LITMIR.BIZ

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      It had begun to give him real hope. He was beginning to think he was finally, finally over her. For real this time. Not the way he’d thought before, the time he’d gotten engaged to Cyndy Foster at the diner.

      Getting engaged to Cyndy had just been a desperate act on his part to force himself to move on. Except that he really couldn’t. Not then. And when he caught himself almost calling Cyndy Ronnie one night, he knew it wouldn’t be fair to Cyndy to go through with the wedding.

      So he’d called it off and tried to explain to Cyndy that he thought she deserved better than spending her life with a man who was only half there. He’d hoped she’d take it well, the way he’d meant it. But she didn’t. His ears had stung for a week from the riot act she’d read him at the top of her lungs. Not that he hadn’t deserved it.

      From that point on, he dedicated himself to the job of being town sheriff and saw to it that he was a dutiful son, as well. Cole figured he’d either eventually work Ronnie out of his system, or become a confirmed bachelor.

      These last few months, he’d begun to think that he was finally coming around, accepting what his life had become.

      A lot he knew, Cole thought sarcastically. If he was on the road to being “cured,” what the hell was he doing having another damn hallucination?

      Only one way to battle this, he decided, and that was to walk in, see who Ed was really talking to and be done with all this racing pulse nonsense.

      With that, Cole pulled his key out of the truck’s ignition.

      Tucking the key into the breast pocket of his shirt, he shifted in his seat and opened the driver’s side door. He got out and walked the short distance to the Livestock Feed Emporium. Cole deliberately avoided glancing in through the window, giving himself a moment to prepare for the inevitable disappointment.

      He opened the door to the store. The same tiny silver bell, somewhat tarnished now, that had hung there for fifty years, announcing the arrival or departure of a customer, sounded now, heralding his crossing the store’s threshold.

      Cole’s deep blue eyes swept over the rustic store with its polished, heavily scuffed old wooden floors. Ed took pride in the fact that the store looked exactly the way it had back in his grandfather’s day when Josiah Haney opened the Emporium’s doors for the first time. The only actual concession that had been made to modern times was when the original cash register had finally given up the ghost. Ed had been forced to replace it with a computerized register since manual ones were nowhere to be found anymore.

      The air had turned blue for more than a week until Ed had finally learned—thanks to the efforts of his incredibly patient grandson—how to operate the “dang infernal machine.”

      The store was empty. Even Ed didn’t seem to be around. The man was probably in the back, getting something—

      Okay, Cole thought, relieved and disappointed at the same time, the way he always was when a mirage faded. She wasn’t here.

      It had been just his imagination, just the way it always was. Just the way—

      And then he heard it. Just as he turned back toward the door to leave, he heard it.

      Heard her.

      He froze, unable to move, unable to breathe, as the sound of her voice pierced his consciousness. Skewered his soul.

      Taunted him.

      Almost afraid to look, Cole forced himself to turn around again. When he did, he was just in time to see the owner turning a corner and walking down an aisle. He was returning to his counter at the front of the store.

      He was also talking to someone. A visible someone. He was talking to a woman.

      And that woman was Ronnie.

      Ed Haney’s round face appeared almost cherubic as he continued conferring. He seemed to be beaming as he bobbed his head with its ten wisps of hair up and down.

      Ronnie McCloud returned the shop owner’s smile. “I’ll tell Dad you were asking after him.”

      Ed was doing more than just asking after the rancher’s health and he wanted her to be clear about that. “Tell Amos that if there’s anything I can do to help, anything at all, he shouldn’t let that damn pride of his get in the way. All he has to do is say the word. I want to help. We all do,” Ed emphasized, then said in a conspiratorial voice, “There was really no need for you to have to come back here, although I have to say it surely is a pleasure seeing you again, Veronica. You’ve become one beautiful young woman, and if I was twenty years younger—well, no need to elaborate.” He chuckled. “You get my meaning.”

      Veronica McCloud laughed. “Yes, I do.” He was teasing her. But he meant the other thing, the part about offering his help. Edwin Haney, a man she had grown up knowing, was a man of integrity—even if he did remind her a little of Humpty Dumpty. He meant what he said. About himself and about the others. The one thing she could never fault this town for was indifference.

      The citizens of Redemption were anything but indifferent. So much so that at times they seemed to be into everybody else’s business. A private person didn’t stand a chance in Redemption. The people wore you down, had you spilling your innermost secrets before you could ever think to stop yourself.

      She knew they meant it in the very best possible way, but when she’d been younger, she felt that it was an invasion, a violation of her rights. She’d wanted to be her own person, someone who made up her mind without the benefit of committee input or an ongoing, running commentary.

      She wanted more than Redemption had to offer.

      Even so, she had to admit, especially at a trying time like this, it was nice to know that there were people her father could count on. God knew he was going to need them once she left and went back home again, she thought. Her new home, she emphasized, since this had been home once.

      “Hi, Sheriff, what can I do for you?” Ed’s voice broke into her thoughts as he addressed someone just behind her.

      Ronnie smiled. The sheriff. That would be Paul Royce. He had to be, what? Seventy now? Older?

      Remembering the gregarious man’s jovial countenance, Ronnie turned around, a greeting at the ready on her smiling lips.

      The greeting froze.

      She wasn’t looking up at Sheriff Paul Royce and his shining coal-black eyes. She found herself looking directly into the new sheriff’s blue ones. And suddenly wishing, with all her heart, that she was somewhere else. Anywhere else.

      But she wasn’t.

      She was right here, looking into deep blue eyes she used to find hypnotic, her mind a complete, utter useless blank.

      “Hello, Ronnie.”

       Chapter Two

      As she was driving to Redemption, Ronnie had told herself that she would have more time before she had to face him. Instead, Cole had appeared out of the blue, and she was so not ready for their paths to cross.

      Who was she kidding? There wasn’t enough time in the world for her to prepare for this first meeting after so much time had passed.

      And, damn it, Cole wasn’t helping any. Not looking the way he did. This harsh land had a terrible habit of taking its toll on people, on its men as well as its women. So why wasn’t he worn-out looking?

      Why wasn’t Cole at least growing the beginnings of a gut like so many other men who were barely thirty years old?

      Heaven knew that her father looked like he was coming up on eighty instead of being in his early sixties. And the last time she’d seen her older brother, Wayne, the land had already begun to leave its stamp on him, tanning his skin—especially his face—the way that tanners cured leather.

      Not that there weren’t any changes with Cole. But those changes

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