Her Small-Town Cowboy (10 page)

“I’ll be here with my boots on.”

“Sounds good. By the way, could you not mention the excitement to my mom? There’s really nothing for her to be concerned about, but if she finds out about it, she’ll hassle me to death.”

“What excitement?” Lily teased, giving him a cute wink.

Patting his arm in a friendly gesture, she dropped a kiss on Gideon’s cheek and headed for the exit. As Mike watched her stroll down the driveway toward her car, a furry head bumped his arm.

“I don’t know about her, boy. Whattya think?”

He got a whooshing noise in reply and couldn’t help chuckling at the horse’s bang-on response. “Yeah, I guess that pretty much sums it up.”

Chapter Six

S
unday morning dawned bright and beautiful, and Lily couldn’t help smiling as she took in the view from the tiny porch outside her studio apartment. Sitting on the single wooden step, she sipped her coffee while the sleepy village around her seemed to yawn and wake itself for another day.

The gracious Victorian that had been advertising a room for rent had been a real find, she recalled as her eyes roamed the neighborhood dotted with comfortable-looking homes and well-tended gardens. There were only a few fences for containing pets such as dogs and chickens, and the other day she’d been surprised to find a glorious peacock strutting his stuff a few doors down.

Peaceful but humming with the comings and goings of everyday life, it was a far cry from Louisville. And with each passing day, Oaks Crossing appealed to her more and more. If only she could find her way into a job somewhere in the area, she wouldn’t mind staying on past the end of summer.

She heard the slap of a neighbor’s screen door and looked over to find an elderly man shuffling down his front walkway with an equally elderly cocker spaniel. The owner noticed her and nodded, giving her a toothless smile that told her he’d forgotten to put his dentures in. Again. “Good morning, Mr. Farnham.”

“Morning to you, too, Miss St. George. Out enjoying this lovely day?”

“I am. Are you and Lady headed down to the park in the center of all those pretty churches?”

“We are. Will we be seeing you at services today?”

Small Southern towns,
she mused with another smile. In her previous life, most people she knew considered Sunday to be the day after Saturday night, designed expressly for sleeping in. Here in Oaks Crossing, she’d quickly learned that if you weren’t planning to be in church, you’d better have a good excuse. “Yes, you will. I really like the way Pastor Wheaton delivers a sermon.”

“Direct and to the point, just how everyone oughta be, in my opinion. I’ll leave you to your coffee, then.”

“Have a good walk.”

He raised a veined hand in response and continued on his way with Lady waddling along beside him. Behind her, Lily heard a tsking noise and glanced over at the open kitchen window.

“He forgets his teeth more often than not,” her landlady, Beatrice Herman, chided, shaking her head while she shooed a grasshopper off the sill with a dish towel. “From what I’ve seen, there’s not a man alive who can make it as a widower.”

“Everyone does better with company, I guess. Maybe you should take him some of your famous barbecue after church,” she suggested with a little grin.

“Augie Farnham? He’s the same age my daddy would have been, God rest his soul.” When Lily didn’t respond, the woman eyed her with a long, puzzled look that gradually gave way to a laugh. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”

“I just suggested you take him some food. You made the romantic leap all on your own.”

“At my age, it’s a wonder I can still jump any distance at all. Now, if I was a young, pretty thing like you, the men’d be beating down my door.”

“I don’t seem to be having that problem,” Lily pointed out, swallowing some more coffee. “I like it better that way. It’s much easier.”

“Easy, schmeasy,” Bea scoffed. Her skeptical expression became pensive, and a wistful look came into her eyes. “Take it from me, dear. When you find the right man, he’s worth every ounce of trouble he causes.”

Drawing her head back inside, she slid the window shut and left Lily to finish her coffee in silence.
Well, quiet, anyway,
she amended her thought with a grin. All manner of birds lived in the shrubs and trees that dotted the expansive yard, and they called to one another while they dive-bombed worms in the freshly turned dirt that marked Bea’s evolving vegetable garden.

Then she picked up a sound that was distinctly unbirdlike. It was a whimper so faint she couldn’t be sure where it had come from, and at first she thought she’d imagined it. No, there it was again.

