Читать книгу The Baby Notion - Dixie Browning, Dixie Browning - Страница 9

Jake stepped out of the barbershop feeling naked after his long overdue haircut. Pausing on the dusty sidewalk, he pulled a list from his shirt pocket, squinted down at it and then checked off one more item. That made…let’s see, florist? Check. Shady Grove Cemetery? Check. Bank? Yep. Barber? Yep. Which left the hardware store, the grocery store and—

“Hey there, Jake.”

He glanced up and smiled. “Hey there, Trilla Dean.”

“You going to the dance Sunday night?”

“Honey, you know me and dancing. I’d cripple half the women in New Hope if I was to show up at a dance.”

“You’re not all that bad.”

“I’m worse, and we both know it.”

She giggled. “I’ll save you a dance, anyway, just in case you decide to come.”

“You do that.” Jake grinned and shook his head. Trilla Dean Moyers was his age. She’d put on about fifty pounds since they used to make out in the back of his truck, but with her big blue eyes and her slow, sweet smile, she didn’t look a day over twenty.

Jake took out another list—Pete’s grocery list, this time. Squinting some more, he muttered, “Two dove’s eyes,” and translated it to two dozen eggs. He didn’t know which was worse—Pete’s writing, or his own reading. Jake figured either his eyes were going or his arms had gotten shorter.

“Hey, Jakey.”

He glanced up again and grinned at the frayed-looking redhead with two kids hanging on to her skirttails. Poor Connie. She was pregnant again. “Hey, Connie. How’s Mick?”

“He’s doin’ better, but he’s still real tore up about the Harley. I guess you heard it was totaled. Come see us sometime, y’hear?”

“I’ll do that,” Jake said, and meant it. Connie was another of his old classmates. They’d had a thing or two going way back in junior high school.

Jake was just about to shove the two lists back in his pocket and head over to the hardware store to see if the truck was loaded when he saw a peach-colored Cadillac convertible slide into a parking space across the street. Leaning his back against the sun-warmed brick wall, he lingered to watch the driver open the door, swing both legs out and follow them with a body that was designed to raise the noonday temperature about ten degrees.

The haystack blonde. He’d been hoping for a glimpse of her before he headed back out to the ranch. When she leaned inside the car to retrieve her purse, Jake lifted his hat and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Somebody ought to tell her, he mused, that women built the way she was built weren’t cut out to wear tight jeans. Especially not when they were also wearing pink plastic sandals with fourinch heels.

Fortunately, no one ever had.

Jake flexed his shoulders, enjoying the sensation of heat on aching muscles. He didn’t particularly like towns. He especially didn’t like the town of New Hope, Texas. But then, he’d never been one to cut off his nose to spite his face, and catching a glimpse of his favorite fantasy always made the trip worthwhile. One of these days he was going to screw up his nerve and—

Whoa. She was fixing to go into that shop across the street.

Well, hell, as long as he was in the neighborhood…

Shrugging away from the hot brick wall, Jake rammed his lists into his pocket, carefully resettled his Stetson, and sauntered across the street, never once taking his eyes off that sweetly rounded backside.

Jake had been known to forget a name. He might even forget a face. Hell, he’d even been known to forget his own when he’d been on one of his infrequent benders. One thing he never forgot, however, was a well-turned rear end, on either a horse or a woman. He’d been seeing this particular example around town for too long now without ever getting a close look at her face.

Or maybe he just wasn’t a face man.

The first time he recalled seeing her had been the day they’d auctioned off that godawful palace of old man Barringer’s, along with everything in it, right down to the last solid-gold toothpick holder. Folks had come from five states to pick over the leavings.

Normally Jake wouldn’t have been caught dead at a gig like that, but the old man had had a mare that Jake had wanted right bad, so he’d figured he may as well give it a shot.

And there she’d been, standing off to one side with her arms crossed and her nose in the air, like she was too good for the rest of the vultures flocking around to pick over the old bastard’s carcass.

He’d got the mare, but by the time he’d wound up the paperwork, the woman had been gone. Since then he’d seen her half a dozen times, always from a distance. Sometimes she’d be walking, but mostly she’d be wheeling by in that flashy vintage Cadillac convertible. He figured she’d bought it off H. T. Barrington’s estate. He’d heard the old man collected the things.

