Repurposed and Revisiting (More Superstition)

"Um, my, uh, grandad used to live here," she stammered, coming out of her shock. Her heart rate, just beginning to slow after that initial scare, threatened to speed up again as she looked up into the shadowy face of the stranger, his eyes pinholes of light glistening out at her from the darkness formed by the brim of his hat. He must have sensed her unease, or maybe it was pure coincidence, for he pushed the battered outback from his brow, revealing his face more fully.

"Really," he asked, not really asking. "How long has it been since you've seen the place? I don't mind showing you around if you want."
She nodded.

He was polite and non-threatening.  Now that she could see his face, she wasn't sure why she had felt that thunderhead of fear in the first place. His face was deeply lined with years or hard work. Probably both, she guessed. And it was tanned like leather by his time in the desert sun. She allowed herself to hope, if only the tiniest bit, that maybe this was a real cowboy who had taken over her grandad's old horse ranch.

"We run an embroidery business out of here now," he began. He turned his back to her and headed toward the tired bunkhouse and appended tack room and stable. Her heart fell. Even the tiniest hope unrealized is still painful. He showed her the changes they had made, explaining the accommodations that had become necessary to make room for certain equipment or workspace. She saw all of this and was thankful that they had preserved enough of the integrity of the structure that her memory, although it had been decades since she had last been here, easily superimposed the old wood-and-canvas bunks and other furniture, the carved lamps topped with their hide shades and all the trophies and ribbons grandad had won over the machines and skeins of thread everywhere. She smiled wistfully, feeling ten again. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply the scent she knew and loved so well. It stilled smelled like the bunkhouse. That was important too. She thanked the man and his wife (who had been working or cleaning up in what the man had referred to as "the shop") and asked if they minded if she walked around a bit. They didn't, so she did.