he was perfectly aware of her discomfort.
And that he was enjoying it.
“Mom also told me that Caroline says you’re not planning to be at their Christmas party. You’ve been coming every year with your folks since we were kids.”
For as long as Charlene could remember, Nanette and Dale Dalton had hosted a huge Christmas party for their family and friends. Since Charlene’s mother, Caroline, and Nanette were the best of friends, the only years Charlene had been able to pass on the event were when she’d been living in California. “Not every year,” she reminded.
He just gave her a long look.
She broke his gaze and stared blindly at the bolts of fabrics propped against the walls. Her heart felt like it was pushing out of her chest. “I didn’t think you’d want me there,” she finally admitted.
There was no way Dane would be absent. He now ran the ranch where he’d been born and raised. His folks lived there, too, though at some point during the years Charlene had been in California, he’d moved from the main house into the foreman’s house. Which was where he fully expected the woman he chose for a wife to live with him.
Forty minutes away from town—and her boutique.
She could have adjusted to the distance if he hadn’t thought her business was useless to begin with. He’d always said he couldn’t understand all the hoopla women made over a dress. But then, he was satisfied to pick up his flannel shirts from a hardware store.
“It’s their party,” he repeated. “Just because you can’t abide the idea of marrying me doesn’t mean you need to wipe them off the planet, too.”
She winced. “I never said I couldn’t abide—”
“I know what you said.” His voice was flat. “You said no. I told Mom I’d talk to you about the party and I have. If you want to disappoint a woman who’s treated you like one of her own daughters your entire life, that’s on you.” Then he turned on his boot heel and walked away.
Dane strode across the shop, imagining that he could feel Charlene’s gaze burning into his back.
He put on a pair of mental blinders and stepped around the white Christmas tree that stood in the middle of the shop, dripping with glittering jewelry, and edged past the rustic wood ladder that was draped with sheer lacy panties and bras. He finally reached his mother, who was deep in discussion with Meredith over the merits of a red sweater over a blue one.
“Which do you think?” Nanette held both sweaters up for Dane’s opinion.
All he wanted to do was pay for whatever his mother figured Becca would like best and get the hell outta Dodge. But he knew his mom. She’d figure his hurry to leave Charlene’s would have to do with the shop’s owner. And since she’d be right, he stifled his impatience. “The red one.”
“Scarlet,” Nanette corrected, smiling impishly. “Excellent choice, honey.” She handed it to him. “I’m going next door to the boot shop.”
“Don’t be bringing home any more Castleton’s,” he warned. “That new puppy of yours’ll chew them up, too.”
She just smiled and hurried through the garland-draped entrance. Now that he’d done the deed—talked to Charlene about the party—she was smiling at him again. As if one five-minute conversation with Leenie would magically solve anything.
“Wish I could afford a pair of Castleton’s.” Meredith was smiling good-naturedly as she rang up the stupidly expensive sweater. “Out of my budget, I’m afraid.”
“Out of most people’s budget,” Dane murmured, but from the corner of his eye, he was watching the archway leading to the workroom. Willing Charlene to appear. Wishing she wouldn’t. “Sort of like shopping at this place.” He was proud of Charlene’s accomplishments. Though he’d rather chew glass than admit it and have her leave Red Rock—and him—all over again when her ambitions took her off to some other place again. He was a rancher, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew exactly how successful she was becoming.
Meredith was laughing lightly. “Your sister will love the sweater. Cashmere never goes out of style. It’s worth every penny.” She looked past him to the young blonde who was carrying the same sweater—only this time in blue—up to the register. “Felicity, tell him I’m right.”
“Cashmere’s worth every penny,” the other woman assured him. He recognized her and her sunny expression from the chocolate shop his mother loved.
“Dane prefers the feel of flannel,” Charlene said smoothly, sauntering in from the back room. She was wearing skinny brown pants, a flimsy gold blouse—through which he could easily see a scanty brown camisole that was a whole lot more underwear than shirt—and about a dozen gold bracelets. And her blue eyes, lighter than the pale winter sky outside, seemed to drill into him. “Isn’t that right, Dane?”
What he preferred was the feel of her ivory skin lying warm and naked against him. But all of that had come to a screeching halt six months ago when she’d tossed his marriage proposal back in his face.
He was forty years old. You’d think he’d have learned a few things since the first time he’d proposed, when he’d been so afraid of losing her that he’d asked her to marry him two hours after she’d graduated from high school.
She’d laughed, as if he’d been joking, and then she’d hustled her shapely rear on out to California, not returning until a few years ago.
At least this last time she hadn’t laughed, though the results had been the same. Him alone. Left wanting a woman for a wife who had no wanting for him as a husband.
It was just his own bad luck that he couldn’t seem to get the woman herself from beneath his skin. “Flannel keeps a man warm,” he muttered and slammed the cowboy hat he’d been holding at his side on his head.
Then he spun on his heel and got the hell out of Charlene’s.
The moment the bell over the door went silent after Dane’s departure, Charlene sank onto the slipper chair next to the lingerie display.
Meredith handed her a tissue and Charlene pressed it against the tears collecting in the corners of her eyes.
“Why did you say no when he asked you to marry him?” Felicity sounded more curious than sympathetic. “You’re obviously miserable.”
She was miserable. But she also wished the town of Red Rock didn’t have such an active grapevine. The only one she’d told about Dane’s proposal had been—strangely enough—Emily Fortune. Now the whole town seemed to know, though she had a hard time believing that the cultured Emily would have gossiped. Not when she’d clearly loathed people gossiping about her.
Charlene knew Dane wouldn’t have talked, either. But that was Red Rock. Talk always got around.
Charlene crumpled the tissue in her fist and got up. “Because that’s what smart, capable women do when they’re entirely incompatible with someone.”
At least, that’s what she told herself every night when she went to bed alone.
“Incompatible shmatible,” Meredith tsked. “The man is rockin’ hot.”
Privately, Charlene agreed on that particular point. “Did you bring the chocolates?” she asked Felicity.
The young woman nodded and pulled several pretty aqua boxes out of the shopping bag by her side. “As promised.”
Charlene flipped open one of the boxes. Nestled inside was an assortment of Felicity’s beautiful handmade confections. She’d bartered the large order in exchange for the