Confessing to the Cowboy

chapter 14



The first time Mary saw her living room she felt as if she’d been sucker-punched. The actual event of the fire felt like a bad dream that had occurred in the middle of the night. In the light of day, she saw how quickly, how easily the fire might have spread, how easily she might have been trapped and died in her attempt to get her son out of his room and to safety.

Evil. She felt it getting closer with each day that passed. It was an evil that she’d never felt before, not even in the years she had lived with Jason. This evil had deepened and matured over time. It was no longer an impulsive, alcohol-driven rage, but rather one that had patience and cunning.

She’d spent only a few seconds staring at the fire damage and then had gotten to work in the café. The breakfast rush was busy, with the main topic of conversation the fire that had taken place in the back rooms.

Everyone was sympathetic. Even George Wilton, who for the first time ever had no complaints about his coffee or his breakfast.

She realized by now that most of the people in town knew that the suspect was her ex-husband, but nobody mentioned it to her and for that she would be forever grateful.

The lunch rush was just as busy, with people coming and going, wanting the inside information of the fire and any other gossip that might be floating in the air.

The brightest spot in her day was when Matt came in, followed by Cameron. As Matt raced to the back room to see the damage, Cameron sat on one of the counter stools.

“Drinking or eating?” she asked.

“I’d like a burger and a scotch, neat.”

She smiled. “I can help you with the burger but you’ll have to go to the Cowboy Corral or someplace else for the scotch.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. Guess I’ll take a burger and fries and a vanilla milkshake.”

She nodded. “I’m assuming last night yielded no new clues.”

She could tell that he hated that she’d asked and that he hated even worse his reply. “Nothing except the possibility that our perp wears size ten or eleven in snow boots with a tread pattern on the bottom that is common to most snow boots sold in the state.”

“At least with that information you can rule out small-footed men.”

“What size shoe did Jason wear?”

“A ten and a half.” She leaned slightly forward, allowing her to catch his familiar scent. “I feel it, Cameron. I feel him getting closer with every minute that passes. He’s evil, pure and simple. When we were married he swore he’d make me pay if I ever left him, he promised that he’d kill me and now he’s doing just that and he won’t be happy until I’m finally dead.”

She’d had a horrible sense of impending doom that she’d been unable to shake since awakening to the blazing flames in her living room the night before. She felt as if the end game could occur at any moment and her greatest fear was that after all these years Jason would ultimately win.

“Mary. I’m not going to let that happen. You have to trust me.” There was a burning determination in Cameron’s eyes that she desperately wanted to believe, but he was only one man and at the moment Jason seemed so omnipotent.

“I’m going to see you to work each morning and I’m going to take you and Matt to my house each night. When you aren’t here surrounded by people, I’m going to be stuck on you like white on rice,” he said.

She smiled at his silly cliché. “Let me go place your order.” She left the counter and went into the kitchen where Rusty and Junior were working side by side on prepping for the dinner rush.

Minutes later she served Cameron his meal and then moved away from him, not wanting anyone to see her lingering around him. It was certainly probable that Jason or whoever was working for him knew she and Matt were staying at Cameron’s place, but there was no reason to give them the idea that it was anything except professional safekeeping, especially after the fire.

Thankfully, for the past eight years of being in Grady Gulch Mary had never shown any overt romantic interest in any man, although she’d certainly had plenty of the single cowboys hit on her.

There had been some speculation about her and Cameron, the waitresses had even teased her about it. But nobody knew anything beyond the perception that the two of them shared a deep friendship. Nobody knew about that morning in her bed, when he’d made love to her so exquisitely, when he’d breathed life into a lifeless body and soul and made her believe in love and happiness once again.

However, at that moment she’d believed that it would just be a matter of hours, at the most a day or two, before Cameron would have Jason behind bars and she could continue her life without fear. She didn’t believe that anymore.

Now her constant companion was a kind of fear she’d never known before. She suspected each and every man who entered her café doors, had learned to be suspicious of every crackle of a tree limb, each unusual noise that might reach her ears. She didn’t like the woman she was becoming, afraid to love, afraid to care about the people who had been in her life for the past eight years.

Thankfully the dinner rush kept her busy and shoved all troubling thoughts from her mind. Matt spent his time working on his homework at a table in the corner and then playing a handheld video game until they could leave.

When closing time came gratitude sprang through her as Cameron walked through the door, ready to take her and Matt back to his place. He looked tired and stressed, but also like a safe barrier to ward off evil.

