New Leaf (3 page)

Taffeta slumped back on her heels to stare at nothing. She would never be so stupid with men again. The next time she fell for a guy, if she ever did, she’d be sure he was as stable as a pillar set in concrete. But for now she had other important goals: building her business, getting some more education under her belt, and making a life for herself and her daughter. She could fantasize about Barney Sterling all she liked at night when darkness blanketed the town and held reality at bay. But during business hours, she would be a rational, mature, and responsible woman who understood that her reaction to the lawman was caused by nothing more than physical need, overactive hormones, and loneliness. Fantasizing was safe. Involvement wasn’t.

Her till was four dollars and sixty-four cents off even though she’d picked up every coin she saw. She released a weary sigh as she locked the shop door and flipped over the
CLOSED
sign. A long, hot bath sounded fabulous. Then she’d have soup and half a sandwich for dinner while she watched a program on her boxy old television. No foolish dreams for her tonight, and definitely no dancing, not until her new blind arrived. She couldn’t afford to attract attention. Once was enough.

•   •   •

The next morning, Taffeta got up early. It was stock-ordering day, and if she wanted to be focused on that, she needed to get it done before the shop got
busy. Normally things were fairly quiet until midmorning.

Taffeta yawned as she fired up the store computer to get on the Internet. She’d tossed and turned nearly half the night, and had once even gotten up to prowl the darkened rooms. She refused to acknowledge, even to herself, about whom she’d been thinking as sleep eluded her.

As if her thoughts conjured him up, Barney Sterling opened the front door, juggling two capped cups that bore the Jake ’n’ Bake logo. He balanced the cardboard carrying tray on the palm of one hand, holding the door back with his opposite elbow to make it over the threshold without jostling the drinks.

“Good morning! I bring coffee!” he announced.

With an attractive shift of his slender hips, he strode to the counter. She tried not to notice the length of his strong legs or the easy way he moved. His boots made sharp raps on the planked wooden floor. Taffeta felt sure she could close her eyes and still tell that the footsteps belonged to a man.
What
, she wondered,
do I find so sexy about that?

He set the tray on her counter and rested his folded arms on the edge. His dark brown jacket had a thick lining that added breadth to his already impressive shoulders. With a nudge of one knuckle, he indicated which cup was hers.

“I wasn’t sure how you like yours, so I went for French vanilla, a shot of caramel, and lots of sugar.” He curled the long, sturdy fingers of his right hand
around the other cup. His amber-flecked gaze settled on her face. “You look tired. Have a sip. It’ll perk you up.”

It miffed her that he’d somehow guessed how she loved her coffee. She didn’t often indulge herself with creamers and sugar because she didn’t need the extra calories. She decided to make an exception this morning, though, not because she yearned for caffeine, but because opening the cup would give her something to do with her hands.
No fidgeting allowed
.

He pushed up the brim of his Stetson and treated her to one of those devastating crooked grins. When that crease appeared in his lean cheek, every rational thought in her head leaked out her ears. She pried the lid from the cup, hoping her fingers wouldn’t tremble.
Why is he here? What does he want?
She glanced up at his burnished features. A friendly twinkle danced in his eyes, and she felt sure that if he knew what she had supposedly done, he’d be grim-faced and glaring at her. And he wouldn’t be here with coffee in the first place.

She hadn’t been born yesterday, and when a man came sniffing around, it normally indicated that he was interested in a woman. She assumed that he had found her attractive when he caught her dancing, and he was back again to check her out a bit more. God help her, knowing that made her pulse quicken. It also scared the crap out of her because he was a law enforcement official.

Feeling off balance, she groped for something
to say. “Thank you for the coffee.”
That was brilliant
. She took a careful sip because heat swirled up from the toffee-brown liquid. “Mm. Just the way I like it.”

Still bent at the waist, he shifted his weight from one booted foot to the other. “Tell me something, Taffeta Brown. Do you enjoy reading?”

Taffeta blinked. She had no idea where that had come from, but she didn’t want to piss him off by refusing to answer. “As a matter of fact, I do.” She didn’t ask whether he did. She didn’t want to encourage the man. He was already as bold as brass.

His mouth curved slowly into a grin. “What are your favorite novels of all time?” He took a sip of coffee and whistled away the burn. “I’ve reread
To Kill a Mockingbird
and
The Catcher in the Rye
so many times I’ve lost count.”

