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Chapter Three

The familiar sound of clinking spurs drew Molly’s attention away from almost upchucking in the middle of Mule Hollow’s Main Street. The sight of mild-mannered Bob storming toward her sent a shiver down her spine.

The blaze in his eyes meant only one thing.

He’d read the article.

Retraction. There was nothing mild mannered about the man storming toward her.

She swallowed hard, sucking in a calming breath. It was time to face the music.

Bob halted three feet in front of her, legs spread shoulder-width apart and planted his hands on his narrow hips. If he’d been wearing a Western duster, she could envision him sliding the coat back behind the gun holster, his fingertips wiggling just above the pearly-white pistol, itching to draw and shoot.

Get a grip, Molly.

“H-hello, Bob.” She lifted her chin, trying not to look as queasy as she felt.

He lifted his chin in acknowledgment, or challenge, his eyes boring into hers. The man did have the nicest square chin and the most stunning eyes…angry eyes at the moment, but gorgeous. And why was she thinking about them, when he was obviously thinking about wringing her neck? “I, well I was just looking at my car. It’s a mess.” She laughed nervously as he raised an eyebrow. “Okay, okay.” She raked a trembling hand through her ponytail. “I see you’ve read the article. I’m sorry. I should have asked. I should have made certain that something like that, I mean, an entire article about you should have had your okay on it.”

He nodded. That’s all. Just a curt nod and nothing. Except that his eyes kind of glinted in the morning sunlight like a ping. An “and you call yourself a reporter” kind of ping.

“But,” she rattled on, “you said it and, and well, my editor had asked me to do an article that focused solely on you.” He lifted his eyebrow and guilt washed over her but she stumbled on. “It’s what a poll of the female readers said they wanted. I started not to do it. Really, but then I overheard you talking to Clint. I mean, really, there I was sitting in Sam’s minding my own business and you just happened to be sitting in the booth right behind me, talking about wanting a wife.” She was rambling. There was nothing pretty about rambling, but how else to tell the tale? She just hoped he’d understand. She smiled nervously.

He wasn’t smiling, so her smile melted like a deflating balloon into a pathetic shriveled pucker. “And well, I think you get the rest of the idea. It was just too coincidental to pass up. How was I to know you were about to tell me not to talk about you at all in my articles? I’m sorry. It was already on the presses,” she finished weakly.

Even though she knew she looked as if she’d just eaten a lemon, still he said nothing, just looked at her. Looked at her, and she felt even worse than she’d felt….

“All right, already, would you say something!”

“Something.”

Oh! Molly felt her eyes go squinty of their own accord. So now he wanted to be cute! Ooh…she felt like the low of the low and he wanted to be cute! Fumes were wafting from her ears, she could feel them. She hoped he could see them.

“Look Molly, I think you’ve learned your lesson.”

Learned my lesson! And she had tried to apologize to the man! She crossed her arms and glared at the rude cowboy.

“I know I’ve learned mine,” he continued smoothly.

Her mouth fell open and a huff escaped before she could snatch it back.

He lifted an eyebrow. “I learned, if you’re anywhere in the room I’ll keep my mouth shut. It really wasn’t your fault. I mean, look at you. You have a pencil stuck behind your ear and a camera strapped around your neck. And I bet inside that backpack there’s a couple of notepads crammed full of ideas you’ve gotten between now and the time you woke up this morning. Hey, you may even have your laptop in there. I mean you wouldn’t want to go off without your precious tools.”

Molly glowered more. He thought he knew her so well.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” he said, tipping his Stetson back a bit with his thumb. “No.”

He smiled and her heart did a weird little sputter. His smile bloomed, showing his dimples, and his midnight-blue eyes flared. “I am right, aren’t I? How many story ideas have you had since you woke up? Let’s see, you told me once that you woke up at five every morning because you were the most creative at that hour, and now it’s nine. So you’ve had a few hours of free time…how about five ideas?”

Molly swung away from him. Here she’d thought he was a nice cowboy. He was just a smart aleck. It was a good thing she didn’t have a stick, or she would have whacked him with it! Without a backward glance, she strode down the street toward her apartment. Ooh! If she had a car she’d have made an explosive exit and driven away, leaving the maddening man in her dust. Choking.

