Hope cocked her head to one side and studied the tall cowboy standing in her kitchen. His left eye had begun to swell a bit and a shadow of beard darkened his chin and jaw. He kind of had a glow about him, and she wondered if it was the trick of the light or the Budweiser. She felt good and free, and she was old enough to recognize she’d had more than her share to drink. She was buzzed, all right, but not the kind of drunk that made the room spin or her stomach heave. The kind that made everything okay. Like in a dream, where all her problems receded into the background, and where a big, strong man saved the day, broke up fights, and checked out her spooky house for her. The kind that had a handsome cowboy standing in her kitchen and offering to help her with a story she just might write. None of it seemed quite real. “There is,” she finally answered. “But he’s someone else’s Mr. Spencer these days.”
“How long were you married?”
The answer to that question was easy. “Seven years.”
“Long time.” He lifted the towel from the corner of his eye. “What happened?”
She leaned a shoulder into the refrigerator and thought about the next answer, which wasn’t so easy. “He found someone he liked better.”
“Younger?”
She was drunk, but not that drunk. “No, not younger. It’s not even very interesting. Just the old cliché about a doctor having an affair with his nurse,” she lied, because lying was so much easier than the truth.
His lips curved into a one-sided smile she found slightly irresistible. “She couldn’t be prettier than you.”
Okay, more than slightly irresistible. “Actually, she has big teeth.”
The other side of his lips slid up and his whole face smiled. “I hate that in a woman.”
The more he talked, the more she liked him. “And a shelf butt,” she added.
“Hate that, too.”
“The last time I saw her, she got herself some big ol‘ breasts to match.”
He didn’t say anything. Just continued to smile.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about your girlfriend from the Buckhorn.”
“I told you, Dixie isn’t my girlfriend, but I can pretty much vouch that she isn’t filled with bags of saline.”
“How do you know?”
“Because her older sister, Kim, was my girlfriend in high school. They’re built about the same.”
“Is Kim the girl who ran off with a trucker right after graduation?”
His brow furrowed and he pressed the towel over his eyes. “How do you know about that?”
“Shelly told me.”
“Yeah, that figures.”
“If she was your girlfriend, why’d she run off with a trucker?”
“Because,” he said as he set the towel on the counter and straightened, “Kim was a girl with marriage on her mind, and I had plans that didn’t include hanging crepe paper in the grange hall and saying ‘I do.’ ”
“What plans?”
“Getting as far away from this town as I could get.” He shrugged. “Seeing the rest of the world.”
“But you’re back.”
“Yeah, I guess I didn’t like what I saw.”
“I’ve been wondering about something since I first came here.” She looked into his deep green eyes surrounded by thick lashes, the left one starting to swell a bit more. “What’s it like to have several women in this town in love with you?”
He shook his head and took a few steps forward. “Honey, you’ve got that all wrong,” he said and stopped directly in front of her. “I just happen to be single and have a job. That makes me a prime target for women who want to get married. That’s all.”