“Mud and manure? I can live with that.”
He didn’t answer right away. “Was there something you wanted?”
What she really wanted was for him to relax around her—it would make her work a lot more pleasant. But he’d become even more guarded than before. If only she could get a glimpse of the boy he’d once been—the one whose rare smile had been the reason she and her friends had gone to the baseball games. But she sensed that if she told him, he wouldn’t believe her.
Swallowing a sigh, she answered his question. “I wanted to let you know that I’m going into town. Is there anything you need that I can bring back?”
“Not that I know of.” He turned away from whatever he was doing and faced her. “I see you found some helpers. How are they working out?”
“They’re perfect,” she answered, and then thought of something. “You didn’t have anything to do with them applying for the job, did you?”
“Nope. Didn’t need to. You never had a problem getting guys to help you.”
For a brief moment, she thought of telling him that he was wrong, but he wasn’t. She’d been blessed with a special talent for enlisting whatever help she needed.
“I suppose you’re right,” she finally answered. “But I don’t do it on purpose.”
“Never said you did. Just be careful.”
“Careful? Of what?”
“They’re boys. And you’re... Well, you’re Glory.”
She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but before she could, he’d disappeared. Turning for the big barn door, she wondered exactly what it was he remembered about her. For someone she’d barely known, even though they’d gone all through school together, he seemed to know her fairly well. Or thought he did. Had talking about the past, three nights before, been a mistake? If it had been, she was sorry. She hadn’t meant to make him uncomfortable. Maybe she should try to be more aware of his feelings, but that would require him showing some, and she wasn’t sure how to break through that wall he’d built around himself. And there was really no reason to try. Besides, she finally felt good about herself, and not because of what others thought. Why mess up a good thing?
The trip to town was quick, thanks to finding exactly what she wanted at the hardware store, and she was back at the ranch minutes before the electrician arrived. With the help of Mark and Brent, the boxes containing the light fixtures were soon upstairs in the circular hallway.
“The chandelier goes in there.” Glory pointed to the room at the top of the stairs. She was the only person who’d been in it since she’d finished the painting and papering, but this was the day she planned to unveil Dylan’s new bedroom to him. Once everything was done, anyway.
“This one first, then?” the electrician asked.
Being both eager and apprehensive about the outcome of this first and most important room, she hesitated. Considering how Dylan had refused to give her any input— “Yes, do it first,” she said.
Maybe forcing him to acknowledge her work in a positive way would bring him around. It was worth a try. How much more could he avoid her, without completely disappearing or firing her? Before she panicked that he might, she reminded herself that Erin wouldn’t let that happen. Since Dylan wasn’t cooperating, she’d been in touch with his sister about everything that was done or that she planned to do. Erin was fine with all of it.
After taking a deep breath, she followed the boys into the room to see their reaction to the work she’d done.
“Wow,” Brent whispered to Mark, only a foot away from her.
“Yeah,” Mark answered, his eyebrows raised and his eyes wide as he looked around the room.
Glory wondered if that was a bad wow or a good one, but the electrician was giving instructions to the boys, so she couldn’t ask.
“Hold it steady,” the electrician ordered as he perched high on the ladder. “These nosebleed ceilings are enough to make a grown man think twice about a lot of things.”
“That’s the charm of old houses,” she said, without thinking.
The man on the ladder looked down at her, a frown pulling at his mouth. “You wouldn’t think so if you’d had to deal with the nightmare wiring that I have. Luckily, it’s been kept fairly updated here.”
“That’s good,” she answered. “I hope the plumbing is the same. I’m thinking of updating the bath up here.”
As soon as it was out of her mouth, she wondered where it had come from. She’d had no intention of doing anything more than redecorating upstairs. But now that the idea had surfaced, it wasn’t such a bad one. She’d run it by Erin first, though.
“Who would you recommend for that kind of thing?” she asked.
“Hand me that rope, there, boys,” he called down to them. “Well, now, Miz Andrews, there’s a couple of plumbers in the area, although not all of them from Desperation.”
As he named off several people, she wished she had a paper and pencil on her. “Maybe I should just try—”
Certain she heard a noise on the stairs, she hurried to the door and into the hall. Dylan stood at the top of the stairs, one hand on the railing.
“Doesn’t anybody hear me?” he asked. “And what the devil are you doing in there?”
The last thing Glory wanted was for him to see the room before it was completely finished. Considering the string of words coming from the electrician at that moment, she had a feeling it might not be soon.
“Just having a new light fixture hung,” she said, joining him. “Is there something you need?”
“Yeah—you.”
Her breath caught and she stared at him. She felt warm, deep inside, and immediately scolded herself. If she had any sense, she’d turn around and run—
“I need you to go downstairs,” he was saying, his dark brows drawn together in a frown. “There’s some guy delivering something. I’m guessing it’s the kitchen cabinets. I need his truck out of the way, but he says he can’t move it until he’s unloaded it.”
