Mercury Rising

Virginia looked pained. “My. Your indifference is nothing short of stunning.”

Indifference. Sadly that pretty much summed up Jane’s feelings about Friday night. It had been her second date with that particular man. He taught Science at the high school and Jane had met him over a year ago now. He’d come into her bookstore looking for a good manual on Sierra birds and a well-illustrated book on weather patterns. He really did seem the kind of man she’d been looking for: steady and trustworthy, kind and wise. A man who had sought to be her friend first. He’d told her he admired her straightforwardness, said he respected her independence and valued her intelligence. Jane believed him when he said those things.

And he was nice-looking, too, with thick brown hair and a muscular build. There was nothing not to like about him. Jane did like him. She also knew in her heart that liking was all she felt for him.

Was she asking too much in daring to want it all—decency and steadiness and a kiss that turned her inside out?

Probably.

“Gary Nevis is a great guy, Mom. I just don’t think he’s the guy for me.”

“Now. Give it time. You might discover there’s more there than you realized.”

“Good advice,” Jane agreed without much enthusiasm.

“And on that note, I’ll take my roses and go home.”

Jane walked her mother out the door and down the front steps.

“A beautiful summer we’re having,” her mother said as they proceeded down the walk toward the car at the curb.

“Oh, yes.” Jane turned her face up to the warm ball of the August sun. “A splendid summer.” Northern Nevada’s Comstock Valley was, in Jane’s admittedly biased opinion, the best place in the entire world to live. A place where the pace of life was not too hectic, where you knew your neighbors, where people were always forgetting to lock their doors and it never mattered because nothing bad every happened. Here, folks enjoyed reasonably mild winters and summers where daytime temperatures tended to max out in the low eighties.

At the curb, about twenty feet from the low, celadon-green sports car parked in front of Cade’s house, Jane took the roses and held the door open while her mother got settled into her Town Car, sliding onto the soft leather seat and taking the sunscreen out of the windshield, folding it neatly and stowing it in back.

“Here. Give me those.” Virginia took the bundle of fragrant pink blooms, turned to lay it carefully on the passenger seat to her right, then smiled up at her daughter once more. “Thank you for coming to church with me.”

“I enjoyed it.”

“And for the lunch.”

“My pleasure.”

Virginia lifted her cheek for a kiss.

Jane fondly obliged. Then she stepped back and swung the door shut. Her mother fumbled in the console for a moment, came up with the key and stuck it in the ignition. A moment later, the big car sailed off down the street, turning at the corner onto Smith Way and rolling on out of sight.

Jane turned back toward her house. She got about two steps and paused to admire the scene before her.

Her house was Queen Anne-style. It had a turret with a spire on top, touches of gingerbread trim in the eaves and a multitude of cozy nooks and crannies.

Her garden stole her breath. It was late-summer glorious now, a little overblown, like a beautiful woman just past her prime. The Jack clematis that climbed the side fence was in full flower. Black-eyed Susans thrust their gold-petaled faces up to meet the sun. The big patch of lacy-leaved cosmos to the right of her walk was a riot of purple, white, lavender and pink.

Among the cosmos, on pedestals of varying heights, Jane had mounted a series of gazing balls, one blue, one pink, one green, one that looked like a huge soap bubble, crystal clear with just the faintest sheen of mother-of-pearl. The cosmos partially masked them. They peeked out, smooth reflective spheres, giving back the gleam of sunlight.

Oh, it was all so very lovely. If she didn’t have her dear aunt Sophie anymore, at least she had a house and a garden that filled her heart to bursting every time she took a minute to stop and really look at it.

Jane let out a small laugh of pure pleasure. Enough with basking in delight at the beauty that surrounded her. She needed to put on her old clothes and her wide straw hat and get after it. With the bookstore closed, Sunday was prime time for working in the yard. She had the rest of the day completely to herself—and the tomatoes and carrots out back cried out for harvesting.

