by Janet Dailey
The touch of his gaze was almost a tangible thing when he saw her crossing to a booth, a heavily laden serving tray balanced on one arm.
She nodded to the table he had occupied on his previous visit. “You can sit at your old table if you like,” she told him.
“Thanks.” His eyes smiled at her.
There was a warmth in their gray depths that Dallas didn’t recall noticing before. Considering some of the things her grandfather had told her about him, she had a feeling she might have been too quick to dismiss him as an ordinary cowboy.
After she finished distributing the food orders on her tray, Dallas collected a glass of ice water and a cup of hot coffee from the counter and carried them to his table.
“I didn’t expect to see you in here tonight.” She set the water and coffee before him.
His eyes gleamed with amusement. “You didn’t really think I’d leave town just because you told me I should.”
“It was good advice.” Dallas still believed that. “Or have you found that out? I heard you went to the Slash R.”
“News travels fast,” he replied, neither confirming nor denying.
Dallas realized that he had seldom given her a direct answer. “It’s a small town. And anything to do with the Rutledges spreads like crazy. And the news that you bought hay from them went through this town like a category-four tornado.”
“They were just doing the neighborly thing.” He reached for the menu and flipped it open.
Dallas liked the way he played down the purchase. “Maybe, but the Slash R has never been known for making neighborly gestures.”
“Maybe no one’s given them a chance,” he suggested, tongue-in-cheek.
Dallas reacted with a crooked smile that grooved a dimple in one cheek. “Yeah, right.”
His smile widened into something dazzling and warm that snatched at her breath. “For a minute there I thought you were going to accuse me of being a fool again.”
The remark was an instant reminder of the futility of one man attempting to stand against the Rutledges. It sobered her. “I don’t think you realize how big the odds are against you.”
An amused dryness entered his expression. “I imagine the odds were long that I’d get any hay, too.” Without giving her a chance to reply, he asked, “Is it safe to order a steak?”
“Yes. It’s just the meat loaf you need to avoid,” she told him.
“In that case, I’ll have a T-bone, medium rare, and a baked potato with all the trimmings.”
“What kind of dressing on your salad?” Dallas pulled the order tablet from her apron pocket and flipped to a new sheet.
“Blue cheese, if you have it.”
“Coming right up,” she promised and moved away.
When she left, that lonely feeling closed around Quint again. Looking at the empty chairs pushed up to his table, he realized that it was her company and conversation he wanted.
There was a glimmer of rare annoyance in the glance he flicked at the scattering of other customers. Their presence forced Quint to put aside any hope he might have entertained of persuading Dallas to join him at the table. The knowledge left him with an edgy, irritated feeling, something that was new to him.
The sensation didn’t fade until she returned to his table a few minutes later and placed a salad liberally drizzled with blue cheese dressing before him.
“I thought it would be busier than this on a Saturday night,” Quint said to prevent her from walking away.
Her easy smile gave him the impression that she didn’t mind being drawn into conversation, perhaps even welcomed it. “The supper crowd always comes early. By now the homebodies are back in front of their televisions and the rest are bending their elbows at Tillie’s.”
“Tillie’s. That must be the local bar,” Quint guessed. “Is it here in town? I don’t remember driving by one.”
“It’s a block off the main drag, so it isn’t a place that you would happen by,” she explained. “Tubby’s sister owns it. I keep telling him they should merge the two businesses. He’d have more customers if he sold beer and she’d have more if she sold food. But he just turns a deaf ear to the idea.”
“Sounds like a good one to me. We have a place like that back in Montana,” he said, thinking of the former roadhouse called Harry’s in Blue Moon that had always sold both food and liquor. “Come Saturday night, it’s packed to the rafters.”
She tipped her head to one side, curiosity entering her expression. “Is that where you’re from—Montana?”
“Born and raised there,” Quint confirmed with a nod. “How about you? Are you a native Texan?”
“Of course.” There was an impish light in her eyes. “Care to guess where I was born?”
Quint laughed softly in response. “Something tells me it might be Dallas.”
“It’s a little obvious, isn’t it?” she agreed.
“I’d say you were lucky the hospital wasn’t in Fort Worth.”
“True. Although my mother told me that if she had gone to Fort Worth to deliver, she would have named me Gentry. But when I was born in Dallas, she thought it would be more original to name me after the city of my birth. Of course, you have to understand, she had an absolute aversion to commonplace names. Her own was Mary Alice, and she hated it.”
Made sensitive by the recent loss of his father, Quint was quick to note her use of the past tense in referring to her mother. “How long has she been gone?”
“It was seven years ago this past spring.”
“It’s hard losing a parent,” he said, speaking as much for himself as for her.
“Yes.” But she seemed a little surprised that he understood that. After an instant’s hesitation, Dallas glanced down at his untouched salad. “You’d better dig in,” she told him. “Your steak will be up soon.”
Left alone again, Quint picked up his fork and started on the salad with a renewed appetite, only distantly aware that his conversation with her, brief as it had been, had stimulated a male kind of hunger as well.
