Читать книгу Cowboy Country: The Creed Legacy / Blame It on the Cowboy - Delores Fossen, Delores Fossen - Страница 14

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT WAS TIME to take action, Carolyn thought, a wicked little thrill going through her as she reread Brody’s response to her message earlier that day.

Want to go riding with me?

She bit her lower lip.

Brody had asked her to go riding with him, and she was actually considering it. A sad commentary on her level of intelligence, she figured, since she’d been burned, and badly, the last time she played with fire.

And she’d be doing exactly that if she spent any time alone with Brody Creed, no doubt about it.

That was that, then.

She wasn’t getting any younger, and if she ever wanted a home and a husband and children, if she ever wanted to take real family vacations, instead of buying souvenir mugs at garage sales and pretending she’d been somewhere, she had to do something, take matters into her own hands.

Prince Charming, if he’d ever been headed in her direction in the first place, had obviously been detained.

“Carolyn?” Tricia appeared in the office doorway, a merciful if temporary distraction from her troubling thoughts. True to Carolyn’s prediction, they hadn’t had a customer all morning, or since lunch, and the apron orders from the website were wrapped and ready for shipping. “I’m going now. Do you want me to drop the packages off at the post office before I head for home?”

Not wanting Tricia to see that she’d been checking Friendly Faces, Carolyn turned to face her friend with a wide smile, blocking the computer monitor from view.

She hoped.

“That would be great,” she said brightly. Too brightly, probably. “Thanks, Tricia.”

Tricia eyed her curiously, maybe even a little suspiciously. “You’ll be okay working alone for the rest of the day?” she persisted.

I’ve been working alone my whole life. Why would today be any different?

“I’ll be fine,” Carolyn promised cheerfully. “I’m just tying up a few loose ends online, then I’ll go upstairs and start sewing. We’re going to need more aprons soon, and I’d like to finish the gypsy skirt before I die of old age.”

Tricia hesitated a moment, then smiled and left the doorway. “See you tomorrow,” she called, in parting.

“’Bye!” Carolyn sang out, all merry innocence.

Then she turned back to the computer, and Brody’s brief message.

If she agreed to go anywhere with this man, even for a horseback ride, she needed her head examined.

In the first note, he’d asked for a second chance.

A second chance to hurt her, to rip her heart out and stomp on it? Was that what he’d meant? Or was she being too cynical? Suppose the man simply wanted to be friends?

That would make sense, wouldn’t it, given the way they were always running into each other at social functions, both in town and on the Creed ranch? Maybe Brody was as tired of those awkward encounters as she was.

He’d said as much, just the other day, but then he’d gone and kissed her and confused the issue all over again.

And then there was the fact that Carolyn never felt freer, or more alive—or lonelier—than when she was on a horse’s back, riding through wide-open spaces.

To have someone riding alongside her out there on her favorite trails, someone who knew horses and was comfortable around them, well, that would make the experience close to perfect.

Adrenaline jolted through Carolyn’s system when she made the reckless decision: she would accept Brody’s invitation. It was, after all, a horseback ride, not an elopement, or a wild weekend in Vegas, whooping it up in the buff.

Heck, it wasn’t even a date, really.

Still, the idea made her nerves leap around under her skin like tiny Cirque du Soleil performers determined to outdo themselves.

What she needed, as she’d already concluded, was some sort of emotional insurance, protection against Acts of Brody, and there was only one way to get that—by going out with other guys. As many other guys as she reasonably could.

Not only would they insulate her, create and maintain a safe distance between her and Brody, but she also might actually fall for one of them and forget him entirely.

What began as a defense mechanism could turn out to be the kind of true and lasting love she’d always dreamed of finding.

And wouldn’t that be something?

Yes, she would make a definite and honest effort.

She finally entered a reply to Brody’s note, a lackluster okay and flashed it off to his mailbox.

She checked her new messages then.

It was sort of gratifying to know she was popular on Friendly Faces—five different men wanted to get acquainted with her, three from Denver and its close environs and two from right there in Lonesome Bend.

Forehead creased with the effort to place the pair of locals, Carolyn studied their photos, one after the other, and came up with no clear recollection of either of them.

