Return to Oak Valley (21 page)

Acey ambled out of the barn, looking spiffy in a red-and-blue-plaid shirt, a scarlet bandanna tied rakishly around his throat, and new dark blue jeans, a smart crease running down the length of the legs. His black boots gleamed, and he was wearing his best hat—a black Stetson with wide scarlet hatband.

“Jesus, girl,” he exclaimed when he took in her attire. “Don't tell me
that's
what you're wearing for the parade?”

“Parade?” Shelly asked, her expression blank. “What parade?”

“Now you ain't been gone that long—you can't have forgotten this is the Mother's Day weekend and the FFA Field Day. Parade. Junior Rodeo. Dance. Remember?”

“Oh, wow. I did forget,” she confessed, wondering how that had happened. How could she have forgotten one of the most important social functions in the valley? Even M.J. had mentioned it, but with everything else on her mind, the Mother's Day events had gone completely out of her head.

St. Galen's hosted three big community events a year. The Mother's Day FFA Field Day was the first, followed on the first weekend in August by the Blackberry Harvest and ending with the Labor Day Rodeo. To outsiders, it all might look rinky-dink and small-time, but in the valley each event was eagerly planned and looked forward to by the entire community. Relatives and friends who lived all over the state planned their vacations and trips home around those dates, and those weekends would find the valley flooded with smiling, laughing visitors reestablishing bonds of friendship and family. If St. Galen's had a social season, it started with the Mother's Day weekend and culminated with attendance at the Oak Valley Rodeo on the Labor Day weekend. The only other busy time was deer season, and for the week before it opened, the highway into the valley would see a steady stream of pickup trucks and campers, mostly strangers, passing through on their way to the Mendocino National Forest. The hunters did provide increased business, and their arrival was happily greeted by the merchants each fall.

“Jesus, Shelly! Forget the FFA Field Day?” Acey shook his head. “You've been away too long, my girl. Now go get prettied up—I'm taking you and Maria to the Cowboy Breakfast at the Masonic Hall.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “You won't want to miss it—think that red-haired widow I've been seeing is one of the cooks this year. You and Maria can check her out—see if I'm getting in over my head. I've got the day all planned. Breakfast, parade, rodeo, and then the dance.”

Shelly smiled, shaking her head. “Gee, I didn't know you were also my social secretary.”

“Somebody's got to be, girl. Left to your own devices, you'd never find a man. You ain't getting any younger, you know. Time's a passing. You don't want to end up a lonely old maid, do you?”

Shelly made a face. “Acey…”

“Now don't start. Been thinking a lot about you, woman alone and all that stuff. I know it's old-fashioned and don't fit with all the newfangled Women's Lib crap, but I'm telling you straight: You need a man. Not just any man, even I know that. You need a good man, one with strong ties to the valley. But he's got to be flexible. Got to understand that you're an independent woman with a mind of your own.” He grinned. “Someone like me—only younger. Lot younger. And maybe more handsome, but that'd be hard to imagine.”

Shelly snorted. “Acey, I appreciate your concern, but trust me on this—if I wanted a man, I could find one.”

He glared at her. “Then why haven't you? Fine-looking young heifer like you. You ought to be married, but to the right man. I worry, girl. I worry that some slick-talking dude's going to slide into town and sweep you off your feet while you're all vulnerable and such. Like I said, you need a man, but it's got to be a man who can be trusted to do right by you.”

“And I suppose you've found this paragon for me?” she said through gritted teeth.

Acey grinned like a cherub. “Yep. He's meeting us for breakfast. Sloan Ballinger.”

Chapter Ten

S
helly wasn't certain how it happened, in fact she'd been certain that she'd grow old and gray before she stepped one foot off the place in order to meet with Sloan Ballinger, but forty-five minutes later, she was riding with Acey and Maria on their way to the Cowboy Breakfast. Acey had let her say her piece, then he had looked at her, and asked simply, “You want everyone in town to think you're afraid of meeting him? The fact that he's joining us for breakfast isn't a big secret. Lots of people be interested in how that turns out. Want 'em to think you're a coward?”

“Damn you! I'm no coward. And I'm sure as hell not afraid of Sloan Ballinger.”

