Chapter 3 The Luckiest Girl Alive

*Skylar*

A gravel road led high out of town over rolling hills that opened out to sweeping views of nothing but grassland.

Before long the road forked and we continued to climb higher, and higher, until the truck bounded along a road shaded by pines taller than most of the buildings we'd passed on the fifteen-minute drive out of town.

"I haven't been up here in years," Danica admitted. "I forgot how gnarly this road is."

Truely, we bounced all over the place as the road stretched ahead of us. Eventually a dilapidated wooden fence appeared and began to run alongside us, just beyond the treeline.

"This is it," she said, more to herself than to me as she rolled down her window, warm midsummer air breezing into her truck and tousling our hair.

I couldn't help but gasp. A two-story house with a gabled tin roof rose before us, windows glinting in the now setting sun. The walls were once white but had chipped and grayed with age and disrepair. A large barn towered in the distance, gray and falling in on itself. Beyond it the plains that stretched out into a wide valley. I could see for miles, and miles.

"Holy shit," I murmured.

"Holy shit is right. I can't believe this place is still standing."

I didn't ask what she meant by that. I couldn't form words if I tried.

This was... mine.

She threw the truck in park and stepped out. I followed, breathing deeply. Fresh, warm air touched my cheeks as I waded through waist deep grasses toward the front porch, Danica walking ahead of me. "You really inherited this place?"

"I did, but they made it sound like someone had lived here recently."

She said nothing as she stepped onto the sturdy, but incredibly creaky, front porch. The house looked to be in decent enough shape despite the wear and tear on the exterior. The roof, however, was extremely rusted and disintegrating in patches. I looked up through a hole in the porch roof, seeing nothing but deep blue sky.

"I don't have the keys yet. I'm supposed to pick those up from the bank in town when I get the estate squared away."

"We can still poke around, if you want," she replied, looking over at me. "I didn't mean to like, I don't know, barge in on you like that back in town and steal this moment from you. I just... Grady is a little... Well, he's Grady. He would've trapped us and peppered us both with questions."

"He didn't seem thrilled about me at all," I chuckled as I followed her around the corner of the porch. The porch wrapped around the whole house. I wanted to pick her brain about why Grady's face had twisted into a scowl, and then panic, at the mention of the name Courtney, but Danica moved on, her fingers trailing over the peeling paint on the siding.

We peered in the windows. Old furniture sat covered in dust, untouched for two decades if Danica was correct, which it sure as hell looked like she had been.

I glanced over my shoulder and stopped, peering between the pines.

"Is that a house over there?"

"Yep," she sighed, sucking her lower lip between her teeth before letting go with a pop. "That's the Lawson place."

The other house was pretty far away, from what I could tell, but rose above us on a steep hill. There was a tower of sorts on the side, its windows catching the sunset.

"It's called the Hawthorne Ranch, and it's one of the biggest in the state," she began, testing the railing before leaning on it. "It wraps around Mason Creek and touches the reservation on the far side, and the rest of it is all wilderness. His place butts up against yours."

"So, this Ben guy is my neighbor?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

"What about over there?" I pointed to the other side of what was now, incredibly, and possibly stupidly, my property. I had no idea what the hell I was going to do with all of this land. She followed my outstretched arm to the east.

"You got roughly five miles of property here under the Courtney name, and then you have the Hollis Ranch to the east," she said with a hint of disdain.

"Does everyone hate each other here?" I asked with a short laugh, noticing the way her expression shifted.

"No, just you three."

"Why?"

I followed her off the porch and toward what looked to be a garage.

"Should we go inside?" she smiled, ignoring my question completely.

"It looks like it's about to fall over on itself!"

"There might be some spare keys in there to the house," she shrugged.

"Sure, why not."

It wasn't hard to get into the garage. The bay door slid up into the ceiling with a screech that startled the birds from the trees, but neither of us took a moment to look around.

"Oh, my God," Danica and I said at the same time, and then looked at each other.

She stepped forward and pulled off the tarp that covered what could only be a truck, and we both went still and silent.

"You are the luckiest bitch I've ever met," Danica breathed, choking on a shocked laugh. "This is a 1986 Ford F-250."

"I have no idea what that means," I croaked, shocked into near silence as my eyes roved over the pristine cherry red paint and lifted tires.

Keys jingled to my left and I turned, finding Danica grinning from ear to ear. "Found the keys. I bet it still runs. I have a gas can in my truck."

***

"Just pin it to the bulletin board in the bar when we get there," Danica said, her arms sticking out the window as we bounced toward town in her truck. "That's the best place to catch someone's attention."

I chewed my lip as I wrote a note meant for any contractors in town who wanted some work. We were headed to the bar now, her truck bouncing and trembling as we coasted down the long stretch of gnarled, steep gravel road toward town.

"Is this stupid?" I asked abruptly as I scribbled on the piece of paper I'd laid across her dashboard.

"You selling everything you've ever owned and leaving what sounds like a stellar life behind?" she laughed, shaking her head. "Yeah, it's dumb as shit. But you hit the jackpot with that truck, at least."

"It's one car. It's not like I can live in that thing–"

"Well, that's why you're going to find someone who can fix up the house and you'll never have to go back to California again," she cut in, glancing over at me with a smirk.

I'd spent the last hour telling her about what happened and how I ended up here on a whim. I liked Danica. She was dry and sarcastic and a damn good time. She had someone coming up to the house to tow my truck back to her place so she could work on it and get it running.

Danica and I hit it off immediately, but I knew there was something really strange about not only this town, but the family of mine who'd lived here once. I didn't want to push it. She'd offered to let me stay with her tonight, so I didn't have to fight for a room at the single motel in town. I could get all of that sorted tomorrow when the bank opened.

Which was exactly what I told myself as we pulled along the curb in front of the bar.

"This town is mostly just cowboys," she mused, twirling her hair over her finger as I wrote my name and phone number on the paper. "But some of them know their way around a toolbox."

I followed her into the bar feeling completely out of place. A narrow hallway separated the front door and the inside of the bar, and she walked ahead of me, mentioning that she was going to get us some drinks while I hung what I knew was only my lifeline in this place on the bulletin board along the wood paneled wall.

If no one could help me fix up the house, what the hell would I do?

I found a spare tack and placed the paper right in the center of the board where nobody would miss it. I stepped back to admire my choice of placement and to give myself a minute to decide if I actually wanted to go through with this when the door opened and almost hit me in the face.

I turned around but didn't have time to move out of the way before what felt like a brick wall slammed into me.

I yelped, shoving hard against the chest of a man who towered over my 5'5' frame with ease. He stood so close I could smell a faint hint of woodsy cologne on his black shirt. His shadow engulfed me completely, and he didn't move when I tried to get past him. In fact, he caged me in, one of his large hands resting flat on the bulletin board.

"Hey–" I squeaked, trying to shove him away.

I looked up and went still. His eyes–the color of honey–were fixed on the piece of paper I'd just pinned the board. Pieces of dark brown hair fell over his forehead beneath a worn leather cowboy hat nearly the same dark shade as his shirt.

He slowly looked down at me and all I wanted to do was fade into the wall behind me and disappear when our eyes locked.

A muscle ticked in his jaw as he scanned my face like he was memorizing it, counting the freckles over the bridge of my nose and the gentle curve of my lips.

A chill licked up and down my spine.

I'd never seen a man like him before in my life.

He held my gaze as he pushed away from the wall, then gave me his back before he disappeared into the crowded bar.