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He could still taste Catherine on his lips.

The temptation to take her back into his arms was damn near overwhelming.

Cody looked down into her dazed, upturned face. His breathing had yet to return to normal. “If you’re waiting for me to say I’m sorry, you’ve got a long wait ahead of you,” he warned.

Catherine moved her head from side to side—slowly so as not to fall over. “I don’t want you to say you’re sorry,” she whispered.

“Good,” he finally declared. He pulled his Stetson down farther until the brim all but obscured his eyebrows and hid his eyes. “’Cause I don’t know why the hell I just did that, but I know I’m not sorry that I did,” he emphasized.

And then, just like that, Cody turned on his heel and went back to his vehicle.

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to Thunder Canyon, Montana, and the fine citizens of that town who make life there so very interesting. Last time, I got to write about Calista Clifton, one of eight brothers and sisters (perhaps you see a pattern here?). This time around, my book centers on Catherine Clifton’s story. Catherine is the oldest girl and has always been the caretaker in the family (my lord, can I relate to that), sublimating her own needs and dreams in order to care for everyone else. Well, now just this one time, it’s her turn to get something. Jasper Fowler’s neglected antiques store had closed its doors and was up for grabs. Summoning her courage, Catherine took the plunge, buying it with the intention of turning it into not just a place where forgotten antiques were kept to gather dust, but a shop where vintage clothing and intriguing one-of-a-kind items were sold. Catherine was looking for customers. She certainly wasn’t looking for a man to win her heart, but she got both in Cody Overton, a genuine cowboy who was still grieving for his late wife eight years after he’d lost her.

This is a story about two lonely, independent and self-sufficient people who found each other and accidentally wound up filling the void in the other’s life. I hope you like it.

As always, I thank you for reading my book, and from the bottom of my heart I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

Marie Ferrarella

About the Author

MARIE FERRARELLA, this USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written more than two hundred books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

Real Vintage Maverick

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To

Stella Bagwell,

who is strong enough

to actually live the life

I can only write about

Prologue

The sound of her laughter filled his head as well as his heart, echoing all through him. Generating within him, as it always did, a feeling of tremendous joy and well-being.

It was one of those absolutely perfect Montana mornings that begged to be pressed between the pages of his memory. Cody Overton tried to absorb it as much as possible, instinctively knowing that it was important he do so.

Very important.

He and Renee were at the state fair—Renee always loved the state fair—and, as always, the love of his life had coaxed him onto one of the gaily-painted horses on the weathered carousel while she had mounted the one right next to it.

“Tame stuff,” Cody had pretended to grumble before they got on—as if he ever could have denied Renee anything. “At least let’s ride the Ferris wheel instead.”

But Renee paid no attention to his protest. His wife absolutely loved riding the carousel; she always had, even when they’d been in elementary school together. He’d teased her that he was surprised she hadn’t insisted on their taking their wedding vows sitting astride two of the horses on the carousel.

Renee had laughed and said that they would have had to wait for the state fair to come through and she hadn’t wanted to delay becoming Mrs. Cody Overton a moment longer than she had to.

She had always had a sense of urgency about living life to the fullest. It never made any sense to him.

Until, sadly, it did.

“Maybe, if we close our eyes and wish real hard, the carousel’ll go faster. C’mon, Cody, give it a try. Close your eyes and wish,” she’d entreated, wrapping her hands around the horse’s pole before her. She was like a ray of sunshine. “Don’t you believe in wishes?”

Not anymore.

The words seemed to silently resonant in his head even as the carousel began to speed up, spinning faster and faster. Just as she’d wished it would.

And as the speed increased, so did the sound of her laughter, until that was all there was, just her laughter overpowering everything else.

And all the while, they were spinning ever faster and faster.

Cody kept trying to see her, to fix his eyes only on his beautiful Renee, but suddenly, he couldn’t find her, couldn’t see her.

Couldn’t see anything at all except a sea of smeared color bleeding into itself.

She was gone.

Twenty-five years old and she was gone.

His soul realized it before his mind did.

He began calling out her name, but nothing came out of his mouth except for an anguished, guttural cry.

With a start, Cody bolted upright in his bed. As always, when this dream came to him, he was covered in sweat and shaking.

The crisp September weather had slipped into the bedroom, thanks to a window he’d forgotten to close, but he was still sweating.

Still shaking.

Still praying it really wasn’t just a dream. That Renee was still alive and with him.

Nurturing a hope that was completely foreign to his very practical, pessimistic outlook, Cody slowly looked to his left, to the spot beside him that had once belonged to Renee.

Aching so badly to see her that it physically hurt. But he didn’t see her. She wasn’t there, as he knew she wouldn’t be.

She hadn’t been there for eight years.

Hadn’t been anywhere for eight years because she’d been dead for eight years. Another statistic to the ravages of the insatiable cancer monster.

His heart had been dead just as long.

At times, Cody was surprised that it was still beating, still keeping the shell that surrounded it alive and moving.

A man with nothing to live for shouldn’t be required to live, Cody thought darkly.

He tossed off the covers and got out of bed despite the darkness that still enveloped the room. He knew it was useless to try to go back to sleep. Sleep was gone for the remainder of the night. If he was lucky, a glimmer of it might return by that evening.

Most likely not.

Slipping on the discarded jeans he picked up from the floor, Cody padded across the bare floor to the window and looked out.

There was nothing to see, just a vastness that spread out before him.

His ranch.

Their ranch.

“Why did you leave me?” he demanded in angry frustration, not for the first time. “Why did you have to go?”

He wasn’t being reasonable, but he didn’t much feel like being reasonable. It wasn’t fair that he had been left behind, to face each day without Renee after she had filled so much of his life before then. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t known her, hadn’t been aware of her. The very first memory he had was of her.

Eight years and he still wasn’t used to it. Hadn’t made his peace with it. Eight years and a part of him still expected to see her walk through the door, or see her standing over the stove, lamenting that she’d burned dinner—again.

He’d never minded those burnt offerings—that was what he’d teasingly called them, her burnt offerings—and he would have been willing to eat nothing else for the rest of his life if only he could see her one more time. Hold her one more time …

He supposed, in a way, that was what the dreams were about. Seeing her one more time. Because they were so very vivid that, just for a moment, Renee was alive again. Alive and the cornerstone of his world.

He wished he could sleep forever, but that wasn’t going to happen.

Cody dragged his hand through his hair and sighed. He might as well get dressed and get started with his day, even if it was still the middle of the night. The ranch wasn’t going to run itself.

“I miss you, Renee.”

His whisper echoed about the empty bedroom just as it did about his empty soul.

Chapter One

It happened too quickly for him to even think about it.

One minute, in a moment of exasperated desperation—because he hadn’t yet bought a gift for Caroline’s birthday—Cody found himself walking into the refurbished antique store that had, up until a few months ago, been called The Tattered Saddle.

The next minute, he was hurrying across the room and managed—just in time—to catch the young woman who was tumbling off a ladder.

