Meeting Her Match

Until a short few months ago when he’d realized God had different plans for him, he’d been about as content with his life as a man could be. He lived a simple life, for the most part alone but free on some of the most beautiful, untouched land God ever created. But that part of his life was done.

He blamed his surly mood on the fact that he was road weary. But he knew that wasn’t it.

He’d signed on for this new life. He’d trusted the Lord to lead the way, to open doors that would put him where he was supposed to be. But in order to live life on God’s terms he’d had to give up a simple life that hadn’t ever required him to step too far out of his comfort zone.

That was about to change.

And truth be told, that made him uneasy.

Sheri changed into her running clothes the moment she got home from work. She needed a run in the worst way. More than the run, she needed to vent.

“Boy, did she ever need to vent,” she mumbled, yanking the lace of her running shoe into a tight bow, then attacking the other one just as violently.

If she’d thought walking out of Sam’s was going to deter the posse, she’d been oh so wrong. Those ladies were nothing if not tenacious. That’s right, they’d just followed her down to the salon she and Lacy owned and spent the rest of the afternoon badgering her. It had taken everything she had to ward them off. Did they care that she was elbow-deep in pedicure water and didn’t have time to be dealing with them?

Nope, they could have cared less. They were truly out of control. Rolling downhill and picking up speed in their attempt to manipulate her life.

They’d continued to ignore her every word of protest. Oh, it was enough to make a girl pull her hair out! Sheri yanked the shoelace instead, then stomped her foot for good measure. Couldn’t they understand that just because her former boyfriend, J.P., had fallen in love with someone else, that didn’t mean her heart had gotten stomped in the process? She was just fine.

Really, it wasn’t a lie.

Well, not exactly. Yes, it hurt, much more than she wanted to admit. But Sheri wasn’t about to throw fuel on that little secret fire.

No. They didn’t need to know that for the first time in her life she’d thought she might be in love. Might being the operative word.

At first she told herself her heart was just aching because her pride had taken a kick in the gut. After all, she’d dared to open up to J.P. more than anyone before him. She’d even been on the verge of telling him she might be open to the idea of marriage. Might be, even almost on the verge of, was a major, major breakthrough for her. In all of her twenty-six years, she’d never before thought she’d make such an almost commitment. J.P. understood her feelings completely. They’d both had their reasons to shy away from commitment.

Poor J.P.

It wasn’t as if he’d been planning to fall in love, either. He’d been blindsided by it just as much as she’d been.

Still, it had happened. Everyone who’d been at that wedding reception saw that love at first sight had struck him like a bolt of lightning. Only it wasn’t with Sheri.

Sheri still felt slightly light-headed thinking about it. They’d been attending a wedding reception together, and she’d asked J.P. to get her a cup of punch. Just an innocent cup of punch. He’d been his sweet self, strutting off toward the punch bowl. Bam! Just like that, it had happened.

Love at the punch bowl.

Bizarre but true. Tara, the bride’s friend from Houston, had come up for the wedding and was serving punch. When Tara and J.P. locked eyes with each other, that was it. They were goners.

“Goners for sure,” Applegate Thornton had put it.

It was old news now. Really, really old news. It had been two months ago that the bolt of lightning had struck. However, their wedding had been yesterday, and instead of closing the book on Poor Little Jilted Sheri, it had only amplified the matchmaking posse’s pity party for her. Actually, the entire town still felt sorry for her. Why, old Applegate and Stanley Orr were even giving her the sorrowful eye this morning.

Mule Hollow’s resident grumpy old men, Applegate and Stanley, played checkers at the table by the front window of Sam’s diner most mornings and lately some afternoons. When they looked at her as if she was some poor pathetic soul, it was almost more than she could take.

What was wrong with being a single gal, a happy single gal, thank you very much? Why were married women and old men convinced that marriage was the only way to happiness? She’d lived through more than her share of marriages with her parents. Nine, to be exact, and none of them had led to happiness.

