Shoulda Been A Cowboy

“Your room’s at the top of the stairs on the left. Our best view. Overlooks the valley and the mountains in the distance. It has an adjoining bath. And if it’s not to your liking, I can show you others.”

“I’m sure it will be fine.” His expression was friendly, but a residual sadness flickered in his eyes. “Okay if I leave my truck out front?”

“Sure. Or you can park it in the lot on the east side of the house. Your choice.”

“Thanks.” His gaze held hers for a beat, as if he wanted to say more but didn’t. He pivoted and headed for the entrance.

The screen door slammed behind him, and Caroline took the stairs two at a time to the third floor and raced to her room at the back of the house to change clothes and comb her hair. With an unexpected guest, she had more shopping to do and hoped that Jodie was still open.

ETHAN SAUNTERED down the front walk of the B and B toward his pickup, parked at the curb. He paused, inhaled a deep breath of the summer air and with it the faint aroma of smoke. At the scent, his chest constricted, and in a rush of panic, he struggled to breathe. Sweat beaded his brow, and he clenched his hands to stop their trembling.

Just someone burning brush nearby, he assured himself, but only several minutes of deep breathing and regimented self-control enabled him to slow his galloping pulse and relax the all-too-familiar tightness in his chest. The scars on the back of his hands itched with an intensity almost as painful as his initial injuries.

Concentrate on something else, anything else.

He refused to experience an emotional melt-down, especially not on the quiet street of a strange town. He focused on the giant maples, thick with summer foliage, whose arched branches shaded the broad avenue from the summer heat. The neighborhood, with its century-old homes on oversize lots and surrounded by colorful beds of flowers, was a throwback to a different time, a perfect setting for The Andy Griffith Show. Ethan half expected to see a barefooted Opie come whistling down the street with a fishing pole slung over his shoulder.

The image, conjured from television reruns he’d watched during his recuperation, calmed him. With his panic conquered, at least for the moment, he recalled another pleasant image. The pretty woman he’d found sprawled asleep in the grass behind the bed-and-breakfast had been a delightful surprise. He should have awakened her immediately. Instead, he’d taken a moment to appreciate the gracefulness of her bare arms and legs, her short, thick hair the color of sunshine, and her cheeks flushed as pink as the roses that rambled along the split rail fence at the back of the yard. And he wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t noticed the nip of her narrow waist and the seductive curve of her breasts beneath the snug fit of her shirt. Best of all, however, had been the startling cornflower blue of her wide eyes when she’d awakened, a hue as deep and magnificent as the Carolina sky. His quickened interest and the burst of heat in his groin at the memory gave him hope.

Ethan, old buddy, maybe you’re not dried-up and dead inside after all.

His panic defeated and his outlook more optimistic than it had been in months, he whistled a Montgomery Gentry tune, climbed into his pickup, started the engine, and backed his truck into the parking lot. He doubted the crime rate was high in this small Southern town, but he didn’t want to risk his belongings, securely stowed under a tarp in the bed of his truck, by leaving them on the street, ripe for picking.

After positioning his truck in the space directly beneath the security light, he shut off the engine, grabbed his duffel bag from the passenger seat, climbed out and keyed the lock.

On the front porch, a screen door slammed. The pretty woman—hell, maybe he was dead, or at least his brain—he hadn’t even asked her name—scampered down the wide front stairs, hurried down the front walk with a delightful sway of her perfect hips and took the sidewalk that led to the town’s main street. She’d changed into a floral dress that hugged her attractive curves and showed off her long, tanned legs.

Down, boy. She’s probably married and runs this place with her husband.

Disappointment engulfed him at the thought, because he couldn’t get over the impression he’d had from the first time he saw her that this woman was someone he’d been waiting for, for a long, long time.

He hoisted his bag to his shoulder and headed for the entrance. He’d be at the B and B a few more days. Plenty of time to learn her name.

And more.

CAROLINE CUT THROUGH the alley between Jay-Jay’s Garage and Fulton’s Department Store and hurried across Piedmont Avenue, the town’s main street, to Jodie’s Mountain Crafts and Cafе. It was past the cafе’s four o’clock closing time, but Caroline was counting on Jodie’s still being there to let her in. Otherwise, she’d have to return home and do her own baking for her guest’s breakfast tomorrow.

