuck my rumpled head out the door to see if I could spy Kyle hiding behind my chicken coop. I saw nothing but an old Subaru. I leaned back inside and gave the bun man my most intimidating glare.
“Hey! You look incredibly surly. I’m sorry to have woken you up so early, but I couldn’t wait to get here and see what you found.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I scratched at my bare belly. His big blue eyes darted downward then flew back to my face.
“Oh, shit, sorry. Bishop Haney. Associate Professor of Paleontology at the University of Western Wyoming.” He held out a hand.
“You got any ID to back up that claim?” If this guy was a professor then I was the Queen of England.
“Oh sorry. Yeah let me…” He twisted around to shove a hand into the rucksack on his back. He pulled out a lanyard with a UWW ID, some keys, and a big green dinosaur wearing yellow shorts riding a surfboard dangling off it. I studied the picture on the laminated card then looked at him. Yep. He was who he said he was.
Guess I better start liking sipping tea and playing with corgis.
“You’re a professor?” My brain was too low on coffee to make sense of any of this. Bane slipped around my bare leg and out the door, stopping only long enough for Professor Beach Bingo to drop down to scratch his chin.
“Newly minted,” Bishop Haney replied, his smile so bright my eyes watered. He shoved his hand at me again and kept talking. “I couldn’t believe it when Professor Twitch called me last night and told me we had a new find. I’d been setting up a display at the Dinosaur Center. I work there part-time now that school’s out for the summer. A man has to pick up some cash somewhere, right? Nice cat by the way.”
“Bane.” He pumped my hand, his grip strong, his fingers as rough as mine.
“I’m sorry?” A moth arrived, drawn by the light.
“The cat. His name is Bane.”
“Like the DC comics supervillain?”
“No, like he’s the bane of my existence.”
That amused him, the bubbly blond Cali surfer professor dude laughed aloud. It was an honest laugh. Clear and soothing.
“You love him, I can tell. So, do you have a name or shall I just refer to you as the sexy older man in the form-fitting reindeer boxers?”
Sexy?
I glanced down. Fuck. I was wearing my bright red reindeer Christmas boxers. I could feel a bit of heat tinting my cheeks. Good thing there was a short beard there to hide the blush.
“I need to do wash. Come in.” I freed my hand from his and stepped aside so he could enter my cabin. He stepped inside, dropped an old rucksack to the floor, and nodded.
“Nice place. Bet it looks even better when the lights are on.” Fuck. I slapped at the wall switch. The lamp by the door came on. He gave me a wink then meandered around the living room, easy as you please, checking out the mounts on the walls then ambling over to admire the carvings on the mantle over the fireplace. “These are beautiful.” He picked up the small wooden moose that Kyle had made me for my birthday last year. “Whoever did this has some real talent.”
“Yeah. I need pants.” I left him standing by the fireplace. When I came back a few minutes later, jeans and my lone clean T-shirt on, he was still looking at the carvings. “Coffee?”
He glanced at me. “Cool, yeah, please. Are these symbolic pieces? I know there are several tribes in the area. Did you purchase these from a local artisan?” He was inspecting an eagle now, its oaken wings spread wide. How the man whittled such intricate details into such small works of art I didn’t know.
“He works here.”