Romancing the de Wolfe Collection: Contemporary Romance Bundle

by Kathryn Le Veque

  She smiled reluctantly. “I’ve been very lucky,” she replied humbly. “The cakery has taken off and I feel very fortunate.”

  He nodded, glancing back at the rear of the restaurant. “My parents love it. They come here all of the time.”

  Kinley cocked her head curiously. “Your parents live around here?”

  He nodded. “I grew up here. My parents still live in the house I grew up in.”

  Her smile turned genuine. “You didn’t go far, did you?”

  He was enjoying the fact that she was finally relaxing around him, enough to the point where the conversation was turning casual. He was thrilled.

  “Actually, I was in Washington D.C. for quite a while,” he told her. “I only returned about three years ago.”

  “What did you do in D.C.?”

  “Naval Investigative Services.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “You were in the Navy?”

  “The Marines, actually.”

  Her gaze was warm on him. “Then being a small town deputy is a piece of cake.”

  He chuckled. “Sometimes,” he agreed. “But sometimes it’s worse. Lots of land out here. Lots of things can happen. I think I’ve been in more dicey situations here than I ever was back in D.C.”

  Like robbery in a small diner. Kinley’s smile faded as her thoughts came around again to the first time they met. It was hard not to think about it. Meanwhile, Reed put his pad and pen away, and they began to walk back towards the restaurant’s back door. He couldn’t help but notice she’d fallen silent. His gaze moved over the exposed brick façade of the rear of the business.

  “When I was a kid, a lot of these buildings were derelict,” he said, making conversation because of the swift downturn in the mood. “The bums lived around here. Now, it’s the fashionable part of town. I still find that weird sometimes.”

  Kinley forced a smile as they entered the back door into the fragrant confines of the restaurant. “I’ll bet,” she said. “Have you had breakfast? Do you want to take something with you to go?”

  He looked at her, seeing an opportunity in her softly uttered words. He was attracted to her the moment he met her; that much was clear to him. In just those few short words after their introduction, in those few brief seconds, he had felt a pull towards her as he’d never felt towards anyone. Sure, she’d run off after the shooting, but he had attributed that to panic until he’d come across her driver’s license and had discovered it to be false.

  After that, he’d entertained all sorts of wild ideas. A fugitive, a criminal, a spy…all kinds of things had entered his head. She’d used that rifle with a hell of a lot of skill and an ice-cold demeanor, which was an acquired talent. But the fact remained that none of those thoughts could dampen the attraction he felt towards her. There was a spark there just dying to be kindled. The woman was running from something. He wanted to know what it was and he wanted to know her on a personal level. He couldn’t explain it more than that.

  “My parents say you have fantastic Bananas Foster French toast,” he said. “Maybe I should judge for myself.”

  Kinley’s smile turned real. “To eat here or to go?”

  His blue-eyed gaze lingered on her; he was supposed to be off watch and his mattress was calling to him. But that didn’t seem to matter at the moment.

  “Here,” he replied. “But I have a favor to ask.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Can I have my good luck charm back? I left it on your desk.”

  His French toast order came with a side of an envelope containing the driver’s license with a pirate’s beard, Hitler mustache, and eye-patch colored over the picture in heavy black ink so anyone looking at it couldn’t make out who the person really was. But in his eyes, it still couldn’t detract from the unearthly beauty beneath.

  He just sat there and grinned.

  Chapter Two

  KINLEY WAS AT the restaurant the next day at four in the morning to get ready for the breakfast rush. It was Saturday, usually her busiest day, so the line cooks and sous chef were busy preparing for the onslaught. When the doors opened at six, there were already people waiting outside and the restaurant was half-full within minutes.

  Unfortunately, two of her servers called in sick so Kinley stepped in to take orders. She had several regulars, people she spent a good deal of time chatting with in between placing and serving breakfast orders. As the sun rose, the Coffee Cakery was warm and fragrant, alive with people coming and going for breakfast. By eight in the morning, it was packed solid and the scent of coffee edged out the scent of cinnamon. The hip eatery on the east side of town was in full swing.

  Kinley called in a couple of off duty servers to fill in the shifts and was able to get off the floor by mid-morning. Still, she hung around at the lunch counter, chatting with customers and making sure everyone was generally satisfied. All the while, she kept watching the cars out of the big storefront driving up and down Main Street. When she’d see a sheriff’s unit, her heart would jump a little. It took her a while to figure out that she was waiting for Reed McCoy to make an appearance. At least, she was hoping he would.

  As much as he frightened her and as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she was glad he had returned yesterday. He stirred feelings within her that she hadn’t felt in years. It was wholly terrifying but utterly wonderful. Still, she was leaning towards the side of caution. She knew she wasn’t ready for an emotional attachment of any kind. It was safer if she didn’t.

  So she left the counter, and the chatty customers, and headed back to her office to do some work. Her office door was next to the rear entrance to the restaurant and she stood at the open door a moment, gazing out into the full parking lot and seeing Reed in her mind’s eye as he walked around and wrote in his notepad. He cut quite a figure in his khaki-drab uniform and cowboy hat. Shutting the back door, she pushed him from her mind.

