Wrong Turn, Right Cowboy: Paintbrush, Book 2

by Denise Belinda McDonald

  “Anyhoo,” Missy kept talking. “I hate to impose, but seeing how you’re stuck here until Manny gets your car up and running—”

  Gillian flinched.

  “—it’s a small town, hon. People know each other’s business.” Missy patted her on the hand much the same way Zan had earlier that day. “Quint said that’s where your daughter got her shiner, crashing into his fence. Around here, folks see bruises like that on a girl and they get all worked up. Anyway, I was wondering about your massages.”

  The food sat heavy in Gillian’s stomach. Did she have enough cash on hand to buy some clunker to get her and her daughter the hell out of Paintbrush and on into Montana?

  Missy ducked her head. “My daddy would never ask you himself, he’ll probably tan my hide for mentioning it, but he’s got a bad shoulder. Hurt it last year getting thrown from a horse. Dr. Hambert said that he should go up to Sheridan to get it looked at, but Daddy’s pretty much set in his ways and won’t do much more than pop an aspirin or two.”

  “And you want me to…”

  “Could you do what you did for Quint?”

  Gillian sighed. It wasn’t like she had much else to do until she got to Billings. “Sure. Where?”

  “He’s splitting his time between the Cates’ and Jacob’s ranches. Oh, but shoot, you don’t have a car. Hmm.” She tapped her lower lip and looked up at the ceiling. “Tell ya what. I can get Daddy to come over tonight. Why don’t you and your daughter stop by. Y’all can get some supper and you can have a look at Daddy’s shoulder.”

  Gillian couldn’t help but grin at the woman’s bright smile. Everything about Paintbrush should make her wary. A small town where folks noticed—and talked about—other folks’ bruises. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. But there was something odd. Gillian breathed deeper. And folks were just…nice. Add to that, they were miles off course so even if Rick found out where they were headed—and she hoped to God he never would—they weren’t there. Maybe he’d give up and leave them the hell alone.

  “Would that work for you?”

  Gillian nodded finally. “Sounds good.”

  Missy wrote out directions to her house a few blocks over from the diner. “Seven okay?”

  “We’ll be there.”

  Missy smiled, patted her hand again and took the cash Gillian had laid out for her.

  “Where are we going?” Heidi shoved her hands in her hip pockets.

  “Missy invited us to her house tonight.”

  Heidi’s eyes widened and she straightened. “Are you serious?” She glanced around the diner. “Come on. We gotta go.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I have to find something to wear.”

  Chapter Three

  Gillian’s hands shook as she rang the bell. Despite being in a public-service-type job, she didn’t really associate much with other people. Sure, she was there to help out Missy’s dad, but eating with folks she barely knew… She should never have agreed.

  Heidi tugged at her shirt.

  “Hon, you look beautiful. Quit fussing.”

  The teen stuck her tongue out at her mother just as the door opened. The dark-haired teen who opened it ducked his head. “Hey.” He turned and hollered, “Mom, they’re here.” It took him a minute but he finally moved to let the pair in.

  Missy came from the back end of the house. “Ryder Lunsford, don’t keep them just standing there.” Missy waved them all the way in. “Hey. I was afraid you might not come.”

  “Why?”

  “Stuck in a small town waiting on your car to get fixed. Got to be a little strange to just pop over to someone’s house for some supper.”

  Gillian smiled and lifted her bag. “And a massage.”

  “Come on back.” Missy looped her arm through Gillian’s. She was only a few inches taller, but she had so much presence she seemed to tower over Gillian. She wore her dark hair pulled up and a twist with a huge clip. It didn’t look like she had on a lick of makeup, not that she needed it. Her lightly tanned skin and dark lashes gave her a summer-girl look.

  They walked down a short hallway to a wide open living area with an attached dining area. Photos covered the walls; one in particular caught Gillian’s eye.

  “Is that Cade Holstrom?” The actor-slash-country singer was the new hottest thing to hit Hollywood.

  Missy nodded. “We went all through school together. He grew up right here in Paintbrush.”

