“Accepted, but not necessary. I was being a bit of a jerk.”
Figuring it wouldn’t gain her anything to agree with him, she stuck out her hand. “Truce?”
His hand came up and enfolded hers. “Truce.” She barely had time to register the warm strength of his grip and the gentle rasp of calluses before he disengaged, stepped back, and tipped his head toward the loading dock. “So, you going to help me unload this wood, or what?”
• • •
The work went far quicker with two people than loading it up had done with one, though the weather was just as nasty. Which meant they both wound up soaked within minutes when Ashley insisted on being outside with him, not just waiting inside to stack.
He appreciated that, though, just as he appreciated her apology. Meanwhile, he was doing his damnedest not to appreciate the way her wet button-down clung to her curves, or the way the rain darkened the denim where it cupped her fanny.
Yes, she was hot, and, yeah, maybe there was more to her than met the eye at first. Maybe they were even working in surprising sync, with her more than handling her end of things. But she was still off-limits.
“Coming at you.” Having clambered into the back of the truck to reach a pile of two-by-fours that had shifted on the drive, she gave a shove and sent the wood sliding along the bed in his direction.
“Got ’em.” He loaded up and headed into the loading dock, where the air was damp and the concrete floor was doing the slippery-when-wet thing. “Watch your step.”
“I’m good.” She came in behind him with the last of the two-bys. “Plywood next?”
“A few of the sheets are pretty punky,” he warned as they headed back out into the rain. “You won’t want to use them for the staging, or anything that’s going to hold weight.”
“No problem,” she said, grabbing one end of a sheet and sliding it out so he could grab a corner. “They can be butterflies.”
“Excuse me?”
She grinned adorably from beneath sopping wet bangs as they schlepped the four-by-eight panel inside and set it on the grid of two-bys they had built to keep the plywood off the floor. “Decorations. I want to paint up these big butterfly cutouts for the walls, to add more color and make it look like a real party.”
Seemed to Ty that the last thing her shop was lacking was color. This was her deal, though. “Want me to tell Ed, so he can add it to the project list?”
“Nope, I’ve got it under control. I borrowed a jigsaw from Billy, across the street.”
“No offense, but you know how to use it, right?”
She wiggled her fingers at him. “Don’t let the manicure fool you, cowboy. My stepfather, Jack, insisted that before he took me for my driving test, I had to be able to change a tire, jump a battery, top off the oil, and safely use a bunch of different power tools. I’m not sure what using a jigsaw had to do with getting my license, but once Jack gets something in his head, there’s no dislodging it.”
“Sounds like he was doing his best to look after you.”
“He was. He still is.” She squared up a two-by-four on the pile as they passed it on their way out, expression going from fond to rueful. “That’s what they’re all trying to do, in their own ways. Wyatt wants to protect me from myself, which means doing things his way, while Mom wants me to find a man to protect me, which—at least as far as she’s concerned—means doing things her way. Meanwhile, I’m doing my best to figure out what my way of doing things is going to look like.”
“Is that why you were living in LA?”
Look at the two of us, actually having a civil conversation.
She wrinkled her nose. “I’d like to say so, but the reality is that I followed a guy out there. Kenny. He was a decent drummer in a decent band that was always one lucky break away from the big time.”
The rain blew sideways, sharp and cool, but the work was keeping him warm. “Let me guess. You got tired of footing the bills while he chased the dream.”
“Ha! I see you’ve met him.”
“I know the type.”
Finished with the punky plywood, they started building a second platform for the drier wood without discussing the need. “I hate to admit it,” she said, “but I was on board for that part, stuck it out for far too long. I didn’t bail until the day he tried to sell my car on Craigslist.”
“Your Bug?”
“Yep. He was trying to avoid eviction. Turned out, the rent money I had been giving him had gone up in smoke.” She pantomimed inhaling. “So I left. You can mess with me, but you’d better not mess with Bugsy.”
As they headed back outside, into the weather, he said, “Note to self. Trying to Craigslist your car is a dealbreaker.”
“I’ve generalized that to grand theft auto. Since leaving LA, I’ve been adding to the list. For future reference, of course.”
“Of course.” Another piece of plywood went on the pile. “What’s on the list? More felonies?”
“I’ll look at that on a case-by-case basis. Who knows? Maybe Mr. Right has a really good excuse for that armed robbery pop. As far as I’m concerned, though, there’s no excuse for walking out on your kid.”
Ty fumbled his grip on the plywood as they lowered it to the pile. “Or hitting one. Hitting anyone smaller and weaker than you, in fact, with some exceptions. Case by case, like you said.” Their shoulders bumped as they returned to the truck and grabbed the next slab.
“Stringing along a woman who loves you, promising you’ll marry her, buy her a house—the whole nine yards—only to spend your life chasing from one rodeo to the next.”
He got the feeling she wasn’t talking about herself anymore. “Not Wyatt.” He knew there had been some history between him and Krista, long before he came to Mustang Ridge. He didn’t seem the type to string a woman along, though.
