Meeting Her Match

by Debra Clopton

  By the time he’d made his getaway from the posse at church who wanted to introduce him to all the single ladies, almost half an hour had passed.

  Now, as he parked his truck, Sheri came out of the house. She came to an abrupt halt when she saw him getting out of his truck. She bristled instantly. She’d changed into a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a T-shirt that accentuated her slenderness. The look she leveled on him said in no uncertain terms that she was not happy to find him in her yard.

  He couldn’t blame her.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Yup, she wasn’t happy to see him. “Look, I know we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot—”

  “That’s putting it mildly, cowboy.”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute, trying to gauge the best way to go about this. After all, he wasn’t known for his tact. He was distracted when a slight breeze ruffled her hair, blowing a strand loose from where she had it tucked behind her ear. He watched as it landed across her lips, and she reached up and drew it away. Sheri Marsh had a beautifully shaped mouth. Wide and expressive, the edges tilting up so that she appeared always on the verge of a smile. Of course he knew she wasn’t because all it took was his gaze lifting to her frosty eyes to know she was not happy. He shifted his weight from one boot to the other, feeling as if he were at a standoff with a stubborn mare.

  Impatient, she brushed past him on her way to the table beneath a huge oak tree. It had flower beds all around it, and she’d decorated the thing with dangling do-dads that twisted and sparkled in sunlight. She even had chandelier crystals hanging up there. They looked like diamond earrings, reflecting the sunlight. He had to wonder what would possess a woman to decorate a tree like this, but he had to admit they looked sort of pretty.

  Still ignoring him, Sheri picked up a small canvas bag from the table and shot him a disdainful glance. “You can leave now. I’m not in the mood for a fight.”

  “Look, I came to see if you’re okay. You seemed upset when you left church.” Light from the crystals danced across her skin. Pink and blue prisms spotted her skin and the ground around her feet.

  She pinned him with a glare that might easily have started a grass fire. “Why exactly would my state of mind bother you?” she snapped, placing the strap of the canvas bag around her neck and shoulder. Eyes glittering in challenge she walked over and laid her hand on a rung of the ladder that was leaning against the back side of the tree.

  “Well, I—” he started, unable to take his eyes off her. What was she doing?

  “Look, I admit I butted my nose in where it didn’t belong that first day, and I trespassed on your property yesterday. I got you tossed off your horse like a bean bag. As far as I’m concerned, the only person I’d discuss my state of mind with would be a friend. And I’d hardly say that the conversations we’ve had so far would lead us to say we’re friends. So leave.”

  Pace deserved that. He knew it, so he took it, though he didn’t like it. “Look—”

  “No, you look,” she said vehemently. “So far, my day, my week, my summer has pretty much bombed. Big-time. Get it? So, we’re done. I need to be alone.”

  The angry declaration startled him so much that he was dazed for a moment. One minute she was on the ground and the next she’d scrambled up the ladder. When she reached the top, she paused for a moment then grasped a limb for stability and stepped carefully out onto the branch above him.

  “What are you doing?” He automatically held his arms out to catch her if she slipped.

  She ignored him, reached into the bag hanging at her hip and pulled out a crystal. As he watched, she looped her arm more securely around a tree limb then tied the string to the limb and let the crystal dangle down among the branches. Pace kept his mouth shut, afraid to disturb her for fear she might get angrier, lose her balance and fall.

  “Look,” he said finally. “We don’t get along. That’s obvious. But I had to come by and apologize for my bad behavior.”

  She didn’t say anything, but at least she’d let him speak his peace. He forced himself to go on, praying she didn’t fall as she stepped farther out on the limb. He didn’t know why he was so nervous. From the look of the sparkling things dangling from the tree this wasn’t her first time up there.

  “Look. Is it too much to ask to start over?”

  She grew still for a moment, her gaze darting to him then away. She surprised him when she changed directions and clambered back to the ladder. He was relieved when she climbed down to solid ground.

  They were standing so close as she moved toward him that he could smell the scent of apples in her hair. Her eyes were golden, like clear amber as she lifted her chin and met his gaze. “We can start over only if you’ll be my boyfriend.”

  “What is it with you trying to force me to be your boyfriend? We—” he started, then stopped. He almost said they don’t know each other. “I don’t get it. You don’t know me.”

  “I need someone who’s not looking to get married, yet I need someone the posse will believe I might want to marry.”

  “Do what? The posse?” Pace stared at her blankly. Maybe she fell out of the tree before. Maybe that was what all of this was about. She climbed up there, fell out, hit her head and was now in serious need of a doctor. “You feelin’ all right?”

  He wasn’t. The woman did things to his pulse rate standing this close. He took a step back, needing the space to clear his head. He came here for a reason and things had not gone the way he saw them going.

  She stomped to the flower bed and stared down at the painted rabbit lounging in the flowers. It was holding a sign that said Relax and Smell the Flowers! From the set of her shoulders Pace figured that wasn’t happening anytime soon. He kept his mouth shut, waiting to see what she said next.

