when she spotted the messagebox counter. “Carol” had over a dozen emails waiting.
After pushing her sleeves up again, Carolyn plunged in.
BRODY TIPPED what was left of his microwave-box dinner into the trash and looked up at the last of the functioning lightbulbs. Might as well change them out, he figured. It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do.
He rustled up the extras he’d bought days before, but never gotten around to installing, and vaulted up onto the counter to take out the dead bulbs first. The job was tricky—he’d seen these thingamajiggies shatter into a jillion tiny, razor-sharp shards for no sensible reason—so Brody took his time.
He’d just finished, his eyes still a little dazzled by the glare of three fluorescent tubes, when he heard what sounded like a thump, or maybe a scratch, at the door.
He got down off the counter. Listened.
That was when he heard the whimper. It was faint, and almost human.
A chill trickled down his spine. He sprang to the door and wrenched it open, half expecting to find a person on the other side, injured and bleeding, looking for help.
Instead, his gaze fell onto the skinniest, dirtiest, most pitiful dog he’d ever seen. It was just sitting there, looking up at him with a sort of bleak tenderness in its eyes.
Brody, a sucker for anything with four legs and fur, crouched down, so he wouldn’t be looming over the poor critter like a grizzly or something.
“Hey, buddy,” he said huskily. “You selling something? Spreading the Good News?”
The dog whimpered again.
Brody examined the animal. No collar, no tags.
Fleas were a sure thing, though, and maybe something worse, like ringworm.
Brody stood up, slow and easy, and stepped back. “Come on in,” he said to the dog. “Nothing to be afraid of—you’re among friends.”
The stray just sat there for a few moments, as though he might have heard wrong. He was obviously used to fending for himself.
“Come on,” Brody repeated, speaking gently and giving the dog room.
Slowly, painfully, the wayfarer limped over the threshold and right into Brody Creed’s heart.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DREAM WAS disturbingly vivid.
Carolyn was in a supermarket, surrounded by dozens, if not hundreds, of eager suitors. There were men of every size and shape, color and type, a regular convention for fans of the Village People.
They nudged at her cart with theirs.
Some of them carried signs with her modified name printed on them in ransom-note letters, and one wore a sandwich board that read Marry Me, Carol! and Have Free Dentistry for Life!
“Carol,” all the others chanted, in creepy unison, “Carol, Carol, Carol!”
Carolyn’s feet seemed to be glued to the floor, but she looked wildly around for an escape route anyway. The freezer aisle was completely blocked, in both directions. She was trapped. Cornered.
Heart-pounding panic set in, washing over her in sweeping, electrified waves. A man with an elaborate wedding cake teetering in his shopping cart pushed his way past the others, to the forefront.
Carolyn recognized Gifford Welsh. He smiled his big movie-star smile, and his piano-key teeth sparkled cartoonishly, like something out of an animated mouthwash commercial.
“You’re already married!” she said, turning her head when Gifford tried to stuff a handful of cake into her mouth. Then, pressing back against the cold door of the ice-cream freezer, she shouted, “I don’t want to marry any of you! You’re not—you’re not—
“Brody.” She started awake at the name. Could still feel its singular weight on her lips.
Winston, curled up at her feet, made a halfhearted hissing sound. There was no telling whether the noise was a comment about Brody or annoyance because she’d awakened him from a sound sleep.
Carolyn’s heart thumped against the back of her rib cage, and her breathing was fast and shallow. She lay there, in her dark bedroom, looking up at the ceiling and fighting tears.
Don’t be a crybaby, she heard one of her long string of foster mothers say. Nobody likes a crybaby.
Carolyn had subscribed to that belief ever since, and she blinked until the sting in her eyes abated a little.
Going back to sleep was out of the question, lest the dream go into rewind, so she got out of bed and padded into the kitchen, barefoot. She was wearing flannel pajamas she’d sewn herself, covered in a puppy-dog pattern, and the fabric was damp against her chest and between her shoulder blades. Perspiration.
The nightmare had been a doozy, then. Normally, dreams didn’t cause her to sweat.
But, then, this hadn’t been a normal dream, now, had it?
You’re not Brody. The words still reverberated through her mind.
She took a mug from the cupboard, this one a souvenir of Cheyenne, Wyoming, filled it with water, added an herbal tea bag and stuck the works into the microwave to heat.
A dog, she thought peevishly, would have gotten up when she did, to keep her company, lend silent reassurance. Winston, by contrast, did not put in an appearance, sympathetic or otherwise.
That was a cat for you.
Not that Winston was her cat—he was a frequent boarder and no more. Just passing through.
Somebody else’s cat.
Somebody else’s house.
Everything in her life, it seemed, belonged to somebody else.
Including Brody Creed. Whenever Joleen Williams blew into town, she and Brody were joined at the hip. It was probably only a matter of time before Joleen roped him in for good.
He was building a house, wasn’t he? A big house, obviously not meant for man to live in alone.
The bell on the microwave dinged, and Carolyn carefully removed the cup. Took a sip.
The tea had the usual placebo effect, and she calmed down a little.
In need of something to occupy her mind, but scared to log on to the computer again, lest more men should pop up, in search of her alter ego, Carol, she flipped on the light at the top of the inside stairway and made her way down the steps.
The shop looked magical in the moonlight. Like some enchanted workshop, where elves ran up ruffly cottonprint aprons on miniature sewing machines and made more goats’ milk soap whenever the supply was low.
Carolyn gave a little snicker at the thought.
She made the aprons, and
