Rocky Mountain Shelter

by Vivian Arend

  Neither could Becky from the panic twisting her face.

  Hope chuckled. “It’s not much more than a basic Excel spreadsheet, if that helps.”

  Becky shook her head again. “Computers aren’t my thing. This is.” She pulled the bag off her shoulder and held it out.

  Hope took the quilted fabric and nodded in admiration as she turned it over. “It’s pretty. Hand pieced?”

  “All my work is.” Becky gestured to the bag. “There’s a wall hanging inside, as well.”

  Hope’s expression changed rapidly as she pulled fabric from the bag and laid it on the counter between them. “Holy shit.”

  Trevor was still pretending to not be listening or he would’ve been on his feet in an instant. He tried to glance past the edge of the magazine, but he was too far away to see what had made Hope swear like a sailor. To him it looked as if she was staring wide-eyed at nothing more than a piece of painted fabric.

  But he guessed not because his cousin-in-law seemed damned impressed.

  “You’ve got some mad skills,” Hope murmured. “I’ve never seen a watercolour design that detailed.” She passed the quilt back with reluctance. “I don’t know if it’s enough, though. You being able to sew.”

  “What if I try for a week?” Becky offered. “No charge—I’ll volunteer. See if it works for you, and if it does, then we can talk.”

  Hope glanced over and met Trevor’s gaze.

  He dipped his chin. Unless Becky was a far better actress than he’d guessed, it wasn’t a risky move. He didn’t think she’d take off with the cashbox or anything, and it would give Hope a chance to see if this was the help she needed. Seemed a win/win move to him.

  “Okay, you can start tomorrow,” Hope agreed. “Ten o’clock, and you can fill out the paperwork when you get here.”

  Behind them the bell rang as the door opened, and a group of a half dozen ladies slipped in, talking excitedly as they moved into the shop.

  “I could start right now, if you want,” Becky offered. She pointed to the half-empty box Hope must have been working on when they’d arrived. “I can stock that if you want to help your customers.”

  Hope seemed torn.

  All of three seconds later, one of the women called her name and waved excitedly. “Oh, you got in that fabric I’ve been looking for. Hope, can you help me? I need to get started on this today.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Tate. I’ll be right there.” Hope hurried around the counter and pressed the box into Becky’s open hands. “You’re on, girl. Start today, and I’ll buy you lunch. And I’ll pay you for the week, no matter what. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Becky agreed quickly.

  Hope went one way, and Becky the other, but she paused for a moment and her smile widened as she faced Trevor.

  “Told you Hope was awesome,” he offered.

  She fidgeted then nodded sincerely. “Thank you.”

  “Hey, no prob. You’re the one who has to do the work.”

  He tipped his hat and left the shop to get the things he needed from the hardware store. And after that he had a dozen urgent tasks all loudly calling his name.

  But like the night before, he couldn’t get the damn woman off his mind.

  Hours passed as he worked with his older brother, checking and repairing the field equipment in preparation for the coming season. When he found himself drifting from his task yet again, Trevor gave up. He might as well call it quits and go see how her day had gone.

  His tools were put away and he was stripping off the blue overalls he’d worn to keep the grease and oil from his clothes before Steve noticed.

  His brother paused to wipe the sweat off his forehead with the back of his sleeve before frowning. “Where’re you headed in such an all-fired hurry?”

  For how much time Trevor had spent that day wondering how Becky was doing, he should’ve used at least thirty seconds to plan an excuse for cutting out early.

  I need to go stalk our new neighbour probably wasn’t good enough.

  He opened his mouth and closed it a couple of times before giving up. “I’m meeting someone in town.”

  Steve sat in silence. Just sat there, drinking from his water bottle and waiting for Trevor to confess to…something.

  It didn’t take long for guilt to roll in like the bastard wanted. “I’ll finish this later tonight, I promise. I want to be there on time.”

