“I don’t know.” Rachel twisted her mug on the table. “Everyone else swore this was the way to sell product, that teenage girls see themselves this way.”
“Did you, when you were a teenager?”
“Me?” She laughed, rueful. “No. I just worried that I’d keep growing taller forever until I was a giant, crushing boys underfoot.”
“You don’t seem that tall to me.”
“That’s because you are a giant.”
Chapter 3
Rachel hadn’t thought she could relax after telling the story of her humiliating defeat in New York, but Wyatt’s quiet acceptance worked a miracle. Where her family had been loud, indignant and supportive of her stand, he’d simply said, “You did the right thing” and invited her to go to the hardware store then and there.
The hardware store was familiar to her from a thousand trips with her dad, brothers, uncles and cousins, not to mention Gramps, over the years. But she’d never walked its aisles with a man unrelated to her.
It seemed as if the whole town turned out to view the event. She encountered one brother, one uncle, three cousins and Gramps. All of them eyed Wyatt with open speculation.
“I’m helping him prepare for the photo shoot,” she said, exasperated. By their expressions, you’d think she and Wyatt were about to elope.
Not that her extended family seemed unhappy with the idea. On the contrary.
“If there’s anything we can do to help…”
Rachel took advantage of those offers, ruthlessly.
“My r-r-rosebushes?” Uncle Theo stuttered.
“They’re still in flower. I’ve seen them. Bundle them up, pop them in your van the day of the shoot, and Wyatt will have some instant color in his garden.”
“There’s no need,” Wyatt began.
“The roses are in pots. We’ll line them up at the bottom of the porch. Thursday, Uncle Theo.” She gave him a quick hug. “Say hi to Auntie Teresa.”
As her uncle ambled away, tugging at his baseball cap, she turned to Wyatt. “Is that everything?”
He cast a longing look at the power tools department, but he withstood temptation better than the men in her family. “I think so. Paint, new brushes, cord for a clothesline.”
“Trust me. An old-fashioned clothesline at the back of the house will be perfect. It’ll distract from the lack of flowers and we can hang a couple of bright colored blankets on it—”
“My blankets are gray.”
Of course they were. “I’ll borrow some.”
“About that.” They approached the checkout. “Are you sure your family don’t mind us borrowing half their houses?”
She laughed at his exaggeration. He might be a tad shy, but he was funny once he got comfortable with a person. “They love it. It gives them an excuse to nosy in and see what I’m doing.” She stopped abruptly. “Do you mind? I never thought. If you prefer your privacy…my family can be overwhelming.” And she couldn’t believe, after so long away and thinking she was fine with big city indifference, how much she loved that interfering-caring.
“I like it,” he said simply.
She pressed his arm. “Me, too.”
Wyatt found he liked shopping with Rachel.
She made everything an adventure and she knew everyone. It was hard to believe that she’d been away in New York for years and that he was the local. People greeted her by name, asked after her family and included him with sly twinkles.
Was it possible the whole town was match-making, hoping to keep Rachel here?
If so, he was happy to help. He wanted her to stay, too, and he’d only known her a day.
“Red or orange?” she asked, holding up readymade curtains.
“Red.”
“Nice and cozy,” she agreed.
He took the curtains from her and tucked them under his arm. Within a few minutes, he was also carrying a curtain rod.
Rachel giggled. “You look like a medieval castle guard. Halt! Who goes there?”
He grinned down at her. “Choose your cushions.”
She gathered up an armful in shades of red and green with all sorts of different patterns. “And a throw rug. No, an old blanket will be better. We don’t want to look too staged.”
“You’re the boss.” He’d have agreed to anything, just to hear that “we”.
Rachel was having fun. She hadn’t expected to. The hardware store was fine, but in the homewares store they ran into her old high school nemesis, Lianne, still blonde and perky and all-too-evidently ready to mock-sympathize with Rachel’s job loss.