  “Until he got all famous and citified.” An older man, dressed in faded denims and a worn flannel shirt smoothed a few gray hairs over a wide bald spot. His boot-covered foot tapped a steady rhythm on the linoleum floor. “His momma taught him better than to run off without so much as a howdy from time to time.”

  “Enough, Daddy.”

  “Manners. S’all I’m saying.”

  Missy rolled her eyes—mimicking her son’s to a perfectly perfected T—then leaned into Gillian and whispered, “What’s your daughter’s name?”

  “Heidi.”

  “Heidi, sweetie, Ryder has some friends playing with his Wii if you want to go on back. Here you can take this.” She handed Heidi a plate full of cookies. “Don’t worry, they don’t bite. Unless your hand’s a little too close to the plate.”

  “Daddy,” Missy said once Heidi headed down the hall, “this is Gillian. The woman I was telling you about. Gillian, Hank Calhoun, mayor of crotchety town.”

  “Aw. Don’t know why you think I need some hocus-pocus to make my shoulder right.”

  Gillian moved a little closer to the man. “Tell you what, Mr. Calhoun.”

  “Hank. No one calls me Mr. Calhoun.”

  Gillian smiled at him. “Hank, let me have a little look at your shoulder. Maybe see what I can do. If it hurts I’ll stop and no harm done.” She held out her hand. “But if it feels even a wee bit better, I get to come back tomorrow and work on it a little more.”

  Hank eyed her hand for a long moment then shook it. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.” He released her hand and shifted in his seat. “But I’m not taking off my shirt.”

  “That’s fine.” Gillian set her bag down. “Turn around and straddle the chair for me, okay?” Most times when people came to her for help, they came because they wanted to. Very rarely did she have a reluctant client.

  Hank nodded and did like she asked. “Lean forward a bit.” She posed to show him how to drape his arms over the back of the chair. Once he was in place, she carefully, slowly set her hands on his shoulder. He jumped a little at first, but once she started working, his entire body relaxed.

  Missy came over twice to see if her father was sitting still. She’d smile and go back to cooking.

  “All done, Hank.”

  He sat up straight and rolled his shoulder. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “Daddy.”

  The older man blushed. “Sorry.” He ducked his head and a tint colored his cheeks.

  “No problem. That’s a pretty good compliment.” She walked the few steps into the kitchen. “I need to get him some water.” Missy filled a large glass and handed to her. When she returned from giving it to Hank she asked, “Can I help you with anything?”

  “Naw. This is all pretty much automatic now.” Missy removed a large pan from the oven. Garlic permeated the air. “Will you go back and get the kids?”

  “Sure.”

  “Just follow the noise.”

  Noise was an understatement. The kids had some game turned up so loud it rattled the pictures on the walls at times. Being that it was only she and Heidi for the past twelve years, it was often too quiet. She knocked but didn’t think anyone heard her. She eased the door open. Two boys and four girls lounged around the spacious room. One girl danced on a pad in the middle of the floor corresponding with cues from the game. It took Gillian a minute to recognize her daughter.

  When the song ended Heidi laughed and turned toward Ryder. “Your turn. Oh, Mom, hey. Did you see me? I got the highest score.”

  “Good going
, babe.”

  At the word “babe” Heidi’s smile fell a scant degree and her eyes rolled.

  “Dinner’s ready.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Harwood.” Ryder tapped one of the girls on the shoulder and she pulled ears buds loose. “Chow’s on.”

  “Cool.”

  Gillian dashed aside to get out of the way of the teens’ mass exodus to the dining room. By the time she caught up to them, they were all seated around the table and had already dug into generous portions of lasagna.

  “Here ya go, girl.” Hank handed her a plate with twice amount of food than she could eat in one—possibly even two—sittings. “My daughter’s the best cook in all of Wyoming.”

  “Daddy, hush now and eat your supper.” Missy waved at Gillian. “Here, come sit over here by me. We’ll never be able to talk over them.” The teens were discussing the merits of Metallica jumping into the Guitar Hero scene. Heidi glanced over at her mother and shrugged, but the smile stayed firmly in place.

