The Woman For Dusty Conrad

Before he could question the wisdom, he reached out and gently worked a single white chicken feather from her hair. Her intake of breath was so shallow he was certain he was the only one who heard it. He slowly pulled his hand back, displaying the feather. “Um, a little remnant from your run.”

Her cheeks colored, then her gaze dropped suggestively to his mouth. She blinked. “You shaved off your mustache.”

Dusty lifted a hand to his bare upper lip. “Yeah.”

His own gaze lingered on her just-moistened lips. If she didn’t stop looking at him like that, more would be sizzling than just the steaks.

With incredible self-restraint, Dusty hauled his gaze from Jolie’s mouth. He switched off the burner under the nearly melted potatoes, wondering just how he went about switching off the flame in his gut.

Just be out with it, indeed.

“Jolie…I’ve come to pick up the divorce papers.”

For the life of her, Jolie couldn’t figure out why she felt as if she’d just lopped a finger off with the knife. In the time she’d avoided coming into the kitchen she’d pretty much figured out that the reason Dusty had come back was not a good one. She merely hadn’t taken the assumption to the next step and connected his presence with the unsigned papers she’d stuck into a drawer at home the instant she received them a couple of months back.

Which was stupid, really. And that only agitated her further. She’d spent her life proving that she was the exact opposite of stupid. Up to any task set in front of her, she was. A regular anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-just-as-well kind of girl, with her feet firmly steeped in reality. She’d had to be for her own survival. It hadn’t been easy being raised by a paternal grandfather who didn’t have a clue on how to react to a six-year-old girl, much less raise one. As he’d told her often enough, he’d seen to raising his one son and that should be more than any one man should have to endure. So Jolie had learned at a young age how to not only look after herself, but after him. Seemed she was always trying to keep placated the well-meaning but nosy townsfolk who questioned the old man’s ability to look after her. For they were at the ready to take her away from the only family she had left.

Of course, no one was happier than she was when the time finally came for her to start making her own decisions. And nothing had intrigued her like the beast that had stolen her parents from her: fire.

“Jolie?”

She blinked Dusty’s handsome face back into focus, noting the pity there. She hated that he felt sorry for her. That hadn’t always been the case. Of course, when you were six years old and the older next-door neighbor was paying you attention, you didn’t recognize that same attention as pity. You just took attention any way you could get it.

Now she knew better.

“They’re…um, the papers are back at the house.”

“I see.”

She gathered the salad fixings into a bowl and tossed them. “You didn’t think I kept them here in my locker, did you?”

His half grin made her remember that mischievous boy who used to include her in all the goings-on. “Let’s put it this way—it wouldn’t have surprised me.”

She realized then that the room had gotten suspiciously quiet. She turned to find the poker game going on as if in slow motion. Her cheeks flamed. How much of her conversation with Dusty had they overheard? She hadn’t told a soul that she’d heard from Dusty, much less received divorce papers from him. Heck of a way for them to find out.

Who was she kidding? She was probably the last person in town to figure out he wasn’t coming back when he left.

She cleared her throat. “Okay, guys, wrap it up. Dinner’s on.”

A flurry of activity followed, though any attempt at conversation was awkward at best. She began to set the table alongside Martinez when Dusty grasped her wrist.

Her pulse gave a telltale leap and her throat went as dry as charred wood. Which was silly, really. His touch was meant as nothing more than a halting measure.

Yeah, tell that to her body.

“Jolie?”

She looked to where everyone was nearly settled around the table. “Look, Dusty, can we talk about this later?”

The sound of the alarm sliced through the room, eliciting a series of groans and curses. Three bells. That meant they needed both engines, which would nearly empty out the firehouse.

“Figures,” Gary groaned. “First decent meal we’ve had around here in six months and I can’t even eat it.”

He along with a couple of the other men stuffed what they could into their mouths and pockets, then rushed out of the room to grab their gear.

Jolie started after them, feeling almost relieved. Talk about being saved by the bell. Although she was certain that whoever had coined the phrase hadn’t had quite this interruption in mind.

