Cassie's Cowboy. Diane Pershing

he always did when he needed a moment to ponder a situation. “I’m not sure I can do that,” he told her, setting the hat back on his head. “All I know is you called me, I’m here and I’m supposed to rescue you, and that’s about it.”

      At the perplexed expression on her face, he added, with a shrug, “I’m sure sorry. I don’t know any more than you do what the rules are. I’m afraid the whole thing isn’t up to me. Or you. So, I figure we both better accept it and just get on with it.”

      “‘Just get on with it,”’ she repeated.

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      She studied him for a while, seemed to be deciding something big, then, like that, she sighed, opened the screen door and stepped aside. “Put the guns down—” she pointed to his holster and six-shooters “—and then come on in.”

      “They aren’t real bullets, you know.”

      “There are bullets in there?”

      He popped open the chamber and peered inside. “Not anymore,” he told her, taken aback by the fact. He twirled both empty chambers, to show her.

      “Good. Put the guns down, anyway, all right? This is a gun-free household.”

      He did as she’d requested, removing his holster and setting it down on a small bench by the door. Then he crossed the threshold just as she said, “The least I can do, I guess, is to offer you a glass of water. If Margie or Sandy or Rosa put you up to this, you’re probably harmless, right?”

      “Well, ma’am,” he offered, “I don’t know as I’ve ever been called harmless, exactly. But I know how to behave myself. My mamma made sure all us boys had manners.”

      “I’m sure she did. I’m Cassie, by the way.”

      “Yes, ma’am, I know.”

      It felt nice and cool inside and he was grateful. It was hotter than Hades out there already, even though it was only morning. He gazed down at her. My, she was a little one. Fiery, for all that, but still, little.

      “And you can cut out the ‘ma’am’ stuff,” she said, propping her hands on her hips. “I’m not old enough yet.” Grinning one more time, she added, “Though I’m rapidly getting there.”

      She turned and he followed her, boots clicking and spurs jangling loudly as he trod her wooden floors. But he didn’t really pay any attention to the sound, because he was watching the way her shapely hips moved inside her robe. And his nose was picking up the scent of—what? Some kind of spring flowers. Lilacs, maybe. It floated behind her and right into his nostrils. The scent of a woman. This woman. Cassie smelled downright savory.

      In the kitchen a girl child sat at a small round table, making a face at a bowl of mush. She raised her head when her momma walked in with him following. Her eyes grew huge with wonder as she stared at him.

      “Mommy!” she said. “It’s Cowboy Charlie!”

      “Morning, miss,” he said with a tip of his hat.

      “Mommy!” she squealed again, her high-pitched voice verging on affecting his hearing. The little girl stood, looking excitedly from him to her mother and back again. “It’s Cowboy Charlie! He’s here!”

      “No, it’s not him,” Cassie answered, taking a glass from a shelf and turning on the tap. “Not really. Well, yes and no. Oh, heck.” She shrugged her shoulders, seeming to surrender any attempt to make sense. “Whatever. Charlie, meet Trish.”

      He offered his hand to the child, who took it. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Trish,” he told her solemnly, but the little girl’s face lit up with a grin that made her look just like a fairer-haired, rounder-faced version of her mother.

      “Me, too. You’re my hero.”

      “Trish, eat your oatmeal,” Cassie said.

      Indicating with her head that Charlie should sit across from her daughter, Cassie poured him a glass of water, then set it down in front of his chair. He was dying to drink and wouldn’t have minded resting his feet, but he waited for her to take a seat.

      Instead, she selected a cup from another shelf and poured what looked like coffee from a silver-colored machine on the counter next to the sink. “You like it black, right?”

      “As tar.”

      “Sorry. It’s strong, but not quite that strong.”

      A horn sounded outside. Cassie turned to her daughter, who was still grinning at Charlie. “That’s your car pool, honey. I guess you don’t have to eat your oatmeal after all, lucky you. Take some oatmeal cookies with you.”

      “But, Cowboy Charlie’s here,” the little girl said, the sparkle in her eyes bright with happiness and wonder. “I want to stay.”

      “I’ll be here when you get back, little lady,” he told her.

      “Mom?” Trish said with a squeak of joy that made him wince. “Will he be here?”

      “We’ll see,” Cassie said.

      At the exact same moment Charlie opined, with a wink, “I sure will.”

      The little girl looked from her mother to him, then decided to go with his answer. “Goody!” She clapped her hands. “Wait till I tell everyone!” She grabbed a few cookies from a jar on the counter, seized a small pack with straps from the back of her chair and ran out the door.

      Frowning, Cassie set both cups of coffee down on the table. Alone at last. She noticed that Charlie waited to sit until she did, and wondered when was the last time anyone had displayed actual manners. It felt quaint…and kind of nice.

      She watched as he downed the water quickly, his Adam’s apple darting up and down with each gulp. His hands were deeply tanned, his fingers callused. As she sipped her coffee, she studied him, ignoring the attraction she felt toward him in an attempt at objectivity.

      In the morning light he was even more the embodiment of Cowboy Charlie than he had appeared to be last night. Everything about him indicated that he worked with those sun-browned hands, that he spent days on the trail, in the open air. She wondered about his background, how much he was getting paid for this little impersonation, and frowned as she tried to think which of her friends had money for this kind of thing.

      And why whoever it was had decided to play a trick on her in the first place.

      “You shouldn’t have said that to Trish,” she admonished. “About your being here when she got home.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because you’ll get her hopes up. She thinks you’re real, as opposed to me, who knows you aren’t.”

      He frowned, obviously perplexed and just a little bit impatient with her. “I thought we’d gotten that all worked out last night. I am real. You can touch me if you’d like.” He put his hand out toward her. “Flesh and blood, just like most men.”

      Not even close to most men, at least the ones I know, she could have said, but didn’t. Instead she set her coffee cup down, then folded both arms across her chest.

      “Look,” she said firmly, “I may have some Irish heritage and my grandmother may have filled my head with tales of faeries, curses and Fate, but that was then, this is now. I’m a grown-up, and I rebel against being asked to accept some, some…creature of my imagination turning into flesh and blood reality. Okay? It isn’t possible, it didn’t happen, and that’s it!”

      There. If that didn’t get through to him, she didn’t know what would.

      But he didn’t react, not really, except for a slight tension around the jawline that disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared. No, he just shrugged, sat there and drank down her coffee, a thoughtful look on his handsome, weather-beaten face.

      Had she hurt his feelings? she wondered