Lassoed by Fortune

CHAPTER Six


The idea came to Liam the following morning.

He wasn’t exactly sure when or how it had actually occurred to him, but out of the blue, the adage about a picture being worth a thousand words seemed to burst on his brain as he was having his first cup of eye-opening coffee before heading out to begin his morning chores on the ranch.

In this case, the so-called “picture” that rather nicely took the place of long-winded rhetoric was a restaurant in Vicker’s Corners, a town that was located some twenty miles from Horseback Hollow.


Liam had had occasion to drive over to Vicker’s Corners a month ago and he remembered thinking to himself as he passed it that the restaurant seemed just too fancy for him—he preferred The Grill. The Grill right here in town. It was more down-to-earth.

But the Vicker’s Corners’ restaurant seemed like just the kind of pretentious eatery that it looked like Julia was aiming for. The establishment was supposedly a good place for couples looking for a romantic atmosphere. To him that was just downright lazy. You created your own romantic atmosphere. You didn’t expect someone else to do it for you. He sure hadn’t had any trouble doing that back in high school, when things like that had been a priority for him.

He had become more serious and down-to-earth these days, but that kind of restaurant had to be what Julia had in mind, he thought. And seeing as how Vicker’s Corners was a lot more crowded and noisy than his own Horseback Hollow was, Liam thought if she saw it, it might just prove his point to Julia: that building something like that was going to spoil life as everyone in Horseback knew it.

Making up his mind about the matter, Liam hurried through all the immediate chores he needed to do, left instructions with the part-time ranch hand he had working for him to take care of the rest and headed into town. The sooner he could put this fool notion of Julia’s to bed, the better he’d feel.

It had become his personal crusade.

Liam felt certain that if Julia took away her support for the new restaurant, the whole project would just fall apart. She was acting as the Mendozas’ go-between. He was fairly certain he had enough sway to get a majority of the town to agree with him if Julia wasn’t there to gum up the works.

Now all he had to do, he thought, was to convince Julia to come see the place.

* * *

“Have you been to Vicker’s Corners lately?” Liam asked her the second he came up behind Julia in the Superette.

She had her back to him—and the front door—as she was busy stocking the refrigerated section with the fresh milk that had come in earlier this morning. Liam’s question, uttered in his low, baritone voice and coming from behind her had nearly made her drop the bottle she was holding. Regaining her composure, Julia turned around to look at him.

“And good morning to you, too, Liam,” she said, forcing an obviously strained smile to her lips.

“Yeah, good morning,” he muttered, brushing the greeting aside. “Well, have you?” he asked again, impatience marking his every syllable.

“Have I what?” she asked, not really sure what he was asking her.

Liam sighed. “You know, for the manager of a place like this, you sure don’t act like you pay attention to people when they talk to you.”

“People, yes,” she corrected him. “You, not so much. Now, either say what you came to say outright or just go about your business, whatever that is, because I’m busy right now.” She gestured around the store for emphasis. She had a lot of shelves to restock.

Liam could almost feel his temper rising. He was pretty much of an easygoing guy but there was something about this woman that had him seeing red almost instantly.

For that matter, there always had been, he admitted to himself silently. But that wasn’t something that he cared to advertise. It might give Julia the wrong idea about the kind of power she had over him.

“I asked you if you had been to Vicker’s Corners lately.”

“No,” Julia told him. “No need to, really,” she explained, reaching for another bottle of milk from the delivery crate her regular supplier had brought in for her.

She’d seen the restaurant that Wendy and her husband owned and ran. That had stolen her heart and she wanted to be in charge of the kitchen at a place just like that so that maybe someday she’d be able to own her own restaurant.

“So you haven’t checked out that restaurant they’ve got there,” Liam concluded.

Liam had piqued her interest. Why was he pushing this place on her, asking all these questions? “No, I haven’t. Have you?”

“I’ve seen what it’s done and is doing to the town,” Liam said pointedly.

Julia noticed that he hadn’t actually answered her question directly. From his tone, Julia had a feeling that any second now, the former big man on the high school campus was going to start going on and on about the evils of having anything in town but a down-to-earth, bare-bones eatery whose idea of a “selection” was having two things to choose from on the menu.

Instead he surprised her.

“Why don’t I drive you down there so you can see what having a place like that in town is like firsthand?” He came around the side of the counter and took out the last two bottles of milk for her, putting them into the display refrigerator.

