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Dylan knew he should agree, but then he would have to explain about their sister and how she’d managed to hornswoggle him into agreeing to let someone—who turned out to be Glory—work on his house.
“Like I said, it was Erin’s idea to make some changes,” he said, ending the discussion.
It was obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to avoid Glory. As he walked toward where she stood, he saw her say something to the driver, who then got in the pickup and drove away.
“I didn’t mean to take you away from your work,” she said when he drew closer to the house.
Wishing his brother had been anyplace else besides next to him at the barn when Glory pulled in, he spied the paint and boxes by the door to the porch. “Need a hand getting this stuff inside?”
“Oh! Yes, I guess I could use a little help. Thank you for noticing.”
He loaded his hands and arms with paint cans, and she hurried to open the door for him. “Where do you want them?” he asked, carrying them into the house.
“Here in the kitchen is fine.”
He set them down by the door, and then stood there, wondering how to get out of this uncomfortable situation he was now in. He’d never spent a lot of time talking to women, except for the occasional “howdy, ma’am” or to answer a question about his health, which was always good. Not that he’d been celibate. There were ways. But standing in the kitchen with nothing to say while Glory looked around the room from top to bottom was proof that he wasn’t at the head of the class when it came to his conversational skills.
He watched as she walked across the room and stopped at the doorway that led to his bedroom. Not that he particularly needed to watch, but he couldn’t help it. There was something in the way she moved, but he managed to turn his attention away from her. After all, she was a married woman. She and Kyle had been together for forever.
“Have you ever considered using this for a ranch office?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.
“No, I never have.” He tended to do paperwork at the kitchen table and store that same paperwork in a corner in his bedroom or the dining room. He’d always thought it was foolish for him to have the house, but that was the way it had worked out. Once Luke turned eighteen and graduated from high school, Erin left for the rodeo circuit and rarely came home. He and his brother had shared the house. When Luke decided to marry Kendra, she’d vetoed the idea that Dylan would move out and let them have the house. Instead, she’d insisted on a big, new house, and Luke had had it built.
Glory’s eyes shone. “I have some great ideas for it.”
“For what?”
“For an office. It would be perfect.”
“So I guess I’ll sleep upstairs, then,” he said, thinking aloud and not realizing he’d actually spoken.
Nodding, she faced him and asked, “Which room do you think you’d like?”
Before he could tell her that none of them would suit him, he heard the screen door on the porch open and close. He could almost taste the relief when Luke stepped into the kitchen.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Luke said, looking from Glory to Dylan.
“Nope,” Dylan answered, ready to escape the house.
“We were just discussing the idea of making an office in here for ranch business.” She pointed to the room behind her. Her smile grew and she laughed, shaking her head. “I can’t believe I’m standing here in this house with the Walker brothers.”
“It’s good to see you, Glory,” Luke said, glancing at Dylan. “I heard you’ve opened a new business in town.”
“I have. Glory Be Antiques and Decorating. We aren’t officially open yet, but when Erin and I ran into each other in Texas and she learned about my plans...” She shrugged and smiled at both of them.
“I remember your grandad’s leather shop,” Luke said. “There was nothing like it for hundreds of miles.”
Glory’s smile dimmed, and Dylan recognized the sadness in her eyes. “He loved making saddles,” she said. “It broke his heart when he couldn’t work anymore. And then he...” She took a breath. “But the shop is still there. I think Gram has been thinking of selling his tools. She’s mentioned it. I’m not sure what we’ll do with the space. I—” She lowered her head for a moment, and then raised it again, smiling. “Maybe I’ll use it for a workroom myself. Someday. It’s— Let’s just say it’s difficult for both of us to go in there without thinking of him.”
Luke glanced at Dylan, and then nodded in agreement at Glory. “I understand completely. So you’ve moved back to town permanently?”
This time her smile was sincere. “I hope so. I’ve missed Desperation. And I hope we can make a success of the business.”
“The town hasn’t changed that much. And with Kyle’s connections, you shouldn’t have a problem getting customers.”
Dylan, who’d been watching her throughout the conversation, noticed that her smile dimmed considerably when his brother mentioned her husband’s name.
“Kyle and I have been divorced for some time,” she said, avoiding eye contact with either of them.
Dylan was too surprised to hear what Luke was saying. Her announcement left him stunned, and he wondered just how big of a fool Kyle Andrews was to have let Glory Caldwell go. Not that it changed anything, he told himself. Whether she was married or not made no difference. She’d been hired to fix up his house. But in the back of his mind was the thought that he definitely needed to give her a wide berth. He’d already thought about her too many times, and it wasn’t the kind of thing he should be doing.
* * *
“ARE YOU GOING to the Walker place today?” Louise asked.
Glory nodded. She placed her coffee cup on the kitchen table and rolled up the plans she’d worked on in the evenings during the past week. “The man who’s tearing out the kitchen cabinets will be there in about fifteen minutes, so I need to get going.”
