Cod, I need You now. C. R.made me feel stupid. Shep makes me feel worthless.
These things were foreign to her, a successful businesswoman and... and what? What else was she good for? What had she ever done to help anyone other than herself since Girl Scouts? The money Deanna made went toward making her life easier so that she could work harder. She had no family, no friends to speak of, at least beyond her work associates. With most of them, there was no time to share her heart's desire.
Deanna held on to her seat belt as though it might keep her from sinking deeper into the whirling mire of despair. Her mind wandered back to a childhood Sunday school lesson on the apostle Peter. He'd successfully walked on water and then nearly drowned when he was distracted from his focus on Christ by the storm. She'd colored the picture of him thrashing in the furious sea, reaching for Christ's hand.
Jesus, I can't see Your hand, and the waves are breaking over my head.
They passed the surveyor's trailer, squat and dimly lit, parked next to Ticker's dark one to share the water supply and septic. When Shep stopped his truck in front of the porch, Deanna got out and made a dash for the house as if those stormy waves clawed at her heels with frothy fingers. As usual, the door was unlocked—something this three-deadbolt New Yorker had yet to get over—so she let herself in. Shep could get the bags. Right now, she didn't want to face him. She just wanted to be alone.
But what about his knee? He had to be in pain to lose his easygoing nature. Deanna looked longingly at the bed she wanted to throw herself upon in a fit of dramatic misery Heaving a sigh of surrender, she turned to go back outside. She might not be able to see God's hand, but an angel surely whispered in her ear like a cartoon cherub, halo a bit crooked, robe wrinkled, but determined to keep her in line.
"Where were you when I met C. R.?"
"Say what?" Shep placed an armload of bags on the table as she reentered the kitchen.
It felt as if a swarm of fire ants climbed to her cheeks. "Nothing. Just mumbling to myself. I'll get the rest of the bags. You sit down and prop your foot up."
That he didn't argue made Deanna feel much worse. By the time she brought in the bags with the curtains, Shep reclined on a stack of pillows with an ice bag on his knee.
"I'm much obliged, Deanna."
The contrition on his face bled some of the coolness from her polite, "You're welcome."
Shep made no effort to hide his watchfulness as she put away the groceries and unpacked the checkered kitchen accessories that had checkered what had begun as a lovely end to a hard but enjoyable day
"If you don't mind, I'd like to wait until tomorrow or Monday to put these curtains up," she said, taking them into the hall wash area. "I read in one of those women's mags in the dentist's office once that you can get wrinkles out of fabrics or clothes by fluffing them with a wet towel in the dryer."
"No problem, it can wait. Do you mind letting Smoky in? He's scratching at the door."
"Sure." Deanna went to the door and opened it. "And just where were you when we drove up?"
Once inside, Smoky responded to her playful tone by shaking all over, depositing grass and sticks that had clung to his thick coat onto the floor.
"Ah, I see. Been collecting weeds, have we?" She poured some dog food into a dish and gave him water in another.
"You're going to spoil him," Shep warned, a lazy smile tilting his lips. "When Tick gets back, the dog won't know where home is."
What a refreshing change it was from the tight-mouthed, clenched-jaw profile he'd maintained during the hour's ride home. A schoolgirl awkwardness suddenly assailed her. "I haven't had a pet since I was a—" she bumped the rounded comer of the red Formica table—"kid."
Boy, once the romantic in her was awakened, the clumsy idiot just wouldn't learn. It just kept springing back up with that stupid grin, waiting for another blow like one of those punching bag clowns.
"Would you mind pulling my boots off?" At her wary hesitation, Shep pointed sheepishly to his knee.
"I guess I owe you at least that much after dragging you all over the department store with your sore knee." She grabbed one of his boots and worked it off. "You wouldn't have had to shop for curtains anyway if I hadn't rained them." Taking extra care with the inflamed knee, she wriggled the other off. "And your knee wouldn't be in such bad shape if I'd stayed out of the way I don't know what possessed me to run out like I could help." She carried the boots over to the stone hearth. "No wonder you want to get rid of me. I've been a royal pain, huh?"