“Nope. Our father, Wylie. The day I came along, he pulled Wyatt aside, gave him some cash, and told him he was the man of the house now, and I was his responsibility. We didn’t see much of him after that, though Mom waited for him a long time. Too long.” She made a face. “Which brings us to the next on the list—breaking promises. That’s a definite don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out for me.”
“Agreed.” As they schlepped in a good-size chunk of beam that would make an ideal support piece for the emcee’s stand, he looked across at her—soaking wet and holding her own, and nothing like he had thought she was.
She lowered her end, then fisted her hands on her hips. “You’re staring.”
“I’m thinking.” That he had misjudged her. That he could talk to her. That they had more in common than he would have guessed.
“Of?”
“Your list is missing a big one.”
“Oh?”
“Infidelity.” He heard his own voice go flat.
Her expression shifted. “Ah.”
“Yeah.” Needing to move, he headed back out into the storm for the last piece of lumber, another big beam that he yanked out of the pickup.
She followed, grabbed the other end. “I’m sorry.”
“She wasn’t.”
“Then you’re better off.”
“I figure.” He waited until she put down her end, then let the beam go with more force than necessary. “Still sucks, though.”
“It’s on the list.”
They headed back outside into the storm together. The wind had died down and the rain had softened to fatter, warmer drops. “Storm’s easing,” he said, reaching out to close off his tailgate. “Good timing, too. We’re all done.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Well, jeez. Now we’re all soaked down with no place to go.” Then her smile flashed. “Seriously, though, I can’t thank you enough.”
Sleek and wet, her body was all curves, and his fingers itched to touch. The half-light had darkened her violet eyes, turning th
em smoky and mysterious, and the bow of her mouth had his eyes zeroing in. He wanted to kiss her, wanted to drink the rain from her lips and feel the water on their bodies turn to steam.
“You should go inside,” he said instead. “Get dried off.” Because anything else would be a really bad idea.
“Yeah.” She looked up at him, blinking the raindrops from her lashes. Then she held out her hand.
“I thought we already called a truce.” He didn’t want to shake again. He wanted more.
Apparently, she was smarter than that. “This isn’t a truce,” she said. “This time, we’re making a pact.”
“Oh?”
Her eyes fired with resolve. “To learning from our mistakes, sticking to our lists, and choosing better the next time, whenever that might be.”
Yeah, that resonated. He closed his fingers around hers. “To choosing better.” Which, right now, meant getting in his truck and going back to Mustang Ridge before he did something stupid.
9
The next evening, Ashley drove out to pick up the boxes of coupon books and mini calendars that Jenny had put together for the giveaway bags.
“I can’t thank you enough.” Ashley gave her friend a quick, hard hug. “I’m going to have some serious IOUs out there by the time this is done. You, Shelby, Krista, Rose, Ed, Gran, Ty . . .” She didn’t mean to trail off after his name, but she had reached the end of the list. She’d be darned if she let herself blush, though.
Jenny’s eyebrows went up. “Ty signed on to help?”
“I don’t think he signed on so much as he got roped into dropping off lumber and helping me with some set design. I don’t know if he’ll be back.” She hoped he would, though. The other night, talking to each other like grown-ups, about stuff that mattered . . . yeah. She could do that again.
“Well, don’t be afraid to reach out to him. Or any of us.” Jenny tapped the boxes. “We’re all rooting for you.”
“Thanks. I mean it.” Ashley hefted the printed materials. “I’ll catch you later.”
“Before you go, Nick wants you to stop by the kitty room.”
“Everything okay with VW Cat?” Last she’d heard, the vet had worked his magic, and the bedraggled rescue was on the mend.
“As far as I know. I think he just wanted you to have a chance to peek in on him.”
“Him? I thought it was a girl.”
“Guess not.”
“Well, Nick is the cat expert, so we’ll go with his ruling on that one. And I’ll stop by to say hey to both of them on my way out.” She wanted to talk to Nick, anyway, and get him locked into a payment plan—hopefully a deferred one—before he conveniently “lost” the stray cat’s paperwork.
She was getting better at accepting help, but that would be taking it too far.
Downstairs, she let herself into the deserted waiting room, with its cutesy posters and cushioned benches, and through to an exam room. Skirting the stainless steel table, she pushed through the door at the rear, into the treatment area beyond, where rows of cages lined one wall and a hint of Eau de Litter wafted in the air. “Nick?” she called. “You back here? It’s Ashley.”
The only answer was a meow from one of the top cages, where a fat gray tabby rubbed up against the bars, and a couple of squeaks from two cages down, where a little orange paw reached through, attached to one of two blue-eyed kittens. The cage between them looked empty at first glance, but, like the other two, there was a name tag slid into a metal slot in the lower left corner.
Easing farther into the room, Ashley saw that the tabby’s name was Princess, the kittens were Nutter and Butter, and their invisible neighbor had been dubbed Vintage Store Stray. The empty-looking cage held a clean litter box, food and water dishes, and a large carpet-covered canister, a foot or so high, with a cat-size cut in the side and gnaw marks around the edges.
A pair of slitted yellow eyes peered from the darkness within, unblinking.
“Hey, kitty,” she cooed. “Remember me?”
From the carpeted enclosure came a low-throated growl.