Julia looked around. There was the usual number of people in the store, so it wasn’t particularly busy. But she did have shelves to restock. Her mother had seemed somewhat preoccupied this morning so she didn’t want to ask her. That would only leave the part-time clerk who was helping out this morning if she took off.

Julia made up her mind. She was needed here, not running off to a neighboring town with Liam. “I’m afraid that I can’t get away,” she began.

“Sure you can,” her mother insisted, coming up behind her. “Elliot and I can handle the customers,” she assured her daughter, nodding toward the clerk. “It’s not like we’re having a run on the place. Go, take some time off. Enjoy yourselves,” she encouraged. “Shoo,” she added for good measure, gesturing both of them toward the door.

You’d think her mother would know better than to all but throw her into Liam’s arms. “This is a scouting trip, Mother, not a getaway,” Julia told her mother in all seriousness.

Annie patted her daughter’s cheek. “Then think of it as a getaway, dear,” she encouraged before looking pointedly at Liam. “See what you can do to loosen her up a little, Liam. She is just much too serious for a girl her age.”

He smiled at the older woman, his expression softening his features and making him look every bit as roguishly attractive as he had looked in high school, when he was every girl’s idea of the classic exciting bad boy.

“I’ll do my best, ma’am,” he promised.

Annie returned his wide smile. “That’s all I can ask.”

“I think I should warn you that I carry Mace in my purse,” Julia told him as she walked by, lowering her voice so that only he could hear.

“Duly noted,” he murmured without changing his expression or letting it betray him.

As Julia went to the back office to get her purse and shrug out of the oversize apron she always wore in the store, Liam turned toward her mother and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll have Julia back in the Superette in a couple of hours.”

“That hardly seems like enough time, dear,” Annie replied, shaking her head and obviously shooting down his initial agenda. “There’s no rush to get back— really,” Julia’s mother insisted. “Julia doesn’t take nearly enough time for herself. She’s the most selfless girl I have ever known,” Annie lamented. The older woman moved closer to him, straining to look up since Liam was a foot taller than she was. “Force her to have fun if you have to. Take the long way home. Enjoy the day, the evening,” she elaborated, expanding on her initial instruction. “I was serious when I told you to loosen her up a little. Julia’s going to be old someday without ever giving herself permission to be young.”


“We’re just checking out the restaurant there, Mother,” Julia reminded her as she came back. Her purse strap was slung over her shoulder. “Not going for a hayride.”

Annie heard what she wanted to hear. Her face brightened at the mention of a hayride. “Now, there’s an idea,” she declared.

“An idea that is going to lie exactly where it is, Mom.” Julia brushed a kiss against her mother’s cheek. “I’ll be back soon.” She put emphasis on the last word. “Hold down the fort until then.”

“I was holding down the fort before you were born, my girl,” her mother reminded her. “I won’t have any trouble doing it again. And you, mind what I told you,” Annie told her daughter.

Julia knew that her soft-spoken mother was every bit as stubborn as she was in her own way. This wasn’t an argument that she was destined to win even if she stood here for the remainder of the day, so she appeared to silently surrender.

Not that she had any intentions of thinking that this excursion was anything except what it was: an exploratory excursion to check out what would eventually become her competition—if she ever got that restaurant built in Horseback.

Julia was aware that she was counting her chickens before the hen had even laid her eggs, but she was really excited about the prospect of this restaurant and what it would mean for her future, for the town’s economy.

Julia realized that this was the most alive she’d felt in a long, long time.

Since even before her marriage to Neal.

“Okay, if we’re going to go, then let’s go,” she told Liam.

Liam grinned, waved goodbye to her mother and fell into step beside Julia.

“I thought we’d take my truck, since I suggested the trip. Any objections?” he asked because, knowing Julia, there were always objections of some sort to anything he suggested.

“Not yet,” she said glibly and then added, “You’ll know when I have any.”

“I have no doubts about that, Julia,” he told her. “I have no doubts at all.”

A retort rose to her lips, but she forced herself to swallow it. For now it just might be safer to let things like that just slide off her back. There was nothing to be gained but a headache from any kind of confrontation at the beginning of this trip.

She had no doubt that there’d be plenty of time for that on the way back.

* * *

The trip to Vicker’s Corners went relatively quickly. The twenty miles between Horseback Hollow and the other town was rather desolate and the only traveling companions they encountered were close to the ground and seemed unfazed by their passage.

