* * *
Long after Connor disappeared down the sidewalk, Keeley stood at the front bay window of the store and stared after him. What had just happened? There were a number of big-name horse breeders and trainers in the county, but an honest-to-goodness Texas cowboy had never, ever, walked into her store—boots and all.
Much less one who looked like that.
Tall and muscular with broad shoulders and raven-black hair, he’d made her heart stumble the moment he’d walked into her store. His dark five o’clock shadow had drawn her attention to his strong jaw and the flash of white, even teeth when he’d briefly smiled.
He looked like someone who could take on any challenge with the laconic, easy grace of a man straight out of the Old West. But it was his long, dark lashes and those silver-blue eyes that had made her heartbeat stumble. The emotions lurking in those stunning eyes spoke of pain, and loss, and suffering, and had called to her at the deepest level.
She was still standing at the window, frozen in place, when her friend Beth Stone, owner of the bookstore down the street, waved at her from the sidewalk and came inside.
“You look a bit shell-shocked. Is everything all right?” Propping her umbrella in the entryway, Beth tucked a stray strand of chestnut hair behind her ear and scanned the shop. “But of course not. This is Edna’s last day. Is she already gone?”
Keeley blinked, still reeling from the cowboy’s unexpected appearance. “She came in earlier to say goodbye and is well on her way to Florida. The store already feels empty without her.”
“She was always such a hoot. And she was so cute—always imagining herself a matchmaker but never quite getting it right. She was certain her nephew Ken was just the man for you.”
Keeley stifled an inward cringe. For all her wonderful qualities, this had been the one small catch when working with Edna.
She and her elderly cronies in this small town enjoyed arranging introductions and pushing their prey along the road to wedded bliss. But Ken was bald, paunchy and old enough to be Keeley’s father, with four wild teenagers and—the biggest barrier of all—he wasn’t a believer.
Edna had tried to work her matchmaking skills on Keeley and Ken for the past two years, but it was so not going to happen.
“She always had a good heart, trying to make people happy,” Keeley said tactfully.
Beth chuckled. “So true. I’ll miss that, and I’ll miss teasing her about her beloved Wisconsin Badgers. So...any prospects for her replacement?”
“I did have a drop-in of sorts, just before you arrived.” Keeley felt the back of her neck warm. “A cowboy stopped in—”
“A cowboy? Here?”
“From Texas, apparently. He’s heading for Detroit but had car trouble and will be around for a while.”
Beth’s gaze drifted to the lace displays. The glass case showcasing antique jewelry. The pretty dried-flower arrangements. “This is the most girlie shop in town. You really found a guy who’d be good at this sort of thing?”
“Not exactly.” Keeley managed a wry smile. “You and I both know how bad I am at hiring people. The only time I ever got it right was when I found Edna.”
She’d wanted to hire a replacement early so she and Edna could both work on training the new clerk before the annual Aspen Creek Antique Walk next weekend—the busiest sales days of the year and the crucial beginning of spring tourist season.
But her first hire had failed to show up. The second had found making correct change an impossible feat and saw customers as a bother when they interrupted her personal phone calls. The third had lasted two days and then walked out for good—apparently with a number of lovely antique rings and bracelets in her pocket.
And since then not one person had answered her advertisement in the paper. Not one.
Keeley shuddered, remembering all the reasons why she desperately needed help, and soon. Long-term. Temporary. Anyone. The first honest, dependable person she could find.
That brought her thoughts right back to the tall, dark and unwilling cowboy.
“So this guy stopped in. And?” Beth prompted.
“I’d just finished praying. I’ve been so frustrated trying to find a new employee that I just turned it over to God and promised to hire the very first person who walked in—if they wanted a job.”
Beth’s eyes sparkled. “And?”
“The cowboy came in to escape the rain, and it was such perfect timing that I thought maybe it was a sign from above. But he wasn’t interested.”
Beth’s face fell. “Too bad.”
“Exactly. I need to be here to run the store, but you know what it’s like with my dad these days. I might have to leave at a moment’s notice, if he needs me. Know anyone who wants a job?”
“Believe me, I would send them right over. It took me three whole months to replace my last assistant manager.” Shaking her head in commiseration, Beth set a small white bakery box on the counter by the cash register. “I brought this for Edna’s farewell, but she’s already gone. So if it’s any consolation, here’s something from Sweetie’s Bake Shop. Nothing like a nice sugar overload to lift your spirits, right?”
“At this point, I sure hope so. Can we share it?”
A heavy roll of thunder vibrated the oak flooring beneath their feet and Beth frowned. “I’d better get back to my store before the deluge starts again. Have you heard the severe-weather warnings on the radio?”
“Rain and more rain. A chance of flooding for the next five days. Just what we need.”
Beth laughed at that as she headed for the front door and picked up her umbrella. “I’ll be praying for you, Keeley. Hopefully your next applicant will be perfect.”
Chapter Two
Keeley North hadn’t been kidding.
