Flippin’ Cowboy by Ophelia Sexton
Chapter 4: Cursed by the Traffic Gods
State Highway 89Fifteen miles south of Livingston, MTTwo hours earlier
“Fuck me,” Nick Evans grunted as he heaved a full-sized spare tire into place on his front passenger side axle. “Of all the stupid, fucking inconvenient times to get a flat tire!”
He prided himself on punctuality, and before this disaster, he was already running late for an important meeting. In fact, today was possibly the most important meeting of his career as a historical preservationist. He only hoped his tardiness wouldn’t torpedo his chances with HomeRenoTV.
The drive from his home in Butte should’ve only taken two and a half hours. But the traffic gods clearly hated him today.
First, there had been an overturned big rig on the stretch of highway through Bozeman. Now, ten miles from his goal, his electric Jeep Wrangler’s “Tire Pressure Low” warning light had blinked on, forcing him to pull over to the side of the highway to deal with a flat.
Childish shrieks of joy rose in the clear, cold air, followed by feminine giggles.
At least someone was having fun right now.
Nick’s mood instantly lightened, and a smile stretched his cold-stiffened lips as he watched his six-year-old son, Kegan, having a snowball fight with his nanny on the side of the road. Luckily, this stretch of highway between Livingston and Gardiner wasn’t busy.
Absorbed in watching Spider-Man cartoons on his tablet, Kegan had been quiet during the first half of the long drive. But Nick had noticed him growing restless as the trip dragged on with stop-and-go traffic.
When Nick pulled over to deal with the flat tire, Kegan’s nanny, Kelsey, had jumped at the chance to let the little boy work out his wiggles.
On any other day, Nick would’ve joined in the snowball fight. But he had to stay on point right now and finish changing this tire ASAP.
After years of toiling in near-obscurity to preserve Montana’s precious historical heritage, he’d just received an offer to work on the filmed restoration of an old hotel on the south end of Paradise Valley.
The building’s owner, Mrs. Abigail Snowberry, had mentioned she was working with someone named Karla Jones from The Renovation Channel, and that they wanted a Montana-based preservationist to manage the project.
The offer seemed almost too good to be true, especially after all those times he’d criticized projects televised on the HomeRenoTV network. He’d built a large social media following over the past few years. About half of his followers were interested in his restoration projections at various locations around the state. The other half showed up for the righteous rants he dished out whenever something aired on The Renovation Channel that irritated the fuck out of him.
Nick didn’t care that he was becoming famous for being an online grump. There was absolutely no excuse for shoddy work, cheap shortcuts, or—worst of all—trying to make the interiors of historic homes look like cookie-cutter tract houses.
Frankly, most of the designers and contractors on The Renovation Channel could take their open plan living spaces and quartz-topped kitchen islands and shove them right up their asses.
And right there was the sticking point in Nick’s prospective broadcast deal with The Renovation Channel and its parent company, HomeRenoTV. The network’s executives wanted him to work with one of The Renovation Channel’s celebrity general contractors.
Based on what he’d seen on HomeRenoTV’s shows, he didn’t think much of their GCs. He hoped he could talk them out of it and recommend one of his guys, instead. There were a couple of construction firms he recruited for every new project, with GCs and trades who were as interested in preservation as he was. Even better, they did meticulous restoration work.
He hoped the TV producer he was supposed to meet with today wouldn’t take a hard line on the celebrity contractor thing.
If I can secure this TV deal, maybe Dad and the rest of the family will finally take my “little historical hobby” seriously, he thought as he twisted the lug nut wrench.
In his younger years, they’d all given him a hard time when he changed his major from mining engineering to architecture, followed by a master’s degree in historical preservation.
At least the TV producer, Ms. Karla Jones, had sounded understanding when he’d called her a short time ago and warned he was running late. He’d worried that his tardiness might cost him the opportunity of a lifetime.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she’d told him, in a voice that bore faint traces of the South. “Today’s just supposed to be a meet-and-greet, with an initial walkthrough of the property. We thought you and our GC might want to take some notes and talk about a restoration plan before our filmed walkthrough tomorrow.”
Once he finished tightening down the final lug nut on the spare tire, he lowered the jack, then rolled the damaged tire to the back of the Jeep and lifted it onto the tailgate spare tire carrier.
“Okay, Kelsey, Kegan,” he called, packing the tire jack away in its storage compartment. “I’m all done. Time to go!”
As expected, Kegan was having too much fun to stop now. “Just a few more minutes, Daddy? Please?”
Thanks to bedtime every evening, Nick was very familiar with this negotiating tactic.
“Not right now, Keeg,” he replied, his tone gentle but firm. He reached for the first of the suitcases he’d been forced to unload to access the tire jack and lug nut wrench and put it back in the Jeep.
“But I want to build a snowman!” Kegan countered.
Nick sighed and reached for the next suitcase, neatly lined up on the asphalt edge of the pavement. “Daddy’s late for an important meeting with the TV lady. But I promise that we’ll build a snowman after the meeting. Or maybe you want to go on a pony ride? The ranch where we’re staying advertises horse and pony rides for guests.”
“Horses!” Kegan’s face split into a huge smile. He abandoned his snowball battle with Kelsey and ran towards Nick. “I wanna be a cowboy, Daddy!”
“How about a flying cowboy?” Nick bent, lifted his son, and swung him around.
Kegan’s eyes sparkled as he shrieked with laughter. “Superhero cowboy!” Under his woolly hat, his cheeks were rosy from the cold.
“Okay, buddy,” Nick said, setting his son back on his feet. “I promise I’ll take you to meet the horses and ponies as soon as I’m done with my meeting.”
Kelsey came up to them and took Kegan from him.
