Sky's Pride And Joy. Sandra Steffen

the shade of the old building. The J.P. Feed & Ranch Supply Store sat around the corner from the village main street. The old-timers said it had been painted once, but nobody could agree on the year, or the color. Whatever color it had once been, time had dulled it to the same faded, weathered gray of all three of the Anderson brothers’ cowboy hats.

      At Sky’s shrug, Norbert grimaced. “Oh, yeah. You come and go as you please. I knew that. Must be this heat.”

      “Either that,” Ned, the middle brother added, “or boredom.”

      “God, yes,” Neil declared. “Boredom. Not a dang thing ever changes in this dusty corner of South Dakota.”

      Sky swiped his brown Stetson off his head, but again, he only shrugged. Unlike the other bachelors in the area, he wasn’t looking for things to change around here. What was wrong with life just the way it was? Besides, no matter what the local boys said, not everything stayed the same in Jasper Gulch. Babies were born, kids grew up, girls left town, old folks died. There’d been other changes, too. New stores had opened, a couple of businesses had changed hands. In fact, one of those changes involved Neil, who’d left the family ranch to manage the feed store a couple of months back. Neil did a good job, but he still wasn’t happy. None of the Anderson brothers were. According to the Jasper Gulch grapevine, Ned and Norbert spent so much time here that folks had taken to wondering who was minding the ranch.

      “Grab yourself a root beer out of the cooler in the office and sit a spell with us in the shade,” Neil insisted.

      Sky glanced at the other two men who were already popping the tops of their soda cans. He could have taken the time to join them, but he just wasn’t in the mood to listen to complaints about the weather and taxes and the sorry price of beef and how nothing ever happened in Jasper Gulch. Cramming his hat back on his head, he said, “Maybe next time, boys.”

      Without a backward glance, he climbed into his truck and turned the key. The air streaming in his open window was hot and dry. He considered stopping at the diner, settling at a quiet table, and ordering up a tall glass of lemonade or iced tea. He had plenty of time to make up his mind, because when he turned onto Main Street, he had to crawl to a stop in order to let the clucking hens otherwise known as the staunchest members of the Ladies Aid Society cross the street in front of him. He’d gotten on their good side a couple of years back when he’d sided with them instead of with the local boys who’d decided to advertise for women to come to their fair town. The leaders of the Society had insisted that such an ad would draw riffraff and worse, women of ill repute. Sky’s reasons had been a lot less political.

      As far as Sky was concerned, new women meant new problems. After all, the local gals knew better than to try to cage him in. He hadn’t been so sure new women would be as easy to dissuade. As it turned out, only a handful of women had answered the ad. Much to the Society’s relief, none of them had been ladies of the night. Much to his relief, it hadn’t been all that difficult to convince most of the new gals that he wasn’t the marrying kind. Once, he’d overheard DoraLee Brown talking to the Southern gal who hadn’t figured it out on her own.

      “Sugar,” DoraLee had said, “Sky Buchanan is one of those men who can be civilized, but never tamed. He’s easy on the eyes, but hard on the heart.”

      Keeping a safe distance from one of the local women and her young daughter who were crossing the street in front of him, Sky couldn’t argue with DoraLee’s logic. He didn’t take credit for his looks or blame for his attitude. According to his mother, both had come straight from his old man, along with every shortcoming and flaw he possessed. Not that his mother had been any better. Which was why Skyler Buchanan was footloose and fancy-free, and planned to stay that way.

      He lifted his hand to the old men shooting the breeze in front of the barbershop, and at Cletus McCully who was sitting on the bench in his usual spot in front of the post office. They all waved in return in their usual way, Cletus without unhooking his thumb from his suspenders, Karl Hanson with his customary salute, Roy Everts with his arthritic hands that resembled hams. Unlike most folks in and around Jasper Gulch, Sky hadn’t been born and raised here, but he’d been here so long that people had either forgotten or didn’t care.

      Sky never forgot where he’d spent the first seventeen years of his life. Oh, he’d had a roof over his head, and sometimes there had been food on the table. His upbringing pretty much ended there. He’d learned the difference between right and wrong on his own. He didn’t kill, maim, swindle, lie or cheat. He put in an honest day’s work in return for an honest day’s pay, and he came and went as he pleased. He’d learned to deal with loneliness before he could talk. He’d learned to deal with desire years later. Except for a chance encounter with a leggy blonde a month ago, he’s been as celibate as old Cletus McCully.

      The image of hair the color of spun gold and a smile warm and soft enough to slice clear through a man’s defenses wafted across Sky’s mind. Damn, he’d been trying not to think about that leggy blonde or her soft smiles and gentle touch and…Clamping his mouth shut, he swore to himself.

      He’d had no intention of sleeping with a woman he’d only just met, but something had been in the air that night. He didn’t know what it was, but the same thing had been in Meredith Warner’s gaze, as in his. Later, it had scared the spit right out of him, because it was damned close to need. At the time, he hadn’t taken the time to analyze. Hell, he hadn’t taken the trouble to think. Oh, but he’d taken the time to touch, and whisper, and feel and…

      The sudden catch in his breathing, and the telltale hitch elsewhere reminded him of things he preferred not to think about, and made him hotter than the dusty air streaming through his open window. That had been happening a lot lately.

      That did it. Forget iced tea. He was going to the Crazy Horse for a beer even if it was a little early in the day. He gave the street a sweeping glance in preparation to make a U-turn in front of the Saloon. A serious mistake. Not the U-turn. He never got around to making that. The serious mistake involved a glance at the women talking in front of an old building across the street from the Five & Dime. One of those women had long legs and shimmering blond hair. She turned her head, her gaze meeting his. A zing went through him, and he couldn’t look away.

      A horn blared. Sky swerved, missing Hal Everts’ truck by less than a foot. The close call didn’t alleviate the awareness that was buzzing through him. All because Meredith Warner was back in town.

      A month ago, Sky had thought her stay here was temporary. That had made her safe. He’d heard she was coming back for good. Nothing like that could escape the Jasper Gulch grapevine. There she was, standing in front of a building that had been vacant for years, her hair hanging long and straight down her back, skin the color of peaches-and-cream, arms and ankles bare, every movement fluid. He couldn’t see the color of her eyes from here, but he knew they were a deep, dark brown. It was unusual to come across a woman with hair so blond and eyes so dark, but she’d been a natural blonde, all right. He couldn’t seem to forget the moment he’d discovered that particular fact.

      Sky swore under his breath again, tore his gaze away from hers, and yelled an apology to Hal. Keeping his foot steady on the gas pedal and his eyes straight ahead, he drove out of town.

      Now there’s a man I’d steer clear of if I were you…”

      Meredith had to give herself a mental shake in order to drag her gaze away from the dusty pickup truck rounding the corner at the end of Main Street. Bringing her attention back to Jayne Stryker, who had turned out to be a godsend, not to mention a genius when it came to advertising, Meredith wondered why someone couldn’t have warned her a month ago.

      It was too late for that. Besides, she’d promised herself there would be no more self-recriminations, no more looking back, no more wishing things could be different. She was still reeling from the reality that her only sister and brother-in-law had died as a result of a horrible car accident. Except for her young niece and nephew, she was completely alone in the world, but in many ways, she had been for years. The opening of the antiques and home furnishings store would mark a new beginning for Meredith. She was getting on with her life, and getting her life in order. It was