Those two titles ranked at the top of her favorites list. So far as Taffeta knew, her ex-husband, Phillip, had never read a single book from cover to cover. “Every time I read
To Kill a Mockingbird
, I’m captivated all over again by the characters.”

“Who is your favorite?”

“Scout,” she replied without hesitation. “I can totally associate with her.”

“Ah, a tomboy, were you?”

Without weighing her words, Taffeta said, “A very angry and resentful tomboy.”

Why had she told him that? Her childhood was not up for scrutiny. Her memories were too painful to share with a man she barely knew.

As if he sensed that she regretted speaking so honestly, he said, “I liked all the characters, but I found Boo to be most intriguing. An air of mystery always captures my interest.”

Yesterday, he’d told her that he found her intriguing. Was that because he thought she was mysterious?
Careful, Taffeta
. He had a talent for prying information out of her, and that made him treacherous. She lifted her cup, forgot that the coffee was steaming hot, and burned her lips when she took a quick sip.
Ouch
.

Mouth still stinging, she asked, “Where do you like to read?”

He turned his cup with a deft twist of his fingers. “Mostly in my recliner by the fire. The flames give me something to stare at while I try to picture a scene in my mind. For me, reading is like watching a film, only I have to work harder to see everything. Scout in a ham costume. Jem breaking his arm when Bob Ewell attacks them on their way home. I could almost feel the chicken wire in Scout’s ham outfit prickling my skin when Ewell grabbed her. And I wanted to see more of Boo coming to their rescue, but Scout’s vision was partly blocked.” He had a distant expression in his eyes, but then he came back to the moment and smiled sheepishly at her. “Sorry. I tend to get carried away. Where do you like to read?”

Again, he lured her into blurting out the truth without thinking. “In the bathtub. For me, nothing
quite compares to a long soak in a hot bath with a fabulous book in my hands.”

He grinned, and she felt herself redden.
What
had made her say
that
? He was probably picturing her naked in water up to her breastbone. She wanted to zip her mouth shut. The sooner she got him out of here, the better.

“How do you pull that off without getting the pages wet when you turn them?”

“I’m very careful.”

He chuckled. “Does the air turn blue if you lose your grip and drop a book in the water?”

A chill of wariness slid over her skin. “I can’t say, because I’ve never dropped a book in the tub. To me, books are treasures.”

“Uh-oh. You one of those people who would never dream of turning down a page corner to mark your place?”

To Taffeta, books were like old friends, and the more dog-eared they got, the more she valued them. “I’m not quite that bad. I prefer to use bookmarks, but I almost always lose them.”

With the same suddenness with which he’d picked reading as a topic of conversation, he switched to music. “After hearing ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ blaring on your stereo last night, I know you like the Rolling Stones. What other groups appeal to you?”

She glanced with yearning at the shop door, willing a customer, any customer, to come in. But it was early yet and wouldn’t get busy for another hour, weather providing. She had a hunch that Deputy
Sterling knew that. A lawman kept his fingertips on the pulse of a town and knew its changing rhythms. She was stuck with Mr. Charisma for a while, and he was worming personal information out of her with frightening ease.

She settled for saying, “I’m not big on particular groups or singers. If I hear a song I like, I’m sold.”

He nodded. “I’m the same. I may love one song a band records and dislike everything else they put out.” He gave her another of those unnerving studies, making her feel as if he saw straight into her heart. “So, pardon me for asking, but have you ever been married?” Humor crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Just curious. So far, I’ve evaded capture, just in case you’d like to know.”

Red alert
. Taffeta didn’t want to lie. She hated lying. But she didn’t want this man to learn too much about her, either. She considered saying that it was none of his business—which it wasn’t. In the end, though, she decided that refusing to answer might deepen his curiosity about her. She felt sure that one’s marital history was a fairly common topic to arise when two people were getting to know each other. “I’m divorced.”

“Ah. Any kids?”

Taffeta’s mouth went dry. “A little girl. My ex-husband has temporary custody.”

The twinkle in his eyes dimmed and blinked out. “That must be really hard. Do you get frequent visitation?”

Taffeta couldn’t do this. If she told him that she no longer exercised her visitation rights, he’d only
fire more questions at her. Clamping a hand to the crown of her head, she cried, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know what I’ve been thinking. I’m sorry to be rude, but I forgot to do something very important.”

