Peggy Nicholson - Kelton's Rules

“No…” Abby threaded a hand through her disheveled hair. Tried to find a smile. “We’re from New Jersey. At least lately…” It was one of the things she’d hated most about being a military wife all those years. The repeated uprootings. The constant farewells. A shy woman like her needed to nest in one place, where she could build and nourish long-term friendships. The kind of support system that sustained you through disasters such as this.

“Anyway, that all adds up to a lot of money,” Jack concluded, casually reaching across to brush a knuckle across her cheek, where a tear had escaped. He glanced skyward with a comical frown. “And on top of all that, damned if it doesn’t look like rain.”

Reflexively, Abby followed his gaze. Over their heads stretched a vault of cloudless silvery blue, cupping the last of the light, one star already twinkling in the east. She laughed shakily, wiping one hand across her wet lashes. “Cats and dogs by the bucketful.”

“Well, then…” Jack folded his arms and leaned back, stretching his long legs, boots braced against the pedals. “If Durango’s not an option, what about this instead? We’re three miles from Trueheart. There’s an old cowhand north of town, Whitey Whitelaw, who’s the best shade-tree mechanic I’ve ever seen. Cobbling together clapped-out feed trucks and tractors is his specialty, and his prices are pretty reasonable. I imagine he’d cut you a deal.”

“He doesn’t know me from Adam. I don’t know why he’d—”

“Why don’t you ask him and see? I can call Whitey when we get back to town, ask if he’d come out here in the morning, take a look at her…”

Abby nodded doubtfully. She could think of nothing better to try. “I…suppose so. And for tonight, we’ve got a mattress in back and a camp stove.” She could boil enough creek water to—

But Jack was shaking his head. “Don’t even think it. You need a real bed and a hot meal—you both do—and that ankle needs some ice to bring it down. You’re coming with me. I’ve got just the place for you.”

“You mean, to your…house?” If he was married it would be awful, descending on his surprised, solicitous wife, and if he wasn’t, even worse. “Oh, no! We couldn’t impose.” She’d rather camp for a year in a cow pasture than be forced into that kind of dependency on a stranger, no matter how kindly intended.

“Abby, I never let anybody impose on me. And Kat and I don’t have room for guests at the moment.”

So he was married. She should have guessed, attractive as he was. He didn’t wear a ring, but then that came as no surprise. Steve had shed his within a year of their marriage, insisting it was dangerous, what with all the machinery and electronics a pilot had to deal with.

“But there’s an empty rental cottage next door to us set up for mountain bikers and for skiers in winter. It’s furnished down to the pots and pans and bedsheets—and I’m sure I can arrange for you to stay there. My landlady owns it.”

Abby smiled in spite of herself. He had it all figured out. And she’d bet Jack could sell coconuts to Tahitians, if he took the notion. She should be thankful he was willing to help.

“So what are we gonna do?” Skyler demanded, appearing out of the dark at her elbow, his arms wrapped around a glowering DC-3.

Abby let out a long breath. She supposed she’d never really had a choice in the matter. “I guess we’re going with Mr. Kelton.”

“AND HE-ERE WE ARE,” Jack announced grandly as he swung the Jeep into an unpaved driveway. Set fifty feet back in a narrow lot, a tiny, two-story cottage crouched under the trees. “Be it ever so humble, you’ll find it homey enough. It’s basically identical in layout to mine. They were built at the same time for twin daughters, back in the 1880s.”

He’d warned her it would be rustic, Abby reminded herself, searching for something to say as she studied the sagging front porch, the weathered clapboard siding that suggested this twin hadn’t sprung for a paint job since the 1890s.

Still, whatever its appearance, the price had indeed been right for a week’s lodging. On the far side of Trueheart, Jack had left them in the Jeep while he’d negotiated with his landlady, Maudie Harris. He’d loped out of her house minutes later, wearing a triumphant grin while he twirled a key ring around his finger.

“That’s my place over—” Jack paused in the act of nodding to their right, across a picket fence hedged by an overgrown border of bushes and waist-high weeds. He scowled. “Over there.”

Through leafy branches, Abby could make out the glint of a pickup truck, parked in the shadows beyond an identical sagging porch that ran the width of Jack’s cottage. With lights glowing from the front-room windows, his house looked more inviting than hers.

“Very nice,” she said, although a twist of uneasiness coiled through her stomach. Bad enough to be so obliged to the man already. But to have him as her next-door neighbor—ready, willing and able to give his opinion on her every move from here on out… I don’t need this. “Well…” She swiveled in her seat.

“Hang on.” Jack bounded out of the Jeep and around to her side. “You shouldn’t put your weight on that ankle. Not till we’ve had a look at it.”

“I can manage.”

“I’m sure you can.” But his hand blocked her passage, leaving her the choice of shoving it aside—or accepting it.

Used to having his own way, for all his charm and goodwill, Abby decided, gritting her teeth behind a close-mouthed smile. She’d learned not to trust charm. She’d found that it was often a substitute for less polished but kinder, more genuine emotions.

“Thank you.” Her nerves skittered as those oven-warm fingers closed over hers. Then he took her other arm, supporting her weight as she slithered down from the high seat. They stood for an instant toe-to-toe, Abby looking up—quite a way up—and Jack holding on to her just a heartbeat too long, his fingers seeming to squeeze her a hairsbreadth too tightly.

Or maybe her alarm sprang from her rattled nerves, sensing danger where it didn’t exist. There was also the simple fact that she hadn’t stood this close to a man—a virile, ruggedly attractive man—in months. “Thanks,” she said again.

But he didn’t take that as dismissal. Instead Jack transferred her hand to his forearm, a support as hard and muscular as the rest of him obviously was. “We’ll get you settled and then…” His shaggy head swung back toward his own yard as they moved carefully across the grass. Abby could see one decisive eyebrow drawn down in a scowl. “Then I’ll just…”

What was bothering him over there?

But faced with the stairs to the porch, she abandoned speculation to concentrate on making it up the six steep steps, then limping across the warped decking to the unpainted front door.

While Jack fit the key into the lock, Sky joined them, frowning unhappily, his cat cradled on his shoulder. She could read his thoughts as if he’d shouted them out loud. Compared to a brand-new, suburban five-bedroom house back in New Jersey, this wasn’t much. Compared even to the Motel 6 room they’d slept in last night, this cottage was outclassed. And it’s all your fault, Mom!

“It seems very…comfortable,” she managed as Jack steered her inside and switched on the light. If your taste ran to plaid, broken-backed sleeper sofas. To a La-Z-Boy chair spilling foam stuffing across a dirt-gray braided rug, or fluorescent bulbs in a tacky cartwheel chandelier. A wall-mounted elk head that wore a red bandanna and probably had a case of fleas. A collection of beer cans and bottles, arranged artfully along the mantel over a small, ash-choked firebox. “And look, Sky, we have a fireplace!” Her words came out much too cheery.