“So how close am I?” he asked beside her ear, his warm breath feathering along her neck.

She jumped and swatted at him with alternating hands. How dare he follow her that close. She could feel him smiling. Gloating.

He stepped up beside her. She glanced mutinously at him, increasing her pace. A lot of good it did her—his legs were longer than hers. She paused—where had she been going? Oh yes, her apartment. Focusing, she started walking again. Faster. She could feel her thick ponytail swinging back and forth with every step she took.

“Come on, Molly, let me see the notepads. You’ve been up writing away as fast as your little fingers can fly. Who’re you picking on this week?”

Molly slammed to a halt and twisted to face him. Her ponytail slapped her in the face. “Okay!” She pushed strands of hair off her nose so he could see that she was glaring at him. “Okay! You’ve had your fun. You’ve made your point. Now go. Go away. Disappear. Shoo.”

He was standing, tall and lean. His powerful shoulders were squared and his handsome head tilted just enough to show off his triumphant grin and those dangerous dimples. Those mind-boggling dimples that made him look like country star Joe Nichols’s long-lost twin especially when mixed with his twinkling eyes. It made Molly want to…well, she wanted to—

He reached and took the pencil from behind her ear. “Don’t write another word about me.” Sliding her pencil behind his perfect ear, he spun on his heel and walked away. Strolled away down Main Street with a clink and a swagger.

And her pencil.

Molly’s hands were fisted tightly—the man was not the person she’d thought he was. Nope. There wasn’t a nice bone in his strong, lean body.

Bob rubbed his new pup’s tummy, watching as the little fella grinned up at him with no worries in the world. He was a cute little border collie that Bob had been waiting to pick up from its owner for the past six weeks. After having his little run-in with Molly he’d swung by for John Boy.

Patting the pup’s rump, Bob sent him scampering to play with a clump of long grass as he went back to work. Tugging his gloves back on, he glared up at the blaring sun and wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his forearm. He’d been working like a maniac to strengthen the ancient barn that had seemed on its last legs when he bought the place. Bob wanted to make it hang in a while longer. So he was repairing it, using it to clear out his frustrations.

J.P. had offered to help him; Bob had declined. He’d needed the physical exertion. Needed time to think about what had happened that morning.

He’d been pretty hard on Molly.

He’d told himself she deserved his sarcasm, but he wasn’t sure he hadn’t gone too far. There was a fine line between anger and downright meanness. The truth was, he’d acted like a spoiled bully.

Because of it, here he was thinking of skipping church. The thought made him feel worse. But he wasn’t ready to face Molly or the Lord. Like you can hide from Him.

Of course he wasn’t fooling himself. He could feel the Lord watching him, feel that gentle whisper on the wind. Nope, there was no getting away from Him.

But Molly.

Well, that was a different story. When a guy sang in the choir like he did, there was no way to escape people. The congregation stared up at the choir members as if they were an alien species or something. Not everyone, but half of them. Applegate Thornton’s dour face came to mind, making him cringe.

But aside from that, he knew Molly would try her best to ignore him, and he would try his best to ignore her. But their efforts would be in vain, because in the long run sometime during the service they would lock eyes and he would feel compelled to apologize.

And frankly, he wasn’t ready.

He’d let her off easy before. Not this time.

Hoisting a one-by-six in place, he pulled his hammer from his tool belt, a nail from between his lips and in two steady swings drilled the nail into the board. He’d been right! Despite feeling bad about the bull attack he’d had completely legitimate reasons to be angry at Molly.

She’d been out of line. “You’re doggone right she’d been out of line. Way out,” he said to the wind.

Still. There was the part of him that had come out a little harder than he’d planned. He wasn’t completely comfortable about that.

And then there was that other thing—the part of him that kept thinking about how sweet she looked standing there all decked out in her reporter paraphernalia. Despite every reason he had to be turned off by that part of her, he always seemed to conjure up pictures of her looking cute and sassy with the chewed-up, pink-tipped pencil sticking out from behind her ear. But that wasn’t what was bothering him right now, either. Something had been wrong with her when he’d first glimpsed her coming around the corner of Prudy’s Garage. She’d looked sick.

She’d looked shaken. She’d looked green.

And he’d not cared in the least.

