Sky's Pride And Joy

Before Meredith could open her mouth, Olivia said, “We named the barn cats Carolyn, Sherilyn and Tom, and those are real people names. You just don’t wanna name this one Haley on accounta you kissed Haley Carson and she gave you a black eye.”

All at once, the store was absolutely quiet. Logan was the quietest of all. Wanting to help but not sure how, Meredith said, “Olivia, you don’t know that’s the reason Logan doesn’t want to name this cat Haley. I don’t really think she looks like a Haley, do you? Besides, kissing is private.”

“Kissing’s icky,” Olivia said. “Do you think kissing’s icky, Aunt Meredith?”

Two pairs of trusting blue eyes turned to her. Kissing? “Well, er, um. That is…”

The bell over the front door jangled, signaling Jayne’s return. Meredith was saved from having to try to come up with an answer that wasn’t mostly a sigh. Icky? Oh, that depended upon who a woman kissed. And the last man, the only man she’d kissed in a long, long time, hadn’t been icky at all.

Jayne dashed in long enough to pay due respect to the mother cat and her kittens, recount the high points of the meeting she’d attended, and say, “I’ll see you at the town council meeting tonight!” before bustling the kids away.

Ugh, Meredith thought when she was alone again in the store. Tonight, at the town council meeting, she would have to stand in front of the women of the Ladies Aid Society and several of the bachelors in town. She prayed she passed everyone’s scrutiny so that she might be accepted in this small town.

That was what she wanted. To be accepted, to be near Logan and Olivia, and for her store to be a success. In order for her store to be a success, she couldn’t afford to make any enemies or hurt any feelings, which meant she had to let the overeager bachelors down gently, which wasn’t easy to do when she received requests for dates every day. She could hardly blame them. There simply weren’t enough women to go around out here. An old copy of the advertisement the local boys had put in the local papers to lure women to Jasper Gulch still hung in the post office and in the diner. Not a lot had changed since then. As far as Meredith could tell, in the three years since the ad had appeared, there wasn’t a single man in town who wasn’t still shy but willing. She paused for a moment.

That wasn’t true. There was one. Oh, Skyler Buchanan had been more than willing a month ago, and she doubted he’d ever been shy.

Giving herself a mental shake, Meredith got back to work. It was amazing how many times her thoughts strayed to Sky, and a kiss, that had led to a touch, that had led to a frenzy of hands reaching, and buttons popping and clothes being peeled away like layers until so much more than two bodies were bared. For those few brief hours, Meredith had believed she’d been able to see into Sky’s soul, and he into hers. Of course, when it was all over, they’d both known it had been a mistake. Skyler Buchanan was a free spirit, and Meredith Warner had an old soul. They’d both been lonely, that was all. Loneliness could be a powerful motivation, but not a basis for anything deep and abiding. Sky had been the first to put it into words, saying it would be best to end it then and there.

She’d nodded, mumbling her agreement, her clothes clutched in her arms, covering her nakedness as she’d assured him that there was nothing to end. In order for something to have an ending, it had to have a beginning. And all she and Sky had had were a few brief hours in each other’s arms, a few brief hours during which two people had taken a respite from their real lives and had lived a fantasy.

She hadn’t seen Sky since that night. Until today. She’d thought about him a thousand times. Which was just about how often she’d told herself to forget him, because surely, he hadn’t given her another thought.

She’d been sure of that, until earlier, when their gazes had locked from a distance. Something powerful had passed between them. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she found herself wondering if perhaps he was having a difficult time forgetting her, too.

She straightened fast, and got light-headed and woozy again. She eyed the sofas waiting for someone to buy them, wishing she could curl up on one of them, and close her eyes if only for a few minutes. Shaking her head slightly to clear it, she reminded herself that she didn’t have time for the luxury of a nap. She had a business to launch, and a life to turn around. Placing a hand to the flat of her stomach, she hoped she wasn’t coming down with the flu.

Chapter Two

“Hey, Sky.” Neil Anderson slipped into one of the last vacant chairs in the room. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you at one of these meetings.”