Before he knew it, his arms were filled with the soft curves of the same young woman.

She smelled of lavender and vanilla, nudging forth a sliver of a memory he couldn’t quite catch hold of.

That was the way Cody remembered it when he later looked back on the way his life had taken a dramatic turn toward the better that fateful morning.

When he’d initially walked by the store’s show window, Cody had automatically looked in. The shop appeared to be in a state of semi-chaos, but it still looked a great deal more promising than when that crazy old coot Jasper Fowler ran it.

Cody vaguely recalled hearing that the man hadn’t really been interested in making any sort of a go of the shop. The whole place had actually just been a front for a money-laundering enterprise. At any rate, the antique shop had been shut down and boarded up in January, relegated to collecting even more dust than it had displayed when its doors had been open to the public.

What had caught his eye was the notice Under new ownership in the window and the store’s name—The Tattered Saddle—had been crossed out. But at the moment, there was no new name to take its place. He had wondered if that was an oversight or a ploy to draw curious customers into the shop.

Well, if it was under new ownership, maybe that meant that there was new old merchandise to choose from. And that, in turn, might enable him to find something for his sister here. As he recalled, Caroline was into old things. Things that other people thought of as junk and wanted to discard, his sister saw potential and promise in.

At least it was worth a shot, Cody told himself. He had tried the doorknob and found that it gave under his hand. Turning it, he had walked in.

Glancing around, his eyes were instantly drawn to the tall, willowy figure on the other side of the room. She was wearing a long, denim-colored skirt and her shirt was more or less the same color. The young woman was precariously perched on the top step of a ladder that appeared to be none too steady.

What actually caught his attention was not that she looked like an accident waiting to happen as she stretched her taut frame out, trying to reach something that was on a higher shelf, but that with her long, straight brown hair hanging loose about her back and shoulders, for just an instant, she reminded him of Renee.

A feeling of déjà vu seized him and for a moment, his breath caught in his throat.

Balancing herself on tiptoes, Catherine Clifton, the former Tattered Saddle’s determined new owner, automatically turned around when she heard the little bell over the front door ring. She hadn’t anticipated any customers coming in until the store’s grand reopening. That wasn’t for a couple more days at the very least. Most likely a couple of weeks. And only if she could come up with a new name for the place.

“We’re not open for business yet,” Catherine called out.

The next thing out of her mouth was an involuntary shriek because she’d lost her footing on the ladder and both she and the ladder were heading for a collision with the wooden floor.

The ladder landed with a clatter.

Catherine, fortunately, did not.

She was saved from what could have been a very bruising fate by the very person she’d just politely banished from the premises.

Landing in the cowboy’s strong, capable arms knocked the air out of her and, along with it, anything else she might have said at that moment.

Which was just as well because she would have hated coming across like some blithering idiot. But right now, not a single coherent thought completed itself in her head. It was filled with just scattered words and a myriad of sensations.

Hot sensations.

Everything had faded into the background and Catherine was instantly and acutely aware of the man whose arms she’d landed in. The broad-shouldered, green-eyed, sandy-haired cowboy held her as if she weighed no more than a small child. The muscles on his bare arms didn’t even appear to be straining.

A tingling sensation danced through Catherine’s entire body, which was stubbornly heating up despite all of her attempts to bank the sensation—and her reaction to the man—down.

Her valiant efforts to the contrary, for just a moment, it felt as if time had stood still, freezing this moment as it simultaneously bathed her in a heretofore never experienced, all but debilitating, feeling of desire. For two cents proper, using the excuse that this rugged-looking cowboy had saved her, she would have kissed him. With feeling.

Catherine could absolutely visualize herself kissing him.

The fact that he was a complete stranger was neither here nor there as far as she was concerned. Desire, she discovered at that moment, didn’t have to make sense. It could thrive very well without even so much as a lick of sense to it.

And for no particular reason at all, it occurred to her that this man looked like the real deal. A cowboy. A real vintage cowboy.

Was he? Or had she managed to bump her head without knowing it and was just hallucinating?

Their eyes met and held for a timeless instance. Only the pounding of Catherine’s heart finally managed to sufficiently rouse her.

“Thank you,” she finally whispered.

Doing his best to focus and gather his exceedingly scattered wits about him, Cody heard himself asking, “For what?”

Catherine let out a long, shaky breath before answering. “For catching me.”

“Oh.” Of course that was what she meant. What did he think she meant? Cody nodded his head. “Yeah. Right.”

The words emerged one at a time, each containing a sealed thought. Thoughts he couldn’t begin to convey, or even understand.

Cody cleared his throat, then realized that he was still holding the woman in his arms. He should have already released her.

Feeling awkward—he hadn’t spontaneously reacted to a woman in this manner since his wife had died—he set her down. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” she told him. “I’m not.” I’m not sorry at all. “If you hadn’t caught me just then, I might have broken something—either some of the merchandise or, worse, one of my bones.”

The fact that if he hadn’t come in just now, her attention wouldn’t have been thrown off and she very well could have remained perched on the ladder was a point Catherine had no desire to bring up. Thinking of him as her hero was far more pleasant.

Rather than comment, the tall cowboy merely nodded his head in acknowledgment. At the same time, he began to back away.

“Didn’t mean to trespass,” he murmured by way of an apology. He reached behind him for the doorknob, ready to make his getaway.

“You’re not trespassing,” Catherine was quick to protest. She didn’t have the heart to chase out someone who could actually buy something in the store. “It’s just that I haven’t exactly gotten the store ready for customers yet. But you can stay if you like.”

If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn that her tone was almost urging him to stay. And she had shifted her body so that she was now standing between him and the front door.

Cody glanced around the store, still mulling over her initial protest. “Looks okay to me,” he told her. “Actually, it looks a mite better than it used to look when that old guy owned it.”

Catherine was eager to bring out the shop’s better features and play them up so that she could attract actual customers rather than just the pitying or dismissive glances that the store had been garnering before she’d bought it. After the former owner had kidnapped Rose Traub, the people in Thunder Canyon had deliberately shunned the store. And from what she’d heard, before then the clientele was almost as ancient as some of the antiques that were housed here. She wanted to change that as well. She wanted all age-groups to have a reason to drop by and browse.

Fowler wasn’t in the picture anymore, having been sent to prison, and the shop was something that she wanted to take on as a project, something that belonged to her exclusively. After a lifetime of being the go-to person, the main caregiver in a family of eight and always putting everyone else’s needs ahead her own, it occurred to Catherine that time—and life—was slipping by her. She needed to make her own way before she woke up one morning to discover that she was no longer young, no longer able to grab her slice of the pie that life had to offer.

Since this sexy-looking cowboy seemed familiar with the way the store had been before she’d taken over, Catherine made a natural assumption and asked, “Did you come in here often when Mr. Fowler owned it?”

“No,” he told her honestly. Antiques had never held any interest for him. And they still didn’t, except that he knew his sister liked them. “But I walked by the store whenever I was in town and I’d look in.”

