The Creed Legacy (20 page)

“Don’t just stand there,” Tricia commanded goodnaturedly. “Thank heaven there were some deliveries from our suppliers yesterday afternoon, so we’ll be able to stock the shelves properly. I had Conner stack the boxes in the small parlor.”

Said parlor stood just to the left of the front door.

Carolyn hurried in that direction and, when she got there, immediately started ripping open cartons. She and Tricia sold handcrafted items from all over the United States, made by talented people they usually referred to as “cottage industrialists.”

Today, there were chenille bedroom slippers in one box, and Victorian tea cozies in another.

Tricia arrived to help, unpacking exquisitely made art dolls, personal journals and all manner of scented bath salts.

Primrose showed up with a pair of canvases, both mixed-media abstracts in colors that roused a yearning in Carolyn.

“Oh, Primrose,” Tricia said, stopping to look at the pictures. “Those are
lovely.
”

Primrose, bespectacled, with gray curly hair and owner of the largest and most colorful collection of muumuus that side of Hawaii, beamed with pleasure. “They’re not batiks, like the Weaver, but—”

“They’ll be sold in no time,” Carolyn said, almost sadly.

Tricia and Primrose both looked at her with curious concern, but neither one commented.

For the next twenty minutes, which was all the time they had before the first of the three jam-packed buses pulled up outside, the three women were far too busy to chat.

B
Y THE TIME
the third tour bus pulled away, an hour and a half later, Carolyn and Tricia were so low on merchandise that they had to close the shop in order to regroup.

Primrose’s two new works of art had been sold immediately, as had the last of the aprons, the most recent batch of goats’ milk soap and the contents of most of the boxes they’d unpacked earlier.

“That was
incredible,
” Tricia marveled, sitting wearily at the table in the downstairs kitchen, a cup of tea steaming in front of her. “Like a plague of locusts, but in a good way.”

“Beyond incredible,” Carolyn agreed happily. “Of course, we still have to pay all our consignment people, cover basic expenses and all that, but—drum roll, please—
we definitely turned a profit!
” She’d just taken her pink dress out of the washer and was about to hang it outside, on the clothesline.

Tricia was focused on the dress. “That’s pretty,” she said. “Is there a special occasion coming up?”

Pleased, Carolyn nodded. “I have a date tonight,” she confided.

Interest sparked, Tricia asked hopefully, “With Brody?”

Carolyn paused at the back door, shook her head. “Brody and I are going out Saturday night,” she said, blushing a little.

Tricia’s face lit up. “Really?”

“It’s only dinner and a movie,” Carolyn said. Then, with a gesture of one hand that meant “hold on a moment,” she dashed outside, pegged her sundress carefully to the line and drew in a breath of that thin high-country air, full of blue sky and budding flowers and freshly cut grass.

When she returned to Natty’s kitchen, Tricia went right on, as though there had been no interruption in the conversation. “But you
are
going out with Brody?”

Carolyn got out a cup and poured tea into it from the china pot on the counter. Sat down at the table, across from Tricia.

“We have ground rules,” she said, treading carefully.
“Responsibilities.”

“Who does?” Tricia asked, raising one eyebrow.

“Brody and I. For one thing, we have agreed not to have sex.”

Tricia twinkled as she smiled. “Is that a ground rule or a responsibility?” she teased.

Carolyn made a face at her.

Tricia laughed. “And tonight?”

“Bill invited me over to his place for a barbecue,” she said.

“Bill?” Tricia pretended to muse over the name. “That would be Mr. Coffee, right? The death-defying firefighting pilot?”

Carolyn sighed. “Yes,” she said.

“Does Brody know?”

“He does.”

“I love it,” Tricia enthused. “My brother-in-law must be beside himself.”

“He was actually pretty unconcerned,” Carolyn recalled, concerned.

“Maybe he wanted you to
think
he was,” Tricia said, with utter confidence in her own powers of discernment.

Carolyn wished she could be that sure of herself and her perceptions, but certainty didn’t seem to be part of her personal makeup.

She stiffened, reminded of the original conversation with Brody, in Tricia and Conner’s kitchen, when the whole situation had come dangerously close to circuitblowing, spark-throwing overload. “You didn’t hear him setting his stupid ground rules,” she said, revealing more than she’d ever intended by that statement.

“No sex?” Tricia asked, visibly battling back a laugh.

“
And
we can both see other people if we want to.”

Tricia’s expression changed in an instant. “Brody said that?”

Carolyn nodded.

“That stinker,” Tricia muttered.

Carolyn peered at her in a don’t-stop-there kind of way. “If you know something I don’t, Tricia Creed, you’d better tell me,” she challenged.