  “Look,” she said at last. “The last thing I want is them fixing me up with anyone. That’s what they’re trying to do. That guy, the one you saw me talking to at church, that’s their pick. You heard them talking about me. Stop laughing. This is not funny.”

  Pace couldn’t help it. He’d started chuckling. “I thought they were joking.”

  “Nooo. They are serious, and that’s why I need your help. I took one look at you and knew you’d be a man who would understand wanting people to leave you alone.”

  She had him on that one, despite the fact that he was trying to change that. He did hate people interfering with his personal life.

  “Look, I get where you’re coming from, but I can’t do it.”

  She studied him, her eyes unblinking. “Just two dates. That’s all I need. Believe me, the rest can be left to their own outrageous imaginations. Seriously. Lunch or dinner at the diner and maybe the rodeo on Labor Day.”

  “Is lying that easy for you?” Pace asked.

  “No. It’s not like that. Why is it that they can work their hardest to trick a couple of people into falling in love, but if I want to thwart their efforts it’s deception? You just don’t understand.”

  “Sheri, I can’t speak for them. I can only speak for myself. Do they actually lie in this matchmaking that they do?”

  Her brows knit in concentration. “Well, no,” she said at last.

  “What you’re proposing is me pretending to be your boyfriend. That’d be an outright lie on my part.”

  “So you won’t do it?”

  Pace felt sorry for her and disappointed and irritated at the same time. He could only shake his head.

  “They’re going to come after you, too. I’m just trying to get it across to them that not all single people want to get married. They should respect that.”

  “If someone doesn’t want to get married, then they don’t get married. It’s simple.”

  “You are sooo naive.”

  “But honest. Sheri, a person has to have values.”

  Her amber eyes darkened. “Well, I guess now you know the worst thing about me.” She spun and started back up the ladder. Pace watched her and wished there was something more
he could say, but he wasn’t good with words.

  Especially around Sheri. He kept his mouth shut and left her to hang around up in her tree, praying that the Lord would watch out for her.

  Monday afternoon the sun was baking everything, including Pace and the mustang he was working. Lifting his arm he swiped the sweat off his brow with the sleeve of his shirt and continued to work the horse.

  It was all about guiding Cinder to take the best deal she was offered. Pace worked patiently with the mare, running the rope over her body, wrapping it around the horse from her halter, down around her rump, and tugging gently so that she could choose to turn out and away from the pull. Cinder sought escape exactly the way Pace wanted her to. The horse had a mind, and a natural instinct to escape. Like people, if a horse thought the path it chose was its own idea, then it complied more readily. It made for a calmer, gentler horse when all was said and done. It wasn’t always easy. Every horse was different. Temperaments and personalities made every training session a challenge.

  Pace’s job was to figure out each horse and work with its strengths and its weaknesses. It took concentration on his part, and today he was distracted. The horse could sense it. Try as he might to keep them away, Pace’s thoughts kept drifting back to Sheri. He was good at reading animals and pretty good at reading people. Sadly, everything he’d thought about Sheri was true. She was a schemer. If there was one thing Pace couldn’t abide, it was a person who lied.

  The fact that she would consider disrespecting Norma Sue and Esther Mae blew his mind, but Miss Adela—that was downright unthinkable. Those were the sweetest women he’d ever known, and to think that she thought she needed to teach them a lesson… Well, she’d lost a marble or two. That was for certain.

  To be fair, Clint had told him about the ad campaign the three ladies had come up with to get women to move to Mule Hollow to find husbands. It was like an old-time mail-order bride scenario. Actually, he thought it was pretty smart. It was all on the up-and-up. It just didn’t make sense to him that Sheri would think the ladies were scheming to fix her up behind her back. Especially since there were plenty of other men and women who wanted to get married, and it was obvious Sheri was not the marrying kind.

  Why should the ladies waste their time trying to change her? Of course, he knew she could change if she wanted to. He had. She had to want it, and it was more than obvious she wasn’t interested in that.

  The mare suddenly jerked her head, pulling Pace back to his work. He pushed the thoughts of Sheri away and focused on the horse.

  The best thing he could do was stay as far away from his neighbor as possible. She represented a portion of his past he was leaving behind. There was no way in the world he was going to blow this chance to prove to the Lord that he was a changed man. Because he was, and once he adjusted to his new life everything would be fine.

  Chapter Seven

  “Come on, baby,” Sheri said, holding the key tight, listening to the engine struggle to catch hold. She was on her way to Norma Sue’s. She’d had the whole day off to think about her situation. Despite her plan going south, she wasn’t ready to give up on it. No, she liked a challenge. If there was one thing being friends with Lacy had taught her, it was to never give up.

  Lacy had called and encouraged her to come to Norma Sue’s, insisted that the Bible study would be good for her, and reminded her that there would be homemade ice cream.

  Everyone knew sweets were her weakness. Thanks to a fast metabolism, she remained fit despite her love of junk food. Growing up awkward and shy, she’d learned by watching Lacy that an outgoing personality was the calling card that drew people. Not necessarily looks, good or bad.

