The Cowboy's Claim

“I’d like that,” she agreed. “The only thing I have planned is maybe taking Garrett to the city park, but I’ll probably wait until early evening when it cools down a bit.”

He frowned. “Take a friend with you. I don’t like the idea of you out and around all alone, especially if you plan on being out after dark.”

She smiled, touched by his concern. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back here long before dark.”

They murmured their goodbyes, and then he left and Courtney carefully locked the door behind him. She’d just carried her cup to the sink when a knock fell on her door.

As she hurried to answer she assumed it was Grant who had either left something behind or had forgotten to tell her something.

She unlocked the door and pulled it open to see Nick leaning casually against the doorjamb. “What on earth are you doing here?” she asked in surprise, praying that Garrett stayed asleep and quiet in his crib.

“Is that who you’re dating now? Grant Hubert?” he asked, as if he had a right to know anything about her or who she might be seeing.

“That’s really none of your business.” She stepped outside and pulled the door halfway closed behind her so that he couldn’t see into the room.

“Your parents must be so proud of you. Grant has a good position with the bank, a real air of respectability about him. Is that why you moved here? To be closer to him?” Although his features betrayed nothing, his voice held just the faintest edge of resentment.

“Exactly what part of ‘it’s none of your business’ don’t you understand? And I’ll repeat it again, what are you doing here?”

“Can I come in for a minute?”

“Absolutely not,” she replied and tightened her grip on the doorknob of the half-closed door. The last thing in the world she wanted was for this man to know about his son.

Garrett didn’t need him in his life. Garrett didn’t need a man who had left her without a backward glance, a man who would probably blow back out of town again before too long.

“I heard about the murder of the waitress this morning, and about the other murder before that,” he said. In the shadows of the night the cleft in his chin looked deeper than usual and his eyes appeared almost black. “I guess I just wanted to stop by and see that you were okay.”

“As you can see, I’m just fine.” Even though she wanted to feel nothing for him, she couldn’t help the way her heart squeezed slightly at the thought that he might care about her just a little.

Not that she cared about him anymore. She’d stopped caring about Nick Benson in the weeks after he’d left when he hadn’t even bothered to call her, when he hadn’t thought her worth any kind of an explanation of why he had left. She’d stopped caring about Nick Benson when he’d shattered her world by walking away without even a backward glance.

“You look good, Courtney,” he said, his gaze appearing soft in the moonlight. His gaze slid down the length of her. “You look real good.”

At that moment a cry came from inside the room. Apparently Garrett had awakened. Nick’s features froze as Courtney’s heart crashed to the ground.

“That yours?” he asked, his voice flat.

“It is.” Her heart beat fast and furious in her chest.

“So, I guess you’ve really moved on.”

“What did you expect? That I’d pine away just because you were gone? I’ve got to go.” Before he could say anything else she slid back into the room and closed the door, then leaned against it and prayed he wouldn’t ask anyone exactly when Garrett had been born.

* * *

Mary Mathis sat across a café table from Sheriff Cameron Evans. He almost always ended his nights here, drinking the last of the coffee after she closed the restaurant.

He was a handsome man, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes that changed with his mood. Tonight they were more brown than green, and his eyebrows were pulled down into a frown.

“It’s just like Candy’s murder,” he said as he wrapped his big, strong fingers around his coffee mug. “No forensic evidence, no obvious suspect.”

“What about Kevin Naperson?” Mary asked, knowing he’d been the main suspect when Candy had been killed.

“I spoke to him first thing this morning and his alibi is that he was in bed asleep, which is going to be pretty much the same alibi of everyone in the entire town. We’ve fixed Shirley’s time of death at 3:12 a.m.”

Mary raised an eyebrow. “That’s pretty specific.”

Cameron nodded. “Apparently while the killer was attacking Shirley he managed to pull the cord to her clock radio out of the wall. That’s the time the clock stopped.”

An edge of grief stabbed through Mary, along with a whisper of fear. It was a fear she could share with nobody, the fear that somehow this was all happening because of her, because of her past sins.

