He glanced down at the dust and leftover cattle poop on his expensive hand-tooled leather boots. They needed polishing. He’d worn them out into the pasture to look at a sick bull just before he’d left for Catelow. Sloppy, he thought. He should have changed them for something cleaner.

“I never thought we’d have our own shop right here in town,” a young woman with blond-streaked brown hair in a tight bun was saying to a slightly taller woman as they came down the sidewalk. “All sorts of exotic yarns, just right for knitting…”

“Knitting,” Cort scoffed.

The plain woman looked up at him with big brown eyes in a pleasant but not really pretty face. She wore no makeup at all. Shame, he thought. She might not look half-bad if she tried to look attractive. Nice mouth, rounded chin, pretty complexion. But she dressed like a bag lady, and that tightly pulled-up hair wasn’t at all appealing.

The dark brown eyes were openly glaring at him as their owner looked up, a long way up the rangy, muscular body to the lean, tanned face under the cream-colored cowboy hat. “If I had boots as nasty as yours,” she said in a soft but biting tone, “I wouldn’t be so insulting about another person’s choice of hobbies.”

His eyebrows arched. “Do you rock, too?” he asked pleasantly.

She frowned. “Rock?”

“It goes with knitting. Chairs? Rocking chairs?” he taunted.

The glare got worse. “I don’t sit in a rocking chair to knit!”

“You can do it standing up?”

The look, added to the suggestive velvety tone, brought a scarlet flush to her cheeks. She started to come back with something even worse when she was interrupted by her name being called.

“Mina!”

She turned. Bart came down the sidewalk grinning. “Hey, girl!” he teased.

She laughed. It changed her whole face. She looked much more interesting now to the tall cowboy who’d been insulting her.

“Hi, Bart,” she replied. “I haven’t seen you since the church picnic!”

“I’ve been keeping a low profile. You know, so all the women wouldn’t embarrass themselves mobbing me.”

The brunette beside the one who was talking to Bart laughed.

Bart looked down at her with a smile. “You can laugh,” he returned. “I know the men mob you. I’ve seen them do it, you gorgeous brunette, you.”

She laughed again. “Stop that, or I’ll tell my husband you’re flirting with me.”

He held up both hands. “Oh no, please don’t,” he said at once. “I don’t need John Callister looking me up with his shotgun.”

“He wouldn’t dare,” Sassy Callister retorted. “He needs a new breeding bull and he likes the look of yours.”

“I noticed.” He grinned. “Thank him for his patronage, in advance. Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce you. This is my cousin from Texas, Cort Grier.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sassy said with a smile and a nod.

The other woman didn’t smile or nod.

“This is Sassy Callister.” Bart introduced the brunette. “And this is Mina Michaels,” he added, indicating the woman with the glaring brown eyes.