“I guess I haven’t met my Willie yet,” she replied. “Are you hungry, Opal?”
Opal shook her head. “I packed a lunch this morning before our neighbor drove me to the bus station, ate it on the ride over here. I mostly just have toast and fruit in the mornings, and then I eat a pretty good-sized midday meal. That’s enough food for me.” Again, she assessed Joslyn. “I’d like to fatten you up a little, though.”
“Please don’t try,” Joslyn said, only half kidding. “You know I can’t resist your cooking—especially the baked goods. Anyway, you’re not here to cook. You’re a guest, Opal.”
“Be that as it may,” Opal maintained staunchly, “there aren’t many things I enjoy more than fixing up a good meal for somebody I care for.”
Opal’s words touched Joslyn—and a love of cooking was something they had in common.
Opal had taught her the basics years before, and she’d taken it from there, watching TV chefs, poring over cookbooks and experimenting on her own. She’d eaten well all along but not, evidently, enough to suit either her doctor back in Phoenix or Opal.
“That’s the fun part,” she agreed. “Preparing food and then sharing it with another person.”
Opal nodded, started to speak, and then yawned instead. After that, she blinked her eyes a couple of times, behind the shining lenses of her snazzy modern glasses, smiled and said, “Got up pretty early this morning. I didn’t want to miss that bus.”
Joslyn smiled. It wasn’t yet five o’clock in the afternoon, but Opal did look worn-out. “If you’re sure you don’t want any supper first, I’ll walk you out to the guesthouse and you can settle in for the night.”
Opal laughed throatily. “I’m sure,” she said, her dark eyes twinkling. “Trust me, if I’m hungry, I eat.” A breath, a shake of the head. “The guesthouse, is it? My goodness. Only time I ever set foot in that place before was to get it ready for company. Now, I am the company.”
“Absolutely,” Joslyn said, hugging Opal again once they’d both stood up. “Nothing but the best for you, my friend.”
“Silly girl,” Opal retorted, but she looked and sounded pleased.
“I’ll get your suitcase,” Joslyn told her, heading for her car, parked at the top of the long driveway, to retrieve Opal’s bag from the trunk.
Opal followed, her polished shoes, now scuffed, crunching in the white gravel.
Once she and Joslyn were inside the cottage, Joslyn led the way into the bedroom and set the suitcase on the bench at the foot of the brass bed.
Opal admired the multicolored bouquet in the vase on the nightstand. “Flowers,” she said. “You thought of everything.”
“There are plenty of clean towels,” Joslyn said, eager to make her friend comfortable, “and the coffeemaker is set to start brewing promptly at 7:00 a.m.”
For as long as she’d known Opal, the woman had unfailingly arisen from her bed at that exact hour, sick or well, rested or tired. She’d always said it was because her body clock was tuned to seven, and her eyes flew wide-open at that time, on the dot.
“Good,” Opal said quietly. “Believe I’ll have a nice bath and maybe read in bed for a while. Helps me get to sleep.”
“If there’s anything you need—” Joslyn began. It would be hours before she herself was ready to turn in for the night, of course, but she could always tackle another lesson from her real-estate course.
“I’ll be just fine,” Opal told her firmly. “You go on back to the big house and look after that cat and whatever else you’ve got to attend to, and don’t worry about me.”
Joslyn nodded, hesitated another moment, then said good-night, hugged Opal once more and left the cottage for the main house.
That afternoon, it seemed bigger and emptier than ever before, and she was glad of Lucy-Maude’s appointment at the veterinary clinic. The veterinarian, Dr. Ryan, ran a busy practice with several partners, and once a week, they kept the place open late.
Inside Kendra’s house, Joslyn rounded up a disgruntled Lucy-Maude, tucked her back into the cardboard box she’d used to bring her in from the cottage and headed for her car.
“It’s a little late for birth control,” she told the angry cat, who was clawing and yowling inside the box, even though Joslyn had cushioned the bottom with a blanket and made sure there were plenty of air holes. “But you need your shots and a checkup.”