The Closed sign hung in plain view inside the double front doors, but when Caroline pressed her face to the glass, she spotted Jodie Davidson, the owner, sitting at the counter beside the cash register and figuring up the day’s receipts. Caroline rapped on the glass with her knuckles. Jodie looked up, spotted her and smiled. In less than a minute, she had the door open and was motioning Caroline to a seat at the counter.

“How ’bout a glass of iced tea?” Jodie asked. “I was just about to pour myself one.”

“Sounds good.”

Caroline had known Jodie all her life, and, with her brown, sun-streaked hair, cheerleader-fresh face, and trim figure, the cafе’s owner looked remarkably like the teenager Caroline remembered. But her friendship with Jodie went back even further than their teen years to the days when Jodie had bird-dogged the steps of her older brother Grant, whom she adored. Jodie had slipped away from her mother’s watchful eye one bright fall morning and appeared at the door of Caroline’s second-grade classroom. Grant had been more worried about his little sister than embarrassed, causing Caroline to develop a crush on the boy that had lasted through high school. Now Grant was married to Merrilee Stratton and they had a child of their own. All her friends had moved on with their lives. Only Caroline was stuck in a Pleasant Valley limbo.

In a series of deft moves, Jodie scooped crushed ice into two glasses, filled them with sweet tea, garnished the rims with lemon wedges, and set them on the counter.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Caroline said.

Jodie laughed. “I’ve been working this counter so many years, I could serve beverages in my sleep.”

Caroline took a sip and shook her head. “I’m not talking about just the cafе. You run this business, raise Brittany, and help Jeff ride herd on the boys at Archer Farm. Don’t you ever get tired?”

The entire town had been abuzz when Jeff Davidson, the resident bad boy, had returned to Pleasant Valley after a hitch in the military. With four other former Marines, he’d opened his facility for at-risk teenage boys. Not only had Archer Farm proved a success, Jeff had married Jodie and adopted her teenage daughter.

“I doubt I work half as hard as you,” Jodie said. “How’s your mother?”

“In Walhalla with Aunt Mona. And I have an unexpected guest. Please tell me you have muffins so I don’t have to go home and bake.”

“Cranberry-pecan, apple cinnamon, or blueberry-walnut?”

“All of the above. If this guy’s size is any indicator, I’m guessing his appetite is huge.”

“Businessman?” Jodie asked.

Caroline shrugged. “Don’t know. He’s just passing through on a move to Baltimore.”

“You okay there by yourself?” Concern shone in Jodie’s hazel eyes.

“There’s a dead bolt on the door to our private rooms. I’m as safe as anyone is these days. And the police department is only a block away.” She rolled her eyes. “And nosy neighbors even closer.”

Jodie opened the door of a stainless steel freezer, removed three packages of frozen muffins, dropped them into a plastic bag, and placed it on the counter. “I don’t know why you buy these from me. Your baking’s better than mine.”

“Thanks, but yours take the prize. Besides, I have so little time to myself, I hate to spend it in the kitchen.”

The bell on the front door jingled, indicating a new arrival. A tall, good-looking man with dark brown hair and matching eyes closed the door behind him.

“Hi, Rand,” Jodie greeted the newcomer. “What’s up?”

Randall Benedict rented the office suite over Jodie’s cafе for his law practice. Last October, he’d married Brynn Sawyer, another of Caroline’s lifelong friends, and had made a permanent move from New York to the valley.

“Hi, Jodie. Caroline, I’m glad you’re here. I stopped by your house, but your guest said you’d gone to town.”

Rand’s eyes were troubled, and thin-set lips and a tightened jaw replaced his usual rakish grin.

“Is something wrong?” Caroline’s heart stuttered. Why would the attorney seek her out? Had her mother had an accident and he’d been drafted to break the bad news? “Is it Mama?”

“As far as I know, your mother’s fine,” Rand assured her quickly, “but I have some sad news.”

The skin on the back of her neck tingled, and, in a flash of precognition, Caroline took a deep breath and waited, knowing that what Rand was about to say would change her life forever.

“It’s Eileen Bickerstaff at Blackberry Farm,” he said. “She died last night.”

Chapter Two

In Rand’s law office above the cafе, Caroline fidgeted in the maroon leather chair beside his mahogany desk. The cold from the plastic bag of frozen muffins in her lap seeped through the thin fabric of her dress and chilled her thighs. She shivered with cold and grief. Eileen, despite her age, had seemed healthy and vibrant. Her death came as a shock.

“I don’t understand,” Caroline said. “What’s so urgent that you have to tell me now?”