By five o’clock Connor knew that looking for a job in Aspen Creek and actually finding one were two different things. He’d walked every block, checking store windows for Help Wanted signs. If seasonal jobs had been available this spring, they’d already been snapped up.
The lodging situation wasn’t any better.
He hadn’t bothered checking out the B and Bs in the grand old homes, but even the handful of seedy strip motels in town were too expensive. At least the campground would be cheap. Set along the banks of Aspen Creek a mile north of town, according to the tow-truck driver, it was just five bucks a night and even included a building with showers.
He could pitch his one-man backpacking tent and manage on basic fare cooked over his camp stove for the next two weeks, no problem there. He’d already done the same and enjoyed the open sky for two nights on the road while on his way to Detroit. Even a primitive campsite was better than prison walls.
Now he sat hunkered over the classifieds and a cup of coffee in a truck-stop café at the south end of town, looking for any opportunities he might have missed. He’d passed some beautiful horse-breeding farms and training facilities on his way here—rolling hills, white fences, fancy barns. One, the Bar-B Quarter Horse Ranch about fifty miles back, had made him long to saddle a green colt once again. Those were the kinds of places where his background would be a perfect fit.
But none of them was advertising for help.
The only jobs listed were those he wasn’t suited for. Nurses. Home health aides. Day-care providers. A nanny for infant triplets.
The last one made him shudder.
He glanced heavenward, a rusty prayer forming in his thoughts. Then he just sighed, dropped a couple of bucks on the table and stood.
The kind and loving God of his childhood Sunday-school days sure hadn’t bothered to answer his prayers whenever he’d really needed help, and Connor hadn’t been on speaking terms with God for a long, long time. Why would He care now?
Connor shouldered his duffel bag and headed north on Main toward the camp
ground, thankful that the rain had stopped.
He pulled to an abrupt halt.
Across the street, an old black New Yorker sedan pulled away from the curb and lurched to a stop in the middle of the street. Then the elderly driver laboriously backed up over the curb and swung across the sidewalk, apparently planning to execute a slow-motion three-point turn using the empty lot next to Keeley’s store.
But the car kept going back.
And back.
Until it bumped into a tall wooden ladder propped against the flat roof of the two-story building.
Then the car lurched forward into the street and lumbered away, the driver clearly oblivious to the destruction in his wake as the ladder teetered...then crashed to the ground.
Connor shook his head in disbelief. Did that old duffer even have a driver’s license? At least no one had been on the ladder, which now lay in splinters.
Movement at the top of the building caught his eye and he lifted his gaze to see Keeley standing on the flat-topped roof with a dumbfounded expression, a hammer in one hand and her other hand propped on her slim hip.
His heart took an extra beat.
“Dad,” she shouted, clearly exasperated. “Come back here!”
The car continued down the street at a turtle’s pace.
“Dad!”
The sidewalks were deserted; no other cars were coming down Main. Keeley’s attention swiveled to Connor. “Hey,” she called down to him. “Can you help me?”
Connor walked across the street to the empty lot and studied the splintered ladder. “I think this one is toast. Got another one somewhere?”
She mumbled something he didn’t make out and he couldn’t help but grin up at her. He couldn’t see what she’d been working on, but she was the cutest handyman he’d ever seen, bar none.
“I’ll take that as a no. Want me to call 9-1-1? The fire department or the police?”
“Oh, no. Please no,” she said fervently. “I’d never hear the end of it. Neither would my dad, and he would not handle it well, believe me.”
“Was that ladder the only way up there? Isn’t there an inside stairwell?”
“There is, but only to the second floor. And right now, the trick is getting from here to there. The old iron fire-escape ladder is too weak to use.”
“Isn’t that a fire-code violation?”
“Of course it is. Just last week I had a contractor look at leaks in the roof and give me an estimate on replacing the fire escape.”
The lowering sun backlit her cloud of honey-blond hair, making it gleam with sparkling highlights, though her face was cast in shadow. He suspected she was frowning at him, maybe debating her next move. “So how can I help?”
“Could you go into the store and up the stairs by the storeroom in back? The door’s locked, but there’s a key hanging from a leather thong behind a picture of my mom, just to the left.”
“Now that sounds really secure,” he muttered.
She laughed. “I heard that. But it certainly shows me you’ve never lived in a small town like Aspen Creek. After you come upstairs, go through my apartment to the kitchen in back. If you could just unlock the French doors, then I can jump down onto the second-floor balcony and get back inside without anyone else—like the whole fire department—learning about my dad’s little mistake. Okay?”
He dutifully wound his way through the store, past the glittering chandeliers and stained-glass lamps, old rockers and ornately carved tables glowing in the warm light with the patina of well-loved old age.
With every step he kept an eye out for the fragile doodads parked on every flat surface and hoped he could make it past without knocking anything to the floor.
He expected more of the same—fuss and frills and probably mind-numbing pink ruffles everywhere in Keeley’s personal space. Instead the bright and airy upstairs apartment was like the woman herself—welcoming and classy with its cream walls, white wooden blinds and an eclectic mix of antique and modern furnishings that invited rather than overwhelmed.