“You okay?” Cameron looked at her with concern.

“Yes and no,” she admitted. “I’m trying not to make this personal, but two of my waitresses have been brutally murdered.”

“There’s absolutely no reason to believe this is about you or the café. Right now we just happen to have two victims who coincidentally worked at the same place. Let’s not make it bigger than it is.”

For one heart-stopping moment she thought he might reach over and touch her, maybe cover her hand with his big, strong one, and for just an aching moment of weakness, she wanted him to.

It seemed like a lifetime that she’d felt even the most simple touch from a man, and of all the men in town, Cameron was the one who made her heart beat just a little faster whenever he was around.

Instead, he rose to his feet with a weary sigh. “I’ve got to get back to work. As always, thanks for the coffee and the moment of sanity in my day.”

She smiled and rose to her feet, as well. “It’s after midnight. You should just go home and straight to bed and start fresh in the morning.”

“You’re right, but that isn’t what I’m going to do. I’m heading back to the crime scene at Shirley’s house to see what we might have missed earlier.”

He lingered at the door, and for a moment she wanted to fall into the softness she saw in his eyes as he gazed at her. “Lock up after me and I’ll see you in the morning.” With another deep sigh, he left the café.

She locked the door and then shut off the last of the lights in the café. She walked through the kitchen and to a door that led to the area of the building she and her son called home.

There was a nice-size living room with a bedroom on each side. Matt had the bigger of the two bedrooms and at the moment was sound asleep in his bed.

She stood in his doorway and watched him, her heart expanding with love. Everything she had done, she’d done for him. Every bad thing she’d ever accomplished, every lie she’d ever told, had all been in an effort to save Matt.

And she’d succeeded. He was a happy, healthy young boy who had no memory of the first two years of his life. And for that she would forever be grateful. He didn’t suffer the kind of nightmares she did from those years. He slept peacefully, as the young and innocent should sleep.

She moved from his room across the living room to her smaller bedroom. Lately it seemed that every night her sleep was disturbed by nightmares. And recently she’d been dreaming not only about the crime that had taken place so many years before, but also about Candy’s murder. Now she had Shirley’s terrible death to add to her landscape of nightmares.

Minutes later, as she slid beneath the sheet and turned off the light next to her bed, she tried to focus on what Cameron had said to her—don’t take it personally.

She hoped that what people were speculating about Kevin Naperson was true. He’d always been the number one suspect in Candy Bailey’s murder. Maybe he’d killed Shirley to take the heat off himself, to make it look as if there was some crazy serial killer in the town offing waitresses.

Or perhaps it truly was just a strange coincidence that both murdered women worked at the café. Mary had twelve women working various shifts, both full-time and part-time, at the restaurant. Grady Gulch was a small town where many women didn’t work outside their homes.

She closed her eyes, determined to get to sleep despite everything that whirled through her head. Her flighty thoughts landed and stayed on Cameron Evans.

He’d made it clear in all kind of ways that he’d like to pursue something romantic with her. Matt adored the sheriff, and there were times Mary longed for nothing more than his big, strong arms around her, that she would love to invite him into her life, into her heart.

But the choices she had made long ago would forever keep her alone. And if by some chance Cameron discovered the truth of who she was and what she had done, he wouldn’t love her, he’d arrest her.

Chapter 3

She had a child.

The fact had haunted Nick throughout the night, and when he awakened the next morning it was with the same thought in his mind. Courtney had a baby.

When had it happened? Did the baby belong to Grant Hubert? Is that why she was living and working in Grady Gulch? So her baby could be close to his father? If that was the case, then why weren’t the two of them already married?

And just how old was the baby? How quickly did Courtney move on after Nick had left town?

What he couldn’t understand was why the idea bothered him so much. She’d been right. He had no business asking her questions about the choices she’d made after he’d left here. He’d lost the right to know anything about her personal life when he’d decided to disappear.

