The Cowboy Way: A Creed in Stone Creek / Part Time Cowboy

CHAPTER NINE

MELISSA GOT OUT of the squad car, opened the back door for Elvis, who leaped nimbly to the ground, and semi-hobbled toward the side entrance to the brick courthouse. Tom’s words echoed in her brain.

I smell a setup, he’d said, when she’d invited him to supper, moments before.

“You have a suspicious mind, Tom Parker,” she accused.

“Part of the job,” Tom admitted, holding open the heavy glass door for her.

It occurred to Melissa then, as it might have to Tom as well, that it was a shame their relationship had always been platonic. They’d have made a good couple, she guessed, but there was no spark on either side. Hanging out with Sheriff Parker was like being with her brother, Brad—easy, low-key and safe.

Keeping company with Steven, on the other hand, had the same charge as bungee jumping off a high bridge or riding a unicycle across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope.

“Taking risks is a part of your job, too,” Melissa replied briskly, as they moved—man, woman and dog—along the corridor. “But when it comes to romance, you’re nothing but a coward.”

“So it was a setup,” Tom said, with a note of triumph. “I knew it.”

“I might have been thinking of asking Tessa Quinn to join us,” Melissa answered, as they reached the outer door of her offices.

Melissa O’Ballivan, Prosecutor, read the faux-metal sign affixed to it.

She waited out a small rush of frustration. Once, she’d loved her work. Now, she was just marking time, it seemed, waiting for someone to break the law, so she could try them in court. Was that any way to live?

Tom frowned down at her, though there was a benevolent light in his eyes. “I’m looking forward to a platterful of Ashley’s spare ribs,” he said.

“You haven’t won yet,” Melissa pointed out. “In fact, the way you’re dragging your feet—you’ve had plenty of time to ask Tessa out, it seems to me—you’re looking more and more like the new chairman of the Parade Committee with every passing moment.”

“I’ll ask her,” Tom said.

“Fine,” Melissa retorted. “Let’s see some action here. I’m not going to let you drag this bet out until we’re all old and gray.”

He huffed out a loud sigh. “Here’s an idea,” he said. “Why don’t you just run your love life, O’Ballivan, and let me run mine?”

Melissa didn’t have a reply ready, since neither of them actually had a love life, so she pushed open the office door and stepped inside, leaving Tom and Elvis in the corridor.

“As far as I’m concerned, the bet is off,” Tom called after her.

“You wish,” Melissa called back.

Andrea, though puffy-eyed, looked as though she’d rallied while Melissa was away. She smiled, pushed back her chair and hurried into the tiny break room, returning moments later with a steaming cup of coffee.

The fragrance was tantalizing.

“I made it myself,” Andrea said, sweeping past her, into the inner office, and setting the cup down on Melissa’s desk.

“I thought making coffee was against your principles,” Melissa said lightly, extracting the stack of messages from her purse before putting the bag away in its usual cubbyhole.

“You’re the one who said it wasn’t in my job description,” Andrea said.

Melissa smiled. “Nevertheless, Andrea,” she replied, with a touch of irony that was probably lost on her assistant, “thank you for making the coffee. Did anyone call or stop by while I was out?”

For a fraction of a second, Andrea looked almost coy. “Mr. Creed was here,” the girl responded. “About fifteen or twenty minutes ago.”

Melissa’s heart raced, though she was all-business on the outside.

Or so she hoped, anyway.

She sat down, reached for the cup, took a sip of coffee before saying anything at all. “Oh? Did he say what he wanted?”

Be casual.

“Lunch,” Andrea said.

Lunch—an ordinary enough concept. When connected with Steven Creed, however, even the suggestion gave her that runaway roller-coaster feeling again.

Melissa merely nodded. She fanned the phone messages out on the surface of her desk, just to give herself something to do.

“I could get Mr. Creed on the phone for you,” Andrea offered, her tone eager, almost breathless.

Melissa didn’t look up from the messages. “I’ll do that myself, Andrea,” she said. “But thank you.”