Mild curiosity was responsible for that. He might not look it, but Cody had made a point of always taking in all of his surroundings. It kept him from being caught off guard—the way he had when Renee had become ill.

“Oh,” Catherine murmured. All right, the place had held no real attraction for him, at least it hadn’t before. But he’d walked in this morning. Something had obviously changed. “Well, what made you come in today?”

She glanced over her shoulder to see if there was anything unusual out on display that might have caught the cowboy’s eye. But nothing stood out for her.

Cody wasn’t sure what this gregarious woman was fishing for, but he could only tell her the truth. “I’m looking for a present for my sister. Her birthday’s coming up and I need to get something into the mail soon if it’s going to get there in time.”

Okay, she wasn’t making herself clear, Catherine thought. Desperate to hone in on a reliable “X-Factor,” she tried again.

“Why here?” she pressed. “Why didn’t you just go to the mall? There’re lots of stores there.” And heaven knew a far more eclectic collection of things for someone to choose from.

The expression that fleetingly passed over the cowboy’s tanned face told her exactly what he thought of malls.

But when he finally spoke, he employed a measured, thoughtful cadence. “I haven’t put much thought into it,” he readily admitted. “I guess I came here because I wanted to give Caroline something that’s genuine, that isn’t mass-produced. Something that isn’t in every store from New York City to Los Angeles,” Cody explained.

He looked around the shop again, but not before discovering that it took a bit of effort to tear his eyes away from the shop’s new owner. Close up, the talkative young woman didn’t really look like Renee, but there was an essence, a spark, an unnamable something about her that did remind him of his late wife. So much so that even as he told himself that he really should be leaving, he found himself continuing to linger on the premises.

“The stuff in this store is …” His voice trailed off for a moment as he searched for the right word. It took a little doing. For the most part, Cody Overton was a man given to doing, not talking.

Catherine cocked her head, waiting for him to finish his sentence. When he didn’t, she supplied a word for him. “Old?”

“Real,” he finally said, feeling the word more aptly described what he was looking for. “And yeah, old,” he agreed after a beat. “But there’s nothing wrong with old as long as it’s not falling apart,” he was quick to clarify.

Catherine smiled. She liked his philosophy. In a way, it embodied her own.

And then, just like that, an idea came to her.

Her eyes brightened as she looked up at the cowboy that fate had sent her way. This could be one of those happy accidents people were always talking about, she thought.

But first, she needed to backtrack a little. “I’m sorry, I completely forgot my manners. My name’s Catherine Clifton,” she told him, putting her hand out. “I’m the new owner,” she added needlessly.

Cody looked down at her hand for a moment, as if he was rather uncertain whether to take it or not. He wasn’t a man who went out of his way to meet people. Even an extremely attractive woman. He kept to himself for the most part.

But again, there was something about this woman that pulled at him. That nudged him. After a beat, he slipped his hand over hers.

“Cody Overton.” He felt it only right to tell her his name since she had given him hers.

He watched in mute fascination as the smile began in her eyes, then feathered down to her lips. “Pleased to meet you, Cody Overton,” she said. “You’re my very first customer.”

“Haven’t bought anything yet,” he felt obligated to point out.

The man was obviously a stickler for the truth, she couldn’t help thinking. She liked that. Moreover, she could really use someone like that, someone who would tell her the truth no matter what.

She paused a moment, wondering how the man would react to what she was about to propose.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Catherine felt good about this. The sparkle in her deep, chocolate-colored eyes grew as she dove in. “Cody, how old are you?” she wanted to know.

The question caught him completely off guard. The last time he recalled being asked his age like that, he’d been a teenager, picking up a six-pack of beer for his buddy and himself. At the time, he’d figured that his deep voice and his height would make questioning unnecessary. He’d assumed wrong.

He fixed the young woman with a look, wondering what she was up to. “If you’re planning on asking customers their age, once word about that gets out, I don’t think you’re going to have too many of the ladies coming in.” And everyone knew that it was women, not men, who liked this old furniture and knickknacks.

“I don’t care how old they are,” Catherine protested. “I mean, I do, but I don’t—” She stopped abruptly, realizing that she was getting tongue-tied again. Taking a breath, she backtracked. “I’m trying to appeal to a certain dynamic—a certain age-group,” she corrected herself, not wanting this rugged cowboy to think she was trying to talk over his head. But what she’d just said didn’t sound quite right, either. “Let me start over,” she requested. Taking a deep breath, she paused for a second before plunging in again. “What I want to do is attract a certain age-group—younger than the people who used to come into the store—so I thought if I could maybe pick your brain once in a while, find out what you think of some of the merchandise, it might help me improve sales once I open.”

If possible, the woman was making even less sense to him than before.

Hell, if she was trying to find out what would attract guys like him, all she had to do was look in the mirror, Cody couldn’t help thinking. Because, confusing though she seemed to be every time she opened her mouth, this new shop owner was a damn sight easy on the eyes. If she stood in the doorway—or near her show window—that would definitely be enough to bring men in on the pretext of shopping.

But, curious to see if there was something more to what she was suggesting, Cody asked, “Why would you want to pick my brain?” His taste was plain and, if it were up to him, he wouldn’t have set foot in here in the first place.

In answering his question, Catherine didn’t go with the obvious: that there was something compellingly fascinating about this vintage cowboy who had strolled into her shop just in time to keep her from breaking something vital. Instead, she gave him something they could both live with.

“Because what you like is what would appeal to other people in your age bracket.”

He’d never thought of himself as being like everyone else. Not that he saw himself as unique, just … different. The gadgets out there that held such fascination for men—if he was to believe the occasional commercial he saw—held no interest for him. He was a man of the earth, a plain, simple man who’d never felt the need to be part of the crowd or to join anything at all for that matter.

With a shrug, he finally got around to answering the initial question she’d put to him. “I’m thirty-five.”

That was about where she would have put him, Catherine thought, feeling triumphant.

“Perfect,” she declared out loud, stopping short of clapping her hands together. “You’re exactly what I’m looking for. Business-wise,” she quickly qualified in case he got the wrong impression. She didn’t want him thinking she was staking him out for some reason. The last thing she wanted was to chase this cowboy away.

Cody looked at the exuberant woman for a long moment. He sincerely doubted that he was the type that any woman was looking for, at least not anymore. There was a time when he would have been. A time when he’d been eager to plunge into life, to be the best husband, the best father he could possibly be. A time when he greeted each day with hope, thinking of all that lay ahead of him and Renee.

But all that had changed once Renee had died. Whatever he’d had to offer in terms of a normal relationship had died and had been buried along with his wife.

He was tempted to tell her she was wrong in selecting him, but he could see that there was just no putting this woman off. She had a fire lit under her, and if he wasn’t careful, that fire could burn them both.

