A Cowboy's Plan
Page 2
“Good luck, darlin’,” Hank called. “See you at dinnertime, okay?”
Her step faltered. She’d felt safer here on this ranch than anywhere else on earth.
Cripes, Janey, pull yourself together. This isn’t the end of your life with them.
No, it wasn’t, but after the first step she took toward town, things would be different.
Suck it up. Do it.
She continued down the driveway toward the small highway that would take her to Ordinary, Montana.
Maybe now she could start work on the dream she hadn’t thought about since Cheryl’s death. Maybe now she could let herself consider her future.
Yeah, now was the time to finish her education—she could afford college!—to become one of those women who dress up for work, who wear beautiful clothes and expensive shoes and red and pink lipsticks. For sure not black.
She could become one of those women she used to envy on the streets of Billings who worked for businesses and owned businesses and who were important. No one would dare to hurt them.
One thing she was sure of—she’d never live in poverty again.
She couldn’t go back to Billings, though. Just couldn’t. Maybe she could live in Ordinary and do college long-distance.
While she walked, she skirted the edges of that dream, considering some possible actions, discarding others. Forty-five minutes later, still without a firm plan, she pushed open the bank’s heavy door and stepped in.
“Can I help you?” an older woman asked from behind one of the wickets. Her nametag read Donna. Looking down a long sharp nose at Janey, she studied her from head to toe. Judging by the sour pout of Donna’s mouth, Janey had been found lacking.
Tough. The old prune could kiss her butt.
She frowned and approached the window, then reached into her pocket to pull out the checks. The woman shifted and slyly put one hand below the counter. What the heck?
“I’m not here to rob the bank,” Janey said. Cripes. Why would the woman think she was?
Donna blushed.
Janey set the checks on the counter. “I want to open an account.” She also passed over the envelope that Mrs. Fantucci’s check had come in, to prove she lived at the Sheltering Arms, that she had a permanent address.
When Donna picked up Hank’s check, her eyes widened. The other one was smaller.
Mrs. Fantucci had died and left all of the money in her savings account to Janey. Eleven thousand dollars and change. Janey’s eyes stung. She missed her old neighbor.
Mrs. Fantucci hadn’t judged her too hard.
Janey had done odd jobs for Maria, some shopping, laundry, cleaning, but it must have been more than anyone else had done for her.
Janey filled out the bank’s application form and handed her ID to Donna, who took it to the manager.
Donna returned, her expression polite now, and told her she had a new account.
Janey asked for a hundred dollars cash and for the rest to be deposited. When Donna handed her the receipt with her balance on it, Janey’s breathing stuttered. Almost thirty-one thousand dollars. She’d never known having money would feel so liberating.
She had to figure out her next step. Where would she live?
Her hands shook. I’m not ready.
You have to be.
She offered Donna a reluctant “Thanks,” and headed for the door.
The heat outside hit her like the slap of a wet facecloth and she lifted her heavy hair away from her neck.
What now? She had to get a job to make enough for rent.
The past year of security on the Sheltering Arms hadn’t been reality. Real life was dark and gritty and unfair. She knew that. It was time to step out of that safe cocoon and get on with life. It was time to stand on her own two feet.
She’d done it before and she could do it again.
Janey Wilson didn’t do helpless.
CHAPTER TWO
JANEY’S FIRST STEP in her job search took her to the hair salon. She could do the simple stuff. Wash hair. Sweep the floor. The owner, Bernice Whitlow, had visited Amy’s mother, Gladys, at the ranch, and had treated Janey well. Yeah, she wouldn’t mind working for her.
When Janey stepped inside the shop, Bernice looked up from her customer, an older woman with white hair. The woman looked Janey up and down and stared at her feet.“Aren’t those boots hot?” Her voice came out high-pitched.
They were the only boots Janey owned and she liked them.
“Hiya, sweetie,” Bernice said, her voice warm enough to melt honey. Janey tried not to show how much she liked that Bernice called her sweetie. It was a lot better than the things she’d grown up with on the streets of Billings.
“You here for a cut?” Bernice asked.
“I’m looking for a job.”
The old woman snorted. “You’re not going to get one dressed like that.”
Bernice touched her shoulder and said, “Norma, hush.”
Janey ignored Norma and forced her chin up a notch.
“Oh, sweetie,” Bernice said, “I don’t have a position available.”
Janey swallowed her pride. “I can wash hair. I can sweep the floor.”
“Economy’s slow.” Bernice’s regret sounded sincere. “I can’t afford to hire anyone right now. Honest, honey.”
Damn.
“Try over at the diner.” Bernice sprayed Norma’s white hair with about half a can of spray.
Janey coughed.
“They’re always busy,” Bernice said.
The diner. As in being a waitress?
“Okay, thanks.”
Janey left the store, heard Bernice say, “Good luck.” Norma said something, too, but it didn’t sound flattering. Janey was glad she hadn’t caught it.
She trudged across the street to the diner, the sun on her back branding her through the black cotton of her dress.
