Chapter Six

As Ben drove toward home, he presented a question to his damp, stinky dog. “So, what do you think, pal? Does she have potential, or should I run like hell?”

Finn barked, the sound laced with excitement.

“Yep. She definitely likes you. That’s a huge plus. She’d never kick you outside and make you sleep in a doghouse in the dead of winter.”

Finn rumbled low in his chest.

“I know. The very thought ticks you off, but the truth is, most of the women I’ve dated had no great fondness for dogs, horses, or cows. Sissy’s different. She truly likes you, and did you see how she acted with the large animals? And she didn’t even get in a grump when she got horseshit all over her shoes.”

Ben sighed as he rounded a curve in the road. “Do you know how good it felt to spend the whole day with a woman who isn’t prissy about everything? She didn’t get mad when I splashed her with cold water.” He fell silent. “I know. I’m a devious bastard. I shouldn’t have tested her that way. But most of the gals I’ve been out with wouldn’t have gone wading in the first place—unless they did it to impress me. And I’m tired of all the games. After the first shock from the cold water, Sissy just laughed and gave back as good as she got.” He nodded as if Finn had responded. “That’s an excellent point. Nobody can get doused with ice water and not show her true colors, even if it’s only for an instant. She isn’t putting on an act, only to reveal an ugly side later. What we saw today is the real Sissy.” Ben glanced at his dog, and then reached over to ruffle his ears. “You make a great sounding board. Never mind that you can’t really answer me. You help me reason my way through things all the same. I think I’ve finally found someone who suits me to a T. That means I need a game plan, pal, because I don’t think she’s looking for a man in her life.”

*   *   *

The following morning, when Ben went into the Cauldron for breakfast, Sissy had no customers. Dumb ass that he was, he’d expected them to pick up where they’d left off last night, joking around, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company. But, no. Sissy was back in her silent-treatment mode, serving him with such politeness and professionalism that he wanted to grit his teeth.

In an attempt to start a conversation, he said, “So, how’s it going with your ghost?”

He hoped to get a laugh out of her, but instead she frowned. “No news on that front.”

His radar pinged. Sissy was a rotten liar, which in his books was another fine trait for him to admire.

He gave up on scintillating conversation and applied himself to his meal. When he’d cleared his plate, she emerged from the kitchen to collect it.

“Seeing the falls was fabulous—a day off won’t occur for me for another three years, most likely. Thank you for taking me.”

Ben’s heart sank. Her cool tone told him everything—and nothing. She piled the plate with his mug, napkin, and flatware. “It was a rare treat,” she added.

Ben stood and reached for his wallet. Then he laughed. “That breakfast was so good I forgot I don’t have to pay.” He returned the bifold to his hip pocket. “Well, back to work. I’ll have the new run finished by tomorrow night. I know it seems like it’s taking forever, but burying wire all around it to prevent predators from digging under is time consuming.”

Ben sauntered out through the shadowy storage rooms and into bright sunlight. He paused for a moment to let his eyes adjust. He felt deflated. Disappointed. He’d dated so many women. Normally, when it was over, for him it was just over. But with Sissy, he felt sad. He felt almost certain she was everything he’d been looking for, but until she gave him signals that she felt the same way, he’d be nuts to wade in over his head emotionally.

Still lecturing himself, Ben resumed work. He was stretching lengths of wire around the run when Sissy suddenly appeared. She’d pulled off the white coverall, which allowed him to see how her snug jeans skimmed over her hips and nipped in at her waist. Her top, the color of sliced peaches, revealed small, perfectly shaped breasts and slender flanks. Looking into her wide blue eyes, he decided that she had no idea how beautiful she was. She wore no makeup that he could detect. Her short hair was tousled, a style that complemented her delicate features and heart-shaped face. He imagined she’d look just as cute when she crawled out of bed in the morning.

“Hey,” he said.

She gestured at the construction material. “I, um— What you said about mistakes we make? I’ve got only a couple of hours, but I’d like to help out here to correct the one I made. My chickens deserve at least that much from me.”

Ben looked at her birds milling around in the tiny run with barely enough room to move. She followed his gaze. “It’s awful, isn’t it? I’d plead ignorance, but that’s no excuse.”

Ben needed to hear nothing more. “I can sure use a couple of extra hands, but I’d prefer them to be protected ones.” He held up one of his, displaying a well-worn leather glove. She reached back and tugged a pair of gardening gloves from the waistband of her jeans. He smiled. “Good. You came prepared. Having someone to help hold the wire down while I cover it with dirt will be awesome.”

So much for keeping my distance, he thought. But then he looked on the bright side. If Sissy helped him, she might grow more relaxed around him again.

He immediately noticed that she was observant and tried to grab things for him before he needed them. Only he didn’t expect her to lift the gigantic rolls of wire and place them at strategic points around the run.

“Um, Sissy, those are way too heavy for you.”

Already red in the cheeks, she huffed for breath. “Maybe I can just drag ’em.”

“To drag them, you still have to lift one end.” Ben figured each roll probably weighed almost as much as she did. Well, possibly nowhere close, but it was awkward weight. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” he said. “You have a café to operate.”

