Roxann Delaney - Designs on the Cowboy

Her grandmother patted her shoulder. “And I’ll bet you think a barrel of pickles would top it off perfectly.”

“Or not,” Glory said, laughing at the silliness.

Pulling up a chair that needed to be stripped of old paint and stained, Louise settled on it and looked up at Glory with a light of expectation in her eyes. “It’s all going to come together, just you watch. You have what it takes to make a go of it. You always have.”

Glory felt a warm glow at her grandmother’s praise, and leaned down to put her arms around her shoulders. “Thank you, Gram.”

“I can hardly wait to see who your first client will be.”

“Our first client,” Glory corrected. But she wasn’t ready to mention that she already had a job lined up. Not until she was in the house and doing the work, just to be on the safe side. After all, if it hadn’t been for her grandmother’s building that had stood empty for several years, they wouldn’t even be talking about clients.

They both turned when the tiny bell above the door announced a visitor. “Why, hello,” Louise greeted, while giving Glory a questioning glance.

But Glory was too surprised to say anything.

“Afternoon, Miz Gardner,” the visitor said, nodding briefly at Glory’s grandmother as he touched the brim of his black cowboy hat.

“Why, Dylan Walker, I haven’t see you around for a—”

“Yes, what a surprise,” Glory said, effectively cutting off the chitchat she suspected her grandmother would launch into without any encouragement. After that would come the invitation to Sunday dinner, and she certainly didn’t want to go there. “Why don’t we step into the office?”

But Louise didn’t seem to hear. “Dylan, are you thinking of letting Glory work her magic on that wonderful old house of yours?”

Glory quickly spoke before he had a chance to answer her grandmother. “If you’ll just come with me, Dylan...”

He looked from one woman to the other, his attention finally settling on Glory. “I just have a couple of questions.”

“I really think we’ll be more comfortable in my office,” she tried again. After a brief hesitation, he followed her. “You’ll have to excuse everything. We haven’t had a chance to do much with the building. In fact, we aren’t officially open yet.”

He removed his hat, revealing his dark hair, and continued to stand. “Nice desk.”

It took a moment for her to realize what he’d said. “It was my grandfather’s.”

“I thought so.” He turned and pointed to the door. “That old wood burner out there, too?”

“Why, yes.” She knew she shouldn’t be surprised that he remembered one or the other. Her grandfather’s leather shop had been famous for miles in every direction. The workshop, where he’d done the leather work, still stood behind the building. It had been her favorite place to visit when she could escape from the pressures at home, but Gramps had been gone for many years, and she’d barely been able to step inside his workshop since he’d died.

“It’s nice of you to remember, Dylan. He had to give up the leather shop when the palsy got too bad to work.”

Dylan placed his hat on the desk. “Erin’s first saddle was one he’d made. I still remember how perfect the tooling was on it.”

“Gram still has many of the things he made.” And so had she, but she’d sold the last of them—her saddle—to Dylan’s sister to get the money needed to pay the back taxes on the building so her grandmother wouldn’t lose it.

Pushing the old memories deeper into her mind, she took a seat behind the desk and folded her hands on top of it. “What can I do for you, Dylan?”

“Like I said, I have a couple of questions.”

Determined to be pleasant, she smiled and dipped her head in a nod. “Of course.”

He continued to look at her, long and hard, making her skin prickle. “What experience do you have to complete this job my sister hired you for?”

It was her turn to stare. “I have a degree in art, if that’s what you mean.”

It was clear by his frown that he hadn’t expected that kind of answer, but it didn’t stop him. “Did my sister give you any instructions as to what to do if I refused to let you do any work on my house?”

Now she was in familiar territory. “As a matter of fact, she did warn me that you might not be receptive to having me there. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter if you’re there or not or whether you even want me there. I’ve been hired to do a job, and I intend to do it.”

He was silent for a moment, as if thinking about what she’d said. “When do you plan to start?”

Now they were getting somewhere. “As soon as possible.” His frown deepened, but she continued. “There won’t be any real work at first. I’ll need to take a look at the house and all the rooms, and take measurements of them. If you have specific ideas—”

“I don’t. This wasn’t my idea.”

There was nothing she could say that would change things, so she didn’t reply.

“How long will that take?” he asked.

She tried to quickly calculate the time and came up with a figure. “An hour, maybe an hour and a half, for the walk-through. Ballpark, of course. I’ll have a better idea of how long the real work will take after that, but I suspect it will take at least a month, probably two.”

He nodded, and she hoped the squint of his eyes and twist of his mouth was an indication that he was giving it all some thought. But there was no way of telling. She didn’t know him well enough.

“Then you don’t need me around for anything, right?”

The air in the room seemed much stuffier than when they’d first walked into the office, and she wished there had been a window to open. She’d also noticed that her heartbeat had kicked up a notch, the moment he’d stepped inside the shop, and it hadn’t let up yet.

“If you don’t want to be involved in the decisions, I can’t force you to.” She wasn’t crazy about the idea of redecorating a house when the person who lived in it didn’t have some kind of input, but it appeared that was the way it was going to be. She’d just have to hope that when she finished the job, he wouldn’t hate it.

“Fair enough.”

“So I have your permission to start?”

“Let’s say I won’t keep you from doing the job my sister hired you to do. How’s that?”

It wasn’t great, but it would do. “That’s all I need. I’ll start tomorrow morning.”

She pushed away from the desk and stood. He followed suit, and she realized that to seal this business agreement—or the possibility of it, anyway—he would expect to shake on it. With a temerity she didn’t feel, she stuck out her hand. She could have sworn that she saw one of his heavy, dark eyebrows lift just the slightest over his gorgeous green eyes, but he didn’t hesitate when he took her hand in his.

They stood there for what seemed like an eternity, the warmth of his grasp making her slightly dizzy. She was certain it wasn’t more than a second before he moved, yet didn’t release her hand.

With his other hand, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled something from it. He placed it on the desk, and she recognized her business card. “Interesting,” he said.

Completely lost in his green eyes, all she could say was a nearly incoherent “What?”

“The card,” he answered. “The Glory Be part.”

Her mind was working in slow motion. “Oh. Yes. Well, it was...catchy.”

Finally, he released her hand, picked up the card and returned it to his pocket. “Just in case.”

“Y-yes. Just in case.”

She watched as he replaced his hat, touched the brim of it with his index finger and turned to open the door and walk out of the office.