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They all stared down at the far end of the room. Sure enough, the mayor seemed excited as one of the town elders read aloud from a sheet of paper.
“If they’re raising taxes, then they’re trying to figure out how to get blood from a stone,” George grumbled. “I’ve half a mind to go over there and tell them so.”
Fargus snorted. “Like that would do any good.”
“Maybe I should get on the town council,” Joey mused. “Women like men with power, right?”
Meg noticed John Ferguson and Martin Smith exchanging an amused look before John grabbed his cap and stood to leave.
“Thanks for breakfast, Margaret.” He set six dollars by the empty coffee mug. “Guess I’ll get home before the snow starts for real.” He turned as the door jangled to announce another customer.
And it wasn’t just any customer, either, because the sight of this one made Meg’s stomach tense and her mouth go dry.
Owen MacGregor, master of all he surveyed, was a tall, imposing man. A down vest, unzipped, covered most of his wide chest, and he wore the typical Montana outfit: jeans, boots and plaid shirt. He politely stomped his feet on the worn doormat and removed his hat, but before he could move toward a seat, a white-haired man called his name. Meg watched as he greeted the Burkharts, an elderly couple in the process of holding each other up as they made their way across the room. Owen MacGregor played the gentleman and opened the door for them, allowing another burst of cold air in. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was the best thing to ever walk into the room. Even Mr. Ferguson looked pleased as the two men talked for a minute before the teacher disappeared out into the cold.
“Well, this is a surprise,” Martin declared quietly to his cronies at the counter. “Didn’t think he remembered where he came from.”
“With Eddie dead and gone, I don’t think there’s anyone to run things,” George said. “Guess that forced his hand.”
“Irene’s in a nursing home in Great Falls now,” one of the other men informed them. “I heard she gets confused easily. My daughter-in-law works there, says the boy visits her every week.”
Yes, Meg thought. He was always a devoted son. She’d assumed the old witch would live forever, queen of all she surveyed. She couldn’t picture the regal Mrs. MacGregor incapacitated in any way. The last time Meg had seen her was after the funeral, and the widow hadn’t let Meg in the house. Still, it was sad to think of Irene MacGregor in a nursing home.
She watched Owen slide into an empty booth and shrug off his jacket. He set his gloves on the table and picked up a menu. Which meant she was supposed to scurry over there with coffee and take his order, just as if they barely knew each other?
This was true, actually. He was a stranger now, far different from the young man who’d told her he loved her and given her his grandmother’s sapphire ring.
Meg still remembered the day she heard he’d left town. She’d cried in her mother’s arms for hours.
“You’d better get on over there,” one of the men said. “MacGregor doesn’t spend much time in town, so this is a special occasion.”
“You’re right.” She managed a cheerful smile. “And I need all the customers I can get.”
Well, she could handle it. No problem. She’d give him a minute to read the menu, and then she would saunter over and pretend they were friends.
This morning Owen MacGregor looked a little the worse for wear. Oh, he was still handsome, with that lean, lined face and thick, dark hair. She knew he wore contacts, hated shrimp and had named his first horse Pumpkin, much to his father’s dismay. He was secretly afraid of heights, crazy about animals and had broken his nose twice in one summer, causing his mother to faint both times.
At the moment he and his nicely healed nose were absorbed in the menu.
“Hey,” she said, approaching the table with a carafe of coffee.
“Hey.” He tipped his mug right side up and Meg filled it for him. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. What can I get you?” She used her best cheerful-friendly-waitress voice, as if he was a tourist she’d never seen before. He frowned just a little.
“It all looks good,” he said, copying her tone. “How about the Hungry Man Special, with scrambled eggs and bacon? And with an extra side of bacon to go, please.”
“Sure.” This wasn’t so hard. She could do this. Meg didn’t write down the order for fear her fingers would shake. Silly, but she had her pride.
“So how’ve you been?” He took a cautious sip of coffee and looked at her with real interest. As if he actually wanted to know the answer.
“Just fine. And you?”
“I’m good.” He kept looking at her, studying her face until, still gripping the handle of the carafe, she backed up a step. She was conscious of how she must appear to him, dowdy Margaret Ripley in her apron, worn jeans and thick athletic shoes. “Well, I’ll go put your order in.”
