The Secret Agent's Surprises. Tina Leonard

replied.

      “I’ll just get some tea for you gentlemen, and some cookies,” Priscilla said, and Cricket quickly followed her.

      “Why didn’t you tell me he was coming?” Cricket demanded in a rushed whisper.

      “You’ve never cared who my customers were before,” she said, gently teasing her friend. “That handsome man wearing old boots and worn-out jeans isn’t anybody you’d be interested in.” She put two delicate white cups on the counter for Cricket to fill. “I have no mugs to serve men with,” Priscilla lamented, and then realized her friend had gone to the mirrored wall in the back of the store and was busily putting on lipstick. “What are you doing?”

      “Nothing,” Cricket said.

      Priscilla blinked. “You’ve never primped for customers before.”

      “There’s a first time for everything.”

      “I see,” Priscilla said, and went back to the cups to fill them herself. Glancing up, she caught Cricket patting her hair. She shook her head. “I vote we declare a moratorium on Morgan men.”

      “I agree.” Cricket glanced out the pass-through window. “They’ve at least sat down at a table now, instead of circling each other like wrestlers.”

      “That’s a happy thought.” Priscilla put some cookies on a plate. “Maybe we should just stay in here and not break the flow.”

      “I’ll serve them,” Cricket said, taking the plate and swiftly leaving the room.

      Priscilla smiled and put the cups and pitcher on another tray. A sweet-natured deacon and a restless cowboy—it was never going to happen.

      IT WAS NEVER going to happen, Pete realized as he watched his brother walk away from Priscilla’s tea shop, then climb into a brand-new black truck and speed away. Jack had heard “Pop’s sick” and he’d taken off faster than wildfire. Pete couldn’t blame his brother, but he’d so wanted to handle the situation better than he apparently had.

      “Where’d your brother go?” Cricket asked as she approached the table.

      “Back to wherever circuit-rodeo cowboys go when they’re…” He was about to say pissed , then elected to soften his words. “When they’re not interested in the topic of the day.”

      She set the tray down. “Oh.”

      The deacon sounded so disappointed that Pete glanced up. “Why?”

      “I barely got to meet him, unlike the rest of your family.” Cricket smiled at him. “Priscilla, you can come out of hiding.”

      Pete’s brow furrowed. “Hiding?”

      “I was trying to give you and your brother some privacy,” Priscilla said, coming in and setting another tray on the table. She sat across from him, as did Cricket. “But we can eat his cookies.”

      “Guess we’ll have to,” Pete said, taking one.

      “Things didn’t go well?” Priscilla asked, and he shook his head.

      “Not a bit. But thanks for letting us meet here.”

      “No problem. Wish it had helped.”

      “He wouldn’t have come to the ranch, and he avoids me when I try to meet him at a rodeo.” Pete shrugged. “We’re hardheaded in my family.”

      “No kidding.” Priscilla poured everyone some tea and put the tray on a nearby table so they’d have elbow room. “So I’ve been thinking about the babies. I’m going to go by and see them.”

      “Oddly enough,” Pete said, “I, too, have been thinking about them. I’ve already been by for a visit.”

      “You have?” Priscilla said.

      Cricket asked, “Are they darling?”

      “They’re small,” Pete said. “Tiny. I’ve seen, I don’t know, chickens that were bigger.”

      “Oh, boy,” Priscilla said. “Is your father still talking about them?”

      “Nonstop. And you, I might add.”

      Priscilla blinked. “Outside of a bake sale or donating some clothes, I can’t be party to any plans your father may cook up.”

      “Yeah, I know. I told him that. And he said he understood. Then he wanted me to tell you that he respects that a woman like you isn’t interested in money.”

      Cricket stared at her friend. “You never said anything about money. What money?”

      Priscilla shook her head. “I have no idea. We never discussed money.”

      Pete frowned. “Money’s always first on the table with Pop when he wants something.”

      “Not this time,” Priscilla said. “He was only offering you, I guess.”

      “Hey,” Pete said, “don’t make it sound like you drew the short straw.”

      Cricket helped herself to a cookie. “I have to head back to the church. It was good to see you, Pete. I’m so sorry things didn’t work out better for you.”

      “Me, too.” He got up as Cricket stood. The two women hugged goodbye, then Cricket left. Priscilla turned the shop sign to Closed and suddenly Pete found himself alone for the first time with the woman his father had proposed to on his behalf.