LITMIR.BIZ

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she beckoned Cody over to the counter where she had her laptop up and running. She’d set it up the minute she’d come in this morning, thinking to get a little online shopping done whenever she felt like taking a break. She had all the sites bookmarked.

      “I’ve been looking through some eBay auctions of things I thought would be perfect for the shop,” she told Cody.

      “So get them,” he advised.

      “I’d like a second opinion,” she told him honestly. And that second opinion was where he came in. That was the deal.

      “Why?” he wanted to know. “Don’t you trust your own judgment?”

      “Yes I do,” she said. “But it’s always good to have reinforcement.”

      He considered her words. The woman wasn’t headstrong, but she wasn’t wishy-washy, either. He found himself nodding in silent approval of this woman he’d just barely met.

      Catherine Clifton was a good blend of various personalities, he thought. She was definitely different from most of the women he had interacted with since Renee’s passing. It wasn’t that he was in the market for another wife—one heartache in his lifetime was more than enough for him—but hell, at his age he wasn’t looking to up and join a monastery, either.

      Only problem was, most of the women around here fell into two groups. The first group was mainly concerned with trivial things—things like what outfit or hairstyle looked best on them. Mindless things. And then there was that other group. The women who made no secret of the fact that they felt he was “broken” and they knew just how to “fix” him.

      He wasn’t about to let that group get their hands on him, not by a hell of a long shot, he thought. He wasn’t “broken,” at least, not in a way that any of them could even begin to heal, and he wasn’t lonely, either. At least, not lonely enough to take up with any of those women for more than a couple of days or so. After that, he just lost patience with them, preferring his own company or the company of his horses to being subjected to endless, mindless chatter that somehow always managed to work the phrase “How do I look?” into the conversation.

      Any conversation.

      Looking at Catherine now, he couldn’t help wondering if ultimately she was going to fall into one of those two categories. He was probably wrong, but he had a hunch that she wasn’t.

      A larger part of him felt that it really didn’t matter either way.

      But just the smallest part of him hoped that he was right.

       Chapter Four

      “You planning on selling used clothes in the store, too?” Cody wanted to know when she showed him some of the things she’d acquired.

      While the main focus of the shop was going to remain on vintage pieces of furniture, Catherine thought that bringing in a few items of clothing might actually draw in more potential customers and provide her clientele an eclectic selection to choose from. She intended to display the clothing in the same section of the shop that Cody had found the fringed coin purse he’d sent to his sister.

      “They’re not used,” Catherine corrected, employing a euphemism. “They’re pre-owned.”

      Cody snorted. “Fancy words,” he said, dismissing the term she’d substituted with a wave of his hand. Whatever she called them, if someone had worn them before, the clothes were still used.

      To his surprise, Catherine didn’t argue. “Yes, they are, and they’re meant to convey a different image,” she told him. To show him what she meant, she opened up a large cardboard box. Inside were the various articles of clothing that she had managed to collect so far. “Everything in here has been cleaned, pressed and, in some cases, mended,” she allowed. “But they’re not rags,” she quickly specified, guessing what was going through Cody’s mind. She raised her eyes to his face. “Every item in here has a story. Every castoff has potential.”

      Cody realized that she was looking at him and not at anything in particular that she had inside the box. For a second, he was going to ask her if she was trying to tell him something, then decided he was probably reading far too much into her tone.

      Glancing at the contents of the box, he saw a brightly beaded shirt and a multicolored scarf that would have looked more at home around her neck lying right on top of the pile of clothing.

      He fingered the scarf for a second. Soft, he thought. Just like her skin.

      Now how the hell would he have known that? A little unnerved, he let the scarf drop back into the box.

      “So this is going to be like a thrift shop?” he asked, trying to get a handle on what her actual intent was.

      A thrift shop tended to suggest rock-bottom prices, and she was going for an image that was a little more exclusive than that.

      “No, it’s not going to be that inexpensive,” she explained with a smile. “I’m thinking more along the lines that one man’s ‘junk’ can turn out to be another man’s treasure.”

      Cody rummaged a little deeper into the box, then laughed shortly. There was nothing exactly impressive to be found in there.

      A hint of amusement was evident in his eyes when he looked at her. “Kind of stretching the word ‘treasure’ a mite, aren’t you?”

      She didn’t quite see it that way. “It’s like that saying about beauty being in the eyes of the beholder,” Catherine pointed out. “You never know what might appeal to a person.” And then she smiled broadly at him. “Which is what I have you for.”

      Cody looked at the woman he’d struck a bargain with. Maybe he needed to rethink this arrangement a bit. Since she had given him that purse for Caroline in exchange for his so-called services, he felt obligated to give her something in return. But at the moment, that wasn’t as easy as it might have sounded to an outsider. The truth of it was, he really had very few “likes” himself. For him it had always been more of a case of just “making do.”

      Cody felt it was only right to try to explain that to her. “I’m a simple man, Catherine,” he told her. “If you’re waiting for me to get excited about something, you’ve got a long wait ahead of you.”

      There was that shiver again, Catherine thought as it shimmied up and down her spine. That wonderful/strange sensation that insisted on undulating along her back as if she was anticipating something.

      Something from him.

      Pressing her lips together, Catherine did her best to block the feeling. To ignore it and just focus on the business at hand.

      Still, she couldn’t help saying, “I’m sure it’ll be worth waiting for when it finally happens.”

      Damn, but there was something about this woman, Cody caught himself thinking, the thought flashing across his mind completely out of the blue. Something that stirred up his insides like one of those food processors he’d seen demonstrated once. All without any warning.

      And when she tilted her head just like that—as if that could help her understand something—the sun wound up getting caught in her hair and he could see reddish streaks lacing through it.

      Warming his blood.

      Warming him.

      And, yeah, by God, tempting him, he silently admitted.

      Maybe he should just kiss her and get it over with, Cody thought, doing his best to be pragmatic. That way, maybe his thoughts would finally stop going where they didn’t belong and he could get back to focusing on “paying up his debt” to her. He didn’t like being beholden to anyone, even someone as pretty as Catherine.

      For just the tiniest split second, he debated acting on the thought. Debated kissing her purely for practical reasons.

      He even leaned into

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