Lassoing the Deputy Page 4

  Lemonade sounded perfect. Trust Miss Joan to know just what to offer. Alma slid onto the seat at the counter. All she wanted to do was sit here quietly and listen to Miss Joan talk. About anything. There was something comforting about the woman’s cadence, as if just hearing her talk made everything better.

  “That’s all right, Miss Joan,” Alma began. “You don’t have to go to any trouble on my account. I just want to sit here and—”

  She got no further in her protest, but then, that was a given with Miss Joan. The woman overruled everyone, God included, Harry liked to say.

  “It’s on the house, honey,” Miss Joan interjected. One hand fisted at her hip, she pretended to level a sharp look at Alma. “You’re not going to insult the bride-to-be two weeks before her wedding by turning down her offer, are you?”

  Alma smiled. As if anyone could say no to the woman. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said with a smile. “Thank you.”

  Julie came and placed the tall lemonade in front of her and retreated. Miss Joan waited until the waitress left, then leaned in over the counter and, in a low voice, asked, “So you saw him, didn’t you?”

  There went her stomach again, Alma thought, annoyed with herself. It tightened so hard she found it difficult to breathe. Still, she feigned ignorance. “You mean Cash?” she asked innocently.

  Miss Joan gave her a look that said she had no time for nonsense. “Don’t play coy with me, girl. Of course I mean Cash.” And then she laughed shortly. “Really doesn’t sound like much of a name for a grown man. Especially not for a lawyer.”

  Alma recalled that Cash had once told her that when he reached his goal and finally became a lawyer, he was going to use only the initials of his first and middle names on his letterhead. His unfortunate first name arose from the fact that although his father was rushing to get his mother to the hospital on time, nature was against him and he didn’t make it. His mother wound up giving birth to him in the backseat. To distract her, his father had had the radio on. Johnny Cash was singing when the infant drew his first breath.

  Since they’d been hoping for a girl and had no boys’ names picked out, his mother named him after the country-and-Western icon. Cash used to say that he was extremely grateful that Loretta Lynn hadn’t been singing at the time.

  “Yes, I saw him,” Alma said quietly.

  Miss Joan nodded. “Did you two talk?”

  Alma held the lemonade glass with both hands, focusing on nothing else for the moment. She took a long sip through the straw, then shrugged as if talking to Cash or not talking to him was all really one and the same to her.

  “A few words,” she acknowledged, knowing Miss Joan wasn’t going to let this go until she said something.

  “So, you didn’t talk,” the woman concluded knowingly.

  No, not really, Alma thought. Out loud she said, “There’s nothing to talk about anymore.”

  The hazel eyes seemed to bore right into her. Alma felt like squirming, but she managed to stay perfectly still under the scrutiny.

  “Since when have you taken up lying?” Miss Joan asked.

  “I’m not lying,” Alma insisted. A little of her temper emerged. “What we had was a summer romance and then he went off to college and I didn’t.” Again she shrugged, doing her best to act as if she didn’t care about Cash or about what had happened that long-ago summer. “Not much of a story, really.”

  “That’s because you left a lot out,” Miss Joan pointed out sternly. “Like the fact that Cash broke your heart.”

  That was giving Cash too much power over her, putting too much importance on the time they had spent together. Alma lifted her chin defiantly.

  “We were very young,” she insisted. “We had no business falling in love.”

  “And yet you did,” Miss Joan concluded simply. “You’re not going to have any peace until you have it out with him and find out why he didn’t come back.”

  There was no need to ask him that. “I know why he didn’t come back, Miss Joan. It’s simple. He liked that life better.” Better than me. “And talking about it from now until the cows come home isn’t going to change anything.”

  “Might be a change for the cows,” Miss Joan quipped. She was feeling Alma’s frustration and sympathizing with it. “But what it also might do is open the door to changes in the future. Hey, you’re never too old to have things happen.” This time Miss Joan’s eyes were shining. “Look at me.”

