From the Boots Up Read Online Free Page A

recognized rang up the items while Chet took care of her list.
    Two more locals approached the counter with items in
hand and she turned to wander down the aisles. The feed store was as familiar
to her as home. She loved how it smelled like the barns on the ranch, a pungent
mixture of molasses from omolene and other animal chows, alfalfa, and leather.
She studied the shelves of fly and lice control products and listened to random
snippets of conversation about the things that mattered here. Weather, cattle
health, livestock for sale, who was sick, who just had a baby. Cycles of life
and death, the natural rhythms of lives lived close to the land.
    She never got tired of it, and she knew that this
would always be home, as much a part of her as her bones and blood. Maybe that
was another reason that she and her mom didn’t see eye to eye. Meg had too much
Wyoming in her, too much West, like her dad and his dad and his dad. Her mom
had been the newcomer, the outsider, and she couldn’t find purchase in the
hard-packed ethos of a state that hadn’t moved too far past its pioneer
beginnings. She grimaced.
    That and the gay thing.
    “All right, got you all loaded up,” Chet said,
clumping toward her. He handed her the list.
    She followed him back to the counter, where the young
man was helping an attractive blonde woman wearing skin-tight Wranglers and
dark blue ropers. Meg let her gaze wander down the other woman’s back. Not
quite her type, but nice to look at. Definitely Davey’s type, though. And he’d
let this woman know, too, if he were here. What he lacked in subtlety he made
up for with good humor, at least.
    “Here’s the invoice,” Chet said as he tore it off the
printer. “Good to see you. Come and bother us again.” He winked as he handed
her the paper. “And practice that bull riding.”
    “Maybe I’ll test it out at Frontier Days,” she deadpanned
as she folded the invoice and slid it into her back pocket.
    Chet chuckled. “You do that.”
    She grinned and left, but held the front door open
for an older woman carrying a box. “Thank you, honey,” she said.
    Meg nodded at her and headed to the truck. A gray
Nissan Pathfinder was parked next to the driver’s side and she noticed that it
listed at an odd angle in the back. She watched as the left back end started to
rise. Somebody was jacking it up. Flat tire, probably. She went around the
vehicle to see if she could help.
    A woman was concentrating on the motion of the jack
as she cranked the handle, one knee in the dirt. Meg approved. She appreciated
a woman who didn’t mind getting her jeans dirty.
    “Hey,” Meg said.
    The stranger looked up and brushed a lock of dark hair
off her forehead. “Hi,” she replied.
    Meg stared at her for a moment, transfixed by her
dark eyes, and the warmth that sparked within. “Need some help?” she managed.
    “Not sure there’s much you can do. Kind of a
one-person job.” She smiled up at her.
    “True. Okay. . .how about I get your spare?” She returned
the smile, and her palms were suddenly sweaty.
    “Thanks. In the back, underneath the mat. It’s open.”
She resumed cranking and Meg turned to the back of the truck. The back window
was indeed open, and the tailgate was down, as well.
    “Okay if I move your stuff here?” she asked.
    “Oh, yeah,” came the response. “Just toss it onto the
seat.”
    Meg leaned in and hefted the two big duffel bags over
the back seat. She flipped the mat back and unfastened the panel that would
reveal the spare. She pulled it off and leaned it against the right side of the
vehicle, glad that the stranger used a full-sized spare. She appreciated that,
too. Practical, especially out here. She hooked her hand into the rim and
hauled it out.
    “It occurred to me that I did this backward,” the
stranger said from her position on the ground, an undercurrent of laughter in
her tone.
    Meg looked at her, still holding the tire, and a little
spark bounced around her