He thought back to the days and nights after Layne had left, taking Shea with her.
In his heart, he’d known he and Layne weren’t a good fit almost from the first, but he’d mourned the dream of what they could have had, could have been, together, if things had worked out. He’d grieved hard and deep for something he’d never really had, a fantasy no more real than heat mirages shimmering above hot pavement.
Since then, he’d been careful not to care too much about anyone or anything. He’d kept real busy, throwing himself into his work. Jasper had already gotten past his defenses, though. And now, like it or not, Joslyn Kirk had gotten under his skin, too.
He’d nearly kissed her that day, in the dusty living room of that old ranch house—stopped himself just in time. Instinctively, he knew that once he’d tasted Joslyn’s lips, he’d be consumed with the need to have more of her, and then still more.
And then, when she went back to the bright lights, as she inevitably would, he’d be wide-open to a whole new round of sorrow. Strong as he was, he wasn’t sure he could go through that again.
Which meant he’d better watch his step around the lovely Ms. Kirk. He’d just begun to resign himself to that decision when Jasper took a notion to shoot off toward the back wall, like he was riding a well-greased zip line, and soar right over the top. A canine Pegasus.
“The hell,” Slade muttered, crunching his empty beer can in one hand and tossing it into the garbage bin behind the small attached garage he never used, because his truck didn’t fit inside.
He opened the gate onto Kendra’s lush backyard, which stood in stark contrast to his own crop of weeds and dandelions, and gave a long, low whistle to summon the dog.
“Jasper!” he called, exasperated.
No response.
Damn fool dog. Slade followed the stone path to the place where it widened, next to the guesthouse. The side door was open, and he could hear Joslyn laughing inside. The sound, soft and reminiscent of distant chimes, wrenched at his insides, the way hearing “Taps” playing on a bugle did.
“Jasper,” he repeated, stopping on the doormat, raising one hand to knock at the framework.
Joslyn appeared, one hand looped through Jasper’s collar, looking five kinds of good in a long, soft robe of some kind. The fabric was bold, with lots of gold and turquoise and what was probably called magenta, and it ignited sparks in her eyes. Her feet were bare and she was smiling—until she looked up and saw him standing there.
“I guess he wanted to meet Lucy-Maude,” she said, letting go of Jasper’s collar so she could stand up straight.
Before that, Slade had had a tantalizing view of the upper rounding of her breasts, and he wished she hadn’t noticed him quite so quickly.
There was a painful grinding sensation low in his groin.
He wished he’d brought his hat along, decided that was a stupid thought and dismissed it.
“I’m sorry if he bothered you,” some stranger said, hijacking his voice.
A pretty flush glowed under Joslyn’s cheekbones, and her eyes made him dizzy, in a psychedelic, Lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds kind of way. Slade, who’d never taken an illicit drug in his life, was suddenly high.
“Jasper’s just sociable, that’s all,” she said with an odd little catch in her voice.
What was that thing she was wearing? It wasn’t a nightgown, and it wasn’t a bathrobe, either, since it didn’t zip up the front or tie at the waist, like the ones his mother wore. And by rights it shouldn’t have been so sexy, since it covered most of her up, but imagining what was beneath it jammed his normally prosaic imagination into overdrive, just the same.
“I guess it’s all settled, and the owners have agreed to let you lease the ranch house,” Joslyn said and then blushed again, and looked as though she wished she hadn’t said anything beyond, “Here’s your dog, so long, what’s your hurry?”
Slade stood sideways, because that glimpse of her breasts had made him hard, and he sure as hell didn’t want her to notice.
“Yep,” he said. “It’s a done deal.”
“That’s nice,” she said, lingering on the threshold even though Jasper, by that time, had returned to Slade’s side. “When will your daughter be here?”
“Sunday,” Slade said. “Shea and her mother will be staying at the Best Western hotel for a few days.”
Joslyn looked disappointed. “Shea won’t be at the barbecue tomorrow, then?”