Still, he supposed he had nothing to lose by going along with her in this. She’d undoubtedly find his answers boring, but until she did, he could view this as a distraction. God knew he was always looking for something to distract him. Something to block his dark thoughts so that he didn’t have to dwell on just how empty his existence had become and continued to be.

Eight years and nothing had changed. He was still just going through the motions of living, placing one foot in front of the other.

“I don’t know about perfect,” he finally said to Catherine with a self-deprecating laugh that sounded as if it had come rumbling straight out of his chest, bypassing his throat, “but if I can help—” he shrugged “—sure.”

If possible, her eyes brightened even more. It made him think of the way a satisfying, steaming cup of hot coffee tasted on a cold winter’s day.

“Really?” Catherine pressed, this time actually clapping her hands together as if he was some magical genie who had just bestowed the gift of three wishes on her.

Cody shrugged again in response to her question. “Why not?” he said even as a part of him whispered a warning that he had just taken his first step on a very narrow ledge. A step that could result in his tumbling down into an uncharted abyss at a moment’s notice.

All things considered, he supposed that there could be worse things.

Chapter Two

“So exactly how is this going to work?” Cody asked her after a beat. As a rule, he wasn’t a curious man, but in this case, he had to admit that this woman had managed to arouse what little curiosity he did possess. “Are you going to be showing me pictures of the stuff you’re thinking of selling at the store, or what?” Before she could answer the question, Cody felt it only fair to inform her of something. “Think you should know right from the start that I’m really not too keen on broken-down old furniture.”

As far as he was concerned, furniture didn’t have to be fancy, but it had to be functional—and not look as if it belonged in some garbage heap.

Catherine laughed. “That’s good, because neither am I.”

She was still feeling her way around as to the kind of focus she wanted to bring to the shop. Right now, she was pretty much making it up as she went along.

Catherine wondered if admitting that to this down-to-earth cowboy would be a mistake. Would it make him think less of her? Or would he just dismiss her present indecision as a “woman thing”? An inconsequential whim on her part? She realized that it would bother her if he did.

His expression registered mild surprise. Cody looked around at the showroom. Everything here was way older than he was. If it wasn’t for the fact that Caroline had a weakness for this kind of thing, he would have just called it all “junk” and dismissed the whole place out of hand.

If this woman was really being on the level with him and felt the same way he did, that brought up another question. “Then what are you doing with this store?”

“Changing its image,” Catherine answered without hesitation.

How was she going to do that with the things she had to work with? “To what?” he wanted to know.

“To a shop that sells vintage items, whether it’s clothing, books, furnishings, whatever.” It was a slight matter of semantics she supposed, but there was still a difference.

One she was apparently going to have to explain because Cody moved back his Stetson with his thumb and squinted at the merchandise in the immediate area. “Just what’s the difference between something being an ‘antique’ and being classified as ‘vintage’?”

That was easy enough, Catherine thought.

“Price mostly,” she answered with a grin that he had to admit—if only to himself—he found rather engaging.

Cody rolled her words over in his head, then nodded. He was willing to accept that. But there was something else.

“Still haven’t answered my first question,” he pointed out. When she raised an eyebrow, silently asking to be reminded, he said, “What do you want with me?”

I could think of ten things right off the bat, Catherine thought in reply. But out loud she simply said, “I intend to use you for market research.”

Cody laughed shortly. “Only market I know is the one I go to buy my supply of eggs, milk and bread.”

That was not the kind of market she meant. “Think bigger,” Catherine coaxed.

“Okay,” he said gamely. “How about if I throw in a chicken, too?”

Obviously this wasn’t going to be as simple as she’d hoped. “I’m talking about the general buying market out there,” she explained. “You’re just the age bracket I’m trying to attract.”

Cody’s eyes met hers. “You ask me, you keep on smiling like that and you’ll attract more than your share of men my age—and older.”

The remark pleased her, amused her and embarrassed her all at the same time. Not only that, but she could feel her cheeks growing hot. From the way he looked at her, she knew it wasn’t just an internal thing or her imagination. Her cheeks were turning pink. She had an uneasy feeling that her new “researcher” could see the color creeping up into them.

Great, now he probably thought of her as some naive, innocent little girl playing at being a store owner.

“I’m not looking for attention,” she told him with feeling. “What I’m looking for are paying customers who are interested in buying what they see.”

The way he looked at her told Catherine that she was only making matters worse by talking. But she wanted him to take her seriously, to understand that all she was after at the moment was a business arrangement and a little input from him.

She cleared her throat. “There has to be something that you want—to buy,” she tacked on when she realized that she was still sinking into the grave she had verbally dug for herself. She tried one more time, taking it from the top. “When you walked in here, what were you hoping to find?”

“Like I said, I was looking for something for my sister.” As usual, he had put getting something for her off, telling himself he had plenty of time until he suddenly didn’t.

“Such as?” she coaxed, trying to get him to give her something to work with.

The broad shoulders rose and fell again as Cody shrugged carelessly. “I figured I’d know it when I saw it.”

She could accept that. Shoppers didn’t always have a clear picture of what they were looking for. “Then look around,” Catherine urged, gesturing around the store. “See if anything appeals to you.”

She’d been the former Tattered Saddle’s legal owner—using her life savings as a down payment—for almost a month now. During that entire time, she’d spent her days clearing away cobwebs, cleaning up and trying to put what she had gotten—the items in the store were included in the price whether she liked them or not—in some sort of manageable order.

To be honest, there was a lot here that she was tempted just to toss out, but she decided that she should seriously consider calling in an expert to appraise everything before she began throwing things out wholesale. However, experts cost money. Someone like Cody Overton did not and it was to the Cody Overtons that she intended to sell.

See if anything appeals to you.

Cody looked at her for a long moment as her words echoed in his head. And then the corners of his mouth curved—just a little. Had this been years ago, he thought, he would have been tempted to say that what appealed to him was her.

But that was a remark for a young man to make, not a man whose soul felt ancient—as ancient as some of the things in this little shop of hers, if not more so.

“Okay,” he finally said, moving toward a newly cleaned shelf that displayed a few miscellaneous, mismatched items.

At the very end of the shelf was a small, cream-colored, fringed coin purse. Looking closer, Cody could see that it had been carefully cleaned up so that there wasn’t even a speck of dirt or telltale grime on it. In addition, it had been lovingly polished with some sort of leather cleaner. He could tell by the trace of scent on it.

The coin purse felt soft to the touch.

Caroline had always liked things with fringes on them, he recalled. She’d had a vest with fringes on it that their mother had given her when she was a little girl. The vest was a little large for her, but Caroline didn’t care. She wore it with everything until it completely fell apart.

There was no price tag visible on the purse, or on any of the other items on the shelf for that matter. Catherine must have just gotten started arranging the things, he reasoned.

Turning around, he held up the coin purse for Catherine to see. “How much you want for this?”

Catherine smiled, secretly relieved that he hadn’t chosen one of the more expensive items. “Consider it a gift.”

