9 Ways to Fall in Love

by Caroline Clemmons

  * * *

  As Joanna motored toward Hatlow from Lubbock, her body felt as if it weighed five hundred pounds. Working so hard yesterday, followed by a confrontation with a rattlesnake and getting little sleep, had left her mind and body numb. Added to that was the blistering sun. Today, it had been not only oppressive but relentless. Typical of September.

  She had climbed in and out of the pickup all day and heaved the egg-filled coolers into her customers' locations. To coddle Alicia a little, she had trekked through the mall looking for a small gift. She found a delicate gold necklace with a tiny diamond pendant that was perfect for the petite Alicia. Then she had stopped off at a Walmart and bought Clova a potted mum that she could plant in her flower bed after she left the hospital.

  All of it had sapped her energy. She coasted along with the air conditioner set on high and the cruise control set on sixty, listening to the radio and thinking. She always used driving time for thinking.

  Today she had collected approximately five hundred dollars. From that, she would net less than two hundred. Mental groan. She had to figure out a way to either make the egg business more profitable or quit it.

  Being the only egg farmer near enough to personally deliver fresh free-range eggs to the larger city markets, and with the cost of gasoline twice what it used to be, on this trip, she had raised her wholesale price by fifty cents per dozen. Customers had readily accepted her explanation about higher gasoline prices. But adding fifty cents to the price of a carton of eggs was like putting a Band-Aid on a throat slash.

  She hated to give up on the egg business. In the first place, she hated to give up on anything until she became convinced no other option existed. Second, she respected the chickens as living things that did their best to serve her purpose and she had grown to love them, even with all of their brainless quirks. Third, a tiny idealistic part of her believed that by providing a natural product, she was doing something beneficial for the people she served and for Earth.

  Concluding she could have sold dozens more eggs if she'd had them made her think about Clova's offer of land. Funny how the idea of acquiring more laying hens would have never entered her head as being realistic if Clova hadn't mentioned giving the land to her. Now the idea popped into Joanna's mind often. More land equaled more hens and more eggs, which added up to more income.

  She couldn't keep from thinking that if she had that free land with highway frontage, she could be selling eggs at retail instead of wholesale, thus generating more cash. She had almost come to associate the gift of land with being the only way the egg business could survive. Common sense told her different, but sometimes a longing could send a person's thoughts in a wrong direction. She knew about yearning for something just out of reach because she had been doing it her whole life. She hadn't necessarily known what specific thing she wanted, but the yearning never left her.

  Thinking of the free land took her mind to Dalton. With Clova ill, Joanna believed Dalton hadn't yet been told of the land offer.

  Dalton. Supposedly at home preparing a meal. A meal that she would eat. The visual of a man so masculine fussing around in the kitchen cooking supper was almost ludicrous, and Joanna wondered if he would really do it.

  She still couldn't guess what he might be up to by inviting her. Seduction, maybe? Just because he had a girlfriend at home didn't mean he wouldn't try to make out with the female closest to him. She knew that male behavior well enough. Not only had she experienced it, but the beauty shop was full of talk of it every day. A sigh involuntarily escaped her lungs.

  Whatever, she thought, annoyed by allowing herself to endlessly cross bridges before she reached them. Why debate the man's motives when she was so tired and hungry she would dine with the devil himself? That is, as long as she didn't have to prepare the meal.

  She stopped off at the hospital to visit Clova and deliver the potted mum. Before going inside, she called her own mother and reported that she had returned. If she didn't call and say she had safely arrived back in Hatlow, Mom would worry that she'd had an accident on the highway.

  Clova's head turned toward her when she entered. "Hi, sweetie," Joanna said softly.

  A huge bouquet of yellow roses in a tall clear vase sat on the windowsill in Clova's room. The blooms were as large as baseballs, the color as deep and rich as...well, as egg yolks. She walked over and set her small mum beside the yellow roses and both she and Clova laughed at the contrast.

  "Thank you, hon. But you shouldn't have spent your money on a flower for me."

