One of a Kind: Lionhearted / Letters to Kelly

“Don’t speed!” her father called to her.

She only chuckled, diving into her sports car. She remembered belatedly that she didn’t have either purse or car keys, or her face fixed, and jumped right back out again to rectify those omissions.

Ten minutes later, she was parking her car in front of the Jacobsville Hardware Store. With a wildly beating heart, she noticed one of the black double-cabbed Hart Ranch trucks parked nearby. Leo! She was certain it was Leo!

With her heart pounding, she checked her makeup in the rearview mirror and tugged her hair gently away from her cheeks. She’d left it down today deliberately, remembering that Leo had something of a weakness for long hair. It was thick and clean, shining like a soft brown curtain. She was wearing a long beige skirt with riding boots, and a gold satin blouse. She looked pretty good, even if she did say so herself! Now if Leo would just notice her…

She walked into the hardware store with her breath catching in her throat as she anticipated Leo’s big smile at her approach. He was the handsomest of the Hart brothers, and really, the most personable. He was kindness itself. She remembered his soft voice in her kitchen, asking what was wrong. Oh, to have that soft voice in her ear forever!

There was nobody at the counter. That wasn’t unusual, the clerks were probably waiting on customers. She walked back to where the gloves were kept and suddenly heard Leo’s deep voice on the other side of the high aisle, unseen.

“Don’t forget to add that roll of hog wire to the order,” he was telling one of the clerks.

“I won’t forget,” Joe Howland’s pleasant voice replied. “Are you going to the Cattleman’s Ball?” Joe added just as Janie was about to raise her voice and call to Leo over the aisle.

“I guess I am,” Leo replied. “I didn’t plan to, but a pretty friend needed a ride and I’m obliging.”

Janie’s heart skipped and fell flat. Leo already had a date? Who? She moved around the aisle and in sight of Leo and Joe. Leo had his back to her, but Joe noticed her and smiled.

“That friend wouldn’t be Janie Brewster, by any chance?” Joe teased loudly.

The question made Leo unreasonably angry. “Listen, just because she caught the bouquet at Micah Steele’s wedding is no reason to start linking her with me,” he said shortly. “She may have a good family background, she may be easy on the eyes, she may even learn to cook someday—miracles still happen. But no matter what she does, or how well, she is never going to appeal to me as a woman!” he added. “Having her spreading ludicrous gossip about our relationship all over town isn’t making her any more attractive to me, either. It’s a dead turnoff!”

Janie felt a shock like an electric jolt go through her. She couldn’t even move for the pain.

Joe, horrified, opened his mouth to speak.

Leo made a rough gesture with one lean hand, burning with pent-up anger. “She looks like the rough side of a corncob lately, anyway,” Leo continued, warming to his subject. “The only thing she ever had going for her were her looks, and she’s spent the last few weeks covered in mud or dust or bread flour. She’s out all hours proving she can compete with any man on the place and she can’t stop bragging about what a great catch she’s made with me. She’s already told half the town that I’m a kiss short of buying her an engagement ring. That is, when she isn’t putting it around that I’m taking her to the Cattleman’s Ball, when I haven’t even damned well asked her! Well, she’s got her eye on the wrong man. I don’t want some half-baked kid with a figure like a boy and an ego the size of my boots! I wouldn’t have Janie Brewster for a wife if she came complete with a stable of purebred Salers bulls, and that’s saying something. She makes me sick to my stomach!”

Joe had gone pale and he was grimacing. Curious, Leo turned… and there was Janie Brewster, staring at him down the aisle with a face as tragic as if he’d just taken a whittling knife to her heart.

“Janie,” he said slowly.

She took a deep, steadying breath and managed to drag her eyes away from his face. “Hi, Joe,” she said with a wan little smile. Her voice sounded choked. She couldn’t possibly look for gloves, she had to get away! “Just wanted to check and see if you’d gotten in that tack Dad ordered last week,” she improvised.

“Not just yet, Janie,” Joe told her in a gentle tone. “I’m real sorry.”

“No problem. No problem at all. Thanks, Joe. Hello, Mr. Hart,” she said, without really meeting Leo’s eyes, and she even managed a smile through her tattered dignity. “Nice day out, isn’t it? Looks like we might even get that rain we need so badly. See you.”

She went out the door with her head high, as proudly as a conquering army, leaving Leo sick to his stomach for real.

“Why the hell didn’t you say something?” Leo asked Joe furiously.

“Didn’t know how,” Joe replied miserably.

“How long had she been standing there?” Leo persisted.

“The whole time, Leo,” came the dreaded reply. “She heard every word.”

