AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mia’s shoulders sagged, but she dutifully crossed the room to flip the sign to “Closed.” She knew when she’d been beat. Gram only whipped out her tragic sigh for situations she truly considered emergencies. If Mia ignored that sigh, she’d pay in guilt trips for the next three weeks of Friday night family suppers.
“Got it, Gram,” she said. “I’ll head out now.”
“Bless you, baby,” Gram said, obviously pleased.
“Is there anything special you want me to tell this guy, or just the standard town legend stuff?”
“Just the usual.” Gram said. “But play it up a little. And be friendly! We want this man to be as excited about this project as we are, and inclined to give us a reasonable quote.”
“Gotcha.” Mia took a moment to write down the man’s name—Felix Kane—phone number, and the place where Davy had agreed to meet him at four, before telling her grandmother goodbye and heading out to where her white pickup was wedged into the narrow shop owner’s parking spot behind the shop.
Within a few minutes, she had left downtown behind and was rolling down the narrow, graying strip of pavement leading to Old Lonesome Point. Despite the heat, she rolled down the windows and let the warm air whip through the cabin, carrying the smells of sweet columbine and desert sage with it. Mia breathed deep, the scents putting a smile on her face. Some of her best memories as a child were of coming to Old Town with her grandmother, trailing after Gram as she spruced up the decorations in the exhibits, and told stories about their ancestors who had founded the town.
By the time Mia arrived at the entrance to the ghost town, she was glad she’d had an excuse to play hooky and come walk around her old stomping grounds. Seeing the parking lot of the visitor center still half full this late in the day was an additional bonus.
Mia made a mental note to tell Gram it looked like business was booming. Emily was smart to sink more money into expanding the historical site while times were good. Mia’s parents thought the historical trust would be better off investing the money in mutual funds, so that when the original tourist destination needed major renovations in ten to fifteen years, the society would be ready, but Gram had always dreamed of seeing all of Old Town restored to its Wild West glory.
No matter how crazy Gram drove Mia sometimes, she agreed that the society should go big or go home. Bragging rights to the biggest restored ghost town in the United States were no small prize, and an old woman so close to her stepping off place deserved the chance to reach for her dreams with both hands.
Mia guided her pickup through the parking lot to the narrow access road leading behind the wooden clapboard gates of the active exhibit to the ten-foot barbed wire fence surrounding the crumbling buildings Gram was hoping to restore. She was still a few hundred feet away from the gate where she was supposed to meet Felix Kane when she saw a familiar Harley parked on the side of the dirt road.
“Couldn’t be,” she said, but the hair on her arms was standing on end, and a warm, nervous-yet-excited feeling oozed through her chest like molasses melting on Gram’s bacon-and-sweet-onion pancakes.
When she parked the truck and hopped out to see a tall silhouette in a dusty Stetson and dark blue jeans that molded to his impressive thighs swaggering toward her from further down the fence, she wasn’tthatsurprised. Or displeased.
Maybe fate was nudging her in Sawyer’s direction, after all…
The thought made her heart beat faster as she shaded her eyes from the sun, watching Sawyer close the distance between them. “You don’t look like Felix Kane,” she said when he stopped a few feet away.
“And you don’t look like Davy Pyle,” Sawyer answered, a smile on his shadowed face. He looked happy to see her, despite the fact that she’d turned him down for a date, compared him to a Mexican wrestler, and all but thrown him out of her shop.
“Davy had a health scare.” Mia hurried on when Sawyer’s brow creased with concern. “He’s going to be fine, but he needs to stay off his feet for a while. My grandmother is the president of the historical society, so she asked me to come give you the tour instead. Or give Felix the tour.” She turned, surveying the tumbleweed-littered land around them. “Will he be joining us?”
Sawyer shook his head. “Felix is my great uncle, and partner. He hasn’t been feeling his best, either, so I said I’d come down alone and consult in his place. He’ll fly down to advise if we get the job, but I’ve been working for him since I was sixteen, and have over a decade of experience. I can answer any of your questions, and give you a detailed quote.”
Mia smiled. “You don’t have to sell yourself to me, but make sure you have your résumé handy if my grandmother calls. She’s a hard ass.”
“Will do.” Sawyer’s eyes crinkled around the edges, making him look even more like he walked off the set of a Hollywood movie.
He really was a stunning man. But Paul had been stunning, too, with captivating blue eyes that drew women to him like mosquitoes to a bug zapper, and an intense, personal energy that Mia had found irresistible, at first, and terrifying later on. In her experience, stunning, magnetic men were dangerous, and she wasn’t prepared to let her guard down around Sawyer just yet.
“So, shall we start the tour?” she asked, keeping her tone businesslike as she led the way toward the gate.
“Definitely.” Sawyer followed behind her. “I’ve already walked all the way around, but I’m dying to get inside. This place is amazing.”
“I’ve always loved it.” Mia ushered Sawyer through the gate and closed it behind them to make sure no tourists wandered into the dangerous area. Most of the buildings in this section hadn’t even had so much as a cursory inspection since the eighties, and were a liability suit waiting to happen. “I used to come here with my grandmother all the time. We’re descended from the town founder, Rupert Everett, who led an expedition to mine metal mercury around the butte for Everett, Cooper, and Company in the early 1800s. His wife, Amelia Sherman, is my ancestor, and namesake.”
“I read that,” Sawyer said, as they started down what used to be the main drag of Old Lonesome Point. “Like I said, I didn’t mean to pry, but I did plug your name into a search engine.”
“I’ll have to learn not to give my last name to strange men,” Mia said, casting him a sideways glance.
His lips—those full, shapely lips she kept trying not to look at too closely—twitched. “Well, if you didn’t go around kissing them first, you probably wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Have to work on that, too.” Mia fought the urge to smile, still not sure flirting with this man was a good idea. “On your right, you’ll see the original Lonesome Point Hotel and Saloon. This is one of the first structures the society would like to see restored. Amelia built this hotel after her husband, Rupert, died on their wedding night. That’s why she went back to using Sherman. She said it didn’t feel right being an Everett when she’d barely been married a few hours before her husband passed. She gave her child by Rupert the last name of Sherman, too, and ran the hotel alone until her death at age sixty-seven, maintaining order with a shotgun and a series of vicious male wolf dogs, all named Paula, after the patron saint of widows.”
“Male wolf dogs?” Sawyer asked, lifting a brow.
Mia nodded. “Named Paula.”