Both were moderately attractive, in their thirties.

Richard was tall, if his bio could be believed—wasn’t she living proof that people stretched the truth, calling herself Carol?—with dark hair and brown eyes. He was a technical writer, divorced, with no children, and he’d moved to Lonesome Bend only a month before. Since he worked at home, he hadn’t made many friends.

He liked to cook, loved dogs, but was violently allergic to cats.

Carolyn, mindful of Winston, gently dispatched Richard to the recycle bin.

The other candidate was named Ben, and he, like Richard, was a fairly recent transplant to the community. He was a widower, with an appealing smile, a nine-year-old daughter and a job that took him all over the western states, fighting forest fires.

He looked like a nice guy, which didn’t mean for one second that he couldn’t have made the whole story up, invented the daughter, the adventurous career, the dead wife. Stranger things had happened, especially when it came to online dating.

Still, if she was going to have any chance at all against Brody Creed and his many questionable charms, assuming he even meant to turn that effortless dazzle on her anyway, she had to do something, get the proverbial ball rolling, here.

After drawing and releasing a very deep breath, Carolyn responded to Ben’s friendly inquiry with a short, chatty missive of her own. Not wanting to give away too much information—Lonesome Bend was, after all, a small town—she chose her answers carefully.

Ben’s response was immediate. Did the man have nothing better to do than hover over his computer, waiting for his trial membership in Friendly Faces to pay off big?

Hi, Carol, he’d written. Nice to hear from you. So to speak.

Carolyn reminded herself that what she was doing could conceivably be described as hovering, and she certainly had better things to do, so she’d better get off her high horse, and answered, I like your picture.

I like that you didn’t bail out on your daughter after your wife died.

If you even have a daughter.

If there isn’t a current wife, very much alive, innocently cooking your favorite meal or ironing one of your shirts at this very moment, unaware that you’re flirting with other women online.

Carolyn reined in her imagination then, but it wasn’t easy, and she didn’t know how long she could keep it from running wild again.

I like yours, too, Ben responded. I’m new at this computer-dating thing. How about you?

Brand-new, Carolyn confirmed. It’s awkward.

Tell me about it, Ben answered.

Carolyn drew another deep breath, rubbed the palms of her hands together. What brought you to Lonesome Bend?

That seemed innocuous enough.

I wanted to raise Ellie in a small town, and my late wife’s family lives nearby.

That’s nice, Ben. Where did you live before?

Down in L.A. I’m not scared of a wildfire, but the traffic on the 405 is another matter, especially when Ellie’s in the car.

Carolyn smiled. Ben was a conscientious father, and he had a sense of humor. She began to warm up to the conversation a little, though she was still wary of the man. I’m not crazy about crowded freeways myself, she replied.

Ben came back right away with Have you always lived in Lonesome Bend?

Carolyn hesitated. I came here eight years ago, she wrote. Before that, I traveled a lot.

You’re mysterious, Ben replied, adding a winking-face icon.

Hardly, Carolyn typed. I’m not a woman with a past or anything exciting like that.

Unless, of course, my week-long, red-hot affair with Brody Creed makes me a woman with a past.

The thought of Brody, even in that context, gave Carolyn a twinge of guilt, but she shook it off quickly. It wasn’t as if she was cheating on him, for heaven’s sake.

So why did it feel that way?

Ellie just came in, Ben told her, and she’s trying to get my attention, so I’d better find out what’s up. Hope we can chat again soon, Carol.

Me, too, Carolyn wrote in response.

Liar, accused the voice in her head, the one she was always telling to shut up. You’re interested in using this guy to keep Brody at arms’ length, nothing else. And, admit it, Ben’s other main attraction is that he has a young daughter.

“Shut up,” Carolyn told the voice.

Then she logged off, wrote a hasty note for any customer who might happen by and taped it to the front door.

Working upstairs today. Just ring the bell, and I’ll be right down to let you in, she’d printed, in large letters.

Always better off when she was busy, Carolyn felt pretty chipper as she turned the handle on the dead bolt and headed for the staircase.