“Thanks.”
With that she turned and headed toward the kitchen. She returned the carafe to the coffee machine, wrote up the order before handing it to Al and, on the pretense of checking supplies, escaped to the back room. There wasn’t much privacy in either the town or the restaurant, but there was a tiny alcove behind the walk-in freezer that provided the perfect place to hide for a few minutes. Meg leaned against the gray wall, took a deep breath and eyed the calendar tacked to the wall. October was here already, with a long winter ahead.
She should be over it. She was over it. She was a grown woman, capable of running a business and running her life. She had friends. And a home. She dated when she wanted to, though she seldom wanted to, and rarely ever thought of the eighteen-year-old girl who had fallen foolishly in love with a young man she could never have. His presence here couldn’t upset her if she didn’t allow it to, but she hoped he wouldn’t make breakfast at Willing’s a habit. They’d each become so good at pretending the other didn’t exist, so why stop now?
* * *
“AND SO WE have to ask ourselves—what do women want?” Jerry Thompson desperately needed to know the answer. He tapped his pen against the empty page of the legal pad spread before him and studied the yellow-lined paper as if the solution to his problems would magically appear. When he looked up, the six members of the town council stared back at him.
Bachelors all, they were a varied group. On his left sat Les Purcell, a young cowboy who had been injured on the rodeo circuit and now lived with his grandparents. Seated next to Les was Pete Lyons, a nice enough guy who looked as if he slept in his clothes.
“Now, there’s one heck of a question,” Les muttered. “Anyone who has the answer to that can write a book, go on Dr. Phil and make a pile of money.”
“It’s a valid question,” Jerry, recently elected mayor—because Art Woodhouse died and no one wanted the job—and full of ideas, looked across the table at the owner of the only auto-repair place in town. Hank Dougherty was likely too busy to watch much daytime television.
“What’s Dr. Phil got to do with it?” Hank asked.
“Nothing. Just that he knows everything.”
“Or thinks he does,” Les said.
Jerry took a swallow of coffee. Obviously this was going to take more time than he’d thought. “Let’s not get off track. I’m serious about this. We need to know what women want and then we have to give it to them.” He ignored the spurt of laughter that followed this declaration and frowned. “I’m trying to get something going here. We’re talking about publicity. About money coming into town. About women coming into town.”
“Women? What kind of women?” This question came from Jack Dugan, who Jerry figured had no problem getting dates.
“Single women,” he replied, as if he was talking to a bunch of first-graders. Not that he had any idea what it was like to talk to schoolkids. But this group, the city council and various other men who enjoyed free coffee once a month at the town meetings and sat around a couple of pushed-together Formica-topped tables, was about as dense a bunch of men as he’d ever met. No wonder they didn’t have women of their own, or at least a date once in a while. Not that he himself was much different. He’d had two dates since he left Los Angeles three years ago and neither one had been what anyone would remotely call a success.
Pete, a thirty-something rancher who also drove the school bus, leaned forward. “How old are these women gonna be? And they’re not gonna be from a foreign country, are they?”
“Like the Russian mafia and the mail-order brides,” Mike Breen, the town treasurer who ran the county newspaper, added. “Saw it on Law & Order last night. Scary stuff.”
This was quite the suspicious group. Jerry took a deep breath and started over again. “No, Mike, they’re not going to take your money and kill you when you want to divorce them.” He’d seen that episode himself. “Look,” he said, eying the six bachelors who comprised the council. They weren’t a bad-looking bunch. They could be cleaned up, their shirts ironed or, better yet, replaced. They had a rugged appeal he knew some women were attracted to, but he had severe doubts that his constituents had the skills to keep a woman interested past the first date. Heck, most of them couldn’t make it further than a getting-to-know-you bottle of beer. “I have a friend in Los Angeles who’s putting together an idea for a reality show.”
“Like Survivor?” Hank perked up. He was fifty-five, widowed, with two grown daughters and a decent property in town. He might appeal to an older demographic, maybe the over-forty women.
“More like The Bachelor.”
