Running Blind (25 page)

He slowly lifted his mouth from hers, licked his lips as if he was still tasting her. Maybe the rough sound he muttered was a curse word; she couldn’t be sure. She did know the kiss had been wonderful—more than wonderful—but it had to stop here, or she
would
have to leave. Apparently he knew it, too. He didn’t move back in, didn’t put his arms around her. She wanted him to, but, God, number one bad idea on her long list of bad ideas.

“Let me help you.”

She shook her head, knowing exactly what he meant. “No. I won’t drag you into this.”

“You’re not dragging me anywhere. I want to help.”

“Teach me how to punch. That’ll help.” She managed a twisted smile. “Then maybe I won’t have to grab the kitchen knives.”

“And shoot,” he added.

“Maybe.”

He put his hand under her chin, nudged it upward. His thumb swept over the edge of her jaw. “Do you know, you never use my name?” he murmured.

“Sorry, Mr. Decker.” He was right: she didn’t. She couldn’t say why, unless it was some instinctive—and obviously useless—attempt to keep him at a distance. She tried to keep her voice calm but it was a struggle she lost.

“Really?” His mouth curved in amusement. “Mr. Decker?”

“Just Decker, then. Or boss.”

“No,” he said, his voice low. “Say it, just once.” His thumb rubbed her chin. “Come on, Carlin, how hard can it be?”

She should show him that it was just a name, no different from any of the others. But it was different, because it was his. Her heart pounded.

“Good night, Zeke,” she said, her voice a whisper.

He smiled. “Good night, Carlin.”

T
HE WEATHER HAD
definitely turned. Zeke walked from the hardware store to Kat’s to find the usual crowd not such a crowd. He told his cousin he’d pick up the pies Carlin had ordered on his way out of town, then left again; he still had a few errands to run. He could’ve asked for Kat’s help with those errands, but he didn’t want to do that. She’d probably make too much out of something that was just common sense, plus she couldn’t exactly leave the café whenever she wanted.

Carlin and Spencer had taken care of the grocery shopping a couple of days earlier. He hadn’t even asked her if she wanted to make the trip to town today with him. After that kiss, he knew spending that much time so close to her would be a bad idea; he didn’t want to push too hard. It was smarter to let her settle down, work the situation over in her mind the way women did, and decide he’d just been comforting her some because of Darby. He mentally snorted. Yeah, right. Like men ever kissed women that way to comfort them. Besides, she’d probably try to stop him from doing what he knew had to be done.

He went into Tillman’s, kind of annoyed with Carlin for making this errand necessary, but at the same time
understanding why she held so tightly to her money. He was determined to get this done. Carlin was going to stay through the winter, and she would damn well be prepared before the first snow moved in, which could be any minute, considering how the clouds looked.

He knew Alice Tillman well, had gone to school with her boys. They’d long since moved on, leaving Battle Ridge as so many others had in the past few years. He nodded a greeting to Mrs. Tillman as he headed toward a rack of heavy coats, and she asked him how things were going. He responded with a generic “fine.” If she was confused by the fact that he was headed toward the women’s section of the small store, she didn’t say so.

No way was he going to browse. He picked up a heavy coat that caught his eye, held it at arm’s length and checked it out for size. Deciding it would do, he moved on to the selection of boots. Size seven, she’d said. He already knew what he wanted. He didn’t care how pretty the boots were, didn’t care if they were in style or not. What she needed was something waterproof, with good insulation and a thick sole, something that would keep her feet dry and warm when the snow reached her knees. He lifted one sample and held it in the air. “You got this in a seven?”

“Hardly looks like your style or your size,” Mrs. Tillman said with more than a hint of humor.

“I think they’ll work,” he called after her as she headed into the back room, going along with the joke. While she was gone, he looked over the sale table where Carlin had probably found her ugly-ass green boots. A few boxes, some of them dented or missing lids, sat on that table looking sad and unwanted. It pissed him off that this was where Carlin felt compelled to shop, that she was so terrified of not having enough money to make her next escape that she automatically looked for bargains.

Mrs. Tillman placed a large, sturdy shoe box on the
front counter. “I don’t suppose you’ll be trying these on,” she teased.