As her mother was always saying, “Some people just aren’t good at being tied down.” How many times had Sheri heard that phrase? It was so true. Before J.P., she’d always grown bored and moved on after a few months. Sheri recognized that she was like her parents. This sudden ache in her heart only meant that she’d foolishly thought she might want more. That she’d changed, that her past didn’t matter… She’d prayed about it a few times even though she hadn’t expected an answer. She’d realized early on in her life that God spoke to some and she wasn’t one of them. She hadn’t let it get to her before, but lately that, too, was starting to bother her more and more.

As her footsteps pounded on the gravel road, Sheri felt as if she could burst with frustration. There had been times over the last two months jogging down this road that she had wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. She’d actually done it a couple of times—almost scared the cows to death. Still, there had been a certain freedom in letting loose.

As she rounded the bend in the road her mind locked on the matchmaking posse’s unwanted plans for her life. Now, she thought with a grunt, might be a really good time to feel some of that freedom.

She opened her mouth to let a holler rip—and thankfully, spotted the truck before she screamed and embarrassed herself.

She slowed her pace. The dusty truck was parked off the road between the ancient roping pen and the shack that had always reminded her of something the first settlers had built when they’d come to the West. She slowed more, her gaze locking on the cowboy standing at the tailgate. She was more than glad she hadn’t screamed. By the looks of this cowboy, if she’d startled him he’d probably have come running, guns ablaze. Of course, on closer inspection he wasn’t wearing a holster, but that didn’t take anything away from the impression he made.

She squinted but didn’t recognize him. She headed his way. It never hurt to keep tabs on who was out here in the boonies of Mule Hollow.

He was unloading gear from the back of his truck, which was odd given that this was an access road to the interior of Lacy and her husband Clint’s ranch. Lacy hadn’t mentioned to her that anyone was moving in.

Actually relieved to have something new to take her mind off her own dilemma, Sheri jogged up the drive.

“So, how’s it going, cowboy?” she called before she reached him. “Looks like you’re moving in.” She came to a halt a few feet behind him and placed her hands on her hips, awaiting a reply. None came.

Instead, as if he hadn’t heard her, he reached for a coil of rope that lay on the tailgate beside a duffel bag and saddle. He slid the rope to his shoulder, then finally turned toward her.

If she’d been wearing four-inch heels, she’d have fallen straight off them. The man was gorgeous! The rugged, black-haired cowboy cocked his head toward her and met her startled gaze straight on with eyes the color of a stormy night sky.

Oh, my, my, my, looking at this handsome stranger confirmed what she’d known all her life. What she was trying to get the posse to realize about her.

She was not marriage material.

And that was not with a capital N.

Honestly, if all it took was one look into some stranger’s eyes to remind her of the main reason she didn’t make commitments—then there ya go. It was a done deal.

As her mom always said, “Some people just aren’t good at being tied down”—but it wasn’t only the echo of her mom.

Sheri just liked dating. There, her secret was out.

This was exactly the reminder she needed that the matchmakers were on a mission that would ultimately fail. And why she shouldn’t feel bummed about it because really she enjoyed dating. She absolutely loved this. There simply wasn’t anything as exciting as the initial spark of interest between a man and a woman. Like now, it was breathtaking. Then again, Sheri realized suddenly that the cowboy seemed to be breathing just fine.

Sheri reined in her runaway exhilaration and put her feet back on the ground. Her reaction to this handsome stranger had been so strong that it took a second to see that he didn’t appear to have been bitten by the same bug.

Drat.

Instead, his steel-gray eyes skimmed over her with disdain—as if he were looking at the latest order of pesticide.

Sheri’s eyes widened as he adjusted the rope on his shoulder, then without uttering a word slung the saddle to his back and strode away.

Sheri realized suddenly that a little caution mighta been in order.

She hadn’t lived in the city in a while, and obviously her guard was down. His cold look yanked her straight out of her imaginings and slam-dunked her right back into reality. She was standing in the middle of nowhere, alone, with a man who looked as though he could stare down a wildcat and never blink.

Who was she kidding? He looked as though he could shoot it, skin it and eat it for supper. Raw!

At last, she reacted like a smart woman and took a step back. But that dismissive glance…it bothered her. Sheri had come a long way from being the once shy little girl who expected to be ignored, so this just didn’t sit well with her.