“Nope,” Slade said. Damn, but he was getting suave in his old age.
She swallowed visibly. “Will you be there?”
“It’s a workday for me,” Slade told her, thinking about the near-kiss again and sorely tempted to follow through on it now. He wasn’t a man to leave things unfinished once he’d started them. “But I’ll probably stop in at some point.”
“Kendra will be pleased if you do,” Joslyn told him. Her tone was light, but there was some kind of quaver beneath it.
“Reason enough to show up,” Slade said. “Kendra’s a good friend.”
“Yes,” Joslyn agreed. “She certainly is.”
A silence fell then, hanging between them like a wet blanket suspended from a drooping clothesline.
“See you tomorrow, then,” Slade said.
She swallowed again and then nodded, and it finally came to Slade that Joslyn was as uncomfortable around him as he was around her.
“Come on, Jasper,” he told the dog and started for home.
Jasper hesitated for a moment, then followed.
Slade passed through the gate, across his disgracefully neglected yard and into the duplex through the patio doors. He intended to take a cold shower, but, as luck would have it, his wall phone was ringing.
He snatched up the receiver, glad to have something to focus on besides the strong possibility that Joslyn was naked under that robe-thingy she was wearing.
“Hello, Slade,” a female voice chimed. “Maggie Landers here. I’m sorry to call after hours like this, but the funds from your father’s estate have been transferred into a holding account, and I’ll need your signature before I can release them to you.”
He wasn’t my father, Slade wanted to say, but it wasn’t Maggie’s fault that his dad hadn’t been willing to claim him while he was still breathing. She was just doing her job as John Carmody’s attorney.
“Monday ought to be soon enough,” he said.
Maggie was in lawyer mode, and she steamrolled right over his words as though she hadn’t heard him. “I was thinking I could bring the papers with me to Kendra’s barbecue tomorrow afternoon, if you’re planning to be there.”
He felt an odd tightening sensation in his chest. “What’s the big hurry, Maggie?”
“There’s a lot of money involved here, Slade,” Maggie reminded him. “Don’t you even want to know how much you inherited, over and above your share of Whisper Creek Ranch?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“The hell it doesn’t,” Maggie shot back, sounding irritated. “Even after taxes, fees and the like, you’ll be a multimillionaire.”
That got through to him, with roughly the force of a sledgehammer blow to the solar plexus. He’d been expecting a few hundred thousand, maybe. Respectable money, but nothing like this.
“Holy crap,” he said.
He heard the smile in Maggie’s voice when she replied. “When the dust settles, you’ll have around five million dollars to call your own. Just think what you’ll be able to do for Callie with that kind of money.”
Slade was dazed. He was still grappling with the idea that John Carmody had left him anything at all, let alone a fortune.
“Slade?” Maggie prompted, with kindly amusement. “Did you faint?”
“I’m here,” Slade told her in a gravelly voice. He shoved a hand through his hair. “Are you sure there isn’t some kind of mistake—?”
Maggie actually laughed then. “No mistake,” she said. “John Carmody was a lot richer than most people ever susp
ected.”
Slade flashed back to his younger years, when his mom had had such a hell of a time just putting food on the table, let alone keeping a growing boy in jeans and shoes and paying for routine medical care and regular dental checkups. And he seethed.
He’d long since come to terms with the way he’d been raised—he’d been happy and well-adjusted, growing up, thanks to Callie—but she’d gone years without buying a new pair of shoes, and most of her clothes came from a thrift store. Where had all the old man’s fancy money been then, when Callie so desperately needed help?
“I’ll see you at the barbecue,” Slade finally managed to say. “Around three o’clock, unless I’m too busy.”
“Fine,” Maggie said. “Three o’clock.”
The call ended then, and Slade hung up. He’d forgotten all about the cold shower.
He’d picked up a few groceries at Mulligan’s that day—that was when he’d run into Kendra and she’d made a quick call on her cell phone to ask the Kingman heirs about renting out the house for a few months—and he realized that the frog race going on in his stomach was at least partially due to hunger.
