The Maverick's Return

by Marie Ferrarella

  Hanging up, she turned her attention back to him.

  “Now can you tell me what you were talking about?” he asked Annie.

  Her eyes darted back to the computer screen. “Well, it’s just that—”

  The door behind him opened and they were interrupted again. Dan heard someone coming in. From the sound of it, the person wasn’t alone. Danny didn’t have to turn around to know that. He’d suddenly found himself to be a person of interest for an overly energetic bloodhound who all but inhaled him.

  “Heel, Bowser,” a gruff voice behind him ordered. The bloodhound behaved as if no command had been issued, sniffing that much harder and all but climbing up on the side of Dan’s leg. “I said heel, damn it!” the man behind Dan said, irritated. “I’m sorry about this,” he apologized when Dan turned around.

  “Mr. Mayfield,” Anne addressed the bloodhound’s owner as she got up from behind her desk and came around to the front. “Why don’t we check Bowser’s weight and then you can take him into the second room to wait for the doctor?” she suggested, making her way to an oversize scale in the corner just beyond the front door.

  But the bloodhound hadn’t quite gotten over his fascination with Danny. “Why don’t I walk over to the scale?” he suggested to the dog’s owner. “It might make things easier for everyone.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Mayfield apologized. “Bowser’s usually better behaved than this.”

  The man gladly took Dan up on his suggestion, holding tightly onto the bloodhound’s leash as Bowser followed Dan right to the scale.

  Confronted with the scale, the bloodhound only put three of his four paws down on the scale. It took three tries and all three of them to get all four of the dog’s paws onto the scale at the same time in order to get an accurate reading.

  Closest to the readout, Dan looked down at the numbers and announced, “One hundred and twenty-nine pounds.”

  “You can take Bowser to room two,” Anne declared. Mr. Mayfield set off down the hall and she returned to her chair behind the desk. She looked a little frazzled and her hair was falling into her eyes.

  Seeing her like that conjured up images out of their past. Images Dan had tried very hard to banish over the years.

  Damn, he was never going to get over her, he thought, resigning himself to his fate.

  “Why don’t we grab some coffee later when you get your lunch break?” Dan suggested to her. “You seem a little busy now.”

  The phone was ringing again. “You think?” she asked, reaching for the receiver as she pushed her hair out of her eyes.

  “What time’s lunch?” he asked. He didn’t want to turn up early and have Annie think that he was hovering.

  She only had enough time to answer, “Twelve thirty,” before she picked up the receiver. “Brooks Smith’s Veterinary Clinic, how may I help you?”

  The corners of Danny’s mouth curved as he walked out of the clinic. At this point, he knew that Jamie had deliberately manipulated him, using the so-called outstanding vet bill as an excuse to get him together with Annie again. He had no more place in her life now than he had earlier this week when he’d gone to see her, but he had to admit that it was nice getting to see her a second time.

  He had no idea how much longer he was going to be in Rust Creek Falls—technically, he’d taken only a month’s leave of absence from his job to come out here, but he could always leave earlier.

  He could also stay longer, he told himself.

  It all depended on how things wound up arranging themselves, he thought. But that was something he intended to keep to himself, at least for now.

  * * *

  While he waited for twelve thirty to come, Dan decided to explore the town of Rust Creek Falls so he could feel like a native of the area again and not like some clueless tourist finding his way around.

  He found himself gravitating to a diner rather than a restaurant. The diner had caught his attention because of its sign out front. It boasted having “the best cup of coffee for thirty miles around” so he decided to put the claim to the test.

  Dan didn’t know about “best” but the coffee was at least decent enough to merit a second order.

  He nursed the second cup while sitting in a small booth next to a window. It was a deliberate choice. The vantage point allowed him to observe the citizens’ comings and goings without really being observed himself.

  At this point, he wasn’t quite ready to reconnect with anyone he might have known back when he lived here. The truth of it was, he wasn’t quite up to answering questions that might come his way, either about what he was currently doing or about what had prompted his brothers and him to leave. That was something he wanted to tackle gradually—after he sorted a few things out with Annie.

  Starting with her explanation as to why she’d acted so strangely when he’d said he was here with Jamie’s monthly payment.

  Sipping his coffee, he scanned the entire dinner. There was an old-fashioned clock on the wall just behind the counter. He caught himself staring at it periodically for the next two and a half hours.

  It seemed to him that the minute hand dragged itself from one number to the next with all the speed of a turtle whose feet had been dipped in molasses.

  He put up with it as long as he could, then finally paid for his coffee, plus a tip, leaving ten dollars on the table and walking out.

  Danny debated killing some more time by walking around Rust Creek Falls, but he still didn’t want to run into anyone that he might possibly know, so instead, he got into his car.

  Driving around downtown, even at a snail’s pace, didn’t take any time at all. Before he knew it, Danny found himself back in the parking lot across from the vet clinic.

  He killed another half hour just sitting in his Jeep. But this was Montana and it was definitely nippy in October. He didn’t want to just run his engine, using up gas needlessly. Besides, running an engine and going nowhere seemed almost too much like a metaphor for his life.

