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“I’ll leave some money on the table with the letter.”
Rena thought about making it clear to him that she intended to pay her share but decided it wouldn’t do any good. She’d just leave the money on the table and argue with him tomorrow.
She smiled and made her way up the ladder, more than ready to change into a nightgown, crawl beneath the warm quilt on her soft bed, and fall into a deep sleep.
Joshworkedonstampinga design of acanthus scrolls onto a piece of leather while whistling a rather boisterous rendition of “Listen to the Mockingbird.”
He wasn’t one who normally whistled while he worked, but he’d whistled nearly every tune he knew, some of them twice, as he worked in his shop.
The reason for his good mood wasn’t something he cared to think about. If he traced the source, an image of Rena Burke immediately popped into his thoughts.
Yesterday, when he’d heard Gabi scream, he’d felt his heart plummet to his feet while he’d raced off to battle whatever demon had laid siege to his child. He’d charged through the trees by the creek to find Gabi happily speaking with a woman who was a complete and utter mystery to him.
Rena had worn wrinkled clothes that hung loose and large on her thin frame. If it hadn’t been for her glorious waves of rich brown hair flowing around her, and her lovely face, he might have mistaken her for a boy.
As it was, he couldn’t get a vision of that hair or her teasing smile out of his mind. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
Nearly four years had passed since he’d lost his wife, and in that time, he hadn’t given another woman more than a passing glance.
Yet, one evening spent in the company of Rena Burke had him whistling tunes and so lost in his daydreams he was likely to wound himself or mess up the custom piece he worked to create.
Josh shook his head to clear his thoughts and examined the belt over which he labored. The pattern he was stamping flowed beautifully across the leather. Since it looked exactly as he wanted, he returned to tamping in the design. Jace Coleman had ordered four belts: one for his wife, which Josh worked on now, and one for each of his young sons.
As Josh envisioned the looks on the faces of the Coleman lads when they received the belts, he grinned. They were just like the belts the cowboys at Elk Creek Ranch wore. No doubt, the three boys would race out to the bunkhouse and show the hired hands their new belts as soon as they received them.
A chuckle rolled out of him as Josh thought of the youngest Coleman boy. Zach was absolutely daffy about trains. Considering the years Jace had worked as an engineer, it wasn’t any wonder at least one of his boys would also love trains. Jonah and Noah, though, were going to be ranchers through and through.
Unaware of his actions, Josh began to whistle again. Movement outside drew his gaze to the street. He stopped with his mallet in midair and watched Rena ride by on her mule. The poor critter looked old enough to have carried Methuselah, but he clip-clopped along in a steady rhythm as Rena guided him up the street. He wondered what brought her to town. She hadn’t mentioned riding into Holiday last night.
Of their own volition, Josh’s feet carried him across the shop to the front windows. He watched as Rena looped the reins around the hitching rail outside the mercantile down the street. If the mule jerked hard, the worn-out leather of that bridle would snap in two. It would be an easy thing to repair. In fact, he had an old bridle in a box of discarded tack he’d gladly give to her.
Josh had his hand on the doorknob to hustle across the street to see Rena before he realized what he was doing.
“Focus. Focus,” he uttered to himself and backed away from the door. Just because Rena had come to town didn’t mean he needed to abandon all his good sense and rush over to the mercantile just to see if he could make her smile.
Throughout their shared meal the previous evening, he’d found her to be intelligent, amusing, and kind. She’d laughed at his jokes, teased Theo, and sweetly spoken to Gabi when his daughter had joined the conversation.
Gabi had chattered like a magpie all the way home about her new friend and how much she liked her.
Josh liked her too.
Far more than he should, considering he’d just met the woman. After all, there was a process to getting to know a person. Time, patience, and effort from both parties were necessary. The urge to rush headlong into something just because the thought of seeing her made his heart thump around in his chest was absurd.
Since he’d lost Maxine, he’d felt like he didn’t have any heart left when it came to romance, but his encounter with Rena had assured him he did.
Theo had mentioned his cousin had been in a terrible accident that had changed her life, but he hadn’t gone into any detail. Other than the barest hint of a limp that Rena tried hard to hide, Josh couldn’t see any visible marks on the woman. He assumed the accident had something to do with her choice to dress in trousers instead of wearing a skirt. Or maybe she’d found it easier to travel in them since she was out on the trail alone.
It was a wonder that men hadn’t waylaid her on her travels from Texas to Oregon. She might not be a raving beauty by polite society’s standards, but he’d found her undeniably striking from that mass of thick hair to the freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks.
Maybe it was that she was more adorably enchanting than pretty, but he’d experienced an immediate attraction to her, and that petrified him. It wasn’t so much the notion of being in love but loving a woman who was all wrong for him and Gabi.
Rena wasn’t the type of female to sit at home knitting socks or embroidering linens, or fetching his slippers when he arrived home from a day of work at the saddle shop.
From the lively spark in her amber-hued eyes to the slight cleft in her chin, he had an idea Rena would prove to be independent, stubborn, and even a little wild.
That was fine. Josh had no interest in or intention of taming her.
His own wild child was more than enough for him to focus on. He didn’t need to become enamored with a woman who seemed as unattainable as the fairies and sprites he’d convinced Gabi really existed.