It took a few seconds for her mind to wrap around what was happening, and when she did, she felt like a fool. “Of course,” she said, still a bit unsteady and hoping her voice didn’t wobble. “Let me get Mark and Brent. We’ll have the truck unloaded immediately.”
“Good.” He turned and bounded down the stairs, leaving her to wish she could find a way to stop the lustful thoughts she was having about him. He wasn’t interested in her. It wasn’t as though she wanted him to be. As if he ever would. Except for a few rare times, he’d been cold and unreachable—the last things she found sexy in a man.
But as she called to the boys to come help, it took more concentration than it should have to put a stop to those lustful thoughts.
* * *
FROM THE BARN, Dylan watched as the kitchen cabinets were carried inside, knowing he should be helping, but he’d been avoiding being in Glory’s vicinity as much as possible. Not that it was easy. She was there every day except Sunday, from early morning to late evening. It hadn’t taken long to learn that she brought her lunch and ate while she worked. People had called him a workaholic, but they obviously hadn’t seen her doing her job. At least he took time off for his dinner.
He was wondering what it was that drove her when his brother pulled in with the trailer behind his pickup and parked at the gate to the pasture. Dylan waited until Luke reached the barn to speak. “Any trouble?”
Luke shrugged. “A little with that one heifer, but she finally realized she was going to have to leave her baby behind, if she didn’t get in the trailer. It didn’t take long after that.”
“Yeah, I bet it didn’t.”
Turning in the direction of the house, Luke asked, “So how’s the redecorating going?”
“Is that what it’s called?”
Luke looked over his shoulder. “I guess. That’s wha
t Hayley calls it, at least.”
Dylan nodded.
“It’s going okay?”
“I don’t pay a lot of attention,” Dylan answered. It was a lie. The truth was that he’d never intended to, but he did. A lot more than he liked. He didn’t know much about decorating, but he knew at what point she was with the work in each of the rooms.
Except the upstairs bedrooms.
“She’s working upstairs,” he admitted.
Luke faced him, his eyes wide. “Yeah? What’s she doing?”
“I’ll be damned if I know. Stuff. All I know is that when Jim White was tearing out the old kitchen cabinets, she started asking questions about upstairs.”
“You’ve been up there?” Luke asked.
“Just up the stairs,” Dylan admitted. “She ordered me to stay out of the rooms.”
Luke’s eyebrows shot up. “Ordered? She ordered you?”
“Pretty much.”
Luke ducked his head. “Glory never struck me as someone who ordered other people around. It’s like she just wished it and it was done.”
When he looked up, Dylan could see that his brother was trying not to laugh. “Yeah, well, people change,” he grumbled.
Laugh was exactly what Luke did, loud and long. “That’s pretty obvious, at least where Glory’s concerned.”
“Right.” Dylan didn’t want to talk about it, and he couldn’t look his brother in the eye when he said, “Let’s get these cattle unloaded, instead of gossiping like a couple of old women.”
He noticed a look on Luke’s face that he couldn’t quite understand, but he ignored it as they went to work. After they were done unloading the cattle, the two of them went into town for lunch. Instead of going home when they finished, Dylan stopped by his brother’s house to spend some time with his nephew. He was amazed at how much Brayden had changed since Hayley had come into their lives. They were happy. Whenever he saw them all together, he’d have one of those “maybe someday” moments. Not that he thought he’d ever be a family man. He’d spent almost half his life working with his brother to make their ranch a success. And they had. He’d given up everything but ranching when his parents died, believing that was what they would have wanted. He owed them that much. There’d never been time for relaxing or even taking a woman out for dinner, but he hadn’t thought about it. Until now.
Back at his ranch again, he managed to keep busy in and around the barn until it was getting too dark to see. He knew Glory was still working, but he’d run out of things to do to keep him away from the house. There was nothing left but to go inside and clean up. If he was lucky, Glory would be too busy upstairs to know that he’d come in, and she’d be gone by the time he’d showered and changed.
The kitchen was beginning to look as if it might survive the war Glory had waged on it. While it didn’t look like the picture he’d seen, it had the same feel. Not that he needed that kind of kitchen. But now that Glory was making changes, he was beginning to think his sister had done the right thing when she’d hired Glory.
As he searched through the boxes in the dining room for a glass, he heard Glory’s footsteps on the stairs. So much for that drink he’d planned to have.
“Oh, you’re in,” she said, stepping through the doorway and into the dining room. “Are you busy? Can you spare me a minute?”
“Sure,” he answered, in spite of the wariness he felt.
Her smile was tentative and shy, and not at all like her. Then it was as if she shook it off and became the self-assured woman who’d walked into his kitchen three weeks before. “I’d like to show you something,” she said, pointing toward the stairs behind her.
“Up there?”
She nodded. “It won’t take long.”
He shrugged. “Lead the way.”
Following her up the stairs was an exercise in strength. It took everything he had not to watch her move from step to step. She always wore well-fitting jeans, but the view from just a few steps below nearly made him break out in a sweat. He was more than relieved when they reached the top and the view was more normal. Not that normal had been easy for him recently.