“Is everything working out all right? I mean, with the Walker boy.”
Glory turned to look at her grandmother and wondered how to answer. It wasn’t Dylan’s fault that she’d begun to form an unwanted attraction to him. She certainly couldn’t tell her grandmother about that. Gram would be thrilled, she was sure. Dylan, not so much. He barely knew she was there. Which, she reminded herself, was as it should be.
“Dylan is a very nice man,” she answered as she headed for the door. “He isn’t crazy about me being there and doesn’t care what I do to the house, but I have faith it will all work out.”
“Oh.”
Her grandmother’s disappointment was so clear that Glory had to bite her cheek to keep from laughing, even though it wasn’t funny. It would break Gram’s heart to know she had absolutely no desire to form any kind of relationship with Dylan Walker or anyone else, no matter how often she thought of him and enjoyed getting glimpses of him throughout her day. After all, he was more than easy on the eyes. But she was determined to keep her mind on business, not on him.
“I’d better get going,” she said, needing to escape her grandmother’s questioning eyes. “I have some things I need to talk over with him before he gets busy with ranch work. I’ll see you later.”
After kissing her grandmother’s cheek, she hurried out the door and to her car. A quick look at her watch told her she didn’t have time to enjoy the drive, and she turned her mind to the work she needed to do that day.
When she arrived at the ranch, she immediately noticed that Dylan’s pickup was parked near the barn. Her heartbeat picked up. She pressed her lips together and reminded herself that she was there on business. And business was all she was interested in. Focusing her thoughts on the job ahead, she decided that the things she needed to talk to him about could wait.
She’d just climbed out of her car when another pickup, this one pulling an empty trailer, turned into the long drive and parked behind her. “Good morning,” she called to Jim White, who climbed out of the vehicle and approached her.
With a touch to the brim of his cap, he nodded. “Morning, Miz Andrews. The town’s buzzin’ with the news that you’re back.”
She felt the heat of a blush on her face, but smiled. “I hope it’s a happy buzzing.”
He followed her up to the house. “It is, for sure,” he assured her. “Now what all is it you want me to do here?”
Ready to get to work, Glory led him into the kitchen and explained what needed to be done. Gathering the photos from the dining room, she showed them to him, so he’d have an idea of what she envisioned it would look like, once the old was gone and the new was finished.
“It’s mighty nice,” he answered. “Who’s doin’ your cabinetry?”
She understood that this was the way it was in small towns. In a big city, it didn’t matter. A job was a job, and most people didn’t know the other contractors, unless they’d worked with them before. “I heard good things about Ned Parker, so he’s doing it.”
He nodded. “I don’t think he’ll disappoint you.”
“I have some things to get out of my car, and then I’ll be working in the living room.” She pointed to the doorway. “If you need me, I’ll be in there.”
“Yes’m,” he replied, and began to lay out his tools.
Satisfied that she could leave him to his work, she returned to her car for a box. After spending the past week stripping wallpaper upstairs in what she had chosen to be the master bedroom, she’d done some research and come up with what she hoped would make the job in the living room go more quickly.
Closing the car door, she glanced toward the barn and, to her surprise, she caught sight of Dylan, standing in the doorway of the barn and looking her way. A second later, he was gone, and she wondered if he’d been watching her.
“Of course not,” she scolded herself, under her breath. He wasn’t interested in her, only her work, and barely that, considering how much she’d seen him since she’d started working on the house. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you, and for no reason.”
In the house again, she put thoughts of Dylan Walker as far away as possible and concentrated on dampening the old wallpaper with a mixture of water and vinegar, applied with a mister attached to an old canister vacuum she’d found. To her surprise, it helped, and she was busy spraying and stripping when, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Dylan walk in.
“What’s that smell?” he asked over the noise.
“Vinegar,” she told him, turning off the vacuum. “It’s supposed to help cut the wallpaper paste. They didn’t make strippable paper back when this was hung.”
“I guess it’s been there for as long as I can remember.”
There was a note of pure sadness in his voice, and she didn’t know how to respond to it. Deciding it was probably best not to, she said instead, “While you’re here...”
He ducked his head and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Yeah?”
His eyes had narrowed, but she’d quickly learned it meant nothing. “It would be a big help if I knew what furniture you want to keep and what to get rid of.”
For a moment, she was frightened by the look on his face. It was so intense, she couldn’t even put a name to it.
“Get rid of all of it,” he said with a wave of his hand. Turning around, he strode to the door.
But Glory wasn’t ready to let him walk out on such an announcement. She didn’t know what she had said to upset him, but she couldn’t just let him leave.
“Wait, Dylan,” she said and hurried to catch him. When she did, she placed her hand on his arm. “We need to talk about this.”
He stopped and looked down at her hand on his arm. She immediately withdrew it. Turning to face her he asked, “What’s there to talk about?”
Resolving not to let him intimidate her, she took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. “Most of the furniture is too good to simply throw away. Are you sure you don’t want to keep it?”
