“I meant everything I said to you, Carolyn,” he said evenly.
He had not, she recalled, with a terrible clarity, said he loved her. Not in words, anyway.
“But then something came up, as you put it in that note you left me, and you hit the road and left me alone to wonder what I did wrong,” Carolyn accused, in an angry whisper.
Getting mad, in her opinion, was a lot better than bursting into tears. And it wasn’t just Brody she was furious with. She blamed herself most of all, for being gullible, for loving and trusting the wrong man and maybe missing out on the right one because she’d wasted all this time loving him. Because she’d so wanted to believe what Brody told her. What his body told hers.
“I regret leaving like I did,” Brody said. “But I had to go. I flat out didn’t have a choice, under the circumstances.”
“And what would those circumstances be?” Carolyn asked archly. “Another bronc to ride? Another buckle to win? Or was it just that some formerly reluctant cowgirl wannabe was willing to go to bed with you?”
Brody closed his eyes for a moment. He looked pale, like a man in pain, but when he opened them again, the frustration was back. “If that’s the kind of person you think I am,” he snapped, “then it seems to me you ought to be glad I took off and saved you all the trouble of putting up with me!”
“Who says I wasn’t glad?” Carolyn demanded. Who was this hysterical person, speaking through her? Was she possessed?
“You’re not going to listen to one damn thing I say, are you?” Brody shot back.
“No,” Carolyn replied briskly. “Probably not.”
“Fine!” Brody barked.
“Fine,” Carolyn agreed.
“Reoww!” added Winston, from the top of the stairs. His hackles were up and his tail was all bushed out and he looked ready to pounce.
On Brody.
Guard-cat on duty.
“It’s all right, Winston,” Carolyn told the fractious feline. “Mr. Creed is just about to leave.”
Brody made a snorting sound, full of contempt, swiveled around and retrieved his hat from the floor next to the coat tree, where he’d flung it earlier.
He wrenched open the front door, looked back at Carolyn and growled, “We’re still going on that horseback ride.”
Carolyn opened her mouth to protest, but something made her close it without saying the inflammatory thing that sprang to her mind. She didn’t like to use bad language if she could avoid it.
“You agreed and that’s that,” Brody reminded her tersely. “A deal is a deal.”
With that, he was gone.
The door of Natty McCall’s gracious old house closed hard behind him.
Carolyn got as far as the stairs before plunking herself down on the third step from the bottom, shoving her hands into her hair and uttering a strangled cry of pure, helpless aggravation.
Winston, having pussyfooted down the stairs, brushed against her side, purring.
Carolyn gave a bitter little laugh and swept the animal onto her lap, cuddling him close and burying her face in the lush fur at the back of his neck.
Being a cat, and therefore independent, he immediately squirmed free, leaped over two steps to stand, disgruntled, on the entryway floor, looking up at her in frank disapproval, tail twitching.
“You’ve decided to like Brody Creed after all, haven’t you?” Carolyn joked ruefully, getting to her feet. “You’ve gone over to the dark side.”
“Reow,” said Winston, indignantly.
Carolyn made her way upstairs, determined not to let the set-to with Brody ruin what remained of the day. She had tea to brew—that would settle her nerves—and aprons to sew for the website and the shop, a life to get on with, damn it.
Instead of doing either of those things right away, though, Carolyn went instead to her laptop.
She turned it on and waited, tapping one foot.
Practically the moment the computer connected to the internet, the machine chimed, “Somebody likes your picture!”
“Good,” Carolyn said.
While she’d been offline, six more men had taken a shine to her—or to Carol, her recently adopted persona, anyway—and while five of them were definite rejects, the sixth was a contender, right from the instant Carolyn saw his photo.
His name was Slade Barlow, and he hailed from a town called Parable, up in Montana. For the time being, he lived in Denver. Like Ben, the firefighter, he was a widower, with a child. His eleven-year-old-son, Brendan, attended a boarding school there in Colorado but spent weekends and holidays with him.