  Clova's voice came in a weak rasp, and her feverish eyes shone like obsidian in her pale face, but in spite of having an oxygen tube in her nose, an IV in her hand and being flat of her back in a hospital bed, she showed a buoyancy Joanna hadn't seen her exhibit in months. No doubt it was because her wandering oldest son had returned, if only temporarily.

  "It didn't cost much. You can plant it in your flower bed. Or if you aren’t able to, I’ll do it." Joanna touched one of the rose's blooms with her fingertips. "These are beautiful. Who sent them?"

  "Dalton. I can't believe he spent good money on flowers either. And roses at that."

  "Well, you're his mother. I'd spend money on roses for my mom if she were sick. He came to see you today, huh?"

  "Joanna, he paid the taxes on the place."

  Joanna felt a little leap in her chest. She knew the unpaid taxes had been a threat that lay like a yoke on Clova's narrow shoulders. "Oh, my God. Did he really?"

  "I didn't ask him to, but I shore was happy he done it....Joanna, did you tell him about Lane's baby?"

  Joanna hated being caught telling something she perhaps shouldn't have. Her stomach made a dip. "Uh, yes, I think I did, Clova. Is that a problem?"

  "Oh, I guess not. It's just that since Mandy's mama and daddy don't want her havin' nothin' to do with us, I was hopin' Dalton wouldn't find out about all the upset."

  "Everyone in town knows, Clova. How could he not find out?"

  "He don't see ever'body in town. He don't stay here that long."

  Joanna and Clova had discussed the Fergusons' quarrel with Lane before. Fred and Eloise Ferguson called the sheriff every time Lane tried to see his daughter. From the day Mandy, their only child, revealed her pregnancy, they had made no secret of their loathing for Lane Cherry and anyone associated with him. Eloise had even ceased to be a customer of Joanna's Salon & Supplies. Joanna had never told Clova that being her friend had cost her a customer.

  "The way I remember Dalton," Clova said, "if he finds out about Fred tryin' to have Lane arrested, he might think he oughtta do somethin' about it. I don't want him to get trapped into dealin' with that kind o' stuff while he's here. He don't come home that often. This kind o' trouble is just one more reminder how bad things used to be for him when he lived here."

  Home? Joanna doubted if the Dalton Parker she had met would refer to Hatlow as "home." As for Fred Ferguson's irrational attitude toward his granddaughter's father, Joanna suspected Dalton was a man who could and would make short order of something so silly.

  She couldn't keep from taking Lane's side in that quarrel. Though he sometimes behaved irresponsibly, he had never denied being the father of Mandy's child and had been willing, even eager, to do the right thing. He might straighten up and be a decent father if Fred Ferguson ever gave him a chance.

  Beyond that, she wanted to ask Clova just exactly how bad had things been for Dalton, from a mother's perspective? She hadn't been able to put out of her mind her own mother's criticism of how Dalton had been raised by his mother and stepfather.

  But she refrained. A woman in a hospital bed was too ill for anyone to make waves. "So how are you feeling, really?" she asked.

  "I still got that deep hurt in my chest, but I guess I'm okay."

  "Did Dr. Russell talk to you?"

  Clova held up her right hand, into which the IV had been inserted. "Where you think I got this?"

  "What is it, antibiotic?"

  "I'm lea
vin' here in a couple o' days, I'll tell ya. I got too much to do to be layin' up in the bed. I got to figure out how to get them yearlin's to the sale."

  "Did Dr. Russell say you could leave?"

  "Naw. That's what I said."

  "This time, you should stay here until you get well, Clova."

  "I ain't got no more money now than I did back in the spring, Joanna. Boardin' in a hospital costs. Even if Dalton did tell ’em he’d pay when y'all stuck me in here, I ain't gonna let him or anybody else pay my doctor bills. It's bad enough he had to pay the taxes."

  Joanna did a mental eye roll. She was too tired to cover the same old ground. She changed the subject by repeating the various snippets of gossip she had heard as she went about her egg deliveries, added some small talk, then said good night.