“I don’t need it, do I? Can’t you just clear it all out and replace it with new furniture?”
She noticed that his jaw had tightened, and she sensed she needed to stay calm and explain. “Of course I can,” she assured him. “But throwing it away is foolish. Many of these things might be old, but they’re well made. Some could even be collector’s items.”
His eyes narrowed again, but this time it seemed more thoughtful than intimidating. “Like the antiques I saw in your shop?”
Relieved that he was beginning to understand, she nodded. “Some of them.”
“So take them and sell them, if they’ll make money for you.”
She tried not to smile. “I think I have a better idea. Why don’t I sell them on consignment? That way, we’d both benefit. That’s what Gram and I agreed to do if people brought things in to sell.”
“So you keep part of the money and I get the rest?”
She tried to ignore his frown. “Exactly.”
“I don’t need the money.”
“Then give it to charity. It doesn’t matter to me who gets it.”
He seemed to consider the suggestion, but didn’t say anything. When he started to walk away, she wasn’t ready for him to leave yet. “Maybe we should go through things today. The more I can move out of here, the better.”
“Not today.”
He sounded so final that she nearly took a step back. “All right. What about tomorrow? I might be able to find a few high school boys to help load the furniture, if you and Luke could provide the pickups to haul it to my shop.”
“Not tomorrow, either. I’ll be in the city.”
“Oh.” She hoped she didn’t sound as disappointed as she felt. Not that she had a reason to be.
“Hayley’s getting her master’s degree at OU Med Center tomorrow. And then there’s some kind of party for her in town, after that.”
Glory suddenly felt left out, but dismissed it, reminding herself that she’d been gone for too many years to simply pick up where she’d left off. “That’s wonderful, Dylan. Please tell her congratulations for me.”
Without saying anything else, he nodded and left the room. She remembered him being quiet in school, but not nearly so serious. If only she could see a glimpse of that boy he had been.
It didn’t matter, she told herself, getting back to work. At least she’d have a couple of days to work on the house, without anyone around. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but she would miss seeing him, although he’d left no doubt that having her around was more of a nuisance than anything else—proof that she needed to keep her work and career uppermost in her mind. The question was whether she could.
Chapter Three
Dylan couldn’t believe he’d let his brother talk him into staying late at the reception after Hayley’s graduation. Even worse, what on earth had possessed him to let them drag him along afterward to a late dinner with a good twenty people he hadn’t the least desire to talk to? The best part was that it was over, and he wouldn’t have to deal with something like it again. Except Luke and Hayley’s wedding, and there’d be no begging off of that.
As he turned into the drive leading to his house, he was surprised to see Glory’s car still there. It was close to midnight, and he hoped she wasn’t still working. Getting out of the car, he grunted his concern. He’d have to start paying her overtime.
Having her around had become an interesting experience. She hadn’t been someone in school that a person could ignore, but he hadn’t known her well. Not that he needed to. In fact, the less he saw of her, the better.
Ready to tell her in no uncertain terms to go home, he spied her before he stepped from the porch into the open kitchen doorway. Her head rested on a stack of what he guessed were books containing some kind of samples, while she slept soundly, oblivious to the fact that he was in the room.
He watched her, knowing he might seem a little like a stalker, but he couldn’t stop himself. Her lips were slightly parted, as if she had something she wanted to say, and a strand of hair had fallen across the slender bridge of her nose, while thick eyelashes rested on creamy skin. She looked like an angel. An imperfect one, but beautiful, all the same. He knew he shouldn’t stand there and stare.
Looking up, he noticed the upper cabinets were missing. He couldn’t imagine that the job would be done in two months. It seemed that the longer the remodeling went on, the worse it got. The kitchen was only one room. There was no telling what the rest of the house looked like.
Stepping as lightly as possible, he moved to his right and slipped into the dining room. Even that rarely used room was a mess. The curtains had been removed and the floor was covered in plastic. The heavy dining table and ten chairs were stacked in a corner, beneath more plastic. The wallpaper was mostly gone, and he wrinkled his nose at the smell of vinegar that filled the air.
In the living room, he found the same conditions, although it was hard to see in the dark. When he flipped the light switch, he discovered the lights weren’t working. After taking a closer look, he saw that the fixtures were gone. Everything was chaos.
He turned to find Glory standing in the doorway to the kitchen, watching him. He didn’t doubt that he looked angry. He’d never seen such a disaster in his life, and although something inside him didn’t want to upset her with his quickly growing fury, he knew he’d failed by the fear on her face.
“I know it looks like it’ll never be done, right now,” she said, her voice husky with sleep.
“Yeah, it does” was all he could say. He watched as she lifted her chin, but he didn’t know if it was in pride or defiance. No matter which one it was, he couldn’t tell her it was all right, because it wasn’t.
“I promise it will be better.” Her chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath. “It really will. It’ll only be like this for a few days.”