Listening intently, she eased off the stoop to get a better fix on its source. The cool grass tickled her bare feet, but it also muffled her steps as she moved in what she hoped was the right direction. And there, under a mulberry bush, she found the source.

A small dog cowered under the low branches, doing its best to blend into the shadows beneath the bush. Covered in mud and bits of grass, its buff-colored coat hadn’t been bathed recently, which led her to think its mother might be gone. Looking around, she saw no sign of a dog or other pups.

When she came back to the pitiful orphan, she noticed its eyes were still grayish-blue. It opened its pink mouth, but it was so exhausted no sound came out. Moved by the pitiful scrap of fur, her heart lurched in sympathy. Going slowly to avoid scaring it, she reached in to take it from its damp nest and cradled it against her chest. She wasn’t very large herself, but the puppy looked tiny and helpless in her arms.

“Oh, you poor little baby,” she crooned, rocking the trembling animal in a calming gesture. A quick peek showed her the puppy was male, and in the space of a single heartbeat, Lily decided she had to do something to help him.

Edging toward the house, she kept up a nonsensical string of chatter to reassure her new friend. She had no idea what such a young dog would eat, so she tapped lightly on the kitchen door and waited for Bea to open it.

“What on earth?” Bea opened the towel she held and wrapped it around the bit of fur as if it was a child and handed the bundle back to Lily. “Where did you find this little darling?”

“Under a bush in the backyard. I have to get ready for church, but I wanted to make him comfortable in my bathroom in case he makes a mess. I know you don’t allow pets, so I promise to find him a home as soon as possible.”

“I’d love to tell you he could stay, but the last dog owner I rented to left me with a huge, expensive mess after he moved out. For now, though, I expect he’d like some watered-down milk for breakfast. Do you have any old newspapers?”

“Um, no.”

“Oh, I forget,” Bea replied with a chuckle. “You young folks get all your news online, don’t you? I haven’t read today’s yet, but come on in. I think I’ve got some in the recycle bin under the sink.”

While Lily waited in the center of the kind woman’s ruthlessly immaculate kitchen, the puppy fell asleep in her arms. The trusting gesture touched her deeply, and she silently promised the tiny pup that she’d find him a wonderful, loving home so he’d never be cold or hungry again.

Bea was full of practical advice about pets, and once she’d finished Puppy Care 101, Lily settled her fuzzy houseguest in her small bathroom with a bowl of diluted milk and a soft blanket. Seeming to realize he was finally safe, the adorable fur ball cuddled into the blanket and promptly fell back to sleep. He was so precious. She gently stroked his wrinkly forehead and plucked the worst of the grass from his coat before tapping his black button nose. After taking a few photos of him with her phone, Lily carefully stepped around him and eased the door shut behind her.

Then she quickly finished getting ready and opened the antique rosewood box where she kept Great-Grandma Katie’s Bible. Tattered from many decades of love, it was almost unusable these days, but Lily still took it to church with her every Sunday. She’d never met her feisty ancestor, but carrying the antique book just felt right to her. She had a feeling Katie liked the tradition, too.

The Shepherd’s Chapel was just up the street, and it was such a pleasant morning, Lily decided to walk. Built by the town’s residents in the late 1800s, it was a simple, sturdy building with a modest steeple whose bell echoed in the warming air, calling the congregation to worship.

In no particular hurry, Lily strolled along a sidewalk shaded by dark green awnings and deep porch roofs. She was still getting a feel for the quaint little town, and she paused here and there to see what the Main Street merchants had in their display windows. One showed off the latest in electronics and computers, while another was advertising half-off Kentucky Derby hats for ladies. The race had been run already this year, so she imagined they were intended for next season’s Run for the Roses. She couldn’t imagine planning that far ahead for a derby outfit, but she had no doubt some of her more sociable friends actually did.

Friends she hadn’t heard a peep from in months, she acknowledged with a frown. She’d been so busy with her master’s thesis and student teaching, it hadn’t occurred to her that none of them had bothered to contact her. No emails, texts, Tweets, nothing. Apparently, her choice to forge a satisfying career of her own rather than walk herself down the aisle to become Mrs. Someone was something they simply couldn’t understand.

