Sage Creek (9 page)

“I’ll need someone to help out at the counter, with orders and serving and cleanup. Once I’m within a week or two of opening, I’ll put a help-wanted sign in the window.”

“Sophie, don’t you forget that work is never the end-all and be-all.” Gran reached over and squeezed her hand. “There’s something else you need to do.”

“Gran, don’t start—”

“Hear me out, young lady. You need to get back out there.” Gran waved her arm vaguely, as if not quite sure where “there” was. “It’s time for you to meet some new men. Recharge your love life.”

“There’s plenty of time for that.” Sophie forced a smile.

She didn’t have the energy to explain to her grandmother just how little interest she had in dating. She’d given her whole heart away once—to Ned. And he’d stomped on it. She wasn’t looking to try that again anytime soon.

If ever.

She’d be an idiot to risk giving any part of herself away again. Especially now, when all she wanted was to forget what it felt like to be lied to and cheated on. What it felt like to believe every day she was getting closer to having a baby, having a real family with Ned, and all along she was alone in her hopes, a wishful idiot who’d been incapable of seeing the truth.

What kind of a woman was she? Where was her feminine radar, her instincts? She’d missed all the signs.

Maybe she’d wanted to miss them.

Maybe she was to blame, like Ned kept telling her.

She had a crushed heart, and even worse, a crushed spirit. Her chest ached every day as if an anvil was wedged inside it. She had to force herself to smile. She was in no shape to go out on dates with men, much less consider letting any man get close to her again.

“Time has a way of sneaking past you, Sophie.” Gran’s faded eyes held hers, giving Sophie the impression she knew exactly what was going on inside Sophie’s heart. “If you wait too long, your time is gone. You’re dead.”

“Mother!” Diana shook her head. “That’s enough. Give her some room to breathe. If she says it’s too soon, it’s too soon. That’s the end of it.”

“How about letting Sophie decide for herself? She hasn’t even heard what I have in mind yet.”

On the words, the doorbell pealed, and Tidbit leaped up with a woof worthy of a German shepherd.

“There they are now.” Gran was beaming as her daughter and granddaughter stared at her in surprise. “I invited Martha and Dorothy to stop by so we could tell you together.”

“Tell me what?” There was a sinking sensation in the pit of Sophie’s stomach as her mother hurried toward the door. She didn’t have a good feeling about this. Especially when Gran didn’t reply to her question, pretending not to hear instead.

“Hope we’re not too early,” Dorothy Winston said perkily. In her track suit and sneakers, she looked almost exactly the same as Sophie remembered her—petite and round-shouldered, with squirrel-like cheeks, soft gray hair that wisped around her face, and a surprisingly authoritative voice honed by years of announcements intoned over grade-school loudspeakers.

“Did you tell her yet, Ava? Did you mention John?”

Though Martha, the owner of the Cuttin’ Loose beauty salon, was pushing eighty, she was still taller than both Gran and Dorothy, a spare, dramatic-looking woman whose thick short hair was a bright and improbable red. Sophie remembered that Martha had always loved to change her hair color the way most women changed nail polish. She wore purple hoop earrings, a mood ring, and a bright paisley shawl over her turquoise silk blouse and jeans.

“I’m talking about my grandson, John,” Martha explained to Sophie before Gran could respond. She sank down beside Dorothy. “He’s a sweet, sweet boy. I mean, man,” she added with a chuckle. “He’ll be forty in November. A
widower
,” she added. “And quite handsome. You two would have such pretty children—”

“Martha, I haven’t told Sophie any details yet,” Gran interrupted. “Stop jumping the gun.”

Details? I don’t want to know details.
Dismay flashed through Sophie as she gazed at the three beaming faces arrayed before her.

To no one’s surprise, it was her grandmother who took charge. “It so happens, Sophie, that Martha and Dorothy and I have put together a list of eligible men right here in Lonesome Way. Men we know personally and who we can vouch for.”

“Mom.” Diana’s voice was low. “I’m not sure this is the best time—”

“Nonsense, of course it is. What’s the point of waiting? Sophie needs to move on.”

“And the sooner the better,” Dorothy put in earnestly. “It’s not as if we want her to go on some Internet dating site or something like that.”

“These are men we
know
.” Martha leaned forward in her chair. “Like my grandson.”

Sophie gazed from one eager face to the next, feeling dazed.

“Don’t forget my nephew, Roger.” Dorothy smiled at Sophie like a chipmunk with a cache of nuts. “Roger Hendricks. Perhaps you remember him, dear? He was a year ahead of you in school. He played football.”

Sophie remembered Roger. In grade school he’d been a schoolyard bully, who enjoyed shoving several of the smaller boys every day at recess until one afternoon Jake Tanner noticed and asked him if he wanted to pick on someone his own size. Roger hadn’t—and had made sure he was on his best behavior after that, at least whenever Jake was around.

“Roger was divorced almost three years ago. He’s lonely and ripe for the picking. I’d love to give him your phone number,” Dorothy continued. “I think you two would hit it right off.”

“But I’ve already
told
John about you,” Martha put in triumphantly. “And he
wants
your phone number.”

Gran gaped at her, a frown settling over her face. “Martha! You didn’t!”

“I . . . You . . .
What?
” Dull red color flushed Dorothy’s puffy cheeks. “We
agreed
we’d wait until
after
we talked to Sophie. I can’t believe you
cheated
.”

“Ladies,” Sophie interjected hastily, “you’re all very sweet to think of me, but I’m not in the market for a man—or even for a date. Not yet.”

