The Marriage Charm (Bliss County 2) (6 page)

Gritting her teeth, she sacrificed one of her glossy periodicals to protect the guilty feline from a splash of hot coffee. Those pages would probably never come apart again.
Thanks a lot.

“One day,” she warned all of them out loud, “I won’t be so graceful.”

The other two resident fuzz balls gazed blandly back at her from their perch on the mantel, and Melody got the distinct impression they wouldn’t have credited her with grace to begin with, and they were probably right. Cats had a way of saying things without actual articulation or even body language. Besides, they’d seen her doing yoga—they mimicked her movements—so they could have a point. All three of them were better at it.

Damn it, her feet
still
hurt. She should write a song, something like “The Broken Toe Blues.” Or “I Left My Arch in Mustang Creek.” Maybe it would top the charts, since almost every woman in the world could relate.

With a little grin and a sigh, Melody shook off the whimsical idea. She was a designer, not a songwriter, and besides, she didn’t have a smidge of musical talent.

Cozy in loose sweatpants and a shapeless T-shirt, she pulled out the chair at her worktable and got busy.

Or tried to, anyway.

After nearly three hours of dedicated—and largely fruitless—effort, she reluctantly faced reality. Her muse was on hiatus.

Damn. This was a big commission, a bib necklace set with precious stones for a picky client who’d collected the gems herself on various trips, and the design was hidden in a compartment in Melody’s brain, but it hadn’t emerged yet. Mrs. Arbuckle was infamously outspoken, so she really wanted to get it right or she’d hear about it, and not necessarily in a tactful way.

Melody was good and stuck—and that wasn’t her only problem.

Resting her forehead on one fist, she contemplated the unsavory options on her list. For starters, she probably owed Spence an apology.

Probably?
Try
definitely
.

She’d been pretty rude to him, all things considered. Oh yeah, she’d been mad at his assumption that he could pick her up and cart her off to his truck like some Neanderthal in boots and a cowboy hat, but in the light of day, she couldn’t deny that he’d done her a favor. And because she’d been hungry and tired, and her feet were hurting like crazy, she’d been just plain ungracious.

Her grandmother, who had helped raise her, would not have approved of Melody’s behavior—or
his
, for that matter, although that was beside the point. And even though Grandma Jean wasn’t around to voice her opinion anymore, Melody swore she could
feel
it.

So yes, an apology was in order. Melody put down her drawing pen with a sigh. She knew from experience that the missing muse wouldn’t put in an appearance until she’d cleared her conscience.

“This is easy to fix,” she told the cats as she got to her feet, which were not back to normal but were at least safeguarded by a pair of soft, comfy shoes that would qualify as slippers if anyone wanted to get technical about it. “I’ll go there, talk to the man, tell him I appreciated that he wanted to help—even if he was crass about it.”

One of the fur faces—Melody was fairly sure it was Waldo, still gracing the mantel—yawned with obvious disinterest. She’d seen that expression before, and at the moment, she found it irritating. “Fine, she muttered. “I won’t bore you with the details. And I won’t say anything to him about being rude. Does that approach suit your royal highnesses?”

Waiting for an answer was pointless, of course. She just grabbed her purse—at least she was back to one that could hold more than a matchbox—intending to hoof it over to the Moose Jaw to pick up her car.

Halfway out the door, she stopped dead. The vehicle was sitting in her driveway. She blinked to make sure it wasn’t an optical illusion. Nope, definitely there.

She had the key—the only key—in her hand.

So how...?

Spence
.

Was the chief of police supposed to hotwire a car? Melody stood there for a few minutes, tapping a sore foot, and came to the conclusion that if anyone could get away with it, he could. Okay, great, now she double-owed him.

As she pulled out of the driveway, it occurred to her that she was wearing not only her slipper shoes, but also a worn T-shirt that said
Wyoming Will Rock Your Tetons
on the front, and baggy sweatpants were loosely held up by a drawstring. Glamour wasn’t on the agenda today.

Fine. She planned to state her business and go.
Who cares what I look like?