During the course of his meal, he had more occasions to talk to her, some exchanges longer than others. On a subconscious level, Quint knew it was all part of an age-old dance between a man and a woman. He had long ago become familiar with the steps to it, the advance and retreat, and the waiting and watching for that signal from the woman indicating her interest, or lack thereof.
With the only other remaining customer at the cash register, Quint let his attention focus on Dallas, recalling the small, personal things he had learned about her tonight and the thousands more he still wanted to know—things like whether her hair felt as smooth as it looked, and the look of her light brown eyes when passion glazed them.
There was a natural grace to the relaxed, yet erect, posture of her body, long and slim and unmistakably feminine in its well-proportioned curves.
His bill paid, the man at the register headed out the door, and Dallas emerged from behind the counter and looked directly at Quint, her eyes bright and alive to him.
“Ready for more coffee?” Her warm smile was an encouragement to agree.
But Quint wasn’t really interested in another cup of coffee. “What time do you close?”
“Usually whenever the last customer leaves,” she admitted easily. “But don’t let that stop you from having another cup if you want it.”
“I think I’m coffee-ed out.”
“Are you sure?”
Quint detected a kind of regret in her look, giving him hope that the evening wouldn’t be coming to a quick end. “I’m sure.” Rising, he collected his hat and the check for his meal, then followed Dallas when she retraced her steps to the cash register counter. He slid the check and the cash to pay it across the counter to her. “Do you have a way home after work?”
She nodded, explaining, “I’m parked out back.”
“Since I can’t offer you a ride home, maybe I could buy you a drink over at Tillie’s when you’re through.” Her hesitation was immedia
te and obvious. He could only think of one reason why that would be. “Sorry,” he said. “Maybe I should have asked if you’re married.”
“I’m not.” The denial came in a rush, but it didn’t change the mix of uncertainty and regret in her expression. “It’s just that—”
“It’s just what?” He didn’t understand why the answer wasn’t a simple yes or no. Yet it clearly wasn’t for Dallas. “It isn’t this thing with Rutledge, is it?” That thought was followed instantly by another. “Are you worried that Rutledge will cause trouble if you’re seen with me?” The possibility aroused all his protective instincts in a surge of anger.
“Heaven knows he’s capable of it.” Looking at Quint, Dallas couldn’t help remembering the way friends and neighbors—people she had known for years—had shied away from any contact with her and her grandfather during their battle with the Rutledges. A public shunning couldn’t have been much worse. “But that has nothing to do with my problem. I have finals next week. Tonight and tomorrow is the only free time I have to study.”
“I understand.” There was a polite curve to his mouth that seemed to match the expressionless set of his features.
She couldn’t let the night end like this. Dallas couldn’t even say why she felt that so strongly, but she did. “Of course,” she began, “an hour one way or the other shouldn’t make that much difference. Maybe I could join you for just one drink before I head home and hit the books.”
“I promise I won’t try to talk you into two.” His gray eyes sparkled with a warmly intimate look.
“You wouldn’t succeed if you tried,” Dallas countered even as her pulse quickened and she felt that little curl of excitement in the pit of her stomach. Both were purely a physical response to a man’s attention. It had been so long since she had allowed herself to feel such things that it was almost like the first time.
“How do I find Tillie’s?” he asked, taking his change from her.
“Turn right at the first block north of here. You’ll see a parking lot on the corner, probably jammed with vehicles. Next to it will be a one-story building with a neon sign in the window advertising Lone Star beer. That’s Tillie’s.”
Armed with directions from Dallas, Quint drove straight to the bar. He pulled into the corner lot as another pickup drove out, leaving an empty slot in the row that faced the building. Quint parked his pickup in it and made his way to the entrance located in the center of the building’s limestone front.
A muffled mix of music and voices reached him even before he opened the door. The volume grew decidedly louder when he walked into the dimly lit bar. His glance made a quick scan of the bar’s long and narrow layout.
A scattering of tables, all occupied, took up the front section with booths lining one short wall. A long, wooden bar, darkened with age, dominated the middle part, complete with a row of tall stools in front of it. A jukebox stood on the opposite wall, its speakers blasting out a rowdy drinking song by Toby Keith.
In between the two were more tables and chairs with a small space left empty in front of the jukebox, creating a dance area of sorts, but there were no couples making use of it. At the bar’s rear area, players were clustered around two pool tables, the green of their surfaces illuminated by the hooded fixtures suspended above them. Every now and then the crack of one ball striking another made itself heard above the blare of music and the din of voices.
Spotting an empty stool at the end of the long bar, Quint made his way to it, aware of the curious glances strangers always attract. He slid onto the stool and swiveled it slightly so he could keep an eye on the door.
There was a short, squat woman tending bar, a voluminous white apron tied high on her front, almost completely hiding the pink dress she wore. She had small dark eyes and a mop of tight red curls, a bright color that obviously came from a bottle. Quint surmised that she had to be Tillie.