She’d once read a quote that said following your own drummer would show you who your friends were. Now she knew exactly how true those words were.

Wading in emotions she’d rather not examine too closely, she suddenly realized she’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and was in danger of being late. She picked up her pace and was climbing the church steps just as the organist began playing the opening chords of their first hymn.

Lily recognized the tune for “How Great Thou Art” and smiled while she slid into a rear pew. As she opened her hymnal, she noticed the small church was nearly full, the way it had been the other two times she’d attended services here. People were beginning to recognize her, and several greeted her with nods and smiles. One in particular caught her eye this morning, and she wiggled her fingers back at a grinning Abby Kinley.

To her surprise, Abby waved her up to their row, pointing to an open spot beside her on the end. Figuring there was no harm in moving during the singing, Lily sneaked forward and settled in beside Abby.

“I saved it for you,” the girl whispered, eyes glowing with pride at her foresight.

Lily whispered her thanks and glanced down the row to find the rest of the Kinleys singing along in a family chorus that blended nicely together. All except one.

Mike.

Abby must have noticed her frown, because she motioned for Lily to lean closer. “Daddy doesn’t come to church with us. Grammy says he’s mad at God for taking Grampa away.”

The matter-of-fact explanation sounded odd coming from such a young child, but Lily reasoned that Abby had grown up with her father’s bitterness and had chosen to admire his good qualities rather than dwell on his faults. Still, it struck her as strange that he’d allow her to attend services when he’d turned his back on religion. Did that mean he still saw value in his faith? she wondered. Almost as quickly as the idea had popped into her mind, she recognized the futility of even asking the question.

Mike didn’t seem to be the confiding type, so the chances of her getting an answer were remote, at best. At least he wasn’t preventing Abby from embracing the faith that his family so obviously valued. While the situation wasn’t ideal, Lily had to give the man credit for not sitting in church just to make a good impression on the neighbors. She knew far too many hypocrites who attended church every Sunday and then did things during the rest of the week that would have made Jesus weep.

When the hymn was finished, everyone got comfortable in their seats and looked expectantly toward the raised platform at the front of the sanctuary. There was no elegant statuary or stained glass, just an oak altar that had darkened over the years to show the detail of a grove of hand-carved oak trees that echoed the town’s picturesque name.

A slender man dressed in a plain gray suit strolled over from his place in the choir section and stood at a small lectern off to the side. With no notes, he folded his hands and leaned forward on his elbows as he smiled out into the congregation. To Lily, he looked more like a grandfather about to impart some sage advice than he did a preacher.

“Good morning.” The room rang with voices wishing him the same, and he continued in a folksy tone. “Y’know, I had a nice, neat sermon all prepared for today. Practiced it, had it down pat for y’all to hear. Then I looked out at this remarkable day and decided that what I had planned was all wrong.” Winging a fatherly look around the crowd, he said, “That happens to the best of us sometimes. We think we’re on the right path, and then something pops up in front of us to show us another way. When people say ‘God works in mysterious ways,’ that’s what they mean.”

Intellectually, Lily knew he wasn’t speaking directly to her, but it certainly felt as if he was. When she glanced around her, she saw people nodding slightly, while others were frowning as if he’d hit a sore spot with them. A few, like her, appeared to be entranced by his words, as if he’d shed some light on something they’d been struggling to understand in their own lives.

Taking the lesson a bit further, for the first time she could almost view Chad breaking off their engagement as a good thing. That crushing disappointment and the embarrassment that followed it had forced her to reassess her life and admit it wasn’t the one she wanted for herself. No matter how wonderful he might be, she wasn’t the type of woman to exist in the shadow of her husband, following him through the maze of social obligations that had always bored her.

That was Natalie’s life, and she adored it. But Lily felt there must be more out there for her, and Chad’s leaving had given her the opportunity to find it. She might not be spoiled and sheltered the way she would have been as his wife, and being alone could be tough to deal with sometimes. But she was happy. Her independence was worth more to her than all the possessions in the world.