“Hmm,” Carolyn said aloud, clicking on the response link. Tell me about Brendan, she typed into the message box.
Slade apparently wasn’t online, but Ben was, as she soon learned, when he popped up with a smiley face and a hello.
Carolyn, jittery but determined, responded with a hello of her own.
How about meeting me for a cup of coffee? he asked. Page After Page Book Store, on Main Street, five o’clock this afternoon?
Carolyn’s first impulse was to shy away, but her most recent run-in with Brody was fresh in her mind, too. The nerve of the man, showing up at her home and place of business the way he had, and announcing that she would go horseback riding with him, simply because she’d made the mistake of agreeing to his invitation.
She consulted the stove clock, saw that it was four-thirty.
She would, she decided, show Brody Creed that he couldn’t go around dictating things, like he was the king of the world, or something.
Okay, she wrote. Page After Page, five o’clock. How will we recognize each other?
Ben replied with a jovial LOL—laugh out loud—and another of those winking icons he seemed to favor. I look just like my profile photo, he responded. Hopefully, so do you.
Right, Carolyn answered. Was there a computer icon for scared to death? See you there.
Half an hour later, having refreshed her makeup and let down her hair, Carolyn arrived at Page After Page. The bookstore was, at least, familiar territory—she spent a lot of her free time there, nursing a medium latte and choosing her reading matter with care.
She spotted Ben right away, sitting at a corner table in the bookstore coffee shop, a book open before him.
As advertised, he looked like his picture. He was a little shorter than she’d expected, but well-built, with a quick smile, curly light brown hair and warm hazel eyes that smiled when he spotted her.
“Carol?” he asked, standing up.
Good manners, then.
Guilt speared Carolyn’s overactive conscience. “Actually,” she said, approaching his table slowly, “my name is Carolyn, not Carol.”
He laughed, revealing a healthy set of very white teeth, extending one arm for a handshake. He wore jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt in a dusty shade of blue and an air of easy confidence. “And mine is Bill, not Ben.”
The confession put Carolyn at ease—mostly. She managed a shaky smile and sat down in the second chair at Ben’s—Bill’s—table. “Do you really have a nine-yearold daughter named Ellie?” she asked.
“Yes,” Bill replied, sitting only when Carolyn was settled in her own chair. “Do you really work in a bank, have two dogs and like to bowl?”
“No,” Carolyn admitted, coloring a little. “I lied about my job, my hobbies and my pets. Is that a deal-breaker?”
Bill chuckled. His eyes were so warm, dancing in his tanned face.
And as attractive as he was, he wasn’t Brody.
Too bad.
“What’s the truth about you, Carol—yn?” he asked, smiling.
“I sew a lot, I look after a friend’s cat and I’m in business with a friend,” Carolyn confessed, after a few moments of recovery. She blushed. “And I can’t remember the last time I was so nervous.”
Ben—Bill—smiled. “I don’t sew, I’m strictly a dogperson and I fight fires for a living, just as I said in my bio. That said, I’m amazed, because despite all the prevaricat
ions, you look just like your picture. You’re beautiful, Carolyn.”
At that, the blush burned in Carolyn’s face. She looked down. “Flatterer,” she said.
Bill smiled. “What can I get you?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon?” Carolyn countered, a beat behind.
“Coffee?” Bill said, grinning. “Latte? Café Americano? Espresso with a double-shot of what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here?”
Finally, Carolyn relaxed. A little. “Latte,” she said. “Nonfat, please.”
Bill smiled, nodded, rose and went to the counter to order a nonfat latte.
Carolyn, desperate for something to do in the meantime, checked out the book he’d been reading when she approached.
You could tell a lot about a person by what they liked to read.
A Single Father’s Guide to Communication with a Preteen Girl.
Well, Carolyn thought, trust her to meet up with a guy who was both sensitive and masculine after she’d been spoiled for functional relationships by Brody Creed.
