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stared at him, wobbling a little when she touched down, off balance. She dragged a hand through her tangled hair. It hurt enough to snap her back to reality. You’re a grown man, she wanted to say.
    Too quickly, like an overgrown, shame-faced teenager, Marshall Stone straightened his shirt and smoothed the dark locks she’d tousled.
    Annie was dumbfounded. But she couldn’t stop him or scold him.
    If that was his employer—and she had to assume that Stone had guessed right—she could understand, sort of, why Marshall wouldn’t want to get caught necking in a doorway.
    â€œGo,” she said in a low voice. “Just go.”
    Marshall hesitated, reaching out to stroke her hair. She pushed his hand away and gave him a shove. “I mean it. I need a minute to myself.”
    He seemed to get what she wasn’t saying. Her parents would come out sooner or later. She didn’t want them to see her with a blurry mouth and high color in her cheeks and messed-up hair.
    Since she’d moved home, they hadn’t bugged her about any of her infrequent dates or what she’d done or even when she came home, except that time at four in the morning when she’d had a flat tire on a girls’ night out. Which was reasonable.
    She moved back into the shadows of the doorway, watching Marshall Stone walk away from her. There was nothing about the way he made her feel that could be described as reasonable.
    What on earth had she just done? She usually insisted on getting to know a man fairly well before she kissed him. But she and Marshall had put the kissing first and the conversation second. Actually, no. They’d never exchanged enough words to add up to a whole conversation.
    Something about the man from Wyoming shredded her common sense, to say nothing of her self-respect. She wanted him too much. For no good reason.
    She saw him approach Chuck Pfeffer, who was standing with the councilman named Gitterson near a huge new truck, a dark color that looked iridescent under the street lamp despite its dusting of snow.
    â€œThere you are,” Chuck called to him. “We were looking for you inside. Did you come out for a smoke or something? Can I bum a cigarette?”
    â€œI just needed some fresh air. And no, I don’t smoke.”
    â€œAw, hell. Are you telling the truth? You look like an ad for smokes, pal. But I guess they don’t have those billboards anymore.” Chuck paused, chuckling at his attempt at humor. “Sure you don’t have some cigs in your truck?”
    He thumped the hood of the huge new vehicle, making the snow dance. Marshall didn’t tell him to quit. Some cowboy, Annie thought. So not.
    From where she was, she took a longer look at the truck. It was not only new, it was expensive and loaded with custom features from what she could see. Did surveyors make that much money? She didn’t get it.
    Marshall Stone wasn’t who she’d thought he was. It dawned on her that he might have earned enough to pay for a truck like that by doing something else. But what? His trade didn’t lend itself to crooked dealings. Surveying was all about straight lines. Measurements had to be accurate.
    â€œJust kidding.” Pfeffer slapped Marshall on the back. “Listen, me and Joe wanted to talk to you about that old buzzard Tyrell Bennett. I don’t know who he thinks he is—”
    Annie froze. Marshall Stone said not one word in her father’s defense, just let Pfeffer lead him away, when the loudmouth seemed to realize that someone might overhear.
    She regretted what she’d just let him do to her in the doorway. Deeply regretted it.
    Annie stepped out of the doorway, heading back to the town hall. She walked quickly past the alley that ran alongside it, stopped by a hooting voice she now recognized.
    Pfeffer and Gitterson were standing by a row of garbage cans. It would have been an ideal photo opportunity if she’d had a