Maverick for Hire. Leanne Banks

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      His eyes bulged and he took several shallow breaths. He closed his eyes and made a choking sound.

      Cecelia wondered if she should perform the Heimlich maneuver. “Need water?”

      “Yeah,” he managed.

      She filled a glass and offered it to him. “Here you go.”

      He gulped the water then swiped his mouth. “Thank goodness. Give me more of that cake. Best. Ever.”

      Cecelia couldn’t help laughing. “But you nearly choked and burned yourself.”

      “It didn’t kill me,” he said. “Give me more.”

      For one hot second, she wondered what it would be like for Nick to use those words give me more in a totally different situation. She felt her cheeks heat at the thought. “I need to let them cool. I want to put a caramel glaze on top,” she said and turned away.

      “Whew,” he said. “I didn’t think it could get better, but maybe...”

      Cecelia smiled. She wouldn’t admit it, but Nick’s obvious craving for her baked goods made her feel warm inside. “Melba is going to serve some of it for breakfast tomorrow.”

      “I’ll make sure to get up early. This won’t last long. You’re a doggone good cook, Cecelia. You’re gonna make some man a happy husband, and it will be a sad day for the rest of us.”

      Cecelia rolled her eyes at his long face. “Something tells me you’ll survive.” She lowered her voice. “Plus, there’s no happy husband in my immediate future, so no worries.”

      * * *

      The next morning, Cecelia rose early and ate a quick bite of breakfast before she left to post signs for the food drive she had started for families still struggling after the Great Flood. Then she headed to one of her work sites to make sure the plumbers showed up for a house that needed massive reconstruction. As usual, the plumbers arrived late, but she pushed them to finish the job. After work, she drove throughout the county to post signs for the food drive. By the time she arrived back in Rust Creek Falls, it was dark. She headed to the Ace in the Hole just because she wasn’t quite ready to go back to her room.

      Nick waved at her from the bar. “Let me buy you a beer,” he called over the loud fray of the crowd.

      “Buy me a water,” she said as she walked toward him. “I’m dying of thirst.”

      “Done,” he said and waved at the bartender.

      Seconds later, a glass of ice water appeared. She sat down beside him at the bar. “I’m working on the food drive. I hope people will respond. I’m posting notices everywhere. Ever since I learned that some of the kids in school weren’t getting the food they needed months after the flood, I thought I should do something. Hopefully people will be generous. Their families still can’t afford to buy what they need. Some people are still struggling to make up income since the disaster.”

      “You’re a good woman,” Nick said and lifted his beer to her glass of water.

      She laughed and clicked her glass against his. “If you say so. I still think I may be heading back to Thunder Canyon soon. My time here may be just about done.”

      Nick frowned. “No. The town still needs you. We all still need you.”

      She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “The truth is the pickings are a lot slimmer here than I anticipated.”

      “For what?” Nick asked.

      “Men,” she said.

      “Ohhhh,” Nick said and leaned back in his chair. “Well, I told you that’s because you’ve been approaching this all wrong.”

      Cecelia shook her head. “There’s nothing wrong with my approach. I am who I am.”

      Nick sighed. “I told you before. You have to sell yourself.”

      “I still say that sounds like prostitution,” she said.

      “It’s not,” he said. “I don’t mean it that way. You just need to put on some lipstick and flirt a little. For starters,” he said and took a swig of beer.

      “Why should I have to put on lipstick? Why shouldn’t he have to put on some lipstick?”

      Nick gawked at her. “Why would a guy wear lipstick?”

      “That’s not the point. Why should I have to work so hard to get a guy? Why shouldn’t he have to work harder to get me?”

      Nick shrugged. “Because a guy doesn’t have to work hard. We’ll eat beans and weenies and watch sports on television until some woman drives us from our cave.”

      “That’s ridiculous,” she said and took a long drink from her glass of water in hopes of cooling herself down.

      “Ridiculous or not, it’s true. You can fight it till the cows come home, but men love the chase. They love when a woman flirts and makes an effort to win them over.”

      Disgusted, she barely resisted throwing her water at Nick. She really wanted to smack him, but Cecelia was generally against violence. “Then you and all your men friends are going to miss out on the best women they could get,” she said and rose and walked away.

      The next couple of days, Cecelia avoided Nick. Every time she thought about his philosophy about how to catch a man, it made her brain fry. Late Friday afternoon, as she supervised a construction site, one of the men, Bill Dayton, approached her.

      “Hey there,” he said, tipping his hat.

      “Hi,” she said and nodded in return. Bill was a hard worker and had always been friendly to her.

      “I was thinking you and I could spend some time with each other. You want to get together tomorrow night?” he asked.

      Surprised by his invitation, she paused a half beat, then asked herself why not? “What did you have in mind?”

      “Dinner and just hanging out at my place,” he said. “Would that work for you?”

      Cecelia swallowed a sigh. She wasn’t all that attracted to Bill, but she felt a voice on her shoulder urge her to give him a try. What did she have to lose? “Okay,” she said. “What time?”

      “Four or four-thirty,” he said.

      “That early?” she said.

      He gave a sheepish grin. “Better to start early than late. I go to bed early,” he said.

      Feeling a softening inside her, she smiled in response. “Well, thank you very much. Four-thirty will work for me.”

      He nodded. “I’ll pick you up at Strickland’s.”

      “That sounds good,” she said.

      “I look forward to it,” he said and walked away.

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