She smiled at the other cocktail waitress working that night. It wasn’t Charlene’s fault that Ali was more interested in chasing after Grant Cooper for information about his sister than she was delivering drinks. “Sorry about that, Charlene.” She couldn’t push Grant out of her mind, but she could at least do what she was being paid to do. She hurried over to the bar and began loading up a tray. “Marty, you work most nights, right?”
The bartender didn’t stop polishing glasses with his towel. “Most.”
“Has he been in here before? Grant Cooper?”
“That’s the guy you were just talking to?” Marty shrugged. “He’s been in a couple times.”
“Recently?”
“Yeah, I guess. The last few weeks, anyway.”
“He ask any questions?”
Marty smiled wryly. “Yeah, what’ve we got on tap.”
“About something other than beer?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Why? What’s the story?”
“No story. I was just curious.”
“You’re never just curious, little... Ali,” Squire interjected, stopping next to the bar and handing her a twenty. Not too long ago, she’d learned that the prosperous rancher from Weaver was sort of her relative. “Gloria and I are headin’ out now.”
Ali held up the twenty-dollar bill between two fingers. “What’s this?”
“Bribery. For next time you pull me over for speeding.”
“I’ve got a better idea, Squire.” She plucked the hat off his gray head and tucked the twenty into the hatband. “Just stop speeding.”
He guffawed and clapped her on the back with one of his big, rough hands. “You’re a good girl, Ali, even if you got that uppity shrew for a granny. Ya oughta be finding a husband like that sis of yours has now.”
She shook her head. “Nobody left who’s worth marrying, Squire, since you’ve been hitched to Gloria all these years.”
Standing near the doorway, Gloria sniffed loudly. “You’re welcome to the old coot, Ali,” she called. “You just say the word.”
“Eh, she needs a young buck like that fella she was just talkin’ to.” Squire winked at her as he headed toward his wife and the exit. “Someone who can keep up with her.”
Ali chuckled as was expected of her, and picked up the heavy tray.
But the truth was, she was thirty years old. She’d been dating since she was sixteen, and in all that time, she’d never met a man she’d been inclined to marry. And even though there’d been all sorts of inclinations circling inside her since she’d met Grant Cooper, none of them were in the “proper” realm of marriage.
As for her thoughts of Grant inhabiting an improper realm? Now that was a whole different kettle of fish.
But it was a lot more important to get Grant Cooper on board when it came to finding his sister than it was to think about properly improper-ing him.
She finished delivering the drinks and returned to load up her tray again.
“You going to work again tomorrow night?” Marty had pulled out the schedule and set it next to the drink station.
She sighed. The thought of spending another five hours wearing high heels held no appeal whatsoever, particularly after spending eight hours on her feet doing traffic duty, which was Gowler’s latest punishment for her. But she still needed to get her truck out of the shop. “Yeah. And probably the night after that, if I can.”
Marty scribbled on the schedule with his pencil. “You got it, little lady.”
She made a face and tossed a lemon curl at him. “Very funny.”
“I thought so.” He grinned. “So what is behind your curiosity with that guy, Grant? Been a while since you dumped Keith Gowler. You finally looking for some fresh flesh?”
“Don’t be gross, Marty.” She preferred not to think that she’d dumped Keith since they’d only dated a few weeks, but it was true she’d been the one to put the brakes on dating him. “Grant might be a link to Layla.”
Looking surprised, Marty stopped what he was doing. Most everyone in town, and particularly those who worked at the bar, knew a baby had been abandoned on the Swift brothers’ doorstep last month. “He’s the baby’s father?”
“Uncle. He’s Daisy Miranda’s brother.”
He propped his elbows on the bar. “No kidding. First time he came in, he told me he was staying at the old Carmody place outside of town.”