“There’s probably no connection,” Tricia said.

“Spill it,” Carolyn persisted, her tea entirely forgotten.

“Well,” Tricia replied, squirming a little, “Joleen is back in town, that’s all.”

Joleen is back in town—
that’s all?

Although she knew she had no right to bristle at this news, Carolyn did indeed bristle. Like a porcupine.

Tricia smiled again and reached over to pat Carolyn’s hand. “I’m sure one thing has nothing to do with the other,” she said.

Carolyn just looked at her.

“Joleen grew up in Lonesome Bend,” Tricia explained quickly. “Her family is here. I’m sure that’s the reason she came back—and you know she never stays around for long.”

“I should have known what he was up to,” Carolyn said. “In fact, I
did
know, but I chose the luxury of denial.”

This time, it was Tricia who didn’t respond. She seemed to be at a complete loss for words.

“Brody knew Joleen was on her way,” Carolyn went on. “
That’s
why he said what he did about both of us seeing other people. I wonder if
he and Joleen
have set any ground rules? No sex? I doubt it!”

Tricia looked pained. “Carolyn—”

“If that’s the way Brody wants to play the game,” Carolyn interrupted,
“fine.”
She pushed back her chair, stood up again. “As a matter of fact,” she continued, “I think I’ll go upstairs, log on to my laptop and check my mailbox at Friendly Faces.”

“Carolyn, you shouldn’t—Brody wouldn’t—” She fell silent, after uttering a long sigh, and covered her face with both hands.

Carolyn left her friend sitting at the table and practically sprinted toward the inside staircase.

She was behaving like a crazy person, she knew that.

It was just that knowing didn’t seem to make much difference.

While the laptop booted up—it was old and therefore slow—Carolyn paced back and forth across the kitchen. Winston, meowing, kept weaving his way back and forth between her feet.

She finally sank into the chair in front of her desk to wait for the computer to grind through all its mysterious electronic sequences. Better to sit down than to squash the cat, or trip over the fool critter and break her neck.

Spookily, the Friendly Faces website opened on its own.

Carolyn’s eyes widened. The mailbox icon—a yellow one, rural-style, with a red flag—pulsed like a heart. Cartoon letters spewed from its opening in bursts like erupting fireworks.

She drew a deep breath, let it out slowly and clicked on the mailbox.

Robert, from Telluride.

Buck, from Colorado Springs.

Sam, from Aspen.

All in all, there were an astounding forty-three mes sages.

Rattled, Carolyn looked down at Winston, who was now sitting on the floor next to her chair, as attentive as ever.

“It wasn’t even a very good picture of me,” she complained to him.

Downstairs, she could hear Tricia moving around Natty’s kitchen.

Carolyn sighed, got up from her chair and went back down to find her friend.

“I’m sorry,” she said, from the kitchen doorway. “For the way I acted just now, I mean.”

Tricia, having washed their tea cups and set them in the drainer to dry, turned to smile at her. “Breathe, Carolyn. Everything will be all right.”

Carolyn hunched one shoulder, let it fall again. “I have forty-three messages on my Friendly Faces page,” she said weakly. “
Forty-three.
Tricia, what am I going to do?”

“Read them?” Tricia asked mildly, rehanging the hand towel she’d just used. “Answer some and delete others?” She pressed her hands to her back, stretched contentedly. “It’s an embarrassment of riches, Carolyn.
Enjoy
it. You might meet the perfect man for you.” A pause, accompanied by another smile. “Of course, there are those among us who believe you already
have
met the perfect man for you and can’t bring yourself to admit it.”

“What do you want from me?” Carolyn asked, in a burst of friendly frustration. “I’m going out with Brody on Saturday—against my better judgment, I might add.”

Tricia’s eyes danced. “Ah-ha,” she said.

“I didn’t name names, Tricia,” Carolyn pointed out. “I didn’t say
Brody
was the perfect man for me. If there even
is
such an animal.”

“I didn’t name names, either,” Tricia said, her tone sunny. “Interesting that you made the leap, though. From
perfect man
to
Brody
.”

“Stop it,” Carolyn said. “Nobody made any
leaps
here
.
”

“Whatever you say,” Tricia replied, heading for the shop. Taking a sheaf of receipts from the drawer of the cash register, she waggled them at Carolyn. “I’ll do the books this time,” she said. “Do you want me to order more goats’ milk soap? And those beeswax candles went fast, too, especially for this time of year—”

Carolyn felt a surge of affection for her friend. “It’s a lot of paperwork, Tricia. It might take all evening—”

Tricia extracted her purse from under the counter and shouldered it on, like one of those old-fashioned plow harnesses. “Carolyn,” she said, “it’s the least I can do. Aren’t you always sewing aprons and filling orders from our website? Excuse me, but even
you
can’t do everything.”