Jake didn’t begrudge her the car. Right this minute he wouldn’t have begrudged her every horse on his spread, and they weren’t even his.

But he’d rather watch her walk than drive any day, because she had the kind of walk that would rattle every seismograph west of the Mississippi.

Jake had always liked his women a little on the wild side, slightly tacky, and strictly temporary. He figured this one might just qualify on the first two counts, what with the hair, the makeup, the tight jeans and half ton of clanking silver jewelry.

As for temporary, that could mean anything from twenty minutes to a year. Hell, even his marriage hadn’t lasted a year—although the effects had lasted considerably longer.

She was talking to the store owner when he let himself inside the shop. A bell jingled softly, announcing his entrance. The sign over the door said Baby Boutique. Racks and stacks of pastel junk cluttered the place, making him feel like a bull in a china shop.

On the other hand, the sun outside was hot enough to blister paint, and the air conditioner in the china shop was going full-blast, so this bull figured he could just about handle the stress.

Feeling distinctly out of his element, Jake stepped into one of several small alcoves, this one cluttered with baby carriages and strings of plastic junk dangling from the ceiling. From where he stood, he could see the blonde’s backside and the frontside of old man Harper’s daughter, Faith, who owned the place. He’d met Faith once or twice—she seemed like a nice girl.

Not that Jake was interested in nice girls.

The two women were deep in conversation and Jake didn’t want to barge in right off without getting a feel for the situation, so he waited for an opening. He didn’t feel quite right about hanging around a female-type store, but one thing he’d learned from his rodeo days—timing was all-important.

Another thing he’d learned was that his wasn’t all that great.

“…last year, or was it the year before when you spread all that money all over Shacktown?” Faith was asking as Jake quietly listened in. He thought about strolling casually over to the counter and entering into the conversation. All he needed was an opening. He could take it from there.

“How did you know about that? That was supposed to be a secret!” the blonde exclaimed.

“Honey, it was all over town before the bank even closed that day. They said you sent old Joe Sakett down to Shacktown and had him put envelopes full of money in every single mailbox.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Faith, they weren’t full of money. That was the year I turned twenty-seven, and I couldn’t very well just hand out twenty-seven dollars to every family—I mean, that’s such a piddly bunch of money. Why, I spend more than that on a pedicure.”

Pretty nice hoof-dressing, Jake mused.

“So what did you do, put in twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents? Oh, only you.”

The blonde shrugged. She had great shoulders. Funny thing—Jake had never even noticed her shoulders before.

“I added a zero, okay? Now, can we forget that so I can tell you about—”

“Oh, my God, Priss, you didn’t. Two hundred and seventy dollars in every single mailbox in Shacktown? And by the way—putting things in people’s mailboxes—isn’t that a federal offense?”

“How do I know? Anyhow, nobody complained.”

Priss. Her name was Priss. Funny—she didn’t look like a Priss. She looked more like a Dolly or a Wynona.

“But, Faith, what I wanted to tell you was—oh, by the way, I need a dozen teddy bears and some of those dangly things that hang over a crib. It’s for my birthday celebration. And I’m not putting them in any mailboxes, so you don’t have to look at me like that.”

A dozen teddy bears?

So she was celebrating a birthday. Jake could think of several ways he’d like to help her celebrate, none of which involved teddy bears.

“Anyhow,” she continued, “I’m not sure they’ll let me put up those crib toys. They have so many gadgets and things hooked up to cribs in the hospital.”

Hospital?

Faith planted her hands on her hips. She was wearing one of those short and loose-flowing dresses. It took Jake a few minutes to realize Faith Harper was one quite pregnant nice girl. “Priss,” Faith said, “your papa endowed the entire west wing. If anyone can talk them into it, you can.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. I’ve never been much good at throwing my weight around.”

Jake sincerely begged to differ. If she got any better at it, they might both find themselves in serious trouble.

Jake cleared his throat, wanting to make his presence known but at the same time feeling like a creep for even being there. Before he could cut and run, the Harper woman spotted him, put on her professional smile and started across the room.

Jake grabbed a book off a rack, held it at arm’s length and pretended to read.

“Mr. Spencer, do you need any help?”