He nuked a box of something frozen—meat loaf, according to the label—and offered to share it with Jasper, who turned up his muzzle, sighed in apparent disgust and walked away.
* * *
WHEN KENDRA THREW A PARTY, Joslyn thought the next morning, perched on a stepladder and hanging colorful paper lanterns from the branches of the maple trees surrounding the mansion’s outdoor kitchen, she didn’t fool around.
The coals were already lit in the belly of the huge stone grill, though it would be hours before the food would be served, and the night crew from the Butter Biscuit Café was present, setting up rented tables and folding chairs while Kendra supervised.
The woman had even hired a band, a disturbing indication, at least to Joslyn, that the celebration of the chicken farm sale would probably go on until all hours.
Although Joslyn enjoyed a party as much as the next person, she was dreading this one, and not just because she was sure to encounter some of the people her stepfather had cheated. She knew Slade would be there, and that was unsettling.
“They look great,” Kendra said, stopping at the foot of the ladder as Joslyn climbed down, admiring the paper lanterns.
Joslyn smiled her thanks and stood in the grass, looking up at her own handiwork for a moment before catching her friend’s gaze. “That must be one heck of a commission check,” she observed. “Just how much did that chicken farm go for, anyway?”
Kendra chuckled. “A lot,” she said. “It includes its own creek, a small lake and some five hundred acres of land, remember.”
“Do you throw a shindig like this every time you sell a property?”
Kendra, still smiling, shook her head. “Only when the buyer is new in town. It’s a good way to say ‘welcome’ and help them meet their future friends and neighbors.”
“No wonder you’re so successful,” Joslyn said. “You take going the second mile to a whole new level, kiddo.”
A shadow seemed to cross Kendra’s face, but it was gone again so quickly that Joslyn wasn’t sure she’d seen it at all.
“Since you’re my landlady, I have a question for you,” Joslyn said as she and Kendra folded the ladder. “Are pets allowed?”
They were crossing the yard toward a large storage shed, and two young men from the Butter Biscuit crew rushed over to relieve them of the ladder.
“Pets?” Kendra asked after a nod of gratitude to the helpers.
“It seems I’ve acquired a temporary cat,” Joslyn said.
“What is it with you and lost animals?” Kendra teased, her eyes warm and full of light. Today, they were the clear green color of old-fashioned canning jars left to mellow through decades of changing seasons. “It’s as if they gravitate to you.”
“There have been two, Kendra,” Joslyn pointed out reasonably. “Count ’em. One dog, one cat.”
“The ‘temporary’ cat is welcome to stay,” Kendra said.
“I’m sure it belongs to someone,” Joslyn said. “Lucy-Maude is healthy and well fed—she’s even clean. And—”
“And?” Kendra asked.
Here came the part that might be the deal breaker, but Joslyn’s conscience wouldn’t allow her to withhold the information. “She’s expecting kittens. Probably soon.”
“Yikes,” Kendra said, but then her eyes brightened. “Maybe I’ll keep one for myself. I love kittens.”
They were standing apart from the preparatory hubbub now, in the shade of another of the venerable old maples. As a little girl, Joslyn had climbed every one of those trees, skinning her knees in the process, and once, when she was eight, taking a tumble and breaking her left arm.
She’d had to miss swimming camp that year, and she’d moped around for days—until Elliott had brought Spunky home, a squirming, awkward pup parted too soon from its mother and the rest of the litter.
Elliott, Joslyn reflected, hadn’t been all bad. She even missed him sometimes, missed the funny, gentle, generous man he’d once been.
Kendra interrupted her reverie with a tilt of her head and an inquiring smile. “What?” she asked.
“Every once in a while,” Joslyn confessed quietly, “I stumble into a memory and get stuck there for a few moments.”