  “Well, that’s fine. My time means shit, though, is that it?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Next time tell me you’ve got a date,” Steve complained. “Finishing the swather is a two-person job. We would have worked on something else this afternoon if I’d known you were going to leave. And we can’t finish it later because Melody and I are going riding tonight.”

  “I’m sorry.” And now he felt like a shit for screwing up Steve’s plans. “I can stay.”

  Steve waved a hand. “Forget it. Only don’t make any plans for tomorrow morning because we’re going to stick to this job until we’re done, got it?”

  He might’ve felt terrible, but he was also itching to leave. Trevor headed toward his truck as he called out a reply. “I promise. Tomorrow I’m all yours. For as long as it takes.”

  “You know I’m going to find out who’s got you all rattled,” Steve shouted after him as Trevor climbed into his truck and pulled the door shut. “And I will tease you unmercifully every chance I get.”

  Trevor stuck his hand out the window and gave his brother the finger as he drove away, hurrying home to grab the fastest shower ever.

  Dressed in clean clothes, he tore down the back roads so he could make it to the door of the Stitching Post right at four thirty.

  Only it was Hope’s head that popped up when the bell announced his entrance.

  “Hey.”

  She motioned him forward, waving her hand frantically. “What is going on?” she demanded.

  “What?” He glanced around the shop, but no one else was there. No customers, no Becky. “Where is she?”

  “The place emptied out about half an hour ago, so I sent her home. The shop is on short hours today.”

  Dammit. If he hadn’t taken the shortcut, he might’ve spotted her on the road. Or maybe she’d gone to pick up some groceries…

  Hope poked a finger into his chest. “Hey, stop your woolgathering and talk to me.”

  It finally registered. Hope’s question when he walked into the place. “Is something wrong?”

  She made a face. “I…I don’t know.”

  He was still missing a bunch of details, but he hadn’t meant to cause any trouble. “Hey, if Becky’s not going to work out, don’t feel obligated to keep her on because I brought her in. It’s your shop.”

  “It’s not that. She’s great when it comes to the quilting stuff. She organized a whole bunch of projects I’ve been wanting to get to, cleaned up the storage room, and somehow convinced Mrs. Tyler to buy something instead of hanging out and talking my ear off for two hours.”

  Whoa. “She got Mrs. McScrooge to open her purse and spend some money?”

  Hope nodded. “I’d call her a miracle worker, but it’s the other stuff I don’t understand. Hang on.” She marched to the door and peeked out for a moment before closing it firmly and turning the deadbolt. After flipping the open sign to closed, she rejoined him at the counter. “She has no ID, Trevor.”

  “She forgot it?” Damn. If he’d been there half an hour earlier he could have driven her home so she could get it.

  “No, as in she outright told me she doesn’t have a social insurance number. And that it’d be fine if I paid her under the table.”

  Not what he’d expected to hear. Not at all. “You can’t do that. Can you?”

  Hope hesitated. “I… And this is why I don’t know what to think because I’d love to hire her, but I don’t know if I want to risk getting in trouble. But we talked a bit while we worked, and I really like her, and it sounds as if she’s got a lot to offer, but…”
>
  “How could someone not have ID? That makes no sense.”

  “I don’t know.” Her face crinkled with concern. “There’s an awful lot I don’t know about her, yet.”

  “Do you trust her?” Trevor asked. “I mean, were you worried about being alone in the shop with her, or anything?”

  “Of course not. It wasn’t like that at all.”

  He tried to ease a few of her fears. “At least she was honest about not having the information you need.”

  “That made it better, and worse, at the same time,” Hope complained. “If she’d lied I’d have no trouble kicking her to the curb, but the way she said it—as if she expected me to tell her to get out—damn near broke me.”

  He offered a consoling hug. Hope could be tenderhearted at the best of times, and pregnancy hormones were probably making this worse. He squeezed her for a moment before a thought struck. “You know whoever she’s renting from must have information, or they wouldn’t have let her move in.”

  Hope backed away and nodded slowly. “You’re right. I need to talk to Matt. See what he thinks.”