Except it was hard to pity and patronize a woman when a big, gorgeous guy like Wyatt stood beside her giving Lianne and her perky charms no more than a polite, monosyllabic greeting. Rachel edged closer to him. She knew it was wrong, but giving the impression that she was part of a couple made her inner teenager absolutely gleeful.
Lianne flounced away.
“Friend of yours?” Wyatt asked.
Rachel snorted. “Hardly.” She hadn’t moved away and they stood really close. She looked up into his smiling brown eyes. “I think we’ve earned lunch. My treat. I want a burger with everything.”
“Sounds good, but I’ll pay.”
“Wy-att.”
“I’m paying.”
He did, too, even in the midst of the cheerful chaos of tables pushed together at the diner so that a heap of her friends and family could eat together. It started off casual, but more and more arrived.
“Sorry,” she mouthed to Wyatt as her cousin Orwell told the story of his hour-long failed career as a rodeo clown, complete with gestures. Orwell even got up from the table to show how he’d been flung by a steer.
Wyatt smiled at her, obviously unfazed by the noise and craziness.
He drove her home—back to his house—still mostly silent, but responding to her random chatter about her family and friends’ news, and to things they needed to do before the photo shoot, companionably enough.
“The roses will definitely help,” she said as they arrived. The front of the house was too stark. “And you need two chairs on the porch.” Her brain skipped to another issue, the bare living room window that added to the stark effect. “I’ll take the curtains home and wash them.”
“I have a washing machine and a dryer.”
“We don’t want them shrinking. Sometimes when they’re out on discount, they’ll have a flaw like that. It’s safer if I do it.”
The dogs ambled up to greet them.
Rachel patted them absently. “I’ll bring the curtains over tomorrow afternoon. That’ll give me a chance to look over Gramps’s attic first.”
“All right.”
She smiled at him. “You’re very agreeable. Tell me if you have other plans.”
“You’re doing me the favor. If you do decide on some furniture from Alan’s, let me know. I don’t want you trying to carry it down from the attic.”
“Don’t worry. I plan to use your muscles.” She blushed. “To move furniture.” She blushed harder at Wyatt’s pleased, masculine grin. “I’ll go now. See you, tomorrow.”
The old car started with a cough and a roar, and she bounced away down the driveway on its soggy suspension.
For a scrupulously tidy house, there was a lot to do to bring it up to photo shoot perfection. Rachel made lists and worked hard. She also checked whether the shoot would be confined to the living room and possibly the kitchen, or whether the journalist and photographer might range further.
“I don’t mind where they go,” Wyatt said. He thought about it, yellow paint dripping off his brush. “Not my bedroom. I don’t want that in a national magazine.”
Nor did Rachel. “We’d better tidy the bathroom, just in case, but they should stay in the living room and kitchen.” She concentrated on her self-imposed task, stenciling in a lighter gray pattern over the dark gray flat-pack cupboard doors. Just the border of light gray with a pattern of oak leaves in the top right corner would add character to th
e conventional, cheap and practical kitchen.
“What do I need to do to the bathroom?”
She laughed. “Wyatt, you have nerves of steel. Any other man would ask that question with dread in his voice.”
“I’m enjoying this. It feels like the house is coming alive. Becoming a home.”
The beautiful compliment filled her with joy.
It had been a busy few days. She’d worked with Wyatt on so many things that sprucing up the kitchen had gotten pushed down the list. There’d been furniture to collect from Gramps’s attic, and they had an early dinner with him, too. Then the weekend brought her family and neighbors, all offering treasures to make Wyatt’s bare house a home. Some were borrows, many were gifts. She’d been busy chatting, visiting, choosing and polishing.
Wyatt had appeared overwhelmed at the generosity.
The town evidently welcomed the chance to show him that he was one of their own. Like her, they responded to his genuine niceness.
In amongst it all, though, he’d managed to put up the clothesline she’d requested, move in the furniture she’d selected from his workshop and continue his amazing work—the reason for all this activity.