Jack, who worked at the feed store, grinned. “Man, that’s a great show, that Bachelor. I never miss it.” The crowd grumbled their displeasure, but Jack didn’t waver. “You should see the women,” he insisted. “They act crazy, and they’re gorgeous and they sit in a lot of hot tubs with the bachelor. Everyone tries to get a date with the guy and lots of times he can’t tell the crazy ones from the ones who really like him.”
Jack was young and good-looking, struggling to keep a small cattle outfit afloat while working in town. He picked up odd carpentry jobs and was careful with his money. And, Jerry thought, he’d look perfect on TV.
“That’s right. Hot tubs and hot women in bathing suits.” Now he had their interest.
“The only hot tub in the county belongs to MacGregor,” Gary Petersen, retired from the co-op, whispered. “And he just sat down behind you, Jerry, so you might want to keep your voice down.”
Jerry restrained himself from turning around to see if Gary was telling the truth. He’d never met Angus MacGregor’s descendant but he’d read a lot about the family history. They’d practically invented cattle ranching in Montana.
“Thanks, Gary, for pointing that out.” Jerry wrote hot tub on his paper. “I’ll bet the TV production would spring for something. Either that or maybe we could use some town funds and buy one ourselves.” Everyone looked at Mike, who shrugged.
“Money’s hard to come by these days,” he declared.
“Yeah,” Pete muttered. “And so is a sex life.”
“We’re not talking about sex,” Jerry felt it necessary to point out, though the lack of women was the one of the biggest drawbacks to living in rural Montana. “We’re talking about attracting single women to our town. We’re talking about publicity, about attracting businesses, about letting people know we live in a beautiful part of the country where people care about one another. We’re talking about expanding the population, saving the school, making Willing a great place to raise a family again.”
“Quite a speech, Jerry. You’re starting to sound like a politician,” Hank said, chuckling. “You’re not running for governor, are you, son?”
“Not yet,” Jerry said. “Now, do any of you have any objections to getting married?”
“Well,” Hank drawled, “I did it once.”
“And?” Jerry prompted.
“It sure beat being alone.”
Not exactly high praise. Jerry fought the urge to bang his forehead on the table. Instead he gave each man a long look. “You’re all lonely and miserable and you know well enough that if a woman gave you as much as a nod you’d be signing a marriage license and following her around the IGA with a grocery cart.”
No one denied it, so Jerry figured they’d all just voted yes. Yes to inviting Hollywood to Willing. Yes to encouraging a busload of single women to give Montana bachelors a chance to impress them. Yes to drumming up a little excitement for a change.
Speaking of excitement, Jerry looked down the length of the crowded room and waved to Meg. She picked up a carafe and made her way toward his table. As far as Jerry was concerned, Meg Ripley was an important person. She knew everyone in town and he had no doubt she could run against him for mayor and win in a landslide. He’d been told she was thirtyish, single and straight, so Jerry had asked her out to dinner a month after he’d moved to town. They’d quickly become friends, though Meg politely refused any dates that could be construed as romantic.
He actually preferred blondes, but dark-haired Meg was attractive in a no-frills, low-maintenance way. He’d never seen her in anything but jeans, but she had a cute figure and a nice smile. In a town overpopulated by men, she mysteriously remained single, though he’d heard plenty of stories about broken hearts. As far as he could tell, Meg kept to herself and didn’t go out of her way to break anything.
“Meg,” he began, “how many times have you been proposed to?”
“I really don’t think—”
“Seriously,” Jerry said. “It’s important.”
She took a step back. “I’m not going to—”
“Eighteen,” Jack declared. “Last time we did a count, it was eighteen.”
“You’ve kept count?” Meg shot him a horrified look and Jack shrank back into his chair.
“It’s posted at the Dahl,” Hank pointed out. “It’s not like it’s a secret or anything.”
“P-posted?” Meg sputtered. “I never saw it.”
“Men’s room.” Les whispered to Jerry, “Lucia Swallow’s up to eight and Patsy—you know, Patsy Parrish at the Hair Lair—she has seven.” These were interesting statistics, but Jerry needed Meg involved in his scheme and these numbers weren’t going to make that happen.
“Eighteen proposals of marriage,” he mused. “I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “I’m not.” She set down the full pot and removed the empty one. “Every once in a while someone has too much to drink, waves roses in front of me and wants to get married. And don’t get me started on Valentine’s Day.”