  The day moved on and the breakfast rush moved into the lunch rush. The restaurant only served breakfast and lunch, so there was standing room only as noon rolled around. The hostess was swamped, the manager was back in the kitchen helping with orders, so Kinley finished up the invoices she was working on in the office and went to the front of the house to help with the cash register. The place was hopping and somewhere in the back, a cook had burned toast so the smell of burned bread filled the air. Everything was bustling and the sound of the cash register chiming was filling the air.

  The hostess returned from her duties to help with the cash register, but as Kinley moved back to the hallway where her office was, she could see that several orders were up. The servers were efficient but one had a particularly large order, so Kinley collected three lunches for table eighteen and headed out for the patio that fronted the main street. She smiled as she approached table eighteen with three people.

  “Hello, there,” she said. The way the orders were written on the ticket ensured that she already knew who got what order. She deftly slid the big veggie burger plate down in front of a middle-aged gentleman. “Here’s your veggie burger and salad. And for you, ma’am,” she sat a big Cobb salad down in front of the attractive middle-aged woman with short, dark hair, “your lovely salad. And last but not least, a BLT with fruit for….”

  Her eyes fell on the third person in the party. She hadn’t paid any attention until now, realizing as she set that plate down that Reed was gazing up at her. Dressed in street clothes, including cowboy boots, he looked like he had just stepped off the pages of a magazine. He was hunky, relaxed, and all shades of dreamy in the mid-morning sunshine. He had a lazy half-smile on his face as their gazes locked.

  “You sure have the best French toast in town,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Let’s see how the BLT is.”

  Over her initial surprise, Kinley couldn’t help but smile. “Hello,” she said. “I didn’t see you slip in.”

  There were four chairs at the table. He slung his big arm over the back of the empty chair that happened to be between them. The way he
did it was just inviting her to sit down and be a part of that casual embrace.

  “I didn’t see you when we came in, either,” he said. His eyes never left her face. “These are my parents, Harmon and Shirley McCoy. They’re the ones in love with your restaurant.”

  Kinley turned to the pair, shaking Harmon’s hand and then Shirley’s. “I’m so glad,” she said. “I’m Kinley Berrington. People like you are keeping me in business.”

  Harmon was already into his food. “You don’t need our help,” he said, mouth full. “Keep cooking like this and you’ll do just fine.”

  Kinley grinned, bright and beautiful. “Well, thanks,” she said, glancing at Reed, who had yet to even look at his food. He was staring at her, swallowing her up with his big blue eyes. “Is that all you ever eat? BLT sandwiches?”

  He laughed softly, finally breaking his stare to glance down at his big, beautiful sandwich. “I’ve got a thing for bacon, I admit it,” he said. “What about you? Do you eat at all?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Can you join us for a minute, then?” Reed asked, pulling out the empty chair. “I’ll even share my bacon with you.”

  Kinley looked at him and then at the chair. Her first instinct was that she very much wanted to sit but then her second, more powerful, instinct told her not to. They would make small talk and conversation, and eventually ask her about herself. She didn’t want to talk about herself, not in the least. She hated to be rude because instinct already had her warming to these people, but her sense of self-protection won out.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t,” she said, backing away. “We’re really busy right now. But it was good to see you all. Please come back again.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and fled before Reed could say another word. As his parents dug into their food with gusto, he was still watching Kinley until she disappeared from sight. She had been polite enough, and there was something in her expression that suggested warmth. It was that same warmth he’d seen the first time they met at the Hi-Way Café, sort of an underlying sincerity that was both mysterious and attractive. She seemed outgoing enough but wary of something more than cursory conversation. Still, he sensed something far more to the woman, something deep. He had from the first.

  As he turned to his BLT, he decided he was going to find out what more he could about her. He’d thought about it briefly yesterday after learning her real name, but he’d refrained from doing any research simply because it was an invasion of privacy. He wasn’t a stalker. But he was very, very interested in the woman who saved his life. Maybe if he ran a general search on the internet, he could find out a little something about her. Kinley Connors-Berrington.

  After lunch, he went to the Riverton Sheriff Station to do some investigating.

  “BACK AGAIN?”

  Reed heard the question and glanced up from the computer. He was seated in the report writing office used by the deputies when filing their paperwork, a room that smelled of cigarette smoke and leather. The carpet was old and worn, a testament to the lawmen that had walked the floors over the years, him and his father included.

  He pulled off his reading glasses as the deputy who asked the question entered the room. “We don’t need to see you here,” the deputy said. “You’ve already got half the women in town flooding dispatch wanting to know who the good-looking new deputy is.”

  Reed grinned, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes. “Oh, yeah?” he said. “What are you telling them?”

  “That you’re a heartbreaker who’s been married eight times and has a dozen kids,” the deputy laughed. “Besides, you’re not new.”

  Reed shook his head. “I’ve been in the Lander substation for three years,” he said. “Hell, before yesterday, I’ve barely been to Riverton the past three years even though my folks live here. I was born here. But I have no desire to spend any time here.”

  The deputy lifted his eyebrows. “So you’d rather stay in that backward town of Lander?”

