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  “Two bags?” He stood up again, put his coat on one more time, and headed out. “Anything else while I’m out there?”

  “Thank you, and there’s a bag of potatoes and…” She grimaced. “Would you bring that half a candy bar from the console?”

  “Sure thing,” he answered. “I live to serve.”

  “If we’re going to survive until Jesse gets here, maybe we should cut out the sarcasm.” She opened the refrigerator door. “Oh, look! I found some frozen steaks and hamburger. And there’s canned goods on this shelf. We might not starve or have to live on baby formula after all.”

  Cody had worked so hard that he was too tired to eat too many times to count when he was working for the firm that was a lot like Doctors Without Borders. He’d spent almost a decade in third world countries, working from before daylight until long after dark. Beans and potatoes and an occasional steak didn’t sound too bad at all to him.

  Living with a sassy redhead in a room that was smaller than his bedroom at the bunkhouse on Sunflower Ranch—now that sounded far worse than seeing patients in blistering heat seven days a week, or even sleeping on a narrow cot or shaking spiders out of his boots.

  * * *

  Stevie stole a long look at Cody as he left the room again. Why couldn’t he have gotten fat and bald and started wearing slippers and baggy pants rather than those tight-fitting jeans and those cowboy boots? At thirty-nine, he still looked every bit as sexy as he had when he was a senior in high school.

  Burn me once, shame on you, she thought as she set the supply of canned goods down from the shelf and peeled off a paper towel from a roll that she found at the back of the shelf.

  Burn me twice, and I’ll kick your sexy butt all the way to the Red River. She put a new twist on the saying as she dusted the shelf and the tops of the cans.

  “Where do you want these?” Cody asked as he brought in two big brown bags of food and one of potatoes.

  “You can just set them on the worktable,” she answered.

  He pulled what was left of a chocolate bar from his pocket and handed it to her.

  “And the most important thing of all,” he said with a smile.

  She had to remind herself not to smile back. He’d broken her heart, damn it! And as much as she wanted to admit she was over him, she also hadn’t been expecting him to move back to Honey Grove when she returned to help after her mom’s cancer diagnosis. Cody was supposed to be off playing Dr. Superhero in far-flung parts of the world until the day he died. But Sonny Ryan was having some health issues too, and two of his three sons had come home.

  She peeled the paper back and took a bite of what was left of her chocolate, then offered the rest to Cody.

  “No, thanks,” he said and shook his head, “I would never get in between a woman and her chocolate.”

  “Smart man,” she said. “Truce while we are stranded?”

  “I didn’t know we were at war,” he drawled. “I thought we were twenty years down the road from when we broke up.”

  “Why are you bringing that up?” she asked.

  “You said truce, and that means war, right?” he shot back.

  “Smart-ass,” she snapped. “Can you just agree to be civil while we’re here? And FYI, we are years past that time when we broke up. We’re adults now, not kids.”

  “Okay, then, deal,” he said. “What can I do to help? I’ve gotten pretty used to roughing it, and this would be considered practically luxurious compared to some of the places I’ve worked.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She stepped around Dixie and a yellow kitten to move cans of paint from a second shelf and squealed when she saw what she thought were two blue cans of coffee right there before her eyes. She grabbed the first one, and to her dismay, it rattled.

  “Damn it!” She slammed the can down on the worktable when she found nothing but bent nails inside.

  “Thought you had found a gold mine, didn’t you?” Cody chuckled.

  She shook a finger at him. “This is not a laughing matter.”

  “Probably find screws in the other can,” he laughed, “or worse yet, you’ll find coffee, and then you won’t find a pot around here or any way to make it.”

  “And what is this, Dr. Smart-Ass?” She pulled an old blue, granite pot from the shelf. It had no lid and looked like it might have been through a Category Five tornado.

  “I thought I was Dr. Cowboy,” Cody teased. “Who is this Dr. Smart-Ass? Can he make coffee in a beat-up pot like that?”

