To Kiss A Cowgirl

“History does tend to repeat itself.”

“I’m not negative... I’m serious. A realist.”

“Well, sometimes, Dylan, it feels good to believe that good things can happen.”

“Where, if I won’t be perceived as negative for asking, do these commissioned items come from?”

“Local artisans.”

“I do not want a bunch of doilies in the store,” he said adamantly.

“There’s nothing wrong with doilies...but I was thinking along the lines of...other things.”

“What kinds of things?”

“I can show you examples.” She walked behind the counter and dug into her bag, coming up with her phone. She turned it on and started flipping through photos.

“Here—this wine rack looks cool. And there are these cow-themed photo frames. I thought some pottery might be nice...” Her voice trailed off as she took a long, hard look at him. “I’m talking to myself, aren’t I?”

“Jolie, I have enough to do trying to run the part of the store that I know works.”

“It doesn’t work, Mr. Realist,” Jolie said. “We need customers. This might bring people in—just like it does in the bigger ranch stores.”

Dylan shook his head. “I don’t—”

Jolie pointed a finger at him. “I know you don’t. And you won’t.”

“This is my grandfather’s business.”

“And that means you’re going to run it the way it’s always been run come hell or high water?”

“I don’t want a freaking boutique in my feed store.”

“One month.”

“What?”

“Give me one month. We’ll see if the customer base increases.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I’ll do everything. All you have to do is allow me the space.”

“You can get people—artisans—to sign on for one month?”

The corners of her mouth lifted in a slow smile. “I can do anything.”

The way she said it made him believe her. “What happens after the trial period,” Dylan asked, “if the customer base doesn’t increase?”

“I send everything back to the artisans and thank them for their time. However, I think the bigger question is what happens if it does increase.”

“I have more money in the till?”

She stared at him as if waiting for the correct answer.

“You want a raise?”

She slowly shook her head. “No. If the customer base increases, you are going to admit to me that I was right.”

“All right,” he said slowly, sensing there was more.

“And you are taking me out on the town. Wherever I want to go. Whatever I want to do.”

He frowned deeply even as something kicked inside him at the thought of going out with Jolie. “Why?”

“Maybe, for once, I’d like to call the shots.” She smiled darkly. “And I need to warn you... I am not a cheap date.”

CHAPTER FOUR

DYLAN LEANED AN elbow on the counter. “Why do I get the feeling that this is more about making me pay for past crimes than you getting to call the shots?”

She glanced at her fingernails. “Maybe they’re one and the same.”

“That’s what I thought.”

She looked up, her green eyes lit with...something. “But you know...” she said slowly, “this might be good for you.”

“How so?”

“You need to loosen up. Stop analyzing every facet of your life.”

“And you can help me with that?”

“Being loose is my forte.” Dylan’s lips automatically quirked and Jolie rolled her eyes. “Not what I meant.”

“And there go my fantasies.”

Where in the hell had that come from?

It was those damned garter belts. Even Jolie looked a little surprised at his unexpected words. No, she looked a lot surprised. And she called him on it.

“Do you care to explain that comment?”

Scrambling for an answer, since he couldn’t exactly say “garter belts,” Dylan countered with, “Can you explain why you say half the things you say to me?”

“To put you off-kilter.”

“That’s why I said it.” He hoped. He waited a beat then asked, “Did it work?”

“Yes. I was definitely thrown off my game for a few seconds.”

“I’ll have to do more of that.”

“I’ll have to do the same.”

Back on safe ground.

“Could make for an interesting few months.”

“Is that what you want, Dylan? An interesting couple of months?”

The question gave him pause. He’d come home to help out Finn and Mike, to plot out his future and to try to put the past behind him. Pretty much the last thing he’d been looking for was “interesting,” but he wouldn’t mind being distracted. For the first time in his life he didn’t have an immediate goal and it made him edgy. Being loose was not his forte.

“I don’t know what I want,” he said honestly.

“I know what I want. I want to class this place up and I want to start by putting in a gift store.”

