Meeting Her Match (7 page)

It was all about guiding Cinder to take the best deal she was offered. Pace worked patiently with the mare, running the rope over her body, wrapping it around the horse from her halter, down around her rump, and tugging gently so that she could choose to turn out and away from the pull. Cinder sought escape exactly the way Pace wanted her to. The horse had a mind, and a natural instinct to escape. Like people, if a horse thought the path it chose was its own idea, then it complied more readily. It made for a calmer, gentler horse when all was said and done. It wasn't always easy. Every horse was different. Tempera
ments and personalities made every training session a challenge.

Pace's job was to figure out each horse and work with its strengths and its weaknesses. It took concentration on his part, and today he was distracted. The horse could sense it. Try as he might to keep them away, Pace's thoughts kept drifting back to Sheri. He was good at reading animals and pretty good at reading people. Sadly, everything he'd thought about Sheri was true. She was a schemer. If there was one thing Pace couldn't abide, it was a person who lied.

The fact that she would consider disrespecting Norma Sue and Esther Mae blew his mind, but Miss Adela—that was downright unthinkable. Those were the sweetest women he'd ever known, and to think that she thought she needed to teach them a lesson… Well, she'd lost a marble or two. That was for certain.

To be fair, Clint had told him about the ad campaign the three ladies had come up with to get women to move to Mule Hollow to find husbands. It was like an old-time mail-order bride scenario. Actually, he thought it was pretty smart. It was all on the up-and-up. It just didn't make sense to him that Sheri would think the ladies were scheming to fix her up behind her back. Especially since there were plenty of other men and women who wanted to get married, and it was obvious Sheri was not the marrying kind.

Why should the ladies waste their time trying to change her? Of course, he knew she could change if she wanted to. He had. She had to want it, and it was more than obvious she wasn't interested in that.

The mare suddenly jerked her head, pulling Pace back to his work. He pushed the thoughts of Sheri away and focused on the horse.

The best thing he could do was stay as far away from his neighbor as possible. She represented a portion of his past he was leaving behind. There was no way in the world he was going to blow this chance to prove to the Lord that he was a changed man. Because he was, and once he adjusted to his new life everything would be fine.

“C
ome on, baby,” Sheri said, holding the key tight, listening to the engine struggle to catch hold. She was on her way to Norma Sue's. She'd had the whole day off to think about her situation. Despite her plan going south, she wasn't ready to give up on it. No, she liked a challenge. If there was one thing being friends with Lacy had taught her, it was to never give up.

Lacy had called and encouraged her to come to Norma Sue's, insisted that the Bible study would be good for her, and reminded her that there would be homemade ice cream.

Everyone knew sweets were her weakness. Thanks to a fast metabolism, she remained fit despite her love of junk food. Growing up awkward and shy, she'd learned by watching Lacy that an outgoing personality was the calling card that drew people. Not necessarily looks, good or bad.

She learned fast. She pushed that quiet introverted
kid into the deepest recesses of her soul and plastered on a layer of confidence she didn't always feel. It worked. As soon as she'd become the wisecracking, take-me-or-leave-me personality, her life had changed.

Still, she sometimes felt as though she were living a lie. She forced the old doubts away and focused. How in the world had thinking about ice cream sent her chasing rabbits like that? She decided to go to the Bible study, and she was determined to use it to her own advantage.

Okay, she was going if her car would get her there. “Come on, baby, don't mess up on me now,” she coaxed, cranking the key again. It sputtered, gave a cough and died right there where her drive met the road.
“Traitor!”
she growled. She hadn't owned a car when she and Lacy first moved to Mule Hollow so when Clint put this old ranch Jeep up for sale she'd snatched it up. It wasn't anything fancy or new by a long shot, but it had usually carried her up and down her dirt road to town and back without a hitch. That's all she cared about. That, and the fact that Clint let her pay him a very small amount each month so she could afford the payments. Sweet man that he was, he'd offered to give the Jeep to her, and could well afford to do so, but she'd insisted on paying him something.

Being the half owner of a new business in an itty-bitty town wasn't making her bank account any fatter than she was. Not that she cared too much about a robust bank account. If she'd cared about that she wouldn't be in Mule Hollow in the first place. She was here because she'd come to help Lacy achieve her dream. Although, she'd actually fallen in love with the place, despite the part about everyone trying to run her life.