  “Is she going to finish out the week?”

  “Yeah, and I feel okay about that. It’ll give me time to make a decision how to deal with this.”

  And it would give Trevor time to dig up some more details as well. “Talk to Matt, but if either of you need anything, give me a shout. I’m going to go try and talk to her.”

  “I like her,” Hope insisted again. “I want to help her, but not if it’s going to get me in trouble. I can’t risk it, Trev, I can’t.”

  “No one expects you to, least of all Becky, from the sounds of it.” He tweaked Hope’s nose. “While I’m here, you need anything lifted or whatever?”

  She shook her head. “Come on, I’ll let you out the front door so you don’t have to walk all the way around the block to your truck.”

  “Aww. I’m young and fit,” Trevor taunted. “Unlike your husband who was sucking wind the last time we hauled bales. Looks like Matt’s put on a few pounds.”

  “It’s all muscle,” Hope declared firmly. “And I bet he was tired that day because we’d stayed up all night playing grownup games.”

  Damn. “You play dirty, cousin,” Trevor complained.

  “Don’t come to a battle of wits unarmed,” she teased.

  He was still chuckling when he hit the highway back to his place. Which, not so coincidentally, was also the highway to Becky’s place.

  Trevor caught up with her a mile from home, a plastic grocery bag in one hand as she marched double time along the side of the road. It only took a moment to do a reenactment of their morning’s adventure, pulling beside her and lowering the window.

  “Hey, Rodeo.”

  She stopped completely and gave him the most delicious dirty glare. Whatever else had happened that day, she still had enough what the fuck attitude in her to make him grin. “I don’t rodeo.”

  “You also don’t know you’re supposed to walk on the highway facing the traffic,” he pointed out. “Get in. I’ll take you home.”

  Becky growled, but she jerked open the door and crawled in, resting her groceries on the seat between them. “You’re stalking me.”

  “Maybe,” he admitted. “Just a little,” he hurriedly added when her eyes flashed wide with something that looked suspiciously like fear. “Not in that creepy I’m going to bury you in a freezer in my backyard kind of way. You intrigue me, Becky Hall. I want to know more about you.”

  She sat in silence for a moment. “Did Hope tell you?”

  She’d been honest earlier. She’d probably appreciate the same now. “That she wants to hire you because you’re really good, but that you don’t have any identification she can use for taxes and all that stuff? Yeah, she told me.”

  Becky perked up. “She wants to hire me?”

  “She does. So we need to figure out a solution to the other half of your problem.”

  “I sent in the requests for new papers, but it’s going to take time for them to go through.” She twisted sideways in her seat so she could stare at him, her face far more expressive without the mask she seemed to drop into place at a moment’s notice. Now she looked completely confounded. “Why’re you being so nice?”

  “Because I’m just a nice kinda guy,” Trevor flashed back like he usually would before pausing. This wasn’t the moment for trite humour. “Honestly? I don’t know why. Other than you seem to need someone to give you a hand, and I feel like I should.”

  She didn’t all of a sudden jump up and down and declare she trusted him, but some of the tension eased out of her shoulders.

  Becky leaned back in the seat. “There’ve been so many good things happening lately I can’t believe they’re true. It’s as if I’m waiting for a giant boot to drop out of the sky and crush me. That would be more like what I’m used to.”

  “And sometimes life changes,” Trevor insisted. “Maybe there won’t be a boot this time. Maybe whatever it is that’s brought you to Rocky is because it’s time for a change for the better. Everything bad in the past, and nothing but good ahead.”

  She sat quietly for a minute. “Part of me wants to say that that’s impossible. Life doesn’t change that fast, but the other part of me wants it to be true with every bit of my being.”

  He was approaching her driveway, which meant there was a deadline to deal with. If she didn’t invite him in, he didn’t know when they might get the chance to pick up this conversation again. “You have plans for tonight?” he asked.

  “I’m going to work in the garden.” Becky nudged the bag between them. “I bought some seeds, but the garden needs to be cleaned up before I can plant.”

