He frowned a little at the delight in her voice. Did she think this was Disneyland, where people played dress-up and tried on a drawl?
“The hat,” she clarified.
“The hat is for shade. I’m not a cowboy.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, waving a hand as her earbud cord bounced.
“What are we going to do today?”
“What are we going to do? This is so exciting!”
Oh, God. Fine. Shane took a deep breath and tried to let his grumpiness go as he followed Merry toward the saloon. He couldn’t put a finger on when it had sunk so deeply into his flesh. He used to be able to let a bad mood go. He used to be able to forget his family and the years of betrayals and stress. He could work to forget. Or hang out with friends. And if that didn’t work, there were always women. But the past year had made forgetting damned difficult.
“You should get some spurs!” she said, walking backward now. “A little jingling would really liven this place up.”
He opened his mouth to respond, then realized he had no idea what to say to that. “Right,” he finally said in defeat before closing his mouth again.
She nodded solemnly. “Yeah.”
Shane suddenly had to consider that Providence might be a ghost town in an old episode of the Twilight Zone. It had to be. There was no other explanation for this odd woman plunked down in the middle of the dustiest part of Jackson Hole. There was no way to explain why she’d stumbled into his problems this way.
“I brought the estimates,” he said, then jumped forward to grab Merry as she tripped over her own feet and almost went down on her ass. “Hey. You okay?”
“Sure!” Her laugh tripped over itself like a broken toy.
Shane frowned, sensing there was something more there, but if her reaction was simple embarrassment at her clumsiness, he didn’t want to press further. When the warmth of her waist soaked into his fingers, Shane realized he was still holding her and stood back with an awkward pat of her ribs. “So…”
He slipped the envelope from his back pocket and handed it over. “There’s the estimate. Why don’t you take a look at that while I sort through the spare wood, then we’ll make a plan.”
Even as he spoke, Merry tore open the envelope and unfolded the papers. True fear twisted her brow into lines of tension.
Why? It wasn’t her money. Hell, he’d expect that spending the money of a trust would be damn fun, especially when you were irritatingly excited about the project in the first place. “Not what you expected?” he asked. He was experienced, and not cheap, but he didn’t think his hourly wage was exorbitant.
“Oh,” she breathed, her eyes darting over the page before she flipped to the next. “No, of course not. It’s…just…”
He kept his mouth shut, waiting for a clue as to what was going on. As he expected, Merry couldn’t bear the silence, and she jumped to fill it.
“It’s just… We’d better start with the first one. Just the porch. Then hopefully…”
Shane cocked his head.
“The thing is, can I pay you half now and half next month? I’m sorry. I don’t know how you normally do it, but I’m having a little trouble getting funds, uh, released.”
Whoa. Very interesting. So interesting that Shane finally found the strength to shove down his grumpiness and turn on the charm. This was exactly the kind of information he needed, and he needed it before Merry turned in an invoice. Shane would be fired quicker than he could say legal espionage.
So he smiled. And shifted a little closer. And turned on the Western charm that had worked before on cute tourist girls. “What’s wrong, darlin’?”
“Nothing! I can pay you! It’s not that. It’s just…” The envelope slipped from her fingers, and Shane knelt to pick it up.
When he rose, he let his eyes drag over her body. There was nothing wrong with her body, after all. She wasn’t stick-thin like the rich women who rolled through town with skis and fur boots. She was strong and tall and curvy. As his gaze dragged over the curve of her hip, he was struck with the sudden thought of what she might look like naked, and got lost in that for a moment before he remembered his charm and turned his smile up.
“It’s just what?” he pressed.
Merry was watching him with slightly parted lips, as if she’d sensed his thoughts. “It’s just… The board members are…”
He tipped his head a little closer, holding her gaze as he slid the envelope back into her grasp. His fingers brushed over hers. He let them rest there, just beneath the angle of her knuckles.
And then there was her mouth. Those slightly parted lips. A little too wide for beauty, maybe, but suddenly so soft. And inviting. And…
Merry edged back, her eyes narrowing. “It’s nothing,” she said firmly, the words wedging distance between them.
Shane found himself standing there alone, blinking in surprise. “Huh?”
“It’s nothing. If you’re okay with half now and half later, you’ve got a deal.”
“Okay,” he said. “Sure.”
Merry smiled. “Perfect. Then get to work. What are you waiting for?”
Shane, charming smile still in place, found himself treated to the sight of Merry’s ass as she walked away from him. Her hips swung. Her ass tipped side to side. He watched. By the time she disappeared around the corner of the little house she’d claimed, Shane found himself shaking his head and wondering what had just happened.
CHAPTER FOUR
“MS. KADE, THIS is Levi Cannon. We have a bit of a situation.”
Merry stood so quickly that her hair blew back. Phone clenched in a suddenly sweaty fist, she looked toward the makeshift parking area of Providence, then toward the saloon. How could they have found out so quickly? Maybe she could—
“Ms. Kade?”
“Yes. Hi, Mr. Cannon. What seems to be the problem?” The distant sound of boards being dropped filled up Merry’s ears. She ducked inside the little house she used as a base, so panicked she didn’t even look for spiderwebs first. One of them clung to her arm. She shook it like mad, swallowing her panicked cries.
“Mrs. Bishop—Kristen Bishop—came outside this morning to find that her mailbox had been destroyed.”
Merry sucked in air so quickly that she choked on it and started coughing. The mailbox must’ve tipped over in last night’s wind.
“Oh, don’t worry. Destroyed was her word. A little further investigation revealed that it had only been pulled from the ground and left in the dirt. Not exactly mayhem.”
“Right. I… That is…Mr. Cannon, I—”
“Kristen thinks it’s an act of retaliation.”
Merry snapped her mouth shut. Retaliation? She hadn’t been that mad. And she’d tried not to convey any anger at all to the arguing seniors.
“Personally I think a drunk cowboy ran into it, but the Bishop house is damned isolated, so she might have a point. She thinks it’s a warning.”
Merry’s throat finally unlocked. They didn’t know it was her.
She drew in a deep breath. “I can’t imagine that,” she managed to say. “Maybe it was bored teenagers. Mailboxes. Baseball bats. It happens.”
“It’s a ways out of town for joyriding. And nothing like this ever happened before we hired you. I can’t