by Diana Palmer
“I’ll remember.”
She went out and closed the door, smiling at the young clerk on her way outside.
She ran headlong into Ted, who had bounded up the steps, wearing an expression that would have stopped a charging bull.
“What did he say to you?” he demanded hotly. His black eyes were sparking with temper.
“What…Mr. Haynes?” she stammered, nodding toward the office she’d just left.
“Not him. That…” He used some language that lifted both her eyebrows. “Sorry,” he said abruptly. “I heard what happened.”
She let out a breath. “He announced in the diner that he got put in prison because he wanted to marry me and I didn’t want him to kiss me,” she said coldly. “He’s out on bond because of a technicality, Mr. Haynes said.”
“I know. I phoned the prison board.”
She tried to smile. “Mr. Haynes says you can arrest him for vagrancy if he stays in town long enough.”
He didn’t smile back. “He got a job,” he said angrily.
She had to lean against the wall for support. “What?”
“He got a damned job in town!” he snapped. “Old Harrington at the feed store hired him on as a day laborer, delivering supplies to ranchers.”
She felt sick to her stomach. It meant that Davy Harris had no plans to leave soon. He was going to stay. He was going to live in her town, be around all the time, gossip about her to anybody who would listen. She felt hunted.
Ted saw that and grimaced. He drew her into his arms and held her gently, without passion. “I’ll find a way to get him out of here,” he said into her hair.
“You can’t break the law,” she said miserably. She closed her eyes and felt the strong beat of his heart under her ear. “It gets worse. Smitty Jones, that man you arrested for bank robbery, got out, too, didn’t he?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“I guess it’s our day for bad news, Ted,” she groaned.
He hugged her, hard, and then let her go. “I don’t like the idea of your living alone out at the ranch,” he said curtly. “It makes you a better target if he came here with plans for revenge. Which he might have.”
She bit her lower lip. “I don’t want to get married yet.”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t have funds that I could use to get you police protection,” he said angrily. “And even if I did, the man hasn’t made any threats. He’s just here.”
“I know,” she said. “And he’s got a job, you said.”
He nodded. “I could have a word with the owner of the feed store, but that would be crossing the line, big time. I can’t tell a merchant who to hire, as much as I’d like to,” he added.
“I know that. He’d just find another job, anyway, if he’s determined to stay here.” She closed her eyes on a grimace. “He’ll talk to everybody he meets, he’ll say I had him put away for some frivolous reason.” She opened her eyes. “Ted, he makes it all sound like I was just a prude that he shocked with a marriage proposal. He can tell a lie and make it believeable.”
“Some people will believe anything they hear,” he agreed. His black eyes were turbulent. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t, either.” She felt sick all over. She’d thought things were bad before. Now, they were worse. “I could leave town.”
“That would make it worse,” he said flatly. “If you run, it will give him credibility.”
“I guess so.” She looked up at him worriedly. “Don’t you let him convince you that I had him put away for trying to kiss me. It was a lot more than that.”
He only smiled. “I’m not easy to sway. Besides, I’ve known you most of your life.”
That was true. She didn’t add that Ted hadn’t known her really well until just recent times.
“There are other people he won’t convince, including the prosecutor.”
“Mr. Haynes said I could call him if I got in trouble and you weren’t available,” she said.
He smiled. “He’d come, too. He’s a good guy.”
“I can’t understand why a woman would run away from her husband and a little baby,” she said. “He’s such a nice person.”
“Some women don’t want nice, they want dangerous or reckless or vagabond.”
“Not me,” she said. “I want to stay in Hollister my whole life.”
“And have kids?”
She looked up at Ted worriedly. “I want kids a lot,” she told him. “It’s just…”
“It’s just what you have to do to make them,” he replied.
She blushed.
“Sorry,” he said gently. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”
“I’m a prude. I really am.”
“You’re not.”
She was beginning to wonder. She didn’t like recalling what had happened with the man in her past, but his accusations had disturbed her. Was she really so clueless that she’d sent him to prison for something that wasn’t his fault? Had she overreacted? She had been at fault with the auditor; she’d gone with him to the motel and at first she’d let him kiss her. Then things got out of hand and she panicked, largely because of what Davy Harris had done to her.
Ted was looking at his watch. “Damn! I’ve got a meeting with a defense attorney in my office to take a deposition in a theft case. I’ll have to go.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “You stay clear of that coyote, and if he gives you any trouble, any at all, you tell me. I’ll throw his butt in jail.”
She smiled. “I will. Thanks, Ted.”
“What are friends for?” he asked, and smiled back.
She watched him walk away with misgivings. She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t confident about her actions in the past, tell him that maybe the man she’d accused wasn’t as guilty as she thought. She wished she had somebody to talk to about it.
She sighed and got in her truck and drove to the ranch. It was going to be the biggest problem of her life, and she didn’t know how she was going to solve it.
Things went from bad to worse very quickly. She went in to work the next morning and Davy Harris was sitting in a booth the minute the doors opened. She had to come out to arrange pies and cakes in the display case for the lunch crowd. She didn’t work lunch, but she did much of the baking after she’d finished making breakfast for the customers.
