“Well, there he is,” Clovis said suddenly.
Amanda looked up from her last sips of iced tea to see him looking over her shoulder. “Who?” she asked and turned.
She didn’t need an answer. She got one, anyway.
“The boss.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She couldn’t close her mouth or form words. He’d taken off his hat and stood at the other end of the diner ironing out the brim with his hand, giving the diner a quick look around. His hair was tousled and his face clean-shaven and his jacket exchanged for an old gray rag wool sweater that had a little hole up by the shoulder. Same boots, though. Hard, battered and solid as their owner. As he stood there, several people in booths and at tables called out greetings.
Amanda was thinking that she should have turned back to Clovis. She should have remembered the value of discretion, or at least attempted to hide the flush that was slowly creeping up her neck at the sight of him. Then he responded to the townspeople and Amanda was frozen all over again.
He smiled. A real smile, warm and friendly and just a little shy, so that it crinkled up his eyes and showed the stark white of his teeth against his tanned features. He held out his hand again and again, greeting this neighbor and that with questions about relatives or animals or occupations.
Amanda could see that each person he greeted was truly glad to see him. The men showed respect, and the women showed the kind of maternal pride that tends to bloom around a local boy who’s done well. No wonder Jake Kendall didn’t need to leave town. He’d made it his own.
That smile, though. That crooked cant that said so much but betrayed so little. He was comfortable here. He belonged. He spoke the common language and knew he held the respect and affection of the people he met. Which made Amanda wonder what he felt every time he saw her.
She was about to get the chance to find out.
“Hey, boss,” Clovis called out with an upraised hand. “Over here.”
Finally, the urge to hide surfaced, but it was too late. He was turning their way. Amanda saw his expression stumble over her presence as surely as if he’d been a runner hitting a pothole. The pleasure dimmed; the certainty froze.
She was an alien. An interloper. Amanda could see it all the way across the room and resented it. She resented even more the loss of his smile. It had metamorphosed him completely, melting the rigid loner into a bright, open neighbor with just a trace of vulnerability peeking through. In other words, the man Lee had described all semester long.
But that wasn’t something he was willing to give Amanda just yet. She wasn’t someone he really knew. Someone he could trust. No matter what electricity the two of them kindled when they met, this was his place, and it was her job to accommodate. She might not have been from Lost Ridge, but her hometown wasn’t all that different. She knew from experience that she was going to have to earn that smile back.
Well, she decided, manufacturing what she hoped was an easy smile of greeting for him, I’ve earned everything I have so far. How hard could a simple smile be in comparison?
She almost laughed out loud. Every publisher and educator along the East Coast put together couldn’t match the determination in this one man. She was in trouble.
“Come over and sit down,” Clovis was inviting, even as Jake greeted a few more people on his way down the narrow aisle. “We was just talkin’ about you.”
Amanda turned on Clovis, wishing she could stop him or warn him or something and knowing there wasn’t anything she could say.
“About me?” Jake asked, coming to a stop at the booth.
He seemed to tower above Amanda. He did it on purpose, too, his eyes dark and suddenly a bit flat.
“The ranch,” Amanda amended quickly. “Clovis has been talking a little about his work, and that naturally led to what he’s doing now.”
“He tell you a lot, did he?”
His eyes seemed so hot, so cold at once, boring into hers. Leaving her no room for thought or deception. “Oh, yes,” she agreed, wondering why she felt like a speeder who’d just spotted a cop. “He remembered a lot of stories and riddles and songs his father and grandfather used on the trail. I even heard some new Jim Bridger stories I hadn’t come across yet.”
Slowly Jake nodded, his hat still in both hands, although his knuckles were a little taut. “Clovis has been known to tell some great stories.”
Clovis didn't seem to notice the sudden tension. “Have you eaten yet, boss? Sit on down.”
Jake seemed to startle a little at the sound of his foreman’s voice. “Oh...uh, no. You’re busy, Clovis.”
“Heck, no,” the little man challenged, scooting over to give him room. “We’re just jawin’, now. Mizz Marlow here was sharin’ some weather signs with me. You know, like as how bees don’t get wet and the birds wash in the dust when it’s about to rain. That kinda thing.”
Jake didn’t take his eyes off Amanda. Turning his hat once in his hands, he abruptly nodded. “All right.”
Amanda wasn’t sure whether she felt better or worse when he sat down. She certainly didn’t feel any more relaxed. His proximity danced along her nerve endings like static electricity. His distrust set her teeth on edge. His eyes drew her gaze like a hypnotist’s watch.
Once again, she thought she caught something unreadable in their depths, something that tugged at her. Confusion, ambivalence. Not contempt or anger, but frustration. Dislocation, as if he suddenly weren’t sure of himself.
