Confessing to the Cowboy

chapter 12



Just as Mary expected, the café was dead for the evening rush. The snow continued to fall until dusk and then finally stopped, leaving behind about three inches of the fluffy stuff.

She popped popcorn for her and Matt and they sat at one of the tables eating from the big bowl and drinking hot chocolate. As she talked to her son about snow days and making snow angels and how excited she’d been the first time she’d seen snow, in the back of her mind her thoughts were of Cameron.

While they’d sat in the cabin she’d seen the kiss in his eyes before he’d leand forward and fear had shuttered through her, fear for him.

What if Jason stood just outside the window, watching them?

What if Jason somehow figured out how deep in her heart Cameron had crawled? Then Cameron would have a target placed firmly in the center of his back.

Mary couldn’t let that happen. Cameron had owned part of her heart long before they’d fallen into bed together. She knew he wanted her again, but that wasn’t going to happen, either.

Her biggest fear was that Jason would never be done with her, that he would just keep killing waitresses and friends and neighbors until there was nobody left in town but the two of them and Matt. He wouldn’t stop until she was as alone, as isolated as she had been when they’d been married. Maybe she’d be insane by then, her mind fractured from all the losses she’d endured.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

Matt’s voice pulled her from her horrible thoughts. “I’m fine,” she assured him with a forced smile and patted his hand on the table. “I was just wondering if this snow is going to melt by morning.”

“I hope not! I’m ready for a snow day from school. Jimmy and I already have plans to build a snowman in front of the café and put a cowboy hat on his head.”

“Hmm, sounds just like the kind of advertising I could use,” she replied with a smile. “But I wouldn’t count on a snow day so early in the school year. I have a feeling the plows will be out all night cleaning off the roads.”

Rusty left the kitchen carrying an old checkerboard set and challenged Matt to a game. As they played, Mary walked over to the window and stared outside where night had quickly stolen over the land despite the fact that it was just a little before seven.

Mary had never been afraid of the dark before, but since learning that Jason was still alive and the murders had occurred in the middle of the night, darkness brought with it a simmering anxiety that gnawed at her soul.

However, she didn’t expect Jason to come at her in the night. She had a feeling he’d want to see her face in the starkness of sunshine, in the brightness of light when he came for her. He’d want her to see his glee when he killed her and wrapped their son in his arms.

The evening seemed endlessly long. At eight she sent home Regina, the only waitress working, and that left only Rusty in the place.

She allowed the checker games to last until nine and then she sent Matt to bed just in case the school buses ran in the morning.

“You might as well head home,” she told Rusty. “If anyone comes in I can handle the grill, although I’m not expecting anyone this late on such a night.”

“I heard the latest forecast on the radio earlier and this is all supposed to melt off in the next couple of days,” Rusty said as he pulled on his coat. “And they’ll have the roads cleared by morning now that it’s stopped snowing. I imagine it will be business as usual tomorrow.”

“I hope so,” she replied. “It’s far too early in the year for this place to have a quiet night like this.”

“Definitely.” Rusty pulled his collar up and withdrew a pair of gloves from his pocket. “I’ll lock up the back door as I go and see you in the morning.”

“’Night, Rusty,” she said.

Minutes later Mary sat at one of the tables nursing a cup of hot tea. She’d already locked the front door and turned the sign in the window to closed. She didn’t expect Cameron to stop by at closing time nor did she expect anyone else to come in for a quick meal.

She should just go on to bed and take advantage of an early night, but she wasn’t a bit sleepy. Far too many thoughts weighed heavy on her mind.

When would the killer strike again? Would the next victim be another waitress or Mary herself? She hadn’t had a chance to ask Cameron who he’d taken off the suspect list and who might have been added onto it.

Was Denver’s new truck bought and paid for by Jason? She’d heard through the grapevine that the twins, Jeff and John Taylor, were planning on a new barn in the spring...possibly financed by her crazed ex-husband?

Or had Thomas Manning been easy pickings as Jason’s dupe? Thomas had a waitress wife who’d betrayed him. Had he maintained a simmering rage after that, a rage that had eventually been tapped into by the manipulative Jason?

Or was the murderer just a local rancher down on his luck, with a stomach to kill and a willingness to take whatever money Jason might offer him?

She didn’t want to think about her feelings for Cameron, not with the headache that had begun to pound with a nauseating intensity across her forehead. She cared about him, but their passion had exploded under odd circumstances.

She didn’t know if what she felt for him was love or gratitude. She wasn’t sure if she thought she loved him because he was the only man she’d allowed remotely in her life.

She finished her tea, rinsed the cup and then turned off the overhead lights, leaving on only the faint glow of the security lights above the counter.

Maybe an early night would ease some of the anxiety that had become a constant thrum inside her for the past couple of days. It certainly wouldn’t hurt her headache either to get an extra hour or two of sleep.

Within thirty minutes she was in her bed, wishing she didn’t feel so alone, wishing that Cameron was beside her. If the world was a different place and she’d met Cameron at a different time would he be the right man for her?