After all, this was an errand, not a hot date. Still, Melody
did
loosen her hair and let it fall around her shoulders. No use being at a total disadvantage. Spence threw her for a wide, slow loop as it was. She didn’t know why, but she found herself recalling the time they’d gone swimming in the Yellowstone River on a camping trip early in that magical summer. He’d looked downright delicious with wet hair and absolutely nothing else on... Oh, yeah, that had been one unforgettable afternoon.

Let’s put that memory in cold storage
.

Melody drove slowly toward Spencer’s property, mapping out her apology as she went. She’d say she was sorry for being grumpy, foisting the blame on her diabolical shoes. He’d act distant but nice about it all, and that would be it. Done deal. Then maybe she could actually work. Creativity was a delicate thing. When she was upset, she couldn’t concentrate. So she wasn’t doing this for Spence. She was doing it for herself.

When she finally cruised through the open gateway onto the Hogan ranch and started up the long drive, a plume of dust roiling in her wake, she scanned her surroundings, immediately registering that although Spence’s truck was parked near the barn, his horse wasn’t in the pasture, and there was no sign of his dog, either.

Perfect. She’d worked up her courage and come all this way for nothing.

Clearly, the chief of police was not at home.

Torn between mild annoyance and stark relief, Melody parked, got out of the car and stood, hands on her hips, breathing in the grass-scented country air and taking in the scenery while she weighed her options.

The Grand Tetons loomed in the near distance, jagged and snow-capped.

She shifted her focus to the house. Nothing fancy, but Spence wasn’t ever going to be fancy, and no one would expect that. The low-slung structure was functional and comfortably spacious, and it suited a cowboy lawman’s lifestyle. There was a wide front porch, shaded by a sloping roof, outfitted with several wooden rocking chairs and a small table. The barn was weathered but looked like it had a new roof, and the corral was clear of any weeds, with a solid rail fence and a trough at one end.

The house and yard could have used a woman’s touch, she thought—a few flower beds, maybe a window box or two, some cheery curtains at the windows.

But Spence was a bachelor, sharing the ranch with the horse and the dog, and Melody supposed the set-up was pretty much perfect for a simple man. Only Spence wasn’t simple at all; he was darned complicated, vexing as hell, and that mistake she’d made years ago of thinking she understood him—it had really bitten her in the posterior.

Um, better put that memory on ice, too, sweetheart
.

Melody began to feel fidgety. She really needed to
work
. It wasn’t just therapeutic on a bazillion levels, it was also her livelihood, and, therefore, the only reason she was here at all. She wanted to get that apology out of the way so she could concentrate again...

Maybe she ought to cut her losses and run, get out while the getting was good. She could always send Spence an email, dash off a breezy “sorry about that” and move on with her life.

Furthermore, she could do without the drama, she told herself. Things had been running pretty smoothly but now, all of a sudden, Spence was an issue. Again.

All he did was give you a ride home,
she reminded herself silently.
Lighten up
.

Inspiration struck. She’d leave him a note. That would soothe her conscience, put paid to the whole matter, once and for all.

Problem solved. Resolutely, Melody climbed the steps and just in case she’d missed her guess and Spence
was
at home, after all, she knocked on the door. No dog and no horse almost certainly meant no Spence, but with the way her luck had been going lately, she might catch him with his pants off or something.

An intriguing thought.

She rapped firmly at the door. Waited.

No answer.

Still, she hesitated to barge into another person’s house. She considered scribbling a few words on a page from the sketchbook she always carried in her purse, but it was a breezy day; the message might blow away, roll across the range like a tumbleweed or wind up lodged in the branches of some pine tree.

Hell.

Melody pounded on the door.

*

N
OTHING.
S
HE WAS
out of choices.

After drawing a long, deep breath, she tried the knob. Surprisingly, the chief of police had left his house unlocked, but then again, she supposed Spence knew it would take some nerve to rob
his
house.