“Don’t we all,” Kendra said, with a soft sigh. Then she looked at her watch, a graceful timepiece with tiny diamonds floating under the crystal. Instead of jeans and a tank top, which Joslyn wore, Kendra sported trim linen slacks and a yellow off-the-shoulder blouse with ruffles. “Our work here is done, for now, anyway,” she said. “And I’m due at the Curly-Burly in ten minutes. Come along?”
Joslyn shook her head and smiled. “No, thanks,” she said. And then she gave her friend a brief once-over. “What services could you possibly need at Callie’s shop?” she asked. “You’re already perfect.”
That made Kendra laugh again. “Highlights,” she said, with a toss of her head that made her blond hair, loose for once, shimmer in the sunlight. “I get them once a month, and today’s the day.”
With that, Kendra walked away, got into her car, where she’d already stowed her purse, and started the engine.
A moment later, she was gone.
Joslyn went inside the guesthouse, collected her own purse and told Lucy-Maude, who was sunning herself on a wide windowsill in the living room, that she’d be back shortly.
She drove out of town to the big discount store, since some of the things she needed wouldn’t be available at Mulligan’s and she was in the mood for one-stop shopping that day.
She still had to wash and blow-dry her hair and figure out what to wear to the barbecue later on—nothing too dressy, she had decided, but nothing too casual, either.
Something—moderate.
But what? She lived in jeans and sun-tops most of the time, and she’d donated much of her wardrobe to a charity before leaving Phoenix.
The parking lot at the discount store was practically full—people probably came from all over the county to shop there, and, of course, it was Saturday.
Resolving to make it quick, Joslyn locked up her car, hurried into the store and grabbed a cart.
She bought kibble for Lucy-Maude, along with kitty litter and a plastic box to put it in. She selected a few cat toys, too, and a small, soft pet bed upholstered in a pretty pink floral fabric.
Wheeling back toward the front of the store, she passed the women’s clothing section and stopped when her gaze caught on a display of sundresses. They were sleeveless pull-ons, and she liked the black-and-white geometric print.
Taking a size medium from the rack, she held it up to her chest and looked down at it. She’d have to shave her legs and paint her toenails, she reflected, but the dress was attractive and reasonably priced.
“That will look great on you,” a familiar voice commented.
She looked up to see Hutch Carmody standing in the aisle, grinn
ing at her. He wasn’t pushing a cart, but he was holding a hardcover book and a can of shaving cream. The man was drop-dead gorgeous, with his dark blond hair and blue eyes, but he didn’t do a thing for her.
Not the way Slade did.
“Well, then,” she said with a smile, “that settles it.” She tossed the dress into her shopping cart. “See you at the barbecue this afternoon?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Hutch answered. “I hear there’s a band.”
Joslyn nodded with a chuckle, and rolled her eyes. “Kendra’s going all out,” she said.
Something flickered in his eyes, vanished again. “She tends to do that,” he said moderately. “Any excuse for a party.”
Joslyn was mildly jolted by that remark. Kendra obviously enjoyed entertaining guests, but she wasn’t a party girl. Not the way Hutch seemed to be implying, anyway.
Before she could come up with a response, though, Hutch nodded in farewell and walked away. He’d only gone a few steps when he looked back at her over one shoulder and said, “Save me a dance, okay?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
BY TWO O’CLOCK THAT AFTERNOON, Tara Kendall, the new owner of the five-hundred-acre chicken farm just south of Parable, had arrived and so had half the town, it seemed to Joslyn. Even if she’d wanted to, she thought wryly, she wouldn’t have been able to escape. The driveway was jammed with vehicles of all makes and models, sizes and sorts, and her car was hemmed in.
She felt that way herself, standing there on the fringe of the celebration in her discount-store sundress and sandals.
Kendra spotted her and, being Kendra, headed straight over and looped her arm through Joslyn’s.
“Come on, Cinderella,” Kendra whispered cheerfully, looking typically elegant in her gauzy white top trimmed with exquisite lace and pants to match. Only Kendra, Joslyn thought, would dare to wear white at a barbecue. “Time to let these folks see what a class act you really are.”
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