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“Yes, ma’am, I know.”
It felt nice and cool inside and he was grateful. It was hotter than Hades out there already, even though it was only morning. He gazed down at her. My, she was a little one. Fiery, for all that, but still, little.
“And you can cut out the ‘ma’am’ stuff,” she said, propping her hands on her hips. “I’m not old enough yet.” Grinning one more time, she added, “Though I’m rapidly getting there.”
She turned and he followed her, boots clicking and spurs jangling loudly as he trod her wooden floors. But he didn’t really pay any attention to the sound, because he was watching the way her shapely hips moved inside her robe. And his nose was picking up the scent of—what? Some kind of spring flowers. Lilacs, maybe. It floated behind her and right into his nostrils. The scent of a woman. This woman. Cassie smelled downright savory.
In the kitchen a girl child sat at a small round table, making a face at a bowl of mush. She raised her head when her momma walked in with him following. Her eyes grew huge with wonder as she stared at him.
“Mommy!” she said. “It’s Cowboy Charlie!”
“Morning, miss,” he said with a tip of his hat.
“Mommy!” she squealed again, her high-pitched voice verging on affecting his hearing. The little girl stood, looking excitedly from him to her mother and back again. “It’s Cowboy Charlie! He’s here!”
“No, it’s not him,” Cassie answered, taking a glass from a shelf and turning on the tap. “Not really. Well, yes and no. Oh, heck.” She shrugged her shoulders, seeming to surrender any attempt to make sense. “Whatever. Charlie, meet Trish.”
He offered his hand to the child, who took it. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Trish,” he told her solemnly, but the little girl’s face lit up with a grin that made her look just like a fairer-haired, rounder-faced version of her mother.
“Me, too. You’re my hero.”
“Trish, eat your oatmeal,” Cassie said.
Indicating with her head that Charlie should sit across from her daughter, Cassie poured him a glass of water, then set it down in front of his chair. He was dying to drink and wouldn’t have minded resting his feet, but he waited for her to take a seat.
Instead, she selected a cup from another shelf and poured what looked like coffee from a silver-colored machine on the counter next to the sink. “You like it black, right?”
“As tar.”
“Sorry. It’s strong, but not quite that strong.”
A horn sounded outside. Cassie turned to her daughter, who was still grinning at Charlie. “That’s your car pool, honey. I guess you don’t have to eat your oatmeal after all, lucky you. Take some oatmeal cookies with you.”
“But, Cowboy Charlie’s here,” the little girl said, the sparkle in her eyes bright with happiness and wonder. “I want to stay.”
“I’ll be here when you get back, little lady,” he told her.
“Mom?” Trish said with a squeak of joy that made him wince. “Will he be here?”
“We’ll see,” Cassie said.
At the exact same moment Charlie opined, with a wink, “I sure will.”
The little girl looked from her mother to him, then decided to go with his answer. “Goody!” She clapped her hands. “Wait till I tell everyone!” She grabbed a few cookies from a jar on the counter, seized a small pack with straps from the back of her chair and ran out the door.
Frowning, Cassie set both cups of coffee down on the table. Alone at last. She noticed that Charlie waited to sit until she did, and wondered when was the last time anyone had displayed actual manners. It felt quaint…and kind of nice.
She watched as he downed the water quickly, his Adam’s apple darting up and down with each gulp. His hands were deeply tanned, his fingers callused. As she sipped her coffee, she studied him, ignoring the attraction she felt toward him in an attempt at objectivity.
In the morning light he was even more the embodiment of Cowboy Charlie than he had appeared to be last night. Everything about him indicated that he worked with those sun-browned hands, that he spent days on the trail, in the open air. She wondered about his background, how much he was getting paid for this little impersonation, and frowned as she tried to think which of her friends had money for this kind of thing.
And why whoever it was had decided to play a trick on her in the first place.
“You shouldn’t have said that to Trish,” she admonished. “About your being here when she got home.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll get her hopes up. She thinks you’re real, as opposed to me, who knows you aren’t.”
He frowned, obviously perplexed and just a little bit impatient with her. “I thought we’d gotten that all worked out last night. I am real. You can touch me if you’d like.” He put his hand out toward her. “Flesh and blood, just like most men.”
Not even close to most men, at least the ones I know, she could have said, but didn’t. Instead she set her coffee cup down, then folded both arms across her chest.
“Look,” she said firmly, “I may have some Irish heritage and my grandmother may have filled my head with tales of faeries, curses and Fate, but that was then, this is now. I’m a grown-up, and I rebel against being asked to accept some, some…creature of my imagination turning into flesh and blood reality. Okay? It isn’t possible, it didn’t happen, and that’s it!”
There. If that didn’t get through to him, she didn’t know what would.
But he didn’t react, not really, except for a slight tension around the jawline that disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared. No, he just shrugged, sat there and drank down her coffee, a thoughtful look on his handsome, weather-beaten face.
Had she hurt his feelings? she wondered suddenly. Did he mind being called a creature? What in the world was going on? And, more immediate, what in the world was she going to do with him?