  “Hey, how about me? I love looking at you,” Harry said in his booming voice as he walked into the diner just in time to overhear the last line.

  Walking up to the counter, the silver-haired man leaned over and gave his intended bride a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “If that’s the best you two can do, you might as well forget about the wedding,” Alma told Miss Joan. “I’ve seen more passionate pet rocks in my time,” she teased.

  “Huh,” the woman snorted dismissively. “Some of us don’t like to engage in public displays of affection.” She smiled at her fiancé. “Behind closed doors, though, is a whole other story.”

  “Something to look forward to.” Harry chuckled, his blue eyes crinkling. “Right now, though, we’re here to get some of your world-famous potpie for lunch, darlin’.” He began to take out his wallet.

  Miss Joan placed her hand over it. “Put that away. You know your money’s not any good here.”

  “At least let me pay for my grandson.” He nodded toward the door.

  Cash walked in at that exact moment. “I can pay for my own meals, Grandpa,” he said. He knew his grandfather’s funds were limited. The old man had given him more than a head start, paying for his first years in college. There was no way he could ever begin to repay him, but covering expenses would at least be a small start. “Besides, I should be paying for you.”

  “Neither one of you is paying anything. Family doesn’t pay,” Miss Joan insisted. “And when I marry your grandpa, here,” she told Cash, patting Harry’s hand, “you become my family.”

  Cash smiled, appreciating the sentiment. Nonetheless, he still pushed the twenty-dollar bill toward her on the counter. “Until then, I’ll pay,” he told her. “Call it a matter of pride.”

  Miss Joan ignored the bill and left it sitting on the counter. “Two chicken potpies coming up,” she announced, raising her voice in order to relay the order to Roberto, the short-order cook in the kitchen.

  Sitting on the other side of Harry, who was a tall, heavyset man, Alma was all but obscured. Still, she knew she was kidding herself if she thought Cash hadn’t seen her as he walked in.

  With her haven invaded, it was time to go.

  Deliberately not looking to her right, Alma got off the stool. “Thanks for the lemonade, Miss Joan,” she said, addressing the back of the woman’s head.

  Miss Joan swung around, doing a quick assessment. “You didn’t finish it,” she pointed out.

  “I know, and it’s very good, but I’ve got to be getting back to the office. I’ve already been gone longer than I should.”

  “Big crime wave to deal with?” Miss Joan arched an eyebrow as she looked at her.

  Alma smiled brightly. “You never know. Nice seeing you, Harry.” She nodded at the man sitting to her right. She’d always liked Harry and didn’t want to seem rude.

  That wasn’t the case with his grandson. She barely nodded at Cash as she passed him, saying only, “You,” as if it was an afterthought. She let the single word hang there without any embellishment, allowing Cash’s imagination to supply any missing words he might have wanted to use.

  Or not. It made no difference to her.

  Alma walked out of the diner without a backward glance. The second she crossed the threshold and the door shut behind her, she quickened her pace. She wanted to get into her car and make good her escape before Cash had a chance to catch up to her.

  She should have walked faster.

  “Alma.” She heard Cash call her name but pretended not to. He didn’t give up.
“Alma, wait up.”

  Since he’d raised his voice enough to cause several people to look their way as they walked by, she had no choice but to stop.

  “Yes?” she asked coolly, turning toward him as he approached her. Her tone belied the turmoil going on inside. She felt as if everything within her was squirming. She wanted to simply get away.

  “Alma, wait,” he repeated, reaching her. “You don’t have to leave just because I came in.”

  “I wasn’t leaving because of you.” Her tone was no longer cool. It was downright cold. “I said I had to get back to the office—”

  She was lying. He knew she was lying. So, it had come to this. The most honest woman he’d ever known in his life was lying to him.

  He’d done that to her, he thought with a bitter pang.