Winston, who seemed to be in an unusually circumspect mood that day, scampered after her and, when she entered the kitchen, leaped gracefully onto his usual lookout perch, the windowsill.

Carolyn fussed over him a little, scratching behind his ears and nuzzling his silky scruff once, and washed her hands at the sink, prior to fixing them both lunch.

Winston had his beloved half tin of water-packed sardines, eating off a chipped china saucer right there on the windowsill, while Carolyn nibbled her way through a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, breaking all the food rules by foregoing a plate and standing up while she ate.

Actually, she could have argued that there were sensible reasons for her choice.

Number one, her sewing machine was on the table, and she’d be working there in a little while, and a stray drop of jelly might stain a piece of fabric. Furthermore, who really ate sandwiches off a plate?

In any case, the sandwich was soon gone, rendering the whole subject moot. Carolyn washed her hands again, fetched the gypsy skirt from the hook on the other side of her bedroom door and took a few sweet moments just to admire the creation.

It really was gorgeous, she thought, loving the way the gossamer ribbons shimmered and shifted. The reds, golds, blues and greens seemed to ripple, like liquid light.

Not for the first time, Carolyn was seized by a crazy urge to keep that skirt, alter it to fit her own figure and never let it go. She held it close against her chest for a few moments, as though prepared to defend it against a crazed mob.

“You’re being silly,” she murmured aloud.

Still, the skirt was so pretty, almost animate with all that subtle motion going on, a true work of art. Her art, born of her dreams and her imagination and all the fairy-tale hopes she’d cherished as a lonely child.

She ached to hold on to this one piece, this glorious thing woven with strands spun in the deepest places of her own heart.

Practicality took over quickly.

She’d been over this with herself before, hadn’t she? A garment like this should be worn, seen, enjoyed. Where would she, Carolyn Simmons of Lonesome Bend, Colorado, wear such a thing?

Horseback riding?

Sure, there were parties now and then, and she was always invited, but the occasions were never formal—people held cookouts in their backyards, and bingo was big on Wednesday evenings, in the basement of the Moose Lodge, and every year, on the weekend closest to the Fourth of July, there was an amateur rodeo and a visiting carnival.

The closest Lonesome Bend ever got to glamour was when the lodge sponsored a dance the third Saturday of every other month. The music was live, always country-western, and good enough that people came all the way from Denver to dance to it.

Most of the women wore jeans to the gathering, with a slightly fancier shirt than they might ordinarily don, and they fussed with their hair and makeup, too, but that was pretty much the extent of it.

Carolyn would have looked like a fool, just about anywhere she ever went, showing up in that skirt.

She sighed, put the skirt back on its hanger and then back on the hook behind the bedroom door. She’d finish it another day, when she wasn’t feeling so much like Cinderella left behind to sweep floors on the night of the prince’s ball.

Resolutely, she brewed a cup of herbal tea and got out a stack of fabric purchased on a recent shopping trip to Denver. By then, she’d made so many aprons—frilly ones, simple ones, ones for kids as well as adults—that she no longer needed to measure.

She chose a bluish-lavender calico from the pile, smiling at the small floral print and the tactile pleasure of crisp and colorful cloth ready to be made up into something useful. She decided to stick with the retro designs that sold so well through the online version of the shop and pictured the end result in her mind’s eye.

Then, after eyeballing the fabric once again, Carolyn took up her sewing shears and began to cut.

Sewing, like riding horses, always consumed her, drew her in, made her forget her worries for a while. She got lost in it, in a good way, and invariably came away refreshed rather than fatigued.

The apron came together in no time, a perky, beruffled thing with lace trim stitched to the pockets.

Delighted, Carolyn set it aside, to be pressed later, and delved into her fabric stash again. This time she chose a heavier weight cotton, black and tan checks with little red flowers occupying alternate squares.

She went with retro again, savoring the whir of the small motor, the flash of the flying needle and the familiar scents of fabric sizing and sewing machine oil.

When the doorbell rang downstairs, just as Carolyn was finishing up apron number two, she was so startled by the sound, ordinary as it was, that she jumped and nearly knocked over her forgotten cup of tea, now gone cold.