Dylan gritted his teeth, wondering how she’d managed to circle around so smoothly while he was still trying to get a foothold. “One month.” Her face brightened. “Increase our customer base in one month.” And he’d figure out a way to let Mike know that change was afoot without having him come unglued.

Jolie cocked her head. “On second thought, that’s not enough time.”

Dylan fought with himself then decided it was easier to give in. She’d probably lose interest after a few weeks and he’d never have to break the news to his grandfather. Jolie had never had a lot of follow-through.

“Two months,” he finally said. “Max.”

“I can agree to two.”

He smirked at her. “Generous, considering you asked for one.”

“But the time doesn’t start until I have a display area and the artisans are contracted. Right?”

“Depends on how long you take doing that,” he said before he turned and headed for the door, making his escape while he could. He needed some quality time with the forklift.

Dylan blew out a breath as he crossed to the warehouse. He was all for more business, but it had to be business that meant something to him, not just people popping in to buy a trinket...not that he believed that anyone was going to be trinket shopping in a feed and seed store. And, truthfully? He didn’t believe there would ever be a commissioned gift shop in Culver Ranch and Feed.

He rolled up the warehouse door instead of the main door and walked inside when Marcel, the big orange cat that patrolled the premises, shot past the forklift. Marcel was usually invisible, preferring to do his patrolling under the cover of darkness. The cat poked his head out from between two pallets then disappeared again.

That reminded Dylan. He had to call another of his grandfather’s friends to try to find homes for most of Mike’s livestock. If he couldn’t find them homes, then he was going to have to come up with a solution as to what to do with a couple of goats, a dry milk cow and several barn cats. The chickens and ducks—the easy animals to give away—would go with Mike to his new house. The cats were too wild to move. The place wasn’t zoned for goats and cows.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone number he’d written on the sticky note and then crossed to the phone hanging on the warehouse wall. Maybe this nice lady would take at least one of the crew off his hands.

* * *

THAT EVENING A white crew-cab Ford with a logo on the side pulled out of the Lightning Creek driveway just as Jolie pulled in. She hadn’t caught the lettering on the side of the truck, but it was obvious from the orange stakes in the field that the surveyor had finally showed up. Not only that... Gabe was back from his trip and he and Dani now stood near the surveyed plot, deep in conversation. Jolie parked her truck and, gathering her coat around her, headed over to where her sister and future brother-in-law stood.

“Wow,” Jolie said. “Officially surveyed. The first big step toward training in the rain.”

“Yup.” Gabe looped an arm around Dani and Jolie instantly knew something was up. Dani had on her brave face and Gabe’s expression was taut—neither looked as though they were celebrating a milestone.

Oh, great. “Hey, welcome back,” Jolie said to Gabe as if nothing were amiss. “I thought you weren’t due until Tuesday.”

“Change of plans.” He smiled at her, his tense expression relaxing a bit. He was a good-looking guy—dark-haired, blue-eyed—and wildly in love with her sister, which made their strange behavior after his early return all the more disturbing.

“What happens now with the arena?” she asked, playing along.

A gust of wind hit them as she spoke and Dani pulled her sweatshirt hood up over her hair. “As soon as the area is leveled, then the crew comes to put up the walls and stretch the canvas over the ribs.”

Yeah. There definitely wasn’t enough excitement, but after bouncing a quick look between Gabe and Dani, Jolie decided not to ask questions. Instead she smiled. “After I move the cows, maybe we should break open a bottle of wine, warm up some leftover pasta and celebrate in style.”

“Sounds good,” Gabe said.

“All right, Gus. Let’s move the girls.” The big dog had enough Border collie in him to be a decent cow dog and he dearly loved it when he got to help Jolie move the cattle from the area she had them grazing to the next. Dani had always been a strict horsewoman, but Jolie had an affinity with cattle, therefore as soon as she got home, she took over their care. Dani would move to the Staley property, where Gabe lived, once they married, so, all things considered, it made perfect sense for her to handle cattle matters.