That was exactly what he considered it to be. A gift. The gift he was going to give his sister. “That’s what I plan to do with it,” he confirmed. Then he repeated, “How much is it?”

Rather than continue standing some distance away, Catherine crossed over to him. Maybe he’d understand her better if she was closer, she thought.

“No, I mean consider it my gift to you in exchange for your services. I can’t really afford to pay you yet, but you can have whatever you want in the shop in trade for your help.”

Cody was surprised. He hadn’t assumed that this woman was going to pay him anything at all. After all, if he understood what she had proposed earlier, this enthusiastic woman was just going to be asking his opinion about things. Didn’t seem right asking for money for giving his opinion.

It wasn’t as if he was anybody special.

He felt a little guilty about accepting the purse, but then he had a hunch that she was determined to give him something for his services.

“Thanks. This’ll do just fine,” he told her. “My sister’ll like it.”

Pleased to have gotten that out of the way—she hated feeling indebted for anything—Catherine put her hand out for the purse. When he looked at her quizzically, she explained, “I’ll wrap it up for you.”

He was about to tell her there was no need, but then he decided against it. It seemed to make this woman happy to go through the motions of playing shopkeeper and, besides, he was really bad when it came to wrapping gifts.

So he surrendered the purse to her and watched as Catherine placed his sister’s gift into a box that just barely accommodated the purse. The fringes spilled out over the side. She carefully folded them into the box until they all but covered up the purse.

“This’ll make a nice gift,” she told him. Catherine glanced up at him, thinking he might like to hear the story that went with the purse. “It’s actually over forty years old. The original owner had it with her when she went to Woodstock.”

Reaching beneath the counter, she pulled out a roll of wrapping paper she’d just placed there last night. With what appeared to be a trained eye, she cut exactly the right length of paper for the box.

Completely switching topics, she asked Cody, “Younger or older?”

That had come utterly out of the blue, catching him by surprise. He had no idea what she as asking him. “Excuse me?”

She glanced up at him just for a moment as she clarified her question. “Is your sister younger or older than you?”

“Oh.” Why did she want to know that? It had nothing to do with wrapping the gift. “Younger.”

Catherine nodded as she took in the information. The questions didn’t stop there. Why didn’t that surprise him? “Are you two close?”

“I guess.” But that wasn’t exactly the real truth, so Cody amended his statement. “We were, once. But then she got married and her husband made her move away—to another state.” Caroline’s husband had done it to control his sister, Cody was sure of it. The man wanted to isolate and control her so that he could be the center of Caroline’s world.

Catherine immediately picked up on his tone. It spoke volumes even if the actual man didn’t. “You don’t like him much, do you?”

Cody shrugged off the observation, then was surprised to hear himself saying, “Not much to like.” He stopped abruptly and looked at this woman who seemed to coax things out of him so effortlessly. “What’s with all these questions?” He wanted to know. “This part of your marketing thing?”

Catherine smiled as she put the finishing touches on the box by tying a big red bow on it. “This is part of my getting to know you ‘thing,’” she corrected. Then, so he didn’t feel as if she was dragging information out of him without giving some up herself, Catherine said, “There’s eight of us in my family. I guess I’m just curious about how other people get along with their siblings.” She raised her eyes to his, a look of apology in them. “Sorry if I sounded as if I was prying.”

Because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, Cody shrugged to show her that he hadn’t taken any offense at the questions. “Guess there’s no harm in asking questions,” he allowed. And then he rolled over in his head what she’d told him. “Eight of you, huh?”

“Eight of us,” she confirmed.

“They all like you?” If they were, it must have been one hell of a noisy household.

She wasn’t exactly sure what Cody was asking her. “You mean are they all girls? No, I’ve got brothers and sisters.”

But he shook his head. “No, I meant are they all like you,” Cody repeated, then, because she was still looking at him quizzically, he clarified, “You know, all enthusiastic and excited, coming on like a house afire.”

She’d never thought of herself as particularly enthusiastic, or excitable for that matter. Certainly not in the terms that he’d just mentioned. Shaking her head, she told him, “I’m actually the shy, retiring one in the family.”

He laughed at that. It was a deep, all-encompassing sound that made Catherine smile rather than cause her to get her back up.

“Sure you are,” he said, adding, “good one” under his breath as he commented on her sense of humor. After a moment, the smile on his lips faded just a little as he looked at her more closely. “Oh, you’re serious.” Cody took a minute to reassess his opinion. “You all must have been one hell of a handful for your parents to deal with.”

“Actually, I was the one who did a lot of the ‘dealing with,’” she corrected. “I’m the second-oldest in the family.” He probably didn’t even want to know that, she guessed.

She was talking too much, Catherine thought. She had a tendency not to know when to stop talking. That was probably one of the reasons she’d decided to buy Fowler’s old store. Customers meant that there would be people for her to talk with, even if they left the shop without buying anything.

She liked the idea of meeting new people. Of getting to know things about them.

Catherine looked down at the box she’d just finished wrapping, remembering what Cody had said about the purse’s final destination.

“If you’re mailing this, I can see if I can find another box to put it in for you,” she offered.

She was certainly going out of her way here, Cody thought, especially since he hadn’t paid for the purse. On top of that, until a few minutes ago, the overenergized woman hadn’t known him from Adam. That made her a pretty rare individual in his book.

“Are you always this accommodating?” he wanted to know.

She couldn’t gauge by his expression whether he thought that was a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, she still felt the same about it.

“Nothing wrong with being friendly,” she said, flashing a wide smile at him. “Or helpful.”

“Didn’t say there was,” he pointed out. “Just not used to it, that’s all.”

Fair enough, Catherine thought. She pushed the gaily wrapped gift a little closer toward him on the counter. “So, about that bigger box, do you want it?” she wanted to know.

He was planning on mailing the gift once he left the shop. He supposed that having Catherine provide a box to ship the gift in would be exceedingly helpful in moving things along.

“Sure, I could use it,” he allowed. Then he mumbled, “Thanks.”

Her smile was triumphant. “You’re welcome.” And then she couldn’t help adding, “There, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?” she asked. Because she saw the furrow that had formed across his forehead that indicated to her that he was trying to understand what she was referring to, Catherine clued him in. “Saying thank you,” she explained. “That wasn’t so hard, right?”

Rather than answer her question, or say anything in response, Catherine saw that Cody was looking down at her left hand. Was he checking her out or about to say something flippant about her single status?

In either case, she decided to beat him to the punch. “No, I’m not married.”

Cody nodded as if he had expected nothing else. “That explains it.”

This time it was her turn to be confused. “Explains what?”

“Explains why you’re showering me with all these questions,” Cody told her. Then, because she apparently didn’t understand what he was telling her, he elaborated, “You don’t have anyone to talk to.”

She felt a little sorry for the man. He obviously hadn’t had the kind of upbringing and family life that she’d experienced. And, to some extent, was still experiencing.

“Oh, I’ve got people to talk to,” she assured him. “Lots of people.”

