New Leaf

by Catherine Anderson

  A chill of wariness slid over her skin. “I can’t say, because I’ve never dropped a book in the tub. To me, books are treasures.”

  “Uh-oh. You one of those people who would never dream of turning down a page corner to mark your place?”

  To Taffeta, books were like old friends, and the more dog-eared they got, the more she valued them. “I’m not quite that bad. I prefer to use bookmarks, but I almost always lose them.”

  With the same suddenness with which he’d picked reading as a topic of conversation, he switched to music. “After hearing ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ blaring on your stereo last night, I know you like the Rolling Stones. What other groups appeal to you?”

  She glanced with yearning at the shop door, willing a customer, any customer, to come in. But it was early yet and wouldn’t get busy for another hour, weather providing. She had a hunch that Deputy Sterling knew that. A lawman kept his fingertips on the pulse of a town and knew its changing rhythms. She was stuck with Mr. Charisma for a while, and he was worming personal information out of her with frightening ease.

  She settled for saying, “I’m not big on particular groups or singers. If I hear a song I like, I’m sold.”

  He nodded. “I’m the same. I may love one song a band records and dislike everything else they put out.” He gave her another of those unnerving studies, making her feel as if he saw straight into her heart. “So, pardon me for asking, but have you ever been married?” Humor crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Just curious. So far, I’ve evaded capture, just in case you’d like to know.”

  Red alert. Taffeta didn’t want to lie. She hated lying. But she didn’t want this man to learn too much about her, either. She considered saying that it was none of his business—which it wasn’t. In the end, though, she decided that refusing to answer might deepen his curiosity about her. She felt sure that one’s marital history was a fairly common topic to arise when two people were getting to know each other. “I’m divorced.”

  “Ah. Any kids?”

  Taffeta’s mouth went dry. “A little girl. My ex-husband has temporary custody.”

  The twinkle in his eyes dimmed and blinked out. “That must be really hard. Do you get frequent visitation?”

  Taffeta couldn’t do this. If she told him that she no longer exercised her visitation rights, he’d only fire more questions at her. Clamping a hand to the crown of her head, she cried, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know what I’ve been thinking. I’m sorry to be rude, but I forgot to do something very important.”

  She hurried into the back room and then stood there holding her breath, listening for him to leave. She had to let her lungs expand again and concentrated on her breathing for several minutes before she finally heard his boots ring out on the wooden floor, followed by the overhead bell and a thump of the shop door closing. She went limp against a storage shelf. Good riddance, and don’t come back.

  If he did, no matter how charming and friendly he was, she’d give him the cold shoulder. No more Q&A sessions. No more friendly chats over coffee. She couldn’t believe that she’d told him she liked to read in the bathtub. What had she been thinking? If he felt physically attracted to her, her saying that had been the equivalent of waving a red cape in front of a bull.

  Chapter Three

  Barney drove his beat, which he normally enjoyed, on autopilot for the rest of the morning. Most times, he’d see people he knew and stop to talk, partly because it kept him in the know about what was happening in town, but also because he liked to check on folks. Mystic Creek was a close-knit community. People watched out for one another. Barney found it rewarding to lend a hand when needed. Sometimes he’d give a lift to someone who’d gone shopping and was trudging home with an armload of groceries. Cars with flat tires on the shoulder of a road always brought him to a rolling stop. He saw his share of dogs that had gotten out of their yards as well, and he had gotten to know the habitual runners almost as well as he did their masters.

  Today he had blinders on, and barely noticed the faces of those he saw in other vehicles or walking along a road. His conversation with Taffeta had left him even more curious about her than he’d been before. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d invented an important task she needed to do in order to end their chat. Maybe talking about her child was too painful. That made sense, he guessed. She seemed like a nice woman. He couldn’t imagine a court refusing to grant her a generous visitation plan. That said, though, it wasn’t often that the father of a young child, especially a girl, was given custody. It was a commonly held belief that young kids needed the gentle nurturing that only a mother could provide.