“Are you hungry or anything?” she found herself asking him, by way of soothing any feathers she might have ruffled. At once she was disgusted with herself. God, she was such a wuss. Every time she forced herself to act with firmness and strength, in the next moment, she usually wound up taking care of whoever she’d been firm and strong with.
“Don’t bother yourself, ma’am—I mean, Cassie. I’ll get myself some grub later on.”
She reached behind her for the cookie jar. Setting it in front of her, she opened the top and handed him a couple of oatmeal cookies, which he accepted, she noticed.
“Thanks,” he said, then gobbled them down, like someone who’d been deprived of food for a while. He really needed this impersonation job, she figured, wondering again at his background and what had brought him to this point.
Both cookies were disposed of in a matter of seconds, after which he said, “You’re a real good baker.”
“No I’m not. Other people bake. I shop. There’s more, if you’d like. Or I can scramble up some eggs.”
She began to rise, but he stayed her with a gesture. “No thank you. I meant what I said. I’ll eat later. Now I need you to tell me what I can do for you.”
He seemed so sincere, so earnest, she almost laughed, mainly because it crossed her mind that it would be nice if she could believe in fairy tales, in someone sent from another plane of existence to help her.
Maybe she had believed at Trish’s age, but the early death of her mother, followed two years later by her father’s death, had taken away her childhood long before it should have ended, along with any faith in either magic or fantasy. A maiden aunt had raised her to the best of her abilities, but she’d been a sour and strict woman. Cassie had left her home right after high school and had never gone back.
She’d met Teddy in junior college, at age nineteen, married him three months later, had Trish at twenty and been widowed at twenty-six, nearly two years ago.
Since then there had been no room for fairy tales, very little room for much of anything except the day-to-day struggle to just get by. So now this man in cowboy duds sat across from her, all earnestness and manners, asking what he could do for her?
The obvious first answer came to mind. Money would help. Her late husband, who had done enough dreaming for both of them, had always been into some kind of flaky financial scheme. In fact, he’d put the house up as collateral on the final project, something to do with windmills and solar power. It had failed, of course, as had all the others. After that, he’d been so distracted, he’d accidentally stepped into the path of a large truck and been mowed down like a weed.
Cassie hadn’t had the luxury of weeping all the tears she’d felt inside; there was a five-year-old child to raise and bills to pay. There had been no insurance, no savings. Only debt. This small structure in the tiny town of Yatesboro, Nevada, twenty miles outside of Reno, was all that she and Trish had left, and every month they seemed on the verge of losing it.
There was never enough money, not for extras like ballet lessons for Trish or art classes for Cassie, so she could hone the skills to translate what she saw in her head onto paper. Her job at a local dress shop, while enjoyable enough, was not a high-paying one, but she had no training in anything that might bring in a better salary.
Short of winning the lottery—which she couldn’t even afford to enter—she didn’t see a way out.
Not that she’d given up hope, of course. She never did that, not even on grumpy mornings like this, not even metaphorically tied to the railroad tracks and the steam from the oncoming train filling the air above her. Somehow she’d survived tragic childhood losses with hope intact. It Isn’t Over Till It’s Over, was her motto.
But what she knew was that hope had to be based in reality, on what was possible. Not on dreams and what-ifs.
Not on fictional characters being brought to life.
Still, she wished, oh, how she wished, that this Cowboy Charlie was who he said he was, and that he could produce a small pot of gold for her needs.
But she didn’t believe it, not for a second.
“Ma’am?” he said, bringing her back to the moment.
“That’s Cassie,” she reminded him again with a rueful smile as she rose from the table. “And I have to get dressed for work.”
“Oh.”
Rising, as well, Charlie sensed this wasn’t a good time to ask about his living arrangements. While he was doing whatever he was supposed to be doing, he’d have to settle for the garage, he supposed—it sure did seem the davenport was out. And the davenport wasn’t even close to where he’d like to bunk down, which was right next to Cassie, in her own bed.
He drew in a sharp breath. Tarnation. He hadn’t expected there to be these strong feelings when he looked at her, these bodily stirrings. It felt peculiar, somehow, to be experiencing so many potent sensations. There was a hankering for the woman, for sure; that one was at the top of the list. But there were other responses to her. Admiration for her spunk. A feeling of lightness in her presence, happiness almost. A need to protect her.
Then there were all these other human reactions—hunger, thirst, a need to sleep. Just yesterday he’d been fiction, but now he was real.
He didn’t question it, just knew it. Still, it was all new, and he’d have some settling in to do, he figured.
Cassie didn’t accept his human state, not yet. But she would. It was a fact: Cowboy Charlie had been granted temporary personhood. Along with that, he’d also been granted the knowledge that real life was much more complex than his fictional world.
Back home it was simple. The Code of the Old West was to act honorably, work hard, tell the truth and take responsibility. But that might not be enough here. Sure, he’d been sent to, as they’d have said back home, “help the widder woman.”
But he wasn’t back home. To do what he was supposed to do, he’d need to adapt and quickly. It wasn’t only about life versus fiction, it was also about the fact that Cassie’s century was a lot more complicated than his.