“Everything okay this evening?” Cameron asked once they were in his car.

“Fine. Of course, the fire was the hot topic—excuse the pun,” she replied.

Matt laughed and Cameron cast her that slow, sexy grin that exploded a fireball of heat in the bottom of her belly. She didn’t ask him what, if anything, he and his deputies had come up with during the afternoon and evening. She feared his answer would be the same as it had been when he’d come in to eat...basically nothing.

The conversation on the drive back to Cameron’s consisted of Matt’s school-day adventures, the fact that the plows had done a great job clearing the roads and how much Twinkie had probably missed them all during the long day.

As they walked into Cameron’s front door, Matt was greeted by Twinkie, who danced and jumped on his new owner as if unable to get enough of him. After a quick visit outside, Matt and Twinkie headed for the guest bedroom he was temporarily calling home.

Cameron motioned Mary to the sofa. “I’m about to have that scotch I mentioned earlier today. Would you like something to drink?”

“You have any wine?”

“A bottle of red.”

She nodded. “A glass of red wine sounds heavenly.”

As he left to go into the kitchen she leaned her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes, fighting against a wave of discouragement.

For the first time in her life she wished she had a best friend, somebody who knew her entire history and lived in another town. She would have sent Matt to them, away from this place of danger and tension, away from the man determined to own him.

She wished she had a best friend who she could talk to about her conflicting emotions where Cameron was concerned. She wished she had somebody to confess about their bed time together and how those magical moments in his arms had only managed to confuse her more.

But throughout the time before she’d landed in Grady Gulch she’d traveled light and stealthily, not making friends, not allowing herself any close acquaintances.

She knew that much of the latest gossip was about the fact that the number one suspect in the fire and the murders was her ex-husband, although nobody had said anything to her face. Except George Wilton, who had finally had the temerity to say something to her about it.

“So, sounds like you married a real bastard,” he’d said as he was finishing up his dinner.

“Something like that,” Mary had agreed and then left the old man to his meal.

She now opened her eyes and straightened as Cameron entered the room, carrying a goblet of deep red wine and a smaller glass of amber liquid.

He eased down next to her and handed her the glass of wine. She tried to ignore the scent of him that smelled like home and security. “Ah, this is just what I needed,” she said before taking a sip and then setting the glass carefully back on the coffee table. “Actually, what I probably need is to chug the whole bottle.”

He grinned at her. “You can do that if you want. You’d be safe here...and drunk, but I wouldn’t want to think about the headache you’d have tomorrow.”

She picked up her glass again and took another sip of the wine. “I’ve never been much of a drinker.” She stared at the deep red liquid. “Drinking is dangerous when you’re keeping secrets. You have a little too much, talk a little too much and suddenly you’ve said more than you intended to say and perhaps put yourself and your son in danger.”

“It must have been tough, believing you were running from the law, afraid to make friends with anyone or stay in one place for long,” he said, his eyes the soft green-brown hue that threatened to pull her in and hold her there forever.

“It was tough.” She broke eye contact with him to take another sip of the wine and then continued. “If it had just been me it wouldn’t have been so difficult, but I had Matt to consider.” Her mind swept her back to bad places, sleeping under bridges, hiding out in motel rooms that weren’t fit for humans. Afraid. She was always afraid of what would happen when her money ran out or if she was stopped by the police for any reason and they discovered she was wanted for murder.

“It was horrible,” she finally said. “By the time we landed here in Grady Gulch I was both broke and exhausted. I stepped into the café carrying Matt. Violet Grady took one look at me and him and before I knew it I was staying in one of the cabins out back, working here in the café. Violet was babysitting Matt during my shifts.”

She couldn’t help but smile as she thought of the eighty-two-year-old owner of the café. Violet Grady had been a strong, opinionated woman whose husband had built the café that she’d kept running years after his death at the age of seventy-seven.

“She never asked me a single question about where I’d come from,” Mary said. “She told me she didn’t care much where people had been, that it was where they were going that mattered.”

Cameron smiled. “That sounds just like Violet. She was definitely a character, but had a heart of gold.”

Mary’s smile faded and a new grief swept through her. “I had three wonderful years of working for Violet before she came to me and told me she was terminally ill and didn’t have long to live. Since she had no children and no family left, she considered me and Matt her only family. She wanted to leave everything to me, but I refused. Violet was nothing if not persistent. We finally came to an agreement that I’d buy the café from her for five hundred dollars.”