But while the apartment felt welcoming, his first step out onto the tipsy balcony in back made him shudder.
At the far edge of the tiny platform he could see the top bar of a wrought-iron fire escape dangling toward the ground, but the wood-plank flooring of the balcony showed ample evidence of rot. Reaching that ladder to escape a fire seemed more risky than just going for a two-story leap off the edge.
The rusted wrought-iron fire-escape ladder heading up to the roof looked even worse.
“None of this is safe,” he called out to her. “I think I’m going to call 9-1-1 after all.”
She peered over the roof edge above him. “No, don’t—please. I’m going to just dangle over the edge and drop lightly. It’ll be fine.”
Maybe until her feet hit the fragile planks and went right through.
“If it’s so fine, why didn’t you set up a ten-foot ladder on the balcony to get up there in the first place?”
“The contractor said the balcony was still serviceable, but I agree with you. It’s one of the next projects on my list.”
Connor eyed the spindly railing and weakened floorboards. “If he thought this was okay, then I’d say he isn’t the guy you want to hire. You need someone with more common sense.”
“Look—I can handle this on my own, now that you’ve unlocked the door. I just need you to step back inside so I don’t land on you. I’ll be careful.”
Connor stepped into the doorway, with one foot still on the balcony.
A moment later she slowly backed over the edge of the roof, her feet dangling a few feet above the floorboards. He grabbed her by the waist and hauled her into the kitchen before she could drop.
Dressed as she was in a heavy gray sweatshirt and faded jeans, she felt surprisingly delicate and light in his arms, and the soft scent of some sort of flowery perfume wafted into the room.
When was the last time he’d inhaled such a wonderful scent? He couldn’t remember.
“Ooof!” she exclaimed as he quickly released her and stepped back. “Thanks.”
It had been at least six years since he’d held a woman in his arms, and he felt an unaccustomed warmth flowing through him that settled in his chest and robbed him of breath. “Uh...no problem.”
“I really do owe you,” she murmured, averting her gaze as she dusted her hands against her jeans. A rosy blush brightened her cheeks. “You have no idea how much I wanted to avoid having Todd show up—he’s a deputy in town—or the fire-department guys. You can be sure it would’ve been front-page news in the local paper, complete with photographs. Like I said, I would never live it down. And my dad...”
She closed her eyes briefly, clearly cringing at the thought.
“He’s...” Connor hesitated. “Quite a driver.”
Her mouth twitched, and then she laughed softly. “That has to be the understatement of the year. But I promise you, I’ll be taking his keys away. I won’t let him get behind the wheel again and risk someone’s life.”
The small kitchen, with its white cupboards and yellow-checkered curtains, had seemed as bright and airy as the rest of the apartment, but now he felt the walls closing in on him.
Maybe it was the claustrophobia he’d been fighting since walking out of the prison doors.
Maybe it was his increasing awareness of her sparkling green eyes and her creamy skin, or his sudden curiosity about what it might be like to hold her in his arms just one more time. But that was a bad idea.
His ex-wife had provided a painful lesson on the risks of judging women based on beauty, and there was no room in his life for any ties at any rate. The moment his truck was fixed, he needed to be back on the road.
He cleared his throat. “I guess I’d better be going.”
He turned fo
r the door to go downstairs, but she touched his arm and he froze at the warmth of her hand.
“Please—wait. Did you find a job in town?”
He knew what she was going to ask, even before she spoke. He shook his head.
“Have you given any more thought to working here?”
He looked over his shoulder, ready to say no and be on his way, but the hope in her eyes stopped him short. “I wouldn’t be much use. As soon as my truck’s done I need to hit the road, no matter what.”
Her expression inexplicably brightened, though how she heard anything positive in his reply escaped him.
“I totally understand, and that’s fine. Even a week or two would help. Would you be willing to fill out a job application, just in case you change your mind?”
He swallowed hard, knowing it was only fair to tell her the truth before this went any further. A burning wave of humiliation rushed through him over what he now had to reveal to this pretty young woman—one who had probably never received so much as a parking ticket.
“You really wouldn’t want me here.”
“Why not?” A teasing glint sparkled in her eyes. “It isn’t like you’ve just landed on Mars, you know. The store may be slanted to female customers, but the job is easy.”
She sure was determined, he’d give her that. He sighed. “There are things you don’t know about me, ma’am.”
She tossed a grin over her shoulder as she started down the stairs. “Just put it all on the application. You seem like a nice guy, so I’m sure there won’t be any problems.”
That was what she thought.
At the cash-register counter, she handed him another application and a pen, and motioned to the ice-cream table and chair by the front window. “Just have a seat. It won’t take long.”
Defeated by her perseverance and the ingrained Texas manners that precluded arguing with a lady, he skimmed over the application.
There were four places to list previous employers, and his job history certainly had a suspicious five-year hole in it. What should he write there—inmate? Infirmary worker while incarcerated at the Eagle Creek State Prison in Montana?
The Single Dad's Redemption Page 2