He half expected her to argue. A number of younger women he’d met seemed to be on a mission to prove they could do anything a man could, and then some. But Sissy only dropped the wire and said, “I could figure out a way to move them without hurting myself, but that’d be a waste of time. So what can I do?”

Good on you, he thought. That’s plain common sense. “You can put boards down around the run. As I’m burying wire, their weight will help anchor it. When you’ve finished with that, I’ll think of something else.”

She went to work. By the time she finished, Ben was sweating, and he wasn’t convinced it was from exertion. Earlier he’d noticed Sissy’s stunned expression when she’d seen him out here without a shirt. Uncertain whether he’d read her right, he decided, since he was sweltering, that it couldn’t hurt if he enacted a replay. He tugged off his shirt and slung it over the tailgate. When he turned to walk back, he caught Sissy gaping at him. Their gazes locked. The air between them sizzled with awareness. For what seemed like an interminable time, they both stood frozen in place.

And then Ben broke the spell by grinning. The ice queen had the hots for him. She hadn’t averted her eyes quickly enough. He wanted to jab his fist into the air and let out a whoop of victory. Instead he went back for his shirt, put it on, and faced her again with the front hanging open.

“Is this better?” He hoped he looked innocent. Judging by her expression, he’d failed miserably.

Her face turned as scarlet as a candied apple. “I don’t care if you parade around naked,” she snapped. “It’s the new millennium. Do what you want.”

Ben wiped the smile from his face. He hated people who gloated. It was enough to know that she was as attracted to him as he was to her.

*   *   *

Sissy enjoyed working with Ben. She just made sure she didn’t look at him from his belt buckle up. Or from there down, for that matter. He was gorgeous. If he’d been an ice-cream cone, she would have licked him all over while he melted. Only he wasn’t, and it was uncharacteristic of her to think about a man that way. She was Sissy Bentley, the ragamuffin girl who’d never attended the same school long enough to make good grades or any friends. As a teenager, she’d had her head in the clouds for a brief while, thinking that this boy or that one liked her. But her gullibility had died a swift death in a swank sports car parked out in the middle of a cow pasture. Now, in her mid-twenties, she had to keep her head on straight. No matter how nice Ben seemed or how attractive he was, or how much she enjoyed being around him, she’d be foolish to forget the hard lessons life had taught her.

She’d made her mistakes, and she would never repeat them. It embarrassed her that Ben had caught her staring at his body. Oh, well. She’d never make that mistake again, either.

She was no longer the poor girl who’d been the daughter of the town drunk in so many states that she’d long since lost count. Maybe she’d never mesh well with people like the Sterlings, but she’d climbed out of the gutter and left her worthless parents far behind. After working long hours in the café, she’d taken online courses to perfect her math and spelling. Over time, she’d built up the clientele so much that even her customers noticed. She wasn’t about to let a man set her off course with silly notions about an idyllic future with him.

That wasn’t her dream, not because a small part of her didn’t wish for true love and happy endings, but because experience had taught her that neither of those things actually existed. She had only one thing she could count on and believe in, and that was herself.

*   *   *

Christopher Doyle ate dinner at four thirty every afternoon. He was so punctual that Sissy knew the time without looking at a clock. Doyle was beyond being merely old. At one time, he had apparently been extremely tall, but now his fragile body had crumpled, hunching his back so that his face was parallel with the floor as he inched along, using a cane to keep his footing. He had a thick head of snow-white hair, equally white eyebrows that rested above his sunken blue eyes like hedges in need of shearing, and a skeletal face over which crepey and pale skin hung like wet, puckered chiffon to gather in a wrinkled pouch under his pointed chin. His shirt looked as if it was draped over a wire coat hanger, so thin were his shoulders.

He ordered one of three menu selections every night, and he never varied from them. On rare occasions, he’d have dessert, which had to be, without exception, apple pie à la mode. At precisely five o’clock, he asked Sissy to box what remained of his meal. He claimed that he finished the food at seven while he watched a rerun of Bonanza, which he seemed to believe was a recently produced series.

Sissy had become so fond of Christopher. Today he remained true to habit. He ordered meat loaf. Sissy knew he wanted the same old, same old, but she always offered him the side choices. And he always frowned in contemplation, as if he might, for once, have a salad or peas instead of corn. She believed making the choice was one of the highlights of his day, and even though she could have served him what he wanted without ever asking, she didn’t want to deprive him of the ritual.

“Coffee?” she offered.

“No, dear. One cup in the morning is all I can handle. Just water, please.”

Sissy got him served. He always sat in the same booth, taking up a spot that could have seated four. But he left early, so she didn’t mind. She put a glass beside his plate and filled it with chilled water, making sure no ice spilled over. Christopher liked his agua straight up.

“What is that?” he asked, his rheumy gaze fixed on something behind Sissy.

She turned to find Finnegan behind her. The pup wagged his tail, getting his entire body into the action and looking up at her with eager expectation. “Oh, dear. His name is Finnegan. He belongs to Ben Sterling.”

“Fine family, the Sterlings. They go way back in this town.” He studied the dog. “He’s a handsome young fellow. The name Finnegan suits him. But what is he doing in here?”

