Roxann Delaney - Designs on the Cowboy

Before he could tell her that none of them would suit him, he heard the screen door on the porch open and close. He could almost taste the relief when Luke stepped into the kitchen.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Luke said, looking from Glory to Dylan.

“Nope,” Dylan answered, ready to escape the house.

“We were just discussing the idea of making an office in here for ranch business.” She pointed to the room behind her. Her smile grew and she laughed, shaking her head. “I can’t believe I’m standing here in this house with the Walker brothers.”

“It’s good to see you, Glory,” Luke said, glancing at Dylan. “I heard you’ve opened a new business in town.”

“I have. Glory Be Antiques and Decorating. We aren’t officially open yet, but when Erin and I ran into each other in Texas and she learned about my plans...” She shrugged and smiled at both of them.

“I remember your grandad’s leather shop,” Luke said. “There was nothing like it for hundreds of miles.”

Glory’s smile dimmed, and Dylan recognized the sadness in her eyes. “He loved making saddles,” she said. “It broke his heart when he couldn’t work anymore. And then he...” She took a breath. “But the shop is still there. I think Gram has been thinking of selling his tools. She’s mentioned it. I’m not sure what we’ll do with the space. I—” She lowered her head for a moment, and then raised it again, smiling. “Maybe I’ll use it for a workroom myself. Someday. It’s— Let’s just say it’s difficult for both of us to go in there without thinking of him.”

Luke glanced at Dylan, and then nodded in agreement at Glory. “I understand completely. So you’ve moved back to town permanently?”

This time her smile was sincere. “I hope so. I’ve missed Desperation. And I hope we can make a success of the business.”

“The town hasn’t changed that much. And with Kyle’s connections, you shouldn’t have a problem getting customers.”

Dylan, who’d been watching her throughout the conversation, noticed that her smile dimmed considerably when his brother mentioned her husband’s name.

“Kyle and I have been divorced for some time,” she said, avoiding eye contact with either of them.

Dylan was too surprised to hear what Luke was saying. Her announcement left him stunned, and he wondered just how big of a fool Kyle Andrews was to have let Glory Caldwell go. Not that it changed anything, he told himself. Whether she was married or not made no difference. She’d been hired to fix up his house. But in the back of his mind was the thought that he definitely needed to give her a wide berth. He’d already thought about her too many times, and it wasn’t the kind of thing he should be doing.

* * *

“ARE YOU GOING to the Walker place today?” Louise asked.

Glory nodded. She placed her coffee cup on the kitchen table and rolled up the plans she’d worked on in the evenings during the past week. “The man who’s tearing out the kitchen cabinets will be there in about fifteen minutes, so I need to get going.”

“Is everything working out all right? I mean, with the Walker boy.”

Glory turned to look at her grandmother and wondered how to answer. It wasn’t Dylan’s fault that she’d begun to form an unwanted attraction to him. She certainly couldn’t tell her grandmother about that. Gram would be thrilled, she was sure. Dylan, not so much. He barely knew she was there. Which, she reminded herself, was as it should be.

“Dylan is a very nice man,” she answered as she headed for the door. “He isn’t crazy about me being there and doesn’t care what I do to the house, but I have faith it will all work out.”

“Oh.”

Her grandmother’s disappointment was so clear that Glory had to bite her cheek to keep from laughing, even though it wasn’t funny. It would break Gram’s heart to know she had absolutely no desire to form any kind of relationship with Dylan Walker or anyone else, no matter how often she thought of him and enjoyed getting glimpses of him throughout her day. After all, he was more than easy on the eyes. But she was determined to keep her mind on business, not on him.

“I’d better get going,” she said, needing to escape her grandmother’s questioning eyes. “I have some things I need to talk over with him before he gets busy with ranch work. I’ll see you later.”

After kissing her grandmother’s cheek, she hurried out the door and to her car. A quick look at her watch told her she didn’t have time to enjoy the drive, and she turned her mind to the work she needed to do that day.

When she arrived at the ranch, she immediately noticed that Dylan’s pickup was parked near the barn. Her heartbeat picked up. She pressed her lips together and reminded herself that she was there on business. And business was all she was interested in. Focusing her thoughts on the job ahead, she decided that the things she needed to talk to him about could wait.

She’d just climbed out of her car when another pickup, this one pulling an empty trailer, turned into the long drive and parked behind her. “Good morning,” she called to Jim White, who climbed out of the vehicle and approached her.

With a touch to the brim of his cap, he nodded. “Morning, Miz Andrews. The town’s buzzin’ with the news that you’re back.”

She felt the heat of a blush on her face, but smiled. “I hope it’s a happy buzzing.”

He followed her up to the house. “It is, for sure,” he assured her. “Now what all is it you want me to do here?”

Ready to get to work, Glory led him into the kitchen and explained what needed to be done. Gathering the photos from the dining room, she showed them to him, so he’d have an idea of what she envisioned it would look like, once the old was gone and the new was finished.

“It’s mighty nice,” he answered. “Who’s doin’ your cabinetry?”

She understood that this was the way it was in small towns. In a big city, it didn’t matter. A job was a job, and most people didn’t know the other contractors, unless they’d worked with them before. “I heard good things about Ned Parker, so he’s doing it.”

He nodded. “I don’t think he’ll disappoint you.”

“I have some things to get out of my car, and then I’ll be working in the living room.” She pointed to the doorway. “If you need me, I’ll be in there.”

“Yes’m,” he replied, and began to lay out his tools.

Satisfied that she could leave him to his work, she returned to her car for a box. After spending the past week stripping wallpaper upstairs in what she had chosen to be the master bedroom, she’d done some research and come up with what she hoped would make the job in the living room go more quickly.

Closing the car door, she glanced toward the barn and, to her surprise, she caught sight of Dylan, standing in the doorway of the barn and looking her way. A second later, he was gone, and she wondered if he’d been watching her.

“Of course not,” she scolded herself, under her breath. He wasn’t interested in her, only her work, and barely that, considering how much she’d seen him since she’d started working on the house. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you, and for no reason.”

In the house again, she put thoughts of Dylan Walker as far away as possible and concentrated on dampening the old wallpaper with a mixture of water and vinegar, applied with a mister attached to an old canister vacuum she’d found. To her surprise, it helped, and she was busy spraying and stripping when, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Dylan walk in.

“What’s that smell?” he asked over the noise.

“Vinegar,” she told him, turning off the vacuum. “It’s supposed to help cut the wallpaper paste. They didn’t make strippable paper back when this was hung.”