She glanced at the clock above the stove—three forty-five in the afternoon, already?—and, remembering the note she’d stuck to the front door, in case some prospective shopper happened by, shouted from the top of the inside staircase, “Coming!”

The bell rang again, more insistently this time.

Skipping the normal protocol by not looking out one of the flanking windows first, Carolyn opened the door.

Brody was standing on the porch, his expression so grim that Carolyn felt alarmed, thinking Tricia had gone into premature labor or someone had been in an accident.

She gulped, fumbled with the hook on the screen door that separated them. Through the mesh, she noted Brody’s wrinkled clothes, mussed hair and disturbing countenance.

“Brody...what—?”

He’d taken off his hat at some point, and now he slapped it once against his right thigh. “Can I come in?” he bit out. Then, almost grudgingly, “Please?”

Carolyn’s concern eased up a little then, as she realized Brody was frustrated—maybe even angry—but not sad, as he surely would have been if he were bearing bad news.

She gave one slightly abrupt nod instead of speaking, not trusting herself to be civil now that Brody’s irritation had sparked and spread to her, like wildfire racing over tinder-dry grass.

Once the door was open, Brody practically stormed over the threshold, giving Carolyn the immediately infuriating impression that if she didn’t get out of his way, she’d be run over.

So she stood her ground, and that proved to be a less than brilliant choice, because they collided and the whoosh of invisible things reaching flash point was nearly audible.

“What?” Carolyn demanded, and found herself flushing.

His nose was half an inch from hers, if that, and fierce blue flames burned in his eyes, and his words, though quiet, struck her like stones. “I. Don’t. Like. Games.”

Carolyn felt several things then, not the least of which was a slow-building rage, but there was a good bit of confusion in the mix, too, and a strange, soft, scary kind of excitement.

“What are you talking about?” she asked tartly. It would have been prudent, she supposed, to take a step or two backward, out of Brody’s force field, but for some reason, she couldn’t move.

“I’m talking,” Brody all but growled, after tossing his hat in the general direction of the antique coat tree that dominated the entryway, “about this whole Friendly Faces thing. You trying to scare up a husband online. It’s all wrong—”

Carolyn’s temper, mostly under control before, flared up. “Wrong?” she repeated dangerously.

Brody sighed, but he was still putting out the same officious vibes. “Okay, maybe wrong wasn’t the best word,” he said.

“Maybe it wasn’t,” Carolyn replied succinctly, folding her arms and digging in her heels.

“I hate to break this to you,” Brody spouted, leaning in again—she kind of liked it when he did that, even though it was infuriating—“but you can’t just go around trusting people you’ve never even met. Men tell lies, Carolyn.”

Carolyn widened her eyes in mock surprise. “Really?” she trilled, as though she just couldn’t conceive of the possibility.

She saw his jaws clamp down, watched with some satisfaction as he relaxed them by a visible effort.

“Men tell lies,” she repeated, amazed. Then she stabbed a finger into his chest and said, “Oh, yes, that’s right, Brody. I remember now. You lied to me, through your perfect white teeth!”

“I did not lie to you,” Brody lied.

“Oh, no? You said you cared about me—you wanted to stay and make things right with your family. Settle down and start a family. And then you left, vanished, flew the coop!” Carolyn realized she was perilously close to tears, and she was damned if she’d cry in front of the man who had broken her heart so badly that even after more than seven years, she wasn’t over it.

So she turned away from Brody, not wanting him to see her face.

He caught hold of her shoulder, his grasp firm but not hard enough to hurt, and made her look at him again.

“I meant everything I said to you, Carolyn,” he said evenly.

He had not, she recalled, with a terrible clarity, said he loved her. Not in words, anyway.

“But then something came up, as you put it in that note you left me, and you hit the road and left me alone to wonder what I did wrong,” Carolyn accused, in an angry whisper.

Getting mad, in her opinion, was a lot better than bursting into tears. And it wasn’t just Brody she was furious with. She blamed herself most of all, for being gullible, for loving and trusting the wrong man and maybe missing out on the right one because she’d wasted all this time loving him. Because she’d so wanted to believe what Brody told her. What his body told hers.

