The Cowboy's Claim

“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.

It was just before seven when Mary walked over to her. “You can go home now. Thanks for filling in at the last minute. This flu bug that’s going around seems to be getting people down.”

Courtney nodded, but she wondered if the two waitresses who had called in sick had really been sick or had been afraid to come in after the latest murder of one of their own.