  In truth, she was in a hurry. She still had eggs to gather and supper to eat, cooked by a sexy, mysterious man

  Chapter 16

  Outside, dusk had stained the landscape to mauve and a creamy three-quarter moon had already popped up on the flat horizon. Good weather was good news for an egg farmer. "Yay. Red sky at night," she mumbled as she climbed into her pickup.

  She pulled out of the hospital parking lot, stewing over the fact that it would be completely dark by the time she reached the Parker ranch and she would be gathering the eggs with the help of a flashlight and the moonlight.

  Crap.

  She had collected eggs after nightfall before without so much as a thought of snakes. But after yesterday, she was certain she would never be able to make a nighttime venture into the chicken yard again without fear. Crap, again. Now she had to consider if she should install some kind of lighting in the chicken yard for the nighttime egg gathering. A flashlight no longer felt adequate.

  She reached the ranch after seven and parked in front of her egg-processing room. She had thrown old clothes—a pair of jeans, a flannel work shirt and boots—in the pickup when she left home this morning. She carried them inside and stripped out of her dress clothes. Some people might not think of khaki Dockers and a polo shirt as dress clothing, but this was Hatlow, where most of the female population wore jeans and T-shirts and flip-flops.

  She was standing in the brilliant white glare of the overhead fluorescent lighting wearing nothing but her bra and bikini panties when the door opened and Dalton stepped in. She yelped. "Oh!" She grabbed up the jeans and pressed them to her front. "Just a minute!"

  "Hey—Oh, shit!" His eyes flew wide. "I'm sorry."

  He stepped backward and slammed the door with a loud clap!

  Though he had been in her egg-washing room before, she hadn't thought of him coming in tonight or she would have locked the door. Mumbling swear words under her breath, she hurriedly stepped into her jeans and pulled on her work shirt.

  She padded to the door in bare feet, considering how she should handle his walking in on her unclothed. Nonchalant. Like it never happened, she finally decided, though she was well aware that in the few seconds he stood in the doorway, his eyes had touched all of her.

  She opened the door and saw him leaning his backside on her pickup door, his thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets, his booted feet crossed at the ankles. Cowboy boots. Then it hit her that this was the magnet that drew her to him. Cowboys, true cowboys, had always been her greatest weakness when it came to men. That particular social group lived close to the earth. She believed cowboys knew a truth that some others didn't and she liked that.

  Spotlighted by the golden glow cast from the doorway of the egg-washing room, he looked like the personification of every temptation she had ever known all rolled into one brooding package. Sex was the first word that flew into her mind.

  He had on clean clothes—creased and pressed jeans and a pink, ironed button-down.

  Pink?

  He hadn't impressed her as the pink type or the ironed-shirt type, either. Scott Goodman was the pink, ironed-shirt type. Dalton Parker's color type was closer to black. But no question, with his black hair and olive skin, in pink he looked as delicious as cake.

  Had he cleaned up and dressed up to have supper with her? He must have, because the date had been made this morning when he still needed a shave. A fullness suddenly grew in her chest, and if someone had asked her to explain it, she couldn't.

  "Uh, I don't like to go into the chicken yard in my dress clothes," she told him, meeting his gaze and trying not to sound apologetic.

  "I already picked up your eggs," he said. "Didn't you see?"

  He sounded put out, as if his feelings were hurt. "Oh. Well, I guess I didn't look."

  For the first time she glanced at the counter and saw four baskets filled with eggs on the far end. Confusion muddled through her mind, but it wasn't nearly as great as the sense of relief that she wouldn't have to enter the chicken yard in the dark. Wanting to sound appreciative, she said, "Oh, my gosh. Listen, thanks. I don't mind telling you I'm still thinking about that snake."

  "I fed those jackasses, too," he said in his clipped way of speaking. "One of them tried to bite me."

  His grouchiness no longer struck dread into her. She was now interpreting it as a sort of cynical sense of humor. She thought she saw his eyes crinkle at the corners. He was teasing her again. "Come on, now. Don't falsely accuse my little donkeys. Their names are Joe and Jill. They don't bite."

  "Oh, yeah? I never met a jackass that didn't bite." He pushed himself off her pickup door and stood there with his hands jammed against his belt. "I've got the steaks thawed out and ready to cook."

