Half a Cowboy - Andrew Grey

Chapter 1

BEN WAS cold—actually, way past cold. His feet and legs had once been like ice, but now he felt nothing except fear… both ahead and behind him. The fog from his breath hung in the air, and his lungs ached. Ben pulled his coat closed and shoved his gloved hands into his pants pockets, flattening them against his thighs to try to force some warmth into them.

He should have stayed in the car, but no one was going to find him there. He swore under his breath, silently berating himself for going that fast, letting panic override his better judgment. But the car had flipped and ended up far enough from the road that no one would ever see him, especially with the wind that had been blowing earlier wiping away the marks in the snow. The windows had broken in the crash, so the vehicle didn’t offer much protection anyway. He needed to find shelter and help.

Fortunately the wind had died, but that also meant that the sky had cleared. That was both a blessing and a curse. The moon shone in the sky, lighting the snow so he could see where he was going even this late at night. But it also meant that the temperature had dropped quickly, and it felt like it was still dropping.

Ben had only one thing on his mind—he had to find shelter. He kept telling himself that over and over with each trudging step through the snowdrifts toward the rise in the distance. He had to make it. That rise might be his only chance to see if there was anything out in this desolate country. He thought he might have seen some buildings this way as he’d driven through.

A shiver began in his back and ran all the way through him, causing his entire body to shake. The Wyoming cold sapped his energy, and Ben knew he was coming to the last of his reserves. His time was running out. He was tempted to just lie down in the snow and give up.

“Shit,” he moaned to himself as he took another few steps, the snow not quite as deep as it had been. He made some progress, but the air crackled with the dry cold, and the only sound was the crunch of brittle ice under his shoes.

Step after step, breath after breath, he pushed forward, turning toward a bend in the vegetation… then gasping. A light. There was light.

He hurried forward, fell, then pushed himself back up. Finally he found the road again, which made the going easier. Somehow he must have gotten turned around and gone the wrong way, but there it was. He hurried along much faster now, the pain in his feet returning with the activity. At least that meant they were still working and not about to fall off or something. Ben tried not to think about anything other than the light, which seemed to be mounted on the outside of a low barn or outbuilding.

Shelter—that was all he could think of. He didn’t see other buildings, but maybe they were closer to the trees in the distance. He didn’t stop to think about it. All his mind screamed at him to do was get out of the cold so he didn’t freeze to death.

Ben couldn’t believe he had finally broken away from his life of fear. It had taken months to get up the courage, and he had gone in the direction Dallas would least expect: away from the city, away from everyone, out into the wilds of the west and as far from the comforts of civilization as he could get. Of course, it had been his pursuit of those comforts that had gotten him into trouble in the first place. Ben should have known that no one gave something for nothing, and Dallas had offered a life and comforts he had only dreamed about. Definitely more than a kid from Beaumont, Texas, who barely had a high school diploma and who had spent much of his teenage years in foster care, should expect. Unfortunately all the good things Dallas showed him were on the surface, with darkness, fear, and control just underneath. Dallas had been looking for a plaything, a pretty young trophy he could manipulate and show off when it suited him. And Ben had fit the bill perfectly.

He pulled his thoughts away from things he could do nothing about and concentrated on the lights getting closer. And they were, thank God.

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