She’d once thought Jason was perfect and obviously that had turned out badly. She wasn’t sure she trusted her own instincts when it came to men. There was no way she believed that Cameron was anything like Jason, but she also didn’t know if she was drawn to him simply because he was the keeper of her secret and the first man she’d interacted with intimately since Jason.

It was easy to imagine love for lust and a sense of security. Easy to imagine loving a man who was solid and moral and adored by her own son. But did that mean she was in love with Cameron?

She fell asleep before an answer could form in her head and awakened disoriented as she heard a crackling noise and smelled the scent of something burning.

At first she thought it was some kind of a dream, but as complete consciousness claimed her, she realized it wasn’t a dream, it was very real.

Had she left the grill on in the kitchen? Had Rusty left on an appliance that had shorted out? She rolled over and turned on her bedside lamp, shock jerking her upright as she realized the room was filled with dark smoke.

It took a moment for the last of her sleep to completely fall away and reality to grab her by the throat with sheer panic. The café was on fire.

Matt! His name screamed through her head. She had to get to her son.

She jumped out of the bed and raced to her bedroom doorway, stunned to see that the sofa had been turned on its side and was not only engulfed in flames but also blocked any entry or exit from Matt’s bedroom.

Despite the roar of the fire and the fact that Matt’s bedroom door was closed, she screamed his name at the top of her voice, and then half collapsed with a coughing spasm. Her eyes burned and began to tear from the black smoke that roiled in the air.

Horror stuttered through her as she realized she couldn’t get to Matt’s room...to Matt himself, unless she could somehow move the blazing sofa from where it sat.

The red-and-yellow flames lighting the room made it look like a rendition of hell. But true hell was knowing that her son was on the other side of the burning barrier.

She was about to attempt to push the sofa to one side when over the din of the fire she heard a shatter of glass from her bedroom and somebody yelling her name.

She raced back to the bedroom to see Cameron at the window. “Come on,” he yelled, urging her out the window.

“I can’t,” she cried. “I can’t get to Matt.” She began to cough again, nearly falling to her knees.

“I’ve got him. Matt’s out here with me. He’s safe, Mary.” Cameron reached a hand through the broken glass. “Come on. You need to get out of there now.”

Trusting that what he’d told her about Matt was true, she grabbed his hand and he helped her out of the window. At the same time she heard the distant sound of sirens. Hopefully they were from an approaching fire truck.

Matt stood shivering in the snow, tears streaming from his eyes. “Mom, Twinkie is still in there,” he said with a sob. “I couldn’t find her in the smoke when the man told me to get out of my window.” His tears falling on his cheeks glistened as if on the verge of turning into ice. “She’s gonna die in there.”

Cameron’s features looked hard and determined in the faint light of the moon and the whisper of smoke that had drifted outside. He handed Mary his car keys. “Go on, the two of you get in my car and turn on the heater before you both get frostbite or worse.”

Matt turned and ran toward Cameron’s car. Mary hesitated. “What are you going to do?” she asked as they hurried around the building.

“I’m going in to get Twinkie.”

Despite Mary’s protests, there was no way Cameron was going to force Matt to live with the fact that cute little Twinkie had fried in his bedroom. The kid would be traumatized for the rest of his life.

Although Mary tried to stop him, clinging to his arm and begging him not to attempt a rescue, Cameron was determined. He raced back to Matt’s room and climbed in through the broken window and hit the floor.

The room was dark except for the faint glow of the greedy fire beneath the closed door. The fire made a hissing noise, as if it were a dark and ominous snake attempting to sneak beneath the door.

The smoke stung his eyes and pressed tight against his lungs. He stayed low to the ground, where the air was still just barely breathable. “Twinkie,” he called.

The heat in the room grew more and more intense and he expected the flames from the burning sofa to jump to the bedroom door at any moment. If that happened he’d have no other choice than to abandon the room and leave the dog behind.

“Twinkie,” he yelled again, grateful to hear men’s voices coming from the other side of the bedroom door. Apparently help had arrived.

At the same time Cameron felt a furry little body run into his head. “Twinkie, thank God.” He grabbed the trembling dog to his chest and then backed up to the open window.

With the dog safely in his arms he exited the building, grateful to see the volunteer fire truck nearby with hoses already in use.

He ran across the snowy landscape to his car. Matt opened the back door, his arms opened to receive his precious dog. “Thank you,” Mary said, her eyes filled with tears.

He nodded. “Just keep the doors locked and the car running so you stay warm. Don’t open the doors for anyone but me and if somebody tries to get in, then drive away and I’ll find you later.”

Mary nodded solemnly, as if she realized what Cameron had already assessed, that this fire could have simply been a diversionary tactic to get Mary and Matt out of the café and into the snow alone and vulnerable.

Thank God Cameron had been doing hourly drive-bys and checking out the perimeters of the café and had seen the fire blazing when he had. By the time Cameron arrived, Matt had already climbed out his window and was crying for his mother and Twinkie.