“There,” he said, slapping his hand on the table. “You’ve proved my point exactly. Do you all see now how unbalanced and crazy this is?”
“Crazy? You think it’s crazy that someone would want to marry me?” The look she gave him practically shriveled his manhood.
The council members sucked in their collective breaths. Jerry realized he was flying too close to the flame now, and any minute Meg would toss them all out of the restaurant, meeting adjourned. She wasn’t a fan of personal questions and she didn’t take kindly to discussing her love life, not that anyone thought she had one. He’d know if Meg had a boyfriend, probably because the news would make the front page of the local paper. Or at least the men’s room of the Dahl.
For one agonizing moment Jerry feared she would fling the empty coffeepot across the room. He’d heard there was a temper beneath the cheerful smile, but up until now he hadn’t believed it. He pulled out a chair and gestured toward it. “Look, Meg, I’m sorry. That’s not quite what I meant. Join us for a minute, will you?” He kept his voice soft, used the persuasive tone he’d spent so much time cultivating. “We need your help.”
She edged away. “No, thanks. I have breakfast orders—”
He wasn’t about to let her off the hook. He needed a female perspective and he needed it now. And he didn’t care if it came from an overly sensitive woman who had a bad attitude or a bad boyfriend or just disliked men. “Meg. Please. Just tell me, what do women want? You know, from men. We need to know.”
“Excuse me?” The question obviously surprised her, because she paused in midflight and stared at him.
“I’m serious,” he repeated, his pen poised. “Tell me what women want. It’s important. I’ll take notes.”
“Jerry,” she said, backing up. “You don’t have a big enough piece of paper.”
CHAPTER TWO
OWEN PAID NO attention to the yammering of the town council until Meg approached their table and got all huffy. Then, his attention caught by the curious discussion going on behind him, he overheard Jerry’s question and the laughter from Meg’s reply.
She’d been proposed to eighteen times? The official count was more likely to be nineteen, because Owen doubted that their teenage romance was public knowledge, so his own proposal wouldn’t be on the list. Had every man in town tried to hook up with her these past years? Now, that was an unpleasant thought. No wonder Meg was kind of prickly about the subject. That kind of attention would embarrass her—or at least would have embarrassed the shy girl he’d once known.
He watched Meg—who, surprisingly, had acted as if they were nothing more than acquaintances, which he supposed was exactly what he’d hoped for—hurry to the counter, where a couple of old guys waited to pay their bills. She looked good in those jeans. And kinda cute in the red-checked apron, too, so he couldn’t really blame the local guys for trying.
“Mr. MacGregor? I don’t think we’ve met.” Owen turned to see the redheaded man standing next to his booth and holding out his hand toward him. “Jerry Thompson. Mayor.”
“So you’re the brave man who wants to know what women want? Nice to meet you.” Owen stood and shook the hand offered to him, which prompted a flurry of greetings from the others at the table. There were condolences about his uncle, surprise that Owen was still in town and introductions made to the younger men Owen didn’t recognize.
Jerry grinned. “I guess Meg’s keeping it a secret.”
Owen, who’d had a few eye-opening experiences of his own since growing up and venturing off the ranch, knew what women wanted. He uncharacteristically shared the knowledge. “Women want your money, your attention and your soul.” That got a burst of laughter. Owen frowned and added, “And that’s just the beginning.”
The mayor’s disappointment was obvious. “Don’t tell them that. I’m trying to get something done here.”
“You’re awfully bitter for a young man, MacGregor,” Gary Petersen pointed out.
“Yeah, well, women have a way of doing that to you.” Owen returned to his seat in the booth and picked up his coffee mug. “Sort of gives you a different perspective.”
“So you’re not lookin’ to get married any time soon?” another guy asked. Pete...Pete Lyons was his name.
“I don’t have anyone in mind, Pete.” He’d played football with the guy in high school, he remembered.
“It’s a generational thing with these kids. They’re all that way,” another said.
“No, we’re not.” Jerry looked insulted. “Not all of us. I’ve been looking around for the right woman. It just hasn’t happened yet.”