A shifting on the sofa and the crinkling rustle of cellophane turned Deanna from straightening a landslide of horse and hunting magazines into a neat pile. Shep sat up, his bum leg propped on the coffee table. In his hand was a bouquet of fresh flowers.
Deanna blinked, but he was still there, drop-dead gorgeous and carrying flowers no less. Shepard Jones and flowers. Her heart did loop-to-loop at such a dizzying speed that she didn't know if she was going to faint or take off after it.
"What's this?" Sheesh, that big-nosed moose over the mantle could have done that good and it was dead. "I mean, I can see they're flowers," she admitted in an attempt to shake the dipsy-doodle from her brain. "But what for?"
Twenty
"The sign said Romantic Bouquets, but I'd call them Penance Posies." Shep crooked his finger, beckoning her over. When she simply stared at it in distrust, he pleaded, "Just humor a man in pain... please, ma'am."
A crooked finger wasn't exactly an extended hand, nor did it belong to Jesus, but it did belong to a Shepard. Or was she a drowning soul grasping at straws? Deanna took a step. Besides, it wasn't fair, packaging that "please, ma'am" with that sexy drawl of his. Once within Shep's reach, she hesitated again. Her heart couldn't survive another nosedive tonight.
Taking her hand, Shep coaxed her down to the cushion next to him. "I thought they'd say 'I'm sorry' better than I could, my not being so flowery with words." He lifted two flowers with broken necks, shoving them between their unscathed counterparts. "Although it looks like they aren't going to do much better after being hidden under my pillow."
Uncertain which was going to leak first, her eyes or her nose, Deanna lifted the colorful assortment and pretended to smell them with a loud sniff. Shep handed her a tissue from the end table. As she wiped her eyes and blew her nose as daintily as her emotion would allow, she realized she was going to sneeze.
"Is something wrong?"
Deanna drowned Shep out with an "Aah-choo!" so loud, it startled the dog lying nearby.
"Allergies." She sniffed as Shep handed her a fistful of Kleenex. The hay she'd spread in the stable that morning hadn't seemed to affect her, but something about fresh flowers always made her eyes and nose water. "I can't go to a wedding or funeral without taking an antihistamine."
"Hah, that figures. So much for making you feel better."
"But they do. I just can't put my face in them." She put them on the coffee table, the corners of her mouth twitching. "What a pair of clowns we are. Our motto should be: 'The harder they try, the harder they fall'."
"We hit the ground pretty hard this morning."
At the mention of that fiasco, Deanna turned in sudden earnest. "But I have been trying to pull my weight, honest. I really want to fit in."
Humor vanished from Shep's expression. Putting his arm on the sofa back behind her, he leaned closer. "Why, Deanna?"
Be still my heart. As if her heart ever listened! With Shep within kissing distance, it was beating itself into a puddle of mush. "Because..."
"Because what?" Shep brushed her lips with his as though to tempt the answer from them. Circling her waist with his arm, he blocked her escape.
As if she wanted to.
"Because for some reason, I really like this place... not to mention you." The meltdown had already started, her brain going first.
His gaze held Deanna's in a sweet, searching captivity. "Even when I'm a jerk, like tonight?"
Not wanting to break the fairytale
-like spell by saying something stupid, she nodded. Something wet tickled her cheek. A tear?
Shep caught it with his lips.
She watched, mesmerized as he removed the salty essence of her pain and fear. But he didn't take them away, he pressed his lips to hers, sharing. Such a simple gesture to offer such untold comfort, assuring her that she was no longer alone, that he was there for her. His embrace, his gaze—both pleaded in a voice that spoke louder than words. Even above the sweet rush of blood to her ears, she could hear it. Trust me.
God knew Deanna wanted to. She needed to trust as a desperate soul in trouble, as much as the woman he awakened in her longed to yield to his touch. Or was it her touch as she explored the capable ridges of his back? He eased her back onto the sofa, but Deanna was swept there by the realization that a man like Shep could take her to places that made her heart and body sing, and her soul as well.