She cranked on the key again and was rewarded with only a dull click. Resting her head on the steering wheel she groaned. Here she'd gone through all of this pep talk for nothing.

At the growl of a diesel engine rounding the corner, her head whipped up and her attitude brightened. Pace was on his way to Norma Sue's, too. She thought she'd heard him pass by earlier, but she must have been mistaken. After witnessing her bad mood yesterday, he would probably want nothing to do with her. She waved him down anyway.

The instant he stopped she yanked open the passenger door and jumped inside, ignoring the fact that he didn't look at all pleased to see her.

“Am I glad to see you. I need a lift to Norma Sue's. My Jeep just dropped dead at the driveway.”

“Well, isn't that a coincidence?” he drawled, looking at her as if she just slithered from beneath a rock.

Sheri gaped at him. “What does that mean?”

He studied her for a long moment, his gray eyes almost blue. “I was thinking about your scheme to scam Norma Sue and the others.”

She gasped. “Are you saying I'm pretending to have car trouble so I can get a lift from you to Norma's?”

“It crossed my mind.”

“Well, I'll have you know that I'm not that desperate. If you don't want to help me open the posse's eyes to the disservice they're doing to the happily single people of Mule Hollow, that's your choice. That doesn't mean I'm going to lower myself to pretend to have car trouble for the likes of you. That's just plain lame. Give me more credit than that.”

“Believe me, I give you lots of credit.”

She scowled at him. “Look, I don't understand why you're so critical of me. I don't know what makes you think you know me so well that you can possibly understand what makes me tick.”

He tipped his hat back and met her defiant gaze. Despite her words, it bothered her that he thought so little of her. “Drive, please,” she snapped. “Norma Sue will be expecting us.”

He blinked, and she braced for him to be rude. So much for the step forward they'd almost taken the day before. They just took five steps back as far as she was concerned.

“So, how's it going with the horse?” she said as they got on the road. She was clueless as to why she was trying to carry on a conversation with the man, but despite his surly mood she couldn't get the picture out of her head of the gentle guy she'd seen inside the horse pen.

“Fine.”

“Been thrown any more?”

“Nope.”

“Too bad,” Sheri volleyed back and was rewarded with a laugh. Her heart almost stopped beating at the sound. She met his eyes—his twinkling eyes. They studied each other for a long moment. Pace's laughter died like the slow rumble of thunder after a storm, but Sheri saw it. She saw the flicker of interest in his eyes before he blinked it away.

“You should do that more often,” she said, finding herself wondering what it was that made this man tick.

“What?” he asked, looking back at the road as he shifted the truck's gears.

“Laugh. Or is it just me that you're so guarded around? I can understand since I was awful yesterday.”

He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. An uncomfortable silence settled between them. Sheri studied his profile, waiting on him to say something, knowing his silence was all the confirmation she needed. There was no laughter in him now. He sat staring straight ahead like a chiseled sculpture. His face was all angles and hard plains, no softness at all. She thought about his smile and how it transformed the look of him. She liked the change. Something inside her ached thinking that he didn't approve of her. She lifted her chin.

“Truth is, I'm not looking for what you're looking for,” Pace said.

“What is it that I'm looking for?” Sheri saw that his gray eyes had turned solemn.

“You're not looking to settle down with a husband. Obviously, you like your life like it is.” He let his gaze slide back to the terrain as they approached the road that led to Norma Sue's house.

Something in his words was unspoken. She saw it in his eyes before he looked away. Sheri's eyebrows met. “Wait, am I missing something here? My wanting freedom says something bad about me?” Sheri's fists clenched and her stomach burned suddenly.

“Look, Sheri, I've been where you are, and it is an empty life.”

Sheri stared at him, reading the tone of his voice instead of his words, feeling as if her brain were misfiring information.
“Wait,”
she snapped as he pulled
into the drive behind Clint's big black truck. “What exactly are you saying?” she asked slowly.

He leveled serious eyes on her, and if she hadn't been seeing red she might have been touched that he cared.

“It's obvious you like to date, to fool around. I'm not one to judge you. Like I said, I walked in your shoes until a few months ago.”

“What gave you that idea?” She gritted the words out as though her jaw had been wired shut.

“Come on, Sheri. I saw the way all the cowboys were eyeing you that day the mustangs were delivered. You were a regular Mae West out there and very comfortable in the limelight.”

“And?”
she growled, her ears hotter than firecrackers and her temper about to blow.