Once again, she thought wryly, she was talking to a cat. As long as the cat didn’t answer, she figured, she was all right.
* * *
SLADE WAS NEVER SURE what made him do it, but the next morning, after Layne had driven off for the airport in her rental car and Shea was visibly bored hanging around his office while he took care of paperwork, he made up his mind that he had to see Joslyn.
Just like that.
As soon as he’d taken Shea over to the Curly-Burly to hit Callie up for a job, he and Jasper headed straight for Kendra’s place before he could lose his resolve.
It was eight-thirty when he knocked on the door of the guesthouse, but it wasn’t Joslyn who opened up.
It was Opal, the Rossiter family’s longtime housekeeper and cook.
“Slade Barlow,” the older woman cried, delighted. “Darned if you aren’t even handsomer as a man than you were as a boy. How’s that fine mother of yours?”
Slade, taken aback, grinned with pleasure. “Opal?”
She laughed. “Yep,” she said. “It’s really me. But I reckon I’m not who you were looking for.”
Slade cleared his throat, remembered to take off his hat. “Is Joslyn around?” he asked. He couldn’t believe he was doing this—he wasn’t impulsive in the least, never did much of anything without thinking it through from just about every angle first.
Now, here he was, calling on a woman he barely knew at practically the crack of dawn, without the faintest idea what he’d say when he came face-to-face with her.
“She’s staying in the big house while Kendra’s away,” Opal answered, looking at him closely enough to make him feel mildly uncomfortable, so that he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I figure I’m entitled to be blunt sometimes, now that I’m an old woman,” she continued, after taking in the badge affixed to his belt. “Is this visit official, Sheriff, or is it social?”
Slade cleared his throat. Didn’t it just beat all that, when he’d finally gone against everything in his nature and acted on what amounted to a whim, he’d wound up knocking on the wrong door?
“Neither one,” he said awkwardly. “I just wanted to see her, that’s all.”
Don’t ask why.
Opal smiled broadly. “Good,” she said, looking as though she thought this unexpected call meant a whole lot more than it actually did. “That’s good.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by later,” he said, glad to see Opal again but anxious to be gone.
“You turned coward since I saw you last?” Opal asked, jutting out her chin a little ways. “Never thought I’d see the day Callie Barlow’s boy was scared of anything.”
He felt his neck heat up, knew it had turned red. This was a challenge he couldn’t turn away from, and Opal damned well knew it.
“You think Joslyn’s awake yet?” he asked.
“’Course she’s awake,” Opal retorted immediately. “She’s got to open up Kendra’s office by 9:00 a.m.”
“Where’s Kendra?” Slade asked, stalling to give himself time to consider his options, such as they were. Passing his hat from his right hand to his left and back again.
“I guess if Miss Kendra wanted you to know that,” Opal replied, smiling, “she’d have made sure to tell you before she left.”
Slade sighed. Smiled. “Fair enough,” he answered. “You staying around Parable, Opal, or just visiting?”
Opal folded her arms, still grinning, letting him know without saying as much that she was reading him like the proverbial book. “I might stay on, if I can find myself a job,” she said. “You know anybody looking for a mighty
good cook and housekeeper, Slade?”
He thought about his cluttered ranch house and Shea, who’d have to be alone at least some of the time while he was working, and how he couldn’t cook a lick. It wouldn’t be healthy for his daughter or for him to take every meal at the Butter Biscuit Café or live on stuff he’d nuked in the microwave.
“Me,” he said. Impulsive act number two, and the day had hardly begun.
Opal’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, with a smile. “I sure am.”
Now, it was Opal who was rattled, instead of him. “I’d be expensive,” she warned. “And I don’t drive at night.”
