Soul Mates

That tormenting thought served to distract Nate from Brown and Jessup’s taunts. Suddenly, his return to his hometown wasn’t about proving something to himself and to the citizens of Coyote Flats. It was about bolstering the spirits of a woman who had all but given up on life. It was time to return the favor Katy had granted him sixteen years ago.

Nate made a pact with himself one mile later. Somehow, some way, he was going to put a smile back on Katy’s lips and return the sparkle to those hypnotic blue eyes that dominated Katy’s pale, thin face. She may have forgotten how to fight back, but Nate sure hadn’t. And by damned, he was going to teach her how it was done!

“My gosh, Aunt Katy, who was that hunk?” Tammy Bates questioned as she propped herself against the office door.

Katy smiled ruefully at her niece, then handed over the letter she had prepared for the city council. “He’s an old friend from high school,” she replied as casually as she knew how.

“Man, and here I thought Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon were incredible to look at! Wow! Talk about tall, dark and handsome!”

Tammy’s love-struck expression was the spitting image of the dreamy smiles Katy had worn a lifetime ago while mooning over Nate Channing. Of course, Katy had had the good sense not to bring up Nate’s name in front of her father, only in front of her friends. Judge Dave Bates had gone ballistic the few times he had caught Katy and Nate together. She had paid dearly for those secret rendezvous, too. Dave had decreed that Nate was off-limits, and her father had dreamed up ways to keep them separated.

Later, when Kate discovered to what drastic extremes her father had abused his power and used his influence to ensure Nate was out of her life for good, she had never forgiven him, had lost all respect for him.

Although Nate seemed determined to strike up a friendship with Katy, she knew it was utterly impossible to mend the broken bridges. She knew that, ultimately, she was the reason Nate had been forced out of town and never permitted to return.

She had also seen Nate’s look of pity when he stared at her. She had nothing to offer the prominent, successful man Nate Channing had become. She was damaged merchandise. Her physical and emotional scars had left her with feelings of inadequacy and unattractiveness that she couldn’t overcome.

Nate deserved better than a mousy female who had been in an emotional coma for years and couldn’t remember how to laugh and smile. He needed someone exciting and attractive, someone who could stand up for herself, someone who could walk without a limp, someone who could look a man squarely in the eye and feel that she was his equal.

Nate had reinvented himself while she had shriveled up inside. She had nothing to offer him now or ever again.

“So, what’s his name, Aunt Katy?” Tammy grilled her.

“Nate Channing.”

Tammy frowned pensively. “I don’t recognize the name. Is his family still around here?”

“No.”

“So he just stopped by to visit you on his way through town?”

Katy shrugged her thin-bladed shoulders. “Please hand-deliver this letter to the city hall. I want the secretary to put my request on the agenda before the council’s meeting.”

“Sure.” Tammy spun around, her ponytail bobbing as she walked away. “But I still think Nate Channing is incredibly good-looking. Maybe you should find out if he’s staying overnight in town and invite him over for supper.”

“Maybe you should stop playing matchmaker and mind your own business,” Katy called after her.

Tammy pirouetted, then grinned unrepentantly at her aunt. “I’ll mind my own business if you will admit that Nate is one great-looking guy.”

“Okay, he’s a knockout,” Katy admitted honestly. “Happy now?”

“I would be if you would chase him down and invite him to supper,” Tammy said before she whipped around and sauntered away.

Katy scrunched into her chair and stared at the blank wall where Nate’s handsome face had superimposed itself. “Too vital, too good-looking. Far too deserving of someone like me,” she said sensibly to herself.

There had been a time when Katy had dreamed of her darkly handsome knight riding back into her life to rescue her from a disastrous marriage and whisk her away from a domineering father who offered no moral support, who constantly sided with her husband. But no one had come to her rescue, and her own attempts to fight for her freedom earned painful blows.

It was too late for her to start fresh, too late to mend all her shattered dreams. This was as good as her life would get, she assured herself fatalistically.

Resolved not to let Nate make the mistake of trying to reestablish their friendship, Katy forced herself to concentrate on her work. For Nate’s sake she had to discourage him from future contact. Katy had nothing to offer him now. Too much water had flooded under the bridge of her life. She had learned to accept what she hadn’t been able to change, and she had learned to center her life around the books that lined the library shelves. The characters on the pages of those books were her friends and acquaintances. They were safe, and she was secure inside the walls of this building.

Eventually, Nate would realize that the happiness and confidences they shared a lifetime ago were like closed chapters in a book. He would look elsewhere for a fulfilling friendship and leave her to the life she had grown comfortable with. It was too late to change, Katy told herself. She wasn’t even going to try.

Nate strode into his new ranch-style home to see Fuzz Havern, the retired sheriff of Coyote County, sprawled on the leather recliner. Fuzz had traded his police-issued pistol for the remote control to the big-screen TV.

Fuzz was all smiles when he glanced up to see Nate stride into the spacious living room. Nate wished he felt half of Fuzz’s obvious pleasure and satisfaction. Unfortunately, seeing what had become of Katy Bates had turned Nate wrong-side-out. He still couldn’t believe Katy had changed so dramatically.