  “I’ll go,” he told her quietly. “You stay and have your lunch. Or at least finish your lemonade.” And then, because something inside him longed to reach out to her, to just talk to her for a moment, he said, “Still like those things, huh?”

  There wasn’t even a glimmer of a smile on her lips. She looked as if she was barely tolerating breathing the same air as he was. “When I like something, I stay with it. I don’t see any reason not to.”

  “Ouch.” He smiled at her then. It was a small, sad smile that struggled to filter into his eyes. “That was a direct hit,” he announced, the way he might have once done when they played Battleship.

  Her eyes narrowed to small, dismissive slits. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He was tired, so tired. A part of him had hoped that by coming back here, he could reclaim at least a small part of his soul. But he’d been wrong. Maybe he didn’t deserve to reclaim his soul after what he’d done.

  “Yes, you do,” he told her softly. “We both do. You don’t have to run away each time I show up.” It was almost a plea.

  Ordinarily, by now she would have relented, put the hurt behind her and moved on. But this hurt was too large to ignore, too large to place behind her. She’d be a fool to let it go and leave herself open to more pain. Because without the hurt to cling to and use as a shield, she’d be putting herself at risk all over again.

  He was here only for the wedding. She only had to remain strong for two weeks. Just 20,160 minutes, that was all.

  “You had nothing to do with it. I—” And then she stopped abruptly. Pulling her cell phone from her back pocket, she put it to her ear. “Hello?”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Cash said.

  Covering the bottom of the phone for a second, she told him in a hushed, annoyed voice, “That’s because it’s on vibrate.” And then she turned her attention back to the cell phone. “Right. I was just coming back. Be there in a few minutes, Sheriff. I’ll take care of it then,” she promised.

  With that, she ended the call and slipped the phone into her back pocket again.

  “Take care of what?” Cash wanted to know. She’d already begun walking away from him.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s on a need-to-know basis,” she informed him crisply, recalling the line from a TV program she’d seen recently, “and you don’t need to know.”

  His eyes pinned her down for a moment. “You’re lying again, aren’t you? I’ve never known you to lie before, Alma, and now you’ve done it twice.”

  I’ve lied to you more than that since you came back to town, she told him silently.

  She raised her chin, a clear sign that she was getting ready for a fight.

  “I have no control over what you think or don’t think, and frankly, I could care less.” There, another lie to add to the pile.

  With that, she turned on her heel and got into the Jeep.

  She was aware that Cash was watching her. And that he continued watching her as she started up the vehicle and drove away from the diner.

  Cash was right and it annoyed the hell out of her. There’d been no phone call. She’d made it up, just as she had made up the so-called conversation she’d had with the sheriff. It was the first thing that had occurred to her in her effort to get away from Cash.

  At least it had worked, she congratulated herself. She’d managed to get away without becoming entangled in any kind of verbal confrontation with him.

  So what did she do for the other thirteen days before the wedding? she asked herself as a feeling of uneasy desperation undulated through her.

  With effort, she banked it down.

  This, too, shall pass, she promised herself—and fervently hoped she was right.

  Chapter Four

  Sleep had eluded her for most of the night, finally descending on her at almost three in the morning. Because she was so exhausted by then, she had overslept.

  Feeling as if she was running on empty, Alma rushed through her shower and into her clothes. Her stomach protested the lack of fuel, rumbling and growling as she hurried to her car.

  She knew she wouldn’t be of any use to anyone if she didn’t have at least something to eat. So, with a sigh, she made a quick side trip to the diner. She was going to get an order of French toast to go. French toast was her number-one comfort food, something her mother used to make in order to cheer her up when she was a little girl. Eating it always made her remember those days and how secure she’d felt.

  She needed a dose of that right now. Badly.

  Miss Joan looked up the second she opened the door.

  “I was hoping you’d come in today.” Glancing over her shoulder, she called out to the cook in the kitchen. “Roberto, one order of French toast to go.”