With that, she waddled over, kissed Carolyn on the cheek, bid Winston a fond farewell and headed for the back door.

Carolyn followed her.

The pink dress looked like a swath of cotton candy, billowing in the fresh breeze.

“What am I supposed to do for a whole afternoon, if you’re taking all the work home with you?” Carolyn called, as her friend opened the door of her Pathfinder to get behind the wheel.

“Get ready for your date?” Tricia responded merrily. “Soak in a bubble bath. Give yourself a facial. Take a nap. You’re an intelligent woman—you’ll think of something.”

Carolyn wanted to offer a parting protest, but she didn’t have one ready.

There were, however, plenty of things to keep her occupied for the rest of the afternoon, she soon realized, even without Tricia’s decadent suggestions.

She could work on the gypsy skirt.

She could make more frilly aprons, with zigzag trim and ruffles.

She could deal with all those emails in her Friendly Faces box.

She could even shave her legs.

“S
0,” CONNER SAID
, as he and Brody and Davis hoisted a sick calf off the ground and into the bed of one of the work trucks, “I hear Joleen blew back into town last night.”

Once upon a time, Joleen had been a sore subject—a
real
sore subject—between the brothers. Now she was just another way for Conner to get under Brody’s hide. He couldn’t seem to go more than fifteen minutes without making the attempt.

“Is that right?” Brody asked, dusting his hands off on the thighs of his jeans. “I hadn’t heard.”

The mama cow was bawling her head off, worried over her baby being hauled away. Davis patted her flank and said, “We’ll fix your little one up for you, Bessie. Good as new.”

The range cattle didn’t have names, as such, but Davis called all cows Bessie, and all bulls Ferdinand.

Conner cocked a grin at Brody as he stepped up onto the running board of the pickup, about to get behind the wheel. “You’re a pretty bad liar for somebody with a rascal’s history,” he joked. “Word is, Joleen went straight to your place and you threw her out with a hundred dollars and a speech about taking the moral high road.”

“Drive slow,” Davis advised, hoisting himself up onto the tail gate to ride with the calf. “Bessie here will be following after us, and I don’t want her worn out from trying to keep up.”

Conner nodded—he’d been through this process many times, and so had Brody and Davis—and Brody got in on the passenger side.

“Small-town gossip is one of the few things I
didn’t
miss while I was away from Lonesome Bend,” Brody said immediately.

Conner chuckled, checked the rearview mirror to make sure Davis was ready to roll and put the truck in gear. “Folks talk about you,” he said. “It means they care, that’s all.”

“It
means,
little brother, that they have small minds and too much free time.”

That made Conner laugh.

Bessie ambled behind them, still carrying on like a sinner on his first day in hell. Even over the roar of that old truck’s old engine, she was audible.

Back at the barn, they’d settle Bessie and the calf in a stall, keep an eye on the little one for a day or two, bring the vet if necessary. They’d found the calf lying with his head downhill, probably suffering from sunstroke and mild dehydration, but the worst danger—being vulnerable to predators—was over.

Usually in these cases, a little TLC did the trick.

Bessie and her baby boy would be back out on the range, with the rest of the herd, in no time.

All of a sudden, his jocular mood vanished, and Conner turned serious as all get-out. “Be careful, Brody,” he said. “Carolyn is a good woman, and she’s had a hard row to hoe almost since the day she was born. It wouldn’t be right to hurt her.” Again.

Conner hadn’t actually said the word, but it hung in the air between them.

“You think I
want
to hurt her?” Brody asked, nettled. He shifted around on the seat, which was cracked leather, with springs and stuffing showing in places. Davis believed in using equipment until it disintegrated back to the particle state.

“I didn’t say that,” Conner replied, shifting again. “Didn’t mean to imply it, either.”

Brody heaved a sigh. “I know,” he said. “Maybe I’m a little touchy when it comes to Joleen. She’s got some wild hair about my being involved with Carolyn, and I’m afraid she’s going to make trouble.”

“Did she say she would?”

“In so many words,” Brody answered wearily, “yes.”

Conner considered for a while before asking, “Are you, Brody? Involved with Carolyn, I mean?”

Brody glanced over at his brother, at the profile so remarkably like his own that he might have been looking into a mirror. “Let’s just say I’d
like
to be,” he finally said. “But she doesn’t trust me, and I can’t blame her for that.”