Jackpot Baby

by Muriel Jensen

  Shelly pointed her pen at her. “You’re on thin ice, lady. The million was a fluke, the baby was abandoned and I’m just doing my Christian duty, and the man…well, I don’t know what to say about him. He’s picked on me from the moment I met him, yet he kissed me in front of everyone just because he knew I’d hate it.”

  Amanda looked her over and smiled in question. “Did you?”

  Shelly and Amanda had shared confidences since girlhood. “Not entirely,” she admitted quietly. “But he’s not serious and I’m not getting involved with anyone.”

  “Why not?” Amanda leaned over the counter toward her. “I noticed him the day he arrived in town. He came in to buy Lavinia Hollis’s History of Jester, Montana and we talked a little bit. He seemed very sweet. And it was nice of him to stay the night so he could help you with the baby.”

  Shelly thought she detected a subtle teasing note in Amanda’s voice but could find no evidence of it in her wide, ingenuous eyes. Lavinia Hollis had been Finn’s mother, whose love of books and Jester had been her legacy to her son.

  “What are you doing here—taco salad, no olives?”

  “Please.”

  Shelly called the order back to Dan and hung the ticket. “Someone covering for you this afternoon so I don’t have to deliver your lunch?”

  “Yeah. Irene’s here. I just needed to get away for an hour.”

  Irene Caldwell was an older woman, a widow who lived at the boardinghouse and helped Amanda part-time.

  “Dev’s got some construction people at the Heartbreaker,” Amanda went on, “and I don’t know what’s going on but I can’t hear myself think, much less catch up on bookkeeping. Someday I’m going to take out a contract on that man.”

  “Can’t you just stick your head in the door and ask him to keep it down?”

  Amanda made a face. “I get my head anywhere near him and he bites it off. Besides, my rabies shot isn’t current.”

  Shelly shook her head sympathetically. “A bookstore and a saloon just shouldn’t share the same building. But since you have to, it seems as though the two of you could find some way to coexist instead of arguing all the time.”

  “He doesn’t want to get along. He just wants to get rid of me by buying my half of the building. And I won’t do it!”

  “Because you don’t want to, or because it would make him happy?”

  “I inherited it!” Amanda said hotly. “I shouldn’t have to leave!”

  “Okay, okay,” Shelly placated. “I just hate to see you so upset all the time. I don’t know what to do for you.”

  Amanda sighed and gave her a wistful smile. “You’ve done something without knowing it. I love the thought of a strange man giving me a passionate kiss in front of everyone. If it happened to you, maybe it can happen to me.” Then she seemed to call herself back to reality. “In the meantime, get me my taco salad and a large double mocha and I’ll be happy.”

  “Coming right up.”

  Shelly was cleaning up after closing and Dan had already left when she noticed through the window what looked like a wolf or a coyote approaching the Dumpster at the back of the coffee shop. She’d been hearing about him for a week, and saw him for the first time a few days ago when she carried out the garbage. He’d run for cover the minute she opened the door. He was acquiring a reputation around town as a menace rooting through garbage cans. The rumor was that Jester was being stalked by a wolf.

  He was gray-brown in color with the lean, hungry look of a wolf. But there was something “unprofessional” looking about his sniff and perusal of the Dumpster that suggested he wasn’t a wolf at all, but a dog. He found a crust of bread that had fallen to the snow and ate it hungrily, but started to run when a piece of paper fluttered past. If he had to get by on his heroism, he’d never make it. She guessed, watching him skulk back to where he’d found the bread, that he was a dog and not a wolf, and that he’d probably once been someone’s pet.

  She went to the refrigerator for scraps of trimmed fat and beef bones that she saved for various customers’ dogs, and put half of them in a bowl. Then she went out the back door and watched the dog run off into the trees. She put the bowl down near the Dumpster and tried to call him back, but he was out of sight and was apparently unwilling to show his face.