Jolie marched out across the pasture. The cows, knowing the routine, fell in behind her, new calves trotting close to their mothers’ sides. It was as if they all knew Jolie was going to open the electric fence that kept them from grazing the new growth. She allowed them into the knee-deep grass, shutting them off from the area they’d just eaten down.

In another day, she would open another gate and continue the process. It had taken her and Dani a couple of days to string the wire, creating what amounted to grazing cells, but the two days’ work would pay off in more efficient grazing and less impact to the pasture through overgrazing.

The cows streamed into the area past her as she held the wire. As soon as the last one was in, she reconnected the wire. Gus gave a mighty bark, as if he’d just taught those bovines a thing or two then fell in beside Jolie as she headed back to the house. Gabe and Dani were on the porch, again in conversation.

Jolie bit her lip.

They’ll tell you whatever it is when they’re ready.

But she hated unfinished business and her stomach was working its way into a knot, so she did what she always did—smiled and pretended nothing in the world bothered her. She should have known better than to try that with the sister who knew her too well.

“It’s nothing,” Dani said as they followed Gabe into the house.

Jolie nodded and trotted upstairs to change into a sweatshirt and jeans. When she got back downstairs, Gabe had the wine open and Dani was reheating the pasta in the microwave.

“That little black heifer calf slipped under the wire again and her mama went nuts,” Dani said conversationally.

“I take it she slipped back in?”

“After wandering around, exploring. I think she was just torturing her mom a little.”

“Like we did,” Jolie replied.

“I can’t believe you two would do that,” Gabe said on a wry note.

“We didn’t mean to,” Dani said. “It was just that Mel and Allie were so—”

“Anal.”

“I was going to say perfect.”

“Have it your way,” Jolie said. She caught her sister’s eye and they laughed. The four Brody sisters were tight, and had become tighter after their father had passed away, but it was no secret that Allie and Mel were the serious older sisters, who’d taken it upon themselves to help shoulder their mother’s burden. Dani and Jolie had done what they could, but they’d been young.

“They were overly responsible,” Dani said to Gabe.

Gabe handed them both a glass of wine. Dani raised her glass in a salute. “To the arena.”

Glasses clinked and once again Dani and Gabe exchanged a glance.

Jolie set down her wine. “I was going to be polite and not pry, but...what’s going on? Is one of you pregnant or something?”

“N-no,” Dani sputtered, looking startled at the question.

Jolie shrugged one shoulder. “I wouldn’t have really minded that.”

“In good time,” Gabe said, settling a possessive hand on Dani’s shoulder. He looked down at her and she nodded.

“It’s no big secret—”

“It’s more like a startling new development,” Gabe said. “I just got offered an eighteen-month position filling in for a friend of mine.”

“Where?” Jolie asked, lowering the wine she’d been about to sip.

“Pennsylvania.”

“That’s a long way from here.”

“Yeah,” Dani said. “But it’s only eighteen months, great contacts for Gabe.”

And no doubt a nice chunk of change. Gabe had invested almost everything he had in the Staley property next door to keep the Lightning Creek Ranch from becoming neighbors with a large resort and water park.

“So what does this mean?”

“We still have to decide.” Dani spoke a little too brightly. And she’d yet to touch her wine.

“You know I’d hold down the fort while you’re gone,” Jolie said.

“I plan to stay here,” Dani said.

“Why?”

“I’m building a business.”

“You could take a hiatus. You started from scratch a year ago and look what you have now. A crammed schedule.”

“We talked about that,” Gabe said. And that was all he said. The microwave bell dinged and they all glanced over at the machine, as if it had some answers.

“I had a startling development myself,” Jolie said, sensing the need to change the topic. Dani and Gabe obviously still had some talking to do and she couldn’t blame them. Eighteen months was a long time. “Dylan agreed to let me set up a commissioned Western gift shop at the store.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to do that.”

“It seems a good way to attract people.” Jolie took the bowl out of the microwave and carried it to the table. “It can’t hurt. I’m working on expanding his stock, too, but he has this thing about not having stuff that doesn’t move well.”

“He has a point,” Gabe said.

