his tail in a hopeful manner. Juliet waved at the mutt and caught a brief glimpse of the rambling two-story house before they sped past and turned into the small drive that led to the guesthouse next door.
Juliet finished her tale as he pulled up before the little house she rented from him.
“So that’s that,” she told him. “I’m making myself a whole new kind of life, from now on.”
He gave her his beautiful right-sided smile. “And then what happens?”
“When?”
“After Midsummer Madness is over. After you’ve proved beyond a doubt that you’re the most assertive woman around.”
“Well,” she confessed, “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.” She scooped up her jacket and her manila folder and leaned on the door latch. It gave, and she jumped down. “But I’ll let you know, as soon as I figure it out. If you’re still interested, that is.”
She turned and practically skipped up the stone walk to the small porch of the guesthouse before she realized that in her excitement over all she’d accomplished, she’d forgotten to thank Cody for the lift home.
Conveniently, he hadn’t driven away yet but was still sitting there staring after her, with his engine idling. She rushed back to the driver’s side and leaned in the window.
“Thanks, Cody. Thanks a bunch.” She kissed his cheek—it was warm and a little rough, very pleasant to the lips, actually. And then she whirled and danced back up the walk.
Cody sat and watched her go, bewildered at the change in her. Why, damned if her blouse hadn’t been open two buttons down. He’d got himself the sweetest glimpse of that little shadow between her small, high breasts when she leaned in the window and put her soft lips on his cheek.
He couldn’t figure it. What in the hell was innocent Julie Huddleston doing showing cleavage, making a man think about her in a whole new way?
He had half a mind to call her back and tell her to button up. But she was already bouncing up the steps of the guesthouse, turning once to wave, and disappearing inside.
Cody sat there a few minutes more, deciding that telling her to button up would have been presumptuous anyway. He was glad he hadn’t done it. It would have sounded nothing short of crude—and besides, then she would have known that Cody McIntyre, who had always looked out for her, had just now been looking down her blouse.
Three
Juliet’s only problem that night was getting to sleep. She was just too keyed up to simply close her eyes and drift off. So she lay with the window open and only a sheet for a cover, staring up at the ceiling and enjoying daydreams of her success.
She planned a little, thinking it would be fun to try to get a real professional auctioneer this year to raffle off the baked goods at the big picnic on closing day. And this year, for the frog jump, she was going to see that there were separate categories for out-of-county frogs. Recently, some tourists had been buying some real long jumpers from Sacramento pet stores and running them against the more short-hocked local frogs. It just wasn’t fair.
Smiling into the darkness, Juliet rolled over and tried to settle down. But ideas kept coming. She thought of a better way to arrange the booth spaces for the Crafts and Industry Fair even as she started planning her own costume for the Gold Rush Ball. Maybe she’d go as Maria Elena Roderica Perez Smith, the doomed laundress from local history. Or as one-eyed Charlie Parkhurst, who’d lived her life pretending to be a man. Or maybe Madame Moustache, the lusty bighearted saloon owner of Nevada City fame….
Juliet rolled over again and looked at the clock; it was past midnight. She really ought to get some sleep. Tomorrow was Friday, a regular workday. She had to finish off the payrolls for Duane’s Coffee Shop and Babe Allen’s Gift and Card Emporium, not to mention get a good start on that unit cost analysis for McMulch’s Lumberyard.
From outside, she heard the crow of a rooster who was up way past his bedtime. Juliet grinned. She knew the rooster. The ranch, which was mostly timberland, didn’t support too many animals. Cody kept three horses, Kemo the dog and a cow called Emeline. There were a few chickens pecking around the stables, and one big mean black rooster that Cody swore was destined to be thrown in the pot one day soon. Cody called him Black Bart, and he was the only one ornery enough to stay up making noise all night.
Black Bart crowed again. And as the sound of his crowing faded off into the night, Juliet heard, drifting in the open window, the sweet, high sound of a harmonica.
It was Cody. Playing that silver mouth organ of his in the way that only he knew how, the notes sliding all over the scale, from so high and sweet your heart ached, to those low, sexy notes that vibrated down inside a person in the most stimulating way. Lord, Juliet thought, that boy could make music. No wonder his songs drove the ladies wild.
For a while she just lay there, as she had many a night since she took the guesthouse, her senses gratified and her spirit soothed by the impromptu concert that drifted through the window on the night air.
And then it occurred to her that getting Cody to perform in the Midsummer Madness Revue would be a coup of sorts. Every year they asked him, and every year he very courteously declined. Cody would provide goods and capital to the festival, but he always claimed he was too busy to commit himself to getting up on the stage every single night.
Juliet closed her eyes and hummed along a little, until her own lack of musical talent made her fall silent, so that she could better enjoy the magic spell that Cody could weave with just a song.
Yes, she thought, as he began a new tune, she would definitely ask him. As she’d learned in assertiveness training, nothing was ever lost by asking. If the answer was no, you were in no worse a position than before you asked; if you got a yes, you were one ahead. Besides, maybe Cody would agree to perform if Juliet was the one asking. Maybe he’d do it for the sake of their lifelong friendship—if she caught him in the right mood.
As the second tune ended on a high note, the thought came to her: Why not just go ask him now?
She nodded at the ceiling. Yes, that would be a good approach. To ask him right now, spontaneously, in the middle of the night when neither of them seemed to be able to sleep.
Juliet pushed back the sheet and rose from her bed. She pulled on her light robe over her pajamas and decided not to even worry about her feet. She could use the little iron gate in the stone fence between the two houses. That way, there were only smooth paving stones and soft grass between his house and hers.
She went out the back door and down the few steps to the stone walk that led to the gate. The stones, as she padded from one to the next, were still warm from a summer day’s worth of sun.
Overhead there was no moon, but the stars were very bright. The gold grasses of the open pasture on her right, which was separated from her house by a wooden fence, seemed to reflect the starlight, so Juliet had no trouble seeing the way. She flew past the hay barn and small stables, which loomed just on the other side of the fence. Cody began another song as she pulled open the gate to the main grounds and slipped through.
Beyond the gate was another world. Six acres of sloping, manicured grass were bisected by a gravel drive that ended in a roomy garage. On the near side of the drive lay the swimming pool, lit now and casting its eerie light up toward the night sky. On the far side of the drive, up a walk lined with rose bushes,