“Who, me? Oh, um…no, thanks. Just looking. That is, one of my hands is having a baby, and—that is, his woman’s having it, but—” He shrugged, giving her his best Hey, I’m only a man, I can’t help being stupid smile and began to edge toward the door. On the way he knocked over a display of stuffed rabbits, caught three before they hit the floor and with shaking hands, began restacking the lot. The Harper woman turned back toward the counter at the back of the store, calling over her shoulder, “You just let me know when you decide, okay?”

“Yes’m, I surely will.”

Jake was halfway to the door, his face on fire, when he heard the haystack blonde whisper loudly, “Who in the world is that?”

“Who, Jake? Goodness, I thought every woman in Collins County knew Jake Spencer.”

So did I, Jake thought, a bit surprised. There’d been a time when he’d been downright notorious. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d been living in Shacktown with his mama, working odd jobs, hustling pool and getting into trouble with the truancy officer. He’d been way ahead of Faith, and obviously the blonde, in school, but that didn’t mean even they hadn’t heard all the rumors about the boy who’d been every high school girl’s secret dream lover and every parents’ worst nightmare. If the blonde didn’t remember him, she must not be a local. Either that, or she’d been off hiding under a rock when his mama died and he left town to follow the rodeo circuit—much to the pleasure of all those parents. He had ended up marrying, but the little woman had taken him for every cent he’d had and then left him laid up in a hospital in Tulsa with both legs in a cast. Guess there’s no way she’d know about that, though, Jake told himself.

Jake had just about made it to the door when he made the mistake of taking one last look at the blonde. She was lifting stuffed toys down off a shelf. The first time he’d ever heard the phrase “poetry in motion” he’d thought it meant a well-trained quarter horse.

Now he knew better. She was wearing a high-necked, pink knit top that hugged her breasts and fit snugly over her body, all the way down to her concho belt. Dammit, why couldn’t he just march right up there and ask her out? What the devil—she might even say yes.

It occurred to him that if he’d put in a special order, she couldn’t have fit his specifications any better. A little bit wild, slightly on the tacky side, and so damned delectable he was having trouble keeping his enthusiasm down.

Right then and there Jake made up his mind that one way or another, before the summer was out, he was going to get her out of those tight jeans and into his bed. What’s more, being the generous guy that he was, he’d make sure she enjoyed every minute of it just as much as he did. It wasn’t like he wanted to marry her, or anything like that. God forbid!

“So anyhow,” she was saying in an uppercrust Texas drawl that kind of set Jake’s teeth on edge, but nowhere near enough to turn him off, “I decided that what I wanted for my birthday this year is a baby.”

A baby! She was talking right out here in public about having a baby? Jake thought, What am I, invisible or something?

Faith opened her mouth to speak, but Priss beat her to the draw. “Oh, I know what you’re going to say—it takes nine months, but, Faith, just think—your baby is due in November, and if I hurry, I could have mine by next April. Our babies can grow up together. Wouldn’t that be sweet?”

“Priss, have you…who—”

“Nobody, silly, and no, I haven’t, but I’ve been thinking about going down to the sperm bank.”

With one hand on the doorknob, Jake turned back to stare. The what bank?

“Pricilla Joan, you wouldn’t!”

Her name was Jones. Pricilla Jones. Jake decided it went with the accent.

“What in the world would you go there for?” Faith Harper demanded.

Which was exactly what Jake was wondering. He knew about New Hope’s sperm bank. The day he’d first heard about it nearly five years ago—heard who had donated it to the town for the good of New Hope’s future generations—he’d gone on a bender that had lasted nearly a week.

“…all alone in that big old apartment out on Willow Creek,” the blonde was saying. “So I thought, why not? Everybody in town seems to be getting pregnant—mercy, I’ve never seen so many hatching jackets in my life. So I thought, why not me? Why can’t I have a baby, too, if I want one?”

Faith took Pricilla Jones by the arm with more force than Jake would have credited her with possessing, and led the blonde over to a white wicker settee. “Sit! Now, you listen to me, Prissy. Don’t you dare go and do something stupid just because Eddie ran off and married Grace Hudgins.”

Priss-Prissy-Pricilla shrugged again. It occurred to Jake, who was becoming almost as fascinated with the woman’s mind as he was with her body, that she could’ve given lessons in body motion to a belly dancer. “Oh, him. I didn’t like him all that much anyway.”