  She hurried back inside and waited at the window for him to reappear. He waited a long moment, then came slowly, stealthily, into the floodlit back of the restaurant, picking up his pace as he caught a whiff of the meat scraps. He scarfed them quickly, raising his head occasionally to check for intruders.

  He licked the bowl clean, looked around, probably longing for more, grabbed the bone, then ran off.

  Shelly’s heart went out to him. The lost look in his eyes reminded her of how she sometimes felt—alone and adrift. Her friends were wonderful, but there had to be something more to the future than work and civic responsibilities.

  But if there were, that would be change, wouldn’t it? And she didn’t think she wanted that.

  God, she thought, making sure all the appliances were off, then turning out the kitchen light, life was getting complicated and she hadn’t even yet given serious thought to what to do with her money.

  Maybe she should get input from her customers. The thought struck her like a lightbulb going on, even as she physically turned off lights. She’d take a poll, collect suggestions, make it a community affair!

  As she came around the counter, she saw Connor standing with Max in his arms just outside the door. She unlocked it and let him in. He smelled deliciously of the cold outdoors.

  “Hi,” he said. “Ready to go home?”

  Just the sight of his handsome face and the memory of this morning’s kiss made her feel irascible. “It’s my home,” she said, flipping off the lights behind the counter. “Not yours.”

  “I know. It’s just the kind of place a lonely bachelor dreams about.”

  Now she felt guilty for her mean response.

  “You don’t really have to stay with us,” she said, taking Max from him. “I’ll be all right and I’m sure you have better things to do.”

  “No, I don’t,” he corrected. “I’d be happy to help you with Max again. He caught up on his sleep today while we were busy, so he’ll probably be awake for hours.”

  “You’re asking for another sleepless night. I tried hard, but I don’t seem to have the knack for getting him back to sleep when he wakes up.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. Come on. Nathan lent us a car seat. I’ll drive us home.”

  She caught his arm as he turned toward the door. “You don’t think you’re going to get lucky tonight because I let you kiss me today?”

  He raised an eyebrow, a small smile forming on his lips. “I don’t ‘get lucky’ in that way. When it happens, it’s romantic energy and skill. It has nothing to do with luck.”

  Her lips parted in a soundless gasp.

  “And you didn’t let me kiss you, I just did it. And with just the smallest—though very promising—cooperation on your part. The next move is yours.”

  “I’m not going to make it,” she said, both amazed at and admiring of his arrogance. “So don’t come home with me thinking I will.”

  “I’m a patient man.”

  “You’ll have to be eternally patient.”

  “You underestimate my charms.”

  She didn’t want to smile, but she couldn’t help herself. So to try to convince him that her amusement had nothing to do with him, she smiled at the briefcase hanging from his shoulder. “It’s a shame Nathan couldn’t also lend us a diaper bag.”

  Connor laughed lightly. “It’s all right. I don’t have anything to take back and forth to work with me here. No complicated case files to study. I had packed some favorite books in it when I moved, so it was handy when we needed something. And when I’m carrying it, I feel less ridiculous than I would in a light blue diaper bag covered with baby ducks or something.”

  She had to giggle at that ima
ge. But nothing, she thought, stepping past him onto the sidewalk and noticing how angular he was—chin, shoulders, big square hands—could diminish the impression he made of serious masculinity.

  “Actually, I drove this morning,” she said, very much aware of him and happy she had an alternative to being confined with him in his car. “I had a lot to carry. I’ll meet you at home.”

  His eyes held hers, filled with amusement. She suspected he knew how she was feeling. “You said it wasn’t my home.”

  “Oh, shut up.” She turned away from him and headed for her car, parked at the end of the block.

  Chapter Five

  As Connor built a fire in the fireplace, he noted that the aroma of dinner underway, whatever it was, smelled wonderful. They followed the same procedure that had worked the night before—he kept Max entertained while Shelly prepared dinner.