After an initial, sharp glance in his direction, she pulled a pair of long necks out of a cooler, popped their tops, and set them out for the waitress to collect, then wiped up a water ring before she ventured to his end of the bar.
“What’ll you have?” Her dark eyes made a close and thorough study of him.
“A beer,” he replied. “Whatever you have on tap is fine.”
Without an acknowledging word, she moved off, grabbed a clean mug off the shelf, filled it with beer from the tap, and carried it back to him. She stopped short of setting it on the counter before him, her eyes narrowing into dark points.
“Are you that new guy that took over the Cee Bar?” she demanded.
“Yes.”
“I figured you probably were.” She plopped the mug on the counter. “That’ll be two dollars, cash.” She stood there, making it plain that she wasn’t about to leave until he paid for his drink.
Quint took a couple one-dollar bills from his pocket and pushed them across the counter to her. She scooped up the money and stuck it in her apron pocket, then reversed direction and headed to the opposite end of the bar.
Within minutes, Quint sensed a change. There were no more curious glances directed his way. Any that he happened to encounter were quickly averted. One by one the stools closest to him were vacated until only those at the opposite end of the bar were occupied.
For the first time, he questioned the wisdom of asking Dallas to meet him here for a drink, aware that his reasons were completely selfish. He had just decided to leave before she could arrive when she walked through the door.
He was held motionless by the sight of her. Her hair was down, falling loose and soft about her face. All the previous times it had been confined by a clasp or tucked under a cap; the change was stunning.
But it was more than her hair that was different. Gone was the plain white blouse that she’d worn at the restaurant. In its place was a snug-fitting T-shirt that molded itself to the rounded contours of her breasts and stopped a centimeter short of her waist. It was a soft green color that highlighted the coppery sheen of her hair and the tan shade of her eyes. The result was all woman, breezily confident and subtly sexy.
Quint tried to be sorry that he hadn’t left before she came, but he couldn’t. Those twinges of conscience weren’t nearly as strong as the raw desire he felt.
“Hi.” She climbed onto the stool next to him, her lips glistening with a fresh coat of coral gloss that seemed to invite him to test their slickness. “I got through sooner than I thought.”
“Sooner than I expected.” He was glad about that.
“Hello, Tillie.” She smiled at the woman with easy unconcern. “I’ll have a beer, same as him,” she said, pointing sideways at Quint.
Quint had the money out and on the counter when she returned with Dallas’s beer. Tillie glanced at the bills, then shot a pointed look at Dallas.
“Are you going to let him pay for it?” The question bordered on a warning that forcibly reminded Quint of his previous misgivings.
“That’s the general idea,” Dallas replied.
The woman shook her head in mild disapproval, swept up the money, and stuffed the bills in her apron pocket with the rest.
Quint waited until she moved out of earshot.
“Maybe it was a bad idea for you to meet me here,” he said, still keeping an eye on the bartender.
Dallas glanced sideways at him, a smile showing. “I knew what I was doing when I came. But it’s nice that you’re a little concerned.”
“If Rutledge retaliates over this,” Quint began, anger fisting inside him, “I want to know.”
Dallas smiled at his noble words, wise enough to know there was absolutely nothing Quint Echohawk could do about it if Rutledge chose to make an example of her.
“A warning is likely all I’ll get,” she replied, knowing that the threat would come only if she repeated the offense.
“He has that much leverage that a warning would be enough?” Quint lifted the beer mug and took a sip from it.
“This is a small town,” Dallas reminded hi
m. “If he isn’t the landlord or employer, then he’s the biggest customer. He has the leverage. As the old saying goes—it’s his way or the highway.”
“What keeps you here?” There was something more personal than idle curiosity in the warm probe of his gaze.
“Right now it’s practical. The rent’s cheap, my job at the feed store pays above average, and it’s an easy commute for my night courses at college.” Dallas omitted any mention of her grandfather and his reluctance to leave the area. “And if everything goes according to plan, in a couple more years I’ll have my degree. It’s hard to say where that might take me. Somewhere else though, I’m sure.”
“Have you decided on your major?”
“Business administration,” she answered without hesitation. “Although I still haven’t decided if I want to focus on the financial side or management.”
“Either way you’ll be carrying a bunch of accounting courses.”
Dallas was surprised that he would know that. There was only one logical conclusion to be drawn from that. Still she hesitated.
“Did you go to college?”
“I have a feeling you’ve never met a cowboy who knew his way around a university campus before.” His look was lightly teasing. “You might be surprised to learn that it isn’t uncommon these days for a Triple C ranch hand to have a degree in his pocket.”
Dallas realized that her initial impression of him as an ordinary cowboy had colored much of her thinking. But a common ranch hand wouldn’t have been sent here to take over the Cee Bar.
“I think I remember hearing somewhere that the Triple C is a big ranch. Is it?” she wondered.
“Bigger than most.”
“Is it bigger than the Slash R?”
“Yes.”
Dallas had only to consider the immense power and wealth Max Rutledge could wield to know that Triple C’s size was irrelevant when it was well over a thousand miles away.