“Pinch me, Nate,” Fuzz insisted. “I swear I must be dreaming all this. How can I possibly be sitting in this luxurious house, living like a king?” Fuzz swiped a meaty hand over his military-style gray hair and beamed in pleasure again. “After all the tense situations in the line of duty, here I am, kicked back, surfing channels and loving every minute of it.” He glanced around the expensively furnished room. “This place is really something else, Nate.”

“I’m glad you agreed to our arrangements,” Nate said as he plopped down on the matching leather sofa. “I told you sixteen years ago that I would repay you for what you did for me.”

Fuzz nodded, remembering. “Yeah, well, all I did was give you the break nobody around here was willing to give you. You took the opportunity I arranged for you, and you ran with it.” He tossed Nate a knowing glance. “I don’t imagine you thought I was doing you any favors those first few months after I left you in Bud Thurston’s charge.”

Nate returned the grin. “No, I didn’t,” he recalled. “That ex-marine sergeant knew how to put a wayward youth through the drills, didn’t he?”

“Amen to that,” Fuzz agreed. “But Bud taught you discipline, the value of a hard day’s work, just as I asked him to do.”

Nate remembered the big, burly, gruff-mannered man who stood six feet six inches tall and weighed in at two-eighty—every pound solid, unyielding muscle. Bud Thurston had clamped a beefy fist around the ribbing on Nate’s T-shirt, jerked him off the ground and told Nate what was what. Bud had also taught Nate to be courteous, considerate, respectful and cooperative—or else.

Way out in the middle of nowhere, on Thurston Ranch, Bud was a law unto himself, and he was man enough to back up any command or threat he spouted. Nobody in his right mind messed with Bud, not if you planned to walk away from a confrontation in one piece.

Then, of course, there was Fuzz Havern, who checked on Nate once a month like a parole officer. Between the two men who had served together in the military, Nate had been nudged down the straight-and-narrow path and gotten his miserable life on course. It had taken a year for a bitter, mule-headed kid to change his ways, but it had been worth the effort. Nate was eternally grateful somebody was willing to help him make the needed changes in his behavior and attitude.

“You’ll notice that I didn’t extend the same generosity to Sonny Brown that night I hauled your sorry butt out of town,” Fuzz remarked, then channel-surfed to his heart’s content. “That boy never could overcome his raising, not with Lester there to defend him every time he made a bonehead mistake. The only way to save Sonny would have been to shoot his father. I couldn’t stretch the law that far.”

“Where is Sonny these days?” Nate asked.

“Doing time up in Big Spring,” Fuzz reported. “Every time he does another hitch in jail he learns another trick and tries it out when he walks back into society. And every time Sonny is taken into custody, Lester claims his kid is innocent.”

“He is still blaming me for driving Sonny to ruin,” Nate commented.

“Of course he is. Lester isn’t the kind of man who’s big enough to admit to his own failings and mistakes. It has always been someone else’s fault that his boy was worthless. It was the fault of bad weather conditions and plummeting cattle-market prices that caused him to lose his shirt in the ranching business.”

Fuzz shook his head. “Nope, you couldn’t convince Lester Brown that his laziness, his lack of ambition and lack of discipline for himself, and Sonny, caused his misfortune, not even if you dedicated an entire month of your life to explaining it to him…Why the sudden interest in Lester? Did you run into him already?”

Nate squelched his frustration and ignored the taunts still buzzing around his head. “Yeah, Lester and John Jessup headed up the unwelcoming committee when I drove into town to open a bank account and fill out the forms to have mail delivered to this address.”

Fuzz stared grimly at Nate. “Don’t let Lester get to you. I warned you that he would be on your case, along with his comical sidekick, Jessup. That was the first test you had to pass. You’ll have to turn the other cheek when those two lay into you.”

“They already did, twice today,” Nate confided.

Fuzz stared at Nate for a long, pensive moment. “Why don’t you just tell them flat-out why you came back? Maybe they would cut you a little slack.”

This wasn’t the first time Fuzz had questioned Nate’s strategy. Personally, Nate didn’t think the reasons for his return to Coyote Flats would change the low public opinion of him. No, Nate had to do things his own way, in his own good time.

The first phase of Nate’s crusade was already in place. He had constructed this spacious house on the site of his birthplace. He had convinced Fuzz Havern to share his home, rather than puttering around in that tiny garage apartment the retired sheriff rented after his wife died eight years earlier. Nate knew Sally Havern’s long bout with cancer had drained Fuzz’s savings account and plunged him into debt. Fuzz’s retirement pension barely covered expenses. Convincing Fuzz to move in with him was Nate’s way of repaying this man who had seen to it that a troubled kid had a chance to turn his life around.

Nate had specifically designed this house so Fuzz would have a private living area, bedroom, bath and kitchenette in the west wing. Of course, Fuzz could make use of the rest of the house any time he felt like socializing with Nate. That was the deal—no rent, no utility bills. Fuzz could stock his kitchenette with his favorite foods, buy personal supplies and maintain his pickup truck. Nate took care of everything else.