Jake thought Faith’s expression looked sort of dubious and sympathetic all at the same time, which made him wonder who this Eddie guy was.

Whoever he was, he was evidently out of the picture now.

With studied casualness, Jake turned to examine a display of miniature quilts near the door. From there he had a perfect view of the blonde’s profile. Go ahead, you jerk—make the lady’s acquaintance and ask her out!

She had a high forehead under that heap of streaky blond hair that reminded him so much of the haystack he’d like to lay her down in. Her big brown eyes were set off with a thicket of lashes that looked too dark for a natural blonde, but what the hell? Her nose was a little on the short side, and even from here he could see a few freckles, but it was a real nice nose, and Jake had never even thought much about noses.

As for the rest of her…

His gaze followed the hilly route south. He hitched up his jeans, which seemed to have suddenly shrunk a couple of sizes.

It struck him that he was behaving more like a fifteenyear-old kid high on hormones than a thirty-five-year-old horse broker who ought to know better.

“I made the mistake of stopping by this morning to pick up some literature, but I forgot that Miss Agnes works there on Thursdays. Honestly, Faith, that woman has a tongue like you wouldn’t believe. She looks so sweet, with her purple hair and her lace-collared dresses, but do you know what she said to me? She told me right to my face that I wasn’t cut out to be a mother.”

Jake knew breeding stock. With those hips, the lady was cut out, all right, although doing the job with a turkey baster was a crime against nature, if you asked him.

Which nobody had, he admitted wryly, giving his jeans another twitch.

“Pnss, you must have misunderstood her. Miss Agnes means well, she just—”

“I did not! My ears are working just fine. Her exact words were that I’d do better to order me one of those great big fancy dolls from that fancy toy store because then, when I got tired of it, I could just give it away. Have you ever?”

Faith glanced his way again, and Jake, his face reddening under a perennial weathered tan, pretended an intense interest in a handkerchief-size quilt covered in calico butterflies. He couldn’t have left now if the store was on fire.

Barely missing a beat, the two women picked up where they’d left off. “Oh, Priss, you know Miss Agnes. Her bark’s a lot worse than her bite.”

“It is not, either. Anyhow, I told her right flat-out that it was my money and my decision, and what’s more, it’s my birthday, and if I decide to have myself a baby, no busybody, who only works at the sperm bank so she’ll have a basketful of gossip to spread all over town, is going to keep me from it.”

“Priss, you didn’t!”

“Well, I didn’t actually tell her that last part, but I wanted to.”

“I have to admit, Miss Agnes is right about one thing,” said Faith softly. “Having a child without a husband is no laughing matter. I should know.”

Suddenly some of the fun seemed to go out of the chase. Jake had a few memories of his own along those lines. The day he’d heard about that damned sperm bank, he’d decided that Tex Baker, the rich son-of-a-bitch who’d founded it, had to be the world’s biggest hypocrite.

“Oh, I know that,” said Priss, and the accent that had irritated Jake before didn’t seem quite so irritating. “Look, I know you probably didn’t go to the sperm bank, Faith—at least, that’s what everybody’s saying.”

Faith made a strangled sound in her throat. Honey, you’ve got all the tact of a cactus, Jake thought, amused, while Priss blundered on. “But if you ever want to tell somebody who the father is, you know I won’t tell a soul, because I never gossip.” Jake rolled his eyes. “And if you need some help in the shop when your time comes, you know you can count on me.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that. Beth’ll be in school then, so I probably could use some help.”

Guilt was eating on him. He hadn’t come in here to eavesdrop on a private conversation. A simple pick-up, that was all he’d had in mind. He ought to get the hell out of here, only his boots didn’t seem to want to move in the direction of the door.

“And, Prissy—don’t take this the wrong way—but Miss Agnes is right. Taking a course in landscaping is one thing—I think you’re real smart to do it—but having a baby is something else again.”

“Oh, for mercy’s sake, Faith, I thought you, at least, would understand.”

“Priss, I do understand, but—”

“No, you don’t! You’re just like everybody else in this stinky old town! You think I can’t do anything! You think just because Daddy owned—”

Breaking off, she stood, and Jake got his first close-up, head-on look at her face. It was gorgeous. It was also red. Even as he watched, a freshet of tears spilled over her thick, dark lashes, leaving a faint trail of navy blue down her soft, freckled cheek.

