by Jeannie Watt
Dani untied the horse’s lead rope. “Because you’re a soft touch when it comes to animals.”
“We have enough mouths to feed.”
Dani gave an approving nod. “I agree. Thank you.” She headed off toward the pasture with the buckskin gelding, leaving Jolie staring after her, wondering if she’d been played.
* * *
“DID YOU KNOW we had a Facebook page?” Dylan looked up from his laptop as he spoke. He and Mike were sitting in their loungers on either side of the cluttered lamp table watching television—or pretending to watch television in Dylan’s case. It was the way they spent most of their evenings when they weren’t sorting through his grandfather’s stuff. Mike liked the company and Dylan was doing his best not to be constantly looking for something to do... In other words he was working on forcing himself to relax.
Mike didn’t take his eyes off the news when he said, “I’d heard a rumor. Finn said it was a good way to advertise.”
“Have you seen the page?”
“Why would I go looking at Spacebook?”
“Facebook.” Dylan wasn’t surprised at his grandfather’s answer. Mike used the internet to read the news. Other than that, computers were for playing long games of solitaire.
“Jolie made the page,” Mike continued as he switched the channel again, his eyes never leaving the television. “She and Finn were talking about it one night when they were here for dinner.”
“Jolie was here for dinner with Finn?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Mike’s little dog, Speck, jumped up on his lap and he automatically scooped her into the crook of his arm.
“The page isn’t half bad.”
The banner was a photo of Marcel sitting on the window sill next to a pot of red geraniums. The Culver Ranch and Feed sign that Mike had carved forty years ago curved over the top of the window. It was very charming and down home. And at least twice a week Jolie updated the status of the store, including little tidbits about nutritional values of the various feeds, little known facts about the origin of certain grains, factoids and the occasional true-false or multiple-choice trivia questions with ten-percent-off coupon codes to be emailed to winners. It seemed that Jolie knew more about his store—and little known feed and seed facts—than he did. It also seemed as if she and his cousin were closer than he’d realized.
They were just friends. Dylan knew that, but what he didn’t know was why he didn’t like the idea of Jolie and Finn being close. And what about that favor she’d called in? He still wondered about that occasionally.
Mike stayed focused on his show, idly rubbing Speck’s ears.
“Jolie’s putting a boutique into the store,” Dylan said, figuring he may as well come clean since Mike seemed good with the Facebook page and coupons.
Mike turned his hawklike gaze toward Dylan. “A what?”
“Boo-teak,” Dylan enunciated.
“What for?”
“To draw in customers. She’s been itching to add stock. I told her we’d stay with the tried and true, so she came up with this idea to display artisan work on commission.”
Mike’s frown deepened, but he didn’t immediately start telling Dylan how artisan items would distract from their stock.
“Helen had talked about doing that once.”
Not the expected response. “It’s only for a two-month trial period.”
“Why the time limit?”
Dylan cleared his throat. “We, uh, made a bet. If she can increase the customer base in two months, she wins. If not, then I win.”
“What do you win?”
“I’m not really clear on that,” Dylan admitted. Technically, if he won, then the boutique was history, but that wasn’t much of a prize, therefore his prize was being right and the store continuing to slide downhill sales-wise.
Mike’s perplexed frown was back, drawing his thick gray eyebrows together. “What does she win?”
“A date.”
“With...?”
“Me.”
Mike’s eyebrows came together again. “Let me get this straight. If you win, then you don’t know what you win and if she wins, you get to go out with an attractive woman.”
“That’s not quite the way it is.” At least it wasn’t the way he’d intended it to be. But since Jolie was involved, things had gotten twisted around.
“I can’t understand how you lose in this deal...unless of course you win. Then I think you lose.”
“It looks that way, but it isn’t,” Dylan said, tilting his head back. “She’s giving me payback.”
“For what?”
“Jolie and I...we have a history.”
Mike’s hand stopped moving over Speck’s rough coat.
“High school,” Dylan continued, feeling a bit foolish. “We were lab partners. It didn’t go well.”
“Lab partners in high school.” Mike spoke on a note of gruff disbelief and Dylan had to admit it sounded lame.
“The year from hell. I was trying to get scholarships. She was working against me—or at least it seemed like it...” His voice trailed off before he added, “You had to be there.”
“Do you guys get along any better now?” Mike asked with enough irony to make Dylan feel like a twelve-year-old. “Other than her threatening you with payback dating?”
“She thinks I’m controlling, which isn’t helping things.”
When Mike didn’t answer Dylan shot him a look then smiled at the expression on his grandfather’s face. “I prefer to think of it as being a take-charge kind of guy.”
“That’s fair.” Mike started stroking Speck again. “Not much for you to take charge of at the store. I mean compared to your other job.”
“It’s not a bad change.”
“Really?” There was no missing the doubt in Mike’s voice.
