Linda Lael - Cowboy Country

She went with retro again, savoring the whir of the small motor, the flash of the flying needle and the familiar scents of fabric sizing and sewing machine oil.

When the doorbell rang downstairs, just as Carolyn was finishing up apron number two, she was so startled by the sound, ordinary as it was, that she jumped and nearly knocked over her forgotten cup of tea, now gone cold.

She glanced at the clock above the stove—three forty-five in the afternoon, already?—and, remembering the note she’d stuck to the front door, in case some prospective shopper happened by, shouted from the top of the inside staircase, “Coming!”

The bell rang again, more insistently this time.

Skipping the normal protocol by not looking out one of the flanking windows first, Carolyn opened the door.

Brody was standing on the porch, his expression so grim that Carolyn felt alarmed, thinking Tricia had gone into premature labor or someone had been in an accident.

She gulped, fumbled with the hook on the screen door that separated them. Through the mesh, she noted Brody’s wrinkled clothes, mussed hair and disturbing countenance.

“Brody...what—?”

He’d taken off his hat at some point, and now he slapped it once against his right thigh. “Can I come in?” he bit out. Then, almost grudgingly, “Please?”

Carolyn’s concern eased up a little then, as she realized Brody was frustrated—maybe even angry—but not sad, as he surely would have been if he were bearing bad news.

She gave one slightly abrupt nod instead of speaking, not trusting herself to be civil now that Brody’s irritation had sparked and spread to her, like wildfire racing over tinder-dry grass.

Once the door was open, Brody practically stormed over the threshold, giving Carolyn the immediately infuriating impression that if she didn’t get out of his way, she’d be run over.

So she stood her ground, and that proved to be a less than brilliant choice, because they collided and the whoosh of invisible things reaching flash point was nearly audible.

“What?” Carolyn demanded, and found herself flushing.

His nose was half an inch from hers, if that, and fierce blue flames burned in his eyes, and his words, though quiet, struck her like stones. “I. Don’t. Like. Games.”

Carolyn felt several things then, not the least of which was a slow-building rage, but there was a good bit of confusion in the mix, too, and a strange, soft, scary kind of excitement.

“What are you talking about?” she asked tartly. It would have been prudent, she supposed, to take a step or two backward, out of Brody’s force field, but for some reason, she couldn’t move.

“I’m talking,” Brody all but growled, after tossing his hat in the general direction of the antique coat tree that dominated the entryway, “about this whole Friendly Faces thing. You trying to scare up a husband online. It’s all wrong—”

Carolyn’s temper, mostly under control before, flared up. “Wrong?” she repeated dangerously.

Brody sighed, but he was still putting out the same officious vibes. “Okay, maybe wrong wasn’t the best word,” he said.

“Maybe it wasn’t,” Carolyn replied succinctly, folding her arms and digging in her heels.

“I hate to break this to you,” Brody spouted, leaning in again—she kind of liked it when he did that, even though it was infuriating—“but you can’t just go around trusting people you’ve never even met. Men tell lies, Carolyn.”

Carolyn widened her eyes in mock surprise. “Really?” she trilled, as though she just couldn’t conceive of the possibility.

She saw his jaws clamp down, watched with some satisfaction as he relaxed them by a visible effort.

“Men tell lies,” she repeated, amazed. Then she stabbed a finger into his chest and said, “Oh, yes, that’s right, Brody. I remember now. You lied to me, through your perfect white teeth!”

“I did not lie to you,” Brody lied.

“Oh, no? You said you cared about me—you wanted to stay and make things right with your family. Settle down and start a family. And then you left, vanished, flew the coop!” Carolyn realized she was perilously close to tears, and she was damned if she’d cry in front of the man who had broken her heart so badly that even after more than seven years, she wasn’t over it.

So she turned away from Brody, not wanting him to see her face.

He caught hold of her shoulder, his grasp firm but not hard enough to hurt, and made her look at him again.

“I meant everything I said to you, Carolyn,” he said evenly.

He had not, she recalled, with a terrible clarity, said he loved her. Not in words, anyway.

“But then something came up, as you put it in that note you left me, and you hit the road and left me alone to wonder what I did wrong,” Carolyn accused, in an angry whisper.

Getting mad, in her opinion, was a lot better than bursting into tears. And it wasn’t just Brody she was furious with. She blamed herself most of all, for being gullible, for loving and trusting the wrong man and maybe missing out on the right one because she’d wasted all this time loving him. Because she’d so wanted to believe what Brody told her. What his body told hers.

“I regret leaving like I did,” Brody said. “But I had to go. I flat-out didn’t have a choice, under the circumstances.”

“And what would those circumstances be?” Carolyn asked archly. “Another bronc to ride? Another buckle to win? Or was it just that some formerly reluctant cowgirl wannabe was willing to go to bed with you?”

Brody closed his eyes for a moment. He looked pale, like a man in pain, but when he opened them again, the frustration was back. “If that’s the kind of person you think I am,” he snapped, “then it seems to me you ought to be glad I took off and saved you all the trouble of putting up with me!”

“Who says I wasn’t glad?” Carolyn demanded. Who was this hysterical person, speaking through her? Was she possessed?

“You’re not going to listen to one damn thing I say, are you?” Brody shot back.

“No,” Carolyn replied briskly. “Probably not.”

“Fine!” Brody barked.

“Fine,” Carolyn agreed.

“Reoww!” added Winston, from the top of the stairs. His hackles were up and his tail was all bushed out and he looked ready to pounce.

On Brody.

Guard-cat on duty.

“It’s all right, Winston,” Carolyn told the fractious feline. “Mr. Creed is just about to leave.”

Brody made a snorting sound, full of contempt, swiveled around and retrieved his hat from the floor next to the coat tree, where he’d flung it earlier.

He wrenched open the front door, looked back at Carolyn and growled, “We’re still going on that horseback ride.”

Carolyn opened her mouth to protest, but something made her close it without saying the inflammatory thing that sprang to her mind. She didn’t like to use bad language if she could avoid it.

“You agreed and that’s that,” Brody reminded her tersely. “A deal is a deal.”

With that, he was gone.

The door of Natty McCall’s gracious old house closed hard behind him.

Carolyn got as far as the stairs before plunking herself down on the third step from the bottom, shoving her hands into her hair and uttering a strangled cry of pure, helpless aggravation.

Winston, having pussyfooted down the stairs, brushed against her side, purring.

Carolyn gave a bitter little laugh and swept the animal onto her lap, cuddling him close and burying her face in the lush fur at the back of his neck.

Being a cat, and therefore independent, he immediately squirmed free, leaped over two steps to stand, disgruntled, on the entryway floor, looking up at her in frank disapproval, tail twitching.