“Couldn't prove it by me,” Acey drawled. “I can only think of one reason you're acting all skittish and such.” He looked thoughtful. “Probably what everyone else will think, too. Including Sloan.”

She'd thrown him a furious glance. “Has anyone ever told you that you are an interfering, manipulative, old devil?”

Acey rubbed the side of his jaw. “Now as I think on it, Sloan said something about me being a meddling old bastard.” He grinned at her. “Sloan's not as polite as you are.”

Shelly choked back a laugh. “You're impossible,” she said as she started toward the house. “And yes, I'll go with you to the damned breakfast. Can't have the whole town think that there was ever a Granger who backed down from a meeting with a Ballinger. Let me get showered and dressed, then I'll be ready.”

“Take your time, I've got to hook up the trailer and load my horse—I'm riding in the parade with the Oak Valley Riding Club. Part of the color guard.”

Once they reached town, they detoured down Main Street, where Acey left his trailer alongside several others owned by various members of the Oak Valley Riding Club. The street was crowded with vehicles, horses, dogs, and people of all ages getting ready for the parade. There were a couple of homemade floats, some members of the fledgling high school band, a half dozen feathered Indian dancers and an interestingly arrayed contingent from the St. Galen's Women's Club. It was their fond wish that they represented blackberries, promoting the Blackberry Harvest held in August, but in their purple tights and interestingly lumpy costumes, green, leaf-shaped hats on their heads, they looked more like grapes to Shelly. Ripe grapes, plump and fully packed. More participants were arriving by the minute, and it took Acey a bit to break free of the swelling ranks.

All too soon for Shelly's liking, they were parking near the Masonic Hall and exiting the truck. Nervously, she smoothed down her black jeans. They were made of a butter-soft suede and fit her like a glove. A tight glove. She had paired the jeans with a long-sleeved emerald green shirt that intensified the green of her eyes. The material flowed snugly over her breasts before disappearing into the waistband of her jeans, where a narrow black belt with a Black Hills gold buckle emphasized her small waist and slender hips. The shirt was open at the neck and a green-and-black-checked silk scarf was tied jauntily around her throat, gold earrings winked through her cloud of tawny hair, and she wore a pair of black Justin Ropers on her feet.
City meets cowboy country
, she thought wryly as she followed Acey and Maria into the pink cinder-block building that housed the Masonic Hall.

They entered the large room set aside for the Cowboy Breakfast. Portable tables and metal folding chairs had been set up; syrup, butter pats, salt, and pepper were set in the middle of each table. About two dozen people were scattered around the tables, laughing, talking, and eating. It was a large room with a utilitarian beige vinyl floor, and was capable of holding ten times as many people as were present without overcrowding. A row of high, narrow windows in the opposite wall allowed plenty of natural light. In one corner, near the serving window at the far end of the room, there was a table holding a pair of coffee urns; Coffeemate, packets of sugar, styrofoam cups, paper napkins, and plastic spoons lay nearby. Looking over the waist-high counter of the wide serving window, she could see several local people bustling around in the small kitchen as they cooked the usual fare: pancakes, scrambled eggs, and link sausages.

Shelly had told herself that she'd dressed so carefully with the knowledge that she'd be meeting people she hadn't seen in years, and it was for them that she had taken such great pains with her makeup and clothing. The moment Sloan uncurled his long length from behind the table where he'd been waiting for them, and their eyes met, she knew she'd deluded herself. There had been nothing public-spirited behind her actions. She'd dressed for one man and one man alone. Sloan Ballinger. Dressed deliberately and provocatively to remind him of all that he had thrown away seventeen years ago.
Eat your heart out, you two-timing bastard.

There was an electric silence as their eyes met and clashed. Acey and Maria were standing right beside her, but she knew that the charged atmosphere had nothing to do with the presence of the others. Her heart was banging like a steam hammer, and her pulse was racing as she and Sloan stared at each other, the air between them seeming to crackle and hiss with sexual energy. For a split second, everyone stopped what they were doing to take in the scene of Ballinger confronting Granger, then the moment passed and Sloan was smiling and crossing the room to greet them and everyone went back to what they had been doing before their arrival.

They exchanged greetings, Sloan shaking Acey's hand and dropping a kiss on Maria's cheek. Shelly steeled herself to act casually, but when Sloan moved in front of her and smiled down at her, her mind went blank. The warmth of his big body hit her first, then the scent that she had always considered uniquely his tangled in her nostrils. The next second, his hands were on her shoulders, and his mouth was taking hers.