  "Listen, I know I got here late. I'll just get these eggs washed and—"

  "No hurry. Do what you have to." He turned and strode up the stone pathway toward the front door, obviously perfectly confident that she would follow him rather than just fire up her pickup and drive away. That was another of his traits that lured her. That unabashed self-confidence.

  He might have said "no hurry," but she had sensed impatience oozing from his every pore. Still unable to believe she was really doing this, she went back to her pile of clothing. She hurriedly put on her dress clothes again, covered them with clean coveralls and finished handling the eggs in record time. She even washed the inside of the refrigerator.

  She had left her purse in the pickup, and inside it was a hairbrush. She climbed into the driver's seat and dug it out, along with a tube of Frosted Peach lipstick. Unfortunately, she didn't have a drop of cologne with her. She ran the brush through her shoulder-length do and tried to improve her appearance in front of the visor mirror. In the dim glow from the overhead light, she could scarcely see the mark between her brows, though she was sure the concealer she had applied early this morning had melted away. She let out a breath of resignation. Nothing she could do about it now.

  Before leaving the pickup, she glanced at a brown paper sack of apples sitting on the passenger seat. She had bought them from one of her Lubbock customers for her mom and herself to share. She decided to offer the dozen apples to her host as a gift of appreciation. She doubted he would spend much time in a grocery store, so fresh fruit seemed like a good thing.

  Ever the peacemaker, trying to get along, her cantankerous side groused.

  "There's nothing wrong with a kind gesture," she mumbled.

  She dragged the apples from the pickup and carried them with her, rehearsing as she went something clever to say when she gave them to him. She felt as giddy as a schoolgirl on prom night.

  She entered the house without knocking, placed her purse on the dining table and headed for the kitchen with the sack of apples. She was barely inside the door when his scent reached her nose. Soap and water and something outdoorsy. His being all dressed up and looking like a movie star was tantalizing enough, but smelling manly and sexy was almost too much for her starved libido. Especially when she looked like a tired old shoe and felt worse. And she sure wasn't wearing perfume. She tried to identify his fragrance but couldn't. It was ridiculous that she couldn't. She sold fragrances, for crying out loud.

&n
bsp; He looked up from fussing with the steaks—two big T-bones resting on a large platter. "Hey," he said.

  "Hey, yourself," she replied, suddenly self-conscious. She had been in this kitchen countless times, knew where everything in it was stored, but tonight in the sphere of his dominating presence, she felt awkward and out of place.

  "Uh... remember that smart-aleck remark you made to me yesterday about apples?" She set the brown paper sack on the counter. "Here you go. Fresh from the orchards in Washington State. They just got them in at one of the markets I went to in Lubbock. There used to be a dozen, but I ate one on the way home."

  He stopped, wiped his hands on a towel and came over. He peered into the sack, then back at her and grinned. Now, he was close enough for her to see his square jaws shining from a fresh shave. He did have the most arresting face. Not pretty, but lean-jawed and rugged. The force of his masculinity came at her like a barrage of pinpricks.

  "Apples and snakes," he said. "This might be prophetic." He chuckled in a way that implied intimacy, as if they knew each other well and shared some secret joke.

  Redirecting her attention, she saw a bottle of red wine on the counter, the cork already pulled, sitting beside a bowl of salad. The salad looked to be torn lettuce and tomatoes sliced into thin, neat wedges. She could smell potatoes baking in the oven. His being able to cook steaks was to be expected. Every man she had ever known, especially the studly types, thought he could cook meat on a grill, but a crisp, neat salad and baked potatoes surprised her. "Look at all of this," she said. "I thought you were kidding about being a cook."

  One side of his mouth tipped into that crooked grin she had first thought was a smirk. "Babe, making a salad and throwing a potato in the oven isn't exactly cooking. You hungry?"

  "Yeah, I am. I mostly got along on Diet Pepsi and protein bars today."

  "And one of my apples?" He grinned, then added, "That fizzy shit's bad for you, you know. You shouldn't drink too much of it."

  And wasn't he bossy? "Hm. I'll try to remember that."