Jake wanted in the worst kind of way to offer her the comfort of his arms, his lips, and any other body part she might possibly make use of. He was heartily ashamed of having listened in on a private conversation just so he could find a way to get into a woman’s jeans. That was a new low, even for him. But then, he’d never pretended to be a gentleman.

In Jake’s haste to get out of the Baby Boutique without embarrassing either himself or the two women, one of his big, booted feet shot out in the aisle just as the haystack blonde rushed past, and she tripped over it.

With a little deft footwork, he caught her before she could fall, but in the process, his hat was knocked to the back of his head, his knees bumped against hers, and he couldn’t help himself. Right there beside a herd of woolly white polar bears, Jake squashed her up against him, belt buckle to belt buckle, and looked smack-dab into the biggest, shimmeriest pair of whiskey-brown eyes he’d ever seen on any woman.

“I do beg your pardon, ma’am…Miss Priss,” he said, feeling like he’d been caught peeping in a window. Inhaling a powdery scent that smelled like ripening corn only sweeter, he involuntarily tightened his arms, pressing every soft curve as close as he dared considering they were in a public place in broad daylight

Faith came rushing up, all breathless and flustered. “Priss, are you all right?”

“Hmm?”

“This is—I mean, have you two met? Priss? Jake?”

A slow grin kindled in Jake’s gray eyes. “I reck’n you might say we’ve run into each other a time or two.”

Miss Pricilla Jones, who lived out on Willow Creek and was studying to be a landscaper, was blinking real hard when Jake turned his attention back to her. He promptly lost his train of thought, if he’d ever had one, as he watched her mascara melt and trickle down her velvety cheek.

“I got mascara on your hat brim,” she said in a breathless little burst of apology. “I’m sorry. I hope it’s not an expensive one. I’ll buy you a new one if you’ll tell me what size you wear. Or maybe I could just give you the money?”

It was Jake’s favorite hat. He’d bought it after his first big commission, paying a hundred and fifty bucks for it. It had taken him all these years to get it broken in. “What, this old wreck?” he heard himself scoffing. “Heck, I only wear it to muck out the stalls.”

She drew in a deep, shuddering breath and Jake stepped back, reluctantly putting enough space between them so that she wouldn’t realize how she was affecting him. It was downright embarrassing for a man his age not to have any more control over his body.

While her friend looked on, her expression one of concern mixed with just a tad of speculation, Priss blinked away the excess moisture. “Yes, well…if you’re sure.” She wiped a bangle-laden arm across her face, smearing her eye makeup even more, then she reached up with two frosted-pink-tipped fingers and rubbed the stain deeper into the beaver felt that he’d been so careful all these years not to bruise. “I heard somewhere that ginger ale was good foror maybe it was seltzer…”

Ginger ale? Seltzer?

The lady didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Jake, but who was keeping score? With her haystack hair tumbling down around her neck, a few strands tangling in her gaudy silver and turquoise earrings, she was sort of a mess, but she was just the kind of mess he liked. He’d have offered her five thousand bucks on the spot to go home with him and let him help her celebrate her birthday, only he didn’t know how to bring up the subject without letting on he’d been eavesdropping.

Trying to think of something clever to say that would impress her with what an honorable, upstanding guy he was, he followed her outside to her peach-colored Caddy convertible, tipped his ruined hat and reluctantly opened her door.

She smiled. She had the kind of smile that would derail a locomotive, even with the little smudge of frosty pink lipstick on her left incisor.

A customer approached, and Faith, who’d been hovering in the doorway of the shop, turned, took one last worried look over her shoulder, and reluctantly went inside. Jake tried to think of some way to prolong the moment, and then decided maybe it was just as well he couldn’t. Priss was evidently into babies and stuff like that, whereas Jake was a man who valued his freedom more than just about anything else. And men who valued their freedom learned pretty fast to steer clear of broody women.

Regretfully, he watched as she slid her shapely rear end across the sun-baked leather seat. Wincing, she gave him another trembly little smile and wiggled her fingers at him. He noticed that she wore three rings, but none on her third finger, left hand.