“He’s pretty hot,” Andrea commented.

Melissa sighed. Agreeing that Steven was hot would have been like agreeing that the sky was blue.

Andrea hurried out of the office and closed the door behind her.

Melissa picked up the telephone handset, squinted at the written message with Steven’s name on it and dialed.

While she waited, a miniature Cirque de Soleil sprang to life in the pit of her stomach, performing death-defying spins and leaps and dives.

This was ridiculous. Maybe Steven Creed was attractive—okay, he was definitely attractive—but he was a mortal man, not a Greek god, for heaven’s sake.

Then again, that was the problem, wasn’t it? He was all man—too much man—maybe even more man than she could handle.

As if.

“Steven Creed,” he said suddenly, startling Melissa. She realized she hadn’t actually expected him to answer the call—she’d planned on leaving a message. Counted, inexplicably, on that little buffer of time.

“H-hello,” she responded, all but croaking the word. Get a grip, she told herself silently. You’re a grown woman, dammit, not a teenager.

“Melissa?”

“Yes.” She cleared her throat. Squeezed her eyes shut tight. “It’s me. I’m sorry—I was planning to answer your call earlier, but then something came up and I had to leave the office and—”

“I just wanted to invite you to lunch,” Steven said, with a smile in his voice, when she bogged down in the middle of her sentence. She’d have sworn he knew how rattled she was, and that only made her more so. “I’ll understand, of course, if you’re busy or something. It’s pretty short notice.”

Say you’re busy, advised Melissa’s inner chicken little. He gave you an out.

“I’m not busy,” she said aloud.

“Great,” Steven responded. “Meet you at the Sunflower Café at noon?”

Melissa checked her watch. It was quarter after eleven, so she had forty-five minutes to pull herself together. “Perfect,” she said, sounding way more perky than she considered necessary.

Her “perky” quota was normally zero. Add Steven Creed to the equation, though, and she was about as sedate as a middle-school cheerleader at the first big game of the season.

“See you then,” Steven said. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Melissa said, a few seconds after he’d hung up.

She took several sips of her rapidly cooling coffee, then squared her shoulders, raised her chin and started answering the messages Andrea had given her earlier.

A big believer in tackling the least appealing task first, she dialed Bea Brady’s number. The older woman answered on the second ring, but not with a hello, or her name, the way most people would have done.

“It’s about time you called me back, Melissa O’Ballivan!” she snapped, instead.

Melissa’s temper surged, nearly breaking the surface of her professional composure, but she managed a pleasant tone when she replied. “I’m at work, Bea,” she said. “Parade Committee business should probably be handled after hours.”

“How do you know I’m calling about the parade?” Bea demanded, every bit as surly as before.

Melissa reread the message, hoping she’d transcribed Andrea’s handwriting correctly. “It says here that you’re concerned about someone purchasing toilet paper?”

“Adelaide Hillingsley bought a truck load of the stuff at one of those box stores in Flagstaff,” Bea blurted. “She lives by herself. There’s only one bathroom in her house. What would one woman be doing with so much tissue if she didn’t plan on flouting the rules and using it to decorate the Chamber of Commerce float for the parade?”

Melissa closed her eyes, sat back in her chair and counted mentally until she was sure she wouldn’t laugh. Adelaide was a force to be reckoned with; although she’d originally been hired as a receptionist, she’d been running the organization for years.

“Maybe you should ask Adelaide about that, Bea,” Melissa said, when she dared to speak at all. “Since it’s committee business and I’m at work—”

“Oh, don’t give me that, Melissa O’Ballivan,” Bea broke in. “Everybody knows you don’t have anything to do most of the time anyway!”

Melissa counted again, but this time it was to keep from yelling.

“I beg your pardon?” she said, when she’d reached the double digits.

Bea backed off a little. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she conceded. She was a nice person, despite being a bit on the pushy side—as president of the local Garden Club, and an old-line Stone Creeker, she was used to being in charge, getting things done, that was all.