  It had been too long since Heidi could just be a teenager with nothing more to worry about than zits and boys.

  “You okay, hon? You look a little down. You’re not a vegetarian, are ya?”

  Gillian gave a swift mental shake. “Not with my addiction to cheeseburgers.”

  Missy snorted. “You don’t look like you’ve ever had a cheeseburger in your life. You weigh all of a buck-twenty. With change. I should be sticking to my salad, but I can’t resist gooey cheese and tomato sauce.”

  “I’d kill for your curves. If I didn’t have all this dang hair, I could pass for a ten-year-old boy.” Gillian paused. Hank said something under his breath about women and fickle wind. She laughed and took a bite of the pasta. “This is wonderful. Do you do the cooking at the diner?”

  “Lord, no. Clara would tan my hide if I so much as turned a burner on.” She leaned close to Gillian. “One night when she was feeling a little puny, she told me to lock up when the last customer left. Well, wouldn’t you know it, Dustin Wood comes in—he’s a trucker whose route goes right through town twice a month—he’s beat and hungry as all get out. I couldn’t turn him away. I whipped him up a batch of Clara’s pancakes. But I made him swear never to tell.”

  “Did he?”

  “Not so far as I know. But he hasn’t ordered them again. I think he prefers mine.” She leaned back in her seat and smiled.

  “Done, Mom. We’re gonna run down to the diner for some ice cream.” Ryder stood and carried his plate to the sink. His friends followed suit, but Heidi stayed, picking at the remnants of food on her plate.

  Gillian leaned toward her daughter. “Do you want to go too?”

  She shook her head. “Can we go back to the room now?”

  “Sure, sweetie.” Gillian grabbed Heidi’s plate and carried the two over to the sink. “Missy, thank you for a wonderful dinner. I think we’re going to head back now and rest. Hopefully, we can get the car back tomorrow.”

  “Oh, sure.” Missy moved in close to Gillian. “Is everything okay?” She motioned to Heidi with her shoulder. The teen gave a quick wave as Ryder and his gang left.

  “Moving across the country’s just been hard on her.” Gillian wouldn’t—couldn’t—elaborate. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d truly let anyone into their lives. They didn’t have a relative to speak of. They had very few close friends and even then, Gillian kept them walled off from most of the rest of the world to protect Heidi.

  “I’d like to say I understand, but I’ve lived in the same place my entire life, as did both my parents and their parents.” She patted Gillian on the shoulder. “I’ll be at the diner first thing in the morning so come on by and have a cup of coffee with me.”

  Missy refused Gillian’s offer to help clean up the dishes. At the front door Hank stopped them and offered to drive them back to the motel.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Nonsense.” He slapped a straw cowboy hat atop his head. “’Sides, I gotta head back home anyhow and I go right through town.”

  “Then we would be grateful.”

  After all of two minutes to ride a few short blocks, Hank dropped them off. He thanked her again for his shoulder being right as rain—as he said several times during dinner—then waved and headed to his home.

  Night had fallen and even though she wouldn’t admit it to Heidi—not about to risk scaring her daughter—it was darker than she’d expected and she would have been a little bit spooked to walk, even the short distance, in the darkness.

  As she was pushing the key into the door, a dark shadow dislodged itself from the door by the front office. “There you are.”

  Both Harwood women shrieked.

  “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” Quint stepped into a stream of moonlight. “I thought you two might be missing this.” He held up Heidi’s backpack.

  “Ohmygawd.” She took it from his outstretched hand. “I thought I left it in the car. Where was it? You didn’t go through it did you?”

  “Heidi.” Gillian swatted at her daughter but missed.

  “I don’t want some man—” she exaggerated the word, “—going through my things. That’s not right.”

  “Heidi.” Gillian tried to smile when the teen rolled her eyes, but her nerves were still a little frayed.

  “Thank you, Mr. Walters.” Heidi pushed through the door and into the room when Gillian finally got the lock undone despite her shaking fingers.