And Eddie, whoever he was, had run off to marry another woman. Jake figured the jerk must’ve been neutered before puberty, else he’d never have let this one get away.

He watched the Caddy roar off down Main Street and thought about what he’d learned. For all the good it was ever going to do him. Her name was Pricilla Jones. She had an expensive address. She was studying to be a landscaper. She liked stuffed animals, but she didn’t have kids.

And she was thinking of going to a damned sperm bank!

Leave her be, Jake told himself, knowing there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of that. The lady was just a mite weird, but it was a classy kind of weird. He had a feeling she might be one of those high-maintenance women. He’d had himself one of those once. It had taken him years to recover. Some lessons a man learned the hard way.

And some he never learned at all.

Feeling frustrated and slightly depressed, which was a lousy combination, he headed for the parking lot behind the hardware store where he’d left his truck. A few minutes later he was headed north, certain of only three things. Number one, that women were nuts—the haystack blonde a little more so than most.

Number two, a man was plumb out of his natural element in any store that called itself a boutique.

And number three—no matter how risky it was, sooner or later the lady in the tight jeans and the pink plastic sandals was going to wind up in his bed—bangles, mascara and all.

At age thirty-five, Jake Spencer knew himself pretty well, both shortcomings and “longcomings.” He had no illusions left, and damned few ideals. What he did have was a good, solid reputation as an honest horse broker, a modest spread a few miles north of New Hope, and a powerful allergy to rich, society types.

He had both a short-term goal and a long-term goal. His short-term goal concerned the haystack blonde, and he figured he’d made a pretty good beginning. They were now on speaking terms.

As for his long-term goal, that was easy. By the time he reached forty, which was how old his old man had been when Jake was sired, he was going to be richer, meaner and one hell of a lot tougher than the old bastard had ever been.

So far, he was right on schedule on all three counts.

It was the same man. Priss had seen him around town several times, but never close enough to get a real good look. He was the kind of man a woman couldn’t help but notice. Lean, lanky, with shoulders wide enough to fill a door frame and a way of walking that set loose all kinds of wicked ideas. Before she’d even met him, she’d had this tingly, excited feeling whenever she happened to see him.

Of course, he was only a wrangler. Her father would roll over in his grave if he knew she was even thinking thoughts like that about any man, much less a wrangler.

But mercy, it had certainly been a learning experience. She knew now why she’d never been able to get real steamed up over Eddie Turner, even though they’d gone together for months and she had let him kiss her with his mouth open and even unbutton her blouse.

Tripping over the wrangler’s feet had been the high point in an otherwise dismal birthday. At least this time, she thought with amusement, nobody could accuse her of trying to buy friends the way they had when she’d thrown that birthday barbecue in the park last year and invited the whole town. Nobody but Faith and her mother had come until Sue Ellen had brought a handful of men over from the café, which was real sweet of her, since Sue Ellen was in the food business herself.

Priss had ended up donating the cake and barbecue to the volunteer fire department, but evidently the barbecue had sat out too long in the hot July sun. Five of the firemen had gotten sick. The whole thing had been written up in the paper, with a picture of her wearing that wretched white dress she’d worn to the debutante ball in Dallas when she was eighteen.

She’d been embarrassed to show her face around town for weeks.

But even that wasn’t as bad as the party her mother had given her when she was twelve. Nora Barrington had invited six girls and six boys—sons and daughters of the town’s most prominent citizens. Four had shown up. The two girls had huddled together the whole time and whispered, ignoring Priss, while the boys had tossed food and paper hats into the swimming pool and made nasty remarks about her bosoms, which had just started to grow.

But the crowning blow had come when she’d overheard Rosalie, their housekeeper, telling the cook that the beautiful Cartier watch her parents had given her for her birthday had been selected, ordered and gift-wrapped by her mother’s social secretary. “Miz B., she didn’t even take the time to look at the thing,” the housekeeper had confided. “I’ll tell you the God’s honest truth, Ethel. That poor little young’un puts me in mind of them puppies folks are always dumpin’ out on the side of the road, hopin’ somebody’ll come along and adopt ’em. Lord help the poor baby the first time some no-good man comes along and offers her a pat on the head. She’ll be a-lickin’ his boots from then on.”