“No problem,” Slade agreed happily. “I came into some money lately, and you wouldn’t have to drive at all if you didn’t want to. Shea—that’s my daughter—has her license now. I’ll have to see her in action for a while before I let her get behind the wheel, but if you were with her, I’d feel a lot better about it.”
Opal’s mouth fell open, closed again.
“I’d need to meet this young woman and get a look at the house I’d be responsible for keeping up,” she said, just as the back door of the mansion’s sunporch creaked open behind them, across the green, flower-dappled expanse of the yard.
Slade glanced back over one shoulder, saw Joslyn standing on the steps. She was barefoot and wearing the oversized T-shirt she’d probably slept in.
Heat pounded through him as he turned his full attention to Opal again. “I understand,” he said. He took one of his cards from his shirt pocket, handed it over. “Give me a call when you decide.”
Opal took the card, nodded.
Slade offered a gruff goodbye and turned to approach the back step of the main house where Joslyn was still standing.
It was that or run the other way.
Joslyn’s chestnut-brown hair spilled around her shoulders in wild, spiraling curls. “Is anything wrong?” she asked.
It gave Slade a pang that she’d think that, especially right off. He supposed it was natural, though, since, as sheriff, he was often the bearer of bad news.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, coming to a stop in the grass, maybe a dozen yards from where she stood, with his imagination running wild behind what he hoped was a bland expression.
If he could have, he thought, dazed by the realization—if things were different between them, that is—he’d have closed the space between himself and Joslyn in a few strides. He’d have lifted her right off those naked feet of hers, kissed her hard and carried her to the nearest bed before either one of them came up for a single breath of air.
Joslyn tilted her head to one side, her arms folded self-consciously across her breasts, braless and shapely under that T-shirt she wore. “Why are you here, then?”
Again, his courage wavered.
He could have said he’d come to ask why Kendra had left town without a word to anybody.
He could have said there’d been a burglary in the area and he wanted to make sure Joslyn was locking her doors at night.
Neither of those things were true, though, and it was Slade’s curse that he couldn’t bring himself to lie, even when that would have been the best thing for everybody concerned.
He didn’t have an answer at the ready, but one jumped right out of his mouth just the same, as fully formed as if he’d given it some thought. “There’s a livestock auction coming up this Saturday, just outside of Missoula, and I was thinking you might want to come along with Shea and me.”
She sort of slumped against one of the two pillars that supported the porch roof. “A livestock auction?” she repeated, looking completely baffled.
“I’m in the market for a horse or two,” he said. His old practicality was coming back; he wished he’d never gotten the harebrained idea of asking Joslyn out, because it was a sure road to nowhere, as little as they had in common.
Failing that, he wished he’d suggested something a little more datelike than a livestock auction. Dinner and a movie, maybe. Even stopping by Sully’s Tavern to dance to the jukebox and have a beer or two.
But asking her to stand next to a high fence in the roiling dust and the hot sun, watching as horses and cattle were sold off to the highest bidder?
Smooth, he thought, hoping Hutch would never catch wind of this. It was just the ammunition his half brother would love to get hold of.
“I don’t know a whole lot about horses,” Joslyn told him. She was still keeping her arms across her chest, and he was glad, because if he’d caught a glimpse of nipples pressing against the thin fabric of that T-shirt thing, he’d probably lose his mind.
“You were rodeo queen,” he reminded her and immediately felt even stupider than before. She’d ridden a beautiful, coal-black mare around the arena at the Parable County Rodeo that year, her tailor-made Western getup and pink hat glistening with rhinestones, waving and smiling at the crowd.
“My dad borrowed the horse from a friend of his,” she answered. “I was scared out of my mind the entire time.”
Slade laughed. “You sure had everybody fooled,” he said. “Looked like you knew what you were doing, anyhow.”
She smiled. “That was the idea,” she admitted.
There had been rumors back then, that Elliott Rossiter had bought the title of Parable County Rodeo Queen for his stepdaughter.
“Will your ex-wife be coming along, too?” she asked. “To this auction, I mean?”
