Christmas Cowboy Duet

THERE WAS SILENCE for the first few minutes of the drive. Not the comfortable kind of silence that two people who ended each other’s sentences might have slipped into, but the awkward kind of silence that became steadily deeper and more ominous as the seconds ticked into minutes, then hung around oppressively.

Enduring it for as long as possible, Liam decided that enough was enough.

“You always have this chip on your shoulder, or is this something new for you?” he asked Whitney.

“I don’t have a chip,” she informed Liam indignantly, sitting up stiffly as her entire body became completely rigid.

“Yes, you do,” Liam contradicted. “From where I’m sitting, that chip is pretty damn big and very nearly impenetrable. In case you haven’t noticed, these people are just trying to help you.”

“I noticed,” she said a bit too defensively.

Whitney paused, pressing her lips together. She was searching for a way to get her point across without sounding as if she had an ax to grind. She really didn’t; it was just that because of this setback, she had gone into overdrive. Whenever that happened, she wound up having the kind of personality that put people off. All except for the people she signed to recording contracts. That group would have been willing to cut the devil some slack as long as they got what they were after: a shot at the big time. And because of what she did for a living and the label she was associated with, she was their first step in the right direction.

“But they’re not trying to help me out of the goodness of their hearts, it’s just business. Everyone’s going to get paid for their services,” she told Liam, wondering why he thought that was so altruistic.

“Mick’s hanging around, waiting for your car to be brought down from its perch. A savvy businessman would have gone back to the shop—and charged you just for coming out,” Liam pointed out.

“This way he gets to charge me for his downtime,” she countered.

Liam shook his head. “That’s not the way Mick operates,” he disagreed, then said with emphasis, “That’s not how any of us operate around here.”

She wasn’t ready to believe that. After all, this was just some tiny Texas town, not Oz. However, in the interest of not starting an argument, she merely said, “If you say so.”

“I do, but that doesn’t mean anything. I guess you’ll just have to see for yourself. There it is,” he said abruptly.

She sat up a little straighter, as if she’d just been put on notice.

“There ‘what’ is?” Whitney asked, her green eyes sweeping up and down the muddy road ahead of her. From where she was sitting, it just looked like open country—and more of the same.

“Miss Joan’s,” Liam elaborated, gesturing up ahead and to the left.

As Whitney looked, the diner came into view more clearly. It looked like a long, silver tube on wheels and it was completely unimpressive in her opinion.

It was also rather blinding.

The sun, which had decided to come out in full regalia now that all the water had been purged out of the sky, seemed to be literally bouncing off the sides of the diner. It made it rather difficult to see, if anyone wanted to drive past the establishment.

But Liam had no intentions of driving past the diner. For him, the diner was journey’s end.

He pulled his truck up to the informal area that was the diner’s unofficial parking lot.

When Liam turned off the engine, she looked at him. The diner made her think of a third-rate, greasy-spoon establishment that played fast and loose with sanitary conditions. It definitely didn’t inspire confidence.

“Isn’t there another restaurant we could go to?” she asked as he began to open the door on his side.

Liam paused, his hand on the door handle. “Not without driving fifty miles.”

There it was again, she thought. That fifty-mile separation from everything civilized. Was everything of any worth in this region automatically fifty miles away?

Whitney looked grudgingly at the diner. Maybe she would be lucky and not get ptomaine poisoning.

“Seems to me that this town would do a whole lot better if it just picked itself up and moved fifty miles away,” she said cynically.

“We like Forever just where it is and the way it is,” Liam informed her.

Yeah, backward and hopelessly behind the times, she thought to herself. Out loud, Whitney offered up another, less hostile description. “Old-fashioned and impossibly quaint?”

“Honest and straightforward,” he contradicted.

“Well, I guess that really puts me in my place,” she quipped.

He laughed, shaking his head. “I really doubt if anything could ever put you in your place—unless you wanted to be there,” he qualified.

Getting out of his truck, he rounded the hood and came around to her side. Opening the door for Whitney, he put his hand out as if to help her get out.

She looked down at it for a moment as if debating whether or not she should take it. Deciding that it wouldn’t hurt anything to act graciously, she wrapped her fingers around his.

“I’m sorry,” she told him.

He looked surprised by this unusual turn of events. “For?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. Wasn’t that what her mother used to say before she ran off? Whitney decided that she might as well say it.

“For acting like an ungrateful brat.” She flushed as her own label hit home. “I guess I’m a little out of my element. I’m usually the one on the receiving end of gratitude, not on the giving side.”

He wasn’t exactly sure what she was trying to say, but he knew contrition when he saw it and he had never been the kind who enjoyed making people squirm. “Hey, you just went through a harrowing experience. You’re allowed to act out a little.”

His forgiving attitude made her feel even guiltier than she already did.

Their hands were still linked and he tugged on hers just a little. “C’mon,” he coaxed. “Everything will seem a lot better after you eat something. Angel will whip up something that’ll make you feel as if you’ve died and gone to heaven.”

“Angel?” she repeated a little uncertainly.

“Miss Joan’s head cook. Woman could make a mud pie taste appetizing,” he told her with enthusiasm.

“I think I’ll pass on the mud pie, but I could go for a cheeseburger and fries.”

“Great,” he responded, drawing her into the diner. “Get ready to have the best cheeseburger and fries you’ve ever had.”

She sincerely doubted that, but she decided to play along. After all, she owed him.

Chapter Four (#ulink_e939f239-620a-5220-b421-552050cefbe7)

“So this is the little lady you saved from a watery grave, eh?”

The rather unusual greeting came from Miss Joan less than a heartbeat after Liam had walked into the diner with Whitney at his side.

As was her habit, Miss Joan, ever on top of things, seemed to appear out of nowhere and was right next to them.