Page 1 of Cowboy Falling Hard

Chapter 1

Let your differences be your strengths. We've been married forty years and figured this out early on. Hubs is big picture I do the detailed things. It has worked for us. Also don't sweat the small stuff. Just this week we were nit picking each other and I stopped and said we don't do this to each other. We were able to stop the behavior. - Pam from the Bay Area CA

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“THIS IS MY FRIEND DWIGHTEckenrode, and he would like to use your services.”

Dwight, standing in the churchyard in Sweet Water, North Dakota, didn’t usually shrink away from attention.

He was one of the best baseball players in the country, and he was used to cameras and crowds and adulation.

What he was not used to was having his best friend in the world, Bryce Shaker, introduce him in such a way to a group of old ladies sitting at a picnic table beside a little country church and having all of their eyes widen and look at him like they were trying to figure out what was wrong with him that he would need the services of matchmakers.

The lady with blue hair spoke. “Dwight would like a quilt?” Her voice sounded incredulous.

Dwight had the oddest urge to laugh hysterically. Probably nerves.

“No.” Bryce, the cracker head, smirked.

Dwight wouldn’t mind wiping the smirk from his face. This was not something he wanted to joke about.

He had been trying for eighteen months to catch the eye of Orchid Baldwin. Her family owned the auction house in Sweet Water, and in the last eighteen months, Dwight had found every excuse he could to travel from Houston, where he played for the professional baseball team there, to North Dakota, on the pretense of visiting his friend. He would bet he’d gone to more auctions than most people who actually lived in North Dakota, but Orchid never seemed to notice him.

“Not your quilting services, although we appreciate them,” Bryce said, with another side smirk. “But your matchmaking services.”

“Oh, we’re not for hire, are we, Charlene?” a lady sitting beside the blue-haired lady said.

“We might be, Teresa. Hear them out.” The blue-haired lady said the words slyly, like she already knew what he was going to say.

Despite how serious he felt about the situation, Dwight was tempted to smile. The blue-haired lady was his kind of girl. Even if she was thirty years older than he was.

Dwight looked around, not wanting to be overheard by anyone else in the churchyard. It was full, with people milling about, but no one was paying any attention to them.

“I heard you’re quite good at what you do.” A little compliment for the ladies wouldn’t hurt, he was sure. “I’ve been trying to catch the eye of a girl here in town for a long time, and I haven’t been successful. Bryce recommended I hire you.”

“I’m not comfortable being for hire,” Teresa insisted.

The other ladies were shaking their heads as well, but Charlene’s expression was considering.

“Are you moving to Sweet Water?”

Bryce had told him to make sure he told them that he was. But he couldn’t say something that wasn’t true. People did it all the time, but lying was something he would never be comfortable with.

He hesitated for a moment.

Charlene shook her head. “We don’t match our hometown girls with men who are going to move them away.” She lifted her shoulder. “Sorry.”

“I only hesitated because I wanted to make sure I told you the truth. I have one year left on my contract that keeps me in Houston, but I’m thinking about retiring at the end of the season.”

He might be one of the best ballplayers in the country, but baseball wasn’t as fulfilling to him as it used to be. He was restless. Wanted more of...something. Felt like his life was empty, a big void that needed to be filled.

“Come back when you’re sure of it.” Charlene waved a hand, dismissing him again.

“I promise if you help me, I won’t move anyone away from Sweet Water.”

“His word is good. I’ll vouch for him.”

Dwight wanted to hug his friend. He felt like his word was good, but to have his friend jump in without him asking and vouch for him made his chest swell. It pushed away some of the emptiness he’d just been thinking about and made him think that maybe that’s what he needed. Someone who believed in him. A town full of people who had each other’s backs. He’d been in Sweet Water long enough to know that’s what they were.

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