“Jolie,” Dusty said again, more insistently.

She turned to face him, and nearly tripped over Spot for the second time that day. She looked down to make sure the cat was okay, wondering just what exactly was going on in her little feline brain. She received an irritated twitch of a black tail for her effort as the cat scampered off into the station.

Jolie flicked her gaze back to Dusty. His expectant expression tightened the vise around her heart. For a second she’d forgotten where they were, where she was, thinking he’d be on her heels, rushing for the nearest engine right along with her.

But he wasn’t. And probably never would be again.

She dug her fingers into her front jeans pocket. “Here,” she said, tossing him her house keys. “Stay at the house. I’ll see you at eight tomorrow morning.”

Chapter 2

Jolie gazed wistfully at the autumn sun hovering on the horizon. She wished the weak rays could chase away the cold that seemed to chill the marrow of her bones. It had been an especially grueling twenty-four-hour shift. Only she wasn’t convinced her work schedule was the cause of her reluctance to walk the six blocks home. No, she knew it wasn’t. The dragging of her feet had more to do with the man who was waiting at the end of her walk. Her husband. The man who had walked out on her and their marriage without a second glance. A man who had returned. For whatever reasons.

Jolie felt…well, strange, was the best way she could describe it. For so long now, she had grown accustomed to being on her own. Living a compartmentalized existence. At work she was still part of a team, a family, really, where there was little time to ponder her marriage, her life, and what, if anything, she could do to change either.

When she attended town events, or went shopping, she was the same person she’d always been. Or so she tried to convince everyone. And, just being around others made her feel that maybe in some ways she was.

It wasn’t until she went home after her regular twenty-four-hour shift, then spent the next two days there waiting for her next shift, or returned from grocery shopping or lunch with her best friend and sister-in-law, Darby, that she became aware all over again of the void that was her life. A void that had gaped open the instant Dusty had told her he couldn’t live with her anymore.

Petition for Divorce.

Shivering, Jolie worked her hand through a too-long denim coat sleeve, then tucked her hair behind her ear.

She didn’t know what hurt her more. The fact that Dusty was seeking a divorce. Or that he had personally come back to compel her to agree to it.

The brisk morning air burned her eyes. At least that’s what she told herself as she blinked back tears and picked up her pace. She decided that Dusty’s seeking a divorce bothered her more than his being back, however temporarily. Their marriage, their life together, had been more real than anything to her. Being with him had filled her with a hope, a hunger for living, a sheer happiness that she couldn’t remember feeling before. Not since her parents were ripped from her life when she was six. He’d made her feel loved. Needed. As if she belonged.

Which left her wondering what she was supposed to be feeling now.

Of course, she and Dusty had been unable to have children….

Jolie bit solidly on her bottom lip, emotionally incapable of probing that raw wound. Not on top of everything else swirling inside her right now.

The one person she had shared part of her ordeal with was Pastor Adams. He had asked if she’d like him to intervene on her behalf. Contact Dusty and try to talk things out with him. She’d not only declined his offer, she’d taken his suggestion as almost an insult. It was bad enough that she hadn’t been woman enough to keep her man. Now she needed a clergyman to intercede on her behalf? Go after her missing husband and beg for him to come back? She let the pastor know in so many words that she’d rather eat a bucket full of earthworms first, a feeling that hadn’t changed even after crying for two days straight after her conversation with him. And not even after his sermon on pride.

Pride. Now there was a word. What was a woman to do when it seemed that pride was all that made her get up in the morning? That saw her through living in a house still chock-full of her husband’s presence? Injected the very fire she fought into her veins whenever she caught one of the townsfolk looking at her in that long, pitying way?

She rounded the corner and the small two-story renovated farmhouse came into view. In the driveway parked behind her Jeep was Dusty’s pickup. Of course she’d known he’d be there. But actually seeing him there was another matter entirely.

Mrs. Noonan across the street opened her screen door with a telling squeak. Jolie fought the urge to roll her eyes. Awfully coincidental that the town’s busiest busybody chose this moment to collect a morning paper delivered two hours ago.