But knowing that didn’t stop the small pang in his heart as he thought of her having a child with another man. He was supposed to have been the father of her children.

Often when they’d spent time together in the Yates barn they’d talked about their future together. They both wanted children, a little boy first and then a girl. They’d buy a ranch and build a family. That had been their dream, but even as they’d talked about it, deep in his heart Nick had always known that it was all just foolish fantasy.

Even when she was twenty-four years old, Courtney’s parents had, for the most part, been running her life, making all the important decisions for her. Their princess daughter marrying a Benson boy and becoming a rancher’s wife had not been part of their master plan. Courtney had been so afraid of disappointing her parents, the relationship she and Nick had shared had been conducted undercover.

He shoved all thoughts of Courtney and her baby out of his mind as he drank two cups of coffee and then headed outside to see if he could make some headway on the lawn.

He reminded himself he wasn’t here to reconnect with Courtney in any way. He was here to pull Adam up from his depression and get the ranch back in good shape. That was all, and that was more than enough. Once he’d done what he’d come to do, he’d hightail it back to his own life in Texas.

The sun was already hot overhead as he walked out the front door and headed for the tractor mower. He didn’t know how long the machine had been sitting out in the elements but was pleasantly surprised when it turned over on the second attempt.

As he mowed, his thoughts whirled in a million directions. The fact that two women who worked as waitresses at the café had been murdered bothered him, especially when he got a visual image of Courtney in the familiar black Cowboy Café T-shirt and jeans that all of the waitresses wore.

It wasn’t his job to protect Courtney or any of the other women in the café. That job belonged to Sheriff Cameron Evans and his team of capable deputies. Nick just needed to mind his own business and let the sheriff do his job.

He was halfway through with the yard when Adam stepped out on the front porch, two cups of coffee in his hands. Nick shut down the tractor and joined his brother on the porch.

“Thanks,” he said as he took the spare coffee from Adam. Even though he’d had his fill of coffee earlier, this felt like an olive branch of sorts from the brother he desperately wanted to connect with.

Together the two of them eased down in the wicker chairs on the porch, and for a moment neither of them spoke but merely sipped their coffee and stared out in the distance.

“I’ll help chop up some of that brush after we finish our coffee,” Adam said after a long, slightly uncomfortable silence. “Sorry I’ve let things go.”

“I’d appreciate the help,” Nick replied.

He finished his coffee, set the empty cup on the porch and then headed back to the tractor, wondering if his brother was really going to help or would disappear back into the house to find another bottle of booze to anesthetize his pain and escape reality with.

His heart filled with hope as Adam walked off the porch and headed toward the barn. He returned a moment later with a long-handled sickle to cut down the thick brush.

The brothers worked together until just after noon, then went inside to a lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches and ice-cold lemonade. This time the silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable. It was merely the silence of two men who had worked hard and needed a few minutes to relax.

They worked throughout the afternoon and then at dinnertime showered up and headed for the café.

“You know Courtney Chambers?” Nick asked when they were in his truck.

“Sure, she’s one of the waitresses at the café,” Adam replied.

“Did you know she had a baby?” Nick’s fingers tightened slightly around the steering wheel.

“Yeah, I remember somebody mentioning something about it at some point or another.”

“You know how old the kid is?”

Nick felt Adam’s gaze on him, but Nick kept his eyes carefully focused on the road. “I have no idea. Ten months or maybe a year or so. Why?”

“Just curious. She served me lunch yesterday when I showed up in town and I thought she was kind of cute.”

“Off-limits, brother. She’s from some hoity-toity family in Evanston and she’s dating Grant Hubert, a banker. I’d lay odds that the kid is his and there’s a wedding going to happen in the not-so-distant future.”

Nick didn’t even attempt to talk about the lump that suddenly appeared in his throat.

“If you plan on sticking around town for a while there are plenty of single, pretty women,” Adam said.

“Then why haven’t you found one?”

Adam gave him a dark glance. “You don’t find many available women in the bottom of a bottle of whiskey. I wouldn’t mind a drink right now.”