“I’m glad,” Melissa said pleasantly, thinking the other woman’s remark might not have stung so much if it wasn’t so damn true.

“You’ll speak to Adelaide? Remind her that the Parade Committee specifically voted never to use toilet paper in the construction of a float? It would be so tacky—”

“I’ll talk to Adelaide,” Melissa said, because she had other calls to make and she needed to move on to the next one. None of them were any more important or pressing than this one but, still. She was drawing a paycheck, and she was on county time.

“When? When will you talk to her?”

Melissa’s cuts and bruises tuned up again, all at once, in a dull, throbbing chorus. “Tonight,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow. But soon, Bea. I promise.”

In those moments, Melissa went from wishing Tom would win their bet to wishing he’d lose and take over the Parade Committee.

Fat chance.

Bea was silent for a beat or two, but then she huffed out a sigh. “All right,” she said. “But you mark my words, Melissa. Stone Creek will be the laughingstock of the whole state of Arizona if Adelaide has her way.” She paused to sputter indignantly, then finished with “Toilet paper, for heaven’s sake. That woman is obsessed with toilet paper.”

Melissa bit the inside of her lower lip as a means of corralling the obvious response—that Adelaide wasn’t the only one with an obsession—before promising to attend to the matter at the first opportunity.

By the time she’d made the remaining calls, noon had rolled around and it was time to meet Steven for lunch over at the Sunflower Café. Because the small restaurant was close, and she thought the walk might be a remedy for some of her soreness, let alone her frustrations, she decided to leave her car at the office.

She and Steven arrived at the same time.

“I like the look,” he said, taking in her skirt and sweater with a slow sweep of his eyes as they stood on the sidewalk in front of the café.

She let that pass. “Where’s Matt?”

One side of his mouth kicked up in a grin. He looked better than good in his white shirt and well-fitting blue jeans. “At day camp,” he replied, with a grin dancing in his eyes. “I spent the morning with an architect from Flagstaff. I’d like to have the house finished and the new barn up by fall.”

Melissa looked down at the community dog dish, filled with clear water, and stopped just short of asking about Zeke.

Steven smiled again, opened the door for her, and held it wide. “Zeke’s at home,” he said, evidently reading her mind. “And he’s fine.”

It was disconcerting, the way this man could guess what she was thinking. What if he figured out that, even against her better judgment, just being around him made her want his body? She looked away quickly.

The café was crowded, as it usually was at that time of day, but Tessa seated them right away, at a corner table.

Melissa immediately reached for a menu, although her stomach was doing that nervous thing again.

“I had a great time last night, Melissa,” Steven said. “So did Matt.”

She looked at him over the top of her menu. Blinked once. It should have been easy to come up with an answer—so why wasn’t it?

“I’m glad,” she said, after a long time.

Steven didn’t take the other menu, which was tucked between the napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers. He just sat there, across the table, within touching distance, looking all warm-eyed and amused. “I’m glad you’re glad,” he teased, lowering his voice and leaning forward slightly.

She blushed then, because the way his eyes caressed her made her feel as naked as any of the croquet-playing oldsters she’d seen in Ashley’s backyard the other day. They were in a very public place, she and Steven, but, even though they’d already drawn their share of glances, the Sunflower was so full of noisy good cheer that no one could have overheard their conversation—although a few people were sure to try.

“The club sandwich is very good here,” she said helpfully, giving the menu a little wriggle. “So is the beef stew.”

Steven smiled at her again.

Tingly waves of—something rippled under her skin.

“Okay,” he said, his tone husky.

Melissa gave him a level look. “Lunch?” she reminded him.

“Supper, too, I hope,” he said, without missing a beat. “Six o’clock? My place?”

Her heartbeat quickened. “Your place?” she repeated stupidly.

“I’m afraid Matt won’t be there, though,” Steven said, sounding mildly rueful. “Meg and Brad invited him to sleep over tonight. He and Mac are already great buddies.”