  “Want to have supper with me first?” The invitation burst free without much forethought. “We could talk about your problem and figure out some solutions.” Making it less of a date and more of a meeting, he supposed.

  He didn’t care what they called it as long as she didn’t disappear again.

  Trevor pulled to a stop on the road to wait for her answer, which let him look her square in the face as she considered his offer. Her nose twitched as she eyed him before slowly agreeing. “Okay.”

  He would’ve sworn somebody hit him with a cattle prod. A white-hot shot of excitement raced through him—he hadn’t felt that kind of rush since the eighth grade when Tammy Janzten up and kissed him out of the blue.

  He wasn’t a teenager, and all Becky had done was agree to come over to his house for a meal. Still, reality didn’t chase away the thrill running through his veins.

  Trevor hoped like hell there was something in the cupboards at his place other than Kraft dinner.

  Chapter Four

  She was out of her mind.

  In less than twenty-four hours, she’d gone from sticking to her plan of keeping to a solitary lifestyle to three times over accepting help from a virtual stranger.

  Only…strangers were the ones who’d made the biggest difference in her life recently. The people she’d known for years had been the problem.

  Still, there was enough anxiety hanging over her head to move cautiously.

  The way Trevor rushed into the singlewide mobile home ahead of her was kind of endearing. She deliberately walked slower, figuring he needed a chance to clean up his bachelor pad, but the living room was surprisingly sparse except for the remote controls and car magazines on the coffee table.

  “Give me a minute,” he said, shifting his broad body through the small doorway into the kitchen to peer into the fridge. “I’ve got beer, juice and water.”

  “Juice is great.”

  Cupboards clattered and doors banged as she left him alone and instead took a closer look at her surroundings. The exterior screamed old, but inside everything was sparkling clean and bright.

  On either side of the picture window, family portraits hung on the wall, a collection of smiling faces. She moved closer to examine them, picking out Hope in one group shot, her potential boss held tight
against a good-looking man with a neat dark beard who had to be one of Trevor’s cousins—the resemblance was uncanny.

  “I see you’ve discovered the mug shots.” Trevor marched back into the room and offered her a tall glass of cold orange juice. “Let me give you a tour.”

  “Hope told me there were a lot of family in town,” Becky admitted, “but I thought she was exaggerating when she called you a horde.” It wasn’t an outrageous number of people by her standards, but she bet to most people in the area, they were an anomaly.

  Trevor stepped beside her and tapped on pictures as he spoke. “Here’s the whole lot of us. Four of the original Coleman brothers settled in Rocky. Mike, Ben, George, and that’s my dad, Randy. This shot is our immediate family. Steve’s the oldest, and Melody is his girlfriend. She’s one of the local veterinarians. My younger brother Lee and his girlfriend, Rachel. My sister Anna—she’s with the RCMP, and that’s Mitch, her husband. Their family owns one of the local garages. Steve, Lee and I work with my parents.” He pointed to another picture that showed his parents, the two of them standing under a flower-filled arbor. “They had a big anniversary party a few weeks ago.”

  She turned to the next set of pictures and was surprised when he didn’t follow her. Instead, he stood back a few paces looking kind of sheepish.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Trevor grimaced. “I didn’t mean to talk your ear off. It’s bad enough that there are million of us in the area. I don’t want you to think you have to memorize names, or anything.”

  Becky laughed, snapping up a hand to cover her reaction. “I’m sorry, that was rude, but I honestly don’t mind.”

  He still looked uncomfortable. “Just assume if you see someone who kinda looks like me, they’re probably related. Heck, anyone you meet on the street, if you assume they’re a Coleman, you’d be right fifty percent of the time.”

  “I’m sure it’s not quite as bad as that,” Becky assured him.

  “I don’t know. The locals gave up on calling us only Coleman a long time ago. My family are the Moonshine Colemans, then there are the Angel clan, Whiskey Creek and Six Pack to round out the mob.”