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He thought Gary’s thanks were a bit profuse for a simple offer to trade, but he smiled and headed toward the small convenience store at the other end of the mall, figuring he’d pick up his second cup of coffee for the day. Just before he got there, he spotted the last person he wanted to see at any given time, but especially today. Mr. Diaz, who ran the feed store and was the nexus of the Last Stand grapevine. The last time he’d collided with the guy, a tale that he’d been on a date with Sage Highwater—who in fact had only been talking to him about the custom saddle her family had had him do for her while he was still at Lake LBJ—had been making the rounds an hour later. Considering Sage’s fiancé was a medal-winning former Marine sniper, that could have been life-endangering.
The man hadn’t noticed Ry yet, but he would. Unless he got out of sight. He dodged through the nearest door, which happened to be a doctor’s office. There were a couple of women in chairs in the waiting room, and another behind the counter, and all three looked up curiously. Ry smiled awkwardly and leaned around to look out the glass door just in time to see Mr. Diaz holding the door of the convenience store open for a young woman to leave before he went in. When the man vanished inside, he let out a relieved breath, feeling as if he’d dodged a bullet. He looked back at the curious occupants of the office, gave another awkward smile, mouthed “Sorry,” and gave the door a shove to escape.
He almost flattened the woman who’d come out of the convenience store.
Ry swore at himself as she dodged backward, moving the cup she held, probably full of hot coffee, away from her body as she did. It sloshed but didn’t spill.
For which you should be thankful, idiot. It could have burned her.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t realize you were there.” She looked at the clear glass door, and he realized how stupid that sounded. “I mean, I was trying to…” He couldn’t think of any way to explain that didn’t sound even stupider.
Her gaze shifted from the door to the brass plate beside it. And then she looked back at him and smiled. And Ry blinked. He’d thought her rather ordinary, albeit with a nice shape and a graceful way of moving. And obviously quick reflexes. She’d danced out of the way as if she wore ballet shoes instead of worn, serviceable boots. And he’d noticed the large, heavy watch she wore, making her wrist look delicate. It resembled the one Chance wore, the one he called a chronograph, and seemed a rather distinctive choice for a woman.
But that smile was…amazing. It just seemed so genuine. Not the polite, meaningless expression people put on—Chelsea had been especially good at it—or the smirky kind of smile when people were being polite but thinking the opposite—Chelsea had been good at that, too, and at the end it had been too often aimed at him—but a genuine, from a good heart kind of smile. And it lit up those huge brown eyes, eyes with rather striking gold flecks here and there, eyes that looked as if they saw…everything. Even the tiny freckles in a spray across her nose added to the feeling of sincerity.
“It’s all right,” she assured him, and he was startled all over again. That voice was…wow. Low and rich and husky, the kind of voice that sent a tingle down your spine. And woke up areas even further south. “I’m sure you must be very distracted right now. Good luck to you both. Or rather, all three of you.”
He stared at her as she walked on, on one level noticing she had the sweetest backside he’d seen in a while, on another wondering blankly what she’d been talking about, him being distracted and…needing luck? And what three?
His brow furrowed, he turned back, wondering how long Mr. Diaz would be inside the store. As he did, his gaze snagged on the brass plate the woman had looked at.
He groaned aloud, suddenly understanding.
It was the Last Stand obstetrician’s office.
Chapter Three
“Get that forme, will you? There’s a dear.”
Kaitlyn smothered a sigh as she grabbed up the laptop bag. Of course the woman couldn’t carry it herself. She had that heavy purse, after all. Full of every kind of makeup and lotion known to man.One must maintain one’s image.If Jillian Jacobs had a mantra, that would be it.
She supposed an outsider would think she was just jealous. Jillian was obviously beautiful, whereas she was just as obviously not. Oh, she wasn’t ugly, but she was no beauty like Jillian. Or her own even more beautiful mother. No, she was just…plain. Ordinary brown hair, ordinary brown eyes, ordinary height, ordinary shape. The only thing the slightest bit unique about her wasn’t a plus in her view. Tiny freckles across her nose that made her always look like a kid weren’t something she was happy about, but she didn’t have the time or the patience to do what was required to hide them. They just were, and she lived with that fact.
She would have thought Jillian might tone it down a bit, since this was her first assignment at a new publication, and one with as much respect asTexas Artworks. But it apparently wasn’t in her nature to ever do that.You have to look and act like what you want to be.That had been the other part of her mantra. Kaitlyn had silently wondered what that accomplished, if it was only the look and an act, but of course she’d said nothing. The woman had suggested her for this job, after all. No doubt because she didn’t say the things she thought, but just quietly went along. Because she couldn’t afford not to.
As they headed for the doors she wondered, not for the first time, why Jillian had even taken this job, given it wasn’t normally her kind of publication. Wondered if it was simply, as Jillian claimed, expanding her horizons and her résumé, or if there was an ulterior motive. Rafferty had, after all, done work for a few politicians here and there.
Then again, she wondered why a class publication likeTexas Artworkswould hire someone like Jillian. However, she had read that the staff writer of the article she’d so enjoyed on metal artist Gabe Walker, Jackie Hayden, had been promoted to chief content editor, so perhaps they were just trying people out to take her place.
They encountered the owner of the inn on their way out. She’d met Frank Buckley yesterday and had been impressed with the former Texas Ranger on several fronts. And her opinion of him silently went up another notch when he merely nodded politely to Jillian, but gave her a wink and a nod. As if he knew exactly who and what the flashier woman was. As perhaps he did; she supposed you didn’t survive being a Ranger for two decades, as the inn’s brochure had said, without being able to assess people.
She remembered the words that had gone through her mind when she’d been in front of Asa Fuhrmann’s statue.We grow them tough in Texas.It definitely applied here, too.
Another image shot into her mind, the man who had nearly knocked her down with a door Monday.
We also grow them beautiful.
Oh, yes, that definitely applied. She could admit that, because obviously he was safely attached. Why else would he be coming out of an obstetrician’s office? Assuming it was the usual reason for a man to be there, she wondered if the child would be as beautiful as its father. If it would inherit that wild sort of edge she’d sensed in him, not just in the unshaven jaw and the sleek, dark hair with several thick locks that fell forward over his forehead to his eyebrows, but in the very way he moved, like some big cat—a panther or something. What must it be like, to have a man like that love you?
Lucky woman.
She smothered another sigh, told herself he was probably the sort who fell for women like Jillian, and together they would produce children as beautiful as they were. But somehow she couldn’t quite believe that man she’d seen—for all of a single minute—would tolerate the likes of Jillian. Not when he could clearly pick and choose. Then again maybe he, like so many, only saw the surface and didn’t care about the chilly heart and maybe/maybe not soul beneath.
But there was no maybe about one thing. Men like that didn’t look twice at women like her.
Jillian paused at the desk in the lobby on their way out, no doubt to make some petty complaint or imperious demand. Even as the thought formed, Kaitlyn told herself to snap out of this mood, or she was going to blow this, and her chance for future gigs withTexas Artworks.
So she waited patiently as Jillian talked to Mrs. Buckley, then again when she turned away to take a phone call.
