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“He’s got a point,” he admitted. “Gil has a reputation of his own. Not many men tougher. He could have worked in any big-city department with his background, but he likes small towns. My good luck that he liked ours. The whole county could fit inside the city limits of Denver, almost.” He laughed.
“It’s a nice place. I loved it here when I was little. I hated when my parents divorced and I had to leave. If I could have stayed with Dad, I’d know what to do with the ranch.”
He averted his eyes. “Ever think of selling it?”
“Every day,” she confessed, and missed the sudden light in his eyes. “But then I think of my father and how hard he worked to make it prosperous, and I realize that I can’t sell it. So my only options are to learn ranch management or hire a professional.”
“Hiring a professional can be risky,” he said to discourage her. “You don’t know who you can trust until it’s too late, sometimes.”
“That’s me. I don’t really trust people anymore,” she said. “Well, I’ll get back to work on the next case. That assault case . . .”
“No.”
She stared at him.
“That’s Gil’s case,” he said. He smiled. “We’ll keep you out of dangerous scrapes, just for a little while. Okay?”
He was a very nice man. “Okay.”
“Thought any more about the dance?”
She had. And something had happened that changed her mind. Her father had invested in an oil company, and the checks from the investment company fed directly into the joint checking account she and her father had started when they saw his health begin to fail. She had a windfall of several hundred dollars. More than enough to buy one nice dress and some shoes to match.
“I’ll go,” she said.
He brightened. “You will? That’s great!”
“What’s great?” Gil asked as he walked in.
“Meadow’s going to the Christmas party with me.”
Gil glared at him. “No fair. I didn’t even have a chance to ask her.”
Meadow felt valuable. She grinned at him. “I’ll still dance with you, if you come.”
“I can do fancy dances,” Gil said, scoffing at the sheriff. “He just stands in one place and shuffles his feet.”
Meadow laughed. “I don’t mind.”
“You can have one dance,” Jeff told his deputy. “I’m pulling rank. Now go to work before I volunteer you to direct traffic at the high school football game.”
“Sadist,” Gil muttered as he passed.
They all laughed.
* * *
Meadow bought a red dress. She hadn’t meant to, but she kept recalling Dal Blake’s blistering comments about her efforts to seduce him when she was seventeen. Red dresses had played a big part in what there was of their relationship. The first red one had ended in a coal bin, the second in a punch bowl. Third time lucky, maybe, she wondered.
But this red dress wasn’t like the one that hadn’t survived the accident with the coal bin. It was made of deep red velvet with black accents. It fell to her ankles. The bodice was ruffled, with wide shoulder straps that added to its elegance and made Meadow’s small breasts look larger. The color, against her fairness, was flattering. So was the fit that emphasized her small waist and nicely rounded hips. She bought a pair of strappy black leather high heels to wear with it. She planned to put a soft wave in her hair for the event and leave it long, around her shoulders, and put a black silk orchid in her hair. The effect would be exotic, to say the least. And hopefully it would erase Dal’s memory of the clumsy, sad young woman she’d been at seventeen.
Also, hopefully, it would erase the memory of the second red dress that had met the punch bowl, at the Christmas party where Dal had kissed her so hungrily in front of the whole crowd. Just thinking about that kiss under the mistletoe made her tingle all over, and that would never do. She’d dance only with Jeff—and maybe Gil—and leave Dal to his florist. She knew that he’d never want to dance with her. He didn’t even like her.
* * *
Snow was mending nicely. She’d healed from her mishap with the wire fence, and Meadow had been meticulous about going out with her any time she had to use the bathroom during the night and early morning. When Meadow went to work, she put a pad down for accidents and bolted the dog flap shut. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it seemed to work.
At least, Snow wasn’t up visiting Dal. But Jarvis was still making his rounds, snow and all. She wondered how the big cat even got through the snow, when it was almost a foot deep. He came in the dog flap late one afternoon and rolled around her ankles, purring like mad.