What could Sky say? He didn’t attend town meetings often. Folks assumed he didn’t like schedules or agendas, especially other people’s. Nobody had ever thought to ask if he had some other reason. Tonight, he was here because his boss, Jake McKenna, who also happened to be his best friend as well as an exasperating man, had roped Sky into attending in his place.

Neil said, “You must have heard that Jayne Stryker’s gonna introduce the new gal at the meeting, too, eh?”

Sky’s eyebrows rose. Meredith was going to be here tonight? It certainly explained why the back room of Mel’s Diner was busting at the seams, and a good share of Jasper Gulch’s single men and a few married ones, as well, were balancing their cowboy hats on one knee.

Jake was going to owe him, big time.

Sky settled his shoulders more comfortably along the back of the old folding chair, and left his Stetson on his head where it belonged. For the sake of idle curiosity and the general heck of it, he glanced around. He recognized every face present, but he didn’t see Meredith.

Luke Carson banged his gavel on the table, calling the meeting to order. He, his brother, Clayt, and their friend, Wyatt McCully, had been instrumental in placing the original ad in the local papers luring women to Jasper Gulch. All three of them were married now, Luke and Wyatt to the first two women who’d moved here, and Clayt, to Jasper Gulch’s own Melody McCully. The remaining sixty-some bachelors had done a lot of bellyaching about that, but then, a lot of those local boys did a lot of bellyaching about just about everything.

The meeting went surprisingly fast. It wasn’t because the fine folks of Jasper Gulch were especially agreeable tonight. Sky had seen more than one man’s face turn red beneath the tan line where a dusty Stetson normally sat. They were on their best behavior. Sky suspected it had to do with their readiness to bring on the main attraction.

He wondered what they would do if the rumor that Meredith was going to be here tonight turned out to be false. Sky happened to glance over his shoulder. The meeting went on around him, but he didn’t participate. The Jasper Gulch grapevine was batting a thousand, as usual. Meredith stood near the door, looking straight ahead, her throat convulsing as if she were nervous. It was strange, because his first impression of her hadn’t been of a shy woman. His first impression had been of an enchantress who knew her own mind, what she liked and what she wanted. She’d wanted him. Being wanted by a woman like her had been a heady sensation. A dangerous, heady sensation.

Luke pounded the table with his gavel again. “Before we adjourn, Jayne Stryker has somebody she’d like you all to meet.”

“Finally.”

“It’s about time.”

“I’ll say.”

Chairs creaked as the majority of the men sat up straighter. A few hardy paunches were sucked in, belts were adjusted, and everyone generally tried hard to look casual. As far as Sky was concerned, they tried a little too hard.

Jayne strolled to the front of the room. The woman had a walk that could stop traffic and a mouth that could, and had, singed the hairs of a good many of the local boys’ ears. “Folks,” she said, smiling wryly, fully aware that her quick wit and business savvy were exactly what this town needed. “It’s nice to see so many people who care about their community.” And then she launched into a lengthy update on the progress she was making setting up a mail-order catalog business in the old five-and-dime building. The members of the Ladies Aid Society listened with rapt attention. The boys fidgeted like the congregation on Palm Sunday.

Sky glanced at Meredith, and saw that she was shaking her head and smiling at Jayne as if they shared a private joke. With a wink and a slight movement of her head that prompted Meredith to stroll toward the front of the room, Jayne said, “Everybody, this is Meredith Warner, Logan and Olivia’s aunt. I’m sure all of you have heard she’s opening an antique slash furniture store in town. I invited her to stop by tonight to tell you a little about it. I hope you don’t mind staying a few minutes longer.”

Mind? It was what the men were here for.

Meredith turned to face the crowd. She wet her lips, a serious mistake, unless it had been her intention to jump-start the men’s fantasies.

“As Jayne said, I’m nearly ready to open my furniture, antiques and home furnishings store two doors down. I’m excited about that, but to tell you the truth, standing up here talking about it makes me nervous.”

“Imagine us naked,” one of the younger bachelors murmured just loud enough for her to hear.

“Oh, no,” she said, staring Ben Jacobs down. “I’m not going there. Nobody is going to imagine anybody naked.”

She glanced around the room sternly, as if to make her point. Sky wondered if he’d imagined that her gaze had settled on him for an instant longer than on anybody else. He wasn’t imagining the change in the beating rhythm of his heart.

