Page 41 of The Cowboy and the Baby

The weight of responsibility pressed down again, the bugger. Never relenting. Always gaining traction. Like interest, responsibility stayed present to squeeze me dry. Complete home renovations added a layer of pressure I never asked for. While I loved the Iron Creek Ranch, I didn’t want to rip it apart and put it together again—all while running it and living in it.

Old man Morgan didn’t build the house. He bought it from someone else, and I silently cursed their laziness. Or, rather, resourcefulness . . . someone had thought of recycling doors to use as walls.

They just didn’t do anything else intelligent with them. Like insulate.

With a growl, I set the handful of items on the ground, reached for the paper in my back pocket, and stared at the list. That morning, Noelle scrawled out the most basic necessities for moving the bathroom project forward while we chatted over a breakfast of biscuits, gravy, and hot coffee. That woman’s baking improved every day, and it had been near perfect from the beginning.

I consulted the paper again. She left an open column on the right-hand side for me to use to price out costs while browsing in the local building supply store.

“Ugly,” I muttered, then cursed after, and growled again. At least Noelle wasn’t around to hear it.

A voice called from behind me, pulling me around.

“I can special order exactly what you need, Cade,” Mac, the store owner, said as he approached at a steady clip. His feathered white hair brushed away from a wrinkled, time-lined face. He had a son named Devin who joined the Marines years ago. Mac’s wife, Millie, ran the local hair salon.

“There’s a delivery coming in next Friday, and I bet we can make it if we put the order in today. You need how much insulation?”

“Twenty sheets, at least.”

“Cheaper if you buy more.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. Truthfully, the whole place might eventually require it, but I’d have to tear down every wall to confirm. I’d be a fool to do that in the winter.

While we bantered about R-values, caulk type, and fiberglass vs foam board, my eyes wandered to the end of the aisle. Despite already spending so long here, I still had ten different products to price out. Noelle tried to hide the anxiety in her voice when she asked when the bathroom would be finished. I couldn’t peg exactly what had her worried, but had a feeling it was something to do with Lily. She’d been very close-lipped about the reasons that brought them so far from home.

Aside from Marsha, no one else called her that I knew, and Noelle didn’t text all that much. I never saw her on a computer, either. She cared for Lily, worked on plans for the bathroom, showed me pictures of fixtures and tile, and occupied the kitchen.

Yet, I couldn’t chase the hunch that she had run from something. Or someone.

Lily’s father?

Whoever or whatever it was, the pressure of her unknown problems didn’t help. Getting the bathroom done was difficult enough, but laboring under an unknown deadline—and not feeling close enough to Noelle to ask for more information—was another frustration entirely.

A crash drew me back to the present, and I cursed my easily distracted thoughts. I asked Mac, “You think we can get the shipment by Friday? I need to get this going. We have a bathroom to finish up before we move on.”

Though I don’t know why, I thought.

“Sure thing.”

“Then we’re going to do a really big order, Mac. Let’s sit down and figure it out, because I’ll want it all at once.”

Mac smiled.

“Let’s do it.”

We spent two hours finalizing calculations, calling Noelle to measure walls, inspecting screw lengths, and telling Cody to text me images of the nail guns that Morgan left in the shed.

The tally ended at $24,587, including all major building tools and oddities. The only thing I lacked was tile for the bathroom floor, but Noelle texted me pictures of color she liked best, and I left that detail to Mac’s decision.

Hopefully, the furnace didn’t go out anytime soon.

Morgan’s dually-wheeled truck rumbled toward the edge of the parking lot when my phone rang. I stopped inside an empty area and glanced at the number.

Florida.

Frowning, I accepted the call and put it on speaker.

“This is Cade.”