As the far door opened, admitting both the white-coated vet and the “Ah-woo-woo-woo” of a dog who didn’t sound happy about being kenneled overnight, she asked the cat, “Was that Thanks for the upgrade or Bite me?”
“Hard to tell,” Nick said. Rumple-haired and rugged, the vet looked like Indiana Jones had thrown on a lab coat instead of his leather. “Most days, I wish we had a gizmo that could do animal-to-English translations, as that would make my job a whole lot easier. With this guy, we might be better off not knowing. And, hey there. Thanks for stopping down.”
“No problem. Thank you for fixing this guy up. Got a ’tude, does he?”
“Let’s just say he’s not the friendliest feline I’ve ever met.”
“Why do I get the feeling that’s an understatement?” She stuck out a finger to the next cage over, and got a gentle pat-pat from a fluffy orange paw. From the dark depths of the carpeted cave came an unblinking silence. Kind of eerie, really. “Do you think he’ll come around?”
“It’s possible, if somebody wanted to take the time to gentle him. As it is, the best I’ve got lined up for him is a warm, dry spot in a barn that’s got a few too many mice.” He shot her a sidelong look.
She held up both hands, knowing how Jenny’s husband worked. “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not a bleeding heart like Danny.” Who had “fostered” a stray for Nick last year as a favor, and wound up a dog owner. “I like my apartment just the way it is, thank you—or, rather, I’ve got plans for the stuff I don’t like, and those plans don’t include litter boxes, stinky tuna, and shredded upholstery.”
“Did I say you should take him home?”
“I did my good deed with the trap.” To the cat, she said, “We’re done. Finished. Good luck with the mice.”
“Rrrrrrr.”
“See? He doesn’t even like me.”
“Still not telling you to take him home.” Nick nodded to Nutter and Butter. “If you’re thinking of adopting a pet, these guys are sweet as pie. And you know what they say about two kittens being less work than one.”
“I’ve only owned my own place for a week. Cut me some slack here!” She couldn’t help it, though. She stuck a finger through the bars and rubbed a soft head, getting a ridiculously loud purr in response. Awww.
“Granted,” Nick said, “they’ll be dead easy for me to place in a safe indoor home. An adult black cat? They’re like the green Jell-O salad of the pet shelter world—always the last ones left over, and often tossed aside. It’d be a stretch for me to find this one a safe pet home, even without the grumpy factor.”
Guilt prickled. “He’ll be okay in the barn, though, right?”
“They’ll cage him for a few weeks, so he’ll hopefully imprint on the location, and then they’ll release him and see if he sticks around.”
Pat-pat went the little orange paw. Prick went her conscience. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“He might not like the barn or the other cats, and the backcountry has its share of predators.”
“Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to know.”
“Don’t stress,” Nick said. “You’ve already done more than most people would. Unless . . .” He reached down into the corner and came up with a plastic cat carrier. “What do you say? You could give him a couple of weeks in a nice house with his very own human, and see what happens.”
Ashley felt herself wavering. Darn it.
The little orange paw batted at her again and blue eyes blinked innocently, as if to say, Come on, give him a chance.
She could do it, too. For the first time in her life, she had her own place and could make her own rules. And if she wanted to wear a big old SUCKER sign on her forehead, she could do that, too. Scowling, she said, “You were planning this all along, weren’t you? And Jenny was in on it.�
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“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.” He set the cat carrier on the exam table, then added a big gift bag that said KITTEN STARTER KIT above an impossibly cute cartoon.
Ashley looked from the cage to the carrier and back again. “Well, shoot.” It looked like she had herself a cat.
How bad could it be?
• • •
Sunday morning near their ten o’clock opening time, Hen came through the shop’s front door and did a double take. “Whoa. What happened in here? Were we robbed?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what happened. Thieves made off with all of the eighties-era stock, hangers, racks, and all.” Ashley rolled her eyes. “No, I started rearranging last night. I couldn’t sleep, and it was either move stuff around down here or stay upstairs and talk to the cat.”
“What cat?” Hen looked around, eyes brightening. “The cat? You brought her back? Where is she?”
Ashley sighed. “Upstairs, I think.”
“What do you mean, you think? You lost her?”
“It’s a him. And, well, he’s not lost, exactly. I just don’t know where he is. Krista told me they can hide in the darnedest places.” After she got done laughing at Ashley for letting Nick sucker her in. “She said to just leave food out and give him time.”
“You should have put him in a small room for the first few days. A bathroom is good. Then there’d only be so many places he could hide, and you could go in there and make friends.”
“Now you tell me.”
“You could have called.”
“Wish I had. Anyway, Petunia is upstairs somewhere. I opened the cat carrier and poof. Like magic. Maybe I should’ve called him Houdini, instead.”
“Oh, no. I like Petunia!”
Leave it to Hen not to give her grief for the name. As opposed to Krista, who had accused her of wanting the cat to never come out from under the sofa—or wherever the blasted thing was hiding—because he was so embarrassed. But, darn it, the cat had looked like a Petunia to Ashley from the very beginning, and she was hoping he would sweeten into the name.
Coming Home to Mustang Ridge Page 9