“Look, Sheri, like I said, I've been there. I know what it's like, and I don't want to go back there. You'd do well to do the same,” he finished quietly and then stepped out of the truck.

Sheri stared at the closed door and felt as if she'd just been slapped. How dare he. He thought—he had the audacity to think—she was a loose woman. Just because he had a past, he assumed…
ohhhh
. He didn't know her at all. Fuming, she was surprised when he opened her door and held out his hand to help her down from the seat.

She gave him an icy once-over. “Oh, please,” she snapped, hopping down from the high seat and storming off. “The last thing I need is you opening the door for me.” She took a few steps away from him, spun back around and planted her finger in his chest. “Stay away
from me.” She started to walk off, then whipped back around. “You know, you have a lot of nerve to judge me like that. You don't know me. You don't know anything at all about me.”

She was so humiliated she didn't know if she could make it through the Bible study. When she reached the door she sucked in a calming breath and tried to settle the shaking of her hands. Closing her eyes she placed her palms against her stomach and fought for control.

When she heard footsteps behind her she rapped harder on the door and willed Norma Sue to answer quickly. She could hear laughter coming through the screen. “Come on,” she whispered, willing the stinging in her eyes to go away, and the door to open before Pace caught up to her and saw just how much his words had hurt.

 

Pace watched Sheri yank open Norma Sue's front door without waiting to be invited inside. The woman was literally fuming she was so mad. Not that he blamed her. He had voiced an opinion that would have been better left unspoken. Though her denial could have been strictly from embarrassment, he couldn't help feeling a load of remorse. He had judged her, and he didn't have that right. Once again he'd said something he shouldn't have. Why couldn't he keep his mouth shut when he was around Sheri?

“Well, don't just stand there, Pace, get in here,” Norma Sue called, stepping out onto her front porch. She held the screen door open for him. He paused at the bottom of the steps, wrapped his hand around the railing and took a deep breath. Back in Idaho he would have
been sitting on his horse checking fence line or cooking himself a pan of beans on an open fire out in front of his rover's shack. He wouldn't be standing on the porch of a sweet church lady about to force on a happy face and pretend he was having a good time.

He was way out of his element here.

He was beginning to wonder about the validity of his whole idea of moving to Mule Hollow. Oh well, he was here and he was going to have to ride it out. Sweeping his hat off, he grasped the door just above Norma Sue's gray hair. There was no excuse for bad manners. “After you,” he said, forcing a smile.

She beamed up at him. “You always did have good manners, son. And isn't that nice of you to bring Sheri?”

If the Lord had wanted to put him in his place, He did it right then and there. What a hypocrite he was. What kind of manners had he shown Sheri?

“Hey, everybody,” Norma Sue yelled, entering the house in front of him. “Pace brought Sheri.”

Pace paused just inside the door as everyone turned to look at him. Including Sheri. Looking at her he felt lower than dirt, and it occurred to him that it was just one step back and he'd be out the screen door and headed toward his truck. He hadn't signed on for this kind of scrutiny when he'd moved to Mule Hollow. He swallowed hard. Nothing came to mind to say in return to the odd proclamation. So he'd given his neighbor a lift. What was the big deal about that? That the room was extraordinarily silent had him pulling at his collar and wishing he'd worn his neckerchief to hide the color he could feel creeping up his neck.

Her eyes bright, Sheri smiled suddenly, shocking him since she'd been mad enough to spit tacks only seconds before.

“Norma Sue, don't embarrass Pace. It was just a ride. You know me, no way am I passing up a ride with a good-looking cowboy.”

That's when he saw it. The glint of challenge in her eyes and the barely discernible edge to her voice. He was going to have to apologize to her, but not here. Not even if it was apparent to him that the smile plastered on her face was purely for show, and she was really madder than a hornet.

Esther Mae broke the silence as she came flying out of the kitchen in a flurry, wiping her hands on her apron and looking as though she'd just won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. “Did I hear Pace gave you a ride over here?”

“You heard right, Esther Mae,” Norma Sue said, and Pace didn't miss the look that passed between the two ladies before they both turned back to him.

Why did he suddenly feel like prime rib?

“Well, don't just stand there,” Norma Sue said, grabbing his arm. “Come on in, and let's get this shindig started.”

He didn't miss the laughter in Sheri's eyes, either. Suddenly, he got the feeling the joke was on him.