  She learned fast. She pushed that quiet introverted kid into the deepest recesses of her soul and plastered on a layer of confidence she didn’t always feel. It worked. As soon as she’d become the wisecracking, take-me-or-leave-me personality, her life had changed.

  Still, she sometimes felt as though she were living a lie. She forced the old doubts away and focused. How in the world had thinking about ice cream sent her chasing rabbits like that? She decided to go to the Bible study, and she was determined to use it to her own advantage.

  Okay, she was going if her car would get her there. “Come on, baby, don’t mess up on me now,” she coaxed, cranking the key again. It sputtered, gave a cough and died right there where her drive met the road. “Traitor!” she growled. She hadn’t owned a car when she and Lacy first moved to Mule Hollow so when Clint put this old ranch Jeep up for sale she’d snatched it up. It wasn’t anything fancy or new by a long shot, but it had usually carried her up and down her dirt road to town and back without a hitch. That’s all she cared about. That, and the fact that Clint let her pay him a very small amount each month so she could afford the payments. Sweet man that he was, he’d offered to give the Jeep to her, and could well afford to do so, but she’d insisted on paying him something.

  Being the half owner of a new business in an itty-bitty town wasn’t making her bank account any fatter than she was. Not that she cared too much about a robust bank account. If she’d cared about that she wouldn’t be in Mule Hollow in the first place. She was here because she’d come to help Lacy achieve her dream. Although, she’d actually fallen in love with the place, despite the part about everyone trying to run her life.

  She cranked on the key again and was rewarded with only a dull click. Resting her head on the steering wheel she groaned. Here she’d gone through all of this pep talk for nothing.

  At the growl of a diesel engine rounding the corner, her head whipped up and her attitude brightened. Pace was on his way to Norma Sue’s, too. She thought she’d heard him pass by earlier, but she must have been mistaken. After witnessing her bad mood yesterday, he would probably want nothing to do with her. She waved him down anyway.

  The instant he stopped she yanked open the passenger door and jumped inside, ignoring the fact that he didn’t look at all pleased to see her.

  “Am I glad to see you. I need a lift to Norma Sue’s. My Jeep just dropped dead at the driveway.”

  “Well, isn’t that a coincidence?” he drawled, looking at her as if she just slithered from beneath a rock.

  Sheri gaped at him. “What does that mean?”

  He studied her for a long moment, his gray eyes almost blue. “I was thinking about your scheme to scam Norma Sue and the others.”

  She gasped. “Are you saying I’m pretending to have car trouble so I can get a lift from you to Norma’s?”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  “Well, I’ll have you know that I’m not that desperate. If you don’t want to help me open the posse’s eyes to the disservice they’re doing to the happily single people of Mule Hollow, that’s your choice. That doesn’t mean I’m going to lower myself to pretend to have car trouble for the likes of you. That’s just plain lame. Give me more credit than that.”

  “Believe me, I give you lots of credit.”

  She scowled at him. “Look, I don’t understand why you’re so critical of me. I don’t know what makes you think you know me so well that you can possibly understand what makes me tick.”

  He tipped his hat back and met her defiant gaze. Despite her words, it bothered her that he thought so little of her. “Drive, please,” she snapped. “Norma Sue will be expecting us.”

  He blinked, and she braced for him to be rude. So much for the step forward they’d almost taken the day before. They just took five steps back as far as she was concerned.

  “So, how’s it going with the horse?” she said as they got on the road. She was clueless as to why she was trying to carry on a conversation with the man, but despite his surly mood she couldn’t get the picture out of her head of the gentle guy she’d seen inside the horse pen.

  “Fine.”

  “Been thrown any more?”

  “Nope.”

  “Too bad,” Sheri volleyed back and was rewarded with a laugh. Her heart almost stopped beating at the so
und. She met his eyes—his twinkling eyes. They studied each other for a long moment. Pace’s laughter died like the slow rumble of thunder after a storm, but Sheri saw it. She saw the flicker of interest in his eyes before he blinked it away.

  “You should do that more often,” she said, finding herself wondering what it was that made this man tick.

  “What?” he asked, looking back at the road as he shifted the truck’s gears.

  “Laugh. Or is it just me that you’re so guarded around? I can understand since I was awful yesterday.”

  He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. An uncomfortable silence settled between them. Sheri studied his profile, waiting on him to say something, knowing his silence was all the confirmation she needed. There was no laughter in him now. He sat staring straight ahead like a chiseled sculpture. His face was all angles and hard plains, no softness at all. She thought about his smile and how it transformed the look of him. She liked the change. Something inside her ached thinking that he didn’t approve of her. She lifted her chin.

  “Truth is, I’m not looking for what you’re looking for,” Pace said.

  “What is it that I’m looking for?” Sheri saw that his gray eyes had turned solemn.

  “You’re not looking to settle down with a husband. Obviously, you like your life like it is.” He let his gaze slide back to the terrain as they approached the road that led to Norma Sue’s house.

  Something in his words was unspoken. She saw it in his eyes before he looked away. Sheri’s eyebrows met. “Wait, am I missing something here? My wanting freedom says something bad about me?” Sheri’s fists clenched and her stomach burned suddenly.