As if to punctuate the statement, from outside came the sudden raucous squeal of tires on pavement as Janie took off toward the highway in a burst of speed. She was driving her little sports car, and Leo’s heart stopped as he realized how upset she was.

He jerked his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the police department. “Is that Grier?” he said at once when the call was answered, recognizing Jacobsville’s new assistant police chief’s deep voice. “Listen, Janie Brewster just lit out of town like a scalded cat in her sports car. She’s upset and it’s my fault, but she could kill herself. Have you got somebody out on the Victoria road who could pull her over and give her a warning? Yeah. Thanks, Grier. I owe you one.”

He hung up, cursing harshly under his breath. “She’ll be spitting fire if anybody tells her I sent the police after her, but I can’t let her get hurt.”

“Thought she looked just a mite too calm when she walked out the door,” Joe admitted. He glanced at Leo and grimaced. “No secret around town that she’s been sweet on you for the past year or so.”

“If she was, I’ve just cured her,” Leo said, and felt his heart sink. “Call me when that order comes in, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

Leo climbed into his truck and just sat there for a minute, getting his bearings. He could only imagine how Janie felt right now. What he’d said was cruel. He’d let his other irritations burst out as if Janie were to blame for them all. What Marilee had been telling him about Janie had finally bubbled over, that was all. She’d never done anything to hurt him before. Her only crime, if there was one, was thinking the moon rose and set on Leo Hart and taking too much for granted on the basis of one long kiss.

He laughed hollowly. Chances were good that she wouldn’t be thinking it after this. Part of him couldn’t help blaming her, because she’d gone around bragging about how he was going to marry her, and how lucky he was to have a girl like her in his life. Not to mention telling everybody he was taking her to the Cattleman’s Ball.

But Janie had never been one to brag about her accomplishments, or chase men. The only time she’d tried to vamp Leo, in fact, had been in her own home, when her father was present. She’d never come on to him when they were alone, or away from her home. She’d been old-fashioned in her attitudes, probably due to the strict way she’d been raised. So why should she suddenly depart from a lifetime’s habits and start spreading gossip about Leo all over Jacobsville? He remembered at least once when she’d stopped another woman from talking about a girl in trouble, adding that she hated gossip because it was like spreading poison.

He wiped his sweaty brow with the sleeve of his shirt and put his hat on the seat beside him. He hated what he’d said. Maybe he didn’t want Janie to get any ideas about him in a serious way, but there would have been kinder methods of accomplishing it. He didn’t think he was ever going to forget the look on her face when she heard what he was saying to Joe. It would haunt him forever.

Meanwhile, Janie was setting new speed records out on the Victoria Road. She’d already missed the turnoff that led back toward Jacobsville and her father’s ranch. She was seething, hurting, miserable and confused. How could Leo think such things about her? She’d never told anybody how she felt about him, except Marilee, and she hadn’t been spreading gossip. She hated gossip. Why did he know so little about her, when they’d known each other for years? What hurt the most was that he obviously believed those lies about her.

She wondered who could have told him such a thing. Her thoughts went at once to Marilee, but she chided herself for thinking ill of her only friend, her best friend. Certainly it had to be an enemy who’d been filling Leo’s head full of lies. But… she didn’t have any enemies that she knew of.

Tears were blurring her eyes. She knew she was going too fast. She should slow down before she wrecked the car or ran it into a fence. She was just thinking about that when she heard sirens and saw blue lights in her rearview mirror.

Great, she thought. Just what I need. I’m going to be arrested and I’ll spend the night in the local jail….

She stopped and rolled down her window, trying unobtrusively to wipe away the tears while waiting for the uniformed officer to bend down and speak to her.

He came as a surprise. It wasn’t a patrolman she knew, and she knew most of them by sight at least. This one had black eyes and thick black hair, which he wore in a ponytail. He had a no-nonsense look about him, and he was wearing a badge that denoted him as the assistant chief.

“Miss Brewster?” he asked quietly.

“Y… yes.”

“I’m Cash Grier,” he introduced himself. “I’m the new assistant police chief here.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said with a watery smile. “Sorry it has to be under these circumstances.” She held out both wrists with a sigh. “Want to handcuff me?”

He pursed his lips and his black eyes twinkled unexpectedly. He didn’t look like a man who knew what humor was. “Isn’t that a little kinky for a conversation? What sort of men are you used to?”

She hesitated for just a second before she burst out laughing. He wasn’t at all the man he appeared to be. She put her hands down.

“I was speeding,” she reminded him.

“Yes, you were. But since you don’t have a rap sheet, you can have a warning, just this once,” he added firmly. “The speed limit is posted. It’s fifty on all county roads.”

She peered up at him. “This is a county road?” she emphasized, which meant that he was out of his enforcement area.