Presently, Bill returned with her latte, looking pleasantly rueful. “Confession time,” he said, with a sigh, as he sat down again. “I’m on the rebound, Carol—Carolyn. I didn’t mention that in my profile.”
“No,” Carolyn said, oddly relieved. She reached for her latte, took a sip. It was very hot. “You didn’t.”
“Her name,” Bill told her, “is Angela. We’re all wrong for each other.”
Carolyn considered the foam on her latte for a long moment. “His name is Brody,” she said. “Two people were never more mismatched than the two of us.”
A silence fell.
“Well, then,” Bill finally said. “We have something in common, don’t we?”
“Are you in love?” Carolyn asked, after a very long time and a lot of latte. “With Angela, I mean?”
“I don’t know,” Bill replied. “One minute, I want to spend the rest of my life with the woman, the next, I’d just as soon join the Foreign Legion or jump off the Empire State Building.”
Carolyn wanted to cry. She also wanted to laugh. “Love sucks,” she said, raising her latte cup. Bill touched his cup to hers.
“Amen,” he said. “Love definitely sucks.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
IF CAROLYN HAD had any say as to whom she fell in love with, she would definitely have chosen Bill Venable, brave fighter of forest fires, devoted father of a nine-year-old daughter, all-around good-looking hunk of a guy.
Alas, she had no such influence in an unpredictable universe, but she knew early on that she’d found a valuable ally in the man who bought her a latte.
“So, tell me more about Angela,” she said, stirring her latte and avoiding Bill’s gaze. “Does she live in Lonesome Bend?”
Bill cleared his throat, looked away, looked back. Finally nodded. “She teaches third grade at the elementary school,” he said.
“I see,” Carolyn answered, without guilt, because in many ways, she did see. “So what’s the problem between the two of you?”
“She doesn’t like my job,” Bill answered, after pondering a while. “Fire fighting, I mean. Too dangerous, keeps me away from home too much, et cetera.”
“Yikes,” Carolyn observed. “How does Ellie feel about Angela?”
“She adores her,” Bill admitted. “And the reverse is true. Ellie thinks Angela would make the perfect stepmother. It’s a mutual admiration society with two members. Trust me, this is not my daughter’s usual reaction to the women I date.”
“So the fundamental problem is your job?” Carolyn inquired, employing a tactful tone. While she understood Bill’s dedication to his work, she sympathized with Angela, too. Love was risky enough, without one partner putting his life on the line on a regular basis.
Bill thrust out a sigh. “Yeah,” he said.
“Maybe you could look into another kind of career,” Carolyn suggested, already knowing what his answer would be.
Bill shook his very attractive head. Too bad he didn’t arouse primitive instincts in Carolyn the way Brody did, because he was seriously cute. “I love what I do,” he replied. “Flying an airplane. Putting out fires. It is a definite high.”
“But…dangerous,” Carolyn said.
“Well,” Bill affirmed, “yes. But I’d go crazy doing anything else. The boredom—” He fell silent again, his expression beleaguered. Obviously, he’d been over this ground a lot, with Angela and within the confines of his own head.
Carolyn waited a beat, then went ahead and butted into a situation that wasn’t any of her darn fool business in the first place. “What about your daughter, Bill?” she asked gently. “How does Ellie factor into this whole job thing?”
He sighed, shook his head again, aimed for a smile but missed. “I love that child with all my heart, and I want to do what’s best for her,” he said. “Keep her safe and happy and healthy. Raise her to be a strong woman, capable of making her own choices and taking care of herself and, if it comes to that, supporting a couple of kids on her own. But—”
Again, Bill lapsed into pensive silence.
“But?” Carolyn prompted quietly, after giving him a few moments to collect his thoughts.
“But,” Bill responded, managing a faint grin, “like I said before, I love what I do. Doesn’t that matter, too? And what kind of example would I be setting for Ellie if I took the easy route, tried to please everybody but myself?”