Pillows cushioned the warm, dizzying free fall of awareness— pillows and the ice she'd discarded. Bolting upright with a shocked gasp from the cold invasion of her senses, Deanna banged Shep's mouth with her head and shoved him away.
"What the—" Caught off guard, he rolled to the floor between the couch and the coffee table, landing with a startled grunt.
With an involuntary shudder, Deanna produced the ice bag from behind her, holding it up for him to see.
Without the benefit of the chill factor, it took Shep a moment to register what had happened. When it did, he let out a wry laugh and pulled himself up. "It figures."
Deanna scrambled to help him avoid any strain on his knee. "You're bleeding." She reached for the box of tissues they'd flattened in their sweet fervor. She hadn't even noticed them. What in the world had come over her... over them?
Shep touched the back of his hand to his lip, coming away with fresh blood. "Someone must be trying to tell us to go to bed."
Deanna looked up from dabbing his lip with a startled "What?" Surely he hadn't said what she thought she heard.
"Not the same one," he clarified. "Me here and you in there."
Frustrated, he raked one hand through the tousle of his hair and pointed to the bedroom door with the other in speechless effort to climb out of the hole he'd inadvertently dug for himself.
Impossible as it seemed, Deanna was warmed more by his clumsiness to set things right than his very persuasive seduction. Her by-the-Good-Book Shepard had more depth, not to mention moral fortitude, than all the men she'd ever dated put together.
"You're off the hook," she said when she could no longer keep a straight face.
Relief lightened the crimson flush of his face. "I just wanted to convince you how sorry I was, and—" he heaved a hapless sigh—"I guess I got carried away."
That grin... that toe-curling, belly-quickening grin—who could resist it? "Yeah, well that makes two of us. I was just trying to say you're forgiven and BOOM! Go figure."
Whatever had possessed the two of them wasn't through with her yet. Deanna couldn't bring herself to break away from Shep's contemplative look. Like him, she grinned in clownlike silence until Cupid, or whatever it was that came over them showed mercy
"So," she said, making the first move away from temptation. She handed him the ice bag. "Put this on that knee. I'm turning in. Tomorrow's gonna come early, ready or not."
Walking on air, she entered the bedroom and closed the door. A stupid grin still fixed on her face, she looked at the bed in an entirely different light than earlier. The lonely, desolate place in which she'd expected to spend the night now looked like cloud nine, where dreams of Shepard Jones would keep her company.
***
Sunday morning was filled with the giddiness of a honeymoon— or what Deanna imagined one to be. Shep was cooking breakfast when her alarm roused her from the comfort of her bed. After putting on a dress that looked like it belonged to one of the sitcom moms on the oldies television channel, Deanna entered the kitchen to find the table set and the cook serving a steaming breakfast—a Western omelet, grilled toast, and French-fried potatoes.
"Wow. You've been busy." She sat in the chair he held for her. "And my favorite food no less. Is this still penance?"
"No."
His mischievous look was enough to make her forget the food. In a crisp white oxford, tie, and pleated dress trousers, this guy could grace the cover of GQ any day. If he were wearing the smart tailored jacket that was hanging on the back of his chair, he'd be James-Bond-goes-West devastating.
"Ah, I see." Deanna shook off the image before she tripped over her tongue. She narrowed her eyes in feigned suspicion. "You're trying to tempt me, aren't you?" Playfully, Deanna looked behind her and under the table. "There's an ice bag around here somewhere, isn't there?"
Shep didn't answer, but the curve of his mouth and the devilment in his eyes spoke volumes.
And she thought it was hard to eat with Old Bull watching her. The patty of butter she cut from the block fell off her knife before she could get it to her toast.
"Butter fingers," Shep teased, as Deanna's knife clattered on the floor in her effort to catch the patty before it landed in her lap. "You really aren't at home in the kitchen are you?"
"That's butter thumbs, wise guy You try buttering your toast with a bug-eyed bull moose staring down his nostrils at you... not to mention his beady-eyed buddies."
Shep laughed. "Trust me, the moose and his buddies are beyond wanting your breakfast."
"Then why do you sit with your back to them?"