Mary looked at Cameron incredulously. “A paltry sum for a future for me and my son.”

“Violet didn’t need your money. Despite the fact that she lived in the back quarters of the café and dressed from clothes she got at the thrift store, she was an extremely wealthy woman. She loved you and Matt. She once told me that she thought the two of you were a gift from God, the daughter and grandson she’d never had. You should have taken what she had to give. She wound up leaving her fortune to a pet humane society.”

“That’s a great place for it to go. She changed my life by selling me this café for a pittance, gave me the hope of a future for me and my son and I’ve tried to honor her memory by the way I run the café.”

He touched the back of her hand. “You’ve done a fine job honoring her and you’ll continue to do so for as long as you want.” She started to pull her hand away from his, but he tightened his grip, his eyes holding a wealth of emotions that both thrilled her and frightened her a little bit.

“Mary, there’s something I need for you to know,” he said. “I’m in love with you. I think I’ve been in love with you since the first time I walked into the café and saw you there. When this is all over I want you in my life, I want you and Matt as my family.” The words tumbled from him in one long breath, as if he’d been holding them in for a very long time and couldn’t halt their escape.

Mary pulled her hand away from his, her heart thudding the rhythm of uncertainty. She wished he hadn’t spoken the words aloud, at least not now...not yet. She wished he hadn’t basically thrown the ball of their future relationship into her court. She wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t sure she was ready for him.

“Cameron, you know I care about you very deeply, but everything is such a jumbled mess in my head, in my life right now.” She hated how her words dimmed the sparkling light in his eyes and tugged a tiny frown into the center of his forehead. “I just... I don’t want to...”

“It’s okay,” he said, halting her awkward, stumbling words. He finished his drink in one large swallow and then stood. “It’s getting late and I’m going to call it a night. Do you need anything else?”

She’d hurt him by not being able to tell him that she returned his love, that she wanted the same things he did for the future—a future together—but she couldn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. “No thanks, I’m fine. I think I’ll just sit here and finish the last of my wine.”

He gave her a curt nod and carried his glass into the kitchen. As he walked back through the living room he murmured a good-night and she did the same, her heart heavy.

Alone.

She was alone the way she always had been, alone and afraid and now with a heart half-broken. There was nothing more she’d like than to give Cameron her future, but what he didn’t understand was right now she didn’t quite believe she had one.

* * *

Cameron stared up at his darkened ceiling, feeling not only like a fool, but also with a heartache he hadn’t experienced since Bobby’s death.

She didn’t love him. He’d made a mistake, misjudged her. He’d put his heart out for her to take and she’d rejected it. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he shouldn’t be surprised. Their lovemaking had been nothing more than an impulsive release on her part, an act that really had nothing to do with love.

His job was to protect her and Matt, and that was his only job, his only role in her life. It wasn’t his place to love her or need her. Somehow, someway he had to move forward knowing that.

He awakened the next morning with his heart still heavy, but with the resolve to be the friend and protector that Mary needed no matter how painful it was to him.

It was early enough that he was the first one up. He showered and dressed in his uniform for the day and then went into the kitchen to make coffee.

While he waited for the brew to drip through, he stood at the window and stared outside where the sun was just peeking up over the horizon.

He shouldn’t have confessed his feelings to her in the midst of the chaos, with the anxiety that a bomb could explode at any moment. Maybe if he had waited longer her reply would have been different.

He jerked away from the window, once again feeling like his thoughts were foolish. The truth of the matter was that he’d probably been right when he’d believed that he might be her transitional man. He’d clean up the danger around her, he’d shown her that lovemaking could be wonderful again and that was all that his role in her life would remain, what it was meant to be.

All his fantasies about her and Matt living in this house, filling it with life and laughter had been nothing more than the fantasies of a lonely man. Maybe it was time he looked around at some of the other women in town who had made it quite clear they would be up for a date with him. Still, the idea of dating anyone else held no appeal. Loving Mary had become a habit he had to learn to break and what he needed most was time.

It was almost eight when he dropped Matt off at school and then got back into the car to drive Mary to the café. She’d been quiet since getting up, distant and introspective.

As they drank coffee and Matt got ready for school, their conversation had been strained and superficial. He wished he hadn’t told her how he felt. He wished he would have kept his feelings deep inside so they could continue to enjoy the light, easy friendship they’d had before last night.

“Nice to see the sunshine,” she said as they headed toward the café.

