laughed. “I’d much rather clean dirt than eat it.”
“When can you start?”
“Today.”
It was that easy. No references, no application. Four questions, and Martha was handing her the red vest Shelley had discarded. “Welcome to U-Want-It. I’m Martha Andrews.”
“Candace Thompson.”
Martha showed her the cash register and gave her a quick tour of the store, including the stock room and bathroom. Then, dust mitts in hand, Candace set to work.
A year ago she’d thought dusting and cleaning so far beneath her that she’d paid someone else quite a lot to do it for her. She hadn’t worked so hard to get through school and then to advance her career just to spend her spare time chasing dust bunnies and scrubbing toilets.
Now the career was on hiatus, possibly gone for good since there wasn’t much demand for a writer who’d stopped writing. Now she supported herself working temporary jobs, and although she still wasn’t fond of scrubbing toilets, she’d found a measure of satisfaction in other jobs she’d once considered too menial.
She began dusting at the back of the store and worked her way up one aisle and down the next. The bell on the door sounded fairly often, but the customers paid little attention to her, and she stayed focused on her work.
When she reached the front, she started on the tall glass jars that lined a display next to the cash register. They were filled with candy—fat, multicolored peppermint sticks, candy necklaces, wax lips, straws that poured flavored sugar, tiny candy-covered chocolates. She remembered many of them from childhood trips to the store with her father, when he loaded her up with so many sweets that she’d often been sick by the time they returned home.
She was on her knees, dusting the jar that held the candy necklaces, when a young child crouched beside her. Prepared to smile, she glanced at him, but the smile wouldn’t form. She’d seen him for mere seconds the morning before, but she would have recognized him anywhere. If she were a better person, she would have been there when he was born, would have been named his godmother and been called Aunt Candace as soon as he’d learned to talk.
Now Natalie would be furious if she so much as spoke to him.
“Hi,” he greeted, his voice soft.
She looked around guiltily but saw no Rawlinses close enough to hear. “Hi.”
“I’m gonna buy some candy for me and Petey. Petey’s my horse. I named him myself.”
“Th-that’s nice.” She started to stand up, to retreat someplace safe until the boy and whoever had brought him were gone, but he spoke again.
“What kind of candy do ya think Petey would like?”
“I don’t know. What kind do you usually get him?”
“He likes plain ol’ sugar. And apples and pears and peaches and watermelon.” He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “But I like candy.”
“Well, maybe you should—”
“J.T.” Seemingly coming from nowhere, Josh Rawlins tossed some items on the counter, then swung the boy into his arms and held him away from Candace as she, too, stood up. “Remember what your mama and daddy tell you about talking to strangers?”
“Not to.”
“And she’s a stranger, isn’t she?”
The boy shook his head. “She’s the one that made Mama say a bad word. She was at our house.”
“But she’s still a stranger, and you’re not supposed to talk to her. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but—” J.T. took one look at his uncle’s frown, then sighed. “Okay.”
“Good.” Josh set him down. “Why don’t you go sit on one of the stools over there, okay?” He watched as J.T. ran to the soda fountain, then clambered onto a stool. Slowly he turned back to Candace, but before he could speak, Martha, who had apparently witnessed the exchange from the far end of the counter, joined them.
“Teaching a kid to be careful of strangers is a good idea, Josh, but don’t you think he needs to know the difference between your garden-variety stranger and the clerk who’s trying to wait on him?”
Though Candace’s gaze had settled somewhere around his feet, she knew the instant his gaze touched her. It made her face grow hot and her nerves tingle—made her wish she were only three inches tall so she could duck behind the register or crawl into a drawer to hide from his stare.
“You’ve got to be kidding. You hired her?”
“Yes, I did. You want to make something of it?”
His gaze didn’t shift. “Get J.T. an ice cream cone while I pay for this, will you?”
Martha hesitated, then crossed the room to the fountain counter.
His voice low but no less dangerous, Josh accused, “You said you were leaving.”
Candace aimed for mild inoffensiveness. “No. You suggested it. I chose not to follow your advice.”
“No one wants you here.”
Clenching her jaw, she moved behind the cash register and began ringing up his purchases—an air filter for a truck, a pair of boot laces, a spool of white thread and a can of paint thinner. Before she totaled it, she stiffly asked, “What about J.T. and Petey’s candy?”
“He’ll get his candy at the grocery store.”
Candace hit Total, then sacked everything while he pulled his wallet from his pocket. She made change, which he accepted as if touching her might soil him. He didn’t grab the bag and the kid, though, and put some distance between them. Instead, he leaned closer, so close she could smell the faint tang of sweat and the…well, horsey scent of a horse. So close she could hear the short, even rhythm of his breathing and see the muscles tightening in his jaw.
So close she could wonder, just for an instant, if he ever put all that passion into a kiss.
“You’re not welcome here.”
Her presence had been unwelcome to people far more important to her than some Oklahoma cowboy, no matter how cute he was. That fact gave her the strength to keep her gaze level and her mouth shut.
“Natalie’s not going to talk to you, not now, not ever.”
She didn’t have to talk, Candace thought. All she had to do was listen. If she would simply agree to that, then Candace would say what she needed to say, then leave.
But that was between her and Natalie, and no matter how adamantly he might insist otherwise, it was none of his business.
Then he repeated his words from the day before. “Do us all a favor and get the hell out of here.”
She let him turn away, let him take three or four steps, before she softly spoke, drawing
