“No.”
“So he just stopped by to visit you on his way through town?”
Katy shrugged her thin-bladed shoulders. “Please hand-deliver this letter to the city hall. I want the secretary to put my request on the agenda before the council’s meeting.”
“Sure.” Tammy spun around, her ponytail bobbing as she walked away. “But I still think Nate Channing is incredibly good-looking. Maybe you should find out if he’s staying overnight in town and invite him over for supper.”
“Maybe you should stop playing matchmaker and mind your own business,” Katy called after her.
Tammy pirouetted, then grinned unrepentantly at her aunt. “I’ll mind my own business if you will admit that Nate is one great-looking guy.”
“Okay, he’s a knockout,” Katy admitted honestly. “Happy now?”
“I would be if you would chase him down and invite him to supper,” Tammy said before she whipped around and sauntered away.
Katy scrunched into her chair and stared at the blank wall where Nate’s handsome face had superimposed itself. “Too vital, too good-looking. Far too deserving of someone like me,” she said sensibly to herself.
There had been a time when Katy had dreamed of her darkly handsome knight riding back into her life to rescue her from a disastrous marriage and whisk her away from a domineering father who offered no moral support, who constantly sided with her husband. But no one had come to her rescue, and her own attempts to fight for her freedom earned painful blows.
It was too late for her to start fresh, too late to mend all her shattered dreams. This was as good as her life would get, she assured herself fatalistically.
Resolved not to let Nate make the mistake of trying to reestablish their friendship, Katy forced herself to concentrate on her work. For Nate’s sake she had to discourage him from future contact. Katy had nothing to offer him now. Too much water had flooded under the bridge of her life. She had learned to accept what she hadn’t been able to change, and she had learned to center her life around the books that lined the library shelves. The characters on the pages of those books were her friends and acquaintances. They were safe, and she was secure inside the walls of this building.
Eventually, Nate would realize that the happiness and confidences they shared a lifetime ago were like closed chapters in a book. He would look elsewhere for a fulfilling friendship and leave her to the life she had grown comfortable with. It was too late to change, Katy told herself. She wasn’t even going to try.
Nate strode into his new ranch-style home to see Fuzz Havern, the retired sheriff of Coyote County, sprawled on the leather recliner. Fuzz had traded his police-issued pistol for the remote control to the big-screen TV.
Fuzz was all smiles when he glanced up to see Nate stride into the spacious living room. Nate wished he felt half of Fuzz’s obvious pleasure and satisfaction. Unfortunately, seeing what had become of Katy Bates had turned Nate wrong-side-out. He still couldn’t believe Katy had changed so dramatically.
“Pinch me, Nate,” Fuzz insisted. “I swear I must be dreaming all this. How can I possibly be sitting in this luxurious house, living like a king?” Fuzz swiped a meaty hand over his military-style gray hair and beamed in pleasure again. “After all the tense situations in the line of duty, here I am, kicked back, surfing channels and loving every minute of it.” He glanced around the expensively furnished room. “This place is really something else, Nate.”
“I’m glad you agreed to our arrangements,” Nate said as he plopped down on the matching leather sofa. “I told you sixteen years ago that I would repay you for what you did for me.”
Fuzz nodded, remembering. “Yeah, well, all I did was give you the break nobody around here was willing to give you. You took the opportunity I arranged for you, and you ran with it.” He tossed Nate a knowing glance. “I don’t imagine you thought I was doing you any favors those first few months after I left you in Bud Thurston’s charge.”
Nate returned the grin. “No, I didn’t,” he recalled. “That ex-marine sergeant knew how to put a wayward youth through the drills, didn’t he?”
“Amen to that,” Fuzz agreed. “But Bud taught you discipline, the value of a hard day’s work, just as I asked him to do.”
Nate remembered the big, burly, gruff-mannered man who stood six feet six inches tall and weighed in at two-eighty—every pound solid, unyielding muscle. Bud Thurston had clamped a beefy fist around the ribbing on Nate’s T-shirt, jerked him off the ground and told Nate what was what. Bud had also taught Nate to be courteous, considerate, respectful and cooperative—or else.
Way out in the middle of nowhere, on Thurston Ranch, Bud was a law unto himself, and he was man enough to back up any command or threat he spouted. Nobody in his right mind messed with Bud, not if you planned to walk away from a confrontation in one piece.
Then, of course, there was Fuzz Havern, who checked on Nate once a month like a parole officer. Between the two men who had served together in the military, Nate had been nudged down the straight-and-narrow path and gotten his miserable life on course. It had taken a year for a bitter, mule-headed kid to change his ways, but it had been worth the effort. Nate was eternally grateful somebody was willing to help him make the needed changes in his behavior and attitude.
“You’ll notice that I didn’t extend the same generosity to Sonny Brown that night I hauled your sorry butt out of town,” Fuzz remarked, then channel-surfed to his heart’s content. “That boy never could overcome his raising, not with Lester there to defend him every time he made a bonehead mistake. The only way to save Sonny would have been to shoot his father. I couldn’t stretch the law that far.”
“Where is Sonny these days?” Nate asked.
“Doing time up in Big Spring,” Fuzz reported. “Every time he does another hitch in jail he learns another trick and tries it out when he walks back into society. And every time Sonny is taken into custody, Lester claims his kid is innocent.”
“He is still blaming me for driving Sonny to ruin,” Nate commented.
“Of course he is. Lester isn’t the kind of man who’s big enough to admit to his own failings and mistakes. It has always been someone else’s fault that his boy was worthless. It was the fault of bad weather conditions and plummeting cattle-market prices that caused him to lose his shirt in the ranching business.”
Fuzz shook his head. “Nope, you couldn’t convince Lester Brown that his laziness, his lack of ambition and lack of discipline for himself, and Sonny, caused his misfortune, not even if you dedicated an entire month of your life to explaining it to him…Why the sudden interest in Lester? Did you run into him already?”
Nate squelched his frustration and ignored the taunts still buzzing around his head. “Yeah, Lester and John Jessup headed up the unwelcoming committee when I drove into town to open a bank account and fill out the forms to have mail delivered to this address.”
Fuzz stared grimly at Nate. “Don’t let Lester get to you. I warned you that he would be on your case, along with his comical sidekick, Jessup. That was the first test you had to pass. You’ll have to turn the other cheek when those two lay into you.”
“They already did, twice today,” Nate confided.