That was a good question. Sissy said, “Ben is building me a new chicken run and coop. I feed Finnegan scraps out on the porch, and I think he’s hungry again.”

Christopher treated Sissy to a wondering look. “Are the two of you sparking?”

“Are we what?”

The old man wiggled his shoulders and pumped his elbows as if he were doing the cha-cha. “Sparking. You know. Ben isn’t spoken for, and so far as I know, neither are you.”

“Dating, you mean?” Sissy was appalled that Christopher thought that. “Oh, no. I’m paying Mr. Sterling to do the work.”

A frown brought the white hedges above Christopher’s eyes together in an unruly line. “But Ben Sterling is well-heeled. If he isn’t courting you, why on earth would he be here doing unskilled labor?”

Sissy could think of no answer, so she avoided replying by scolding Finnegan in a friendly way. “You aren’t supposed to be in here, silly boy! Come away. Come on!” She seized the dog’s collar. “It’s against the law.”

As Sissy led Finn away, Christopher called out, “Who’s going to report you? Definitely not me. I like dogs. They behave better’n a lot of people.”

Sissy got Finn back out on the porch and fetched him some meaty leftovers. Ben glanced up from his work. “Don’t tell me he went inside,” he called out.

Sissy remembered his warning about not telling him when Finn did something wrong. “Okay, I won’t.”

She ducked back into the building and left Ben to figure it out by himself.

*   *   *

Sissy set her alarm for an hour earlier than usual the following morning in order to have her lunch prep done before she opened the café for breakfast. That would free up some of the midmorning for her to work outside with Ben. It wasn’t because she wanted to spend time with him, she assured herself, but because Ben’s story about the horse he’d nearly killed with cheap hay had touched her, and she believed he was right about rectifying mistakes instead of feeling guilty for making them. Regrets accomplished nothing.

Over the course of the day, Sissy worked harder and longer than she had in ages, but in the doing, she began to learn Ben’s rhythm and could soon anticipate what he might need her to do next. They were a great team, and as they made progress, she was amazed by how nice the run was. Ben constructed angled walls to connect the run to the tiny coop, which would soon be four times larger.

When it was finally done, Sissy walked its perimeter, amazed by its size. “It’s absolutely huge! And I doubt even maelstrom winds could flatten it.”

Grinning, Ben opened the run door to step inside. As he ripped up T-posts and tossed the wire of the former run into a pile, her hens squawked and ran in small circles until they realized their world had just been greatly expanded. They emitted questioning sounds as they explored their new boundaries. Watching them, Sissy got tears in her eyes.

“If you put them in the coop before dark, they’ll be as safe as can be. Nothing can dig under the fence, and I doubt even a raccoon can get over the top barrier.”

Sissy lifted her gaze to admire the panels that sloped outward to stop any creature that tried to climb the wire. It reminded her of the barbed wire atop prison fences, only this had been constructed to keep things out instead of in. “A monkey could swing over,” she said.

Ben laughed. “Thank goodness monkeys aren’t indigenous to the area.”

“It’s fabulous, Ben.” Sissy meant it with all her heart. A lot of men would have thought, It’s only a chicken run. But Ben was a perfectionist. If he turned his hand to work, he’d do it right or not at all. “Now I can’t wait to see what the new coop will be like.”

“I’ll have you over for dinner some night after the café is closed and turn on the yard lights so you can see mine. It’s not as large as yours will be, but the construction will be similar.”

Cajoled by the friendly exchanges between them, Sissy floated on the moment, imagining a quiet dinner with him at his home. In her mind’s eye, she even saw lighted candles on the table between them. They’d enjoy easy conversation over the meal, and then maybe he’d take her hand, and . . .

She jerked her thoughts back to reality so fast her muscles snapped taut. A cold, hard knot took up residence in the pit of her stomach.

Ben, who apparently noted the expression on her face, cocked his head. “Did I say something to offend you?”

Sissy started to shake her head no, but then she decided to nip this in the bud before her common sense oozed out her ears and romantic idiocy took over. “It’s just that you should know right up front that I’ll never have dinner at your house.”

He arched a golden eyebrow. “Oh? I guess you didn’t like my horses and cows as much as I thought.”

Sissy shook her head. “I loved meeting your horses and cows. They’re delightful.”

He frowned. “Okay. So why will you never have dinner at my place?”

“It’s nothing personal. I just don’t do men. Ever.”

*   *   *

After Sissy went inside to cook, Ben mulled that over. What did she mean, she didn’t do men? Was she trying to tell him that her preferences ran to women? What a load of crap. She sent out signals to him whenever they were together. Maybe—probably—she didn’t realize that, but she did. Women who were attracted only to other women didn’t electrify the air when they were near a man.

He didn’t know what her game was, but he wasn’t going to play. She could tell herself whatever she liked, but she was attracted to him, and the evening would come when she did join him at his table for dinner. Afterward, he’d take her for a tour of his chicken facilities. Then he would treat her to dessert—which would not be served in a dish. Oh, no. When he offered her the taste experience of a lifetime, it would be a long kiss that would curl her toes, and she would receive it while lying in his bed.