Her Cowboy Distraction

by Carla Cassidy

  “We should probably head back in,” he said as he looked away and straightened from the tree trunk where he’d been leaning.

  Lizzy rose to her feet, reluctant to leave this place of peace and the man she’d momentarily shared it with, the man who she could swear had just a little bit of hunger in his eyes as their gazes had locked for that instant.

  When they stepped out of the woods, she saw that the horses were near where they had left them. “They don’t just run away or head back to the barn if you leave them alone?” she asked.

  “Some of them will.” He watched as she got back into Molly’s saddle, then he mounted his ride. “I have one mare who, if I leave her alone for a split second, runs for home no matter where she is in the pasture. Twice I was stuck walking back to the barn from wherever I’d been out in the fields because Nelly-Bell took off without me.”

  Lizzy laughed as she envisioned him cursing his way back to the barn to scold the wayward Nelly-Bell. “Poor Nelly-Bell,” she said. “She’s just a homebody kind of girl.”

  “Guess so,” he agreed.

  As the outbuildings, the barn and the house came into view, Lizzy was surprised that she didn’t want the day to end. It had to be around noon, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about lunch. He didn’t invite you for lunch, a little voice reminded her. All he’d invited her for was a ride on a horse.

  And she shouldn’t want anything else from him. He was a checkoff on her bucket list, and that’s all this would ever be. As they reached the barn, Lizzy realized some of the darkness had crept back into Daniel’s eyes and tension was back in his shoulders.

  “This was really nice, Daniel. Thanks so much for taking the time out of your day for me,” she said minutes later as they walked toward his truck.

  “No problem.”

  He seemed to have pulled into himself as they’d gotten off the horses. His eyes had shuttered, his expression once again set in stone.

  There had been several times during the morning that she’d seen the true Daniel Jefferson shining through. A sparkle in his eyes, a wry lift of his mouth into a smile. She liked that man.

  The man leading her back to the truck was the one she’d watched for four weeks come into the café and order two pieces of peach pie, a man more than half broken by grief. He had to be thinking about his wife, about what he’d lost.

  “You know, I’ve always heard that old saying that you should get back up on the horse that threw you,” she said when they were in the truck. “I hope after enough times passes you can get back on.”

  He started the truck and then darted a quick gaze at her. “What are you talking about?”

  She pointed to the house. “Your home looks beautiful and is obviously meant for a family. I hope at some point in the future you can put your sadness behind you, find love again and fill that place with children and happiness.”

  “Never going to happen,” he said firmly as she saw his hands tighten on the steering wheel. “I have no desire to ever marry again.”

  Lizzy wasn’t sure why the thought of him forever alone, forever with those haunted gray eyes, filled her with such sadness, but it did. And that, more than anything, made her realize she needed to stay away from Daniel Jefferson for the remainder of her time in Grady Gulch.

  Chapter 4

  “What are you doing here this morning?” Mary asked Lizzy on Wednesday morning as she walked sleepy-eyed through the back door and into the café kitchen. It was five-thirty in the morning and the sun was just beginning to faintly light the eastern sky.

  “Hi, Lizzy.” Junior Lempke stepped out of the walk-in refrigerator with a slab of bacon in his hands. He kept his gaze on the bacon as his cheeks warmed with color.

  “Hi, Junior.” She smiled at the big, sweet-tempered guy who was more child than man and then turned back to answer Mary. “I switched shifts with Brenda for today.” Lizzy stifled a yawn with the back of her hand.

  “Oh, that’s right.” Mary pulled a rack of golden-brown biscuits out of the industrial-size oven and set the tray on a cooling rack. “She has a doctor’s appointment this morning. Her knee has been giving her fits.”

  Lizzy nodded and yawned again. “I don’t know how she pulls herself out of bed each morning to work this shift. When my alarm clock went off, I was sure it had to be a mistake.”

  Mary smiled. “Brenda has been working the morning shift for years. She loves getting up before the sun and working breakfast.” Mary checked her watch. “And Candy should be here anytime.”