It took her a second to react, then she stiffened and jammed her hands between their bodies. “Let me go!” she hissed, furious.

“Easy, easy,” Sloan whispered against her mouth, the taste of the coffee he'd been drinking lingering on her lips. “Everyone's watching. Don't want to give the good folks something to talk about, do we?”

She pasted a smile on her face. “Point taken,” she said through clenched teeth. “But if you don't let go of me, in about ten seconds, I'm going to show you…and the good folks, of course, what a well-placed knee can do to a conceited son-of-a-bitch like you.”

Amusement glittered in his eyes. Prudently taking a step back, he said, “Believe me, I don't doubt it for a moment. Truce?”

She shrugged, aware of the covert looks being sent their way. “Why not? I think I can behave myself long enough for us to eat breakfast.”

“Well, that'd be a first,” he said, as he guided her to stand in line behind Acey and Maria.

Ignoring him, she picked up a napkin and plastic utensils from the table near the serving window.

“Why bless my soul,” said a familiar voice. “Acey said that he was going to bring you along this morning, but after all that fine New Orleans food, I didn't believe you'd settle for pancakes and sausage.” The words were said kindly, and there was a gentle twinkle in the blue eyes of the tall, bald-headed man who smiled at Shelly.

“Mr. Smith! I didn't expect to see you here,” Shelly exclaimed, an answering smile on her lips. “I thought for sure that you'd be busy at the store.”

“And miss slaving away over a hot stove for the Chamber of Commerce?”

Shelly chuckled and shook her head. “No, I guess not.” Tom Smith, McGuire's longtime butcher and manager of the meat department, had cooked at the Cowboy Breakfast for as far back as she could remember. He was one of those individuals who always volunteered to help the community, or anyone in need for that matter, and he belonged to just about every service organization that Oak Valley supported. He worked hard for all the different clubs, whether it was the Lions Club, the Masonic Lodge, the Chamber of Commerce, the Oak Valley Riding Club, or the Oak Valley Rodeo Committee to name a few; Tom Smith could always be relied upon to lend a helping hand. Shelly had always liked him, and his wife, Debbie, but she had a particular soft spot for Tom. For a moment she remembered those childhood days when he seemed always to have time for a friendly word and a Tootsie Roll to press into a small, grubby hand.

They talked for a few moments as Tom deftly turned pancakes on the wide black iron griddle on the stove. She recognized two of the people busy cooking up the other food items. Dell Hatch, another old-time resident, a cattle rancher nearly as round as he was tall, and his wife, Sandy, who flashed Shelly a friendly smile as she scrambled eggs. There was also a younger couple, a dark-haired woman and sandy-haired man, in the kitchen, and an older woman helping with the breakfast; Shelly didn't recognize any of them.

Greetings, introductions, and conversation kept her distracted until her plate was heaped high and she was standing in front of the coffee urns. She had poured her coffee and was following Acey and Maria to one of the tables when it occurred to her that someone had been missing in the kitchen. As they sat down, Acey and Maria on one side of the table, Shelly and Sloan on the other, Shelly said, “1 didn't notice any redheads in the kitchen. Didn't you say your widow was going to be cooking?”

Acey looked innocent. “By golly, you're right! She wasn't there, was she?” He shook his head. “Women. Can never count on them to keep their word.”

Sloan choked on his coffee, and Maria snorted and poked Acey in the ribs. “On the other hand, most women,” Shelly said sweetly, “are not sly and sneaky like some people I know.”

Sloan put down his coffee and advised, “You know, Acey, if I were you, I'd leave that one alone and just eat. Scrambled eggs and sausage taste a whole lot better than crow.”

“Figure you're right,” Acey said, a gleam in his eyes. “After all, you've eaten so much of it.”

Shelly ducked her head, hiding a smile.

Sloan grinned. “Now that's one that
I'm
going to let lie right there.”

“Acey Babbitt, shame on you!” scolded Maria. “Sloan is your guest. You're being rude.”

A slight flush stained Acey's cheeks. “Aw, Maria, we were just funning. Sloan can give as good as he can take. Don't you worry none about him.”