Into the Storm (Signal Bend #3)(14)

She grinned and put her hand on her hip, popping it just a little. “Okay, okay. How about gold and green. Edgar okay with that?”

“Yeah. That’ll work.” Just like that, something in Show’s expression had changed, gone flat.

She handed him the ribbons. This time he was careful not to touch her hand, and that was disappointing. She’d thought their little banter might mean something was catching between them.

Then she saw a truck pulling up—the florist from Springfield. She had to go. She turned to Badger and said, “The garland is here. You have a place for it until you need it?”

Badger got up from his work stool and nodded, wiping his oily hands on his jeans. “Yep—over on that wall.”

“Okay. I’ll send them back with it. I’ve got to get back up to the main house.”

On her way past Show, she put her hand on his back. He went stiff. “Thanks for this, Show.”

“Pleasure,” he said without turning to her.

It was as if he’d also noticed something about to catch between them and shut the door before it could.

Shannon was confused and frustrated. Time to move on, then.

oOo

The wedding was a brilliant success. There were a few snags, but nothing the wedding party knew about. The weather was perfect—still and clear, the afternoon sun bringing the temperature up to seventy— and there were no drunken family brawls. Edgar and his ribbons and flowers looked perfect, and the carriage gleamed. Badger was even wearing a top hat and a black tailcoat over his jeans and white oxford.

Shannon had no idea where he’d come up with that outfit. She’d asked only for a button-down shirt.

The reception was over by midnight, and the inn was back to its normal state by three o’clock. She paid the event staff and closed the dining room. Then she took Amie, her photographer friend from Tulsa, back to her apartment, where they caught up over a couple of glasses of wine, and then she made up the sofa for Amie and went to bed.

Exhausted as she was, she lay sleepless for a long time. She was at peace about the wedding—she’d put on the best event she could, and it had worked. Amie had shown her the digital proofs, and the photographs were amazing.

No, it wasn’t the wedding keeping her awake. It was Showdown. He’d warmed up to her a little over the past couple of days, and she’d seen more in him to like. She thought she might even have sensed some interest. But then that was gone, and he was back to mumbling with his back to her. Even if he was interested, he wasn’t interested. She needed to get over this schoolgirl crush.

Maybe she just needed to get laid. She hadn’t seen any action since she’d left Tulsa, and that was four months ago. That was a long dry spell. She and Keith had left things on good terms. Maybe he’d like a weekend away in the country.

With that thought, she rolled over and found sleep.

CHAPTER FIVE



Show sat on the porch steps, his elbows on his thighs and his hands hanging between his knees. His eyes were fixed on the peeling paint on the steps at his feet. Up close like this, his house was showing the signs of a year’s neglect.

A year. Today.

The autumn chill had finally set in. Show’s breath lingered in faint wisps of vapor. The weedy yard and Holly’s overgrown planting beds had turned yellow and crisp. Rotting vegetables littered the ground around the vegetable beds or clung desperately to their dead plants. The old swing set had finally rusted through and collapsed. A milkweed vine had gone to town on it, coiling around and tracing the faded stripes of the pocked poles.

This was a dead house.

He’d woken up in the morning and knew that he had to do it today. He didn’t know if he really could live in this house again, but this was the day he had to face the ghosts. Either face them down or let them have him.

Maybe he was crazy. In fact, he was pretty sure that was true. Mostly, he felt like a dead man walking.

He got through his days, he did his work, he talked to people, but with few exceptions, everything was hollow. Deadwood.

The exceptions were Isaac and Lilli. Little Gia. And, in ways that worried him, Shannon. He felt a stirring of life when she was around. It wasn’t even a sexual thing, although she was stunning, with that fiery red hair and that old-fashioned pinup body. Though he’d thought about getting his hands around those hips, it wasn’t that thought that had him distracted. There were plenty of curvy, pretty girls around the clubhouse. He didn’t know what it was about Shannon, but he felt himself wanting to talk to her more than anything else.

He was not in the market for someone to talk to. He had Isaac, or Lilli, if he needed to talk. He didn’t.

He had nothing to say.

He knew Shannon was interested in him—and not for somebody to talk to. She hadn’t come out and said it, but she wasn’t trying to hide it or be especially coy. Her interest had been palpable a couple of weeks ago, when he’d helped her get Edgar ready for the wedding. He’d been stupid, offering to help. Talking to her even that much had gotten her stuck in his head.

He, however, was done. He was empty. He had nothing for a woman like that, and there was no sense in taking even one step down that road. Even if he got through this day and managed to find a way to make a life, he couldn’t see ever wanting a woman in it again. He could barely imagine connecting enough even to f*ck one, but that was something he was beginning to want back. Shannon was not the kind of woman who just got f*cked, though. She was the kind of woman who got loved.