“No, ma’am.” As he walked toward the counter, she looked at the coat he carried. Her smile faded, just a little. He preempted her with a rueful smile. “The coat’s not for me, either.”

She looked momentarily conflicted, and then she said, “I’m never one to turn away a sale, especially such a good one, but I want to make sure before I ring it up. Did you check out the price on that coat?”

“No, should I?”

“You should.”

He found the tag, lifted it, and came to a stop in the middle of the aisle. “Holy—” He stopped himself in mid-exclamation. “Are the pockets lined with gold?” He had a shearling coat himself so he hadn’t expected it to be cheap, but he hadn’t expected a thousand-dollar price tag, either.

Mrs. Tillman explained. “It’s the best garment in the store,
very
good quality, but I have to make sure you’re aware of the price before I ring it up. I stock a few of these every year, in case some rich hunters come through and need a heavy coat. You’d be surprised how seldom I have to carry them over to another season.”

He could afford the coat; Carlin needed something good and heavy. But, damn, he was pretty sure his first truck hadn’t cost this much.

“This wouldn’t by chance be for your new cook, would it? Carly, isn’t that her name?” Mrs. Tillman asked as she read the expression on his face and walked past him, snagging the coat from his hand as she went by.

He mentally shrugged. Small towns. If he’d been worried about keeping this a secret, then he’d have gone to Cheyenne. “It is, on both counts.”

“When she was in here a while back she looked at this
very coat. I’m sure she’d love it, but I have other coats that will be a lot more practical.”

“You saw her. Did I get the right size?”

“I’d say so. I think she’s about the size of my daughter-in-law.” Mrs. Tillman returned the shearling coat to the rack and grabbed a dark blue parka, fluffy and thick, but about a quarter the weight of the shearling. “This will keep her warm, and it’s a lot easier to take care of.”

They returned to the counter, where the parka and the shoe box sat side by side. He looked at his choices so far, and sighed. They weren’t enough. Carlin wasn’t accustomed to Wyoming winters, and that meant she’d need hats, gloves, scarves, long underwear.

Mrs. Tillman was delighted to help him gather what was needed. He chose good-quality stuff without going for the most expensive. Soon he had all he was going to purchase piled on the front counter.

He had to draw the line somewhere. Carlin was by God going to have to buy her own underwear, long or otherwise.

S
HE STARED AT
the merchandise Zeke had presented to her with no fanfare at all. He’d practically shoved the bags into her arms, and then he’d left the house. A cow needed him, or something, although how he could have known that when he had just returned from town, she didn’t know; some kind of psychic cow-call? It wasn’t until she’d laid the things he’d bought across her bed that she realized how much all of this stuff must’ve cost.

She was both embarrassed and disconcerted. She hated that he’d spent all this money on her when she had the cash to buy these things for herself, but she’d made the conscious decision to do without, or make do with what she could scrounge up around the house, because she was saving every dime she could, just in case.

She was beginning to hate those words. “Just in case” had come to define her life, and it sucked.

As for “disconcerted,” what was she supposed to think? It wasn’t as if he’d bought her some lingerie. This was practical, unornamental, much-needed winter outdoors stuff.

When he came back in, a couple of hours after delivering pie and Wyoming-appropriate winter outerwear, she was waiting for him. She wouldn’t have chosen that precise time, because she was all but covered in flour. Agitated, needing something to occupy her, she’d decided to try to make biscuits tonight—real, homemade biscuits, not the frozen or canned kind, not from a mix. Real biscuits. It was messy work. And, from her previous experience, potentially dangerous.

“What on earth were you thinking?” she asked as he came in from the mudroom.

He raised his eyebrows, acting as if he had no idea what she was talking about, but she knew he wasn’t that dense. She pointed a finger at him, a finger that was coated with shortening and flour.

“That coat is much too expensive, and the boots … I don’t even want to know how much those boots set you back.”

“You needed them; I bought them. No big deal,” he said flatly. He eyed the kitchen, and her floured self. “Somebody booby-trapped the flour and it exploded on you, huh?”

