Heart Of A Cowboy: Creed's Honor / Unforgiven

“Thanks,” Tricia said, as Conner passed her, doubling back toward the kitchen.

“You’re welcome,” he told her, with a nod of farewell.

She hadn’t really expected Conner to hang around the rummage sale all day—it was a rare man who did—but Tricia felt oddly bereft when he’d left, and when Sasha tugged at her hand to get her attention, she realized she’d been staring after the man like some moonstruck teenager.

Carolyn Simmons turned up just then, greeting Tricia with a smile and a gesture toward the front of the building, where the waiting customers were already pressing their faces to the windows, ogling the chicken-shaped egg timer, the row of ratty prom dresses, the chipped teapots, and the dusty books and the jumbles of old shoes piled on the table marked, “Everything 50 Cents!”

“Looks like we’re in for another big year!” Carolyn said. Her attractively highlighted blond hair was pulled up into a ponytail and, like Tricia, she wore jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and sneakers.

“Looks that way,” Tricia agreed, while Sasha sat down on the lid of a donated cedar chest, which had been découpaged at some point in the distant past with what looked like pages torn from vintage movie magazines, and folded her hands to wait for the onslaught.

The whole thing probably seemed pretty exotic to a little girl raised in Seattle, Tricia thought, with that familiar rush of tenderness. What a gift it was, this visit from Sasha, and how quickly it would be over.

Evelyn Moore, one of the women from the kitchen, bustled to the foreground, holding a stopwatch in her plump hand, and a great production was made of the countdown.

“Three—two—one—”

New Year’s Eve in Times Square had nothing on Lonesome Bend, Colorado, Tricia thought, amused, when it came to ratcheting up the suspense.

At precisely nine o’clock, Evelyn turned the lock and took some quick steps backwards, in order to avoid being trampled by eager shoppers.

The next hour, naturally, was hectic indeed—at one point, when two women wanted the same wafflemaker and seemed about to come to blows, Tricia and Carolyn had to intervene.

“It probably doesn’t even work anymore,” Sasha observed, with a nod at the small appliance. She’d been helping to bag people’s purchases, and when Tricia’s pink slippers went for a nickel, she hadn’t so much as batted an eye. “And, besides, the cord is frayed.”

“The hunter/gatherer phenomenon,” Carolyn explained, though she looked as mystified as Sasha did.

Tricia gave one of Sasha’s pigtails a gentle tug. “Let me know when you’re ready to try the chili,” she said.

“We just had breakfast,” Sasha reminded her, casually horrified.

Tricia laughed and then there was a rush on the prom dresses and they both went back to work.

“Look,” Sasha said, when the rush had subsided a little, sometime later, “Conner’s back.” Her forehead creased into a frown. “Who is that woman with him?”

Tricia, feeling that annoying tension Conner Creed always aroused in her, turned to see a couple just coming through the main door. She blinked. The tension ebbed away.

The man smiling down at the beautiful red-haired woman, his hand pressed solicitously to the small of her back, wasn’t Conner. It was Brody.

Tricia couldn’t have said how she knew that, because the resemblance was stunning; Brody was a perfect reflection of Conner, right down to his clothes and a very recent haircut.

Back in the day, the Creed brothers had been infamous for impersonating each other and, not knowing them well, Tricia had been fooled, like almost everyone else.

Now, he approached her, the lovely Joleen Williams trailing behind him, bestowing her breathtaking smile on all and sundry. “Tricia,” he said, with a little nod.

Her hand tightening slightly on Sasha’s shoulder, to keep the child from blurting out something Tricia would regret, she replied, “Hello, Brody.” She looked past him, nodded. “Hi, Joleen. It’s been a long time.”

“Yes,” Joleen said thoughtfully, sizing Tricia up with a slow sweep of her emerald-green eyes. “So long that I can’t remember, for the life of me, who you are.”

“Tricia McCall,” Tricia offered, amused. Of course, being one of the most popular girls in town, Joleen wouldn’t remember her, the summer visitor who rarely said more than two words running.

Brody gave Joleen a mildly exasperated glance.

“You’re Conner’s twin,” Sasha said, with the air of one having a revelation. “You were at the barbecue by the river.”

“Yep,” Brody said.

“You didn’t look so much like him then,” Sasha went on, nonplussed. “Your hair was longer and your clothes were different. Now, you look exactly like Conner. I thought you were Conner.”

“Sasha,” Tricia said, squeezing again.

Joleen, evidently bored, wandered off.

“How are people supposed to tell you apart?” Sasha demanded, as though confronting an imposter.

Brody chuckled. “I’m the good-looking one,” he said.

Sasha wasn’t amused, though Tricia, knowing her well, saw that she was softening a little.

“Most kids like me,” Brody said, with a twinkle in his eyes, as his gaze connected with Tricia’s again. “But I seem to be zero-for-zero with this one.”

Sasha, Tricia noticed, was watching Joleen. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“Sasha!” Tricia said.

But Brody didn’t seem to be bothered by the question. He crouched, so he could look directly into Sasha’s face. “Nope,” he said seriously. “Is that a good thing or a bad one?”

“Depends,” Sasha answered, sliding another glance in Joleen’s direction and neatly slipping out of shoulder-squeezing distance from Tricia. “Does Conner like her?”

Tricia’s mouth fell open.

Brody chuckled, shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. As he straightened up again, he was looking at Tricia’s overheated face. Something shifted in his eyes, with a distinct but soundless click. “Guess I’d better get in line if I want any of that famous chili,” he finished, before walking away.

Tricia looked around for Sasha, found her behind the book table, looking very busy as she restacked the volumes into tidy piles. If Carolyn hadn’t been standing right next to Sasha, Tricia probably wouldn’t have noticed the way the other woman followed Brody’s progress through the crowd.

She recalled something Carolyn had said the week before, when they were cleaning up after the barbecue at River’s Bend. What a fool I was, way back when.

As though she’d felt Tricia watching her, Carolyn swung her gaze away from Brody and back to her friend’s face. She made a funny little grimace and shrugged.

Tricia’s curiosity was piqued, but she was a great believer in her late father’s folksy philosophy: everybody’s business was nobody’s business. She didn’t know Carolyn well enough to grill her about her fascination with Brody, though a part of her wished she did. Because then she would have had someone to confide in about Conner.

It was all so confusing, and Diana was so far away.

You, Tricia McCall, she thought glumly, are flirting with slut-dom. You’re going on a romantic cruise with one man, and getting all hot and bothered over another. Not becoming. Not becoming at all.

Fortunately, there was a new run on the community center when the chili was finally served, and Tricia was so busy helping to ring up the sales—if making change from a cigar box could be called “ringing up”—that she didn’t have a chance to think about Brody or Conner again until early afternoon.

There was a lull, so she and Sasha grabbed the opportunity to go home, take Valentino out for a walk and measure more of the top-secret spices into plastic bags, to be added to tomorrow’s batch of chili as soon as the door closed on the last of the rummagers at six that evening.