“The store is dying. I know a gift store isn’t the big answer, but it might spark more business. We have to do something or I’ll be looking for another job and I like working there. It pays okay and I’m pretty much my own boss for most of the day and it’s close.”

“It’s hard to compete with chain stores,” Gabe said.

“But Culver’s is a local institution. You’d think people would—”

“Do what’s convenient unless they have a reason to do otherwise.” Gabe made a considering gesture with one hand. “The gift store isn’t a bad start. Maybe some advertising.”

“Yeah. I thought of that, too. Dylan’s only here until Finn comes back, so on the one hand, I don’t think he wants to make tons of changes, but on the other, I don’t think he wants the store to die on his watch.”

“He’s not staying?”

Jolie shook her head. “He’s only here until Finn gets back.” Rather than talk about Dylan, a subject that made her feel oddly unsettled, she wanted to ask more questions about the arena—when the walls would be installed and the canvas cover arrive—but one look at her sister’s strained expression and she didn’t say a word on the subject.

Later that evening, though, as Dani was getting ready to walk to the Staley house with Gabe, Jolie cornered her upstairs in her old bedroom where she was digging through her coat closet.

“Have you seen my gray fleece?”

“I think you already took it over to Gabe’s.” Her sister was in the slow process of moving her belongings to the mansion, where she spent most of her off time.

Dani continued shuffling through the hangers with a slight air of desperation. “I can’t find it over there.”

“Are you okay?”

Dani leaned back out of the closet. “Of course.”

Jolie nodded in a way that clearly stated her disbelief. Dani gave a small snort and went back to her search. “He needs to take this job. It’ll be a boost to his consulting business.”

“Is business bad now?”

“No. But there’s a lot of competition out there and he isn’t exactly in an urban environment. He depends a lot on word of mouth and this could really help.”

“Eighteen months is a long time.”

The hangers quit clacking together and Jolie heard her sister sigh. “It isn’t like he’ll be gone the entire time. Military wives put up with long separations.”

“Yes, they do.”

Dani poked her head out again. “I’m just a little taken aback. It never dawned on me that we might have a lengthy separation in our future.”

“Why don’t you go with him?” Even though Jolie hated the thought of running the ranch alone on top of everything else. But she could do it. For her sister.

“I might,” she said. “But...what’ll I do? Sit in an apartment and knit?”

Jolie raised an eyebrow. “Really, Dan? Worst-case scenario? That’s not like you.”

Dani came out of the closet, a fleece in each hand, neither of them remotely gray, and sat on the bed. “I know.” Her shoulders sank. “I didn’t expect this. The job offer or my reaction.”

Jolie sat beside her and put an arm around her. “Yeah. Just when it looks like smooth sailing, a bump always appears.”

“I need to man up.”

“No one wants to spend time away from someone they love.”

“I’m tougher than this. But...” She made a helpless gesture. “I have never felt so freaked out by a separation before. What is wrong with me?”

“You guys will figure this out.”

“I guess. If you see my gray fleece, let me know.” She gave Jolie a sharp look. “It’s not in your closet?”

“I never wear gray if I can help it.”

After Dani and Gabe said their goodbyes and headed off across the pasture to his place, Jolie poured herself a glass of wine.

Love, it appeared, could be a major inconvenience—not only to the happy couple, but also the ranch-tending sister.

* * *

JOLIE SPENT THE next day trying to shove Dani’s dilemma out of her head—no easy task since the sisters had always had each other’s back during times of trouble. She called artisans in the area she’d located through internet searches, asking if they had any stock they wouldn’t mind displaying on commission. The majority seemed interested—until discovering that the person calling wanted to display their wares in a semi-rural ranch store.

She booked one potter and thanked the rest, asking if they knew of other people who might be interested. She’d planned to keep her list of contributing artisans small to begin with, never dreaming that she might have to really scrape to find anyone interested in displaying at the store.

She leaned back in her chair, refusing to allow herself to feel defeated. She could do this. She would do this—not only for the store, but because Dylan so obviously thought it was a bad idea.