But being upstairs brought its own reaction. Until earlier that day, he hadn’t been on the second floor for years. He took a deep breath and focused his attention on Glory while he spoke in what he hoped was a normal voice. “What is it you wanted to show me?”
Her wavering smile reappeared. “I’ve finished the first bedroom, and I’d like to get your opinion on it.”
He couldn’t imagine why she’d need to know what he thought. After all, he hadn’t known the difference between Oyster and Creamy Ivory or even cared to. “I’ll do what I can.”
She opened the door to the room at the top of the stairs and walked in. He followed her, not knowing what to expect, but once he was inside, he could barely speak, except to say, “Wow.”
The expression on her face as she looked at him was priceless. It was clear that his approval was important. He wasn’t going to lie. There was no need to. “Wow,” he repeated.
She moved farther into the room. “That’s the same thing Brent said this morning.”
For a moment he wasn’t sure whom she was talking about. “Who?”
“Brent,” she repeated. “One of the boys who’s helping.”
His relief surprised him. “Oh, yeah. Brent.” It hadn’t escaped him that whenever he saw the boys, they were falling all over themselves to help her. “You know, Glory,” he said, feeling he should warn her about teenage boys, “a little encouragement might end up going further than you meant it to with those boys.”
She cocked an eyebrow and put a hand on her hip. “Really?”
He decided maybe this wasn’t the time to discuss the raging hormones of young boys, so he cleared his throat and searched for something to say. “So Brent said the same thing? ‘Wow’?”
She ducked her head for a second before nodding. “I’m not sure what that means, though. It’s one of those words that can have more than one meaning.”
It was his turn to nod as he looked around the room, trying to take in everything. Nothing looked the same. In fact, he wasn’t sure he was still in his house.
All but one wall was painted white, and that one was covered in a black-and-gray-and-white pattern he didn’t have a name for. The two bedside tables and a chair near the windows—where curtains of the same pattern hung—were shiny black, as was the spread on the bed. It all looked...masculine, yet sophisticated, something he wasn’t. But as the initial surprise wore off, he decided he liked it. A lot.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I’m—” He groped for the right word. “I’m impressed.”
Her eyes lit up. “You are?”
“Yeah,” he answered, taking another long look around at everything. “Yeah, I am. Really impressed.”
“It’s all yours.”
“I sure hope so.”
She took a few steps toward him. “Try out the bed.”
The word bed coming out of her mouth nearly knocked him over, and he took a step back. “That’s okay. It looks good. It really does.”
“You need to try it out,” she said, taking his arm and pulling him toward the bed.
It was all he could do to keep from groaning out loud.
“It’s brand-new,” she said as they drew closer, “and I want to make sure it’s comfortable for you.”
“I can tell by looking that it is,” he assured her as he tried to slow down their progress. It was the best he could do, under the circumstances, but it didn’t work.
She let go of his arm and sat on the bed, bouncing. “You really need to try it. If it isn’t right, I’ll get it exchanged for something else.”
He shook his head as he watched her bounce again, a teasing grin on her
face. His mistake was closing his eyes, just for a moment, because when he did, she grabbed his hand and pulled him off balance, causing him to fall on the bed next to her. “Glory,” he warned as things he shouldn’t be thinking shot through his mind.
“How does it feel?”
“It feels fine,” he said, through gritted teeth. He felt the bed beneath him move, and knew she’d caused it. “Just fine. Now—”
“You’re just saying that. Try it out right. Please?”
Nobody had ever been able to say no to Glory Caldwell. He knew it, all the guys knew it and even Glory herself was probably aware of it. But rolling over on his back could be the end of a lot of things. Instead, he pushed himself into a sitting position as he rolled over. There was no reason to let her know exactly what being near her was doing to him.
“It’s great, Glory—it really is.”
She groaned and fell backward on the bed, beside him. “Really, Dylan, you aren’t helping.”
“I’m not helping?” He not only barely realized he’d spoken, but he was leaning over her, gazing into the face that he’d dreamed about as a teenager, more than once. Without thinking, he leaned closer, ready to taste the lips turned up in a tempting, almost seductive smile.
The realization of what was happening shot through him like a bolt of lightning, and he jerked away. Beside him, she moved.
“Dylan?”
When she touched his arm, he forced himself to get to his feet, but he didn’t look at her. “It’s great, Glory—it really is. I’m sure I’ll sleep like I’ve never slept before.”
He heard a soft gasp and felt movement on the bed behind him, and then she hurried past him to the door. “I’m sorry, Dylan,” she said, her voice cracking. “I shouldn’t have— I didn’t mean to— It won’t happen again.”
He couldn’t move or even call her back. Of course it wouldn’t happen again. He couldn’t let it. What would she say if she knew what he’d done fifteen years ago?
Chapter Four
Glory climbed the stairs to the upper floor of the shop, looking for something to keep her busy. Although it was midafternoon, the light was dim, thanks to a late-spring storm, complete with lightning and thunder loud enough to wake her in the middle of the night. That was all it had taken to convince her that she should take a day off.
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