Real Vintage Maverick

Not waiting for him to make up his mind or to—heaven forbid—turn her invitation down, Catherine grabbed hold of his wrist with both hands and pulled him into the shop. She quickly shut the door behind him in case he was having second thoughts about their arrangement and wanted to leave.

Turning toward the shop behind her, she waved her free hand about. “It’s beginning to shape up, don’t you think?”

Cody looked around. To be completely honest, he was rather vague about exactly what the place had looked like two days ago, but he could see that she had painted the walls a rather soothing light blue. He assumed that she had done it because he saw a few light blue splotches of paint on her jeans.

Cody slowly nodded his approval, mainly for her benefit. His mother had taught him not to hurt people’s feelings if he could possibly avoid doing it, and Catherine seemed rather eager to hear a positive reaction. That being the case, it cost him nothing to give it.

“Looks good from where I’m standing,” he told her. Glancing down, he could see that she’d buffed the wooden floors as well. Had she been at this nonstop these last two days?

Well, at least the woman wasn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty, he mused.

Taking a quick look around, he saw the back of the sign through the window. He brightened because at least there was something he could actually comment on. “Saw the sign outside. Is that the new name you picked out for the store?”

“You mean Real Vintage Cowboy?” she asked to make sure he wasn’t referring to anything else.

When he nodded, Cody saw a strange, unfathomable smile curving her mouth. It piqued his dormant curiosity to some extent.

It piqued a little more when she told him, “Well, you’re actually responsible for that.”

The furrow above his nose deepened as he sought to understand what Catherine had just said. He was certain he hadn’t suggested a name like that to her. He hadn’t suggested any name at all that he could remember. She had to have him confused with someone else.

“Me?” Cody said incredulously, staring at her. “I don’t understand. How?”

Again, he found the way the corners of her mouth curved intriguing—and completely captivating. “That was what I thought you looked like. A vintage cowboy. The more I thought about it, the more I began to think that it sounded like a good name for the store. So you inspired the name,” she concluded brightly. “I guess you could say you’re my muse.”

“What the hell is a muse?” Cody wanted to know. He thought of himself as a plain man, given to speaking plainly. This sounded like some kind of doubletalk to him.

She took no offense at his tone, although she would have thought that he’d be flattered. But then, there was no second-guessing men. Growing up with her bothers had taught her that.

“A muse is something or someone who inspires another person creatively,” she told him.

He was having a hard time making the connection. He looked around the store and shook his head. It didn’t make any sense to him.

“And I make you think of dusty old junk that people want to get rid of?” Cody asked her, not sure whether to be amused by this or offended.

Given his tone of voice, Catherine was instantly worried that he was taking offense and she didn’t want him to. She’d meant it as a compliment.

“Not junk,” she protested with feeling. “What I’m selling in the shop are rescued artifacts that once figured very prominently in people’s lives.”

To underscore her point, Catherine motioned toward the shelves directly behind her. Shelves she had so painstakingly arranged. The shelves were filled with newly cleaned merchandise, shown off to their best possible advantage. It was a potpourri of objects in all sorts of bright colors.

Currently, the sun was playing off the surface of several of the pieces, highlighting the metal and making them gleam like mysterious talismans.

“Everything you see here is vintage chic,” she told him proudly.

He inclined his head, taking a closer look, then raised one shoulder in a half shrug. “If you say so,” he murmured. Ever practical, he turned his attention to something that he was better equipped to understand. “Who are you getting to put your sign up?”

Catherine turned around to look through the window in the general direction he’d nodded in and said, “I hadn’t thought about ‘getting’ someone. I figured that I’d just do it myself—”

That was what he was afraid of.

Cody looked at her up and down slowly, taking full measure of her. His expression when he finished clearly said that he had found her wanting.

He snorted rather than say anything outright. His point driven home, he then asked, “You got that ladder handy?” referring to the one she’d fallen off of at their first meeting.

Did he think she was a complete helpless idiot? she wondered. How else did he think she was going to get up to the roof to hang the sign?

“Yes, it’s in the back.” The words were hardly out of her mouth when she saw Cody start to walk to the back room. The man was just taking over, she thought. She liked him, liked his company, but that couldn’t be allowed to happen.

“Where are you going?” she wanted to know.

“To get your ladder and hang that sign up for you,” Cody threw over his shoulder as he disappeared into the back room.

She didn’t want him to feel obligated to do anything except give her a little input on what he thought of certain things. That was their deal.

Hurrying after Cody, Catherine stopped short of the back room doorway because he was already coming out. He had the ladder mounted like a giant shield over one muscular shoulder while he carried a hammer he’d spotted and pressed into service in the other.

Pivoting a hundred and eighty degrees on her heel, Catherine followed him back through the showroom. Was he just displaying his machismo? Or was he feeling obligated for some reason?

“You don’t have to do this,” she protested with feeling as she continued to follow him.

He paused fleetingly to give her a quick, appraising look. Catherine could have sworn she felt a flash of heat pass through her.

That had to stop, she silently upbraided herself. She had no time to react to Cody in those terms. She had a business to launch.

“Yeah, I do,” he answered with finality. “I’m better at hanging up a sign than I am at setting broken bones.”

She was right behind him, step for step. “Contrary to what you might think, I’m not some helpless woman who’s all thumbs,” she informed him. “And I’m not a klutz. I’ve got great balance and I’m very handy.”

“Good for you,” he fired back. “Where I come from, men don’t stand around watching women do this kind of work,” he told her with feeling. He was thinking specifically of Caroline’s husband. Rory Connors would have liked nothing better than to never have to move another muscle in his body for as long as he lived if he didn’t want to.

That no-good SOB had his baby sister doing all the heavy work—and she wasn’t up to half of it. He was certain that was why Caroline had lost the baby she was carrying before it had even gotten through its first trimester. He recalled with anger that his brother-in-law had expressed no remorse over the loss that had all but completely devastated Caroline.

On the contrary, Connors had actually been relieved, saying that there was no room for “brats” in his life right now.

Or ever, Cody suspected. The man was far too egotistical and self-centered to share Caroline with even a baby.

Cody slowly became aware that Catherine was laughing. When he looked at her quizzically, waiting for an explanation, the woman was quick to let him in on the joke.

“Um, this might not have occurred to you but you and I come from the exact same place,” she pointed out.

He frowned as he steadied the ladder, picked up the sign and then began to climb up. She was right. “Yeah, well, then you should know that I wasn’t about to have you climbing up to the top, tottering on the ladder while you tried to hang this sign up. I was quick enough to catch you last time. I might not be this time.”

“I wasn’t going to try to hang it up,” she corrected with just a slight edge to her voice. She liked him and she knew he meant well, but she didn’t like being thought of as inept. “I was going to hang it up. There’s not exactly a need for an engineering degree when it comes to hanging up a sign,” Catherine pointed out. “And I figure I’ve filled my quota of falling off ladders. That was my first time and my only time,” she emphasized.

Cody looked down at her in silence for a long moment. For a brief second, she thought that he was just going to let go of the sign, climb down off the ladder and walk away.

But then, uttering an unintelligible noise—at least she couldn’t make any sense of it—Cody turned his attention to what had brought him up here in the first place. With an amazingly accurate eye, he hung the sign exactly in the middle, directly over the doorway. He did it without bothering to measure first, without resorting to any sort of gauges and without asking her for any visual guidance from her vantage point.