“I regret leaving like I did,” Brody said. “But I had to go. I flat-out didn’t have a choice, under the circumstances.”

“And what would those circumstances be?” Carolyn asked archly. “Another bronc to ride? Another buckle to win? Or was it just that some formerly reluctant cowgirl wannabe was willing to go to bed with you?”

Brody closed his eyes for a moment. He looked pale, like a man in pain, but when he opened them again, the frustration was back. “If that’s the kind of person you think I am,” he snapped, “then it seems to me you ought to be glad I took off and saved you all the trouble of putting up with me!”

“Who says I wasn’t glad?” Carolyn demanded. Who was this hysterical person, speaking through her? Was she possessed?

“You’re not going to listen to one damn thing I say, are you?” Brody shot back.

“No,” Carolyn replied briskly. “Probably not.”

“Fine!” Brody barked.

“Fine,” Carolyn agreed.

“Reoww!” added Winston, from the top of the stairs. His hackles were up and his tail was all bushed out and he looked ready to pounce.

On Brody.

Guard-cat on duty.

“It’s all right, Winston,” Carolyn told the fractious feline. “Mr. Creed is just about to leave.”

Brody made a snorting sound, full of contempt, swiveled around and retrieved his hat from the floor next to the coat tree, where he’d flung it earlier.

He wrenched open the front door, looked back at Carolyn and growled, “We’re still going on that horseback ride.”

Carolyn opened her mouth to protest, but something made her close it without saying the inflammatory thing that sprang to her mind. She didn’t like to use bad language if she could avoid it.

“You agreed and that’s that,” Brody reminded her tersely. “A deal is a deal.”

With that, he was gone.

The door of Natty McCall’s gracious old house closed hard behind him.

Carolyn got as far as the stairs before plunking herself down on the third step from the bottom, shoving her hands into her hair and uttering a strangled cry of pure, helpless aggravation.

Winston, having pussyfooted down the stairs, brushed against her side, purring.

Carolyn gave a bitter little laugh and swept the animal onto her lap, cuddling him close and burying her face in the lush fur at the back of his neck.

Being a cat, and therefore independent, he immediately squirmed free, leaped over two steps to stand, disgruntled, on the entryway floor, looking up at her in frank disapproval, tail twitching.

“You’ve decided to like Brody Creed after all, haven’t you?” Carolyn joked ruefully, getting to her feet. “You’ve gone over to the dark side.”

“Reow,” said Winston, indignantly.

Carolyn made her way upstairs, determined not to let the set-to with Brody ruin what remained of the day. She had tea to brew—that would settle her nerves—and aprons to sew for the website and the shop, a life to get on with, damn it.

Instead of doing either of those things right away, though, Carolyn went instead to her laptop.

She turned it on and waited, tapping one foot.

Practically the moment the computer connected to the internet, the machine chimed, “Somebody likes your picture!”

“Good,” Carolyn said.

While she’d been offline, six more men had taken a shine to her—or to Carol, her recently adopted persona, anyway—and while five of them were definite rejects, the sixth was a contender, right from the instant Carolyn saw his photo.

His name was Slade Barlow, and he hailed from a town called Parable, up in Montana. For the time being, he lived in Denver. Like Ben, the firefighter, he was a widower, with a child. His eleven-year-old-son, Brendan, attended a boarding school there in Colorado but spent weekends and holidays with him.

“Hmm,” Carolyn said aloud, clicking on the response link. Tell me about Brendan, she typed into the message box.

Slade apparently wasn’t online, but Ben was, as she soon learned, when he popped up with a smiley face and a hello.

Carolyn, jittery but determined, responded with a hello of her own.

How about meeting me for a cup of coffee? he asked. Page After Page Book Store, on Main Street, five o’clock this afternoon?

Carolyn’s first impulse was to shy away, but her most recent run-in with Brody was fresh in her mind, too. The nerve of the man, showing up at her home and place of business the way he had, and announcing that she would go horseback riding with him, simply because she’d made the mistake of agreeing to his invitation.

She consulted the stove clock, saw that it was four-thirty.

She would, she decided, show Brody Creed that he couldn’t go around dictating things, like he was the king of the world, or something.