“As I was saying. I’ve worked in several different fields in order to make ends meet over the years. That’s the funny thing about not knowing what you want to be when you grow up. You learn a lot about life and hone a lot of different skills in your quest to find your niche. Until moving here, I spent four years working as an interior designer for a large store in Minneapolis. Before that I was a seam-stress, an upholsterer and a painter—of houses, not art—although to me, every house is its own work of art.”

So, Sky thought, she was a midwesterner. That explained her accent. He wondered where she’d acquired her class, because that kind of poise didn’t come from any one place or from doing odd jobs like sewing or painting.

The fan in the corner stirred her hair. There wasn’t a man in the room who wasn’t mesmerized by the movement of those silky tresses, the style of her trim, ankle-length skirt, and the fit of her sleeveless blouse. And no matter what she said, Sky doubted there was a man in the place who wasn’t imagining what she would look like out of it. She wasn’t buxom, but she had curves in all the right places, curves he’d memorized with his hands, and lips and…

“…and I’m hoping to hire an apprentice or two to help me with the reupholstering and sewing.”

Chairs creaked as a dozen hands shot into the air. The sudden hubbub drew Sky from his daydream.

Meredith had relaxed, as if enjoying the easy camaraderie with the people of Jasper Gulch. “Sorry,” she said. “I’d prefer to interview women.”

“Now ain’t that a little prejudiced?” Ben Jacobs asked playfully.

“Mertyl?” Jayne Stryker sputtered, stepping closer to Meredith. “Raise two fingers like this.” When the little gray-haired lady had done so, Jayne said, “Now whack Ben upside the head with them for me, would you, please?”

There was a distinctive slap, followed by a pitifully unconvincing “Ow,” followed by a roomful of grins.

“The purpose of Meredith’s and my endeavors,” Jayne said, brown eyes flashing, “is to create new jobs for our local girls, so that they might have options other than becoming a rancher’s wife right out of high school or moving to the city where there are better job prospects. Now, does anybody have a question for Meredith?”

“Are you married?”

“I mean concerning her store,” Jayne insisted. “You’re living in the apartment over the store, aren’t you?”

“What’s your phone number?”

Jayne threw up her hands.

“Care to see a show with me?”

“How about dinner?”

The questions rang out from every corner of the room with dizzying speed, making it difficult for Meredith to know which one to address first. The ad had said the bachelors of Jasper Gulch were shy but willing. An updated version would have to say they were more willing than shy. Still, they were delightful.

Before she’d opened her mouth to let them down easy, an old man whose thumbs were hooked in his suspenders exclaimed, “You boys can be a little more original than that. Why, you asked Jillian and Lisa those same dang questions at a meeting just like this one three years ago.”

“I’ve got one,” Ben Jacobs exclaimed as he scooted as far away from Mertyl Gentry as he could get. “Forget dating and marry me.”

“A public marriage proposal has been done, too,” Luke Carson said, tapping his palm with the gavel.

“You all remember what happened the night Wes Stryker went down on one knee and asked Louetta Graham to be his wife,” old Doc Masey declared. “Wes didn’t fare so well.”

They all shook their heads forlornly, all except Wes and Louetta, who were now both happily married, only not to each other.

“Listen,” Meredith said, holding up one hand. “I didn’t come to Jasper Gulch in answer to your advertisement.”

“You didn’t?”

She shook her head. “I came here because this is where my niece and nephew are.”

“But as long as you’re here,” somebody called.

She shook her head again.

“You mean you aren’t planning to date?”

“Ever?”

She lifted one shoulder. “At least not for a while.”

“How long’s a while?”

Meredith hadn’t planned to get into this tonight, but now that the issue had been raised, she felt she should address it. “Well, not until I’m settled,” she said, her smile genuine, her voice warm and sincere and just soft enough to be soothing. “To tell you the truth, I’ve promised myself one year free of making any sudden moves or rash decisions.”

She found herself staring into a pair of moss-green eyes shaded by a brown Stetson. Sky’s gaze was so direct and unsettling the pit of her stomach took a nosedive toward her toes.

