Page 4 of The Cowboy's Best Friend

Though if she was cold she didn’t show it. She came to a rocking sort of stop and then slid out of the front seat to land hard on the ground. Then she smiled at him. “Can you believe it? I did it.”

“You did it,” he agreed in a low voice, waiting to read where her mood was going.

He didn’t have long to wait. She barreled toward him and threw herself against his chest, knowing full well that he would catch her.

The way he always did.

She hugged him, fierce and hard. And he hugged her back, getting the scent of her shampoo in his nose, mixed with that cream she used and the laundry detergent she washed her clothes in. All of it together was her.

To Boone, she always smelled like sunshine.

But these were the things that he filed away, down deep in that part of himself that he kept locked up tight. Because Sierra needed him as a friend, so that’s what he was. That wasallhe was, and he counted it as a privilege.

Even on a day like this.

Maybe especially on a day like this.

She pulled back, and those green eyes of hers that reminded him of the proud pines that stood tall all over these mountains looked damp. But she slashed her hands at them, looking impatient.

“This is going to be fantastic,” she said, like she was daring itnotto be. “First of all, I’ve always wanted to live in a barn. Did I imagine that it would be a tastefully reimagined modern farmhouse in the old Western style? Appropriate for fancy magazine spreads that would attract the sort of people who vacation in Bozeman? I might have. But this is better.”

“I’m never going to show up in a glossy magazine,” Boone reminded her. “But I think you’ll be comfortable.”

“I know I will be.” Though she sounded more like she was convincing herself when she said that. “Iwillbe.”

Boone moved over to the Jeep then and started pulling out her bags. She came over too, and then they didn’t say much as they loaded themselves up. When they were both at full capacity—and had managed to hoist up everything she’d brought with her—he led her inside, up the internal stairs of the separate entrance that led to the apartment up top, skirting the functioning part of the barn entirely.

He’d aired the place out for her this morning. Once she’d told him that she really was doing this,today, he’d come down to make sure that the place was ready for her.

She dropped her bags in the center of the living room floor as she walked in, looked around, and let out a long breath. Maybe it was a little ragged, but he didn’t focus on that.

Because clearly, she wasn’t focusing on it either. She was looking around.

“This is really beautiful,” she said after a moment. “I knew you were building this when you built the barn, but I don’t think that I’ve ever seen it all pulled together. Did you really do this all by yourself?”

“All by my lonesome self,” he agreed, and he liked it when she laughed at that. At that tone he’d used that she liked to call hisstern and sardonicvoice.

Truth was, Boone was proud of this place. And yes, he’d arranged it with her in mind. Given that doing things that she liked had pretty much guided him since the day they’d met, he didn’t think it was that much of a leap. He knew that she’d like the modern but cozy furnishings, the polished wood floors, the big windows. He waited in the living room as she looked around, and he liked it when he heard her exclaim over the freestanding bathtub, then sigh happily when she found the sloped skylight in the bedroom that would let the stars in while she slept.

He’d thought a lot about that when he’d put it in. About the stars all over her pretty face while she slept.

That was the sort of thing he found comforting. Comfort with a sucker punch was his stock in trade. His brother Knox liked to call him Montana’s greatest martyr.

Knox, obviously, was an asshole.

Sierra came back out and moved around the kitchen that sat in its own alcove off the living room. She turned in a circle and he knew she took in every detail. The painting on the wall that his mother had done in one of her crafty phases, of the view from a ridge farther into the property. The usual prints of mountains.

“It’s delightful here,” she told him when she faced him again. “And I insist on paying rent.”

“Denied.”

“Boone. You have to—”

“You’re going to help me find out if this is dairy thing is a business or a hobby,” he reminded her. “You’re the one with a degree. We’ll figure out the money on that side of things, but I’m not going to charge you for a place to live, Sierra. That’s never going to happen.”

He didn’t say why. He didn’t have to say why.

She knew why. They’d been best friends since they were fifteen. Best friends didn’t charge each other rent while they were leaving their shitty marriages. If there was a rule book out there, Boone was pretty sure that would be high on the list.

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