"Because I can see down Main Street from this chair."
Deanna pulled a dubious face. "I hear ya. Next you'll be telling me that you don't sit with your back to the door so you won't wind up like Wild Bill Hickok."
"What do you know about old Wild Bill?"
"Hey, Pop and I read and watched every Western there ever was at least once." A nostalgic smile lighted on Deanna's lips. "We were cowboys at heart, even if Pop rode a taxi instead of a horse and I took the subway for my stagecoach. I went through a tomboy phase that drove Mama nuts—no dresses, just jeans and those Western shirts with piped trim on the pockets. I could slap leather with the best of them, even Tommy Triglia, who grew up to be the hood next door."
"I can't picture you as a tomboy. You're so..."
"Svelte and charming?" Deanna took up a forkful of omelet, part of which promptly fell in her lap on its way to her mouth.
"Exactly." Shep watched her mouth as she chewed, as though charmed, making it nearly impossible for her to swallow.
"Finishing school—" A renegade crumb constricted Deanna's voice and made her cough.
"That explains that charming cross between uptown girl and girl next door."
Shep handed her a glass of water, but his study of her made her first swallow defy the law of gravity when Deanna took a drink. Only by sheer willpower did she override the anomaly.
And she thought the moose staring at her was bad.
Later, as she watched Shep walk around the Jeep after closing her door for her, Deanna noticed his limp had improved considerably. The night off his feet and on ice must have eased the inflammation. Recalling his glib response to her question as to what had happened to his knee, she wondered what kind of war wound he'd suffered. Most likely a horse rolled over on him.
He glanced at her once they were on the road. "You ever think of learning to ride?"
Deanna wrinkled her nose. "Maybe." If she was around long enough and had lost every brain cell she had. Where she'd gotten her citified idea that real horses were just moving versions of their arcade counterpane—clean, saddled, and ready to go—was beyond her. And never had she seen a television horse with a dirty coat and tangled mane. "If you can find one that won't soil its water—or worse, its bed, and then roll in it."
"You're something else, Slick."
His chuckle smacked of wonder more than derision, spawning a warm fuzzy feeling in her tummy. High on Shep's company, Deanna relaxed against the headrest until they passed the Welcome to Buffalo But
te sign. As if waiting in ambush behind it, anxiety swept down, blasting away at her giddy contentment with second thought.
Watching the families filter into the white, steepled building from the parking lot, Deanna struggled between longing and panic. She wanted to go to church. As a child, she'd always felt a little closer to God in His house. Maybe there, He'd make His intentions clearer. Was He answering her prayers or punishing her by showing her what she'd forfeited for her neglect of a spiritual life?
While she was still a little pink from her exposure to the sun the day before, Deanna was certain there wasn't a drop of blood beneath the color as she fell in with the friendly stream of parishioners. Her heart was pulling it from all quarters, just to keep beating. Shep had no idea that the shepherding hand he put at her back was all that kept her from bolting like the red stallion. Then it was too late.
Inside, it seemed as though the entire congregation swarmed around to welcome her. Yes, she had been stranded at Hopewell when a horse ran her off the road. Yes, Buffalo Butte was a far cry from her native New York. Her accent? Brooklyn with Irish-Italian influence. Her profession? Marketing consultant. No, she and Shep had no plans to make it a permanent arrangement. Why? Job opportunities weren't exactly brimming in these parts. Besides—
"Well, if I were you, honey, I'd think hard about pursuing my career over a good man. Our Shepard is quite a catch," Juanita Everett whispered, her volume rising with that of the organ, which signaled the start of the service.
A short scramble later, Deanna sat between Shep and Maisy O'Donnall, dazed by the barrage of questions and warmed by the friendly reception. Up front, the mayor's wife sidled past three of her sisters to take her place in the choral ranks behind the podium. Deanna would have had to be blind not to recognize the woman who'd donated so many of the clothes the church provided—the loud ones, at least. Juanita's floral red-orange suit from her winter vacation in Hawaii screamed Aloha from the front row of the choir.
Winsor, Linda Page 17
