A Baby of Her Own (Dundee, Idaho #1)(24)
Author: Brenda Novak

But he knew he’d never stop at one drink. He’d spent enough hours in clubs and bars to know that. Besides, there weren’t any answers in places like this. If there were, he’d have found them by now. He needed to go home and get a good night’s rest so he’d be worth something in the morning. They had cattle to move again, and with the way the temperature was dropping, they’d probably have to fill the water troughs, as well.

Getting out of his truck, Conner strode over to the inert cowboy and hauled him to his feet so he wouldn’t pass out and freeze to death on the sidewalk. “Come on, buddy,” he said. “If you can tell me where you live, I’ll drive you home.”

The man mumbled something about a trailer behind the single-screen movie theater a few blocks away, so Conner started guiding him toward the truck. But as soon as their boots began to crunch on gravel, the cowboy jerked out of his grasp.

“Where we going?” he asked, his tone belligerent, his words so slurred Conner could barely understand him.

“Home,” Conner said, calmly propelling him forward.

“What for?” the guy demanded.

When they reached the truck, Conner opened the passenger door. “Because it’s time for bed. Five-thirty in the morning comes pretty early when you’ve got to be at work,” he said, then grimaced at his own words. What the hell was the matter with him? He was sounding like his grandfather. Worse, he’d let a woman from a one-night stand send him on a wild-goose chase. He was giving up drinking, dammit, by choice. And he was going home to bed, alone, at barely ten o’clock.

Evidently more than his style of clothing had changed. But he noticed, for once, that the voice in his head had nothing to say.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“WHERE CAN I GET a good haircut?” Conner asked Roy, who was riding shotgun in the pickup as they made their way into town after work the next day.

“There’s the beauty shop. And then there’s the barbershop,” he said.

“Where do you go?”

“The barbershop.”

Conner sent him a meaningful glance. “In that case, I’m going to the beauty shop.”

Roy’s mouth twitched as though he was tempted to smile, but he didn’t. After six weeks of working together, Roy seemed to be softening toward him, although why Conner cared so much about the opinion of a crusty old cowboy, he couldn’t say.

“You want a city-boy haircut to go with that city-boy face?” Roy asked, curling up the brim of his hat on both sides.

“You think I’d prefer the butch you’ve got?” Conner said.

This time Roy did laugh. “Don’t blame me if you come out looking like Goldilocks.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

They rode another few blocks before Roy pointed to a glass-fronted building with pink awnings. “That’s the place you want—Hair and Now. They’ll fix you up with ribbons and bows.”

“What’ll you do while I’m in there?”

“I sure as hell ain’t gonna wait for you, not with all those ladies jawin’ about neighborhood gossip. Just take me to the hardware store. I gotta get some stuff to repair the barn door. It’s about to come off its hinges. Then I’ll swing by the café and grab a burger. We’ll have missed dinner by the time we get home, so you might want to join me there later.”

“Sounds good,” Conner said, and drove him to Ellerson’s Hardware before doubling back to Hair and Now, where he parked on the street and sauntered inside to find a handful of women. One was doing an older lady’s nails in the corner, the noxious chemicals strong enough to burn his nostrils and sting his eyes. Another, a blonde, was trimming a young girl’s bangs, laughing and talking as though the pungent odor didn’t affect her. And a third, wearing the customary pink smock of a hairdresser, was sitting under an old-fashioned dryer with a section of her hair up in rollers, reading a magazine. She was the only one who didn’t look up when the bell jingled over the door.

“I think I should get this kind of dress,” she said. “It isn’t white, but then, white’s so boring, you know? Who says a wedding dress has to be white?” She flipped her magazine around to show everyone, but they were all staring at Conner. And then she saw him, too, and leapt out of her chair, dropping the magazine in the process.

“What are you doing here?” she cried.

Conner’s brows shot up in surprise. It was the woman who’d walked into the Bellemont with Delaney. What was her name? Raylynn or Rhonda or—something with an R. He’d have recognized her anywhere. Not many women were so tall, for one thing. And not many colored their hair such a distinctive shade of…whatever it was.

“Hey, can you tell me how to reach Delaney?” he asked, delighted that he’d happened to run into her again.

“Laney’s the town librarian,” the blonde volunteered. “Just go down the street another block and—”

“Katie, I’ll handle this,” Rebecca interrupted, and unless Conner was mistaken, he detected an edge of panic in her voice.

“Wait a second,” he said, taking in the stricken look on her face, Katie’s words and his lack of success in Jerome. “What’s—” And then, before he could even finish his sentence, the truth hit him with startling clarity: There weren’t two Delaneys! The Delaney who’d sent him the pie was the one he’d taken to bed at the Bellemont.

CONNER WAS FURIOUS. Evidently Delaney wasn’t what she’d appeared to be. She wasn’t the daughter of a prominent farmer, as she’d claimed. She had no brothers or sisters, going to high school or otherwise. She didn’t live in Jerome; she lived right here in Dundee. Yet she’d seemed so sincere. He’d believed everything she told him, but now all he knew for sure was that she’d wanted to have sex with him, and he’d stupidly obliged.

What a fool! Stephen had probably hired her to intercept him at the hotel and lead him astray, hoping he’d never show up at the ranch. But either his uncle hadn’t coached her well or he hadn’t paid her enough, because, instead of tightening the noose, she’d abandoned the project before it could interfere with his arrival in Dundee.

“I want to talk to her,” he said. “Is she at the library right now?”

Rebecca sent what looked like a silencing glare to the others, the blonde in particular, then hurried toward him and tried to drag him outside.