She pulled the fabric of her bodice away from her skin for a minute, then stepped into the diner, a noisy, buzzing hive of activity and conversation.
A cook at the grill behind the long counter yelled, “Order up.”
People filled every stool at the counter and every red fake-leather booth.
Wow. Bernice was right. The place was hopping.
A waitress rushed by without looking at her. “Sit wherever you can find a seat, hon.”
That brought the attention of the people in the nearest booths to her. They stopped talking and studied her clothes.
She curled her fingers into her palms.
More people stopped talking. A hush fell over the crowd.
They watched her, some with interest, some with plain old curiosity. She couldn’t tell if there was disapproval.
No. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t work under the microscope like this, in front of so many people. Not every day. The attention stifled her. She couldn’t breathe.
Crap.
She stepped back outside.
An ache danced inside her skull.
She walked down the street, studying the businesses as she went. Barbershop. Nope.
Across the street was a hardware store, Scotty’s Hardware. How hard could it be to sell nails?
She crossed the street and stepped inside.
A middle-aged man stopped what he was doing and turned to her. Must be Scotty.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for work.”
The old guy’s eyes bugged out. “Here?” he said, his voice coming out in a thin squeak.
“Yeah.” Nuts, she didn’t know a thing about job-hunting. What was she supposed to say?
The owner stepped a little closer. He smelled like cough drops. “You ever worked in a hardware store before? You know anything about power tools and home renovations and paint and lumber?”
She shook her head.
The guy straightened a pile of brochures beside the register, all the while checking her out from the corner of his eye.
“’Fraid I can’t help you.”
The guy looked up at her and there was maybe sympathy in his eyes. “I just don’t have work right now. Times are slow.”
“Yeah.” She turned to walk away. Where to now? It wasn’t as though the town was a hotbed of opportunities.
She opened the door but his voice stopped her.
“Listen,” he said. “C. J. Wright’s been advertising for a store clerk for a month now. Try there.”
Janey looked at him. She wasn’t imagining it. The guy really did seem sympathetic.
“Who is he?” she asked.
The guy stepped up to his window and pointed to the other side of the street and down a bit. “SweetTalk. The candy store.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it,” Janey said, meaning it, and left.
She studied the shop while she crossed the road. Sweet Talk. Two bright lime-green signs stood out in the window.
One sign said they needed a full-time employee and one said the store was for sale.
A full-time employee. To do what? Working in a candy store wouldn’t be rocket science, right? She could count money, could pack things into bags.
She remembered coming in here on her first day in town a year ago, with Amy, passing through on her way to the Sheltering Arms for the first time. Cheryl had been dead for a month. Janey didn’t remember a whole lot from that time, other than feeling cold and dead. Or wishing she were dead.
A sign on the door told her to watch her step. Glancing down to make sure she didn’t catch one of her big boot heels, she opened the door. She’d fallen once before in a store in the city and had earned herself a goose egg on her forehead that had hurt for days.
Sweet scents of chocolate and peppermint drifted toward her and tugged at something wonderful in her memory, but Janey knew there had been nothing in her life with her parents that had felt as warm as whatever was hovering in the far reaches of her mind.
Footprints painted on the worn wooden floor caught her attention. Or paw prints, she should say. Of rabbits and kittens and deer, in pastels, all leading to different parts of the store.
She looked up and gasped.
Warm dark wood covered the walls and candy cases, contrasting against white porcelain countertops. Jewel-bright candies shone behind the spotless glass of those cases.
Three long stained-glass lamps hung from thick chains attached to the ceiling and lit the candy displays.
Big chocolate animals stood on shelves that lined the walls, each one of them decorated with icing in every conceivable color.
She smiled.
This is a happy place.
One rabbit had been “dressed” with icing in an intricately detailed, multihued vest. A deer wore a saddle of gold and silver, as if a wee elf might hop on for a ride any minute. An owl wore a finely decorated house robe and carried an icing book tucked under one arm and a chocolate candle in the other, as if he were preparing to sit for a cozy read before he headed to bed for the night.
Cellophane, gleaming and crisp, covered the animals. A huge polka-dot bow gathered the plastic above each animal’s head.
Why would anyone want to sell this store? Was he nuts?
If she owned Sweet Talk, she’d polish the wood every day, and dust the cellophane on the animals, and smile when she sold them to customers. To children.
She covered her mouth with her hands, awed by this big, whimsical treasure box of a shop.
Around and through all of it drifted sugar and spice, scents so yummy her mouth watered.
Oooooh, Cheryl would have loved it here. Her girl would have adored it. Had she ever come in with Hank and Amy? Janey hoped so.
The wonderful feeling that was haunting her, that was calling from the darkness of vague memories, burst full-blown into her consciousness.
Grandma.
She hadn’t thought about her grandmother in years. This memory came from when Janey had been even younger than Cheryl’s six years. Grandma had visited a few times and, every time, had doled out in equal portion hugs and candy, the only times Janey had ever tasted it.
Janey gazed at the wonder of the shop, that it should, after all of these years, call a long-lost part of herself into the light.