  When it got too cold for him, he got out of his vehicle and went back to the clinic.

  The moment he entered, the difference in temperature hit him immediately. There were far more warm bodies in the reception area now than there had been earlier.

  Annie looked swamped.

  There were people standing at her desk, looking less than patient, and she had just put the receiver down into its cradle, ending another call.

  Even with all this activity going on simultaneously, she immediately looked toward the door the second he walked in.

  Was she waiting for him? he wondered.

  Nodding at her, Dan took a seat and made himself as comfortable as he could, given the current circumstances. He was prepared to wait as long has he had to. At this point, he felt as if he had earned that cup of coffee with Annie.

  “You’re early,” Annie said to him when she finally had dealt with the three people at her desk and had answered the two more calls that had come in.

  “I didn’t want to take a chance on missing you before you went to lunch,” he told her.

  His words drew several interested looks from the people sitting in the waiting area.

  Anne looked at the people in the crowded waiting room. “It might be a little later than twelve thirty,” she told him.

  He shrugged almost philosophically. “I waited this long, what’s another half hour or so?”

  Annie pressed her lips together, suppressing the words that rose to her lips in response to his comment. This wasn’t the time or place to say anything off-the-cuff. She knew that if she did, within less than a heartbeat, she would find herself the unwilling subject of a barrage of gossip.

  Rust Creek Falls was a small town and there weren’t all that many things going on to spark people’s imaginations or to cut through the all-but-numbing boredo
m that was known to arise periodically.

  In the background, Debi, one of the clinic’s technicians, had obviously overheard the exchange between Danny and her because the older woman stepped forward now and approached her.

  “If you’d like to go out now and get lunch a little earlier,” the technician told her, “that’s all right. I’ll take over the desk while you’re gone.”

  Anne bit her lower lip and looked at the other woman hesitantly. “Don’t you have to assist Brooks, Debi?”

  The blonde shook her head. “Ellen’s doing that. And Kim is with Dr. Wellington, so you’d better take advantage of this very temporary lull before I change my mind or one of the doctors decide they need more than one tech at their side for a procedure,” Debi told her.

  “But what about you?” Anne wanted to know. “When will you take your lunch?”

  “Nathan is coming by later so I’ll wait for him. He says he ‘wants to talk,’” the woman confided. “I’d really rather stay busy until he gets here.”

  From his vantage point, Dan had managed to overhear Anne’s part of the exchange and lip-read the rest of it. The moment the older technician told Anne to take her lunch early, he was on his feet, crossing to the reception desk.

  “Looks like you’ve been cleared to go,” he told her as the other woman stepped away.

  Anne felt butterflies fluttering in the pit of her stomach. Why did she feel as if she was about to go out on a first date? She wasn’t, for heaven sakes. This wasn’t even a date at all. She was just getting a cup of coffee with someone who had once meant a great deal to her.

  Someone you had a baby with, the voice in her head reminded her.

  With effort, Anne forced a ghost of a smile to her lips as she said, “Just let me get my purse and then I’ll be ready.”

  Taking out her purse from one of the bottom drawers, Anne rose to her feet. She glanced at the phone, willing it to ring.

  It didn’t.

  She had temporarily run out of possible excuses.

  “Okay,” she told Danny as she came around to the front of the reception desk, “let’s get that cup of coffee.”

  Taking her elbow to help guide her out of the clinic, Dan murmured, “I thought you’d never ask.”

  The butterflies went into high gear.

  Chapter Eight

  “Where would you like to go?” Dan asked her as they crossed the parking lot to his Jeep.

  “Back to the clinic.” The words came out before she could think to stop them.

  He paused, intense blue eyes meeting blue eyes.

  “Really?” Dan asked.

  It wasn’t his intention to force her to go anywhere with him. Although if he were given a choice, he would have opted to spend a little more time with her. Who knew when the opportunity to do that would arise again—if ever? Because if he did decide to go back to Colorado, he knew that he might never get the chance to see Annie again.

  “No, not really,” Annie admitted, relenting. “I guess I’m just nervous.”

  That took him aback. “Nervous?” Dan asked incredulously. Grabbing the passenger door, he held it open for her. “Around me?”

  That didn’t seem to make any sense to him. He could see Annie being angry at him for leaving and even more angry that he hadn’t tried to get in touch with her in all this time. But nervous? Why would he make her nervous? They’d hit it off from the very first day all those years ago. They’d been friends from the very beginning and that friendship had eventually blossomed into love. A case of nerves had never been part of that equation.

  “This is me. Danny,” he reminded her. “You don’t have anything to be nervous about around me.”

  A lot he knew, Anne thought. Just being near him like this made everything inside of her quiver like a bowlful of Jell-O perched on the side of an active volcano.

  One would think, she told herself, trying not to press her hand to her abdomen, that after all this time and everything that had happened, she would have gotten over him.

  But she hadn’t.

