Free Wild Cowboy Ways by Carolyn Brown

for you. Welcome to Dry Creek.”
    “I’m pleased to meet you, Lizzy,” he said.
    “I have what you need in the warehouse. It’s twenty dollars extra to deliver it unless you spend five hundred dollars, and I can get it there tomorrow.” She circled around behind the cash register and hit several buttons, then looked up and said, “Cash or credit card?”
    “Credit card and I reckon that order mounts up to a lot more than five hundred dollars so I’d appreciate it if you’d deliver it to the Lucky Penny. Tomorrow is fine. You mind if I put a flier up there on your bulletin board with those others?”
    “What are you selling? Surely you’re not already leaving the ranch.” Her dishwater-blond hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and those light brown eyes had more questions behind them than whether he was leaving Dry Creek before he’d even unpacked.
    Blake headed toward the front of the store. “Not selling anything and, no, I’m determined to make that ranch profitable so I’m not even thinking about leaving. I’m giving away mesquite wood to anyone who wants to come get it. Folks are welcome to cut down however much they want for free.” He used four thumbtacks stuck on the outside of the corkboard to attach the flier he’d made the night before on his computer. “How long have you been in business?” He handed her his business credit card.
    “My whole life.” She pulled it free from his fingers and ran it through the machine, then handed it back, waited a second for the tape to roll out of the cash register, and laid it in front of him. “Sign right there.”
    He scrawled his name on the bottom. “Are you the person I talked to when Irene showed up on my doorstep?”
    She gave him his copy. “Yes, I am. Are you going to be home before noon today? I hear the church ladies are bringing more food.”
    “Yes, ma’am, I will definitely be there. How long have you worked here?” he asked.
    “I own this place,” she said.
    She’d been coolly friendly but she hadn’t flirted with him. Was he losing his touch? What if he was never able to entice a woman into his bed again?
    Then he saw the engagement ring on her left hand and he could breathe again. “When are you getting married?”
    She held up the ring and looked at it as if seeing it for the first time. A bright smile lit up her face. “In March. If you are still here, you are invited to the wedding. It will be held at the church with the reception in the fellowship hall.”
    “Thank you. I’ll be there for sure because, Miz Lizzy, I will definitely still be around.” He stopped at the door, settled his cowboy hat on his head, and turned around before he opened the door. “You own the store down the block, too?”
    “No, that’s still Mama’s business but she won’t mind if you put up a flyer,” Lizzy answered. “Don’t forget. Eleven o’clock. And act surprised. Don’t tell them I told you. Don’t want them to be disappointed if you weren’t home. They’ve probably been cooking for two days.”
    He gave her the thumbs-up sign and stepped out into the harsh January wind. Oklahoma had its own song about the wind coming swooping down the plains, but they couldn’t hold a candle that day to the Texas wind blowing dead leaves and dirt down the sidewalk between the feed store and the service station–slash–convenience store on the other corner of the block.
    Four empty buildings with either dirty windows or newspaper covering the windows separated the feed store on one corner of the block and the convenience store on the other end. The faded signs said at one time there had been a beauty and barbershop combination, a clothing store, a café, and a bakery in Dry Creek. He glanced across the street at the empty places on that side with windows so dirty that he couldn’t even see what kind of signs might have been written on them in past days.
    He bypassed two gas pumps and crossed a wooden porch into the store that was set back from