check on Grandpa Pete, and I’ll be back in a few minutes with the chili.”
Irish watched his long-legged gait as he walked away and went up the stairs at the end of the bar. Wow, what a man. Handsome as buttered sin. She’d never met anyone in her life who oozed such sex appeal. And from the little that they had talked, she felt that he would probably be lots of fun to be with. He was as smooth as a river stone in putting her at ease.
She sighed. He probably had everything a woman could ask for. She looked around the dusty, junky store.
Except money.
Why is it, Mama, that if it’s just as easy to love a rich man as a poor one, that I’m always attracted to the ones who don’t have two nickels to rub together?
It was a crying shame that she was so captivated by Kyle Rutledge. Especially now.
She sighed again. She couldn’t afford to let herself get sidetracked. Her plans were made; her bank account was committed. She was out to snare a millionaire.
And if Jackson Crow had a problem or two, well... one couldn’t have everything.
Two
Sweat popped out on her upper lip. Irish ignored it and spooned another bite of chili into her mouth. After all, it was a free meal, and with less than twenty dollars left in her wallet, she couldn’t afford to be choosy.
“Too hot for you?” Kyle asked.
“It’s fine. Just fine.” She gulped half a glass of iced tea.
With her tongue and her esophagus cringing at what was coming, she forced another bite into her blistered mouth.
Tears came to her eyes. She gulped the other half glass of tea and shook out an ice cube to suck on.
She glanced up at Kyle. He was frowning. “You don’t have to be polite,” he said. “It is too hot for you. Sorry about that. Grandpa Pete likes his chili fiery enough to singe the pin feathers off a chicken, and I’ve gotten used to it. Let me fix you something else. How about a bologna sandwich? I make a mean bologna sandwich.”
Relieved that she wouldn’t have to finish the rest of the chili and too hungry to turn him down, she smiled. “I’m crazy about bologna sandwiches.”
“Mustard or mayonnaise?”
“Mustard.”
“Be right back.”
Irish watched him pick up a loaf of bread from the rack and a jar of mustard off a shelf, then walk back to the meat case. He took a big sausage from the case, and she heard the whine of an electric slicing machine. In a few minutes, he returned with a neat sandwich on a piece of butcher paper. An individual bag of chips sat atop the sandwich.
“Thanks,” she said. “That looks great.”
“Not exactly Carnegie Deli, but it will do in a pinch. Alma Jane usually does the sandwich and soup making and helps tend to the store, but she came down with a bad case of poison ivy. I’m hoping that she’ll be back tomorrow. I’m not much of a cook.” “Me, either,” Irish said. “I don’t even know how to work the pilot light on my stove. Olivia usually does all the cooking.”
“Who’s Olivia?”
“One of my housemates in Washington.”
“One?” He filled her glass with tea from a pitcher.
“Yes,” she said. Between bites she gave him a thumbnail sketch of Olivia and Kim.
“How long have you been a reporter?” Kyle asked.
“A reporter? I’m not a reporter. Where did you get that idea?”
“You said you were doing an article on Jackson and his buddies, and I assumed that you were doing it for a newspaper.”
“Heavens, no. I’m doing the article for Esprit.”
“Esprit, the magazine? You work for them? I would have figured that someone with your looks would be modeling for them instead of writing.”
“Thank you very much. I used to be a model.” She smiled graciously. “But I don’t work for the magazine full-time. This is a freelance piece.”
He pointed to her uneaten bowl of chili. “Mind?”
“Not at all.” His digestive tract must be lined with lead. She couldn’t believe that anyone could eat an entire bowl of that blazing concoction, much less two.
“I love this stuff. It’s been ages since I’ve had a decent bowl of chili. Grandpa Pete makes it in a wash pot over an open fire, then freezes it in bricks. Why aren’t you a model any longer?”
His sudden switch of topics took her aback for a moment. She nibbled a potato chip before she gave him one of her stock answers. “I’m getting too old.”
“Bull. You’re gorgeous and still in your prime.”
“I’m almost thirty.”
He laughed. “Just a kid.”
“To you maybe, but models are getting younger and younger these days. Too, I—I was getting tired of the work, of New York.”
“Now that I can understand. The crime rate in that place is out of sight. Why, around here, the worst crime committed lately was when Newt Irwin got drunk and—Irish?”
She startled. “Pardon?”
“You flinched and looked very nervous. Did I say something? Stray into sensitive territory?”
“No. Not at all,” she replied, which was a polite lie. He’d touched a nerve. “What were you saying about Luke?”
“Not Luke, Newt. He got drunk and stole one of Henry McKenzie’s goats.”
“Whatever for?”
“To barbecue. But the next morning Newt’s mama found the goat staked out in the front yard eating her pansies, and she called the sheriff. Henry got his goat back, but Newt had to spend three days in jail.”
“But Henry got his goat back. I’m surprised he pressed charges.”
“Henry didn’t. Newt’s mama did. The sheriff is married to her cousin, and Mrs. Irwin was proud of those pansies.”
Irish laughed. “Sounds like you have some real characters around here.”
A pistol shot sounded from upstairs, and Irish almost jumped out of her skin.
“That we do,” Kyle said. “And one of them lives upstairs. That’s Grandpa Pete again. Eighty-four years old and still rambunctious. Be right back. Look around the store and find yourself a dessert.”
Deciding to do just that, she was looking through the assortment of Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, and Little Debbie cakes when an RV stopped
