smiled slightly and sighed at the same time. Her dad had been tough on Bobby all day—not just his usual silent observation, but heavy disapproval coupled with a level of expectation his children could never meet. Robert Maxwell didn’t suffer mistakes or fools. Thea had learned over the years how to avoid both. Most of the time.
But Bobby enjoyed courting disaster. He didn’t look ahead and he didn’t look behind, and he never seemed to notice what havoc his behavior wreaked in other lives. Her own, for example. She’d been his shield, his defender, for half her life. Jolie and Cassie had taken off, leaving her to fill the role of mother/daughter/sister/ranch hand. Sure, she loved the job. She worked hard every day to earn her dad’s respect, because she loved him, too. And, of course, she loved Bobby to distraction.
“So why am I sitting here whining?” She watched folks she knew heading into the bar, but couldn’t hunt up any enthusiasm for joining them. The stores in town closed down by six on Saturdays, so she couldn’t go shopping, not that there was anything she needed to buy. A drive back out to the ranch, a check on a couple of the cows she and her dad were worried about, and then that romance novel she’d gotten in the mail but hadn’t had time to open…
“Is this your night for trouble?”
The one voice she hadn’t wanted to hear came from just outside her window. Thea turned slowly. “Well, hello, Deputy. Somebody already started a fight in there?” He had not, unfortunately, grown hairy warts or developed a squint since last night. The man was inhumanly attractive.
And his grin could melt granite. “I’ll give it a couple more hours. Most of them have to be really tanked to start hitting. Speaking of which, I notice your brother picked up his truck.”
Thea clenched her teeth. “How observant of you.”
Hands on his hips, he stared at her a second, then shook his head and tipped his hat back slightly. “My fault. That comment was uncalled for and unfair. I apologize.”
Again unfortunately, Thea could tell he meant what he said. Something cold inside of her started to thaw. “That…that’s okay. Bobby’s hard to handle. But he’s not mean.”
“I guessed that. Makes it hard to stay firm with him, I bet.”
Damn his insight. She tried to be flippant, to hide an inclination to melt even further. “Easy enough to see, since we’ve obviously spoiled him rotten.”
Rafe Rafferty didn’t move, but he withdrew as completely as if he’d stepped back three paces. “You said it, not me.” With two fingers, he resettled his Stetson. “Have a good evening, Ms. Maxwell.”
Thea refused to watch him return to his nice silver truck—she didn’t want to know how he looked from behind or how he walked, with those long legs and narrow hips. She made a big production out of getting the Land Rover started and into gear.
But she looked up just as he drove past. For a second she thought he had a woman in the passenger seat…and then realized that a dog sat straight and tall beside him, floppy ears blowing lightly in the breeze through the open window, sad and wrinkled face about as contented as a bloodhound ever could look.
Thea put her head back against the seat and groaned. Was anything ever more calculated to get and hold a woman’s attention than a gorgeous single man and his totally ugly, totally lovable dog?
That might, she decided on the quiet drive back to the ranch, be the point. A man as handsome, as polished, as Rafe Rafferty had no doubt sampled his share of girlfriends. Just last night, he’d shown how quickly he could turn to flirting. And if flirting didn’t work, a man that smart would no doubt determine the quickest, surest way to get what he wanted—including a girlfriend. A dog ranked up there with diamonds, as far as Thea was concerned. No…above diamonds. How could a cold stone compare to the unfailing love of your best friend?
But she didn’t intend to fall for the ploy. She’d learned from experience that men, especially flirtatious and handsome ones, made more trouble than they were worth. She had enough to do keeping Bobby in line—trying to keep Bobby in line—and doing her job to her dad’s satisfaction. So what if she was lonely sometimes, if her bed…her life…seemed cold?
Maybe she should just get herself a dog.
FOR FOUR GENERATIONS, the Maxwell family had occupied the same pew every Sunday in the First—and only—Methodist Church of Paradise Corners. This week was no exception.
Even though Bobby hadn’t come in until after three. Even though Thea had lain awake for the next hour, listening to her dad’s sharp reprimands and her brother’s sullen protests, cut off, in the end, by a slamming door.
They drove to town in the dark blue Cadillac Robert Maxwell had owned for almost twenty years now, with Thea in the front passenger seat and Bobby slumped in the back behind the driver. His eyes were closed, but he didn’t look as if he’d spent the night before drunk. His blue shirt, yellow tie and khaki slacks were practically an apology in themselves.
But no one said a word. Thea considered making conversation, but decided she didn’t have anything to say to either of the stubborn men she lived with. As far as she was concerned this morning, the entire male sex—including and especially Deputy Sheriff Rafferty—could kick itself into that deep gorge out behind the church’s cemetery and stay there. How much simpler her life would be then.
The fall morning was gorgeous, with the foliage nearing its peak of color. A small grove of aspens beside the white-sided church building quaked in the breeze, their gold leaves like little pieces of sunlight drifting to the ground. Thea stood for a minute, appreciating the view. As she resumed her progress to the door, a tall, broad-shouldered shadow fell onto the brick walk ahead of her. Her skin prickled and her breath shortened—she didn’t have to wonder whose shade she’d stepped into. Next thing she knew, Rafe Rafferty was walking beside her.
“Do you think,” he said without looking her way, “that if I kept to the weather and the scenery, we could possibly get through a whole conversation without some kind of insult?”
She barely held in her chuckle. “Depends on what you have to say about the scenery. I’m not making any guarantees ahead of time, if you’re planning on insulting Paradise Corners.”
He heaved a loud sigh. “I was just thinking how green Montana is. Even with the leaves turning, there’s some kind of green everywhere you look.”
“That’s the evergreens—white pine and lodgepole pine, the cedars and junipers and spruces. Even when the last leaves fall, there’s still color in the trees.” She watched him out of the sides of her eyes, noticed his nice-fitting chocolate-brown suede jacket and dark green corduroy slacks. She caught herself admiring him and administered a mental slap. Of course a Los Angeles playboy would have a sense of style. “I guess you don’t have as many trees in southern California.”
“Palms and eucalyptus, avocados and scrub junipers. They’re technically trees, technically green. But—” he gestured at the foothills “—not nearly this rich. The air here smells like Christmas every day.”
“Wait until summer. A lot of the time between last July and September all you could smell was smoke from the wildfires.”
They’d reached the church door, where a couple of deacons shook hands in welcome and passed out bulletins. The first, a short, spare man, reached up for his usual kiss. “Howdy, Miss Thea. You’re looking pretty this morning.”
“Thanks,