Now that bothered him. He’d wanted to make her feel as bad as he could so he’d worked on her guilt and ground it in. He had ignored the fact that the woman had been through a very harrowing experience. A bull the size of Sylvester was a terrifying sight from afar. Up close and personal, out-of-his-head angry like he’d been, Sylvester could tear through a person and never stop. As a rodeo bullfighter, Bob had seen plenty of bull riders mangled by the animals—he’d been there a time or two himself. In those situations the bulls were only doing their jobs. Bull riders wanted a good ride. A mean ride. The better the bucking, the higher the score.

What had Molly been thinking? She could have lost her life all for a picture of his house. He knew facing a mountain of solid bull muscle just by crossing a cattle guard wouldn’t have been a priority on her list of things to do for the day. Surely she’d seen the big brute? Who could miss two thousand pounds of bull out in broad daylight? Or maybe Sylvester had been standing over the hill where she couldn’t see him.

He wondered if she was having nightmares. Though she’d seemed fine on the ride into town after he’d rescued her, he wondered. Sometimes adrenaline got a person through a close call. Lowering his hammer, he let his gaze wonder out across his pastureland.

A Christian man, no, any kind of man worth his salt, Christian or not, would step up and see if she was okay.

Especially the man who knew he had a bull with problems.

Before church on Sunday morning Molly was sitting in her apartment lost in thought.

After her maddening encounter with Bob the brute on Saturday, she’d met with his insurance adjuster alone. He had given her an assessment of the damage to her poor darling car. Her little Bug had taken a beating from that bull-headed bull on the hood and both side panels. The adjuster had assured her the news was good, that Sylvester’s damage was actually minimal. Some new doors, a little bodywork, a new paint job and her car would be as good as new.

Easy for him to say. New paint jobs were never as good as the factory. Everybody knew that, but it served her right for trespassing. What had she been thinking?

About a story.

Everything in her life was about a story. It was true, but she liked it that way. Still, it seemed a sad fact that she’d stood in the middle of the street taking pictures of her car as it was being towed away that day. But the photos were for “just in case.” Just in case she got over her fright and an idea for a story should arise from this incident. That was the way she was wired. Many would argue that her wires were really messed up.

Who was she kidding? She felt no real desire to look for an article angle. Looking at the car had brought all the trauma of the experience back to her. She sucked in a long breath and forced the thoughts away. She refused to think any more about the bull attack. She couldn’t. She had just a few days left to get her column in for the week, not to mention the magazine articles that loomed in a consecutive wave of deadlines. She’d scrapped the follow-up on Bob and now she had nothing.

Nothing.

For a girl with endless ideas, the fact that she had no desire to write was unbelievable. She always wrote, had always created several ideas at once.

Specifically, she’d been writing columns about Mule Hollow for almost a year. Now suddenly for the first time in her life she was drawing blanks.

She hadn’t had an idea since the attack on Friday—the day Bob told her to stop writing about him.

For the past two mornings, as she’d done most mornings since her arrival in Mule Hollow, she’d risen at five o’clock, dressed quickly, strapped on her backpack and jogged to the edge of town. She’d taken the well-worn path she’d created across the open field where town gatherings were held, past the grove of mesquite trees and finally stopping at her special spot—a flat rock on the top of a knoll overlooking a sweeping valley. There she’d sit. She loved watching the sunrise, bringing with it inspirations—the sparks that ignited her creative mind.

Until now.

Until she’d been given the order to halt all tales of Bob.

She hadn’t completely realized exactly how much her column about Mule Hollow had truly revolved around him.

Why was that?

This morning, after not sleeping most of the night, she had sat on the floor in the middle of her apartment surrounded by weeks and months of copies of her column. And lo and behold, to her surprise, the maddening man had been right.

Completely, unexplainably right.

He had been in the papers more than the President!

Chapter Four

Monday morning came and Molly remained distracted and disgruntled, still drawing blanks. Even at church the day before she’d been in a fog, unable to focus on the service. Especially when there was a noticeable vacant spot in the choir where Bob usually sang. The man had a voice like Tim McGraw and he used it for the Lord. Wow! Just one more big check mark for why he was such a great guy. But it still didn’t explain why he’d appeared in her articles so much. There was, after all, an entire town full of great guys sitting in the church sanctuary. True their voices weren’t as good as Bob’s, but they were nice guys looking for love. So why hadn’t she plastered their names all over her articles as much as she’d plastered Bob’s?