“It reflects you,” she said to him. “A strong house that’ll keep its people safe.”
He stared at her a minute, then grounded his paintbrush. “Rachel.”
Her phone rang.
“Birdhouse! That had better be Mrs. Haughton.” She snatched up her cell, not bothering to check caller ID. “Hello?”
Wyatt picked up his brush again.
Rachel was pursuing a birdhouse he’d made a couple of years ago for Mrs. Haughton. She wanted one to hang on the oak tree on the far side of the house and he’d mentioned that he’d made a birdhouse resembling a gothic mansion two years ago for Mrs. Haughton’s retirement from the real estate agency. Now Rachel was determined to borrow it.
“Mr. Trimm!” Rachel’s voice squeaked. She scrambled up from the kitchen floor, crumpling the drop cloth.
Wyatt hadn’t heard that note of panic and shock from her before. He started forward.
She flapped a hand at him.
Stop? Wait? Fetch a pen? He couldn’t tell. He stopped.
“Come into the office?” She drew a deep breath, her eyes on Wyatt. “I can’t. When you fired me I came home to visit family in Texas.”
“Texas!”
Wyatt heard the muffled squawk through the phone.
Rachel winced. But then she showed her strength. Her voice went cool and steely, gaining something of a New York snap. “Of course I came home. I worked through the last two Christmases. I wanted to see my family.”
The voice on the phone muttered something. Probably something soothing and fake. The muttering continued.
Rachel’s posture softened, re-settled.
Wyatt practiced reading body language so he could replicate its lines in his sculptures. His fists clenched as he read Rachel’s stance shifting from shock and resistance to receptiveness.
She cast him an uncertain look, then headed out the back door.
Cold paint soaked through his right jeans leg. He swiped at it with a rag, smearing it.
The phone call had to be from her old boss at the New York advertising agency. Wyatt was pretty sure the man had realized how good Rachel was at her work, and wanted her back. The question was, would she go?
Her career was important to her.
He remembered how passionately she’d defended the role of advertising.
Through the window, he could see her pacing along the fence as she spoke on the phone. On the other side of the fence, Jezebel trailed along. Rachel had won that suspicious donkey’s heart with a mix of oats and molasses, and nose rubs. If Rachel left, Jezzy would miss her.
So would Wyatt.
Determinedly, he resumed painting. A man had to have some self-respect. He didn’t want her to return, see his lack of progress, and realize he’d been watching her. So he painted the patch of wall near the window where he could watch her, casually.
He saw her end the conversation, stuff her phone in a jeans pocket and rub Jezebel’s nose.
She stood at the fence a while before walking inside. “That was my boss, ex-boss. He wants me to return.”
“You’re good at your job.”
Her smile was beautiful and wry. “There’s that, and there’s the fact that Neroli refused to work with Charles, who took over her account from me. Neroli truly hated his idea of using sexy teenage models to sell her products. They ended up whipping out my original campaign, which she approved.” A pause. “On the condition that I run it.”
“Will you?”
“They didn’t tell her they’d fired me. They said I was sick, off with the flu.”
He wondered if she’d even heard his question.
Her gaze was distant. Perhaps she was already back in New York.
“You should work for people who value you.” And that wasn’t just his self-interest talking. She needed to be appreciated. Everyone did.
“Mr. Trimm offered me a pay rise and a bonus if Neroli signs off on the campaign.” She focused on him. Her eyes were clear gray, honest and confused. “I don’t know what I’ll do. I feel vindicated. I believe in Neroli’s products and would like to work with her to promote them. New York has an energy all of its own, and yet…Texas is special, too.”
They stared at one another across the kitchen with its drop cloths and smell of paint, the materials she used in stenciling and the sudden intrusion of Sunny, whining at the tension in the air.
Rachel’s phone rang. “Hello? Mrs. Haughton!” Relief in her voice. “I’ve been trying to reach you. It’s about your birdhouse.”
