Real Vintage Maverick

She’d been the former Tattered Saddle’s legal owner—using her life savings as a down payment—for almost a month now. During that entire time, she’d spent her days clearing away cobwebs, cleaning up and trying to put what she had gotten—the items in the store were included in the price whether she liked them or not—in some sort of manageable order.

To be honest, there was a lot here that she was tempted just to toss out, but she decided that she should seriously consider calling in an expert to appraise everything before she began throwing things out wholesale. However, experts cost money. Someone like Cody Overton did not and it was to the Cody Overtons that she intended to sell.

See if anything appeals to you.

Cody looked at her for a long moment as her words echoed in his head. And then the corners of his mouth curved—just a little. Had this been years ago, he thought, he would have been tempted to say that what appealed to him was her.

But that was a remark for a young man to make, not a man whose soul felt ancient—as ancient as some of the things in this little shop of hers, if not more so.

“Okay,” he finally said, moving toward a newly cleaned shelf that displayed a few miscellaneous, mismatched items.

At the very end of the shelf was a small, cream-colored, fringed coin purse. Looking closer, Cody could see that it had been carefully cleaned up so that there wasn’t even a speck of dirt or telltale grime on it. In addition, it had been lovingly polished with some sort of leather cleaner. He could tell by the trace of scent on it.

The coin purse felt soft to the touch.

Caroline had always liked things with fringes on them, he recalled. She’d had a vest with fringes on it that their mother had given her when she was a little girl. The vest was a little large for her, but Caroline didn’t care. She wore it with everything until it completely fell apart.

There was no price tag visible on the purse, or on any of the other items on the shelf for that matter. Catherine must have just gotten started arranging the things, he reasoned.

Turning around, he held up the coin purse for Catherine to see. “How much you want for this?”

Catherine smiled, secretly relieved that he hadn’t chosen one of the more expensive items. “Consider it a gift.”

That was exactly what he considered it to be. A gift. The gift he was going to give his sister. “That’s what I plan to do with it,” he confirmed. Then he repeated, “How much is it?”

Rather than continue standing some distance away, Catherine crossed over to him. Maybe he’d understand her better if she was closer, she thought.

“No, I mean consider it my gift to you in exchange for your services. I can’t really afford to pay you yet, but you can have whatever you want in the shop in trade for your help.”

Cody was surprised. He hadn’t assumed that this woman was going to pay him anything at all. After all, if he understood what she had proposed earlier, this enthusiastic woman was just going to be asking his opinion about things. Didn’t seem right asking for money for giving his opinion.

It wasn’t as if he was anybody special.

He felt a little guilty about accepting the purse, but then he had a hunch that she was determined to give him something for his services.

“Thanks. This’ll do just fine,” he told her. “My sister’ll like it.”

Pleased to have gotten that out of the way—she hated feeling indebted for anything—Catherine put her hand out for the purse. When he looked at her quizzically, she explained, “I’ll wrap it up for you.”

He was about to tell her there was no need, but then he decided against it. It seemed to make this woman happy to go through the motions of playing shopkeeper and, besides, he was really bad when it came to wrapping gifts.

So he surrendered the purse to her and watched as Catherine placed his sister’s gift into a box that just barely accommodated the purse. The fringes spilled out over the side. She carefully folded them into the box until they all but covered up the purse.

“This’ll make a nice gift,” she told him. Catherine glanced up at him, thinking he might like to hear the story that went with the purse. “It’s actually over forty years old. The original owner had it with her when she went to Woodstock.”

Reaching beneath the counter, she pulled out a roll of wrapping paper she’d just placed there last night. With what appeared to be a trained eye, she cut exactly the right length of paper for the box.

Completely switching topics, she asked Cody, “Younger or older?”

That had come utterly out of the blue, catching him by surprise. He had no idea what she as asking him. “Excuse me?”

She glanced up at him just for a moment as she clarified her question. “Is your sister younger or older than you?”

“Oh.” Why did she want to know that? It had nothing to do with wrapping the gift. “Younger.”

Catherine nodded as she took in the information. The questions didn’t stop there. Why didn’t that surprise him? “Are you two close?”

“I guess.” But that wasn’t exactly the real truth, so Cody amended his statement. “We were, once. But then she got married and her husband made her move away—to another state.” Caroline’s husband had done it to control his sister, Cody was sure of it. The man wanted to isolate and control her so that he could be the center of Caroline’s world.

Catherine immediately picked up on his tone. It spoke volumes even if the actual man didn’t. “You don’t like him much, do you?”

Cody shrugged off the observation, then was surprised to hear himself saying, “Not much to like.” He stopped abruptly and looked at this woman who seemed to coax things out of him so effortlessly. “What’s with all these questions?” He wanted to know. “This part of your marketing thing?”

Catherine smiled as she put the finishing touches on the box by tying a big red bow on it. “This is part of my getting to know you ‘thing,’” she corrected. Then, so he didn’t feel as if she was dragging information out of him without giving some up herself, Catherine said, “There’s eight of us in my family. I guess I’m just curious about how other people get along with their siblings.” She raised her eyes to his, a look of apology in them. “Sorry if I sounded as if I was prying.”

Because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, Cody shrugged to show her that he hadn’t taken any offense at the questions. “Guess there’s no harm in asking questions,” he allowed. And then he rolled over in his head what she’d told him. “Eight of you, huh?”

“Eight of us,” she confirmed.

“They all like you?” If they were, it must have been one hell of a noisy household.

She wasn’t exactly sure what Cody was asking her. “You mean are they all girls? No, I’ve got brothers and sisters.”

But he shook his head. “No, I meant are they all like you,” Cody repeated, then, because she was still looking at him quizzically, he clarified, “You know, all enthusiastic and excited, coming on like a house afire.”

She’d never thought of herself as particularly enthusiastic, or excitable for that matter. Certainly not in the terms that he’d just mentioned. Shaking her head, she told him, “I’m actually the shy, retiring one in the family.”

He laughed at that. It was a deep, all-encompassing sound that made Catherine smile rather than cause her to get her back up.

“Sure you are,” he said, adding, “good one” under his breath as he commented on her sense of humor. After a moment, the smile on his lips faded just a little as he looked at her more closely. “Oh, you’re serious.” Cody took a minute to reassess his opinion. “You all must have been one hell of a handful for your parents to deal with.”

“Actually, I was the one who did a lot of the ‘dealing with,’” she corrected. “I’m the second-oldest in the family.” He probably didn’t even want to know that, she guessed.

She was talking too much, Catherine thought. She had a tendency not to know when to stop talking. That was probably one of the reasons she’d decided to buy Fowler’s old store. Customers meant that there would be people for her to talk with, even if they left the shop without buying anything.

She liked the idea of meeting new people. Of getting to know things about them.

Catherine looked down at the box she’d just finished wrapping, remembering what Cody had said about the purse’s final destination.

“If you’re mailing this, I can see if I can find another box to put it in for you,” she offered.

She was certainly going out of her way here, Cody thought, especially since he hadn’t paid for the purse. On top of that, until a few minutes ago, the overenergized woman hadn’t known him from Adam. That made her a pretty rare individual in his book.

“Are you always this accommodating?” he wanted to know.

She couldn’t gauge by his expression whether he thought that was a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, she still felt the same about it.

“Nothing wrong with being friendly,” she said, flashing a wide smile at him. “Or helpful.”