  Gillian pulled the door closed again and turned on Quint. She shoved her hands on her hips. “You can’t sneak up on people like that.”

  “I didn’t exactly sneak.” He’d been waiting for the better part of an hour. At first he thought maybe Manny had gotten the car fixed and they left before he could see Gillian again. It was stupid to be so…mesmerized by a woman passing through town.

  “You didn’t exactly not sneak.”

  Quint frowned. “Yeah, that one was a little hard to follow.”

  Gillian ran her hand through her hair. “Thank you for bringing that out to her. I’m sorry you had to come back all this way.”

  “It was no problem.” Quint leaned his shoulder on the doorframe. “Are you okay? I was worried about you.”

  “Why would you be worried?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m a grown woman.”

  “In a strange town.”

  She glanced around the street behind her. “Y’all are strange?” She pulled her bag tighter on her shoulder. “Should I be worried?” A hint of a smile crooked up the corner of her mouth.

  “Strange to you, woman.” Quint wasn’t sure he liked the hitch in his stomach or the way his fingers itched to toy with the end of her hair where it lay across her cheek.

  “We’re fine. We just got back from Missy Lunsford’s.”

  He smiled. “She’d feed the world if she could.” His urge got the best of him and he tucked a few loose strands behind her ear. Gillian leaned into him ever so slightly.

  He lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “I really did want to make sure you’re okay. Is everything—”

  “Ready to go?” Ruby came out from the main office two doors down.

  Quint tried not to flinch when Gillian’s stance instantly grew rigid.

  She gave him a tense smile. “Thanks again for returning Heidi’s bag. Have fun.”

  The quiet of the door snicking shut was almost worse than if she’d slammed it. He raised his hand to knock, even though he had no clue as to what to say or even why he’d bother with a perfect stranger in town for as long as it took to get her car fixed.

  There was just something…

  “Dominique’s awaits.” Ruby tugged on his sleeve. “Tonight’s karaoke night.”

  Quint groaned and followed Ruby to the parking lot on the far side of the building. “Let’s take two vehicles. I have to get up early in the morning and work on the fence some more.”

  Ruby glanced back over her shoulder toward the set of rooms and shook her head. “Trouble in
the form of a perfectly petite pixie with a past.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” They reached their two parked trucks and Ruby leaned against hers. “She paid cash.”

  “That’s not so mysterious. Most of the people in town pay cash for everything.”

  Ruby shook her head. “She has all the men jumping around like it’s branding season. Half of them haven’t even laid eyes on her yet.”

  Quint waved away her words. “Back to the ‘past’ part.” Unease skittered up his spine. “What makes you say that? Did she tell you something?”

  “Nope. Wouldn’t answer any questions.” Ruby crinkled her nose.

  “She doesn’t know you from Adam.” Quint rolled his neck and shoulders to loosen some of the tension. “You’re prying into her business?”

  “I wouldn’t call it ‘prying’. Just being friendly.” Ruby narrowed her eyes. “Aren’t we a little too interested in some woman who mowed us down earlier this afternoon?”

  He barked out an uneasy laugh. “She didn’t mow me down.”

  Ruby’s eyebrow rose up into her hairline.

  “Kinda mowed. More like a weed-whacked really.”

  “You aren’t going soft on me now are ya, Walters?”

  “Naw.” Quint squeaked out the words. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Naw. You hungry? Let’s go.”

  Quint’s fingers tapped the steering wheel the entire ride out to Dominique’s. Nervous energy tingled every nerve ending. Why was he getting worked up? She’d be gone tomorrow. He shook his thoughts away, parked his truck next to Ruby’s and joined her by the front door.

  All night though, Ruby gave him pointed looks, but never said anything. He’d been too distracted to hold up much of his end of the conversation.

  It’d been over five years since he’d moved to Paintbrush. He’d dated a little here and there but no one, no one, had ever elicited any feelings near the spark that rocketed through him every time he came near Gillian Harwood. It was almost a mean joke. She’d be leaving as soon as Manny got her car fixed up.

  As if conjuring up the man, Manny strode in through the front door and took one of the last seats available.