Читать книгу The Wyoming Kid - Debbie Macomber - Страница 6

Joy Fuller glanced out the window of her combination third-and-fourth-grade classroom and did a quick double take. It couldn’t be! But it was—Lonny Ellison. She should’ve known he wouldn’t just let things be. The real problem was that they’d started off on the wrong foot two years ago. She’d been new to the community, still learning about life in Red Springs, Wyoming, when she’d met Lonny through a mutual acquaintance.

At first they’d gotten along well. He’d been a rodeo cowboy and had an ego even bigger than that ridiculously big belt buckle he’d shown her. Apparently, she hadn’t paid him the homage he felt was his due. After a month or two of laughing, with decreasing sincerity, at his comments about city slickers, the joke had worn thin. She’d made it clear that she wasn’t willing to be another of his buckle bunnies and soon after, they’d agreed not to see each other anymore. Not that their relationship was serious, of course; they’d gone out for dinner and dancing a few times—that was about it. So she hadn’t thought their disagreement was a big deal, but apparently it had been to Lonny. It seemed no woman had ever spoken her mind to the great and mighty Wyoming Kid before.

Lonny had said he appreciated her honesty, and that was the last she’d heard from him. To be honest, Joy had been surprised by his reaction. However, if that was how he felt, then it was fine with her. He hadn’t asked her out again and she hadn’t contacted him, either. She saw him around town now and then, but aside from a polite nod or a cool “hello,” they’d ignored each other. It was a rather disappointing end to what had begun as a promising relationship. But that was nearly two years ago and she was long past feeling any regrets.

Then she’d had to miss that stop sign and naturally he had to be the one who slammed into the post. The shock of their minor accident—no, incident—still upset her. Worse, Joy hadn’t recovered yet from their verbal exchange. Lonny was completely and totally unreasonable, and he’d made some extremely unpleasant accusations. All right, in an effort to be fair, she’d admit that Lonny Ellison was easy to look at—tall and rangy with wide, muscular shoulders. He had strikingly rich, dark eyes and a solid jaw, and he reminded her a little of a young Clint Eastwood. However, appearances weren’t everything.

Letty, who was a romantic, had wanted to match Joy with her brother. Letty had only moved to the area this past year and at first she hadn’t realized that they’d already dated for a brief time. Joy had done her best to explain why a relationship with Lonny just wouldn’t work. He was too stubborn and she was…well, a woman had her pride. They simply weren’t compatible. And if she hadn’t known that before, their near-collision had proven it.

She peeked surreptitiously out the window again. Lonny was leaning against his rattletrap truck, ankles crossed to highlight his dusty boots. Chase Brown, Letty’s husband, and Lonny owned adjoining ranches and shared a large herd of cattle. One would think a working rancher had better things to do than hang around outside a schoolyard. He was there to pester her; she was convinced of it. His lanky arms were crossed and his head bowed, with his Stetson riding low on his forehead, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. His posture resembled that neon sign of a cowpoke in downtown Vegas, she thought.

She knew exactly why Lonny had come to the school. He was planning to cause her trouble. Joy rued the day she’d ever met the man. He was rude, unreasonable, juvenile, plus a dozen other adjectives she didn’t even want to think about in front of a classroom full of young children.

Children.

Sucking in a deep breath, Joy returned her attention to her class, only to discover that all the kids were watching her expectantly. Seeing Lonny standing outside her window had thrown her so badly that she’d forgotten she was in the middle of a spelling test. Her students were waiting for the next word.

“Arrogant,” she muttered.

A dozen hands shot into the air.

“Eric,” Joy said, calling on the boy sitting at the front desk in the second row.

“Arrogant isn’t one of our spelling words,” he said, and several protests followed.

“This is an extra-credit word,” she said. Squinting, she glared out the window again.

No sooner had the test papers been handed in than the bell rang, signaling the end of the school day. Her students dashed out the door a lot faster than they’d entered, and within minutes, the entire schoolyard was filled with youngsters. As luck would have it, she had playground duty that afternoon. This meant she was required to step out of the shelter of the school building and into the vicinity of Lonny Ellison.

Because Red Springs was a ranching community, most children lived well outside the town limits. Huge buses lumbered down country roads every morning and afternoon. These buses delivered the children to school and to their homes, some traveling as far as thirty miles.