“It’s true. Sophie needs more time to adjust to her divorce,” her mother said.

“But how much time does a body need?” Martha shook her head, bewildered. “Meeting new people will
help
you to adjust, Sophie. Sometimes you just have to push yourself, honey.”

“That means going out of your comfort zone,” Dorothy added.

Gran pointed a thin finger at her. “What did you learn, Sophie, when you were five years old? That time Cloud reared up and threw you in the corral? You flew right off his back and hit the ground. I swear, you yelled so loud and cried so hard they probably heard you in Missoula. But your father made you get right up and get on again and ride Cloud around the corral three times. Well, it’s the same thing when love throws you as when a horse does it.”

“Gran, I just need some more time. Another month or two.”

“In the meantime,” she told Martha and Dorothy, before either of them could argue further, “please don’t give my phone number to
anyone
. Not until I say so. And right now, I’m sorry, but I have to leave.”

She jumped to her feet, startling Tidbit, who also scrambled up and gazed at her worriedly. “I’m due to meet Mia at the Double Cross to plan Lissie’s shower,” she explained.

“Well, then. We’ll simply need to table this discussion for another day, won’t we?” Gran smiled ruefully at her friends.

“Just remember,” she told Sophie, “that when you’re ready, we have a
list
. And there are others on it, besides John and Roger. Good men, every one of ’em. Only the best for my granddaughter.”

After brushing a hasty kiss on her grandmother’s cheek, Sophie rattled off good-byes to Martha and Dorothy, then shot a short, speaking glance in her mother’s direction and made a run for it.

Tidbit trotted at her heels as she made a beeline for the front hall.

“No, Tid, you can’t come this time. Stay here,” she told him distractedly, tugging her leather jacket from the closet, grabbing her handbag, and yanking open the door. Then she let out a muffled scream at the sight of the man standing on the porch.

Tidbit barked maniacally, dashing forward, ready to defend Sophie and the house with his life.

“Stay, Tidbit! Down!” Sophie ordered automatically, staring at the man standing before her, not quite able to accept he was there.

His shoulders were hunched against the wind, his right hand lifted, poised to knock. He took a step back, because of either her or the dog, she couldn’t tell which. She only knew he looked every bit as startled as she felt.

“Mr. . . . Hartigan? What . . . are you doing here?”

“Taking matters into my own hands.”

Her former geometry teacher stood five foot ten. He was still as wiry and tough-looking as a seasoned ranch hand, but his hair was streaked with gray now, and one clump of it fell over his brow as he regarded her warily from deep-set brown eyes that had always reminded her of dried-out plum pits. There were crow’s feet at the corners of them, and deep lines scored his forehead.

But there was something in his stern, caustic face she’d never seen before when he’d lectured in class, handed her back a paper with a big red
F
scrawled across it, or told her that no, she could not retake the test.

He looked nervous. As nervous as she’d felt every day in his classroom.

“There’s something you need to know, Sophie. If no one else is going to tell you, well, uh, I will.” Doug Hartigan cleared his throat. He looked past her into the living room and then spoke in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone in the house.

“Your mother and I are dating. Each other,” he clarified quickly. “And that’s not all.”

Through the shock that slammed her, Sophie was aware that his Adam’s apple was quivering. Mr. Hartigan took a deep breath and swallowed hard.

“We’re not just dating. We’ve fallen in love.”

Chapter Eight

Sophie had no memory of driving into town. During the entire stretch of time she’d steered the Blazer over rough country roads, her mind was spinning.

Brain freeze set in every time she tried to imagine it. She had no idea how the two of them had gotten together or even how long it had been going on—this dating business—and hopefully it was no more than that, despite what Doug Hartigan had said.

She hadn’t waited around to discuss it with him
or
with her mother.

She’d simply stepped aside to admit her former teacher into the house, taken one good look back at her mother’s flushed, distressed face, and fled, shell-shocked, toward the Blazer.

Now she found herself cruising at a snail’s pace down Main Street, passing Roy’s Diner, the Cuttin’ Loose salon, and Benson’s Drugstore.

Her stomach was roiling as she turned first right and then left toward the Double Cross Bar and Grill, parking in the gravel lot in back.

She could hear Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” blasting from the jukebox. Waves of energy pulsed outward through the crowded lot.

The Double Cross would be jam-packed. She needed it to be. Despite her earlier reluctance, she now needed to escape her own thoughts, to be surrounded, engulfed by people and noise and chatter—enough to crowd out the image of her former geometry teacher walking into her house.

Mr. Hartigan had tormented Sophie for an entire year of high school. She’d hated him, hated her life that entire year. All because of him.

She hadn’t been able to master geometry, she just hadn’t. Not that she hadn’t tried. Every night her mind twisted around the problems, trying to make sense of them.

Hartigan, though, had never cut her any slack or given her an inch for trying. Even all the extra credit she labored over, trying to boost her grade, only earned her a pathetic D.

Which was at least better than an F.

Her father had expected straight As from both Sophie and Wes in every subject. But even Hoot had finally learned to just grit his teeth over geometry and accept less than he wanted.

Despite the tutor her mother had hired, Sophie could never wrap her head around isosceles triangles and supplementary angles and vortexes.

And Doug Hartigan had seemed to take personal affront at her confusion. Hoot had finally been forced to accept that she simply could do no better in that particular subject, but he growled like a grizzly if she didn’t ace every other course.

She leaned her forehead against the Blazer’s steering wheel as she realized that now the conversation she’d overheard while on the porch swing made sense.