"Is this a date?"
"Didn't start out that way. But I think it is now."
"I may be from the city, but I'm not corrupt, you know?"
"Yeah, I know."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Kiss me again then."
Tyler did… and once again Alec experienced that comforting bliss he had felt while riding up
the mountain.
Safe.
Warm.
14
The following morning Alec woke up late and hungover. Very hungover.
He wrapped himself in a robe and went directly to the coffee maker. Bits and pieces of the
previous night gradually returned to him. He thought about Tyler, the mysterious cowboy.
I'm not a cowboy.
Alec grinned, sipping the hot brew from an over-sized mug. Well, he sure did look like a
cowboy… and he rode a horse.
He looked at the clock and was shocked to see that it was after ten. How in the world had he
slept so long? It was so quiet, unlike the previous morning with—
The woodpecker.
He crossed the cabin, steaming mug in hand, and opened the front door. In the yard, on the tree
where the troublesome bird had been, aluminum pie plates hung low from its branches like gaudy
Christmas ornaments. As they turned in the breeze, bright flashes of sunlight would reflect in pulsing blasts.
The bird was gone. Not a peep.
Well, I'll be damned.
His eyes traveled lower to the snow-blanketed lawn and the indented evidence of the night
before. Farthest, where Tyler had urinated, had been covered and camouflaged with snow—not fallen
snow, but snow kicked over purposefully to hide the yellow blemish on an otherwise white canvas.
Closer, he saw Brandy's hoof prints, where the horse had stood patiently awaiting the antics of her master and his…