“Don’t try to distract me.” Maybe it wasn’t a big deal to him, but it was to her. She didn’t want to owe anyone, she wanted to stay unfettered. She was caught, though, because returning the merchandise might insult him, might hurt him—Zeke Decker, with hurt feelings?—and he was the man who had punched Darby out in her behalf. “Fine. I’ll pay you back,” she said, chin up in a defiant pose.

“Like hell you will,” he growled.

She had to. Accepting such a gift would tie her to him, to this place, and damn it she was tied down enough as it was. “It’s too much. I can’t accept …”

“If it makes you feel better, call it a Christmas present,” he barked.

“Christmas is two months away!”

“Damn it, can’t you just say
thank you
like a normal woman? I don’t want you to fall walking to the garage because the soles of those cheap boots are too slick. I don’t want you freezing to death walking from The Pie Hole to the library. Since when do safety concerns about an employee make me the bad guy?”

“There’s no need to yell,” she said in a calm voice that she knew would annoy him.

“I’m not yelling!”

“Actually, you are.” She sighed. “The thought was very nice, but it’s not like I’m going to freeze this winter. I was just going to borrow one of your old coats when I needed to, and there are a hundred pairs of gloves and twice as many hats in this house. The boots I bought will do. I’ll just be extra careful when it’s slick outside. That coat … it’s very nice, it really is, but it’s too much.”

“Fine,” Zeke snapped. At least he was no longer yelling. “The boots and the coat come with the job. When you quit in the spring you can leave them here for the next cook,
if
that makes you feel better.”

“It does, actually.”

“Good.” He headed toward the door, a bit of anger in his step and in his voice. “I’m going to get a shower before supper.”

As he stepped into the dining room, on his way to the stairs near the front door, Carlin stopped him with a softly spoken, “Zeke?”

He stopped instantly when she spoke his name, turned slowly to face her. Her heart was racing again. What on earth had she gotten herself into? A coat and a pair of
boots wouldn’t hold her here, no matter how expensive they were, so she might as well face it. It wasn’t the stuff. It was him. It was the deep down, undeniable sense that Zeke needed her that held her here. Not the kiss, not the physical attraction. Those things should send her running, not make her determined to stay. Zeke Decker, tough guy with a chip on his shoulder, needed her. For a while, at least.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.” He turned and walked away, and while she was still within earshot he added, in a slightly raised voice. “Now really, was that so hard?”

C
ARLIN HAD SEEN
snow before, kind of, but not like this. She’d seen flurries, a dusting, but mostly her experience with snow was of the television variety.

The snow began to fall, and it kept coming down. She’d looked out her bedroom window a time or two, during the night, entranced by the sight and how it made everything take on a soft glow. It came down hard, and then soft, silent and beautiful. By morning, there was at least a foot of the white stuff, probably more. As far as she could see, out that same window, was an untouched white blanket that covered everything.

She threw together a breakfast casserole and popped it into the oven. One-dish meals had become her best friend since she’d started working here. She rarely turned to them for breakfast, but this morning was different. Feeling a little bit like a child—and not minding at all—she wanted to be the first to put her mark in the snow. She wanted to see that white blanket stretching before her, unmarked and unbroken.

Instead of pulling on the new coat Zeke had bought for her, she snagged a heavy coat off the rack—one she’d never seen him wear so surely he wouldn’t complain if she put it to use—and pulled it on. It was much too big,
but with the sleeves folded back it would do. The new boots he’d bought her were perfect; she needed waterproof, at the moment. She also pulled on the knit hat and gloves he’d bought, bundling herself up good.

The cold wind hit her in the face the minute she stepped out on the front porch. It was crisp and clean and made her shudder, but she ignored it and kept going, stepping down the stairs, carefully, since she didn’t know if the steps under that snow would be slick with ice or not. One step, then another, feeling as if she were an infant just learning how to walk. She pulled the hood of the borrowed coat up to protect her cheeks as she finally reached ground level, and measured the depth of the snow. Yes, at least a foot. Every step was an effort; she had to pick her feet straight up with every step, like someone in a marching band. The wind stilled, and abruptly the temperature was much more comfortable.