  “I’ll go ahead and get things ready for the early birds,” Lizzy said.

  “And pour yourself a cup of coffee. You look like you could use a little caffeine bounce,” Mary called after her as she left the kitchen and went into the dining area.

  “Definitely coffee,” Lizzy muttered to herself, and she went to the warmers that were already filled with several pots of the freshly brewed liquid.

  She poured herself a cup, took a sip and then got busy checking the area she’d work to make sure everything was ready for the morning crowd. The café would open exactly at six, and there were regular customers who would be standing at the door waiting when Mary unlocked it to officially start the day.

  It took Lizzy only minutes to make sure her station was ready for action, and then she did a quick run-through of the tables Candy would work, making sure napkin holders were filled, salt and pepper shaker lids were screwed on tight and tables were neat and clean.

  She wasn’t surprised that Candy was late. The young girl always complained about being scheduled for the morning shift on Wednesdays. But then, Candy complained about everything, Lizzy thought.

  When she was finished with everything, Lizzy paused to take a few more sips of her coffee, trying hard not to think about the man who had been uppermost in her thoughts since their horse-riding time together on Monday.

  On their ride back to her cabin, he’d said very little and she’d babbled on like a fool about the nice weather and how much she’d appreciated him letting her ride Molly. The whole time she’d known that he had shut down, turned off and probably wasn’t listening to anything she had to say.

  When they’d reached her cabin, he’d told her he’d enjoyed their time together. She’d thanked him again and then got out of his truck and watched as he’d pulled away.

  Had she mistaken that look of hunger she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes when they’d been in the clearing? Had she only imagined it because she’d felt more than a little bit of hunger for him?

  It was definitely time to leave Grady Gulch behind, she told herself as she finished her cup of coffee. It was time to leave because there was a part of her that wanted to stay, a part of her that wanted to see more of Daniel Jefferson, and that wasn’t a good thing.

  Her intentions were to wait until the weekend and then give Mary her two-week notice. It was time to move on from the little town that she feared had the potential to bewitch her and the man whose personal tragedy and dark eyes would haunt her for a long time to come.

  A rap on the door of the café drew her attention from her inner thoughts. Even though it was still a few minutes before time to open, Mary hurried toward the door where Sheriff Cameron Evans stood peering in.

  Mary unlocked the door to allow him inside. “Morning, Cameron,” she said, and Lizzy noticed the faint peach color that slid into Mary’s cheeks.

  “Mary,” Cameron replied, his voice low and deep, and Lizzy thought she heard more than a little bit of longing in his voice as he said Mary’s name.

  Mary relocked the door then turned and walked behind the counter as the sheriff followed and slid onto a stool. Lizzy busied herself wiping down a table she knew was already clean as she watched the morning ritual between the sheriff and her boss.

  Mary poured him coffee and the two of them small-talked for a moment, and then Mary disappeared into the kitchen. But, during those few minutes of chitchat, there was no question that there was a simmering tension between the two.


  For the past four weeks Lizzy had found it interesting to watch Mary and the handsome Cameron interact. It was obvious the single Cameron was very interested in Mary, and although Mary was friendly with him, there was no question she kept up barriers against him.

  The only thing Lizzy knew about her boss was that her husband had died years ago, and like Daniel, Mary had sworn she wasn’t open to ever having another romantic relationship.

  What was it about people closing themselves off to love? Lizzy only hoped that in both Daniel’s and Mary’s cases they eventually allowed themselves to love again. And Mary certainly couldn’t do better than the man who kept the law in town, the man who looked at her as if he’d gladly take an order of her to go.

  “None of your business, Lizzy,” she muttered beneath her breath. Her business was the fact that the café was ready to open in the next couple of minutes and still no sign of Candy.

  She moved behind the counter and topped off Cameron’s coffee. “How’s the crime-fighting business?” she asked.