  “No, but I can. It might be so strong it will melt the enamel off your teeth, but it will be coffee. We will have a moment of silence,” she said as she bowed her head for a few seconds and then lifted it.

  “What was that for?” Cody asked.

  Stevie picked up the second coffee can and shook it. “A moment to pray that this is really coffee before I open it up. It feels about half-full, but it might be sugar or flour or sawdust.”

  “Or the ashes from a cat or dog that Max had cremated,” Cody suggested.

  “Yuck!” Stevie shot a dirty look his way. “Don’t spoil my moment. I was praying that would be coffee, not screws…” She peeked inside. “And it is!”

  “You are probably resurrecting grounds that came to Texas in the days when Santa Anna was roaming around this state. Look at where it was sitting, and all those dried-up paint cans in front of it,” he said.

  Stevie put the lid back on the can. “Don’t be a spoilsport. We have coffee. Do you take yours with cream and sugar? If so, you’re out of luck. I haven’t found sugar, and the only thing that resembles cream is powdered formula for animals.”

  “Black,” he said. “I take it black. When I was thirteen, I decided to start drinking coffee. I wanted some milk and sugar in mine. Mama shook her head and said that life don’t come all sweetened up, and neither did her coffee. I could learn to drink it black or leave it alone.”

  Stevie set the old pot on the worktable along with the coffee. “Pearl is a smart woman. So, when did you try drinking it again?”

  “I bit the bullet, so to speak, and started drinking it right then, that day. My brother Jesse just had to show me up and not even ask for sugar or cream. He’s a year younger than I am, so there was no way I was going to let him get ahead of me,” Cody said.

  Lord, why does the room have to light up when he smiles? Stevie sighed.

  “I’m going to put all the paint cans out in the barn. They’re dried up anyway and should be thrown away, but for now…” Cody dived into the cleaning project and began to help get things in order.

  What light came from the single window in the tack room was fading fast by the time they finished. Then the single bulb in the room blinked once and went out. The refrigerator stopped humming—no lights and no power. Could it get any worse?

  “There goes one of your essentials for survival. Chocolate is gone and now so is electricity. No shower either. Do you think you will live until Jesse gets here?” Cody asked.

  “Oh, hush! I’m in no mood for teasing. I don’t suppose you found a candle or an old lantern out there in the barn, did you?” she asked.

  Cody’s brows drew down in a frown. “There was one hanging on the side of the ladder leading up to the loft. I’ll see if it has oil in it and bring it in if it does.”

  He returned in a minute with the lantern and set it on the now spotlessly clean workbench. “I’m guessing this thing is about half-full of oil, but we’ve only got three matches left.”

  “I’ve got a pocketknife,” she said. “I can always whittle a match and we can use the fire from the stove to set it on fire.”

  “Regular Girl Scout, aren’t you?” Cody said.

  “Nope,” she answered. “Never was in the Scouts, but I’ve been in places that didn’t have decent cell service too many times to rely on my phone. So…” She held up her arm. “I’ve got a smart watch, so we’ll know what time it is and when to feed Dixie, and what day it is.”

  Cody pulled back his coat sleeve and
showed her his watch. “You’re preaching to the choir. Very few of the places I’ve been these past years had cell service. Folks there could barely afford food, much less fancy phones.”

  “Speaking of time”—she picked up the coffeepot and headed to the bathroom—“it really is time to feed Dixie again.”

  “And us,” Cody said. “You ever cooked on a woodstove?”

  “Nope,” she answered. “And not over a campfire either.”

  “Then you feed the baby, and I’ll keep us from starving.” Cody got down the cast-iron skillet and two steaks.

  “Those are frozen. There’s no way you can make those for us,” she said.

  “No, but they’ll be thawed by morning, and we’ll have them for breakfast,” he said. “I noticed that you bought a pound of bacon, so tonight we’re having a skillet meal.”

  “And what goes in that kind of a supper?” she asked when she returned with a coffeepot full of water.