  All it had taken was seeing him again, watching him walk back into her life, and all the strides she thought she had made toward overcoming her feelings for Danny just curled up like leaves that had dried out in the summer sun and blew away.

  “If you say so,” Anne murmured under her breath, sitting down in the passenger seat and putting on her seat belt.

  About to start the Jeep, Dan left his hand on the key in the ignition and studied her face. “Why would you be nervous around me?”

  She’d said too much, Anne thought. But his question needed an answer so she grasped at the first thing that occurred to her.

  “Maybe because I don’t know you. The Danny Stockton I knew would have never just disappeared without a word and left me hanging, facing each day wondering if this was the day you’d come back to me. But you didn’t and after a while, I stopped hoping, I stopped waiting. It got to the point that I thought I just imagined all of it, except for...”

  Her voice trailed off when she realized she’d almost said except for Janie.

  But he had obviously heard her. “Except for what?” Dan prodded.

  Anne waved away the mistake she’d very nearly made. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter,” she told him.

  “Annie, if you’d really rather I just take you back to the clinic, I will,” Dan offered, although not happily. Still, he could understand how she felt and he couldn’t really fault her for it. He didn’t want to be the cause of any more unhappiness.

  Annie looked at him, her expression unreadable. “Do you want me to go back?”

  How could she even think that? “Hell, no,” he answered with feeling. “I know I can’t begin to make up for what happened, for just disappearing the way I did. All I can tell you is that I had a good reason and you’re just going to have to trust me. And if you can find it in your heart to forgive me,” he told her in all sincerity, “I’d really love to spend a little time with you.”

  He knew he had no right to even ask that, but just being here with her like this made his soul sing.

  “Little is certainly the word for it,” she answered. “I’ve only got an hour for lunch.”

  An hour was more than he would have hoped for. “It’s a start,” Dan told her, relieved that she had decided to have lunch with him. “So, where do you want to go to eat?” he asked again.

  An amused smile played on her lips. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Rust Creek Falls is not exactly brimming with restaurants.” She thought for a moment. “Daisy’s Donut Shop serves coffee and the pastries are really good.”

  That didn’t make for much of a lunch, but if that was what she wanted, that was where he’d take her. “Any place you want to go is fine with me,” Dan told her. “Or we could order something to go,” he suggested.

  She thought the idea was to sit and talk over the meal. “You don’t want to be seen with me?” Anne asked.

  Where would she get an idea like that? He was just trying to be accommodating. Maybe he was trying too hard, he thought.

  “I was just thinking that you might not want to be seen with me,” he told her. Granted, she was divorced, but that wouldn’t stop tongues from wagging in Rust Creek Falls. “I was afraid that you might be worried that it could start some gossip.”

  Annie shrugged. Gossip had never bothered her. “I’m single, you’re single—” She stopped, wondering if she was perhaps taking too much for granted. “You are single, right?”

  “Very,” he answered. There’d never been another woman who had made him feel the way he did about her. He didn’t see the point in just marrying someone for the sake of being married.

  But Anne wasn’t totally convinced about his status. “There’s no one back in Colorado waiting for you? A ‘Miss Dude Ranch’
maybe?”

  “Not in Colorado or anywhere else, either,” Danny assured her.

  Danny had always been the handsomest guy that she had ever laid eyes on. She knew what women were like—he’d be a trophy for anyone who landed him.

  “So you’ve been a monk all this time?” she asked with just the slightest touch of sarcasm in her voice.

  His face was completely straight as he told her, “Pretty much.”

  She gave him one last chance to come clean. “With those muscles and those brilliant blue eyes?” She knew that they had been her undoing and thought that they would easily do the same for another woman.

  Danny’s eyes looked into hers. “Yup.”

  Annie still had her doubts, but for now, she went along with his answer. She tried to hang on to the fact that Danny had never lied to her.

  “Okay, then there’s nothing to gossip about,” she concluded. “Just two single people having coffee.”

  Taking that to be the end of the discussion, he drove to Daisy’s Donut Shop.

  * * *

  The donut shop was crowded when they got there. It turned out to be standing room only by the admittedly small counter.

  “Looks like we’re going to have to get that coffee to go anyway,” Dan told her. She nodded and for a moment, he could have sworn that Annie actually looked a little disappointed. He found that encouraging. “We could go to Wings To Go instead,” he suggested.

  They might be able to grab a little table there, Danny thought.

  The look on Annie’s face reflected confusion. “I thought you wanted coffee.”

  “What I wanted,” he told her truthfully, “was just to spend a little time with you. The coffee was actually just an excuse.”

  “All right, then. We’re having wings,” Annie agreed.

  He was getting to her, she thought, but as long as they were out in public, she had nothing to worry about.

  * * *

  Wings To Go was a cozy little restaurant that, in Dan’s estimation, showed a lot of potential. He could see investors making a lot of money here if they expanded the place. Right now it was packed, so he ordered two plates of wings and two soft drinks to go, one for each of them, along with a ton of napkins, and took them back to his Jeep.