A Cold Creek Noel (The Cowboys of Cold Creek) (18 page)

He fixed the young woman with a look, wondering what she was up
to. “If you’re planning on asking customers their age, once word about that gets
out, I don’t think you’re going to have too many of the ladies coming in.” And
everyone knew that it was women, not men, who liked this old furniture and
knickknacks.

“I don’t care how old
they
are,”
Catherine protested. “I mean, I do, but I don’t—” She stopped abruptly,
realizing that she was getting tongue-tied again. Taking a breath, she
backtracked. “I’m trying to appeal to a certain dynamic—a certain age-group,”
she corrected herself, not wanting this rugged cowboy to think she was trying to
talk over his head. But what she’d just said didn’t sound quite right, either.
“Let me start over,” she requested. Taking a deep breath, she paused for a
second before plunging in again. “What I want to do is attract a certain
age-group—younger than the people who used to come into the store—so I thought
if I could maybe pick your brain once in a while, find out what you think of
some of the merchandise, it might help me improve sales once I open.”

If possible, the woman was making even less sense to him than
before.

Hell, if she was trying to find out what would attract guys
like him, all she had to do was look in the mirror, Cody couldn’t help thinking.
Because, confusing though she seemed to be every time she opened her mouth, this
new shop owner was a damn sight easy on the eyes. If she stood in the doorway—or
near her show window—that would definitely be enough to bring men in on the
pretext of shopping.

But, curious to see if there was something more to what she was
suggesting, Cody asked, “Why would you want to pick my brain?” His taste was
plain and, if it were up to him, he wouldn’t have set foot in here in the first
place.

In answering his question, Catherine didn’t go with the
obvious: that there was something compellingly fascinating about this vintage
cowboy who had strolled into her shop just in time to keep her from breaking
something vital. Instead, she gave him something they could both live with.

“Because what you like is what would appeal to other people in
your age bracket.”

He’d never thought of himself as being like everyone else. Not
that he saw himself as unique, just...different. The gadgets out there that held
such fascination for men—if he was to believe the occasional commercial he
saw—held no interest for him. He was a man of the earth, a plain, simple man
who’d never felt the need to be part of the crowd or to join anything at all for
that matter.

With a shrug, he finally got around to answering the initial
question she’d put to him. “I’m thirty-five.”

That was about where she would have put him, Catherine thought,
feeling triumphant.

“Perfect,” she declared out loud, stopping short of clapping
her hands together. “You’re exactly what I’m looking for. Business-wise,” she
quickly qualified in case he got the wrong impression. She didn’t want him
thinking she was staking him out for some reason. The last thing she wanted was
to chase this cowboy away.

Cody looked at the exuberant woman for a long moment. He
sincerely doubted that he was the type that
any
woman was looking for, at least not anymore. There was a time when he would have
been. A time when he’d been eager to plunge into life, to be the best husband,
the best father he could possibly be. A time when he greeted each day with hope,
thinking of all that lay ahead of him and Renee.

But all that had changed once Renee had died. Whatever he’d had
to offer in terms of a normal relationship had died and had been buried along
with his wife.

He was tempted to tell her she was wrong in selecting him, but
he could see that there was just no putting this woman off. She had a fire lit
under her, and if he wasn’t careful, that fire could burn them both.

Still, he supposed he had nothing to lose by going along with
her in this. She’d undoubtedly find his answers boring, but until she did, he
could view this as a distraction. God knew he was always looking for something
to distract him. Something to block his dark thoughts so that he didn’t have to
dwell on just how empty his existence had become and continued to be.

Eight years and nothing had changed. He was still just going
through the motions of living, placing one foot in front of the other.

“I don’t know about perfect,” he finally said to Catherine with
a self-deprecating laugh that sounded as if it had come rumbling straight out of
his chest, bypassing his throat, “but if I can help—” he shrugged “—sure.”

If possible, her eyes brightened even more. It made him think
of the way a satisfying, steaming cup of hot coffee tasted on a cold winter’s
day.

“Really?” Catherine pressed, this time actually clapping her
hands together as if he was some magical genie who had just bestowed the gift of
three wishes on her.

Cody shrugged again in response to her question. “Why not?” he
said even as a part of him whispered a warning that he had just taken his first
step on a very narrow ledge. A step that could result in his tumbling down into
an uncharted abyss at a moment’s notice.

All things considered, he supposed that there could be worse
things.

ISBN: 9781459249400

Copyright © 2012 by RaeAnne Thayne

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