Like his son, her cheeks were flushed, and merriment danced in her eyes. Patches of snow clinging to her knitted hat and long scarf marked where Kegan’s snowballs had scored hits.
“Okay, kiddo, let’s get you buckled up so that we can hit the road,” she said, hugging the little boy. “We’re almost there.”
Kegan threw his arms around her neck and hugged her back. He adored her, and Nick knew how lucky he was to have hired someone who truly cared about his son.
Nick’s parents were friends and neighbors with Kelsey’s parents. She and Nick had grown up together. He had two brothers but no sisters, so he’d always considered her his kid sister by another mother.
They’d lost touch after Nick left for college, where he’d met and fallen in love with Tiffani, a business major who had a budding career as a model.
After Kegan was born, Tiffani filed for divorce and left to resume her modeling career in New York City. Three months later, Kelsey’s mother had mentioned to Nick that her daughter was looking for a job after completing a degree in Early Childhood Education.
Overwhelmed by balancing his job with single parenthood, Nick had gotten back in contact with Kelsey. Hiring her was one of the best decisions he’d ever made.
Once everyone settled back into their seats and belted in, Nick resumed driving south through the spectacular scenery of Paradise Valley.
The rugged, snow-capped peaks of the Gallatin and Absaroka-Beartooth mountain ranges rose on either side of the valley. Smooth blankets of glittering snow carpeted the pastures and meadows along the valley floor, which was bisected by the wide, turbulent flow of the tree-lined Yellowstone River.
Nick made a brief stop at the Snowberry Springs Ranch just outside of town. The Renovation Channel’s production staff had rented all the property’s vacation rentals, including a three-bedroom cottage for Nick, Kegan, and Kelsey.
After dropping off Kelsey, Kegan, and their luggage, Nick texted Karla Jones that he’d finally made it and was heading into town.
We’re still at The Snowberry Springs Inn. Meet us there, she replied. Sending you a pin now.
Relieved and grateful that she hadn’t decided to cancel their meeting, Nick brought up the location of the old inn on Google Maps and got back in his Jeep.
As he drove through downtown Snowberry Springs, he spotted rows of beautiful but neglected nineteenth-century commercial brick buildings lining Main Street and three sides of the town’s central square.
The old train station forming the fourth side of the town square was another diamond in the rough. Made of red bricks, with arched windows and decorative yellow brick pillars in the Italianate style that had been popular at the turn of the twentieth century, it appeared to be vacant but in generally good shape.
This town was just waiting for a preservationist’s touch to bring its historic district back to vibrant life. A familiar jolt of excitement raced through him, and he fought the temptation to stop his car and explore.
Time enough for that later, he told himself.
If this initial meeting with Ms. Jones and Mrs. Snowberry went the way he hoped, maybe he’d get the chance to work on some of these buildings in future seasons of Reviving Snowberry Springs.
Still, he couldn’t resist the temptation to drive all the way around the square, taking in the sights, before following the map app’s demands that he head down a street that ran parallel to the railroad tracks.
A cluster of vehicles parked along the side of the street in front of a wide, overgrown lot alerted Nick he’d reached his destination.
He parked behind a white Toyota Tundra with Washington State license plates and got out.
His heart began beating faster as he spotted a wide, elegant two-story brick Victorian mansion looming behind an enormous hedge of spiky, dark-green holly bushes heavily dusted with snow.
A rusted wrought-iron gate set into the hedge squealed loudly on its hinges as he pushed it open.
Someone had halfheartedly shoveled a narrow path to the mansion’s wide, roofed front porch. He strode up an uneven brick walkway marred by missing bricks, then stopped to evaluate the building’s exterior.
On the phone last week, Mrs. Snowberry had told him the house was originally built in 1883 as a residence by her husband’s great-great-grandmother, Caroline Snowberry. The next owners had converted the mansion into The Snowberry Springs Inn during the Roaring Twenties and constructed a spa pavilion in the back garden to channel a natural hot spring on the grounds.
The inn and spa had remained in operation until ten years ago, when the current owner passed away without a will. Since then, the building had stood vacant.
Nick pulled out his tablet and took a photo of the house. Then he began jotting down a running list of needed repairs as he studied the mansion.
Other than the porch, which was missing most of its original slender turned columns and railings, the building looked better than expected from the outside.
The white dentil molding running under the eaves appeared to be original, as did the double-hung windows and the stained-glass transom over the modern front door.
All of the woodwork and trim direly needed restoration and painting, but most of it appeared salvageable.
The most urgent issue was the roof. Someone had replaced the original cedar shakes with cheap asphalt shingles that looked way past their expiration date.
He caught the faint sound of voices inside the house and snapped out of his reverie. The porch steps creaked and bounced alarmingly under his boot soles as he approached the ugly 1960s-era front door.
He couldn’t help glancing at the roofed porch that stretched nearly the width of the mansion’s front. Both the wide painted flooring boards and the narrow planks of the porch ceiling were in bad shape.
A faded plastic plaque fastened to the brick beside the front door read, “Welcome to the Snowberry Springs Inn & Spa. This Way to Check-In Desk.”
He tried the doorknob. It turned easily in his hand, though the door stuck in the frame when he pushed gently.
“—it might be more cost-effective to demolish this building and sell the land than it will be to fix all the problems and restore everything,” he overheard a woman say somewhere inside the mansion.
What the fuck?Nick thought, overcome with fury. Did The Renovation Channel lure me all the way out here in the middle of winter just to propose sacrilege? There’s nothing wrong with this house that a little TLC can’t fix!
Desperate to get inside before anyone made a final decision regarding this building’s fate, Nick rammed the door with his shoulder.