“I know that now, so don’t rub it in, okay?” Ali had been to New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho and California—all on her own time and Linc’s pennies—following the circuitous trail that Daisy Miranda had left in her wake after quitting her job at Magic Jax. What Ali had learned along the way was that there had been only two consistent things about Daisy. One—her inconsistency. And two—her habit of sending postcards to a man named Grant Cooper that were routinely marked “return to sender.” But one of those postcards had gone against that trend. It had been returned to the post office right here in Braden with a label on it containing a forwarding address for a desolate ranch located nineteen-point-six miles outside of town.
“Did you ever meet the Carmodys?” Marty pulled a tray of clean glasses from the dishwasher and started emptying it. “Roger and Helen?”
Ali shook her head. “I don’t recall, but I suppose our paths would have probably crossed somewhere along the way. Can’t really live in Braden all your life and not have run into everyone else.” She nabbed one of the glasses, filled it with water and gulped it down. She hadn’t had time to eat between her shift at the police department and when she’d gone on duty at Magic Jax, and her stomach was growling in the worst way. “I assume you did.” Since he knew their names and all.
“They went to the same church as my grandma. Helen died way before he did.” He made a face. “I think they were as uptight as my grandma, too.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about that. But I do know the bank took back Roger Carmody’s property about ten years ago and he was forced to move away. I did not know, until just this week, however, that it had been bought at auction by none other than Grant Cooper, who turns out to be the brother of Daisy Miranda. He never lived there, though. Until now. He’s got his work cut out for him. Leaving it vacant all those years was just an invitation for vandals.” She set her glass in the rack of dirty dishes. “He’s here and claiming he doesn’t know anything about his sister’s whereabouts or her baby.”
“You don’t believe him?”
Did she? Ali picked up her loaded tray again. “I think it’s a lot of coincidences.”
“In other words, you don’t believe him.”
There was something about Grant Cooper that made her instinctively want to believe him.
Or maybe it was just those darned aqua eyes.
“It’s too soon to tell, Marty. It’s just too soon to tell.”
* * *
Eighteen hours later, Ali was working her way along Central Avenue, trying to pretend her feet hadn’t turned into blocks of ice despite her boots as she monitored the frost-rimmed parking meters lining the four blocks of the downtown area. Since it had been snowing steadily since that morning, she didn’t feel particularly inclined to punish the folks who didn’t want to keep running out to feed coins into the meters every ninety minutes. But she also knew if she didn’t write at least a few parking tickets, Gowler would accuse her of being soft. And being “soft” wasn’t going to earn her an opportunity to move up the ranks—assuming he ever forgave her for dumping his son.
So she kept tramping up and down the snowy street looking for the worst of the offenders. She pulled out her pad and halfheartedly wrote out a couple citations, tucking them beneath windshield wipers before shoving her cold hands back into her gloves.
When she reached the edge of the business district, she crossed the quiet street and started making her way back down the other side. For every t
wo meters with time on the clock, there were two more that had expired. She tucked her nose farther into the knit scarf wound around her neck and kept walking.
“Templeton!”
She stiffened at the sound of her name and looked toward the source. Sgt. Gowler was standing on the sidewalk in front of the library. She stomped her feet in place on the sidewalk. “Yes, sir?”
“Know for a fact that meter you just passed is expired.”
“By only a few minutes.”
“Expired is expired.”
She swallowed her retort and pulled her citation book out of her pocket again. “Yes, sir.”
It was obvious that he intended to stand there and wait to make sure she did her duty. She turned back to the last vehicle and peeled off her thick glove again so she could write out the parking ticket. “Parking shmarking,” she muttered under her breath.
If she had more than a few bucks in change to spare, she’d have carried it around in her pockets just to feed the dang meters herself. She tore the ticket off her pad and brushed the mound of snow off the windshield, then lifted the wiper enough to stick the ticket underneath it.
From the corner of her eye, she saw her boss go back inside the library.