  “Just the way I like it, slow and easy.” He smiled, but she noticed his gaze shot through the pass window as if to catch a quick glimpse of Mary. “And how’s the waitressing business?” he asked, his focus back on Lizzy.

  “Fine, but it won’t be long before I’ll be heading out of Grady Gulch.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “I’m sorry to hear that. I thought you were probably going to stick around. I know Mary will be sorry to see you go. She’s told me how much she enjoys both you and your work ethic.”

  “Mary has been wonderful to me,” Lizzy said. “And I love Grady Gulch, but this was never meant to be a destination, rather just a pit stop along the way.”

  Mary reappeared from the kitchen. “Lizzy, I’m about to open the door and it seems that Candy must have overslept…again. Would you mind running to her cabin and getting her up and over here? We’re going to need her in another hour or so when the real breakfast rush begins.”

  “No problem,” Lizzy replied.

  Mary moved closer to her. “I’d send Junior but he’s already started cooking, and besides, it would take him ten minutes to get up the nerve to knock on her door, and by then he will have forgotten what I sent him there to do.”

  “I don’t mind banging on her door to get her lazy butt out of bed,” Lizzy replied.

  As she went through the kitchen, her thoughts returned to Daniel. She would probably see him again on Friday night and she wondered what he would order, two pieces of peach pie or an apple and a peach? An apple would be an open invitation for her to join him for a few minutes at the booth.

  It was absolutely ridiculous for her to want him to order her a piece of pie, for her to want to believe that he’d had as much trouble getting her out of his mind as she’d had in getting him out of hers.

  She left the café and noted that the sun had now made a full appearance in the morning sky and it had already warmed up by several degrees since she’d come into work thirty minutes ago. It was going to be a hot June Oklahoma day.

  She didn’t even want to think about how crabby Candy would be if Lizzy had to wake her. Candy was cranky on most of the days when she wasn’t pulled from her beauty sleep.

  Knowing that she was working the morning shift, Lizzy had gone to bed early the night before and, much to her chagrin, had dreamed about Daniel. They had been a series of hot, wild dreams of the two of them making love, and when she’d awakened she’d been almost disappointed to find herself alone in the bed.

  She reached Candy’s cabin and knocked on the door. “Candy, it’s me, Lizzy. Hey, girl, you’re supposed to be at work right now. The café is opening in about two minutes. Wake up and pull yourself together.”

  She waited for a response but heard nothing coming from inside the cabin. “Candy.” She knocked again, this time harder, and to her surprise the door creaked open a little bit. “Candy?”

  Maybe she’d never come home the night before and hadn’t realized that when she’d left for the evening her door wasn’t closed all the way. But, Candy was always here at night, she thought. Candy had no place else to go. Her boyfriend lived with his parents, and she wasn’t from Grady Gulch.

  All these thoughts flew through her head as she stood at the door and wondered if she should just walk in or not. Maybe Candy was in the shower and couldn’t hear her. She finally decided to walk in.

  “Candy?” she called one more time as she entered the room. The smell hit her first, the coppery scent of blood. The unmistakable odor assailed her just a moment before she saw the waitress.

  Candy was in the middle of the sofa bed, her eyes staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. She was dressed in jeans and a pink blouse and blood.

  There was so much blood. Lizzy’s legs threatened to buckle beneath her as she tried to make some kind of sense of the scene before her.

  Move, her brain commanded, but she was frozen in place, frozen by horror. This wasn’t right. What had happened here? Her brain couldn’t take it all in.

  With a sobbing gasp, on trembling legs she backed out of the cabin, her heart racing so fast that a sickening nausea rose up inside her. She choked against it.

  Dead.

  Candy was dead.

  Somebody had killed her.

  Oh, God, while Lizzy had slept peacefully in her cabin next door last night somebody had come in there and killed Candy. Or this morning while Lizzy had stood in the small shower stall enjoying a bracing shower to wake up, somebody had been inside Candy’s cabin cutting her throat.

  Run!

