there appeared a stranger in a Stetson—”
“Cowboy Charlie!” Trish said happily, clapping her hands.
“Yes, my love,” Cassie said, and went on. “Here came Cowboy Charlie, galloping on Felicity, his six-guns blazing. With an oomph! and a pow! he kicked the bad man so he fell and rolled over and over and over, down the mountain. Then Charlie swooped up the woman and her child onto his horse, and the three of them rode off into the sunset, to safety.”
“Oh, Mommy,” Trish sighed, snuggling back against her pillow and pulling her covers up under her chin. “That was so good. It’s my favorite story.”
Cassie Nevins smiled warmly at her seven-year-old daughter. “You always say that, no matter which story I tell you,” she teased, then kissed her child’s soft cheek. “Good night, baby,” she said, gathering her notebook and pens as she left the room. Their nightly ritual was done, the story was told, accompanied, as usual, by one or two pen-and-ink sketches. The drawings she’d come up with this particular evening weren’t bad, even if she did say so herself. She’d really gotten the look of Cowboy Charlie tonight.
He was the Old West heroic type, from the days before Star Wars, when kids used to worship cowboys and the horses they rode. Tall, slim but muscular, his legs slightly bowed from years riding the range, his strong face lined by days spent squinting into the sun. He wore chaps and boots with jangling spurs and a leather vest—all the classic paraphernalia—and rode a magnificent chestnut named Felicity. Cassie was particularly pleased with the arch of the horse’s neck in tonight’s drawing. And she’d finally captured the look in Charlie’s nearly turquoise-blue eyes—reliable, amused. Manly. She was getting better and better at this.
After she closed the door to her daughter’s room, Cassie paused, removed her brand-new reading glasses and rubbed her tired eyes. She contemplated getting a snack, as she’d hardly eaten her dinner. But she couldn’t summon up the energy. She supposed she could go into her small office and stare at the bills there. But that would be all she’d be able to do, she thought wryly—stare at them. She sure couldn’t pay them.
Maybe she could indulge in a hot bath. Had the water bill been paid? Yes. Good, then. A soothing soak, just the thing to loosen tense muscles and strained eyes.
With a huge sigh, she found herself staring at the glasses she held in her hand. Boy, were they ugly, she thought, then chuckled. Past ugly, to be sure. Hideous. Bright turquoise frames with fan-shaped edges, dotted with inlaid rhinestones. So tasteless, so tacky. But they hadn’t cost her a cent; therefore, they were beautiful.
She’d been getting headaches lately when she read, and kindly old Doc Slater, her optometrist, had told her the week before that she needed reading glasses. As he’d had an inkling of her financial situation, he’d offered the frames to her, free. They were an extra pair in a shipment, he’d told her, and waved off her effusive thanks. She’d picked them up this morning.
As she headed for the bath, Cassie rubbed her thumb along the glasses’ earpiece. She was not only tired, she was rapidly on the way to being downright grumpy. And, despite her usual sunny outlook, she was beginning to sense the edges of panic. She needed money, she needed hope, she needed help, none of which were in sight.
Actually, what she needed now was a rescuer, of the knight-in-shining-armor variety.
No, forget the knight. What she needed was a cowboy, one of the good guys, as opposed to the bad guys. How very nice it would be if Cowboy Charlie would come along and make all her troubles disappear.
Right, she thought with a rueful smile. And he could bring the Tooth Fairy with him.
She turned on the hot water tap, then began to unbutton her blouse. Her hands paused as she thought she heard a noise. What was it? Some kind of knocking? Frowning, she turned the water off and listened. Yes, there it went again. Someone was knocking at her front door.
Putting on her glasses, she glanced at her watch. Who could it be at nine at night? Swallowing down the automatic fear reaction of a woman who lived alone with her child, she hurried downstairs before whoever it was knocked again. She went to the door and peered through the peephole.
In the yellow glow cast by the porch light, she could make out the figure of a man. Not just any man, but—
Cassie gasped as her hand automatically flew to cover her pounding heart. Unless she was completely mistaken, standing there, big as life, was none other than…Cowboy Charlie!
Charlie wasn’t real clear on just what had happened. Last thing he remembered, he was riding Felicity along the stretch they called Sagebrush Plain. He’d been admiring the way the setting sun was coating the far-off mountains with the darnedest colors—all purples and reds and golds—and thinking about the juicy steak he intended to have when he got back to camp, when all at once he swore he heard the sound of a woman sighing.
And not just an itty-bitty sigh, but a gigantic sigh, one that echoed and echoed and got louder and louder until he had to cover his ears. And then, Whoosh! there was a new sound, a roar twice as big as the sound of a hurricane. Suddenly, he felt his body being lifted and hurled through some kind of sideways tornado. Round and round he twisted till he could barely catch a breath. And then, just as suddenly, he was on land again, feet first and standing upright.
On a strange porch, facing a strange door.
And knocking on that door, because that seemed to be the obvious thing to do.
Now a woman was opening that door, but keeping the screen door between them closed.
“Ma’am?” he said, removing his hat and smoothing back his hair, then settling it back on his head. He was still breathing pretty heavily from his trip, but that didn’t affect his eyesight. No, sir.
She was just about the cutest thing he’d seen in a long while. Little, not a bit over five feet, he bet. Her head was all over short brown curls, and her eyes were brown too, chocolate-colored and large. Right now they peered suspiciously at him over the top of the strangest looking pair of spectacles he’d ever seen and which were perched on the tip of her small nose.
“Good evening,” he said politely, when she seemed disobliged to say anything welcoming.
The woman checked to make sure the lock was on the screen door, then crossed her arms over her chest. “And just who are you supposed to be?” She had a low, raspy-sounding voice, which didn’t really go with the small, compact body, but it sure did sound womanly, and it sure did set up a little male appreciation-type humming in his blood.
“I figured you would know, ma’am.”
“Why don’t you tell me, anyway?” One of her eyebrows was raised, mistrustful-like, as though he was trying to sell her a steer for stud work.
“Cowboy Charlie, of course,” he said with a smile that usually melted any chill a lady might be sending out. “You can call me just plain Charlie, if you’d like.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, that pretty little mouth of hers set in a real disbelieving line. “And just how did you get here, ‘just plain Charlie’?” She spoke his name like it was something he’d made up.
Which was strange, because she’d been the one to come up with it.
“Well, I was doing what I always do, you know, riding the range on my horse, looking for adventures and folks who need rescuing, and the next thing I knew