“Then what’s with all the questions?” he wanted to know.

“I’m just a naturally curious person,” Catherine explained.

Was Cody trying to tell her something? He didn’t strike her as a man who worried about being perceived as subtle. If there was something that bothered him, she had a feeling he’d tell her.

Maybe not, a little voice in her head whispered. She’d better clear things up now, if that was the case.

“If that’s going to be a problem …”

She let her voice trail off so that he could put his own interpretation to what she was driving at.

“No, no problem,” he told her. “But it’s going to take some getting used to if you’re going to be ‘picking my brain.’” He used her words to describe their working arrangement.

“You can always tell me to back off,” Catherine pointed out.

He was mildly surprised at what she’s just said. “And if I do, you’ll listen?”

Her eyes seemed to sparkle as they laughed at him. Cody found himself captivated. It took him a moment to retreat from the reaction.

“We’ll see” was all she could honestly tell him.

But it was an honest reaction and a man couldn’t ask for more than that, Cody thought. Honesty was a rare commodity.

“There you go,” she pronounced, placing the package wrapped up for shipping on the counter before him. “All ready to be mailed out.”

Cody nodded his head in approval as he regarded the box.

“Thanks.” He picked it up, then paused for a moment. “I guess I’ll be seeing you.”

“I certainly hope so.” And then she bit her lower lip. Did that sound more enthusiastic than she meant it to? Catherine looked at his face for some sign that she’d made him wary, or worse, and her prime target was going to change his mind and back away.

“How’s an hour in the morning every other day sound? Or whenever you can spare the time?” she quickly added.

“Whenever I can spare the time,” he echoed, touching two fingers to the brim of his black Stetson just before he walked out of the shop.

Catherine watched him walk down the street through the bay window she’d cleaned that morning. She had a very good feeling about this alliance she’d just struck up.

She smiled, well pleased. Getting back to work, she started humming to herself.

Chapter Three

The need to replenish some supplies in his walk-in pantry brought Cody back into Thunder Canyon a scant two days later.

At least, that was the excuse he gave himself and the two hands he had working for him on his ranch.

The younger of the two ranch hands—Kurt—knowing how much his reclusive boss disliked having to go into town, offered to run the errand for him.

To the surprise of both men, Cody declined, saying something to the effect that he wasn’t exactly sure just what he wanted to get. It was a comment that for the most part seemed completely out of character for Cody, a man who always knew exactly what he did or didn’t want at any given moment.

But the ranch hands knew better than to question their boss, so they merely nodded and got back to cleaning out the horse stalls.

Driving in, Cody took the long way around, passing by the former Tattered Saddle to see how it—and its new owner—was coming along.

The first thing that he noticed was that there was a new sign leaning against the wall just to the right of the front door. From its precarious position, he figured it was obviously waiting to be mounted.

Making a spur-of-the-moment decision, Cody parked his truck close by. Then he got out and crossed to the store to get a better look at the sign as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do. The fact that he ordinarily didn’t possess a drop of curiosity about anything didn’t even occur to him or make him wonder at his own behavior.

So, she’d finally settled on a new name, he thought, looking at the freshly painted sign. Real Vintage Cowboy. It was all in tall capitals and printed in eye-catching silver paint.

Cody rolled the name over in his head a couple of times, then nodded to himself. If nothing else, it was a definite improvement over the store’s previous name. He’d never quite understood why anyone would want a “tattered” saddle anyway.

Telling himself it was time to get a move on, Cody wound up remaining just where he was. He glanced up and looked through the bay window into the showroom rather than moving back to his truck.

Inside, Catherine was cleaning up a storm, just as she had been doing for the last two days. Although her sisters had initially offered to pitch in and help, she’d stubbornly turned them down. This was something that she was determined to manage on her own.

This way, whatever happened, success or failure, it would be hers alone.

But there were times—such as now when every bone in her body seemed to be protesting that it had been worked too hard—that she felt that perhaps she’d been a wee bit too hasty in summarily turning down her sisters’ offer that way.

So when she saw Cody looking in, her heart all but leaped up in celebration. The cavalry had been sighted. Now all that was needed was to pull it in.

Wiping her hands on the back of the jeans she’d decided were more fitting to the work she was doing than the long flowing skirts that she favored, Catherine hurried to the door and quickly pulled it open.

“Hi!” she greeted him with no small measure of enthusiasm, beaming at Cody. “C’mon in,” she urged with feeling.

Not waiting for him to make up his mind or to—heaven forbid—turn her invitation down, Catherine grabbed hold of his wrist with both hands and pulled him into the shop. She quickly shut the door behind him in case he was having second thoughts about their arrangement and wanted to leave.

Turning toward the shop behind her, she waved her free hand about. “It’s beginning to shape up, don’t you think?”

Cody looked around. To be completely honest, he was rather vague about exactly what the place had looked like two days ago, but he could see that she had painted the walls a rather soothing light blue. He assumed that she had done it because he saw a few light blue splotches of paint on her jeans.

Cody slowly nodded his approval, mainly for her benefit. His mother had taught him not to hurt people’s feelings if he could possibly avoid doing it, and Catherine seemed rather eager to hear a positive reaction. That being the case, it cost him nothing to give it.

“Looks good from where I’m standing,” he told her. Glancing down, he could see that she’d buffed the wooden floors as well. Had she been at this nonstop these last two days?

Well, at least the woman wasn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty, he mused.

Taking a quick look around, he saw the back of the sign through the window. He brightened because at least there was something he could actually comment on. “Saw the sign outside. Is that the new name you picked out for the store?”

“You mean Real Vintage Cowboy?” she asked to make sure he wasn’t referring to anything else.

When he nodded, Cody saw a strange, unfathomable smile curving her mouth. It piqued his dormant curiosity to some extent.

It piqued a little more when she told him, “Well, you’re actually responsible for that.”

The furrow above his nose deepened as he sought to understand what Catherine had just said. He was certain he hadn’t suggested a name like that to her. He hadn’t suggested any name at all that he could remember. She had to have him confused with someone else.

“Me?” Cody said incredulously, staring at her. “I don’t understand. How?”

Again, he found the way the corners of her mouth curved intriguing—and completely captivating. “That was what I thought you looked like. A vintage cowboy. The more I thought about it, the more I began to think that it sounded like a good name for the store. So you inspired the name,” she concluded brightly. “I guess you could say you’re my muse.”

“What the hell is a muse?” Cody wanted to know. He thought of himself as a plain man, given to speaking plainly. This sounded like some kind of doubletalk to him.

She took no offense at his tone, although she would have thought that he’d be flattered. But then, there was no second-guessing men. Growing up with her bothers had taught her that.

“A muse is something or someone who inspires another person creatively,” she told him.

He was having a hard time making the connection. He looked around the store and shook his head. It didn’t make any sense to him.

“And I make you think of dusty old junk that people want to get rid of?” Cody asked her, not sure whether to be amused by this or offended.