When Cameron realized Mary was still inside, his heart had frozen with fear. Now, with all three of the occupants safe in his car, he raced back to see that the firemen were pulling their hoses back through the broken main door of the café.

The chief of the fire department, aptly named Smokey Johnson met him in the kitchen. “Fire is out, only mortality is a sofa and some smoke damage mostly contained to the main room in the back. No question that it was arson, probably gasoline poured over the sofa material. There’s a broken window in the room, probable point of entry for whoever lit the fire.”

Smokey pulled off his helmet, his ragged features indicating exhaustion. “We don’t get called out at three in the morning very often.”

“Thank God you got here before any real damage was done or somebody lost their life,” Cameron replied. He slapped Smokey on the back. “I’ll be in touch for your official report sometime tomorrow. In the meantime if you all could board up the broken windows before you leave I’d appreciate it. I’ve got Mary and Matt in my car and I want to get them someplace safe and warm for what’s left of the night.”

“We’ll take care of everything,” Smokey replied. “And when we’re finished we’ll let your men move in for whatever they need to do.” Cameron knew he could depend on the fire chief, who had served efficiently in his capacity for the past ten years.

After speaking with Deputies Larry Brooks and Brent Walkins about their own crime-scene investigation in the café, Cameron hurried back to the car, his goal now to get Mary and Matt settled in at his place.

The interior of his patrol car was nice and toasty and Matt had already fallen back asleep with Twinkie curled up on his chest.

However, Mary still had the shell-shocked look of a woman somebody had just tried to kill. Her hair was wild around her face and one cheek sported a smear of smoky residue.

“I’m taking you to my place,” Cameron said as he put the car into gear and headed out of the Cowboy Café parking lot. He was grateful she didn’t object. He wasn’t exactly in the mood for objections from anyone.

“How bad is the damage?” Her voice sounded faint, as if she were trapped in a dream and couldn’t wake up.

“You’re going to need a new sofa and there’s a lot of smoke damage, but that can be fixed with a little elbow grease and some new paint.”

He felt her gaze on his as he carefully maneuvered the dangerous curve he had to drive in order to get to his ranch. “You know it was probably Jason. He was probably hoping the whole place would come down.”

“Maybe, but I was doing cursory checks around your building throughout the night. It was on this last check that I saw Matt standing outside his bedroom window in the snow, crying for you and his dog.”

Mary straightened in the seat. “You weren’t the man who broke his window? You didn’t tell him to get out of his room?”

Cameron shot her a quick glance, his jaw tense. “No, he was already out when I arrived.”

Mary worried her fingers together in her lap and shot a quick look over the seat to her sleeping son. “Matt told me somebody tapped on his window, then broke it out and told him to get out of the building because it was on fire. It had to have been Jason.”

She stared out the passenger window and then turned back to Cameron. “He must have run away when you arrived. Jason’s intention was to kill me and take Matt. Thank God you came when you did.” She shivered, as if any other scenario filled her with ice.

With the thick layer of snow, Cameron hoped his deputies would be able to find footsteps to follow that might lead them to tire tracks and from those they could at least figure out what kind of vehicle the person was driving or something physical about the person who had left behind footprints.

Mary fell silent and Cameron desperately tried to keep his attention on the snowy road and not on the length of her legs that was bared by the shortness of her oversize black T-shirt.

As he tried to ignore Mary’s bareness and maneuver the slick roads, his mind also worked over the elements of the entire case. Three dead bodies, an abusive ex-husband who couldn’t be located and Mary. There was no question in his mind now that Jason McKnight was behind it all. But was he working alone or was he working with somebody here in town?

And where in the hell was he holed up?

His men had been working over the past week to check out every abandoned barn, shed and building. Any stranger walking the streets would be noted by somebody and brought to his or one of his deputies’ attention, but so far that hadn’t happened.

“Maybe you should just take us to the motel,” Mary said, breaking the silence that had grown between them.

“I’d feel better if you were at my place.” He’d wondered how long it would take for her to protest his plans.

“And I’d feel better if we weren’t.”

He shot her a glance of surprise. She stared out the front window, as if not wanting to meet his gaze. Was her reticence because of what had happened between them before?

“Mary, if you’re worried that I’ll somehow take advantage of you or you’re regretting what happened between us, then let me assure you that I will be a complete gentleman.”

“That’s not it.” She turned to look at him, her eyes shimmering in the illumination from the dashboard. “Don’t you understand? Jason is hurting all the people I care about. I don’t want him to think that I care about you in any way and put you in danger.”

Her words warmed him, but also made him more determined than ever that she and Matt would stay with him until this was all over.

There was no question in his mind that the end was near, that Jason had honed in on Mary rather than any of her waitress friends. The fire tonight proved that he was finished playing games with her. He wanted her dead and Cameron was determined to do everything in his power to make sure that didn’t happen.

He just hoped it was enough.