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  Cody pinned her with a long, penetrating look. She met it head-on, her chin raised stubbornly. She was waiting for him to say something.

  “People don’t spend time talking about me.” He all but growled out the words.

  “You’d be surprised,” she countered cheerfully. “This is a small town. Not a heck of a whole lot to talk about except the people who come and go here. And you,” she elaborated, “are tall—really tall—and you might not be ‘dark,’ but you do have this brooding air about you. That makes you just perfect for speculation and gossip from some people’s point of view.”

  He resented people poking into his life, invading his privacy, but he supposed she did have a point. There were times when it seemed like gossip was the main thing that was produced in Thunder Canyon.

  “Then you knew about Renee,” he assumed out loud. And if she had, it suddenly occurred to him, why was she asking questions?

  “No, I didn’t,” she maintained. “I wouldn’t have asked you if I did. I don’t go around inflicting pain on people, and I can see now that this talking about your late wife causes you a great deal of pain. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to open any old wounds.”

  He didn’t like being seen as vulnerable—even when he was.

  Unconsciously squaring his shoulders, he lowered his eyes to his meal, but he addressed the question Catherine had asked earlier and answered it more fully. “Renee came down with cancer. Fought it like a champion, but in the end, the damn disease won.” There was a defiant look in his eyes when he raised them to hers again. “Anything else you want to know?”

  “Yes,” she answered. Then, as he visibly braced himself to be ready for whatever unintentionally painful question came out of her mouth, Catherine—an extremely serious expression on her face—asked, “You going to eat those?” She pointed to the fries he seemed to have abandoned on his plate as he’d turned his attention to the ribs he’d ordered.

  “Yes, I am,” he informed her. And then the formal tone he’d adopted slipped away as he added, “But I’ll share ’em with you.”

  Catherine grinned. “Can’t ask for anything more than that.”

  There was a challenge in the look he gave her. “Sure you can. Women always do.”

  “Maybe you haven’t known enough women,” she suggested.

  “Maybe,” he conceded.

  Cody had to admit that he liked the way she held her ground and wasn’t cowed or scared off by his somber reaction. He especially liked that her eyes hadn’t filled with overwhelming pity when she’d heard about Renee. Maybe she really wasn’t one of those women who felt they had an absolute obligation to fix every man they deemed was broken.

  That alone made Catherine Clifton pretty unique in his book.

  “You’re right,” he told her after several beats had gone by.

  She waited until several more beats had slipped away. When Cody didn’t elaborate on his initial statement, she felt that this time she was within her rights to press him.

  “Right about what?”

  He nodded at the spareribs on his plate, or rather at just the bare ribs since that was all that was left. “This is good. Was good,” he amended.

  “Never heard of anyone walking out of here dissatisfied,” she told him, obviously pleased that he had decided to be straightforward with her and rescind his initial skepticism. There were men, she knew, who would rather go to their grave than to tell a woman that she was right and they were wrong.

  She wasn’t exactly sure why it pleased her so much that Cody didn’t fall into that category, but it did.

  “I guess DJ’s doing well for himself,” Cody commented after a bit.

  She couldn’t tell if Cody was envious of the younger man or not, then decided that the man she was getting to know wasn’t the sort to harbor emotions such as jealousy or even envy. He seemed to be above that kind of petty behavior.

  “He doesn’t have any complaints,” she answered. “But I think he counts himself luckier that he has Allaire in his life.”

  The moment she said it, Catherine immediately clamped her lips together. Because she knew that nothing meant as much to DJ as his wife, what she’d just said had come out without any hesitation. But once her words echoed back to her, Catherine realized that it had to seem to him that she was rubbing salt into his wounds.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized haltingly, not sure how to phrase this or even if she should just keep quiet altogether. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Why not?” Cody wanted to know. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  That wasn’t the point. The point was that she’d accidentally seemed callous. “Yes, but—”

  “If it’s true, then there is no ‘but.’ What, you’re afraid that what you just said will set off a fresh wave of pain in my gut?” he wanted to know. The laugh that emerged from his lips was harsh, without a single trace of humor in it. “I don’t need to have to hear someone saying something for that to happen. The pain’s there all the time, but I’m doing my damndest to finally make my peace with it.”

  “Well, I wasn’t exactly helping the process—” she began before becoming bogged down in her apology. She wasn’t really sure where to go from here.

  He looked at her for another very long moment. So long that it seemed almost endless to her, but she didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. And then he finally spoke. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you were. You certainly thought you were, bringing me out here.”

  She wasn’t trying to be underhanded, she thought defensively. “I brought you out here just to say thank you,” she reminded him.