  Barney didn’t necessarily agree with that. His dad, Jeremiah, had been a wonderful parent, a firm disciplinarian only when required, and all about making his children feel loved the rest of the time. It was a toss-up which of his parents had read to him more, and unless his memory failed him, he’d fallen asleep in his father’s arms as often as he had in his mother’s. Men could be just as gentle and nurturing as women.

  Barney sighed. What was it about Taffeta Brown that kept him so focused on her? He had enjoyed talking with her. It wasn’t very often that he met a gal who’d enjoyed reading The Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird. Not that he normally asked a woman what she liked to read. His mind usually wasn’t on novels when he was surfing the nightspots of Crystal Falls, and truth be told, he had little interest in getting to know most of the gals he met that well.

  Suddenly he felt shallow. Was he becoming an opportunist, a man who cruised the honky-tonks as if they were meat markets to find a choice cut? He was fast approaching thirty. Wasn’t it about time he took women more seriously and found out what was between their ears instead of what they had to offer from the neck down?

  He headed over to his brother Jeb’s place during his lunch break. Huckleberry Road still wore a blanket of snow that glistened as if it were sprinkled with diamonds. He started to park in front of the large post-and-timber home, then changed his mind. No point in walking out back to the shop when I can drive.

  He circled the house and cut the engine of the Dodge just outside the cavernous building. Smoke trailed from the stovepipe chimney, a sure sign that Jeb labored inside on a woodworking project. He made fine furniture and cabinetry, a career that had started as a hobby years ago. Now Jeb worked at it full-time and made good money doing what he loved.

  As Barney swung out of the truck, he heard a rhythmic swishing coming from inside the shop. He’d been around Jeb while he worked enough times to recognize the sound and knew his brother was patiently sanding one of his creations. His boots crunched on the frozen snow as he strode to the front personnel door. He took an appreciative sniff of the wood smoke that canted in the breeze and rekindled old memories of his dad’s shop fires on cold winter days. The frosty doorknob chilled his palm as he turned it and stepped inside.

  “Yo, bro!” Jeb flashed a broad grin. “What brings you out this way?”

  After closing the door behind him with a bump of his hip, Barney chafed his hands as he circled piles of scrap to reach the woodstove. The musty smell of sawdust enveloped him. “It’s colder than a well digger’s ass out there. April in Mystic Creek. You gotta love it.”

  Aside from being older, Jeb looked enough like Barney to be his twin, same hair, same eyes, same build. It had always bewildered Barney that he and his brothers could look so much alike and have such different personalities. Jeb worked with wood. Ben, the next oldest, raised, trained, and leased out rodeo livestock. Barney loved law enforcement, and Jonas, the youngest, was studying psychology. His sisters, Sarah and Adriel, had taken after their mother, Kate, all three of them petite dynamos with expressive brown eyes. The only trait they had inherited from their father was the color of their hair.

  Jeb ran a palm over a beautifully carved cabinet door to test for smoothness and then resumed making passes with the fine-grain
sandpaper. “Coffee’s on. Help yourself.”

  Barney knew from experience that Jeb started the shop coffeepot at around five in the morning, and by early afternoon, the brew had turned to sludge. In fact, he caught the scorched stench even over the smokiness emanating from the stove. “No, thanks. I’ve had my coffee for the day.” Turning from the heat, he walked through another obstacle course to where Jeb labored. He sat on a nearby stool, which his sister-in-law Amanda often occupied. A playpen for their son sat off to the right. “Maybe that’s why I’ve got the jitters and all-over itches . . . too much caffeine.”

  Jeb glanced up to study Barney’s face. “Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I know that look. You’re ruminating on something. What’s up?”

  Barney shrugged, fiddled with his hat before settling it back on his head, and then sighed. “I’m not sure what’s up with me. You ever met Taffeta Brown, the lady who opened the health store over on East Main?”

  Jeb nodded. “I can’t say I’ve met her, exactly, but I’ve been in the shop. Why?”

  Quickly recounting the shadow dance story, Barney said, “I never paid her much mind. But now she’s like a chigger that’s gotten under my skin.”