Still boggled in the brain and running late on her routine, she crossed the street and walked over to the tiny Mule Hollow convention center to see if she needed to lend a hand before finding somewhere to settle and try to write. The center was really two older buildings on Main Street that the town had renovated into one large space. By city standards it was nothing more than a big room. For Mule Hollow, it was a convention center. Today they were decorating for Dottie Hart and Sheriff Brady’s bridal shower on Friday. The wedding was less than two weeks away, and as far as the two of them were concerned, that was two weeks too long.

An inspiring story, Molly was pleased to have had a hand in the match. It was her articles that basically inspired Cassie to start hitchhiking her way to Mule Hollow, which led Dottie to give her a lift, which brought both of them to town. Dottie had met Sheriff Brady and the rest was history. The only bad part for Molly was that Cassie had followed Bob around. Followed, not stalked as Bob had called it. And though things hadn’t worked out between them, Bob had befriended the young girl and now there were no hard feelings. At least not between Bob and Cassie. Obviously, the same didn’t go for her and Bob.

Still, she didn’t quite get it. He was happy for Brady and Dottie, he was friends with Cassie. But he was angry with her for writing the articles that were responsible for the wonderfully romantic web that God had used to get them all together.

True she’d gone overboard expounding on Bob’s worthiness as a potential husband, but she’d done a good thing for everyone else.

She was sorry she’d given him more fame than he wanted. But he would live. And maybe God would use it for good. If she focused on the positive aspects of what she’d done, then maybe she could get past this momentary stumble her creative mind was going through.

Taking time out this morning from her usual routine to help decorate for the shower would be a good way to relieve the stress that was blocking her flow. It could also provide fodder for the story she would write about the upcoming wedding. Readers were eating up the happily-ever-after wedding stories.

“Molly,” Lacy sang from her perch on the top of a twelve-foot ladder. “Just the woman I need. Sheri just jogged over and told me I have a walk-in waiting on me for a color repair. Can you finish tacking these streamers up? As soon as I fix whatever this woman has done to her hair I’ll be back. Although Sheri said this was a job for a magician not a beautician so it may take a while.”

“And who says you aren’t a magician?” Esther Mae called out from her chair in the center of the room.

“Yeah,” added Norma Sue with a snort. “Anybody who saw Esther Mae’s red triple decker before you got a hold of her would know you’ve got some great tricks up those sleeves of yours.”

Esther Mae harrumphed and Norma Sue gave her an innocent look. “Hey, I’m still waiting for it to go poof and turn back into the pumpkin that it was.”

Lacy laughed and climbed down off the ladder. Spinning around toward the two older friends, she plopped her hands on her hips. “You two better straighten up and be nice to each other or I might just have to get my razor hold of y’all.”

“Hey,” Esther Mae snapped, her eyes growing wide. “How do you think I would look with one of those spunky short cuts? You know where my hair sticks up on top of my head—”

“Lacy,” Norma Sue broke in. “Don’t listen to her. Mule Hollow doesn’t need to give the wrong impression.”

“And just what does that mean?” Esther Mae gasped indignantly.

Norma Sue dropped her jaw. “You’d look like a redheaded troll! That’s what.”

Esther Mae blew out a short breath. “Pooh. I would be spunky and cute. Just like my personality.”

Lacy shot a wink Molly’s way. “You are right about the personality, Esther dear. But I think maybe we’d have to have a serious consult before I punked out your hair. Okay, I gotta go.”

Molly watched Lacy jog toward the door, chuckling.

“What do I need to do?” she called after her, not at all sure about attempting decorating without a whole lot of instruction.

“Oh!” Lacy spun at the door. “As Esther Mae and Norma Sue get those decorations done, all you have to do is string them like I did these.” She pointed to the ceiling where she’d been draping the lights and ribbons Norma Sue and Esther Mae were braiding together. “Don’t look so doubtful, Molly. You can do this. The ties are on top of the ladder. As soon as I can, I’ll be back. If I’m not back before you get finished, you’ll know either I’ve got a really, really bad disaster on my hands or I’m getting to tell whomever is over there waiting on me about the Lord!”