Grumbling under her breath, she moved to the next expired meter next to a badly rusted truck. Her fingers were numb as she quickly marked the form and wrote in the license plate number. She yanked off the form and hurriedly shoved it under the wiper blade.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
She jerked up her head, looking toward the library again. But instead of Sgt. Gowler, this time it was Grant Cooper who’d come out onto the sidewalk.
He wore a dark jacket, unzipped, as if he was impervious to the weather that was currently making her long for life in the tropics. He had no scarf. Wore no gloves. Within seconds, his dark hair was dusted with snow. “I had ninety minutes on that thing,” he said, pointing a long finger at the meter. “I haven’t been in the library that long.”
“The meters don’t lie.” She blew on her fingers, warming them a little before stuffing them back inside her glove. She wanted to tell him that if it was up to her, the meters wouldn’t even exist on that street. They hadn’t been updated in the past generation and the town had an old repair guy on standby just to keep them in operation. But she also didn’t want her sergeant coming out again and seeing her flagrantly disregarding his instructions, either.
“Looks like you had a productive visit.” She gestured at the stack of books he was carrying. The book he’d pushed into her hands when she’d shown up at his door wasn’t far from her mind, though she’d paid no attention whatsoever to it at the time. “You must be a big reader.”
He showed her one cover. “Plumbing for Dummies. Not exactly pleasure reading.”
“Ah.” She couldn’t help a surprised laugh, as she shifted from one frozen stump to the other. “I actually need a copy of that one myself. My sisters and I own an old Victorian that we’re restoring.”
“Because you don’t have enough to do, slinging drinks and doling out parking tickets?” He moved past her and tugged the ticket free. “How much is this gonna cost me?”
She started to point at the street sign nearby that warned of the fine for parking violations, only to realize that the surface of it was obscured by icy snow. “Fifty bucks. If you don’t pay it by the date indicated on the ticket, the fine doubles. And it gets worse from there.” Considering the state of his ranch house and the state of the vehicle, she hoped he got the message. Even if it was outrageously high, paying the parking fine on time was the simplest way to avoid owing even more money.
“Nice payback, Officer.” The truck door screeched when he yanked it open and he tossed the ticket and his stack of books inside on the bench seat that was covered with a worn woven blanket. Maybe to keep his admittedly fine tushy warm or, if he was like Ali with her truck, to hide the rips and stains in the upholstery.
“Payback! For what?”
“Not cooperating as much as you wanted.” He climbed into the truck and yanked the door closed with another protesting screech of metal.
She rapped her gloved knuckles on the window.
He looked as annoyed as she felt, but he rolled down the window a few inches. His aqua eyes skated over her face. “Now what?”
“If I wanted payback,” she said evenly, “I would also write you up for the broken taillight and the expired tags on this heap of rust. Instead, I’ll just offer a friendly warning to get them taken care of as soon as possible.”
“Or?”
“Or the next patrolman who gets stuck on traffic duty might not be so easygoing about it and you’ll end up owing even more money that it doesn’t look much like you can afford.” She stepped back from the truck and smiled tightly. “Drive safe, now. I don’t know what sort of conditions you were used to before coming to Wyoming, but the roads are treacherous in this kind of weather.”
His lips thinned. He rolled up his window and cranked the engine. It started after a few tries, belching a cloud of black smoke from the tailpipe.
Ali winced and tucked her nose back into the protection of her knit scarf and watched him drive away.
Chapter Three
“You should have let Cooper skate on the expired parking meter.”
Ali set the mineral water and lime and the order of onion rings on the table in front of her sister Greer. If Magic Jax wasn’t so busy, she’d have set herself down, too, in the seat opposite her. “I had to choose between citing Grant Cooper or getting skewered by my sergeant again. If Gowler has an actual reason to write me up, it’ll be the first nail in my coffin with the department. And he only needs three nails.”
“He’s not going to fire the only female officer he’s got,” Greer countered. “Particularly if she’s not guilty of anything more serious than letting a new resident off a minor infraction with a warning. Everyone else with the department does it from time to time. Why not you?”