“A day or two of this and the snow will be completely gone,” Cameron replied. As he pulled into the café, he frowned at the amount of cars and trucks already parked. There was even a delivery truck pulled up from Riley’s Furniture Store.

“What the heck?” Mary muttered from beside him. “Do you know anything about what’s going on?”

“Don’t have a clue,” he replied honestly.

Together they got out of the car and he was surprised to see that the Open sign on the café was still turned to Closed. The café was always open by six-thirty in the morning. Why were all of these people here and why was the café still closed?

Obvious concern created a creased frown across Mary’s forehead. She pushed open the door that was unlocked. Cameron was just behind her as a group of people with paint cans and rollers, paintbrushes and cleaning supplies all yelled surprise in unison.

Several waitresses were there, as well as Rusty. Junior stood next to George Wilton who wielded a paint roller like it was a foreign object that had magically appeared in his hand. There were other familiar faces and even Brandon Williams was there in his scooter, his lap filled with a variety of cleaning supplies and rags.

Courtney Chambers stepped forward, her pretty face wreathed in a smile. She wrapped Mary in a big hug and then stepped back from her. “You have done so much for all of us and now we think it’s time we give a little back to you. We’re here to clean up and paint the back rooms and we’ve all chipped in and bought you the navy-and-beige sofa that was in the window at Riley’s Furniture Store. You told me once that you thought it was pretty. Hopefully by tomorrow you’ll have your place back the way it should be.”

As she was talking, Mary’s eyes had welled up with tears. “We figured we’d all work through the morning and get as much done as we could,” Courtney continued, “and then you can go ahead and open up for lunch and some of us will continue working in the back while the others man the café. Does that sound like a plan?”

The tears spilled onto Mary’s cheeks and she nodded her head affirmatively and then turned and ran back out the front door.

“I think we must have overwhelmed her,” Courtney said as Cameron went after her.

She ran straight to his car and got into the passenger seat. He climbed in behind the steering wheel and didn’t say anything as she cried for several minutes, her face averted from him.

She finally pulled a tissue from her purse, swiped at her cheeks, and the unexpected weeping became tiny sniffles. “I never expected...” she began.

“That people around here care about you? That they would do what they could to help you if you needed it? You’ve obviously underestimated your own worth with the good people of Grady Gulch,” he replied gently.

She dabbed at her eyes and turned to stare at him, the blue of her gaze hollow and empty. “I have to leave here,” she said. “We need to go to the school and pick up Matt and then he and I need to leave.” Despite the emptiness of her eyes, there was an urgent desperation in her voice.

“Don’t you understand, all those people are potential victims. If Jason sees that they care about me at all, then he’ll go after them. He’ll kill them and it will be because of me.” A new sob caught in her throat.

“And where are you and Matt going to go?” he asked.

She stared at him and that delicate frown he found both charming and troubling appeared across her forehead. “Somewhere...anywhere...just away from here.”

“And wherever you go he’ll find you again and then you’ll have to run once more. Matt will never know a real home and friends again. He’ll learn to be afraid of everyone, afraid to get close to anyone. Is that what you want for him? For yourself?”

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, as if exhausted, broken by the very thought. “No, that’s not what I want for either of us.”

“I thought you were through running away, that you were ready to stop and take a stand. At least here you have people who love you surrounding you. At least here you have support and you aren’t alone.”

He wanted to touch her so badly, just a reassuring tap on her hand, a quick embrace to let her know she was where she belonged. But he was afraid to touch her now, especially after last night. He had no right.

“Stay, Mary. Stay here where you’ve built your life, where Matt is happy and feels like this is his home. Stay and let me and my men end this for you here and now.”

“But what if it doesn’t end here? What if it never ends?” Her voice trembled with the frailty of her emotions.

“It ends here, Mary,” he said firmly, believing what he told her. “One way or another it ends here. You have to trust somebody. Trust me. Trust in this town and us. Trust in these people who care about you, people who have embraced you and your son.”

He held her gaze and watched her eyes soften and lose some of the abject fear that had radiated there only moments before. She finally cast her gaze back toward the café. Her shoulders straightened as she sat forward. “This is my home. This is my town and he has no place here.” She looked back at Cameron and nodded. “I should have made a stand against him years ago, before things got to where they did. I should have been strong enough to walk away from him the very first time he hit me. You’re right. I’ll make my stand here.”

She opened the car door and stepped outside. As he followed her back to the café he only hoped...he prayed that this wouldn’t be a stand that ended in her death.