He watched as she took both coffee cups to the sink and placed them there. “You’ll have to leave,” she said, following it up quickly with, “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but I have to get to work and first I have to get dressed. Needless to say I’m not about to do that with you still here.”
“Oh, surely, yes.”
She walked him to the door. It made sense that she didn’t want him in the house while she dressed—she didn’t know him well enough. Not that he’d have minded watching her dress, with her permission, of course, but it looked like that wasn’t in the cards.
She opened the front door. Bright sunshine flooded the entrance, and he remembered the heat outside. “Well then, I’ll just wait for you on the porch, if that’s okay.”
She bit her bottom lip in consternation. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I have a busy day, and I’m sure you have other things to do with your time. Okay?” She offered her hand. “It was nice meeting you.”
Confused again, he took her hand in his. Small and soft, just like he’d imagined. Her skin felt good against his palm and so did the quick surge of desire that shot up his arm and began to spread elsewhere. That surely was one powerful reaction; too powerful.
Abruptly he dropped her hand, then tipped his hat. “Nice meeting you, too,” he said, then walked out into the sunshine.
Cassie closed the door, then leaned back against it. “Whew,” she said aloud, then stared at her hand in wonder. It had tingled at Charlie’s touch. Tingled! My, my, she thought, gazing at the pale skin, shades and shades lighter than Charlie’s, and wondering if it continued to give off the heat she’d felt in that brief few moments of contact.
“My, oh, my,” she said now, climbing the stairs to her bedroom for a quick shower before getting dressed. She had about twelve minutes to get ready, but she used only a little makeup, and her hair did what it wanted to do, whatever else she might intend for it to do, so it was never much trouble.
She paused halfway up the stairs when she realized her heart was pounding loudly and she needed to catch her breath. It wasn’t the stair climbing that had made her heart race and her breathing quicken. No, it was that brief touch from Cowboy Charlie.
Or whatever his name was. For a moment she regretted sending him away. But at least he’d gone. Which was good, she assured herself, continuing her journey upstairs. Yes, much better…for all concerned.
She made it back down thirteen minutes later, which wasn’t bad. After retrieving her purse from the hall table, she grabbed a ring of keys from a hook and pulled open the door.
No Charlie.
She admitted to a brief sense of disappointment. Not that she’d expected him to be waiting there, she told herself. Not that she’d wanted him to be waiting there.
No, that wasn’t it. She’d done the right thing, been firm, set her boundaries, let him know that the water and coffee and cookies were all he could expect from her, and that she had a busy life to lead that didn’t include his presence.
She sure had let him know. Good for her.
She closed the door, then used her key to double lock it. When she turned around again, she gasped.
There he was, standing there, big as life. It was as though he’d appeared out of thin air!
Charlie tipped his hat. “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, feeling awful as he took in Cassie’s startled reaction. You should never sneak up on a body like that, and he sure hadn’t meant to do that this time.
“Where…where did you come from?” she asked him, her hand on her throat.
“You said not to wait on the porch, so I was over there—” he angled his head to indicate the direction “—at the side of the house.”
“Oh. Well, then,” she said, and let out a deep sigh. He watched as the color returned to her face. “You took me literally then. You didn’t just…materialize from…nowhere?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Good,” she said. “I really don’t think my heart could take that.” She seemed to gather herself together and walked purposefully down the two porch steps and onto the path leading to the street, saying, “Well, I’ll be on my way then.”
He followed. She stopped, turned to him again and offered her hand, just as she had done in the house. In the full morning sunlight, he could see tired lines around her eyes, and he had to resist the urge to run a thumb over them to smooth them away. She was too young to look so worn-out.
“You really can go now, Charlie,” she said with a smile. “Thanks for brightening up my day. It was nice meeting you.”
Again her hand was soft, and this time, when she tried to pull it away, he didn’t let it go. “The feeling’s mutual. It’s just, you haven’t told me yet what I’m supposed to do for you.”
“Are we back to that?”
“Never left it.”
She blew out a breath, and one of her bouncy brown curls lifted momentarily off her forehead then settled back into place. He sure did want to see how that healthy looking hair would feel between his fingers, sure did want to touch some more of her skin. But first he needed to get his assignment.
“Right. Fine,” she said, looking from their still-joined hands and back into his gaze. His gut told him she was dismissing both his request and him.
“You can go to the bank,” she said. “That’s First Yatesboro Savings on Main Street. And get them to give me thirty more days on the mortgage. Okay? If you can do that, maybe I’ll believe in Santa Claus. At least, maybe I’ll believe in you.” Gently she pried her hand out of his and walked away.
He watched her sashay off down the walkway and get into her small blue machine. Car. Unbidden, the word came to his head. He might have come from the Old West, but, for some reason, he now knew that was the name for the machine, same as he knew it ran on fuel made from oil pumped out of the ground.
He was getting this thing now, this transformation; clearly, he would have been granted all the knowledge he would need to function in Cassie’s twenty-first-century world.