  “For that, all you had to do was just move your lips, not drive all the way over here.” Then, because it did sound to him as if he was complaining, Cody amended his statement by saying, “But, to be fair, this did turn out to be a much nicer experience than I thought it was going to be.”

  Was that actually a compliment? Catherine looked at the source of her inspiration uncertainly. “Just what was it that you were expecting?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a vague half shrug. “Mediocre food at best and awkwardness.”

  Catherine couldn’t help laughing. “Well, you certainly are honest.”

  He appeared surprised by the assessment and by the fact that his being that way would have caught this deceptively easygoing woman off guard. He was beginning to realize that she was pretty damn sharp.

  “No point in being anything else,” he told her matter-of-factly. Finished, he wiped his lips with his napkin then looked down thoughtfully at his plate. “You know, maybe I will have seconds.”

  Although he saw it quite by accident as he was looking around for their waitress, Cody caught the pleased look in Catherine’s eyes. Caught it and found himself responding to it in ways he would have sworn on a stack of Bibles were all behind him.

  Part of him thought he’d made a mistake when he’d changed his mind about leaving earlier. The part that was warming up, though, felt he would have made the mistake if he had picked up and left.

  Right now, it was a toss-up which part was actually right.

  * * *

  The rest of the evening turned out to be even more fun than he’d thought possible. And it all had to do with something he’d told himself he no longer felt up to doing: socializing.

  Several people he hadn’t even given a thought to in the last eight years stopped by their table to greet him, exchange a few words and express their pleasure at seeing him “out and about again,” something that had last occurred just before Renee had been diagnosed with cancer.

  While he had never been one to crave company and had been more than content when it had been just Renee and him tucked away on his ranch, Cody’d found that interacting with some of their neighbors and Renee’s friends had amounted to a fairly pleasant experience whenever it occurred.

  In large measure, he’d done it for Renee because he knew that it pleased her to mingle like this. The same way it pleased her to help others whenever she
could. It was just the kind of woman she was.

  Selfless.

  Being here with Catherine now brought all that back to him. But rather than overwhelm him with waves of unbearable sorrow, it seemed to pull him toward the present and away from the past.

  And ever so slowly, it was beginning to make him feel that maybe, just maybe, there actually was a future for him after all.

  Maybe it was a stretch to admit this, but if he was being honest—with himself if with no one else—he’d have to say that he was really enjoying this effervescent woman’s company.

  He was even enjoying listening to her share her plans for the shop with him. In a way, it was like listening to a child anticipating a visit from that iconic jolly old elf, Santa Claus.

  Though Cody was fairly certain that this woman probably wasn’t really as innocent as she seemed, Catherine did display an innocent, almost childlike exuberance when she talked about making a success of the shop she’d bought. He realized that she was really committed to that.

  He caught himself thinking that he could listen to her talk about the shop for hours.

  Which was, more or less, what he wound up doing.

  * * *

  As if suddenly becoming aware that she’d had gone on and on, dragging Cody into all her plans and hopes, Catherine’s narrative came to an abrupt halt as she cried, “I’ve talked your ears off.”

  After they’d finally left the restaurant, Cody and she had driven back to the shop and then had gone on a long, leisurely stroll—to “walk off the calories.”

  At least that was the way that Catherine had put it, but he had a hunch that if those calories were actually falling away, they were doing so in what felt like complete slow motion.

  The lengthy stroll came to an end right before the shop. It was where she’d decided to crash tonight in order to get an early start in the morning. When Catherine had bought the boarded-up store, she’d realized that there were two inhabitable floors directly above the ground floor. She’d decided to retain the second floor for herself, creating an office and a place to crash when she needed to. The third floor she wound up renting out to a woman who was working at the Gallatin Room as a part-time waitress/bartender.

  In response to her protest that she’d talked his ears off, Cody quietly made a solemn show of touching first one ear, then the other.

  “Nope,” he deadpanned. “You didn’t talk them off. Looks like they’re both still there.”

  Her eyes widened as if she’d just been privy to a huge revelation. And in a way, she was.

  “You’ve got a sense of humor,” she cried in delighted surprise, then smiled. “That’s a really good thing to know for future reference.”

  He didn’t see why, but he had a feeling that asking might get him even more deeply embroiled in a scenario he didn’t understand. Instead, he merely shrugged carelessly. “Didn’t know that my having or not having a sense of humor was a point of concern.”

  “It’s just better to have one than not have one,” Catherine told him. She really couldn’t relate to someone who didn’t have a sense of humor. “Well, I’m really glad you let me drag you out,” she said, putting out her hand to him.

  Saying that was her way of letting Cody maintain his solemn facade. In her heart she knew that if Cody hadn’t wanted to come along, not even dynamite would have compelled him to go out to DJ’s.

  Her smile widened as she fixed it on Cody. “I had a great time.”

