Mary Sullivan - A Cowboy's Plan

She couldn’t find a towel. With her hands still wet, she fell onto the closed toilet lid and rested her forearms on her knees. Droplets of water fell from her hands onto the worn black-and-white linoleum floor. She saw C.J.’s boots enter her line of sight.

He ran the water, washed his hands, then handed something to her. She sensed him holding himself back. Probably afraid to touch her after she flinched away from him out front. How embarrassing. She could imagine how stupid he must think her.

“Your forehead is swelling.” He pointed to her face and handed her a wet cloth. “You’re going to have a bump.”

She pressed it to her forehead, weakly. The memories exhausted her. Always.

“I can show you how to make friends with BizzyBelle for next time,” C.J. said.

She stared at him, heard the words but had trouble understanding their meaning.

Her head buzzed and she breathed hard as if she’d run a marathon.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Give me a minute,” she answered but her voice sounded thin. She hated her weakness for showing.

HER FACE WAS IN DANGER of being swallowed whole by her eyes, two enormous brown-black windows to a terrified soul.

She didn’t look like the tough-edged woman who’d practically demanded the job. She looked like a scared little girl.

“You want a glass of water?” he asked.

She nodded, sort of looked as though she couldn’t form words. Man, who would think a cow could scare a person so much?

She looked young up close, her face chalk-white against the jet-black hair.

The red collar of her dress had tiny skulls embroidered in black. The short sleeves revealed arms with the least blemished skin he’d ever seen. No freckles. No scars. Just that tiny tattoo on the inside of her left elbow, but he couldn’t make out what it was.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. He could see her breasts swell against her dress. Her scent, tropical fruit and coconut, wrapped around him like a silk scarf.

He dumped his toothbrush out of the glass that sat beside the faucet and ran cold water into it, then handed it to her.

She drank half of it in one go.

She sucked in another great big breath. A second later, all of that air whooshed out of her. The tough woman was back in full force.

Handing him the half-full glass of water, she rose. She was short compared to his six feet.

“I have to go,” she said, unsmiling and cold again.

Hugging the wall, she inched around him and left the room.

JANEY STEPPED OUT of the shop. How was she supposed to get over the past when the slightest thing set her off? Well, maybe not the slightest. Up close, BizzyBelle was huge.

For a minute, she stood still, allowing the sun to warm her, until she felt under control again.

No way would she let this defeat her.

She’d just gotten a job. She would finally return to her studies.

She looked to the sky and imagined Cheryl watching over her. Oh, baby girl, I wish you could be here with me.

On the sidewalk up ahead, a dirty rag heap of a man sat on a concrete step leaning against the closed door of a shop, holding a torn paper coffee cup in his hand.

So even in small towns there were homeless people? She thought that only happened in the city, around cheap apartment buildings like hers that had smelled of mildew and cabbage. She was never going back to urban poverty. Never.

She reached into her pocket for a five to give to the guy, and then remembered that all she had were twenties. Man, it was hard for her to give away so much of her precious store of money.

His head, his shoulders, his chest all bowed forward, as though he was closing in on himself.

Aw, buddy, I know how you feel. I know that kind of emptiness.

Maybe she should get him a burger from the diner. That way she’d know for sure he wouldn’t buy booze instead of food. Who was she to judge, though?

Whatever gets you through the night, pal.

She took one of her twenties and dropped it into the paper cup.

Startled, the man glanced up and studied her with bloodshot eyes, watery and gray and unfocused. Broken veins dappled his nose. Janey would be surprised if he were half as old as he looked.

“Th-th-thanks.” He took in her clothes and her hair. “Are you rich?” he asked doubtfully.

“No. I just got a job at the candy store, though.”

“That’s good.” He nodded. “Jobs are good.”

He had no gift for conversation, had probably burned half his brain cells with hard liquor.

“Don’t you spend that all in one place,” she said. On impulse, she opened the bag of humbugs and dropped a few into his cup on top of the twenty.

Janey continued on her way down Main Street to walk the few miles home to the ranch.

“Wait.” The order from the deep voice stopped her cold.

Janey turned around.

A tall, thin man loomed over her with his hands clasped behind his back and his thick dark eyebrows arched above his big nose.

His suit of unrelieved black looked hot as hell for a day like today. Janey wore black as a statement. What was this guy’s excuse? Then she realized what he looked like—some kind of holy man. A reverend or a priest?

The deep vertical line between his eyebrows, below his massive forehead, made him appear as though he chewed on the world’s problems every night for dinner.

He looked really, really smart.

Janey lifted her chin.

“Yeah?” she asked, giving her voice the edge that protected her from people like the preacher, from the look on his judgmental prudish old face.

The Reverend rocked back on his heels. “You like Sweet Talk, do you?”

Janey nodded. Why the heck did it matter to this guy whether she liked the candy store?

“Did I just hear you tell Kurt that you were going to work there?”

Kurt must be the homeless man’s name. “Yes,” she answered. “That’s right. The owner hired me.”

The Reverend rocked forward onto the soles of his feet and nodded. “Did he?”

“Yes.” She cocked her head to one side. What did the old goat want with her?

“Really?” he said, his voice silky, a hard glint in his eye. “I would advise you not to take the job.”

“What?” she asked. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not. Don’t take the job my son gave you.”

His son? This was C.J.’s father? Wow, he didn’t look anything like him. “Why shouldn’t I take the job?”

“I raised a good boy. He doesn’t need trouble from someone like you.”

“Someone like me?” Rage almost blinded her. “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m protecting my son,” Reverend Wright said. “Why does your type always latch onto him?”

Her type? Huh? What the—

“You’re way off base.” She propped her hands on her hips and stood on her tiptoes to get into his face. “I don’t want your buttoned-up prude of a son,” she said. “I want a job.”

“Leave him alone. Get a job somewhere else. I’ll even put in a good word for you. Try the diner.”

Janey couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though the guy was desperate.

“No one else will give me a job,” she said glumly.

“If you’re going to work in the candy shop, you have to clean yourself up, look respectable, not like a hooker.”

“A hooker?” She was the farthest thing from a prostitute that a woman could be. “What, only virgins can work in Ordinary?”

His face hardened. “Get away from here. Go to another town. You can’t work here.”

Janey reeled. “Who died and made you God?”

The Reverend’s cheeks flared red. “Don’t ever, ever, use the Lord’s name in vain in front of me again.”

For a moment, she was afraid.

He turned his back on her. Leaning down toward Kurt, he said, voice tight, “You don’t have to beg for handouts. You don’t have to sit in the heat. Come to the rectory and we’ll feed you.”