  He’d tried to argue with her about that, certain that after an entire day spent cooking and waiting tables, fixing dinner was the last thing she’d want to do. But she insisted she was preparing something special, and that she found it relaxing to cook things she never made for the restaurant.

  He couldn’t imagine that, but spent the hour she worked in the kitchen trying to exhaust the baby so that he’d let them sleep tonight. He bounced Max on his knee, held him up above his head while he giggled loudly, played with his toys, rolled a ball, then finally lay in front of the fire with a yawning Max on his chest.

  “I hate to disturb you,” Shelly said quietly, “but dinner’s served.”

  “That’s okay,” he replied in the same tone. “I think he’s down for the count—for a while, anyway.”

  He put Max in the carrier and brought it with him into the kitchen and placed it on the counter.

  He looked in pleased surprise at the colorful and aromatic chicken dish with wild rice and baby carrots in the middle of the table. The table had been set with candles and the napkins folded like fountains in the wineglasses.

  “Chicken Provençale,” she announced.

  “Wow,” he said appreciatively. “Are we celebrating something?”

  She began to shake her head, then seemed to change her mind. “Actually, I think we are.” She sat, so he did, too. “I’ve been wondering what to do with the portion of my money I want to use to help Jester. And it just occurred to me as I was closing up tonight that I should take a poll at the restaurant. Have everybody write down their suggestions. What do you think?” She passed him a basket of butter-flake rolls.

  He took one, then accepted the butter dish from her. “It’s hard to find fault with that. And it’s generous of you to want to share your winnings. But I thought you said you wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to travel.”

  “I do. It’s just that Jester needs help. We haven’t been prosperous in so long that I don’t know where to start. Whatever I do, I want to make it count.”

  “Maybe you should just take a walk around town and give it some thought. See what you think needs help, then have your customers vote for which seems most worthy. With the people’s input, it’ll certainly count.”

  “I was thinking about something like that.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he volunteered. “Take notes. It’ll be good for me to learn what’s valuable to the people of Jester.”

  She was less enthused about that idea. So he withheld mention of the notion he had of renting a room from her on a more permanent basis.

  She served cheesecake with blueberry sauce for dessert. “I love this stuff,” she said. “I always buy two for the restaurant, and one for me.”

  “You going to enlarge the restaurant?” he asked, marveling at the gourmet meal he’d just enjoyed in a remote little town in the boondocks. “I’ll bet that chicken Provençale would make you a fortune.”

  She shook her head. “I tried it. It doesn’t fly here. Not because my customers are unsophisticated, but because they’re used to simple fare and that’s what they prefer. You can’t explain the benefits of eating according to the healthy food pyramid to guys like Dean or Finn. They don’t want to hear it. I tried a few pasta dishes at lunch and ended up eating it myself. My introduction of chicken Provençale, cioppino and scampi was met with a resounding ‘What happened to the chicken strips?”’

  Despite that explanation, her cheeks were still flushed from the time she’d spent cooking, her eyes still bright with the pleasure of serving it. “Then…what about a fine-dining restaurant someplace else? Billings? Helena?”

  She shrugged. “I love it here.”

  He wondered about that. He leaned back in his chair, knowing he had to approach this carefully. “Maybe it’s more that you’re comfortable here. In order to stretch your talents, you might have to reach out of what’s familiar into what seems scary.”

  “I have a long history here,” she said reasonably. “I’m friends with the kids of the people my parents were friends with.”

  “And that’s great. But if it stops you from doing what you really want to do, history should take a back seat to change. You’re too young to base your life on the past.”

  She looked confused by his arguments, and surprised him by pouring each of them another glass of wine and leaning toward him conspiratorially. “Why is it,” she asked, toasting him with her glass, “that you’re encouraging me to leave Jester, when you just moved here and insist that you’re interested in me?”

  She had him there. What was he doing?

  “I thought you’d commute,” he said.

  She gasped a laugh. “To Helena? That’s almost four hundred miles.”

  “You’re a millionaire,” he joked. “You can buy a plane.”