She stopped in the act of opening the door, noticing with amusement a garden gnome parked next to something bushy by the front porch. No kidding? She guessed the plant was a weed, but she had to admit it was kind of pretty with yellow flowers that she assumed would send anyone with allergies into a tailspin. Still, it
looked
as if he intended it to be there. A garden decoration like that on a ranch—what was the story? If that wasn’t out of character, she would eat her pointy shoes from hell.

He was such a...
man
.

A tall, infuriating man with skillful hands and a compelling smile, who made love as if he really meant it...

But didn’t. All these years she’d expected to hear that he’d gotten engaged. It hadn’t happened. There’d been some talk about Trudy Reinholt, an attractive elementary-school teacher who seemed to hold on to him the longest—longer than Melody had, that was for sure—but it had fizzled out about a year ago.

Melody let herself in and stood in the living room, since there was no real entry other than some tiles in a square so cowboys could wipe their feet before they stepped onto the hardwood floors. There was a tan couch to her left in front of a river-stone fireplace, a plain pine coffee table with a dog-eared novel on it and an iron lamp that had the image of a bronco rider. His coffee cup was still sitting on the surface of the table, but to his credit, he’d used a coaster.

Would he mind her just barging in? His actions last night meant he’d given up that choice, she decided. If he hadn’t been so impetuous, so...pushy, she wouldn’t be standing here, uninvited, in his living room.

Yep, all his fault.

Still, she
was
an interloper. Spence craved his personal space, she knew that about him, and it was something they had in common. Solitude was a friend for both of them.
She
needed it in order to create her eclectic designs.
He
dealt with a much grimmer reality, although—granted—no one would call Mustang Creek a hotbed of criminal activity. But solitude for him was an escape from the problems he had to unravel, a chance to recover his equilibrium.

While he was in the real world solving crimes, she was in her own little realm spinning treasures.

They were opposites. She got him, and yet she didn’t.

Was that the chemistry? She was light, and he was darkness?

No, Spence was pure light, just of a different kind.

She should ditch the philosophical meditation and find a pen, since there didn’t seem to be one in her purse. No sketchbook either. Melody might have walked right into the man’s house, but she drew the line at rummaging through cabinets and drawers. She finally fished out a bank receipt from her bag and thankfully spotted a pen on a small side table by the picture window. She’d snatched it up and started to scribble her apology, noting that the pen said Findley’s Feed Store on the side, when the door opened.

“Hey.”

The sound of Spence’s low voice made her whirl around in time to have Harley launch himself at her in pure adoration, singing the song of his people.

So the master of the house was back.

Boy, he sure was, leaning in the doorway, that faint, devastating smile on his mouth. “Ma’am, pardon me for saying so, but I believe you’re trespassing.”

*

“I
WAS LEAVING
you a note.”

Melody looked cute when she felt guilty, especially while trying to fend off a dog with one hand, a pen clutched in the other.

Spence’s problem was that she looked cute—no, beautiful—to him
all
the time. Even in the daffodil dress, wobbling on her ridiculous shoes, she’d turned him on. Maybe it was that glimpse of one long, sleek leg because her skirt had a slit in the side of it.

The real Melody, the quirky artist with mismatched clothing and long honey hair in a shining fall over her shoulders, was eye-catching in his humble opinion. It didn’t matter what she wore.

“About?” He raised his brows in question.

“About what?” She’d figured out that if she climbed onto one of the stools by the counter, Harley’s exuberance was easier to handle. At a word, the dog would calm down, but Spence didn’t say anything. Perched there, Melody peered at him.

“You mentioned a note?”

“Oh, right.” She seemed flustered. Gloriously so. “I was going to thank you for last night.”

“For what, specifically?” Spence savored Melody’s discomfort, reflecting on the fact that she hadn’t seemed all that grateful at the time.

“The ride home.” She was blushing. “And I assume you’re the one who got my car back to me. Thanks for that, too.”

“No problem.”

“It had to be something of a problem, since you didn’t have my keys.”

“As someone who’s worked in law enforcement for a while, I can tell you it’s not an insurmountable one.”