  “She got your attention, did she?”

  “Boy, howdy, did she ever! I took two coffees to her shop this morning and stayed to chat. There’s something about her that has me interested in getting to know her better.” Barney hooked a boot heel over the top stool rung to rest his arms over his bent knee. “It’s completely out of character for me. I don’t do local gals. How does a guy feel when he finally meets Miss Right?”

  Jeb chuckled. “There’s no easy way to describe how a man feels, and I’m not sure all of us feel the same way.” Lowering his voice, he added, “I felt befuddled, a little scared, and a whole lot reluctant. Mandy gave me no signals at first that I stood a chance with her, and I didn’t want to get my heart broken. But even though my rational side told me to run the other direction, I couldn’t do it.” He gave Barney a wink. “When it’s the real deal, a man just knows.”

  Barney shook his head. “Taffeta Brown is totally not my type.”

  Jeb barked with laughter. “It’s entirely possible that you won’t know what your type is until you meet her.”

  Barney heard the door open behind him just then, and Amanda’s musical voice rang out. “What’s so funny?”

  Barney sent Jeb a charged look and then turned to greet his sister-in-law. She wore a parka and snow boots, and in her gloved hands, she held a tray covered with aluminum foil. Below the fur-lined hood of her jacket, her large dark eyes gleamed with curiosity. As he often had, Barney noted her resemblance to their mom.

  “I’ve been entertaining him with crazy cop stories,” he said, which wasn’t really a lie. He’d told Jeb about the shadow dance.

  “Ah.” Amanda toed a piece of wood out of her way and brought the tray to Jeb’s workbench. “Well, I saw you pull up, so I made extra sandwiches. Couldn’t juggle drinks. You guys will have to make do with that mud Jeb calls coffee.”

  Barney laughed and peeked under the foil. “Yum. Those look fabulous. How’d you know I’m starving?”

  Amanda’s cheek dimpled in a smile. “You’re always hungry. I wish I could stay and eat with you, but little Jeremiah is taking a nap. Bozo is babysitting.” Bozo was Jeb’s dog, a mottled brown-and-gold mastiff nearly as big as a horse. “Needless to say, I have to race right back.”

  She pushed off her hood, revealing a thick mane of dark brown hair, and stepped around to hug her husband. Jeb bent his head to plant a kiss on her cheek. Barney was glad that his brother had finally found someone wonderful. He had contentment written all over him.

  Barney’s thoughts drifted to Taffeta again. Maybe Jeb was right, and a man didn’t know what kind of woman suited him until he met her.

  • • •

  Taffeta had only just flipped over the OPEN sign the following morning when Barney Sterling shouldered open the front door. Again. This time he carried a bag of pastry along with two coffees, and her heart skittered as she watched him balance the load. For so big and muscular a man, he moved with a precise economy of motion.

  Give him no encouragement, she reminded herself. Chase him off with frigid indifference. Only with the rush of cold air that came inside with him, she caught the scent of his cologne and something else exclusively his own. Saliva pooled under her tongue, and she knew it wasn’t the delicious aroma of coffee and warm cinnamon rolls that had her responding to his presence.

  This man made her yearn for everything she’d never experienced—things it seemed many other women took for granted. To be held in strong arms. To have someone treat her as though she was special. Oh, and feeling sexually satisfied just once in her life wouldn’t be hard to tolerate, either. Somehow she knew instinctively that Barney would eclipse Phillip in the bedroom.

  Except she couldn’t let herself go there. So what if he’s cute? So what if he makes your knees feel weak? So what if he loves To Kill a Mockingbird and can talk in depth about the scenes? Or that he looks irresistible in his uniform? She had never understood women who drooled over men in uniforms. Now she finally got it. His badge winked at her from under the front edge of his brown jacket. Her gaze dived from there to his belt buckle. When she realized where she was staring, she jerked her focus back to his face. He gave her a knowing look and treated her to a grin that made her blood go molten. Not good.