She hurried into the back room and then stood there holding her breath, listening for him to leave. She had to let her lungs expand again and concentrated on her breathing for several minutes before she finally heard his boots ring out on the wooden floor, followed by the overhead bell and a thump of the shop door closing. She went limp against a storage shelf.
Good riddance, and don’t come back
.

If he did, no matter how charming and friendly he was, she’d give him the cold shoulder. No more Q&A sessions. No more friendly chats over coffee. She couldn’t believe that she’d told him she liked to read in the bathtub. What had she been thinking? If he felt physically attracted to her, her saying that had been the equivalent of waving a red cape in front of a bull.

Barney drove his beat, which he normally enjoyed, on autopilot for the rest of the morning. Most times, he’d see people he knew and stop to talk, partly because it kept him in the know about what was happening in town, but also because he liked to check on folks. Mystic Creek was a close-knit community. People watched out for one another. Barney found it rewarding to lend a hand when needed. Sometimes he’d give a lift to someone who’d gone shopping and was trudging home with an armload of groceries. Cars with flat tires on the shoulder of a road always brought him to a rolling stop. He saw his share of dogs that had gotten out of their yards as well, and he had gotten to know the habitual runners almost as well as he did their masters.

Today he had blinders on, and barely noticed the faces of those he saw in other vehicles or walking along a road. His conversation with Taffeta had left him even more curious about her than he’d been before. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d invented an important task she needed to do in order to end their chat. Maybe talking about her child was too painful. That made sense, he guessed. She seemed like a nice woman. He couldn’t imagine a
court refusing to grant her a generous visitation plan. That said, though, it wasn’t often that the father of a young child, especially a girl, was given custody. It was a commonly held belief that young kids needed the gentle nurturing that only a mother could provide.

Barney didn’t necessarily agree with that. His dad, Jeremiah, had been a wonderful parent, a firm disciplinarian only when required, and all about making his children feel loved the rest of the time. It was a toss-up which of his parents had read to him more, and unless his memory failed him, he’d fallen asleep in his father’s arms as often as he had in his mother’s. Men could be just as gentle and nurturing as women.

Barney sighed. What was it about Taffeta Brown that kept him so focused on her? He had enjoyed talking with her. It wasn’t very often that he met a gal who’d enjoyed reading
The Catcher in the Rye
or
To Kill a Mockingbird
. Not that he normally asked a woman what she liked to read. His mind usually wasn’t on novels when he was surfing the nightspots of Crystal Falls, and truth be told, he had little interest in getting to know most of the gals he met that well.

Suddenly he felt shallow. Was he becoming an opportunist, a man who cruised the honky-tonks as if they were meat markets to find a choice cut? He was fast approaching thirty. Wasn’t it about time he took women more seriously and found out what was between their ears instead of what they had to offer from the neck down?

He headed over to his brother Jeb’s place during his lunch break. Huckleberry Road still wore a blanket of snow that glistened as if it were sprinkled with diamonds. He started to park in front of the large post-and-timber home, then changed his mind.
No point in walking out back to the shop when I can drive
.

He circled the house and cut the engine of the Dodge just outside the cavernous building. Smoke trailed from the stovepipe chimney, a sure sign that Jeb labored inside on a woodworking project. He made fine furniture and cabinetry, a career that had started as a hobby years ago. Now Jeb worked at it full-time and made good money doing what he loved.

As Barney swung out of the truck, he heard a rhythmic swishing coming from inside the shop. He’d been around Jeb while he worked enough times to recognize the sound and knew his brother was patiently sanding one of his creations. His boots crunched on the frozen snow as he strode to the front personnel door. He took an appreciative sniff of the wood smoke that canted in the breeze and rekindled old memories of his dad’s shop fires on cold winter days. The frosty doorknob chilled his palm as he turned it and stepped inside.

“Yo, bro!” Jeb flashed a broad grin. “What brings you out this way?”

After closing the door behind him with a bump of his hip, Barney chafed his hands as he circled piles of scrap to reach the woodstove. The musty smell of sawdust enveloped him. “It’s colder than a well
digger’s ass out there. April in Mystic Creek. You gotta love it.”

Aside from being older, Jeb looked enough like Barney to be his twin, same hair, same eyes, same build. It had always bewildered Barney that he and his brothers could look so much alike and have such different personalities. Jeb worked with wood. Ben, the next oldest, raised, trained, and leased out rodeo livestock. Barney loved law enforcement, and Jonas, the youngest, was studying psychology. His sisters, Sarah and Adriel, had taken after their mother, Kate, all three of them petite dynamos with expressive brown eyes. The only trait they had inherited from their father was the color of their hair.