“Everyone else doesn’t make the mistake of dating his precious son, Madame Prosecutor. I am not taking any chances.”
Greer gave her a look. “I’m a defense lawyer.”
“Don’t remind me.” Greer was the oldest of the three triplets and worked with the public defender’s office. Maddie was the middle triplet. The ultimate do-gooder, she was a social worker with family services. Because of her role there, the family court judge had agreed to let her be the temporary caregiver for Layla.
Ali gestured at the stack of files sitting on the table next to her sister’s elbow. The public defender’s office workload was so huge that they also had a rotating crew of private attorneys who took cases pro bono. “Always trying to get the people I arrest off with just a slap on the wrist.”
“You do your job and I’ll do mine. That’s how it works. Gowler aside, you could have at least bargained a little with Cooper over the ticket. You catch more flies with honey, you know.”
Ali didn’t dare slip her toes out of her high-heeled shoes so she could wiggle some blood back into them. If she did, she feared she would never get her feet back into the shoes. And she really didn’t want to hear Greer’s advice at the moment. “You want anything else to go with those onion rings?”
“I shouldn’t even be eating these.” Greer plucked a ring from the basket. Magic Jax didn’t provide a full menu, but they did offer the usual types of bar food. “But I’m starving. Came straight here from the office.”
“If you change your mind, let me know.” She grabbed her tray and headed back to the bar, picking up empty glasses along the way. It was even busier than it had been the night before. Part of that was because it was Friday night. A larger part, she figured, was because Jax himself was actually mixing drinks behind the bar. For as long as she’d been picking up shifts at Magic Jax, she could only recall a handful of times when he’d actually played
bartender.
Every time he did, though, word seemed to spread and the ladies came in droves.
It wasn’t surprising. Jaxon Swift was rich. He didn’t take any part in the running of the family oil business like Linc did, but he was still part of Swift Oil. He was also as handsome as a blond devil and loved women just as much as they loved him. In short, nothing much had changed since he and Ali had been in high school together.
And now, thanks to Maddie marrying his brother, Linc, they were theoretically one big happy family.
She went behind the bar to rinse the empties and stack them in the dishwasher tray. “Busy night. I didn’t expect it to be, considering the snow today,” Ali said to her boss.
Jax took the lid off the blender and filled three hurricane glasses with the virulent pink daiquiris that the giggling college girls at table four had ordered. “Busy is the way I like it.” He set the glasses on a tray, leaving Ali to top them with the requisite whipped cream and sliced strawberry. He glanced at his next order and reached for a bottle of wine with one hand and a bottle of gin with the other. “Keeps us all in business.”
They both glanced toward the door as it opened and a flurry of snowflakes danced inside. A few more women hurried in and started shimmying out of their cold-weather gear. One wore a spaghetti-strapped blue sequin dress under her parka. The other had on a strapless red corset with rhinestone-studded jeans.
Both fluffed their hair as they focused on Jax behind the bar.
Ali had a hard time not rolling her eyes as she finished fanning one of the strawberry slices over a mound of cream. “I think I’m the only one here who’s never wanted to date you,” she told him.
He chuckled. “What about Greer?”
“Greer never dated anything except her textbooks. Besides, it would have been gross. You went out with Maddie.”
He deftly poured two glasses of wine, set them on a tray for Charlene and tossed the empty bottle into the bin beneath the bar top. “Yeah, but she married my big brother.” He shrugged and grinned. “No accounting for taste, sometimes.” He quickly prepared a gin-and-grapefruit, shaking out the last few drops of grapefruit juice from the plastic pitcher before tossing it into the stainless-steel sink, and added the glass to Charlene’s order. “No more grapefruit.” Then he picked up a knife and finished prepping the last daiquiri while she fussed with her second one. “You’re lagging, Ali.”
Show Me a Hero Page 3