  “Bacon fried crispy and chopped, potatoes fried in the grease, served up with a can of beans heated in the can on top of the stove. You wouldn’t happen to have a can opener out there in your van, would you?” he asked.

  “I’ve got a church key to open cans of milk, but we don’t need anything to open the beans,” she said.

  Cody eyed her like she was crazy. “You plannin’ on opening them with your teeth, or does that watch on your wrist do magic?”

  “No, Dr. Cowboy,” she said with a big smile. “The cans on the shelf all have those pull tabs on them.”

  Chapter Three

  Supper over and the skillet and forks cleaned as well as they could be, Cody banked the fire so that it wouldn’t go out overnight, and set an alarm on his watch to wake him up in four hours so he could check it. There was no way he would take a chance on starting another one with only three matches. The third might not be the charm the second time around, and then they’d be up the crap creek without a paddle, as his dad said when the situation was bad.

  “You want the sofa or…” he started to ask, but Stevie raised a palm.

  “The cushions come off, so”—she pulled them off—“we’re in luck. One of us gets the floor on cushions. The other one…” She flipped out a bed. “Gets to sleep on this bare mattress.”

  “I’ll take the floor since it’s likely you will have to sleep with Dixie,” Cody offered.

  “I don’t think so,” Stevie said. “Look over there behind the stove. I may adopt Dolly or rent her if Max will let me.”

  Cody peeked around the stovepipe, and there was Dixie, curled up on her little blanket. Dolly slept with her head on Dixie’s belly, and the kittens were draped over the cria like she was their long-lost sister.

  “You really may have to steal Max’s cat,” Cody said, “or at least, borrow her and the kittens until Dixie gets used to her new family at the ranch. I don’t see Max renting her out, though.”

  Stevie glanced out the edge of the single window located behind the stove. “Do you think this blizzard will last until the weekend? I’ve never seen weather like this in Texas or in Oklahoma, where I’ve been for the past few years.”

  Cody shrugged. “I just know what the weatherman said. Can you see the moon or stars?”

  “All I see is white,” she said with a long sigh. “I guess we’ll be here until it stops snowing and someone can find a way to get to us.”

  “Yep.” He sat down on one of the cushions she had tossed on the floor and leaned back against the end of the bed. “But there is an upside. We’ve got enough beans and food to last a few days, and there’s eight rolls of toilet paper in the cabinet above the toilet.”

  “Count your blessings,” Stevie muttered.

  “Speaking of that”—he tossed one of the cushions up onto the bed—“use this for your pillow. You’ll have a kink in your neck tomorrow morning if you sleep without one. I’ve slept on the floor lots of times the past few years. I’ll use this second one for my pillow.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Good night.”

  “See you in four hours,” he told her.

  Stevie raised up on an elbow. “Why are you getting up? I can feed Dixie without your help.”

  “The fire,” he answered and held up four fingers.

  “I understand.” Stevie shivered. “If you don’t wake up, you can trust me to kick you until you do. I do not want to freeze or starve or lose a cria, for that matter. That stove is our lifeline right now.”

  “Yep, it is.” Cody closed his eyes and wished for his king-sized bed and nice warm blankets at home.

  * * *

  A pile of hay in a barn stall would have been more comfortable than the lumpy mattress and cushion Stevie had to use for a pillow. She flipped from one side to the other trying to find a position that was semi-comfortable and had just drifted off to sleep when her alarm went off. She tiptoed around Cody, who was curled up in a ball and trying to use his coat to cover his whole body.

  Dixie was sleeping soundly with her newfound feline family, and Stevie hated to wake her, but the little thing needed nutrition every four hours. After the night was done, she could put the alpaca on formula and extend her feedings to five hours, but until tomorrow at noon, she would get colostrum.

  “Please let the hembra on Sonny’s ranch adopt her,” Stevie mumbled.

  Cody sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Is everything all right? Dixie still alive?”

  “She’s fine. I’ll put a stick of wood in the stove since I’m up already. Go back to sleep,” Stevie said.

  “Okay, thanks.” Cody pulled the coat back up over his shoulders.