“Yeah.” Dylan rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, trying to sound sincere as he said, “I needed a break. If Finn had to be deployed, this wasn’t a bad time.”
“The accident?”
“It drove me crazy being assigned to a desk and until I get a medical release, that’s where I’ll be.” Now he did sound sincere. Maybe a bit too much so.
“Are you going back to Lanesburg,” Mike asked, “if you don’t get a release?”
He was 99 percent sure that the release was a given. He’d been working the leg twice daily and while it still ached at times, he had no issues using it. He just wished his grandfather didn’t sound as if he hoped Dylan didn’t get clearance.
“I’m sitting for the detective’s exam there.”
Mike picked up the remote and changed the channel as a particularly obnoxious commercial came on. “There’s always law enforcement here... I think they also have detectives.”
Dylan had a feeling this matter was going to come up sooner or later and he couldn’t blame Mike for trying to get his grandkids close to him again. “I’m halfway to my full service credit in Washington. I don’t want to screw up my retirement there.”
“So I suppose going back to school—finishing your degree—isn’t an option, either.”
Dylan stared at his grandfather. That ship had sailed so long ago that he was surprised Mike had even brought it up. “I like my career. I just...need a breather.”
“Yeah, you’ve been through a lot of stuff in a short amount of time.” Mike shifted his attention to the television. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Dylan was glad to be there, too. For the time being. As he’d said, he’d needed a breather; a moment to catch his breath before going back for another round.
He felt as though he was doing just that, too, until early the next morning when he got the call. It was from Sadie Warren, a dispatcher who lived a few blocks from him in Lanesburg. He knew the minute he heard her voice tha
t she had bad news; his gut automatically twisting as he waited for her to tell him that one of their fellow officers had been shot. The news, as it turned out, was not that dire, but it wasn’t anywhere near good.
“It’s none of my business, Dylan, but I thought you should know... I think Pat has moved in with Lindsey.”
Pat? As in his former partner? It took Dylan a few stunned seconds to say, “Are you sure?”
Sadie cleared her throat. “I don’t know for certain.”
“Why do you suspect?”
“He’s been parking on the side street between my place and yours. He doesn’t always park in the same place, but I’ve seen his car too often for it to be coincidence.”
Dylan pulled in a shaky breath as he batted down rising anger. Lindsey had been seeing someone before they’d divorced. Someone she’d never named. If it had been his own partner...the knot in his gut intensified.
“Dylan?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I, uh, thanks for telling me.”
“I trust you not to do something stupid.”
“No.” He had no intention of doing something stupid. On the other hand...he was going to do something.
“I mean it. I wouldn’t have called—”
“I know.” He thanked Sadie again for the information, swore another oath not to do anything rash, then hung up and called Phil Murray, an ex-cop he knew who did private investigations.
A quick conversation, a PayPal transaction and a handful of aspirin later, he headed off to work. The terms of the settlement were clear—Dylan only had to make house payments as long as Lindsey lived there alone. If she was not...well, things were going to change.
CHAPTER SIX
DYLAN ARRIVED EARLIER than usual on Tuesday morning, but Jolie still managed to beat him to the store. She’d had a hard time sleeping and had finally given up around 4:00 a.m. just as the sky had started to lighten.
She’d moved her cattle wearing her pajamas, fed Dani’s horses for her, then showered, dressed and headed to the store hoping to get a start on the display area. She hadn’t expected Dylan to arrive so early, and felt a little cheated of quiet time when he yanked open the door.
“Morning.” The word came out as more of an announcement than a greeting as he strode by the counter, dented lunch pail in hand. Jolie didn’t bother responding since the office door closed behind him a few seconds later. Apparently she wasn’t the only one with issues weighing on her mind. Not that she needed to worry about her sister as much as she was. Gabe was a good guy and Dani was a smart woman when the hormones weren’t beating on her; everything would work out.
But Dani was her sister. It was her job to worry about her. Besides, turnabout was fair play. Dani, she knew, had spent more time worrying about her than vice versa because Dani had always made careful life choices whereas Jolie had a tendency to race into situations half-cocked.
Not a bad way to live when one had no real responsibilities, but life had caught up with her. She was approaching thirty with a college degree in a field in which she’d be hard pressed to land a job and that meant no more screwing around. Failure—on the ranch and in the jobs that paid the bills—was not an option. If things continued as they were, she’d soon be the only person living on the Lightning Creek. The person in charge. The person who wasn’t going to mess up.
There was a bang inside the office but Jolie ignored it. It hadn’t sounded like a body hitting the floor and Dylan could handle his own emergencies. If he needed help, she was there for the asking—although she was fairly certain he wouldn’t ask. At least he hadn’t yet.
Their days at the store consisted of Dylan holing up in his office or out in the warehouse and her handling the computer work, accounts and stocking shelves. It also consisted of her cleaning those shelves more regularly than the cleaning crew. Therefore it was something of a surprise when Dylan came out of his office and crossed to the counter.