  Lizzy’s mind roared with the command. Move! Finally her brain made contact with her limbs. She hadn’t realized she was crying until she whirled around and headed for the back door of the café, suddenly aware that her vision was misted with tears.

  She burst through the back door and raced past the kitchen, where Junior was flipping strips of bacon with a fierce look of concentration. He didn’t even look up from the grill as she ran past him.

  Bursting into the dining area, she collided with one of the stools, which instantly crashed to the floor. “Lizzy!” Mary cried in alarm as Lizzy grabbed hold of Sheriff Evans’s arm.

  “Candy… She’s dead,” Lizzy gasped. “She’s been murdered.”

  He jumped off the stool and ran toward the kitchen, with Mary close behind him. Lizzy collapsed onto the stool he’d vacated and hung on to the counter, trying to banish the terrible vision of Candy that lingered in her head.

  Several people stood at the front door, expecting their early morning cup of coffee and maybe a plate of biscuits and gravy. They had no idea of the drama that was going on out back. They would know soon enough, she thought as she heard the sound of sirens in the distance. The sheriff had probably called in his entire five-man force.

  Who could have done such a terrible thing? Was it possible Candy’s boyfriend, Kevin, had killed her? Had they had one of their legendary fights? One that had reeled wildly out of control?

  What if it hadn’t been Kevin? What if it had been some crazed predator who thought the women in the little cabins would be easy prey? And if that were the case, why Candy’s cabin? Why not Lizzy’s or Courtney’s?

  She shivered, colder than she’d ever felt in her entire life as her thoughts careened into dark places. She realized that all she really wanted at that moment was strong, warm arms around her, somebody holding her close and telling her it was all going to be okay.

  Unfortunately, the only man’s arms she wanted around her were the arms of a man who still had his around the wife he’d lost.

  * * *

  “You hear about the murder over at the café?” Leah Jennings, the clerk in the hardware store, asked as she rang up the new set of bolts Daniel was buying to replace a rusted set in the barn.

  “Murder at the café?” Daniel looked at Leah in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

  “Seems that one of those gals who lives in those cabins behind the café was killed somet
ime in the middle of the night.” Leah leaned toward him, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “Murdered,” she whispered.

  Daniel’s heart lurched sickeningly, and he backed away from the cash register on legs that had turned to wood. “What? Who?” He felt a roar in the back of his head as a vision of Lizzy standing in front of one of those cabins filled his head.

  “I’m not sure which one of the girls. I’ve been stuck here in the store and haven’t had a chance to get over to the café and get the full scoop. Mike Mathews came in a little while ago and said the café had been closed all morning and through noon, but it’s open now.”

  Daniel had stopped listening when she’d been unable to identify which woman had been killed. The roar in his head grew louder as he stumbled toward the front door of the store. “I’ll be back later,” he said as he flew out of the door and headed for his truck.

  Not Lizzy. Please don’t let it be Lizzy, he begged as he ran down the sidewalk to where he’d parked his truck earlier to run some errands. As he got into the truck and started the engine, he felt almost light-headed with his fear.

  Lizzy was so filled with life, with a bubbling energy that he’d found intoxicating, he couldn’t imagine somebody taking away her light.

  Maybe Leah was wrong. Why on earth would anyone want to harm any of the women who lived in those little cabins? Maybe some wild rumor had inexplicably flown around the streets, a rumor that had nothing to do with reality. It wouldn’t be the first time and it probably wouldn’t be the last time wrong information had been spoken as the truth.

  It took only minutes for him to drive down Main Street to the east side of town, where the Cowboy Café was located. The time was just a little past two in the afternoon, usually when the lunch rush had ended and the parking lot began to clear.

  But the lot was still crowded with cars and trucks, and that alone at this time of the afternoon told him that something was amiss. He found a parking spot and pulled in, his heart pounding so loud in his ears he could hear nothing else.

  Not Lizzy. Please not Lizzy. It was a mental mantra that thundered through him as he left the truck and ran for the door of the café.