There had to be local people who produced artisan items. Perhaps even an artist.

Jolie knew only one local artist who just happened to be a royal pain in the butt; but there had to be more. This artist, however, had the potential to actually send clients to Culver Ranch and Feed.

Jolie blew a breath that puffed out her cheeks, fought with herself for another minute and then called Marti Kendall to ask if she would like to display her watercolors.

And as she dialed, she wondered which Marti she’d be talking to. People who were merely acquainted with the horse trainer were invariably charmed. Those who’d grown up with her were more familiar with the feeling that you never knew whether Marti would be your friend that day or your foe. It all depended on what was in it for Marti. But they’d had several years of high school art together and Marti was one hell of a watercolor artist. More importantly, having her artwork in the store might bring in business from her horse ranch clients.

“In Culver Ranch and Feed?” Marti said on a note of disdain after Jolie explained that she was starting a commissioned boutique.

Jolie gritted her teeth and explained, “We’re trying something new. I thought that your watercolors would bring people in and that would help the other artists.” Nothing wrong with a stroke of the ego—especially when Marti’s was so stroke-able—and no need to explain that at the moment there was only one other artisan.

“True,” she said. “I could bring in a few of my smaller pieces.”

“I’d love to feature them.” Jolie held her breath.

“I’d need a decent display area. I don’t want them stuck up over some dusty shelves with fly spray on them.”

“I’m in the process of building a display area.” Or she would be. Soon. All she needed to do was to figure out what was on hand to build it with.

“Will I be able to see the display area first?”

Jolie forced herself to smile to keep her voice light. “Sure. I should be done by Friday of next week.” Which would give her twelve days to come up with something worthy of Marti’s work.

“Great. I’ll see you then.”

Jolie hung up and pinched the bridge of her nose. Having Marti would be a good thing. Especially if they could talk her into buying her feed there, since her father owned one of the premier horse ranches in the area.

A thump at the window drew her attention and she turned to see the big orange cat sitting on the sill, studying her with his wide yellow eyes. After Finn left, the cat had started appearing at the window regularly and Jolie realized that there was no one there to feed the big feline except her. The cat put his paws up on the window once he realized he had her attention and batted at the glass, looking very much like a mime trying to get out of a glass box.

“Coming.” She grabbed her jacket and made her way to the warehouse where she kept the food in a plastic container. The cat strutted in after her, keeping his distance then breaking into a trot when he heard the lid come off the food container.

“Oh, yes,” Jolie said as she dished out the kibble. “You are a cool customer, aren’t you?” The cat brushed past her. He didn’t tolerate being touched, but when she fed him, he always managed to throw his body against her leg at least once in a fly-by show of gratitude.

Jolie replaced the container on the shelf, then stood there taking in the stillness of the warehouse. Whenever she had to venture out there during the day, Dylan had his radio playing, a local station with a mix of old rock-and-roll and country standbys. He never plugged in headphones, almost as if he wanted to be on the alert.

Well, he had been a cop. It was probably a survival thing.

Jolie strolled over to the forklift, giving the cat his space so that he could eat without worrying that she might try to touch him or something. How many times had Dylan dissembled the thing since he’d been back? At least twice. But the last time he’d used it she’d noticed that the nasty miss in the engine had been fixed.

After checking for grease, she eased up into the driver’s seat and put her hands on the wheel. Finn had taught her to operate the thing, in case he was unavailable, but she’d only had to load a couple of times. Truth be told, she wasn’t that anxious to drive the forklift on a regular basis. She was good with a tractor, had done her time on the swather and baler during her teens, but she had the oddest feeling that she and forklifts were not meant to be. Maybe something about the ability to skewer anything in her path.

The sound of a truck pulling in from the rear entrance brought her head up. Dylan.

Please don’t ask how many artisans I’ve booked.

She got off the forklift and started for the door, but Dylan walked in before she got there. The cat took one look at the intruder and shot across the warehouse, disappearing behind some grain bags. Dylan looked down at the half-eaten bowl of cat kibble, then back up at Jolie.