Every time she came out to arrange the confections, the man was watching her. He sat as close to the counter as he could get, sipping coffee and giving her malicious looks. He made her very nervous.
“Sir, can I get you anything else?” the waitress, aware of Jillian’s discomfort, asked the man in a polite but firm tone.
He lifted his eyebrows. “I’m finishing my coffee.”
“Breakfast is no longer being served, sir. We’re getting ready for the lunch crowd.”
“I know. I’ll be back for lunch,” he assured her. “I’m almost done.”
“Yes, sir.” She produced the check and put it next to his plate, and went back to her other customer, the only other one left in the room.
“You always did cook sweets so well, Jilly,” Harris told her with a long visual appraisal. “I loved the lemon cake you used to make for your uncle.”
“Thanks,” she muttered under her breath.
“You live all alone in that big ranch house, now, don’t you?” he asked in a pleasant tone that was only surface. His eyes were full of hate. “Don’t you get scared at night?”
“I have a shotgun,” she blurted out.
He looked shocked. “Really!”
“Really,” she replied with a cold glare. “It would be so unwise for anybody to try to break in at night.”
He laughed coldly. “Why, Jilly, was that a threat?” he asked, raising his voice when the waitress came back to that side of the restaurant. “Were you threatening to shoot me?”
“I was saying that if anybody broke into my house, I would use my shotgun,” she faltered.
“Are you accusing me
of trying to break in on you?” he asked loudly.
She flushed. “I didn’t say that.”
“Are you sure? I mean, accusing people of crimes they haven’t committed, isn’t that a felony?” he persisted.
The waitress marched back to his table. “Are you finished, sir?” she asked with a bite in her voice, because she was fond of Jillian. “We have to clear the tables now.”
He sighed. “I guess I’m finished.” He looked at the bill, pulled out his wallet, left the amount plus a ten-cent tip. He gave the waitress an amused smile. “Now, don’t you spend that whole tip all in one place,” he said with dripping sarcasm.
“I’ll buy feed for my polo ponies with it,” she quipped back.
He glared at her. He didn’t like people one-upping him, and it showed. “I’ll see you again, soon, Jilly,” he purred, with a last glance.
He left. Jillian felt her muscles unlocking. But tears stung her eyes.
“Oh, Jill,” the waitress, Sandra, groaned. She put her arms around Jillian and hugged her tight. “He’ll go away,” she said. “He’ll have to, eventually. You mustn’t cry!”
Jillian bawled. She hadn’t known the waitress well at all, until now.
“There, there,” Sandra said softly. “I know how it is. I was living with this guy, Carl, and he knocked me around every time he got drunk. Once, he hit me with a glass and it shattered and cut my face real bad. I loved him so much,” she groaned. “But that woke me up, when that happened. I moved out. He made threats and even tried to set fire to my house. But when he finally realized I meant it, he gave up and found another girlfriend. Last I heard, she was making weekly trips to the emergency room up in Billings.”
Jillian pulled back, wiping her eyes. “It wasn’t like that,” she whispered. “I was fifteen, and he tried to…” “Fifteen?”
Jillian bit her lower lip. “My uncle hired him as a handy man.”
“Good Lord! You should have had him arrested!”
“I did,” Jillian said miserably. “But he got out, and now he’s going to make my life hell.”
“You poor kid! You tell Chief Graves,” she said firmly. “He’ll take care of it.”
Jillian’s eyes were misty. “You can’t have somebody thrown out of town without good reason,” she said. “He hasn’t threatened me or done anything except show up here to eat all the time. And it’s the only restaurant in town, Sandra,” she added.
“Yes, but he was making some pretty thick accusations,” she reminded the other girl.
“Words. Just words.”
“They can hurt as bad as fists,” Sandra said curtly. “I ought to know. My father never hesitated to tell me how ugly and stupid I was.”
Jillian gasped. Nobody in her family had ever said such things to her.
“I guess you had nice people to live with, huh?” Sandra asked with a worldly smile. “That wasn’t the case with me. My father hated me, because I wasn’t his. My mother had an affair. People do it all the time these days. She came back, but he could never get over the fact that she had me by somebody else. She died and he made me pay for it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“You’re a nice kid,” Sandra told her quietly. “That guy makes any trouble for you in here, he’ll have to deal with me.”
Jillian chuckled. “I’ve seen you handle unruly customers. You’re good at it.”
“I ought to be. I was in the army until two years ago,” she added. “I worked as military police. Not much I don’t know about hand-to-hand combat.”
Jillian beamed. “My heroine!”
Sandra just laughed. “Anyway, you get those cakes arranged and go home. I’ll deal with the visiting problem while you’re away.”
“Thanks. For everything.”
“Always wished I had a kid sister,” Sandra scoffed. She grinned. “So now I do. You tell people I’m your sister and we’ll have some laughs.”