Furious and embarrassed, Priss had flushed her new watch down the toilet, which had ruined the watch and stopped up the plumbing. As punishment, she’d been left behind when her parents went to Europe three days later.

Not that they had ever taken her on any of their other trips, but this time they had promised.

Well, she was twenty-nine years old now, not twelve. She still had Rosalie, even if both her parents were gone. As she’d never really known them, she’d never really been able to mourn them. She was old enough now to stop wishing for the moon. She was who she was, and if people didn’t like her, that was just too bad, because she certainly tried her best to be friendly to everyone she ever met.

Including the man she’d nearly mowed down in Faith’s place. My mercy, Priss thought, he was really something. Even better up close than he was from a distance. And the way he had looked at her—as if she were a great big bowl of Heavenly Hash ice cream…

The sky had turned dark and threatening. Lightning flashed west of town. Priss tried to remember whether or not she’d left anything out on the balcony that rain would hurt, but she couldn’t concentrate. She was too busy thinking about the way Jake Spencer had made her feel. He’d been so handsome…

Well, no, he hadn’t. Not really. He was too hard, too weathered, to be truly handsome. He had smelled of horse, hay, hair tonic and sweat, and as Priss pulled over to the curb to run into the drugstore for some fingernail adhesive, she had to smile, wondering if he knew how much more appealing the smell of honest sweat was than the overpowering colognes some men wore.

She was in the drugstore almost fifteen minutes—Miss Ethel was looking for denture cleanser and Priss helped her compare prices. Finally back in the car and heading south on Oak Street, she switched on the radio, which was set to her favorite country music station. Clint Black was singing about his last broken heart and it occurred to her that the cowboy in the Baby Boutique sort of looked like an older, taller, tougher version of Clint Black. He had the same kind of crinkly-eyed smile.

She wondered if the cowboy could sing. Wondered, too, if he’d felt the same jolt of static electricity she had felt when he caught her. Mercy, it had been powerful, but it was probably due to the storm.

Still, she wouldn’t mind getting to know him better. Not that there was much chance of that. He looked like a wrangler, and wranglers usually hung out at Sue Ellen’s Diner or Little Joe’s Café, which was actually more of a saloon. Sue Ellen had better food, except for the chili, but Joe had a pool table in the back room.

Priss ate at Antonio’s, when she ate out at all, which meant she probably wouldn’t run into the wrangler again, because wranglers didn’t patronize Antonio’s.

Before heading home, Pnss stopped by the hospital to drop off the toys she’d purchased at Faith’s boutique, in case any of the children were asleep when she came back after supper to read bedtime stories. Toys and stories would probably be too much all at once. She had learned a lot about children in the year and a half she’d been volunteering in the children’s ward.

Next, she went by the supermarket to pick up some frozen dinners she could microwave while Rosalie was away visiting her sister.

Finally turning off onto Willow Creek Road, she sniffed the air and decided someone must be burning stumps. Probably taking advantage of the rain that was about to come pouring down, if the sky was anything to go by. The lightning and thunder was almost constant now. Wouldn’t you just know? Priss thought. It was the crowning touch for a birthday that had gone wrong from the moment she had lost a fingernail trying to get a new tube of toothpaste out of the box.

Feeling a little bit sad, a little bit let down, Priss told herself that her birthday wasn’t over yet. She still had this evening and the children. Maybe next year she’d be reading stories to her own baby.

Seeing a fire engine coming toward her, she pulled over, even though the siren wasn’t sounding. Stump burning. She’d been right, then. Probably got out of bounds and started a grass fire.

Jake was halfway home, his mind partly on the upcoming sale in Dallas, partly on the haystack blonde, when a dispatcher’s voice on the scanner snagged his attention.

“Fire out at Willow Creek Arms is under control.”

Willow Creek?

“New Hope, head on over to a house fire at the corner of Matlock and Guntrum. Billy, stay there with the pumper truck to wet down any hot spots. South Fork’s sending—”

There was a burst of static and a few more remarks, but Jake had stopped listening. Pulling a U-turn in the middle of a two-lane highway, he downshifted and roared back toward town without giving a second thought to Petemoss and the rest of the crew, who were waiting for the concrete, re-bar and forming plywood in the back of the truck to get started on the foundation of the barn extension.