Chapter 4
Gramps’s old car swayed and wobbled as Rachel drove too fast around a corner on her way home from Mrs. Haughton’s. She eased off the accelerator, grimacing at how dangerously emotional turmoil impacted her driving. She risked a glance over her shoulder, but the birdhouse remained upright, well-wrapped in a tarp and seat-belted into place on the backseat.
Mrs. Haughton had been thrilled to contribute her birdhouse to the photo shoot project.
If only Rachel was half as thrilled about the offer to return to her old job with a pay rise and a bonus, and the tantalizing near-promise of a promotion.
Part of her was thrilled. Part of her was exuberant, jubilant and triumphant. That part of her wished she could have recorded Mr. Trimm’s conversation and played it to Mabel so that the whole town learned that Rachel wasn’t a washed-up dreamer, a Miss-Too-Big-For-Her-Boots. No, she was a respected professional, on the first rungs of becoming a high-powered advertising executive.
Only…where Mr. Trimm had evidently anticipated her gleeful acceptance of his offer, she hadn’t been able to take it. She’d asked for time to consider things.
Six foot two things like Wyatt Allenjo.
Things like, was it possible to fall in love in a week? She’d not previously have believed it, but there was no doubting that she very much wanted to see where their attraction might lead them.
There were other things, too. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her friends and family, the town and the Texas spirit of freedom and independence. She liked breathing in clean air and listening to country sounds rather than the blare of traffic and people. Jezebel the donkey was noisy, but nothing compared to New York cabs.
But New York was where she’d achieve the dream she’d had since she was fourteen. The dream in which helping others to promote their best elements earned her success and acclaim, made her wealthy and envied, and she lived happy ever after.
Alone?
“Frogs’ feathers,” she swore gently. Being career-focused and ambitious had been the center of her life for so long that these alien feelings frightened her. Was she attracted to Wyatt because she’d been rejected by New York? Now that New York wanted her back, would her feelings for him fade?
If she stayed in Bideer would she grow bitter and resent
ful of chances not taken?
She walked into her family home, into the heart of it, the kitchen. “Mom, what should I do?”
“I’m sorry, Wyatt.” Rachel hesitated in his spotless kitchen with its newly painted yellow walls and stenciled cupboards. “I should have finished the stenciling before I left, yesterday. I didn’t mean for you to add it to your work. You’re busy enough. It looks lovely though.” She smiled uncertainly.
He didn’t smile back. He looked grim this morning.
“I brought onions.” She placed two on the counter, like a peace offering. “I’ll slice them and pop them in bowls of water, and they’ll take the paint fumes out of the air.”
“Thanks.” He stood, immovable, a dog on either side of him.
“The birdhouse is in the car. I’ll bring it onto the porch if you don’t mind hanging it?”
“I’ll get it.”
She watched him walk out, and sighed.
Beau pushed a cold, wet and friendly nose into her hand.
“Yeah, not a good day.” She patted the dog.
Wyatt placed the birdhouse on the porch and as she crouched to unwrap it, his home phone rang.
“Excuse me.”
She listened to his boots strike the wooden floorboards, then the cessation of the phone ringing. She couldn’t hear his conversation, though. He and she needed to talk, although what she’d say when she didn’t know her own mind…maybe they shouldn’t talk. But she missed his friendly warmth and the sense that she could say anything to him and be understood.
The tarp fell away and the birdhouse stood revealed. It was a fantastical gem, a sly mockery of the grandiose houses built in the late 1800s by timber barons to show off their wealth. Rather than paint it, he’d used different timbers and stains to add color. It would be perfect, dangling at the edge of the porch.
“Rachel, that was Mikal.” Wyatt sounded freaked.
“Your agent?”
A distracted nod. “He says the journalist mislaid my phone number, so called him. They’ve changed their plans. The photo shoot is this afternoon!”
The Texas Kisses Collection Page 14
