came into focus.
His shabby plaid shirt had seen better days years ago as had his once-white T-shirt. His faded and torn blue jeans were ragged at the hem where they met unlaced leather work boots so scuffed and stained she was unsure of the original color. He pulled his hat off his head, revealing mussed, overlong hair, and as he came near, she caught a hint of the too-familiar scent of diesel fumes.
Truck driver, she thought. Cowboy truck driver.
And Evangeline’s foolish heart, which had only moments ago fluttered in anticipation at his silhouette, thudded in her chest.
Not a chance.
“I’m Denny Norquest,” he said, holding a hand out to her, his smile showing even teeth white against the dark stubble shading his firm chin. “Your father told me to stop by Hartley Creek and say hello as I was heading to British Columbia. And here I am.”
She frowned as her slender fingers were engulfed in his large hand. As expected, it was callused and rough, but enfolded hers in a firm grip. His dark eyes held hers as his well-shaped mouth lifted in a crooked smile.
For some silly reason her heart gave another flutter. Then his words registered.
“Hi? From my father?”
“Yeah. Andy said for me to tell you he was sorry he couldn’t come like he said.”
“Not coming?” She stared at Denny as the import of his words settled into her mind. “But he said... He promised... He was going to—” She clamped her lips on the words of disappointment and dismay that threatened to spill out.
“He said he would call you in a day or so,” Denny continued when Evangeline didn’t—or rather, couldn’t—finish her sentence. “He also asked me to tell you to reschedule the visit to the lawyer to talk about the bookstore.”
Every word coming out of Mr. Denny Norquest’s mouth scattered Evangeline’s carefully laid plans like dead leaves in a fall storm.
“So he’s not coming,” she repeated, trying to create some intelligent response.
“Not yet.”
Evangeline could only nod, her disappointment morphing into anger. Anger that her father had so casually decided to change months of plans. Anger that he hadn’t had the decency to break the news to her face.
Andy Arsenau was to arrive Monday, the day after tomorrow, to do what he had promised for so many years. Sign the bookstore he had inherited from his wife over to Evangeline.
She had planned the changes she’d wanted to make to the bookstore for months, pouring her time and energy into her ideas. She’d gotten in touch with contractors. More importantly, she had made an appointment with Zach Truscott, a lawyer in Hartley Creek and fiancée of her best friend, Renee, to finalize the deal.
She folded her arms over her chest and looked Mr. Norquest straight in the eye.
“Thank you for passing on the message. Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asked, trying mightily to stifle her anger. It wasn’t this cowboy’s fault her father had deigned to use him as his spokesperson.
But still...
“I didn’t come here to only deliver that message.” Denny continued, “The main reason I’m here is ’cause your dad said he has a place that you rent out sometimes.”
Again Evangeline could only stare at Mr. Norquest, trying to follow where he led.
He stared back as he worked his cowboy hat around in his hands.
“He said something about an apartment in the back of the store I could stay in until then,” Denny continued.
“The...the apartment here?” She poked her thumb over her shoulder, indicating the living quarters across the hall attached to the back of the store.
The living quarters where her father always stayed when he was between jobs and between schemes. Trouble was, there was always another job. Always another scheme, so he never stayed long.
“Yeah. Your dad said I could stay here until I can move onto the ranch.”
“Move...move onto the ranch?”
Her mind whirled as she fought to put his words into a place that made sense, trying to catch up to what he was saying. Now she knew what Alice felt like tumbling down the rabbit hole. “I thought after the renters moved out of the ranch house my dad would be—” She stopped herself from finishing that sentence.
Moving back onto the ranch. Just as he had said he would in the text he had sent her.
Evangeline pressed her hands on the sales counter, as if anchoring herself while she stumbled through this confusing conversation.
“He didn’t say anything about moving onto the ranch. He’s leasing it to me. For a five-year term.” Denny’s deep voice held an edge of impatience. “He said that the other renter’s lease on the pasture was up and he wasn’t renewing it.”
The previous lessee wasn’t renewing the lease because Evangeline’s father had promised when he was finished his current job he would come back to Hartley Creek, sign the store over to her and settle on the ranch.
Make a home here. Be the father he hadn’t been since her mother had died when Evangeline was eight.
The close call he’d had with his truck a couple of months ago was a wake-up for him to change his life. To find a meaning and purpose.
When he’d told Evangeline this, she had allowed a faint hope to bloom. The hope that he would finally be the father he hadn’t been for most of her life. And that he would complete the unfinished deal on the bookstore she’d been managing for him for the past nine years. The bookstore he kept promising he would sign over to her.
“Did he say when he was coming back?”
Denny shrugged, slapping his hat against his thigh as if impatient to be done with her and her questions about her father.
“Andy said he would call and that in the meantime you have power of attorney over the ranch and that you would take care of things for me.”
Evangeline felt the last faint hope die with Denny’s decisive words. Her father probably wasn’t coming at all. She might never own this bookstore or have a father who wanted to be with her.
“Every time,” Evangeline muttered, her hands curling into fists. “He gets me every time.”
Then, to her dismay, her voice broke and she felt her eyes prickle. She turned aside, grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her eyes, hoping, praying, she didn’t smear her mascara, to boot.
She stared at the door at the back of the store leading to her father’s apartment, swallowing a stew of anger and grief at the timing of her father’s news. It didn’t help that this came on the heels of yet another disappointment.
Two months ago her boyfriend of two years, Tyler, had said he needed a break, promising Evangeline they would get back together again. A few days later Evangeline had seen him driving his bright red sports car with