Slade was caught off guard for a moment, but then he realized what the question meant, however casually it had been voiced. Joslyn was as nervous as he was.
“Layne?” he said, as though he had so many ex-wives that he’d needed to weed through them before he got to the one she was asking about. “No, she’s gone home to L.A. to get ready for her wedding. It’ll just be Shea and me and—hopefully—you.”
“I’ve never been to a livestock auction,” Joslyn said. There was a slight sparkle in her eyes, it seemed to Slade. “Maybe it would be fun.”
Slade didn’t know what to say to that. Livestock auctions were a lot of things—noisy, crowded and more, but he wouldn’t have described them as “fun.”
Especially for a woman like Joslyn Kirk.
“Unless Opal is still here on Saturday, in which case I won’t want to leave her,” Joslyn said with a nod in the direction of the guesthouse, “count me in.”
Slade didn’t mention that he’d just offered Opal a job and was hoping the woman would stay on in Parable for good. For one thing, nothing had been decided yet—Opal might take one look at that rented ranch house of his and take to her heels.
“Good,” he said.
“How’s Jasper doing?” Joslyn asked, just when he would have said goodbye and walked away.
It was only then that Slade remembered he’d left the dog in his truck. It was cool out, since the day was young, and one of the windows was rolled partway down, so Jasper had plenty of air, but still. “He’s all right,” he answered. “Waiting for me in the rig.”
Joslyn nodded, smiled. “He’s a good dog.”
“He sure is,” Slade had to agree.
“See you Saturday,” she said. “Unless—”
“I know,” he said. “Unless Opal is still in town. If she is, maybe she’d like to go along.” Where the hell was he going with this? Damned if he knew.
He put on his hat, tugged at the brim. And he left, heading for the truck with long strides, avoiding the strong temptation to look back.
* * *
OPAL JOINED JOSLYN, WHO had gotten dressed by then, in the mansion’s big kitchen and immediately began rummaging through the refrigerator for the makings of breakfast.
“He turned out just fine, that Barlow boy,” Opal observed. She found eggs and milk there and bread on the countertop, since Joslyn had stopped off at Mulligan’s Market on the way home from the veterinarian’s office the night before.
Joslyn blushed. “Yes,” she said. She’d agreed to go to a livestock auction with Sl
ade and his stepdaughter on Saturday morning. It couldn’t be called a date, she supposed, but against her better judgment, she was looking forward to the occasion. The pull of the man was downright magnetic, but she’d be all right, she was certain. After all, what could happen at a horse sale?
“He ask you out?” Opal inquired, taking a copper skillet down from the hanging arrangement of pots and kettles above the center island. She knew her way around that kitchen, obviously, even though it no longer belonged to the Rossiters.
“Sort of,” Joslyn said, after biting her lip.
“Sort of?” Opal repeated.
“He and his stepdaughter, Shea, are going to an auction Saturday, in Missoula. He invited me to come along.”
Opal rolled her eyes. “Men,” she said. “They don’t have the first clue about flowers and moonlight.”
“I won’t go if you’re going to be here, though,” Joslyn hastened to add, letting Opal’s observation pass without comment. “You and I still have plenty of catching up to do.”
“If I’m still in Parable then,” Opal said, setting the skillet on one of the gas burners and turning up the flame beneath it. “I’ll spend some time with Martie over at that animal shelter she runs.”
Hope swelled in Joslyn’s heart. She’d thought Opal meant to stay no longer than a few days, and Saturday was a way off. “Good,” she said. “You’re not in any hurry to leave.”
Opal busied herself whipping up a batch of scrambled eggs and some toast. “You sit yourself down while I get your breakfast,” she ordered. “And don’t give me an argument about it, either, young lady, because I’ve missed tending to you.”
Joslyn, at a loss for an answer, sank into a chair at the big table.
Opal chatted as she cooked. “I’ve already been offered a job, too,” she went on. “How do you like that?”
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