Despite Lonny’s dire predictions, Joy was surprised by how successfully she’d adjusted to life in this small Wyoming community. Born and raised in Seattle, she’d hungered for small-town life, eager to experience the joys of living in a close, family-oriented community. Red Springs was far removed from everything familiar, but she’d discovered that people were the same everywhere. Not exactly a complicated insight, but it was as profound as it was simple. Parents wanted the best for their children in Red Springs, the same way they did back home. Neighbors were friendly if you made the effort to get to know them. Wyoming didn’t have the distinctive beauty associated with Puget Sound and the two mountain ranges; instead, it possessed a beauty all its own. Joy had done her research and was fascinated to learn that this was the land where dinosaurs had once roamed and where more than half the world’s geysers were located, in Yellowstone National Park. Much of central Wyoming had been an ancient inland sea, and she’d gone on a few fossil-hunting expeditions with friends from school.

It was true that Joy didn’t have access to all the amenities she did in a big city. But she’d found that she could live without the majority of convenient luxuries, such as movie theaters and the occasional concerts. Movies went to DVD so quickly these days, and if the small theater in town didn’t show it, Joy could rent it a few months after its release, via the Internet.

As for shopping, virtually everything she needed was available on-line. Ordering on the Internet wasn’t the same as spending the day at the mall, but that, too, had its compensations. If Joy couldn’t step inside a shopping mall, then she didn’t squander her money on impulse buys.

The one thing she did miss, however, was her family and friends. She talked to her parents every week, and regularly e-mailed her brother and her closest friends. At Christmas or during the summer, she visited Seattle to see everyone. Several of her college classmates were married now. Three years after receiving her master’s in education, Joy was still single. While she was in no rush, she did long for a husband and family of her own one day. Red Springs was full of eligible men; unfortunately, most of them were at least fifty. The pickings were slim, as Letty was eager to remind her. She’d dated, but none of the men had interested her the way Lonny once had.

Since there was no avoiding it, Joy left the school and watched as the children formed neat rows and boarded the buses. She folded her arms and stood straight and as tall as her five-foot-ten-inch frame would allow. Thankfully she’d chosen her nicest jumper that morning, a denim one with a white turtleneck. She felt she needed any advantage she could get if she had to face Lonny Ellison. The jumper had buckle snaps and crisscrossed her shoulders, helping to disguise her slight build.

“Miss Fuller, Miss Fuller,” six-year-old Cricket Brown shouted, racing across the playground to her side. The first-grader’s long braids bounced as she skipped over to Joy. Her cherub face was flushed with excitement.

“Hello, Cricket,” Joy said, smiling down at the youngster. She’d witnessed a remarkable change in the little girl since Letty’s marriage to Chase Brown. Despite her friendship with Letty, Joy wasn’t aware of all the details, but she knew there was a lengthy romantic history between her and Chase, one that had taken place ten years earlier. Letty had moved away and when she’d returned, she had a daughter and no husband.

Letty was gentle, kind, thoughtful, the exact opposite of her brother. Out of the corner of her eye, Joy noticed he was striding toward her.

Cricket wasn’t in the line-up for the bus, which explained Lonny’s presence. He’d apparently come to pick up his niece. Preferring to ignore him altogether, Joy turned her back to avoid looking in Lonny’s direction. The students were all aboard the waiting buses. One had already pulled out of the yard and was headed down the street.

“My Uncle Lonny’s here.” Cricket grinned ecstatically.

“I know.” Joy couldn’t very well say she hadn’t seen him, because she had. The hair on the back of her neck had stood on end the minute he parked outside the school. The radar-like reaction her body continued to have whenever he made an appearance confused and annoyed her.

“Look! He’s coming now,” Cricket cried, waving furiously at her uncle.

Lonny joined the two of them and held Joy’s look for a long moment. Chills ran down her spine. It was too much to hope that Lonny would simply collect Cricket and then be on his way, too much to hope he wouldn’t mention the stop sign incident. Oh no, this man wouldn’t permit an opportunity like that to pass him by.

“Mr. Ellison,” she said, unwilling to blink. She kept her face as expressionless as possible.

“Miss Fuller.” He touched the brim of his Stetson with his index finger.