  Alma blinked, surprised. “How did you know?” she asked.

  “I know a lot of things. What I don’t know,” Miss Joan said, coming closer, “was what the hell that was yesterday.”

  Alma did her best to look innocent, hoping Miss Joan would take the hint. “What do you mean?”

  “You know damn well what I mean, baby girl,” Miss Joan said. “The second Harry’s boy came in with him, you hightailed it out of here like some scared jackrabbit who’d just backed up into a coyote.” There was both annoyance and disappointment in the woman’s voice.

  Alma dearly loved Miss Joan. The woman, for all her gruffness, had become like a second mother to her. But she really didn’t feel like discussing the episode or anything that had to do remotely with seeing Cash again.

  “I had to get back to the office.” That had been her story yesterday and she was sticking to it. But it was obvious that Miss Joan wasn’t buying her lie.

  “You had to run out of here,” Miss Joan corrected. “Now, I know he hurt you and I’m not making any excuses for him or excusing him, even if I am marrying his grandfather. What Cash did wasn’t right, but I’m more interested in you. I’ve never known you to run and hide from anything.”

  “I didn’t—” Alma began to protest.

  Miss Joan leveled a look at her that would have had strong men confessing their sins.

  “You did,” she said firmly. And then her tone softened. “You want to get back at that boy, you don’t run, you stand and talk to him. Make him see—and regret—just what he missed out on all these years by staying away. That’s how you get your revenge.”

  But Alma shook her head. “No, I don’t want any revenge.”

  Miss Joan put her hand over Alma’s on the counter and stopped her right there. “Honey, take it from someone who’s lived a lot longer. We all want revenge when we’ve been hurt. That’s only natural. That doesn’t mean it has to involve bloodshed. But it does have to involve making the other person regret what they did.” Miss Joan searched her eyes, momentarily holding her in place. “Think about it,” she advised.

  Alma took out her wallet and paid for her order. “I will,” she promised.

  Roberto placed the hot breakfast, now carefully packaged and in a brown bag, on the counter between the kitchen and Miss Joan’s station. Miss Joan brought it over to Alma.

  With a smile, she said, “That’s all I can ask for, baby girl.”

/>   “Think she’ll talk to him?” Roberto asked Miss Joan the second the door closed behind Alma.

  Going over to the giant coffee urn, Miss Joan dispensed another cup of coffee, her third of the morning. “I’m counting on it,” she replied.

  She’d made up her mind about it yesterday. She would get those two together if it was the last thing she did.

  It would be her gift to Harry.

  *

  AS IF IN DIRECT CONTRAST to the way she’d rushed to make it to work on time, the pace for the rest of Alma’s morning was incredibly slow. There seemed to be nothing to do, even with Larry taking the day off to attend to what he’d called “personal business.” That usually translated to mean that he’d gone fishing, something the blond deputy enjoyed doing at least several times a year. Rain had been predicted for the latter half of the week, so he wasn’t taking any chances on having his plans for the weekend ruined. He was taking his weekend ahead of schedule.

  She supposed that all made sense to Larry.

  To ward off boredom, after she’d organized everything she could in the kitchenette, Alma occupied herself by drawing up a list of things that needed to be done before Miss Joan’s shower, as well as a list of things for Miss Joan’s shower.

  She, Olivia and Mona, the sheriff’s wife and sister, were throwing the party for the woman. Even with there being three of them, pulling it off would be a challenge inasmuch as Miss Joan had made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want a shower, or any kind of a fuss made over the coming nuptials.

  Initially she’d maintained that she would have been content just living with Harry and letting things continue as they were. It was Harry, she’d said, who had insisted on this wedding. It amused her—and Alma suspected probably touched her as well—that Harry didn’t want people in town thinking that the woman he loved was “living in sin” with him.

  He really was rather sweet, Alma couldn’t help thinking. Too bad that his grandson hadn’t inherited some of his traits.