Carolyn toyed with her cup, raising and lowering her shoulders slightly in an I-don’t-know kind of gesture. It was remarkable, connecting so quickly with another person—a male person, and someone she hadn’t known existed until she signed on at Friendly Faces.
They were so simpatico, she and Bill, that anyone looking on would probably have thought they’d been close friends for years.
Too bad there was no buzzing charge, no zap, between them, like there was between herself and Brody and, it was a sure bet, between Bill and his Angela.
“No,” she said, in belated response to his question. “Of course you can’t live to please other people, not if you hope to be happy, anyhow.” Carolyn paused before asking, “Does Ellie worry about you, when you’re away fighting fires, I mean?”
Bill gave a raspy chuckle. “Probably,” he acknowledged. “Ellie never lets on that she’s scared something might happen to me—she just tells me to be careful. The thing is, even though she’s only nine, she seems to get where I’m coming from better than Angela does.”
Carolyn took a sip of her coffee, which was finally cool enough to drink without burning her tongue. Now, she thought, with the inevitable rush of reluctance, it was her turn to open up.
Sure enough, Bill ducked his head to one side and a quizzical little quirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You’re a beautiful woman, Carolyn,” he said. “Half the men in the county, if not the state, must be trying to catch your eye. What prompted you to sign up with an online dating service?”
“Curiosity?” Carolyn speculated, blushing a little.
He smiled, settled back in his chair, watching her. “Are you looking for friends, a good time, or a partner for life?” he asked.
There was nothing offensive in his tone or manner, and he positively radiated sincerity. Bottom line, Bill was easy to talk to, perhaps because he was a virtual stranger and, therefore, the two of them had no issues, no shared baggage, nothing to get in the way of friendship.
“It’s not a new story,” she replied, quietly miserable. “I fell for the wrong man, I got hurt—fill in the blanks and you’ll probably have it just about right.”
Bill arched an eyebrow, waited. On top of everything else working in his favor, the man was a good listener. And all she could drum up was a walloping case of like.
He was the big brother she’d never had.
The pal.
And he wasn’t even gay, for Pete’s sake.
Carolyn squirmed on her chair, not sure how much more she ought to say. This was their first meeting, after all, and
as genuine as Bill Venable seemed, it certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she was totally, completely, absolutely wrong about him.
It had happened before, hadn’t it?
Once, she’d been convinced that she knew Brody Creed, through and through. After a long string of shallow, going-nowhere-fast relationships, she’d believed in him, been convinced he was The One, taken the things he said and did at face value, only to be burned in the back draft of all that passion when he showed his true colors and lit out.
And there was that other lapse in judgment, too— when she’d thought she’d hit her stride by becoming a nanny. She’d trusted her movie-star boss implicitly, admired his down-to-earth manner, his apparent devotion to his wife and small daughter.
Until he’d come on to her, forcing her to abandon a job—and a child—she’d loved.
Carolyn closed her eyes, remembering—pummeled by—the rearview mirror image of little Storm running behind her car, screaming for her to come back.
Come back.
Without saying a word, Bill reached across the table and took her hand in a brotherly way. Squeezed it lightly.
Carolyn opened her eyes again, smiled weakly. Enough, she decided, was enough. For now, anyway.
“I should be getting home,” she said, bending to fumble under the table for her purse. “My cat will be wondering where I am.”
Bill sighed, glanced at his watch and nodded. “I’m sure Ellie’s perfectly happy at her grandparents’ house,” he said agreeably, “but it’ll be suppertime soon, and when I’m in town, I try to make sure we’re both sitting at the same table for at least one meal a day.”
“That’s nice,” Carolyn said, feeling awkward now.
Supper, for her, was usually a lonesome affair, something she did to stay alive.
She and Bill rose from their chairs at the same moment.
He walked her to the door, opened it for her, waited until she stepped out onto the sidewalk.
It was a balmy May evening, shot through with the first faint lavender tinges of twilight, and there were lots of people out and about, just strolling, or talking to each other under streetlamps that would come on soon, glad to be outdoors.
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