Given his tone of voice, Catherine was instantly worried that he was taking offense and she didn’t want him to. She’d meant it as a compliment.

“Not junk,” she protested with feeling. “What I’m selling in the shop are rescued artifacts that once figured very prominently in people’s lives.”

To underscore her point, Catherine motioned toward the shelves directly behind her. Shelves she had so painstakingly arranged. The shelves were filled with newly cleaned merchandise, shown off to their best possible advantage. It was a potpourri of objects in all sorts of bright colors.

Currently, the sun was playing off the surface of several of the pieces, highlighting the metal and making them gleam like mysterious talismans.

“Everything you see here is vintage chic,” she told him proudly.

He inclined his head, taking a closer look, then raised one shoulder in a half shrug. “If you say so,” he murmured. Ever practical, he turned his attention to something that he was better equipped to understand. “Who are you getting to put your sign up?”

Catherine turned around to look through the window in the general direction he’d nodded in and said, “I hadn’t thought about ‘getting’ someone. I figured that I’d just do it myself—”

That was what he was afraid of.

Cody looked at her up and down slowly, taking full measure of her. His expression when he finished clearly said that he had found her wanting.

He snorted rather than say anything outright. His point driven home, he then asked, “You got that ladder handy?” referring to the one she’d fallen off of at their first meeting.

Did he think she was a complete helpless idiot? she wondered. How else did he think she was going to get up to the roof to hang the sign?

“Yes, it’s in the back.” The words were hardly out of her mouth when she saw Cody start to walk to the back room. The man was just taking over, she thought. She liked him, liked his company, but that couldn’t be allowed to happen.

“Where are you going?” she wanted to know.

“To get your ladder and hang that sign up for you,” Cody threw over his shoulder as he disappeared into the back room.

She didn’t want him to feel obligated to do anything except give her a little input on what he thought of certain things. That was their deal.

Hurrying after Cody, Catherine stopped short of the back room doorway because he was already coming out. He had the ladder mounted like a giant shield over one muscular shoulder while he carried a hammer he’d spotted and pressed into service in the other.

Pivoting a hundred and eighty degrees on her heel, Catherine followed him back through the showroom. Was he just displaying his machismo? Or was he feeling obligated for some reason?

“You don’t have to do this,” she protested with feeling as she continued to follow him.

He paused fleetingly to give her a quick, appraising look. Catherine could have sworn she felt a flash of heat pass through her.

That had to stop, she silently upbraided herself. She had no time to react to Cody in those terms. She had a business to launch.

“Yeah, I do,” he answered with finality. “I’m better at hanging up a sign than I am at setting broken bones.”

She was right behind him, step for step. “Contrary to what you might think, I’m not some helpless woman who’s all thumbs,” she informed him. “And I’m not a klutz. I’ve got great balance and I’m very handy.”

“Good for you,” he fired back. “Where I come from, men don’t stand around watching women do this kind of work,” he told her with feeling. He was thinking specifically of Caroline’s husband. Rory Connors would have liked nothing better than to never have to move another muscle in his body for as long as he lived if he didn’t want to.

That no-good SOB had his baby sister doing all the heavy work—and she wasn’t up to half of it. He was certain that was why Caroline had lost the baby she was carrying before it had even gotten through its first trimester. He recalled with anger that his brother-in-law had expressed no remorse over the loss that had all but completely devastated Caroline.

On the contrary, Connors had actually been relieved, saying that there was no room for “brats” in his life right now.

Or ever, Cody suspected. The man was far too egotistical and self-centered to share Caroline with even a baby.

Cody slowly became aware that Catherine was laughing. When he looked at her quizzically, waiting for an explanation, the woman was quick to let him in on the joke.

“Um, this might not have occurred to you but you and I come from the exact same place,” she pointed out.

He frowned as he steadied the ladder, picked up the sign and then began to climb up. She was right. “Yeah, well, then you should know that I wasn’t about to have you climbing up to the top, tottering on the ladder while you tried to hang this sign up. I was quick enough to catch you last time. I might not be this time.”

“I wasn’t going to try to hang it up,” she corrected with just a slight edge to her voice. She liked him and she knew he meant well, but she didn’t like being thought of as inept. “I was going to hang it up. There’s not exactly a need for an engineering degree when it comes to hanging up a sign,” Catherine pointed out. “And I figure I’ve filled my quota of falling off ladders. That was my first time and my only time,” she emphasized.

Cody looked down at her in silence for a long moment. For a brief second, she thought that he was just going to let go of the sign, climb down off the ladder and walk away.

But then, uttering an unintelligible noise—at least she couldn’t make any sense of it—Cody turned his attention to what had brought him up here in the first place. With an amazingly accurate eye, he hung the sign exactly in the middle, directly over the doorway. He did it without bothering to measure first, without resorting to any sort of gauges and without asking her for any visual guidance from her vantage point.

The man had a fantastic eye, she thought. It was obvious that he was a natural. One of those incredibly gifted souls who could build an entire building using a bent spoon, a wad of chewing gum and a set of popsicle sticks. He was creative without even knowing that he was. She was more convinced than ever that she had chosen the right man as her inspiration. He obviously came with fringe benefits—and muscles, she noted.

Her stomach seemed to tighten of its own accord.

Catherine stepped back, admiring the sign. “That’s absolutely perfect,” she pronounced as he came back down the ladder.

He didn’t bother looking up at his handiwork. Instead, he merely said, “I know.”

That sort of statement reeked of conceit, and yet, she realized, the man wasn’t conceited, nor did he actually sound that way. Instead, what he sounded was self-assured. He was a man who knew his limitations—if he actually possessed any—and he was obviously fairly comfortable in his own skin.

That, she knew, wasn’t often the case. Most people were usually hounded by insecurities, whether large or small.

“Must be nice,” Catherine couldn’t help commenting to him.

Again Cody raised a quizzical eyebrow as he looked at her, waiting for some sort of explanation or further elaboration.

“What is?” he finally asked when she didn’t elaborate further.

Her eyes met his. She consciously banked down the shiver that rose within her. “Being so confident.”

“Not a matter of confidence,” Cody told her. “Just a matter of knowing what I can and can’t do.”

She thought that was one and the same, but it was obviously different to him.

Be that as it may, she had no intention of getting into a discussion with Cody over this. She didn’t want this cowboy—who really did come across like the genuine article to her—to think she was trying to challenge him or trip him up. He seemed just perfect the way he was and she was fairly certain it would help business along for her if she could tap into this man’s likes and preferences. There had to be a lot more like him around here, right? And she wanted her merchandise to appeal to people with his sensibilities and preferences.

Cody took the ladder and returned it to the back room, pausing next to her just for a moment to ask, “Got anything else you need hung up?”

Catherine smiled as she shook her head. “Not at the moment,” she replied.

In response, he nodded his head and continued on his way. He replaced the ladder where he had found it, along with the hammer.

“I would, however, like to get your input on a few things,” she said, raising her voice so that it followed him into the back room.