Clearing her throat, she said, “I plan to make my home here, and I don’t want to have any regrets.” That said, she forced herself to look at the other people in the room. It seemed she’d scored some brownie points with the Ladies Aid Society, but not with the local men. Since the success of her business depended upon being liked, she hurried to say, “In the meantime, you’re all welcome to stop by the store, to browse, and talk. I give great advice about patterns and color schemes and painting techniques, and my interior design rates are extremely affordable.”

With a smile, she bid everyone goodbye. Keeping her eyes straight ahead, she strode to the back of the room through a crescendo of “aw shucks” and “rats” and “just our luck.”

She glanced over her shoulder just before closing the door behind her. She could hear Luke Carson banging his gavel on the podium, but her gaze never made it that far. A lot of the men had crammed their hats back on their heads. She found herself staring into the eyes of the man who’d never taken his off. Her nerves fluttered. Lucky for her, the door closed before she got thoroughly lost in the depths of green eyes that were hooded by thoughts she couldn’t begin to decipher.

“Somethin’ wrong with that beer, sugar?”

Sky eyed his untouched bottle of beer, shaking his head at DoraLee Brown. “Just not thirsty, I guess.”

Moseying on over to the Crazy Horse along with several of the other men had seemed like a good idea when the town meeting had adjourned an hour ago. Sky usually enjoyed talking and laughing and playing a game or two of cards. He’d told a joke he’d tried out on the hired hands at the Lone M that very afternoon. They’d laughed their heads off. Of course they had. It had the best dang punch line he’d heard in years. The Crazy Horse crowd had listened. And nothing. Nobody so much as cracked a grin. The only thing any of them seemed interested in doing tonight was talking about Meredith Warner.

“She wants to sell us paint and sofas and lamp shades,” Neil Anderson said.

“Worse, she doesn’t want to date anybody for a whole year,” his brother, Norbert added.

“Why move to a town that advertised for women if you don’t want to get to know the men?” Ben Jacobs asked, rubbing the spot where Mertyl had clipped him with two surprisingly strong arthritic fingers.

“To start a business, I guess,” one of the other boys answered.

Sky pushed his beer a little farther away. He might as well leave.

“Who in Sam Hill would want to open a business here?”

Sky didn’t quite make it to his feet. Droll or not, Norbert had a point. Why had Meredith decided to open her store here?

“Jasper Gulch ain’t exactly a bustling metropolis.”

That was true. Why open a store here and not in some other small, but not-quite-so-dead town? Jasper Gulch suited Sky perfectly. But he wasn’t trying to open a business.

Somebody dropped some quarters into the jukebox. Seconds later, a tune was being belt out about short skirts and men’s shirts. Sky’s mind wandered. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing sexier in the world than a woman wearing a man’s shirt and nothing else. He’d seen Meredith that way once. She hadn’t worn his shirt for long, because he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. She’d reciprocated, touch for touch, coming to him so willingly, so womanly, so wantonly, he couldn’t seem to forget it.

Something bothered the back of his mind. He was pretty sure he’d hurt her when it was all over, but he was nothing if not honest. So he’d told her the truth, and the truth was, he wasn’t a forever kind of man. He’d been very clear about that. And yet she was back. Why? Sure, she wanted to be close to her niece and nephew. But she could have opened a business in Pierre, and commuted to work. Why was she really here?

He thought about the way her eyes had rested on him during that meeting. Twice. Both times she’d looked away before he’d figured out what it had meant. She hadn’t looked at anybody else that way. He knew, because he hadn’t taken his eyes off her.

Whoa.

What if she’d read more into those few hours they’d spent together than had actually been there? She was a woman, after all, and women tended to romanticize everything. What if she’d moved here because she’d convinced herself that passion was love, no matter what he’d said? What if she was saving her wiles to use on him? What if…

Sky dropped a few bills on the bar and rose blithely to his feet. He’d reached his truck when he noticed the lights on in the store across the street. Looking both ways, he strode on over, one last question, the most important question of all, running through his mind: What if he paid her a little visit and found out?

Pounding.

