Read Online Small-Town Dreams by Kate Welsh - Free Book Online

have to battle high blood pressure. Something else would buckle, and her strong will would carry her forward on what he’d begun to suspect was the wrong path for her.
    “Mind if I tag along?” he asked as he caught up with her.
    “I’m on foot these days, but suit yourself. You could point out the other points of interest in town. We’ll call it a walking tour.”
    Josh grimaced. “You may as well hop into the truck. I need to stop at Earl’s for gas, and you just saw our only point of interest. Everything else is closed up till summer. We don’t get the ski trade here. The hunters who come through don’t need more than gas at Earl’s, the occasional hot meal at Irma’s and the odd item at The Trading Post, so the shop owners don’t bother to stay open in late fall or winter.”
    Joshua found his attention snagged by the look in her stormy blue eyes. He would swear he could see the wheels turning behind those arresting eyes of hers.
    “Maybe you could talk Earl into looking at my car sooner.”
    “Earl’s been known to be pretty stubborn,” he warned.
    She grinned. “But we’ve already established how stubborn each of us is. If we double-team him, we can talk him into looking at it today.”
    Before he could protest his unwillingness to put undue pressure on Earl, she barreled around the truck and opened the passenger door. Joshua stared at her over the hood, not knowing what to say. Sometimes she reminded him of a steamroller, and others, like when he’d seen her staring up at the Swenson house, of a sad little girl. A honk of the pickup’s horn made him grin. He guessed she was a little of both.
    “I’m coming. You’ve got to slow down, little lady,” he drawled. It was a southern parody of Earl’s upstate Pennsylvania twang, but it was the best he could do. “You’re on Mountain View time now.”
    She shot him a look full of exasperation. “Hopefully not for long.”
    “You know, I’m starting to get real insulted on behalf of everyone in town over this hurry of yours to get out of our little burg.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said on a sigh. “It isn’t what the town is so much as what it isn’t. Let’s just say this isn’t my idea of a vacation.”
    “Well then, what is?” he asked as he started the car.
    “I don’t know. Maybe a day or two lying by a pool and sleeping in—but then I’d want to do things. See things. Go places. Make memories to take out and remember when life drives me crazy.”
    “Sounds like just another variation on your everyday life. To me, a vacation would be to live in a way I don’t usually live. I see your idea of a vacation as the kind I should take and staying in Mountain View as exactly what you need.”
    He made a left into Earl’s and took the opportunity to glance at Cassidy to gauge her reaction to what he’d said. She looked thoughtful, if nothing else. A little progress, he thought, but before he could enjoy the triumph, he brought the truck to a stop and she jumped out of the car. By the time he’d set the brake, she was already off searching for Earl.
    “…but this is the same car you were working on yesterday,” she was saying when he came upon them inside the garage after he’d pumped his gas.
    “Well, now that’s mighty observant of you to notice, little lady. And I do appreciate your concern. I had a devil of a time loosening the bolts to…Oh, there I go running off at the mouth. You wouldn’t know a water pump from a fuel pump, would you?”
    “No, I’m sure I wouldn’t,” Cassidy admitted, her tone aggressive and businesslike. “And yes, I am concerned. You said you couldn’t look at my car until you did the work on the other people’s cars who were in line ahead of me. But now that won’t be for another day longer. I need to get out of here.”
    Joshua noticed Earl’s eyes shift to him as he stepped behind Cassidy. There was something calculating and shrewd in his expression that Josh had never noticed