Those visits had thrilled the solemn child Janey had been, had represented the few happy memories in her poverty-challenged life, the only good memories from her childhood.
Then Grandma had died and Janey had rarely had candy again.
She’d give anything to feel that euphoria, that joy even if only for a day. The only other time she’d felt anything better had been at Cheryl’s birth.
Man, she could definitely work here.
Children would come into this store, but Janey would deal with their parents. She could make children happy without handling them.
She felt like laughing and whispered, “Who made this store? Whose idea was it?”
“My mother’s.”
Janey startled at the sound of the voice. On the other side of the counter stood a young man, taller than her, maybe six feet, his brown hair cropped soldier-short.
She’d only met him the one time a year ago, and she’d forgotten how good-looking he was, what an impact that chiseled face made.
Perhaps five years older than her, shadows painted his brown eyes. Janey knew all about shadows. Dark lashes too thick and pretty to be masculine ringed those eyes, but the square jaw framing the deep cleft in his chin was purely male.
He didn’t smile, just wiped his hands on a towel and watched her without blinking. How long had he been watching her?
Janey sensed a kindred spirit in the woman who’d started this shop. “Can I meet your mother?”
“No,” he answered and Janey’s spirits plummeted. “She’s dead.”
“Oh,” Janey breathed, “I’m sorry.”
He smoothed a long-fingered hand down the apron he wore over a short-sleeved, blue-and-white-striped shirt with a button-down collar. She didn’t know men still wore those. Not young men, anyway.
His dark brown eyes did a perusal of her and the easy warmth of the last few minutes dissolved. She waited for the criticism she knew was about to come. She stood out too much in this small town.
Well, he could kiss her butt. She wanted this job and she was going to get it.
For a split second, his features hardened, his lips flattened, before he apparently remembered that she was a customer.
“I’m C. J. Wright. I own this place,” he said, his voice almost as rich as the chocolate she smelled melting in a pot somewhere. “Can I help you?”
C.J. HAD SEEN this woman before, when she’d stood in his store with Amy Shelter, when Amy had returned from Billings to marry Hank.
C.J.’s memory hadn’t exaggerated. She looked like a punker. Or a Goth woman.That day the young woman with Amy had looked real sad—like she’d been crying day and night for weeks.
She didn’t look sad today, though. She looked tough and determined.
The unrelenting black of her dress echoed the big platform boots, the black lipstick and nail polish, and the half inch of mascara coating her lashes. Looked like she’d applied it with a trowel.
Her plain dress, black cotton hemmed at the knee, should have been conservative, but it hugged every curve like it was made of burned butter and hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. He’d never seen anything like her in Ordinary. With her piercings and the tiny tattoo on the inside of her left elbow, she looked too much like Vicki for comfort.
Damn.
In her defiant stance, one hip shot forward and one black-nailed hand resting on it, her head cocked to one side, tough and cynical, he saw himself as a teenager. She was no longer an adolescent, but not by much.
No way did he want her here reminding him of his younger days, of times and troubles best buried.
He threw down the towel he’d dried his hands with.
He had his life under control. He’d sown all of the wild oats he ever intended to. These days he had the best reason on earth to behave well.
Something about her tough beauty called to him, but he resisted. God, how he resisted.
She wasn’t beautiful. She was trouble.
Pure, cleansing anger rushed through him—anger at himself. The days when he found a woman like this attractive were long gone. He hadn’t spent the past year reinventing himself to be drawn back into the wildness a woman like this inspired in him.
Get your shit together, buddy.
With an effort that left him shaking, he pulled himself under control.
“Can I help you?” he asked, cordially, as if she was any other customer.
She pointed out the window and said, “I want that.”
He looked out to see BizzyBelle wandering down the middle of the road. Nuts, she’d gotten out of her pen around back, again. Bizzy had to be the wiliest cow in Montana.
He turned to the woman on the other side of the counter. She still pointed out the window.
“You want my cow?” he asked. Wow, crazy.
“Your cow?” She turned a stunned face toward the window, saw Bizzy and blinked. “No, not the cow. That.”
His gaze shifted to the two bright green papers in his window and his hope soared.
“You want to buy my store?” he asked. “Really?” In four months, he hadn’t had one single nibble and time was running out.
“No,” she said. “I want the job.”
“Oh, I see.” The job. No. No, he didn’t want her here every day. Just his luck, he needed an employee and the only candidate was this Goth creature who would probably scare most of his customers away. Nuts.
“What are your qualifications?” he asked.
She shrugged, as if she didn’t care whether or not she got the job. “I can count money. I can put stuff in a bag.” She’d obviously never gone job-hunting before. She showed neither deference nor humility, nor, come to think of it, any eagerness to please.
“That’s it?” Nervy chick, coming in here with no experience.
“I’ve been working on Hank Shelter’s ranch for a year. He’ll tell you I’m a hard worker.”
She flicked her hair over her shoulder. Maybe he could get her to leave if he appealed to her vanity.