Jolie looked up with an inquiring expression.
“When do you plan to open this boutique or gift shop or whatever it is?” he asked in a clipped voice.
Damn. What happened to you?
Jolie fought back the question. One, he wouldn’t answer it and, two, she wasn’t certain she wanted to know the answer.
“I, uh, hoped to open it as soon as the display is built and the commissioned items arrive.”
“Which will be?”
She pulled a paper toward her and glanced down at it. “I have items coming in all week. Marti won’t bring hers in until she okays the display area.”
When Dylan lifted his eyebrows, she explained, “Marti doesn’t want her work hanging just anywhere. That means that everything should be here by Saturday and I’ll have a mini grand opening a week later.”
“Which entails?”
“Food,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. “A few plates of cookies. Some coffee. I’ve made some flyers and will post them later today.”
“And it’s on the Facebook page?”
“This morning.”
Dylan glanced down at his boots. When he met her eyes again, some of the hard edge was gone. “Mike liked the idea of the commissioned items.”
“I hope that doesn’t mean that the bet is off?” Jolie asked. “Because I’m a competitor at heart, and that would take a lot of the fun of it.”
It looked as if Dylan wanted to smile but couldn’t quite get all the parts moving. The frown settled back into place. He gestured at the cedar fencing boards Jolie had salvaged. “I assume you now have a set plan?”
“I have a sketch. A few shelving units need to be moved, but I thought I could do that today.”
“If I promise not to take over, can I see the plan?” Dylan asked.
Jolie opened the notebook and slid it across the counter. Dylan frowned even more deeply as he studied it. For a second there Jolie was fairly certain he was going to tell her it wouldn’t work. Instead he put the notebook back down and said, “We should get started.”
“We?”
He leaned on the counter, his blue gaze intent as he said, “I’d like to help, okay? You call the shots, I’ll do the lifting.”
Jolie hesitated before saying, “Sure.”
“But you’d rather do it alone.”
“No offense, Dylan, but I’d kind of hoped to enjoy myself building this thing.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “And you can’t do that if I help?”
“Your mood at the moment is very reminiscent of chem class.” She raised her hands in a wait-I-have-more gesture. “I’m not judging. I just—”
“Want to enjoy yourself.” He walked over to the stack of boards, studied them and looked back at her. Tension snapped between them for a moment before he said gruffly, “It’d go a lot faster if I help.”
He was asking permission. Well, that was a flipping first.
Jolie came around the counter, relinquishing her barrier. Why she needed one, she wasn’t certain, but lately it had seemed safer to put the counter between them. Dylan had been doing the same with his office door, but now he’d abandoned his office and was challenging her to do the same.
“All right,” she said. This wasn’t a battle she wanted to fight. It would go faster and maybe he needed to do something to distract himself from whatever had put that dark look on his face.
He stood studying her and she finally realized he was waiting for her to tell him what to do. Another first.
“Let’s unload the shelving units so we can shift them. I assume you want to handle the one with the horseshoe nails.”
“Funny,” Dylan muttered but, despite the cloud that seemed to be hanging over him, he didn’t sound all that annoyed.
It took more than an hour to remove all the items off the three units that needed to be moved, push them to their new locations
and reload them; during which they exchanged all of ten or fifteen words. But, oddly, it wasn’t a totally uncomfortable silence. It was more like a necessary silence and they were both aware of the fact.
They’d just finished when a customer drove in. Dylan loaded him up then returned as Jolie was propping boards against the wall.
“I’ll be back,” he said, disappearing outside again. He returned with two long 1x2 boards. “I think we should attach these to the wall then attach the cedar boards to them.”
“Like a fence,” Jolie said.
“Like a fence,” he agreed.
Jolie shrugged. “Good idea. Fewer holes in the walls. Do you have another drill? One for pilot holes, one for screws.”
“Yeah.” Dylan went out into the warehouse and came back with another drill and a case of bits. “I take it this isn’t your first time building a fence.”
“It’s what I do after work a couple nights a week. Fix plank fencing along the north boundary.”
She took hold of one end of the board as Dylan held the other and placed the level on top. “This look okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She gave a soft snort.
“What?”
“This may be the first time in our joint history that you checked something with me before proceeding.”
“Possibly because this is the first time you have a stake in the outcome?”
“I had a stake before...it just wasn’t as serious as yours.” It wasn’t an apology, but rather an acknowledgment.
Jolie held her end of the board then exchanged drills, giving him the one with the screw attachment. When he’d finished attaching his end of the board to the wall, she checked the level and drilled a pilot hole. Another drill exchange and she screwed her end of the board to the wall.
They put up the second board a few feet below the first without a word, simultaneously stepping back to assess.
“It’ll do,” Dylan said.
“Yes.”
He picked up a cedar plank. “Rough side out or in?”
“What do you think?”
“Out.”