Lonesome Ryder. Carol Finch

Prom Queen, Homecoming Queen and voted most popular girl on campus. All the guys in high school went gaga over her. When Wade returned from college she made herself instantly available by dropping her current fiancé like a hot potato. Not long after Wade and Bobbie Lynn married, while he and his cousins were traveling the rodeo circuit, she started sneaking around on him.”

      “No wonder Wade swore off women,” Laura mused aloud. “Bobbie Lynn obviously has fidelity issues.”

      “You can say that again! You’d think Bobbie Lynn would’ve recognized the good deal she had going, but she was never known for her commodity of brains, only her eye-catching looks and seductive wiles. I think she even tried to hit on Wade’s cousins, but they have a hard-and-fast rule about remaining loyal to one another,” Annie informed her. “Even Quint drew the line and wouldn’t budge when Bobbie Lynn practically threw herself at him. No matter what the gossip circulating about Quint being a ladies’ man, he does have scruples, so don’t let anyone around here tell you differently.”

      Laura grinned in amusement. “Is there anyone in this town whose background you don’t know?”

      “Nope,” Annie replied breezily. “I’ve lived here all my life. I know who’s related to whom and which branch of which family tree juts out from what direction. It helps to understand the dynamics of this podunk town when you’re teaching school here. It prevents you from shooting off your mouth and offending someone’s shirttail cousins.”

      Laura must have looked a bit shell-shocked because Annie leaned over to pat her hand consolingly. “Not to worry. I’ll be there at school to debrief you when your students troop into your classroom. Of course, my music room is at the opposite end of the hall from the math and computer rooms.” She grinned playfully. “We wouldn’t want to break your students’ concentration while they’re calculating square roots, ya know. All that screeching and howling in my classroom would be a distraction. But I can be at your end of the hall in just over a minute if you need me.”

      Laura slumped against the back of the vintage vinyl booth. “Sometimes I still can’t believe I actually packed up, moved away from my brothers and have a life of my own now. The next order of business is to convince the superintendent and school board that I can transform all my students into Nobel prize-winning mathematicians…What if I can’t?”

      Annie chuckled. “You’ll do fine here. What happened to your self-confidence, girlfriend?”

      “Wade has been trouncing all over it,” she muttered.

      “Well, he’s an idiot if he doesn’t know what a great deal he’s got in you,” Annie said loyally.

      “Maybe you should tell him that. I don’t think he’s figured it out by himself.” Laura shut her mouth when the waitress reappeared to take their order.

      When Mildred—according to the plastic name tag pinned on her Pepto-Bismol-pink blouse—scuttled off, Annie leaned forward, all eyes, all ears and profound concentration. “Okay, what’s up with Wade?”

      Laura hadn’t meant to unload on her friend, but she felt the urge to vent her frustration. “Well, for starters, he’s determined to dislike me. He nearly came unglued when I offered to give him a massage to help him relax. Sheesh, the way he carried on you’d think I possessed the touch of death. He rarely eats in the same room with me and you wouldn’t think it’d kill him to say thanks for dinner or for laundering his clothes or cleaning his house every once in a while. In fact, he bites backs the words please and thank you when they occasionally start to slip out.”

      Annie slouched in the booth, nodded her head and said sagely, “Ah-ha.”

      “Ah-ha, what? What’s that mean, Ms. I’m-Privy-To-Background-Information-On-Every-Resident-of-Podunk City?” Laura blew out a frustrated breath. “See there? What’d I tell you? Wade’s bad habit of being flippant and sarcastic is rubbing off on me.”

      Annie grinned wryly. “Jeez, Laura, surely a smart woman like you can figure out what’s going on with you and Wade.”

      “Well, color me stupid, but I don’t get it. All I know is that Bobbie Lynn disillusioned him. He mistrusts those of us of the female persuasion and I have this ridiculous obsession to prove to him that I’m not a blasted thing like her.”

      “I’m no psychiatrist, but I’d say he finds you extremely attractive and that worries him so he’s trying to build walls to keep you at arm’s length.”

      “Phfft!” Laura erupted. “Your analysis is way off base. He just doesn’t want me around, no matter what I try to do to earn his trust and friendship.”

      Annie arched a delicate brow. “And you’re trying hard to win his trust and friendship because…?”

      Laura squirmed uneasily and sent a prayer of thanks winging heavenward when Mildred returned with their burgers and fries, buying Laura time to collect her thoughts and her composure.

      “Because?” Annie prompted.

      She should’ve known Annie wouldn’t drop the subject. The woman, after all, had the tenacity of a pit bull.

      When Laura pretended an interest in her basket of French fries, Annie snapped her fingers, demanding attention. “Because…?”

      “You’re a real pest,” Laura grumbled.

      “No, I’m not,” Annie replied. “I’m your best friend. I care about you and I feel responsible for convincing you to move here to teach. I also feel responsible because I’m the one who lined you up with this summer job when Quint and Vance were asking around town about a temp housekeeper. And if I were having man problems, I’d spill my guts to you so you could make me feel better. But since my boyfriend and I are getting along dandy fine, I don’t need a sounding board like you do. So, admit it. You’re sort of interested in Wade, aren’t you?”

      “That’s ridiculous.” The lie rang false the instant it popped off her tongue. “Besides, I just moved here.”

      “Uh-huh,” Annie said.

      Then Laura said, “I’m starting a new job in the school system.”

      And Annie said, “Uh-huh.”

      Laura said, “I’m not looking to start a relationship.”

      Then Annie said, “Uh-huh.”

      “And most certainly not with Count Grouchiness.”

      “No, of course not,” Annie patronized, lips twitching.

      “Clam up and eat, Annie,” Laura muttered darkly.

      Annie threw up her hands, as if held at gunpoint. “Fine, but you need to brush up on your geography so you’ll realize this is the state of Oklahoma, not the state of Denial.”

      “Cute.”

      “Thanks. I like to think so,” she said, fluffing her hair and batting her lashes.

      Laura couldn’t stay aggravated with Annie. Reluctantly she smiled and Annie smiled back and all was right with the world again. Even if Wade Ryder wanted to drive her away and her awareness of him just kept mushrooming from one day to the next. She couldn’t help thinking that beyond that six-feet-three-inches high and five-feet thick wall Wade had erected around his emotions there was a man she’d really like if he’d open up and share a small part of himself with her.

      After their tasty meal, Annie offered to give Laura a tour of the town. She pointed out the tag agency so Laura could get her new driver’s license. She introduced her to the pharmacist at the drugstore, the owner of the hardware store, the furniture store and every other business owner in town.

      Laura and Annie ended up in the town square where a concrete hoot owl in perpetual flight rose above the gurgling circular fountain. They treated themselves to snow cones from the sidewalk vender and sat down to rest after their hike. Annie’s boyfriend stopped by on his way into the courthouse and chatted a few minutes before tending his errands.