  Panic electrified her nerve endings. He needed to back off. She had no business even looking at a man. Yet Barney, with his sexy grin and charismatic personality, was to her the equivalent of chocolate to a dieter. Tempting, oh, so very tempting. But she would risk more than a few ounces of weight gain if she dared to take a bite.

  “Good morning,” he said, his deep voice curling around her like tendrils of warm, spun sugar. “I brought pastry to go with our coffee this morning. Not even a reluctant lady can say no to that.”

  Taffeta couldn’t help smiling. “I have work to do, you know. Running a store isn’t as easy as it looks.”

  “Which means you need nutritional fuel. A piece of toast for breakfast isn’t enough to last you. By noon you’ll be running on empty, and you don’t take a break for lunch.”

  “How do you know I have toast for breakfast?”

  He placed his offerings on the counter between them and assumed the same position as yesterday, his folded arms resting on the Formica’s edge. It was as if he’d never left. With a touch of one fingertip, he pushed the brim of his hat back so she could better see his face.

  “I’m psychic.” The crease that might once have been a boyish dimple flashed in his cheek. “Actually I smelled the toast yesterday. And as for your not eating lunch, I used a lawman’s amazing talent for investigative deduction. You never close the shop during the day to take a break.”

  Taffeta knew she should shut him down, but a part of her rebelled at the thought. They were only talking, after all. It was no different from when she chatted with other customers. Yeah, right. Next you’ll be selling yourself the Brooklyn Bridge.

  “How do you know I don’t run upstairs for something and eat while I wait on people? You’re also forgetting that a few restaurant owners come into the shops and take orders. Hunter Chase from Chopstick Suey offers a mean lunch menu, and Joe from the taco joint delivers as well. So does Sissy Sue over at the Cauldron.”

  “Not your style, ordering in,” he observed. “You wouldn’t want a customer to catch you with your mouth full.”

  Taffeta had a sudden feeling that he knew her habits almost as well as she did. He opened the pastry sack and laid out white paper napkins. “Cinnamon roll or a cream horn?”

  The last thing she wanted was to eat with him. It seemed too intimate, somehow. “Neither. I try to avoid sweets.”

  “Ah, come on. We all have to sin a little sometimes
.” He drew out a roll and a cream horn, placing both on her napkin. “Enjoy. If you gain a single pound, I’ll take you jogging to work it off as soon as the snow melts.”

  Why couldn’t the man take a hint and go away? “I don’t need to jog. I do a lot of heavy lifting, bending, and running in this shop.”

  “So eat,” he volleyed back.

  Taffeta found cinnamon rolls almost irresistible, and this one looked amazing with a thick drizzle of glaze on top. She picked it up, stared at Barney accusingly, and then took a bite of his offering. As the taste slid over her tongue, she nearly moaned with pleasure.

  “You see?” He drew out a cream horn for himself. When his teeth sank into the pastry, a dab of white filling oozed out and stuck to the corner of his mouth. “Never giving in to temptation is bad for the soul.”

  Without thinking it through, Taffeta reached out to wipe the cream from his lip, much as she once had done when her daughter had something on her face. As she started to withdraw her hand, he grasped her wrist and drew her cream-smeared fingertip into his mouth. Silky heat. She’d never felt anything so amazing—or sensual. The muscles in her lower belly snapped taut. Even her toes curled. Her cinnamon roll slipped from the suddenly rigid fingers of her other hand. When he finally let go of her arm, she couldn’t think what to say or do.

  “Don’t make off with any of my cream,” he said with a laugh. “It’s my favorite part.”

  Taffeta retrieved her pastry, which had landed on her napkin. This man surprised her at every turn. She couldn’t help wondering what he might do next. Even so, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

  “Relax,” he urged. “Enjoy the sweets, drink your coffee, and talk to me.”

  “About what?”

  “Tell me your favorite scene in The Catcher in the Rye.”

  Talking about books seemed a lot safer than having cream suckled from her fingertip. He wasn’t a child who needed his mouth wiped. Why had she done that? He rattled her, she decided.