Meredith’s eyelashes flickered, her eyes moving back and forth beneath her closed lids. The sound came again, a distant pounding, like a fist on wood. She must have been dreaming. Yes, that was it. She was dreaming, floating in a weightless, beautiful place filled with rainbows and the purl of wind chimes and a breeze more gentle and soft on her face than anything she’d ever felt. There were no doors in this place, so the pounding must have been coming from outside her dream.

Glass rattled. Meredith jerked in her sleep. She groaned softly and whispered, “So tired.”

The rainbows dimmed slightly, but the wind chimes purled on and on. She floated close enough to the surface of her dream to realize that the other, disruptive sound had gone away. She sighed, snuggling deeper into the sofa cushions.

And then, suddenly, her eyes popped open. It took several blinks to bring the store into focus. She sat up groggily. She’d been unloading merchandise from boxes when exhaustion had overtaken her. She remembered leaning her head against the back of the sofa and closing her eyes for a moment. She glanced at her watch. Mercy, that had been an hour ago. She’d been sleeping so deeply she’d been dreaming.

Something must have awakened her.

She took a few steps toward the front of the store, peering at the door and then out the window. Other than a handful of trucks parked in front of the Crazy Horse Saloon across the street, all was quiet out on Main Street. Hugging her arms close to her body, she turned in a half-circle, thinking that she might as well call it a night and go upstairs to her apartment. She switched off one lamp. Picking up the cordless phone she’d left on a low table, she headed for the first open window.

A sound at the back of the store stopped her in her tracks.

At first she thought it might have been the mother cat, scratching at the door to go out. She glanced at the old drawer Logan had padded for the stray and her seven kittens. The babies were sleeping; the mother stood, back arched, poised for action, as if something had awakened her, too.

The doorknob rattled. Somebody was trying to get in.

The blood drained out of Meredith’s face, down her neck, seeming to pool in the pit of her stomach. Pressing her lips shut so no sound would escape, she forced herself to settle down. She’d been robbed when she’d first moved to Minneapolis. The thief had gotten everything, leaving her penniless, destitute. She was almost thirty now. She was older, wiser, and lately, too tired to start over again. Everything she had was invested in this store, all her life savings, her toil and sweat and dreams for the future were tied up in the meager furnishings on this floor.

The doorknob jiggled again. Next, she heard a scrape, as if someone was jimmying the lock. Panic rose in her throat. There was no time to run upstairs. She wished she had something to use as a weapon. She looked at the cordless phone in her hand. Wide awake now, she punched in 9-1-1, creeping stealthily toward the shadows in the back of the room where she could hide.

The door burst open before she reached her destination. It was too dark to see who the intruder was, but she could make out the shape of a man. The cat sprang straight up, streaking between the intruder’s legs. While the man was off balance, Meredith shoved an antique umbrella stand in his path. He tripped. “What the hell?”

She recognized that voice. As he fell toward her, out of the shadows and into the light, she recognized the face that went with it.

Sky’s arms flailed, but he managed to keep from falling flat on his face. “Why did you do that?”

She backed up, straightening so fast she saw stars. “I’m trying to—” her voice seemed to be coming from far away “—defend my store.” Sky’s face blurred before her eyes, and all the world with it.

She swayed. Sky swore. He scaled a low table, catching her before she could hit the floor. “Easy,” he whispered, but her eyes were closed, and she didn’t hear.

He wrapped his arms around her, trying to hold her upright. It wasn’t easy. He was the best roper in a hundred mile radius. He could rope a calf, hop off his horse, tie it up and hoist it onto his shoulder with ease. Meredith was slight, but right now, she was as limp as a rag doll, and a helluva lot harder to hold on to than a squirming, bawling, roped calf.

He swung her into his arms, staggering slightly. Keeping his feet squarely beneath them, he supported her head with his shoulder, then tried to decide what to do next.

Meredith’s eyes fluttered. What happ…? Where am…? For the second time in a matter of minutes, she opened her eyes and tried to focus. This time, she found herself staring at the harsh lines of Sky’s jaw. “What are you doing?”

“You’re ill.”

It sounded to Meredith like an accusation. She glanced down, appalled to discover that she was in his arms. “Put me down.”

“You fainted.” Again, his voice sounded harsh.

“You scared me.”