  She teased him with a look before taking another sip of wine. “If I’m expected to commute because you’re courting me, you can buy the plane.”

  “If that’s the condition of a deal,” he said, holding his glass toward hers, “pick one out tomorrow.”

  She stared at him, clearly trying to decide whether or not he was serious. “You’re a complete nut,” she said finally, rising to clear the table.

  He thought it a pity that the deal went unsealed.

  He helped her clean up, then when she headed for the back door with a bag of trash, he took it from her. She went to flip on the porch light for him, but nothing happened.

  “Sorry. Bulb must have burned out.” She held the door open wide so he could see the trash can by the kitchen light.

  “You need a handyman,” he teased. “Put him in the courtship deal, and I’ll pay for him, too.”

  MAX SLEPT until three in the morning. Connor heard his cries and Shelly’s quiet attempts to soothe him. Her footsteps padded into the kitchen, and her quiet voice spoke to the crying baby while she opened the freezer. He knew she was looking for the pacifier. It was in his jacket pocket.

  He pulled on his jeans and went out into the kitchen. She’d forgotten the robe again and he was treated to the sight of her long, gorgeous legs, her feet on tiptoe as she groped around in the freezer, trying to hold the crying baby away from the blast of cold air.

  He held up the pacifier to show her that he had it. “Sorry,” he said. “I intended to put it in the freezer when we got home, and forgot. I noticed you had Popsicles. Let’s try one of those.”

  She looked at him wide-eyed. “Seriously?”

  “Sure. Cut it off to a stub, put a bib on him, and I’ll get him back to sleep. You go back to bed.”

  “Do I have to remind you that lives are in your hands at the center? You have to be rested.”

  “Not tomorrow. I have the day off so I can sleep in. Go to bed.”

  She vacillated.

  “Get me a Popsicle,” he said firmly, “then go.”

  She retrieved an orange-flavored Popsicle, closed the freezer door, then faced him with her free hand on her hip. “If you intend to carry on a courtship, or indulge a crush, or whatever it is you think you’re doing,” she advised, “I’d lighten up the orders.”

  He w
as probably stupid to consider the remark hopeful, but he did. He had a feeling she wasn’t entirely kidding.

  “I appreciate that information,” he said. While her eyes seemed to be ensnared by his, he took pleasure in maintaining the spell a moment longer. Then he pointed to the Popsicle she held. “We need that before it melts.”

  With a murderous slice of a knife, she cut the top off it, handed him the stick, and headed toward the stairs with a yawn.

  He heard her tiptoe to the doorway of his room at shortly after five. She was dressed in jeans and a green sweater that did magical things to her eyes. He propped himself up on an elbow, Max asleep on the mattress beside him.

  “Everything okay?” she whispered.

  “Fine,” he replied. “You off to work?”

  “Yes. And the coffee shop’s open for dinner tonight, so I’ll be late. I’ll call Luke and tell him Max is home with you today. If…if the caseworker from Pine Run comes for him, will you call me?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re welcome to come to the shop for meals today.”

  “Thanks. Maybe I’ll come for dinner.”

  “Okay. Have a good day.” She started to leave, then turned back. “Oh. And I forgot to mention that my father had a shop in the garage. If you want to putter with the tools or anything, feel free.”

  That was exactly what he’d do with his day—as much as Max would allow.

  He blew her a kiss.

  She stared at him a moment, began to return the gesture, then stopped halfway. With one final worried look at him, she hurried through the kitchen and out the door.

  JACK HARTMAN, Jester’s veterinarian, walked into The Brimming Cup and quickly closed the door behind him. He was tall and broad shouldered in a brown canvas barn jacket, a handsome widower who’d lost his wife and their unborn child five years ago. Shelly had heard rumors that since he’d become one of the Main Street Millionaires many of the local single women were determined to change his marital status.

  He flattened himself against the wall, then peered through the window as though checking to see if he was being followed.