She grinned, her eyes sparking with excitement. Everyone knew that witnessing for the Lord was the reason Lacy woke up every day. Molly had experienced it firsthand in the middle of a highlight.

Taking in Lacy’s beautiful work, Molly realized there was no way her streamers were going to remotely resemble the artfully draping decorations her friend had strung. Every dip was perfectly matched, no bulges, no kinks. Molly plastered on a smile and thought positive. “Sure, I can handle this, Lacy. You go do that thing you do.”

“Catch ya later,” Lacy sang. “’Bye, Norma Sue and Esther Mae. Try to be good, why don’t ya.”

“Hey, what fun would that be?” Norma Sue laughed, studying her work. “Don’t you agree, Molly?”

“Oh yeah. Sure thing.” She raised an eyebrow at the two spicy women. Picking up a strand Lacy had already strung across the floor, she climbed the ladder, listening to the two friends chatter on, returning to their previous banter without skipping a beat.

“What would possess you to think about cutting your hair like that?” Norma Sue asked.

Esther Mae gave an exasperated sigh. “I feel fat. I thought maybe a shorter cut might help.”

“Esther, it doesn’t work that way!”

“Well, something has to give. I tell you I can’t fit into my dress,” she wailed. “The wedding’s two weeks away and I’m as bloated as a cow. I think Sam gave me the wrong prescription. I’ve been taking my new derivatives and all they’re doing is sending me trotting—”

“Pulleeze!” Norma’s hand shot up. “Skip the trotting part. And the word is diuretics! And why are you blaming Sam?”

Esther harrumphed. “The sign does read Sam’s Diner and Pharmacy. And, he has been acting weird lately is all I’m saying. He’s even being rude. And you know Sam—he might be grumpy sometimes but not rude and distracted. I’m telling you something’s up.”

“Maybe he’s just being cranky for no reason—it happens sometimes. Or maybe he isn’t getting enough sleep,” Molly offered.

“Well, he’s been that way for days—I think he’s thinking about Adela. I think something is wrong. Haven’t you noticed the food at the diner hasn’t been up to snuff lately?

Norma Sue nodded and stopped braiding. “Now that you mention it, Adela has been extra quiet lately.”

Molly thought about that. Everyone could tell there was something special between Adela and Sam. But there seemed to be an invisible line drawn between them. They always sat beside each other at church, Sam making certain Miss Adela was comfortable after she came down from playing the piano, fussing over her sweater when it fell off her shoulders as she sat down. It was the sweetest thing Molly had ever seen. It was one of the things that made Molly have some hope about—well, she wasn’t going to think about that right now. She had too many other things pressing to be worried about why Sam wouldn’t ask Adela to marry him.

“Maybe we need to do something,” Esther Mae snapped, sitting up straighter and drawing Molly back to their conversation.

“Oh no, you don’t.”

“Norma Sue, you know those two are in love. They need our help. Tell her Molly. Tell her, it’s our duty to make sure Adela and Sam see the writing on the wall.”

“But, I—” Molly felt trapped as she stared at the wall and willed herself to be invisible. She was already in enough trouble for messing with Bob’s life. She didn’t want Sam and Adela mad at her, too. They seemed to have things under control.

“Yeah, Molly,” Norma Sue chimed in. “Maybe Esther Mae has a point.”

“I…well.” Molly scrambled down the ladder and grabbed her backpack from where she’d set it by the door. “Look. I just remembered something I forgot to do. Y’all can figure this out on your own. Do whatever you feel you need to do.”

Feeling guilty about abandoning the job, she backed out the door and closed it before she could hear their startled replies. She was still too shaken up over Bob being so put out with her. She wasn’t cut out for all this matchmaking any more than she was cut out to be a decorator.

She was a reporter. She was supposed to stand back and record what was going on around her. To document it in a professional, even creative way was something she strove hard to do. But she’d never experienced anyone being upset with her work, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Not sure at all.

As a matter of fact, Bob’s displeasure had brought up a whole cache of hidden questions she didn’t want to think about right now.

She needed to write.

She needed to write and not think about anything other than the words on the paper.

And that pretty much summed up how she’d always looked at life. Until lately, when the words refused to flow.