  Reed shrugged. “It’s good for me,” he said quietly. “I’ve got my spread outside of town, my horses and livestock to keep me happy. Being back in Riverton just brings memories.”

  Deputy Steve Turner just shook his head; a big man with a shaved head, he had the dark eyes and high cheekbones to go along with his half-Shoshone blood.

  “Bad ones?”

  “Bad enough.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about?” Steve asked, slapping him on the shoulder. “You were king of the high school – home-coming king, king of the football team, king of everything. I oughta know; I spent all those years in your shadow. And then you ran off to D.C. to be in the Navy.”

  “I didn’t ‘run off’ to be in the Navy,” Reed clarified. “I had a scholarship to Annapolis and joined the Marines. It was a better life for me there, away from this town. Away from… stuff.”

  Steve cocked his head. He knew exactly what Reed meant. They’d been friends since grade school and there wasn’t much they didn’t know about each other.

  “You had to get away from memories of Heather,” he said after a moment.

  Reed’s good humor fled completely and he averted his gaze. “It’s not every prom king who kills his queen right before graduation.”

  Steve lost some of his aggressive demeanor. “You didn’t kill her,” he said quietly. “You were hit by a drunk driver. You didn’t kill her, Reed. Twenty years down the road, don’t you even get that?”

  Reed sighed heavily and pretended to focus on the computer again. “I do,” he said. “But it’s something I pushed from my mind for all of those years. I just don’t like to think about it, especially when I pass by her street on my way to visit my folks. My dad told me her parents still live in that blue house with the white shutters.”

  “They do,” Steve said. “They never blamed you. I still don’t get why you blame yourself.”

  Reed shrugged and put his reading glasses back on. “I don’t know,” he said, looking at the screen. “I guess I just need to get over it.”

  “You were married for a while once you moved to D.C., weren’t you? Didn’t that make you get over it?”

  Reed sighed. “It made the pain go away but not the sadness,” he said. “It was kind of a disaster, you know. I went around looking for women that looked just like Heather and ended up marrying one. It only lasted eight years.”

  “You have kids, too.”

  “Two boys. They live with their mother on the east coast. I get them during the summer.”

  He didn’t sound too happy. Mostly, he sounded resigned, like this was his life now and it would never be anything better. Steve slapped him on the back again.

  “Well,” he said, “it’s time for you to move on. You’re a big boy now, Reed. Stop clinging to the past.”

  Reed nodded his head, faintly. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “But I still hate this town.”

  “We hate you, too.”

  Reed grinned, shaking off the depression that threatened. He didn’t want to deal with it today, the constant shadow that had been his companion since that dark May night in 1990. It was the first time he’d spoken of it for many years, mostly because it was something he kept buried deep. He didn’t like to talk about the high school sweetheart who ended up being buried on the day she should have graduated from high school. He still didn’t like to talk about it, now almost angry with Steve for bringing it up. Forcibly, he lightened his mood.

  “Don’t you have something you should be doing?” he asked. “Like shuttling little kids across the crosswalk? Go bother someone else. I’m busy.”

  Steve made a face at him. “Just because you were with Naval Investigative Services doesn’t mean you’re such a bad-ass,” he said, plopping next to Reed and noticing that he was doing something on the computer. “What are you doing?”

  Reed was fixed on a particular website, trying to read as Steve chattered. “Looking something up.”

  “What?”

  Re
ed didn’t mind telling him; oddly enough, Steve wasn’t a gossip. He could keep his mouth shut when necessary. For some reason, Reed found the need to confide in someone he trusted. He was actually somewhat excited about the end to a very long search.

  “Do you remember that shooting at a restaurant I was involved in down in Green River about two years ago?” he asked. “The one with three robbery suspects and two of them were killed?”

  Steve looked thoughtful. “I do,” he said slowly. “I don’t remember too much about it, though. Why?”

  Reed looked at him. “I was sitting at the lunch counter, on-duty, when the three suspects entered,” he said, lowering his voice. “To make a long story short, they went after me pretty good and I’m positive they were going to kill me, but one of the waitresses saved my life. She got ahold of a rifle behind the counter and capped two of the suspects, particularly the one who had my service weapon and was about to blow my brains out. Before help arrived, or before I could even thank her, she ran off and disappeared.”

  Steve nodded as he began to recall more of the story. “I seem to remember your dad saying something about the waitress who saved your ass,” he said. “You never did find her, did you?”

  Reed shrugged, glancing back at the computer screen. “She left behind her purse which contained her identification, but we quickly found out it was fraudulent,” he said. “All I knew was that her name was Clover Fields, but Clover Fields didn’t exist anywhere. For two years I’ve been carrying around her fake I.D. like… like Prince Charming carrying around Cinderella’s glass slipper, hunting for a woman who vanished into thin air. But yesterday, I finally found her.”

  Steve’s eyebrows lifted. “You found her?” he repeated. “Where?”

  Reed’s eyes were twinkling somewhat. “At that restaurant everyone in town is crazy about – the Coffee Cakery.”

  “That place?” Steve said, incredulous. “I go there all of the time. Who is she?”