That would have been funny, because Sandra’s skin was a very dark copper, compared to Jillian’s very pale skin. Sandra was, after all, full-blooded Lakota.
“Chief Graves is Cheyenne,” she said aloud.
“Nothing wrong with the Cheyenne, now that we’re not bashing each other’s brains out like we did a century ago,” came the amused reply. Sandra winked. “Better get cracking. The boss is giving us dark looks.”
Jillian grinned. “Can’t have that!” she laughed.
Jillian did feel better, and now she had an ally at work. But she was still worried. That man had obviously come to Hollister to pay her back for his jail sentence, and now she was doubting her own story that had cost him his freedom.
Seven
Jillian had never considered that she might become a victim of a stalker. And she wondered if it could even be called stalking. Davy Harris came into the restaurant every morning to eat. But it was the only diner in town. So was that stalking?
Ted thought so, but the law wasn’t on the victim’s side in this case. A man couldn’t be arrested for stalking by eating in the only restaurant in town.
But he made Jillian uptight. She fumbled a cake onto the floor two mornings later, one that had taken a lot of trouble to bake, with cream filling. Harris laughed coldly.
“Why, Jilly, do I make you nervous?” he chided. “I’m only having breakfast here. I haven’t tried to touch you or anything.”
She cleaned the floor, flushed and unsettled. Sandra had called in sick that morning, so they had a substitute waitress, one who just did her job and didn’t waste time on getting to know the other employees. She had no one to back her up, now.
“I only wanted to marry you,” Harris said in a soft, quiet tone. “You were real young, but I thought you were mature enough to handle it. And you liked me. Remember when the little white kittens were born and they were going to have to be put down because you couldn’t keep them all? I went around to almost every house in town until I found places for them to live.”
She bit her lip. That was true. He’d been kind.
“And when your uncle John had that virus and was so sick that he couldn’t keep the medicine down? I drove both of you to the hospital.”
“Yes,” she said reluctantly.
He laughed. “And you repaid my kindness by having me put in prison with murderers.”
Her face was stricken as she stared at him.
He got to his feet, still smiling, but his eyes were like a cobra’s. “Did you think I’d just go away and you’d never have to see me again?”
She got up, a little wobbly. “I didn’t realize…”
“What, that I really would go to prison because you exaggerated what happened?” he interrupted. “What kind of woman does that to a man?”
She felt really sick. She knew her face was white.
“I just wanted to marry you and take care of you, and your uncle,” he said. “I wouldn’t have hurt you. Did I ever hurt you, Jilly?”
She was growing less confident by the second. Had she misjudged him? Was he in prison because she’d blown things out of proportion?
He put a five-dollar bill down beside his plate. “Why don’t you think about that?” he continued. “Think about what you did to me. You don’t know what it’s like in prison, Jilly. You don’t know what men can do to other men, especially if they aren’t strong and powerful.” His face was taut with distaste. “You stupid little prude,” he said harshly. “You landed me in hell!”
“I’m…I’m sorry,” she stammered.
“Are you really?” he asked sarcastically. “Well, not sorry enough, not yet.” He leaned toward her. “But you’re going to be,” he said in a voice that didn’t carry. “You’re going to wish you never heard my name when I’m through with you.”
He stood back up again, smiling like a used car salesman. “It was a really good breakfast, Jilly,” he said out loud. “You’re still a great little cook. Have a nice day, now.”
He walked out, while the owner of the restaurant and the cashier gave him a tho
ughtful look. Jillian could imagine how it would sound. Here was the poor, falsely accused man trying to be nice to the woman who’d put him away. Jillian wasn’t going to come out smelling like roses, no matter what she said or did. And now she had her own doubts about the past. She didn’t know what she was going to do.
Ted came by the next day. She heard his car at the front door of the ranch house and she went to the steps with a feeling of unease. She didn’t think Ted would take the side of the other man, but Davy could be very convincing.
Ted came up the steps, looking somber. He paused when he saw her expression.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You look like death warmed over.”
“Do I? It must be the flour,” she lied, and forced a laugh. “I’ve been making a cherry pie.”
Once, he would have made a joke, because it was his favorite. But he was quiet and preoccupied as he followed her into the kitchen.
“Any coffee going?” he asked as he sailed his hat onto the counter.
“I can make some.”
“Please.”
She started a pot, aware of his keen and penetrating gaze, following her as she worked.
“What’s going on with you and Harris?” he asked suddenly.
The question startled her so much that she dropped a pan she’d been putting under the counter. Her hands were shaking.
She turned back to him. “No…nothing,” she stammered, but her cheeks had flushed.
His face hardened. “Nothing.”
“He comes in the restaurant to have breakfast every day,” she said.
“And you’d know this, how?”
She put the pan down gently on the counter and drew in a breath. “Because I’ve got a job there, cooking for the breakfast crowd.”
He looked angry. “Since when?”
She hesitated. She hadn’t realized how difficult it was going to be, telling him about her job, and explaining why she’d decided to keep it secret from him. It would look bad, as if she didn’t trust him.