He didn’t answer until he came out again. “Well, I’m here, might as well use me. Ask away,” he told her.

Might as well use me. Now there was a straight line if ever there was one, she couldn’t help thinking as she bit her tongue to keep quiet.

Instead, she beckoned Cody over to the counter where she had her laptop up and running. She’d set it up the minute she’d come in this morning, thinking to get a little online shopping done whenever she felt like taking a break. She had all the sites bookmarked.

“I’ve been looking through some eBay auctions of things I thought would be perfect for the shop,” she told Cody.

“So get them,” he advised.

“I’d like a second opinion,” she told him honestly. And that second opinion was where he came in. That was the deal.

“Why?” he wanted to know. “Don’t you trust your own judgment?”

“Yes I do,” she said. “But it’s always good to have reinforcement.”

He considered her words. The woman wasn’t headstrong, but she wasn’t wishy-washy, either. He found himself nodding in silent approval of this woman he’d just barely met.

Catherine Clifton was a good blend of various personalities, he thought. She was definitely different from most of the women he had interacted with since Renee’s passing. It wasn’t that he was in the market for another wife—one heartache in his lifetime was more than enough for him—but hell, at his age he wasn’t looking to up and join a monastery, either.

Only problem was, most of the women around here fell into two groups. The first group was mainly concerned with trivial things—things like what outfit or hairstyle looked best on them. Mindless things. And then there was that other group. The women who made no secret of the fact that they felt he was “broken” and they knew just how to “fix” him.

He wasn’t about to let that group get their hands on him, not by a hell of a long shot, he thought. He wasn’t “broken,” at least, not in a way that any of them could even begin to heal, and he wasn’t lonely, either. At least, not lonely enough to take up with any of those women for more than a couple of days or so. After that, he just lost patience with them, preferring his own company or the company of his horses to being subjected to endless, mindless chatter that somehow always managed to work the phrase “How do I look?” into the conversation.

Any conversation.

Looking at Catherine now, he couldn’t help wondering if ultimately she was going to fall into one of those two categories. He was probably wrong, but he had a hunch that she wasn’t.

A larger part of him felt that it really didn’t matter either way.

But just the smallest part of him hoped that he was right.

Chapter Four

“You planning on selling used clothes in the store, too?” Cody wanted to know when she showed him some of the things she’d acquired.

While the main focus of the shop was going to remain on vintage pieces of furniture, Catherine thought that bringing in a few items of clothing might actually draw in more potential customers and provide her clientele an eclectic selection to choose from. She intended to display the clothing in the same section of the shop that Cody had found the fringed coin purse he’d sent to his sister.

“They’re not used,” Catherine corrected, employing a euphemism. “They’re pre-owned.”

Cody snorted. “Fancy words,” he said, dismissing the term she’d substituted with a wave of his hand. Whatever she called them, if someone had worn them before, the clothes were still used.

To his surprise, Catherine didn’t argue. “Yes, they are, and they’re meant to convey a different image,” she told him. To show him what she meant, she opened up a large cardboard box. Inside were the various articles of clothing that she had managed to collect so far. “Everything in here has been cleaned, pressed and, in some cases, mended,” she allowed. “But they’re not rags,” she quickly specified, guessing what was going through Cody’s mind. She raised her eyes to his face. “Every item in here has a story. Every castoff has potential.”

Cody realized that she was looking at him and not at anything in particular that she had inside the box. For a second, he was going to ask her if she was trying to tell him something, then decided he was probably reading far too much into her tone.

Glancing at the contents of the box, he saw a brightly beaded shirt and a multicolored scarf that would have looked more at home around her neck lying right on top of the pile of clothing.

He fingered the scarf for a second. Soft, he thought. Just like her skin.

Now how the hell would he have known that? A little unnerved, he let the scarf drop back into the box.

“So this is going to be like a thrift shop?” he asked, trying to get a handle on what her actual intent was.

A thrift shop tended to suggest rock-bottom prices, and she was going for an image that was a little more exclusive than that.

“No, it’s not going to be that inexpensive,” she explained with a smile. “I’m thinking more along the lines that one man’s ‘junk’ can turn out to be another man’s treasure.”

Cody rummaged a little deeper into the box, then laughed shortly. There was nothing exactly impressive to be found in there.

A hint of amusement was evident in his eyes when he looked at her. “Kind of stretching the word ‘treasure’ a mite, aren’t you?”

She didn’t quite see it that way. “It’s like that saying about beauty being in the eyes of the beholder,” Catherine pointed out. “You never know what might appeal to a person.” And then she smiled broadly at him. “Which is what I have you for.”

Cody looked at the woman he’d struck a bargain with. Maybe he needed to rethink this arrangement a bit. Since she had given him that purse for Caroline in exchange for his so-called services, he felt obligated to give her something in return. But at the moment, that wasn’t as easy as it might have sounded to an outsider. The truth of it was, he really had very few “likes” himself. For him it had always been more of a case of just “making do.”

Cody felt it was only right to try to explain that to her. “I’m a simple man, Catherine,” he told her. “If you’re waiting for me to get excited about something, you’ve got a long wait ahead of you.”

There was that shiver again, Catherine thought as it shimmied up and down her spine. That wonderful/strange sensation that insisted on undulating along her back as if she was anticipating something.

Something from him.

Pressing her lips together, Catherine did her best to block the feeling. To ignore it and just focus on the business at hand.

Still, she couldn’t help saying, “I’m sure it’ll be worth waiting for when it finally happens.”

Damn, but there was something about this woman, Cody caught himself thinking, the thought flashing across his mind completely out of the blue. Something that stirred up his insides like one of those food processors he’d seen demonstrated once. All without any warning.

And when she tilted her head just like that—as if that could help her understand something—the sun wound up getting caught in her hair and he could see reddish streaks lacing through it.

Warming his blood.

Warming him.

And, yeah, by God, tempting him, he silently admitted.

Maybe he should just kiss her and get it over with, Cody thought, doing his best to be pragmatic. That way, maybe his thoughts would finally stop going where they didn’t belong and he could get back to focusing on “paying up his debt” to her. He didn’t like being beholden to anyone, even someone as pretty as Catherine.

For just the tiniest split second, he debated acting on the thought. Debated kissing her purely for practical reasons.

He even leaned into her a little. And once he did, he started to go through the rest of the motions. His eyes held her prisoner just as much as hers managed to hold him in the same cell.

His lips were almost touching hers—

And then the bell over the doorway went off, splintering the moment. Breaking the mood.

Announcing the presence of another person entering their private space.

Acute discomfort, laced through with a prickly dose of guilt, had Cody taking a step back away from his intended target before he looked in the direction of the offending doorway.

“I thought you said you were closed,” he said to Catherine, his tone dark.

It almost sounded like an accusation, Catherine thought, even as she tried to figure out exactly what had just happened here—and what hadn’t happened.

“I am,” she finally answered, the words emerging from her lips in slow, confused motion.

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