Okay, she wrote. Page After Page, five o’clock. How will we recognize each other?

Ben replied with a jovial LOL—laugh out loud—and another of those winking icons he seemed to favor. I look just like my profile photo, he responded. Hopefully, so do you.

Right, Carolyn answered. Was there a computer icon for scared to death? See you there.

Half an hour later, having refreshed her makeup and let down her hair, Carolyn arrived at Page After Page. The bookstore was, at least, familiar territory—she spent a lot of her free time there, nursing a medium latte and choosing her reading matter with care.

She spotted Ben right away, sitting at a corner table in the bookstore coffee shop, a book open before him.

As advertised, he looked like his picture. He was a little shorter than she’d expected, but well-built, with a quick smile, curly light brown hair and warm hazel eyes that smiled when he spotted her.

“Carol?” he asked, standing up.

Good manners, then.

Guilt speared Carolyn’s overactive conscience. “Actually,” she said, approaching his table slowly, “my name is Carolyn, not Carol.”

He laughed, revealing a healthy set of very white teeth, extending one arm for a handshake. He wore jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt in a dusty shade of blue and an air of easy confidence. “And mine is Bill, not Ben.”

The confession put Carolyn at ease—mostly. She managed a shaky smile and sat down in the second chair at Ben’s—Bill’s—table. “Do you really have a nine-year-old daughter named Ellie?” she asked.

“Yes,” Bill replied, sitting only when Carolyn was settled in her own chair. “Do you really work in a bank, have two dogs and like to bowl?”

“No,” Carolyn admitted, coloring a little. “I lied about my job, my hobbies and my pets. Is that a deal-breaker?”

Bill chuckled. His eyes were so warm, dancing in his tanned face.

And as attractive as he was, he wasn’t Brody.

Too bad.

“What’s the truth about you, Carol—yn?” he asked, smiling.

“I sew a lot, I look after a friend’s cat and I’m in business with a friend,” Carolyn confessed, after a few moments of recovery. She blushed. “And I can’t remember the last time I was so nervous.”

Ben—Bill—smiled. “I don’t sew, I’m strictly a dog-person and I fight fires for a living, just as I said in my bio. That said, I’m amazed, because despite all the prevarications, you look just like your picture. You’re beautiful, Carolyn.”

At that, the blush burned in Carolyn’s face. She looked down. “Flatterer,” she said.

Bill smiled. “What can I get you?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon?” Carolyn countered, a beat behind.

“Coffee?” Bill said, grinning. “Latte? Café Americano? Espresso with a double-shot of what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here?”

Finally, Carolyn relaxed. A little. “Latte,” she said. “Nonfat, please.”

Bill smiled, nodded, rose and went to the counter to order a nonfat latte.

Carolyn, desperate for something to do in the meantime, checked out the book he’d been reading when she approached.

You could tell a lot about a person by what they liked to read.

A Single Father’s Guide to Communication with a Preteen Girl.

Well, Carolyn thought, trust her to meet up with a guy who was both sensitive and masculine after she’d been spoiled for functional relationships by Brody Creed.

Presently, Bill returned with her latte, looking pleasantly rueful. “Confession time,” he said, with a sigh, as he sat down again. “I’m on the rebound, Carol—Carolyn. I didn’t mention that in my profile.”

“No,” Carolyn said, oddly relieved. She reached for her latte, took a sip. It was very hot. “You didn’t.”

“Her name,” Bill told her, “is Angela. We’re all wrong for each other.”

Carolyn considered the foam on her latte for a long moment. “His name is Brody,” she said. “Two people were never more mismatched than the two of us.”

A silence fell.

“Well, then,” Bill finally said. “We have something in common, don’t we?”

“Are you in love?” Carolyn asked, after a very long time and a lot of latte. “With Angela, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” Bill replied. “One minute, I want to spend the rest of my life with the woman, the next, I’d just as soon join the Foreign Legion or jump off the Empire State Building.”

Carolyn wanted to cry. She also wanted to laugh. “Love sucks,” she said, raising her latte cup. Bill touched his cup to hers.

“Amen,” he said. “Love definitely sucks.”