Jeb ran a palm over a beautifully carved cabinet door to test for smoothness and then resumed making passes with the fine-grain sandpaper. “Coffee’s on. Help yourself.”

Barney knew from experience that Jeb started the shop coffeepot at around five in the morning, and by early afternoon, the brew had turned to sludge. In fact, he caught the scorched stench even over the smokiness emanating from the stove. “No, thanks. I’ve had my coffee for the day.” Turning from the heat, he walked through another obstacle course to where Jeb labored. He sat on a nearby stool, which his sister-in-law Amanda often occupied. A playpen for their son sat off to the right. “Maybe that’s why I’ve got the jitters and all-over itches . . . too much caffeine.”

Jeb glanced up to study Barney’s face. “Uh-oh.
That doesn’t sound good.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I know that look. You’re ruminating on something. What’s up?”

Barney shrugged, fiddled with his hat before settling it back on his head, and then sighed. “I’m not sure what’s up with me. You ever met Taffeta Brown, the lady who opened the health store over on East Main?”

Jeb nodded. “I can’t say I’ve met her, exactly, but I’ve been in the shop. Why?”

Quickly recounting the shadow dance story, Barney said, “I never paid her much mind. But now she’s like a chigger that’s gotten under my skin.”

“She got your attention, did she?”

“Boy, howdy, did she ever! I took two coffees to her shop this morning and stayed to chat. There’s something about her that has me interested in getting to know her better.” Barney hooked a boot heel over the top stool rung to rest his arms over his bent knee. “It’s completely out of character for me. I don’t do local gals. How does a guy feel when he finally meets Miss Right?”

Jeb chuckled. “There’s no easy way to describe how a man feels, and I’m not sure all of us feel the same way.” Lowering his voice, he added, “I felt befuddled, a little scared, and a whole lot reluctant. Mandy gave me no signals at first that I stood a chance with her, and I didn’t want to get my heart broken. But even though my rational side told me to run the other direction, I couldn’t do it.” He gave Barney a wink. “When it’s the real deal, a man just knows.”

Barney shook his head. “Taffeta Brown is totally not my type.”

Jeb barked with laughter. “It’s entirely possible that you won’t know what your type is until you meet her.”

Barney heard the door open behind him just then, and Amanda’s musical voice rang out. “What’s so funny?”

Barney sent Jeb a charged look and then turned to greet his sister-in-law. She wore a parka and snow boots, and in her gloved hands, she held a tray covered with aluminum foil. Below the fur-lined hood of her jacket, her large dark eyes gleamed with curiosity. As he often had, Barney noted her resemblance to their mom.

“I’ve been entertaining him with crazy cop stories,” he said, which wasn’t really a lie. He’d told Jeb about the shadow dance.

“Ah.” Amanda toed a piece of wood out of her way and brought the tray to Jeb’s workbench. “Well, I saw you pull up, so I made extra sandwiches. Couldn’t juggle drinks. You guys will have to make do with that mud Jeb calls coffee.”

Barney laughed and peeked under the foil. “Yum. Those look fabulous. How’d you know I’m starving?”

Amanda’s cheek dimpled in a smile. “You’re
always
hungry. I wish I could stay and eat with you, but little Jeremiah is taking a nap. Bozo is babysitting.” Bozo was Jeb’s dog, a mottled brown-and-gold
mastiff nearly as big as a horse. “Needless to say, I have to race right back.”

She pushed off her hood, revealing a thick mane of dark brown hair, and stepped around to hug her husband. Jeb bent his head to plant a kiss on her cheek. Barney was glad that his brother had finally found someone wonderful. He had contentment written all over him.

Barney’s thoughts drifted to Taffeta again. Maybe Jeb was right, and a man didn’t know what kind of woman suited him until he met her.

•   •   •

Taffeta had only just flipped over the
OPEN
sign the following morning when Barney Sterling shouldered open the front door.
Again.
This time he carried a bag of pastry along with two coffees, and her heart skittered as she watched him balance the load. For so big and muscular a man, he moved with a precise economy of motion.

Give him no encouragement,
she reminded herself.
Chase him off with frigid indifference.
Only with the rush of cold air that came inside with him, she caught the scent of his cologne and something else exclusively his own. Saliva pooled under her tongue, and she knew it wasn’t the delicious aroma of coffee and warm cinnamon rolls that had her responding to his presence.