“Yes?” Crossing her arms, she boldly met his gaze, preferring to let him do the talking. She refused to be intimidated by this ill-tempered rancher. She’d made one small mistake and run a stop sign, causing a minor near-accident. The stop sign was new and she’d been so accustomed to not stopping that she’d sailed through the intersection.

She’d driven at the legal speed limit, forgetting about the newly installed stop sign. She’d noticed it at the last possible second; it was already too late to stop but she’d immediately slowed down. Unfortunately, Lonny Ellison had entered the same intersection at the same time and they’d experienced a trivial mishap. Joy had been more than willing to admit that she was the one at fault, and she would gladly have accepted full responsibility if he hadn’t behaved like an escaped lunatic. In fact, Lonny had carried this incident far beyond anything sane or reasonable.

It didn’t help that he was a good five inches taller than she was and about as lean and mean as a wolverine. Staring up at him now, she changed her mind about his being the slightest bit attractive. Well, he could be if not for his dark, beady eyes. Even when Joy and Lonny had dated she’d rarely seen him smile. And since then, he seemed to wear a perpetual frown, glaring at her as if she were a stink bug he wanted to stomp.

“I got the estimate on the damage to my truck,” he announced, handing her a folded sheet.

Damage? What damage? The dent in his fender was barely visible. Joy decided it was better not to ask. “I’ll take a look at it,” she said, struggling not to reveal how utterly irritating she found him. As far as she could see, his precious truck was on its way to the scrap yard.

“You’ll want to pay particular attention to the cost of repairing that section of the fender,” he added.

She might as well pay him off and be done with it. Unfolding the yellow sheet, she glanced down. Despite her best efforts to refrain from any emotion, she gasped. “This is a joke, right?”

“No. You’ll see I’m not asking you to replace the whole bumper.”

“They don’t replace half a bumper or even a small section. This…this two hundred and fifty dollars seems way out of line.”

“A new bumper, plus installation, costs over five hundred dollars. Two hundred and fifty is half of that.”

Joy swallowed hard. Yes, she’d been at fault, but even dividing the cost of the bumper, that amount was ridiculous. She certainly hadn’t done five hundred dollars’ worth of damage—or even fifty dollars, in her opinion.

To his credit, Lonny had done an admirable job of preventing any serious repercussions. She’d been badly shaken by the incident, which could easily have been much worse, and so had Lonny. She’d tried to apologize, sincerely tried, but Lonny had leaped out of his pickup in a rage.

Because he’d been such a jerk about it, Joy had responded in anger, too. From that moment on, they’d had trouble even being civil to each other. Joy was convinced his anger wasn’t so much about this so-called accident as it was about their former relationship. He was the one who’d broken it off, not her. Well, okay, it’d been a mutual decision.

Now he was insisting that a mere scratch had cost hundreds of dollars. It was hard to tell which dent the collision had even caused. His truck had at least ten others just like it and most of them were much worse. She suspected he was punishing her for not falling under the spell of the Great Rodeo Rider. That was the real story here.

Joy marched over to where Lonny had parked his vehicle. “You can’t expect me to pay that kind of money for one tiny dent.” She gestured at the scratched and battered truck. “That’s highway robbery.” She stood her ground—easy to do because she didn’t have an extra two hundred and fifty dollars. “What about all the other dents? They don’t seem to bother you, but this one does. And why is that, I wonder?”

Anger flashed from his eyes. “That tiny dent does bother me. What bothers me more is unsafe drivers. In my view, you should have your driver’s license revoked.”

“I forgot about the stop sign,” Joy admitted. “And I’ve apologized a dozen times. I don’t mean to be difficult here, but this just seems wrong to me. You’re angry about something else entirely and we both know what that is.”

“You’re wrong. This has nothing to do with you and me. This is about my truck.”

“Who do you think you’re kidding?” she burst out. “You’re angry because I’m a woman with opinions that didn’t happen to agree with yours. You didn’t want a relationship, you wanted someone to flatter your ego and I didn’t fall into line the way other women have.” She’d never met any of those women, but she’d certainly heard about them….

His eyes narrowed. “You’re just a city girl. I’m surprised you stuck around this long. If you figure that arguing will convince me to forget what you did to my truck, you’re dead wrong.” He shook his head as if she’d insulted him.