Melissa swallowed. If Matt wasn’t going to be home, of course they would be alone, she and Steven Creed.

Say no, warned her practical side. You know what could happen, and you’re not ready for that.

“Isn’t this a school night?” she asked.

Wow. She was a veritable genius when it came to small talk.

“Matt goes to day camp,” Steven pointed out, after indulging in another of those slow, lethal grins. “Not Harvard.”

“Oh,” Melissa said.

“Are you coming, or not?”

She blushed again. Had he worded the question that way on purpose? “It’s a little soon,” she said.

“For what?” Steven asked, clearly enjoying her discomfort.

“You know damn well for what,” Melissa told him. She’d lost patience with herself by then. All this waffling was so unlike her—she was a direct person.

His blue eyes twinkled with mischief. And the promise of sweet, hot, languid things. “Do I?” he drawled. And then he reached out, took the menu from her hands, and set it aside. Closed his fingers around hers.

“Yes,” Melissa whispered. “You do.”

Just then, Tessa reappeared, pen and order pad in hand. “What’ll it be?” she asked, smiling at both of them.

Steven ordered the club sandwich.

Melissa opted for beef stew, even though it was a warm day.

Still smiling, Tessa nodded and turned away.

“You were saying?” Steven grinned. He hadn’t let go of Melissa’s hand; indeed, he ran the pad of his thumb over her knuckles, very lightly.

Flames shot through her. “I forget.”

“Liar.”

“It’s too soon,” Melissa reiterated. There was something feverish in her tone.

“Are you trying to convince yourself, or me?”

“Steven, stop it.”

Tessa came back with their drinks then—both of them had ordered iced tea.

“You’re okay, aren’t you?” Tessa asked, giving Melissa much closer scrutiny than before. “Somebody at the counter just told me you were almost hit by a car this morning, while you were out for your run.”

Small towns. Every incident, no matter how small, was grist for the mill.

“Just a little shaken up,” Melissa said, aware of the change in Steven’s face even though she wasn’t looking directly at him just then. His grip tightened around her hand. “It was no big deal, Tessa. A miss is as good as a mile and all that.”

“It could have been a very big deal,” Tessa protested. “Did you see a doctor?”

“Tessa,” Melissa said, with a smile and a shake of her head, “I’m fine. Really.”

Tessa hesitated for another moment or so, then turned and walked away.

“You were almost run over by a car?” Steven asked. He was holding both her hands by then. And he no longer looked amused.

People were watching them.

Jumping to all kinds of conclusions.

She could feel it.

“I wasn’t hurt,” she insisted. It bothered her, how much she was enjoying his concern.

“What happened?” Steven asked.

“Nothing,” Melissa answered. “That’s why the word almost comes into play.”

His fine jawline tightened briefly, relaxed again.

“Let’s talk about something else besides accidents that didn’t quite happen,” she suggested, hoping to lighten the mood.

The grin was back, and it was as dangerous as ever. “Like what?”

“Well, not sex,” Melissa said, and then regretted it.

He laughed. “I agree,” he said. “It’s better to just go ahead and do some things, rather than wasting time talking about them.”

Melissa blinked. “Did you just say what I think you just said?” she demanded, whispering again. Leaning toward him.

“You were the one who brought up the subject of sex,” Steven pointed out reasonably. “Not me.”

He looked so damnably comfortable, sitting there, easy in his skin, with his glass of iced tea in front of him and his eyes that indescribable shade of blue-violet.

“Then I’m officially unbringing it up,” Melissa said. “Forget I mentioned sex at all. It was totally inappropriate. A slip of the tongue—”

His grin flashed again.

She blushed even more. “I didn’t mean—”

Mercifully, the food arrived then.

Since her stomach was still doing the circus thing, Melissa was surprised to realize that she was hungry. She picked up her spoon and focused on the delicious beef stew.

“What do you like to do, Melissa?” Steven asked, about midway through the meal. He’d made a pretty good dent in his club sandwich, and pushed away his plate to focus all his attention on her.

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