She started up the walk again—and spotted Cade Bravo, just emerging from the shadows of his porch.

She hadn’t meant to look toward his house, she truly hadn’t.

But somehow, she’d done it anyway. And as her glance found him, he emerged into the sunlight, those long, strong legs of his moving fast, down the steps, along the walk.

The sunlight caught in his hair. Oh, he did have beautiful hair—not brown and not gold, but some intriguing color in between, hair that made a woman want to get her fingers in it. He kept it short, but it had a seductive tendency to curl. Jane secretly thought it was the kind of hair a Greek god might have, hair suitable for crowning with a laurel wreath.

He waved, just a casual salute of a motion, long fingers to his forehead, so briefly, then dropping away as he moved on by.

“Hi, Cade.” She gave him a quick cool smile, ignoring the shiver that slid beneath the surface of her skin, pretending she didn’t feel the heat that pooled in her belly, that she didn’t notice the sudden acceleration of her pulse rate.

Turning away in relief and despair, Jane made for the haven of her house.

Chapter Two

C ade got past Jane and went on down the walk. He had hardly glanced at her, just given her that quick wave and moved on by.

He knew that was how she wanted it. So fine. Let her have what she wanted.

It wouldn’t have been such a bright idea to try to get her talking right then, anyway. He was on edge. Who could say what dangerous things might slip out of his mouth? The sight of Virginia Elliott, staring at him through Jane’s dining-room window, fingering her pearls and scowling, had pretty much ruined his day.

Cade got in his car, slammed the door and started the engine. He wanted a drink. But he didn’t want to sit by himself in the house he probably never should have bought, pouring shots and knocking them back.

Drinking alone was just too depressing. So he was headed for the Highgrade, a combination saloon/café/gift shop/gaming establishment on Main Street. Headed for home—or at least, the closest thing to home he’d every known. He’d grown up there, in the rambling apartment above the action, on the second floor.

Flat-roofed and sided in clapboard, the Highgrade was paneled inside in never-ending knotty pine. Slots lined the walls and the air smelled of greasy burgers, stale beer and too many cigarettes.

Okay, there had to be better places for a man in need of cheering up to go. But even on Sunday, he knew he’d find a few die-hard regulars in the bar. They wouldn’t be big talkers. He’d be lucky to get a few grunts and a “Hiya, Cade.” But technically at least, he wouldn’t be drinking alone.

It was a very short drive to Main Street. Cade swung into the alley between the Highgrade and Jane’s store, Silver Unicorn Books.

Jane. The name echoed like a taunt in his brain.

Seemed he couldn’t turn around lately without being reminded of her. Ubiquitous. That was the word for her.

And don’t laugh. Yeah, maybe he hadn’t been to college—like Jane. And like both of his brothers. But he could read. And set goals. He tried to learn a new word for every weekday. Five new words a week. Times fifty-two. Do the math. Two hundred sixty new words a year. Including ubiquitous, which was another word for Jane.

Because she was everywhere. She had the store next to his mother’s place. One of her two closest friends had married his brother. And she lived in the house beside his.

Yeah, yeah. If living next to her bothered him, he shouldn’t have bought the damn house in the first place.

But he’d had that itch to move back home. And he’d scratched it by buying the old Lipcott place. How the hell was he supposed to know what was going to happen to him as a result of buying a damn house? How was he going to know ahead of time that proximity would breed awareness? And that awareness would develop into a yen.

It just wasn’t the kind of thing that he’d ever imagined could happen to him. Uh-uh. Cade Bravo didn’t brood over lovers—or over women he wished would become his lovers.

Why should he? In spite of his lack of formal education, women liked him just fine. He’d never had to put up with a whole lot of rejection. Most women were willing to look at him twice. And besides, he’d always been a guy who took life as it came. If a woman didn’t respond to him, well, hey, guess what? There’d be someone new on the horizon real soon.

He’d never been the type to pine and yearn.