“Yeah, well, I would mind. Maybe it’s time to pull your nose out of the bottle and take a look around,” Nick said as he pulled into the café parking lot. “Looks busy.”

“We’re right in the middle of dinner rush,” Adam replied. Together they got out of the truck and went into the establishment, where glasses clinked and conversation buzzed.

Nick spotted a booth being cleaned in Courtney’s section. He quickly led Adam to that booth.

He saw the frown that danced across Courtney’s face as they settled in. What was he doing? He felt as if he were picking at old wounds, tearing away scabs to make those wounds bleed. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

Seeing her again had stirred up so many old emotions, feelings that he hadn’t expected, didn’t realize he possessed. He wasn’t sure what to do with them, or how to resolve them with the present.

At the moment all he could do was place his dinner order with her. She was curt and professional as she took their orders, her gaze never quite meeting his.

As he walked away, Nick looked around the busy café, noticing people he’d never seen before. “Lots of unfamiliar faces,” he said to Adam.

“Two years is a long time. People move away, new people move in.”

“Who is the guy in the wheelchair?” Nick nodded toward a nearby table where a man in a motorized scooter sat at a table alone.

“Brandon Williams. He came to town about six months ago. Nice guy...war veteran. Had his legs shot up with shrapnel and it left him with some facial scarring, but he buzzes all over town in that scooter.”

For the next few minutes Adam told Nick who some of the other unfamiliar people in the café were, and by that time Courtney arrived to bring their drink orders. As she set them down, Nick caught a whiff of her perfume beneath the scent of the cooking food. Jasmine. He’d asked her once what it was because he loved the smell of it on her skin.

She whirled away from the table and he felt the chill that emanated from her. He knew he’d hurt her when he’d left, but she’d obviously moved on pretty quickly. So, why was she holding such a grudge against him now?

And why on earth did he care? He had no intention of sticking around town. She apparently was happy with Mr. Banker Grant Hubert. It was over...long done. She was the past, and Nick tried to live his life never looking back.

* * *

Courtney felt as if she’d suddenly grown ten awkward thumbs and wooden legs that barely functioned, and it was all because he was here.

Why couldn’t he eat at home or at least sit someplace where she didn’t have to serve him, didn’t even have to look at him? Why did he seem to be under her nose every time she turned around?

She wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, but Mary had called earlier in the day and told her she’d had two waitresses who had called in sick and asked if Courtney could work the dinner rush between five and seven.

Reluctantly she’d agreed because she could always use the extra money. But if she’d known that Nick would be here tonight, she would have just stayed at home with Garrett and had Mary contact one of the other waitresses not working tonight.

As she hurried away from their table and toward Brandon Williams, she was aware of Nick’s gaze following her.

She wanted to turn around and scream at him to stop it, that it wasn’t right that his gaze still had the power to warm her from top to bottom.

Instead she continued in the direction of Brandon. When she reached him she offered him a friendly smile. “Hi, Mr. Williams. How are you this evening?”

It was difficult to discern Brandon’s age as his head was as bald as a cue ball and he had no eyebrows. A scar ran down the side of his plump face and the blue of his eyes radiated warmth. “I’m doing well, Courtney. How is that little fella of yours?”

“He’s great. Talking more and more every day and becoming a bit of a ham. Now, what can I get for you this evening?”

By the time she’d put in Brandon’s order, Nick’s and Adam’s plates were ready for delivery. She steeled herself and approached their booth once again. “Two Saturday night specials,” she said as she placed the plates down before each of them. “Is there anything else you need?”

“I could use a refill on my iced tea,” Nick said.

She looked at his half-empty glass. “Of course, I’ll be right back.” Moments later she returned to the table, with his iced tea glass filled to near overflowing, and then went back to dealing with her other customers.

Nick and Adam lingered, ordering coffee and Mary’s famous apple pie for dessert. Courtney served them once again and then tried to keep her gaze away from Nick as she busied herself taking care of other people’s dining needs.