Joy couldn’t believe he was going to pursue this.

“You owe me for the damage to my vehicle,” he insisted.

“You…you…” she sputtered at the unfairness of it all. “I’m not paying you a dime.” If he wanted to be unreasonable, then she could be, too.

“Would you rather I had my insurance company contact yours?”

“Not really.”

“Then I’d appreciate a check in the amount of two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“That’s practically blackmail!”

“Blackmail?” Lonny spat out the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “I went to a lot of time and effort to get this estimate. I wanted to be as fair and amicable as possible and this is what I get?” He threw his arms up as if completely disgusted. “You’re lucky I was willing to share the cost with you, which I didn’t have to do.”

“You think you’re being fair?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I only want to be fair,” he said in self-righteous tones.

Joy relaxed. “Then fifty dollars should do it.”

Lonny’s eyes widened. “Fifty dollars won’t even begin to cover the damage.”

“I don’t see you rushing out for estimates on any of the other damage to your truck.” She pointed at a couple of deep gouges on the driver’s door.

“I was responsible for those,” he said. “I’ll get around to taking care of them someday.”

“Apparently someday has arrived and you’re trying to rip me off.”

They were almost nose-to-nose now and tall as he was, Joy didn’t even flinch. This man was a Neanderthal, a knuckle-dragging throwback who didn’t know the first thing about civility or common decency.

“Miss Fuller? Uncle Lonny?”

The small voice of a child drifted through the fog of Joy’s anger. To her horror, she’d been so upset, she’d forgotten all about Cricket.

“You’re yelling,” the little girl said, staring up at them. Her expression was one of uncertainty.

Joy immediately crouched down so she was level with the six-year-old. “Your Uncle Lonny and I let our emotions get the better of us,” she said and laughed as if it was all a joke.

Frowning, Cricket glanced from Joy to her uncle. “Uncle Lonny says when you aren’t teaching school you shrink heads. When I asked Mom about it, she said Uncle Lonny didn’t mean that. You don’t really shrink heads, do you?”

Lonny cleared his throat. “Ah, perhaps it’s time we left, Cricket.” He reached for the little girl’s hand but Cricket resisted.

“Of course I don’t shrink heads,” Joy said, standing upright. Her irritation continued to simmer as she met Lonny’s gaze. “Your uncle was only teasing.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Lonny muttered under his breath.

Joy sighed. “That was mature.”

“I don’t care what you think of me. All I want from you is two hundred and fifty dollars to pay for the damage you did to my truck.”

“My fifty-dollar offer stands any time you’re willing to accept it.”

His fierce glare told her the offer was unacceptable.

“If you don’t cooperate, I’ll go to your insurance company,” he warned.

If it came to that, then so be it. Surely a claims adjustor would agree with her. “You can threaten me all you want. Fifty dollars is my best offer—take it or leave it.”

“I’ll leave it.” This was said emphatically, conviction behind each syllable.

Joy handed him back the written estimate. “That’s perfectly fine by me. You can contact me when you’re prepared to be reasonable.”

“You think I’m the one who’s being unreasonable?” he asked, sounding both shocked and hurt.

She rolled her eyes. Lonny should’ve had a career as a B-movie actor, not a bull-rider or whatever he’d been. Bull something, anyway.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said calmly.

Lonny had the audacity to scowl.

This man was the most outrageous human being she’d ever had the misfortune to meet. Remembering the child’s presence, Joy bit her tongue in an effort to restrain herself from arguing further.

“You haven’t heard the last of me,” he threatened.

“Oh, say it isn’t so,” Joy murmured ever so sweetly. If she never saw the likes of Lonny Ellison again, it would be too soon.

Lonny whirled around and opened the door on the passenger side for his niece.

“Be careful not to scratch this priceless antique,” Joy called out to the little girl.

After helping Cricket inside, Lonny closed the door. “Very funny,” he said. “You won’t be nearly as amused once your insurance people hear from mine.”

Joy was no longer concerned about that. Her agent would take one look at Lonny Ellison’s beaten-up vehicle and might, if the cowpoke was lucky, offer him fifty bucks.

Whatever happened, he wasn’t getting a penny more out of her. She’d rather go to jail.