It was nearly eleven o’clock as Molly hoisted her backpack to her shoulder and started to cross Main Street. She paused, thinking about poor unsuspecting Sam and Adela. Norma Sue and Esther Mae’s snooping might be just what they needed to take that next step toward the altar—it had worked many times before. But Molly had never actually had a hands-on experience in matchmaking. Sure she had written some articles that expanded on the original ad campaign that Adela, Norma Sue and Esther Mae had started with. But she had never point-blank picked two people and set out to manipulate them to fall in love.

Then again, that wasn’t really what was happening at all, not exactly. No one could make a couple fall in love, not even the matchmaking pros of Mule Hollow. There had to be that special connection. “Sparks,” as the ladies were fond of calling it—and they were hawks at spotting those romantic little embers. And it made them happy. And she was happy for them if that was what they wanted to do. She, on the other hand, was content to simply write her articles. She certainly didn’t have the knack for seeing sparks of a romantic nature. Now sparks of a disturbing nature—that just might be her niche!

What was happening to Bob was as close to getting involved on a personal level as she’d ever gotten. That was a really sad thing if she let herself dwell on it. She had a problem with closeness. But really, with the life she had chosen, closeness wasn’t a factor.

She stepped off the plank sidewalk and started across Main Street. At the sound of a fast-approaching vehicle, she glanced over her shoulder, jumping out of the way just in time for a gray minivan to whiz past her. There was nothing like nearly getting creamed to make a person lose her train of thought. Molly’s mouth fell open in a silent scream as she glimpsed the driver looking over her shoulder talking, completely unaware she’d almost mowed someone down.

Molly’s heart was pounding at the near miss. She couldn’t move for a few moments, trying to collect her wits, but her eyes were glued to the disappearing van of death.

She didn’t recognize it so she assumed it was from out of town. At the end of the street, at Prudy’s Garage, the brake lights came on and the vehicle careened to a halt beside the gas pump. It had no sooner stopped moving than suddenly heads popped out of every window! From this distance Molly thought it looked like the van literally exploded with kids. Five at least. No make that six…seven!

She was counting, when the driver stepped from the vehicle in her spandex-looking black pants and her four-inch red heels.

Oh my. That didn’t look like a mother of seven. Molly immediately wondered what her story was? Her imagination started chugging, drawing her toward Prudy’s. Stranger in town. Car full of kids. Was it by accident? Was she a woman looking for a cowboy?

There certainly could be a story in this, despite the bad headline. As Molly drew closer, the woman leaned back into the van and pulled out what looked suspiciously like a cake. A pound cake. Yes, from this distance she thought it looked like a pound cake settled on a square of foil-covered cardboard, wrapped with pink transparent plastic wrap. She squinted in the sunlight and could see a purple square in the center, like a name tag.

Was there a cake sale going on somewhere Molly didn’t know about? Maybe there was a fund-raiser going on? No, she would have known if there was a fund-raiser. That was her job to know these things.

Prudy ambled out of the grease bay squinting at the woman through his oil-speckled glasses. Molly racked her brain, making mental notes as she tugged her pencil from behind her ear and pulled her emergency notepad from her back pocket. Nearing Prudy’s, she heard the woman ask a question. Molly knew it was a question, because all of a sudden Prudy’s greasy hands began to move and wave and gesture. Everyone knew Gordon P. Rudy—Prudy for short—talked with his hands. It was fairly entertaining. And since Mule Hollow was such a small place, a person needed all the entertaining they could get. The problem was that most of the time Molly didn’t understand Prudy’s sign language!

Nobody did.

So there she was, pencil poised, paper in hand, only to watch as her story sashayed back to her van, yelled at the kids to buckle up, then sped off.

Okay, so maybe there wasn’t a story there. Prudy, obviously not heartbroken or in love, scratched his head and ambled back into the building without giving the disappearing van a second look.

Molly paused. It left her to wonder whether she was so desperate for a story that she’d begun to imagine leads. What was so unique about what had just happened? Honestly nothing. She was just desperate.

Arrggghhh! She stomped her foot, rammed the pencil back behind her ear and contemplated her situation.

She had to get over this. She had to move on, and she would. Her well wouldn’t stay dry without a fight. Serious reporters didn’t let a thing like this get in their way. They didn’t freeze up because of…because of…because of what? She didn’t even know what to call what had happened to her.