  He inclined his head, covering her slender hand with his own. “Yeah, it wasn’t bad,” he conceded.

  Emulating a heroine in a melodrama, Catherine placed the back of her free hand to her forehead, like a woman subject to “vapors.”

  “Please, such heady praise. I’m not sure I can handle it.” And then the sound of her laughter—light and melodic—filled the still night air like silver bells. “Don’t forget, I’m counting on you being there at the grand opening next week,” she said, wanting to remind him before he left.

  “I’ll be there,” Cody promised.

  Okay, this was the part, he told himself, where he slipped his hand from hers and walked off to his truck.

  The only problem was, his hand wasn’t slipping from hers. He was still holding it, still looking down into her mesmerizing, upturned brown eyes.

  Still feeling all sorts of things going on in the pit of his stomach. Things that had nothing to do with the meal he’d just had and everything to do with the woman he’d had it with.

  Before he knew it, rather than releasing her hand and turning away to walk to his vehicle, Cody found that he’d pulled Catherine to him.

  When he finally let go of her hand, it was because he needed both of his to frame her face.

  His heart was suddenly doing a fair imitation of a race car’s engine. He felt it launch into triple time as he anticipated what he knew was coming next.

  With his breath lodged in his throat, Cody felt like some damn teenager. Even so, he framed Catherine’s face between his hands, inclined his head more than a little in order to reach her lips—and then he kissed her.

  A second later, all hell suddenly broke loose, threatening the stability of the immediate world.

  It certainly threatened his.

  Chapter Nine

  What the hell was he doing? Had he completely lost his mind?

  Faintly whispered questions involving the condition of his sanity assaulted Cody from all sides as the kiss that had surprised him just as much as it did the woman who was on the receiving end of it deepened and grew in intensity.

  Cody had no answers to those questions, nor could he spare the energy to formulate any. Every molecule in his body was entirely focused was on what was happening right at this moment.

  The longer he kissed Catherine, the greater his need to kiss her became until Cody felt as if he was being pulled into some bottomless vortex where the only thing that truly mattered was this woman and the feeling generated between them.

  Cody dropped his hands from her face and used them to draw her closer to him. So close that it seemed as if they were melding into one another, two halves of a very unique whole.

  He really wasn’t sure where he left off and Catherine began.

  It didn’t matter.

  Damn, but she made his blood rush and his head spin. Not only that, but he was fairly certain that there was very little air left in his lungs. That, too, didn’t matter.

  Nothing mattered but this moment, this feeling. This woman.

  Caught completely off guard, there wasn’t even half a second to spare for surprise to register. What did register was pleasure. Absolutely, profound, exquisite pleasure.

  Catherine had had her suspicions that this loner of a cowboy could make her blood heat to almost boiling and now she knew that she’d been right.

  But this wasn’t the time for any triumphant feelings or even the time to think.

  Because she couldn’t.

  Couldn’t, she was fairly certain, even answer the simplest of questions because her brain had just short-circuited in the intense heat that had flashed through her like a raw current from a lightning bolt. All she really knew was that she was grateful Cody was holding her as closely as he was because she was sure that her entire body had taken on the composition of a liquid.

  More specifically, the composition of molten lava.

  Cody knew he had to step back and step back now because even five more seconds like this and the whole situation would be completely out of his hands and way out of control.

  Even now, all he really wanted to do was take Catherine inside her store and make love to her until they were both light years beyond exhausted.

  But there would be consequences if he did that. Consequences he wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with.

  So, with more effort than he’d thought would be necessary, more effort than he’d ever had to employ with anyone before, Cody forced himself to pull back.

  Even after he did, his heart continued slamming again
st his rib cage like a newly incarcerated prisoner trying to break free of the iron bars he found looming before him.

  Hell.

  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.

  He took in a deep breath, nodding his approval even though he was uncertain exactly what it was he was approving. Right now, confusion ruled and he wasn’t even sure which direction was up and which was down.

  Kissing her had turned his world on its ear.

  “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.

  Catherine stood exactly where she was, watching the truck as it grew smaller and smaller before disappearing around the corner.

  The crisp September air had a definite chill in it, whispering of winter’s nearness. She didn’t feel it. At this very moment, she was aware of being extremely hot to the point that had she been dressed in shorts and a tank top, she would have still been radiating heat from every pore in her body.

  Catherine did her best to think, to review the events as they had transpired, and found that she was going to have to delay that until a later time. Her brain had temporarily ceased functioning and gave no indication that it was about to kick in again.

  At least not for a while.

  Hugging her shawl to her, Catherine went inside the shop, encased in the moment and a contentment she’d never experienced before.

  Her mouth curved. It looked like her vintage cowboy was certainly full of surprises.