The dress was the color of autumn leaves. It brought out the reddish highlights in her dark hair. She checked herself in the mirror, pleased. Nothing could ruin this night.

As Jolene went out the door, she grabbed the muffins Midge had brought her. Tinker ate anything when he was on the road. He’d appreciate the muffins and now she’d be able to take Midge’s basket back to her. This was working out well.

As she walked toward her car, she noticed that there was something stuck under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side.

She plucked a small folded sheet of white paper from beneath her wiper. There was just enough light from the overhead farm light to read the crudely written note.

Watch your step.

“You clean up nice,” Russell said when he picked Dulcie up at her motel.

She smiled. “I could say the same of you.” And just when she thought he couldn’t look more handsome. He wore a pale gray Stetson, a red-checked Western shirt, jeans and boots. While he was dressed much like the first time she’d seen him, there was definitely something different about him tonight.

He looked shy and ill at ease. He didn’t date much, she thought, and she found that charming. So what had made him ask her out, she wondered, amused.

He opened the passenger-side door of his pickup for her, so chivalrous, and went around to slide behind the wheel. She felt as if she was going to her first prom. It gave her an odd, almost old-fashioned feeling.

Country music came on the radio as he started the truck. She was disappointed when he reached over and turned it off.

Whitehorse was hopping tonight and the Northern Lights restaurant was no exception. Dulcie counted a couple dozen pickups parked along the main street. She could hear more country music coming from one of the bars down the street as she and Russell entered the busy restaurant.

It surprised her a little to realize he’d reserved a table for them. But then Russell Corbett didn’t seem like a man who left much to chance.

“So want to tell me what this is really about?” she asked once they were seated and the waitress had taken their orders for two large T-bone steaks, medium rare.

“I wanted a steak?” he said.

She smiled and shook her head.

“I wanted to get to know you better?”

That made her chuckle.

“What if I told you it was a spur-of-the-moment invitation that I regretted the minute I asked?”

She laughed. “That’s more like it.”

He seemed to relax. “I am curious about you.”

“How so?”

“I can’t figure you out. You’re obviously a city girl and yet you’ve got grit. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you with that crowbar. Not many women would have gone into that house.”