She smiled at one of her favorite customers, Thomas Manning. Thomas had arrived in Grady Gulch about a year ago. He was in his late thirties, quiet and well spoken and usually had a book in his hand. She took Thomas’s order and left the table.

She couldn’t wait for this rush hour to be over so she could get Garrett back home and get on with the rest of her weekend. All she wanted to do for the remainder of the evening and all day tomorrow was spend time with her favorite little boy.

Still, she couldn’t help but notice several people stopping by the booth to visit with Nick and Adam. On their best day the two were both charmers, easy to talk to and drawing people to them.

The dinner rush seemed to last forever, but finally people began to filter out. She glanced over at Nick and saw that Mary was visiting with the two men.

As the pretty blonde walked away from their table to visit with another dinner guest, Nick’s gaze caught hers and in the depths of his eyes was a burning anger.

He knows.

The words thundered in her head, for a moment stealing all other sound, as if she’d gone momentarily deaf. She broke eye contact with him and walked on shaky legs toward the kitchen.

He knows Garrett is his. She wasn’t sure who might have told him Garrett’s age, but with that information there would be little doubt in his mind that the boy belonged to him. She’d make him doubt, she thought desperately. As long as he didn’t see Garrett, he couldn’t be sure.

“Problems?” Rusty asked as he stepped away from the grill. More than once Rusty had served as bouncer for customers who got out of line. He not only had broad shoulders and arms the size of tree trunks, but his face was enough to intimidate anyone.

He might scare somebody who didn’t know him, but Courtney had seen the soft side he rarely displayed, his utter devotion to Mary and her son, Matt, and all the women who worked here.

“No problems,” she quickly assured him as she tried to still the rapid rhythm of her heartbeat. “I just needed a minute away from the crowd.”

What was she going to do? A frantic energy swelled up inside her as she considered her options. She could lie to him and tell him that a week after he’d left town she’d slept with somebody else. There would be no way he could disprove her words, and she wouldn’t have to give him a specific name.

The only way he’d know the truth for sure was if he actually saw that little cleft in Garrett’s chin. It couldn’t have come from anyone else in the entire town but Nick Benson.

For the first time since she’d left her hometown of Evanston, she thought of going back. Would her parents have finally forgiven her for not being the daughter they’d wanted? Would they accept her and her child into their home to get back on her feet after having kicked her out when they’d discovered her pregnancy?

Surely two years would have brought some forgiveness. Even as she thought of the idea, she dismissed it. She hadn’t heard from either of her parents since they’d thrown her out of their home. Even the birth of her son hadn’t broken the deafening silence of disapproval that had lingered over the past fifteen months.

Besides, she couldn’t go back to living beneath their roof, where she’d always felt inadequate, where she’d never embraced their need for material things and social acceptance, and where they’d never accepted the woman she had grown up to be.

With a sigh she left the kitchen once again, noting with a quick, darting glance that Nick and Adam remained in their booth. She’d already given them their tab so there was nothing else they should need from her.

She focused on the remaining diners in her section and slowly began to relax as she once again met Nick’s gaze and didn’t see any of the fiery anger she thought she’d seen earlier.

Maybe she’d only imagined the flames of rage there. Maybe it had simply been her slightly guilty conscience at work. She picked up the glass of iced tea she’d nursed all through her shift from a small table close to the restrooms.

She took a sip of her tepid tea and for a moment she thought of the two waitresses who would never work here again, women who had been murdered in their beds.

Everyone had hoped that Candy’s murder had either been committed by her boyfriend or perhaps a drifter passing through town. The latest murder seemed to blow the drifter theory out of the water. She set her glass down and fought against a shiver that threatened to walk up her spine as she realized the odds were good that the killer was a local. She might have even served him a meal.

She shook her head to dispel thoughts of murder and smoothed a hand down the T-shirt that marked her as a Cowboy Café waitress. Hopefully it was just a strange coincidence that both of the murder victims had worked here.