This man made her yearn for everything she’d never experienced—things it seemed many other women took for granted. To be held in strong arms. To have someone treat her as though she was
special. Oh, and feeling sexually satisfied just once in her life wouldn’t be hard to tolerate, either. Somehow she knew instinctively that Barney would eclipse Phillip in the bedroom.

Except she couldn’t let herself go there.
So what if he’s cute? So what if he makes your knees feel weak? So what if he loves
To Kill a Mockingbird
and can talk in depth about the scenes? Or that he looks irresistible in his uniform?
She had never understood women who drooled over men in uniforms. Now she finally got it. His badge winked at her from under the front edge of his brown jacket. Her gaze dived from there to his belt buckle. When she realized where she was staring, she jerked her focus back to his face. He gave her a knowing look and treated her to a grin that made her blood go molten. Not good.

Panic electrified her nerve endings. He needed to back off. She had no business even looking at a man. Yet Barney, with his sexy grin and charismatic personality, was to her the equivalent of chocolate to a dieter. Tempting, oh, so very tempting. But she would risk more than a few ounces of weight gain if she dared to take a bite.

“Good morning,” he said, his deep voice curling around her like tendrils of warm, spun sugar. “I brought pastry to go with our coffee this morning. Not even a reluctant lady can say no to that.”

Taffeta couldn’t help smiling. “I have work to do, you know. Running a store isn’t as easy as it looks.”

“Which means you need nutritional fuel. A piece of toast for breakfast isn’t enough to last you. By
noon you’ll be running on empty, and you don’t take a break for lunch.”

“How do you know I have toast for breakfast?”

He placed his offerings on the counter between them and assumed the same position as yesterday, his folded arms resting on the Formica’s edge. It was as if he’d never left. With a touch of one fingertip, he pushed the brim of his hat back so she could better see his face.

“I’m psychic.” The crease that might once have been a boyish dimple flashed in his cheek. “Actually I smelled the toast yesterday. And as for your not eating lunch, I used a lawman’s amazing talent for investigative deduction. You never close the shop during the day to take a break.”

Taffeta knew she should shut him down, but a part of her rebelled at the thought. They were only talking, after all. It was no different from when she chatted with other customers.
Yeah, right. Next you’ll be selling yourself the Brooklyn Bridge.

“How do you know I don’t run upstairs for something and eat while I wait on people? You’re also forgetting that a few restaurant owners come into the shops and take orders. Hunter Chase from Chopstick Suey offers a mean lunch menu, and Joe from the taco joint delivers as well. So does Sissy Sue over at the Cauldron.”

“Not your style, ordering in,” he observed. “You wouldn’t want a customer to catch you with your mouth full.”

Taffeta had a sudden feeling that he knew her habits almost as well as she did. He opened the
pastry sack and laid out white paper napkins. “Cinnamon roll or a cream horn?”

The last thing she wanted was to eat with him. It seemed too intimate, somehow. “Neither. I try to avoid sweets.”

“Ah, come on. We all have to sin a little sometimes.” He drew out a roll and a cream horn, placing both on her napkin. “Enjoy. If you gain a single pound, I’ll take you jogging to work it off as soon as the snow melts.”

Why couldn’t the man take a hint and go away? “I don’t need to jog. I do a lot of heavy lifting, bending, and running in this shop.”

“So eat,” he volleyed back.

Taffeta found cinnamon rolls almost irresistible, and this one looked amazing with a thick drizzle of glaze on top. She picked it up, stared at Barney accusingly, and then took a bite of his offering. As the taste slid over her tongue, she nearly moaned with pleasure.

“You see?” He drew out a cream horn for himself. When his teeth sank into the pastry, a dab of white filling oozed out and stuck to the corner of his mouth. “Never giving in to temptation is bad for the soul.”

Without thinking it through, Taffeta reached out to wipe the cream from his lip, much as she once had done when her daughter had something on her face. As she started to withdraw her hand, he grasped her wrist and drew her cream-smeared fingertip into his mouth. Silky heat. She’d never felt anything so amazing—or sensual. The muscles in her lower belly
snapped taut. Even her toes curled. Her cinnamon roll slipped from the suddenly rigid fingers of her other hand. When he finally let go of her arm, she couldn’t think what to say or do.