  Stevie checked the water she had put on the stove before she went to bed. It was entirely too hot, so she stepped around Cody and filled the bottle half-full of cold and then added what was on the stove. What she wouldn’t give for a flashlight couldn’t be measured in dollars and cents. There was one in her van, but opening and shutting that squeaky door out into the barn would wake Cody again, so she used the tiny bit of light from the window to get the mixture right.

  Dixie was already on her feet and butting her head against Stevie’s leg by the time the bottle was made, and she sucked her bottle dry with her little tail straight up in no time. When she finished, she flopped back down with the cats and didn’t even wiggle while Stevie changed her diaper.

  Cody sat up, felt around in the dark until he had a stick of wood in his hand, and shoved it into the stove. “That should keep us warm until morning.”

  “I said I would do that,” she told him.

  “The alarm on my watch woke me,” he mumbled and curled up again.

  He must have been in some tough places to condition him to catch sleep in bits and pieces like he was doing. Once Stevie was awake, for any reason, it took a while for her to go back to sleep. She stretched out on her mattress and, like Cody, covered up with her coat. She glanced over at Cody, lying between her and the stove. As the heat from the stick of wood began to fill the room, he pushed the coat off his shoulders.

  Cody Ryan had always been a stand-up guy—kind, a little on the shy side, and true to his word. He lived by the cowboy code of ethics that hung on the wall out in the bunkhouse. She had admired that in him even when they were just kids in elementary school. When he broke up with her, she still respected him for his honesty.

  She couldn’t make out his features, but then, she didn’t need to. She had dreamed about him regularly for years even though she had moved on—or thought she had. With his chiseled face, those steely blue eyes framed by those thick brown lashes, and all that blond hair that he usually wore just a little too long, he had taken her breath away when he passed her in the halls of Honey Grove High School.

  Finally, her eyes grew heavy and she slept.

  The vibration on her wrist awoke her, and there were Dixie’s little eyes peeking over the side of the bed at her. “Good morning, little one.” She reached out and petted the tiny animal.

  “I think your baby wants food,” Cody said from the kitchen ar
ea. “The water is warm on the stove. I’m going to open the door to let Dolly and the kittens out into the barn. We’ve got to figure out something for the door. The cat either has to get out of here or else we have to make her a litter box.”

  Stevie stood, stretched, and rolled the kinks out of her neck. “Thanks for warming the water. We could wire the door open a crack so that the cats can come and go as they please but Dixie can’t get out.”

  “If she was in a natural setting, she would be in a stall with her mama, right?” Cody asked.

  “Yes, and the mama would be near her for warmth,” Stevie answered as she made a bottle.

  “So, she could come back in here when she got cold. I’m sure she would follow the cats wherever they go.” Cody refueled the stove. “What I wouldn’t give for a good hot shower can’t be put into words.”

  “I can’t snap my fingers and make a shower or hot water appear out of nowhere, but I do have an extra toothbrush or two in the van,” Stevie said. “I’m glad to share with you if that will help.”

  “Definitely,” he answered. “What else have you got out there?”

  “I’ve got a go bag for when I have to spend the night with a cow that’s having trouble birthing a calf. It’s got extra clothes, toothbrushes and toothpaste, and deodorant,” she answered. “Don’t you carry a duffel bag with you?”

  “Nope, just my doc bag,” Cody said, “but I would love to borrow one of those toothbrushes.”

  “Nope, you can’t borrow one,” she said.

  “Why not?” Cody asked.

  “You can have it to have and to hold for all eternity, because borrowing it means you’ll give it back, and I don’t have any need for a toothbrush you have used,” Stevie said. “Other than to clean the toilet with, maybe.”

  “How long are you going to hang on to the past?” Cody asked.

  “Me? Hold on to the past or hold a grudge?” She raised her eyebrows. “Never! Why would I be angry with you? You warmed up the place before I got here, gave me the sofa last night, got the water ready for Dixie’s bottle, and even did the cooking.”