Ruthless (Wolf Ranch #6) - Renee Rose Page 0,3

name and had nowhere else to go. I’d wondered why Uncle Adam had given the ranch to me when I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years. Maybe now, I knew the reason. Maybe now I was the only one with the secret, the one human who could be a good neighbor and protect it.

3

NATALIE

“Hot water would be good, but first fix the leak on the roof.” I sat at the kitchen table making a list of all the things that needed to be done on the house. And talking to myself. The backdoor was open to the warm day. I’d forgotten how beautiful summers in Montana were. How peaceful. I was getting used to the lack of city noise. No cars driving by. No other tenants in my crappy apartment building yelling at each other or the sound of someone’s TV. No ambulances or dogs barking.

Nothing but the wind and an occasional bird, which had me having conversations out loud. Scratching out the line PAINT HOUSE, I moved it further down the to-do list. That could wait although I felt bad for anyone driving by who had to look at the place. The clapboard siding was faded and peeling, and every time I came down the dirt driveway, I felt even more weary.

I was thankful to Uncle Adam for leaving me this place. Hell, I’d be homeless otherwise because rent in L.A. was too expensive for someone without a good job. But the house was a project with a capital P. There was so much work to be done. More than the seventy-three dollars in my bank account could pay for. I hoped the tip money I got from working at Cody’s Saloon the night before would be enough to pay the electrician coming over.

“I could do a haunted house in the fall. I wouldn’t have to do a thing,” I muttered. The idea actually had some punch to it. Hell, I was game for any way to make some cash, but if the electrical issues weren’t fixed, I might be owning a pile of ash and rubble.

I put my arms up in the air, leaned back and stretched. Dropping them down, I ran a hand over my hair, tugged the tie from my wrist and put my hair up in a ponytail. Going to the coffeemaker, I grabbed the pot, stuck it under the faucet to fill it, then dumped the water into the back of the ancient machine. After adding grounds to the filter, I pressed the button to start the machine.

“Fuck!” I shouted, jumping back, then sticking my finger in my mouth, as if that was going to help.

The machine had not only shocked me, but made a weird sizzling sound. Reaching across the counter, I grabbed the cord and tugged the plug from the outlet, afraid it was going to catch fire… the start of the house burning down. For the past few nights, the lights had been blinking upstairs, and now I got electric shock therapy from the coffee machine.

Leaning against the aged formica, I noticed the hum of the fridge had cut off.

“Great,” I muttered, going to the light switch, flipping it on and off to confirm the power was out, at least in this part of the house.

The coffeemaker had blown a fuse and zapped the hell out of me. It was probably fried and that meant no coffee.

Hearing tires crunch in the drive, I cut through the house to the front door. The contractor’s scheduled arrival couldn’t have been better planned if I’d tried. If he had a venti Americano with skim and a shot of espresso, I’d make babies with the guy.

I squinted against the bright sunshine as he hopped from the pickup truck. On the truck’s door a cool house logo and R&N Construction in a bold font below. “You must be Natalie. Heard lots about you for a long time.”

“Not sure if that’s a good thing or not,” I replied, setting my hands on my hips.

As he came up the porch steps, he said, “We were all wondering when you’d show up. I’m Nash. We talked on the phone.”

“Right,” I replied, shaking his hand. “Glad you could make it.”

“Heard you’re the new bartender at Cody’s. The owner’s a friend of mine, so I appreciate his referral.”

I’d answered an ad at the bar in town, and thankfully, having been a broke grad student working full-time at a bar for the past few years had paid off because Cody had hired