It wasn’t until he got closer to Vicker’s Corners that other trucks as well as a few cars could be seen in the vicinity of the town. Rather than the simple two streets with their quaint, weathered shops that were at the center of Horseback Hollow, Vicker’s Corners had stores that he’d heard one of his sisters refer to as “charming.” More than a couple of these “charming” stores lined Main Street, attracting a significant amount of vehicular traffic.

And just outside the town proper there was a tall, colorful sign that Liam made a point of calling her attention to.

“See there?” he asked, indicating the sign as if there was any way she could have missed seeing it. “It says they’re going to be building condominiums outside of town. Condominiums and ‘luxury estates,’” he quoted in disgust, whatever “luxury estates” was supposed to mean. “They’re completely wiping out the honest, friendly country life folks around here grew up with, all so that someone can make an almighty dollar profit.”

It was going to be an awful lot more than a dollar, she couldn’t help thinking. But the idea didn’t appall her the way it obviously did him.

“You’ve got something against earning a living?” she asked, really curious as to what his answer might be.

“I’ve got something against destroying a living,” he countered. “And from what I hear, this all started with that fancy restaurant right there,” he told her, gesturing toward the establishment they had come to view.

He made it sound as if the restaurant had some sort of evil powers. She refused to believe that he actually believed that.

“They built that place,” he went on, “and then everything else you see kind of fell into place around it.” Liam clearly meant it as a criticism. “The shops. The traffic. The ‘luxury estates...’” He all but sneered.

Liam obviously thought of it as some sort of pending doom.

She, however, saw what had been achieved as a model for her own goal. But rather than argue with Liam about it, which she knew would happen if she started trying to point out favorable things about the restaurant to him, she decided to try another, more practical approach to the problem in front of her.

“Have you ever been inside the restaurant, Liam?” she asked him.

He stared at her. The question had caught him off guard and he wasn’t prepared for it. “Me?”

“Well, I don’t see anyone else in the truck and I know I haven’t been inside the restaurant. Have you ever eaten there?” she asked, phrasing her question another way.

He debated lying, then decided against it. He had a feeling that somehow she’d know and then she’d dismiss everything he had to say. So he went with the truth, which was a lot simpler to keep track of.

“No, I haven’t,” he admitted and then asked defensively, “What does that have to do with anything?”

He was kidding, right? The whole point of a restaurant was what was inside it, what it served, the kind of people doing the serving as well as the cooking, not the physical building itself.

“It has everything to do with it. Stop the truck. We’re going to go in and eat there,” she told him with finality, leaving no room for argument.

“Why, Julia Tierney, are you asking me out on a date?” he asked, pretending to be shocked. He was clearly amused.

Julia felt as if she’d been blindsided.

Had he done this on purpose? Had he deliberately set her up?

Looking at him now, she couldn’t decide whether he had, but they both needed to go inside the restaurant and sample the food—he more than she. But she also needed to set Liam straight right from the beginning. Otherwise, she had a feeling she was never going to live this down. Not that the idea of going out with him didn’t appeal to her, but it would have to have been clear from the beginning—and he would have to have asked her out to begin with, not thrown out a vague suggestion. Otherwise, he would make it out as something she’d done, and there was no way she was going to ask him out on a date.

“No, this isn’t a ‘date,’ this is just research. I wouldn’t go out on a date with you,” she informed him pointedly. “I wouldn’t in high school and I won’t now.”

When she’d turned him down in high school—the only girl who had—it had stung his ego badly. He was surprised that the memory still bothered him a little.

The difference being that this time around, he knew how to cover things up a whole lot better.

“Don’t knock it until you try it,” he told her glibly. “There’re a lot of women around in Horseback Hollow who can tell you that you’re really missing out on something.”

“What I’d be missing is my brain if I thought of this as anything but what it is—research,” she stressed with feeling.


The next moment, since he had stopped the truck as she’d asked, Julia got out on her side. Closing the door, she looked in at him. “Well, are you coming along? Or are you afraid that I’m right and you don’t want to be forced to admit it?”

That did it for him. Liam was out of the truck in a second, locking it behind him.

“The day I’m afraid of anything that you might have to dish out is the day I pack it in and just give up altogether. You, missy, are wrong—on a lot of counts. And I’m going to take extreme pleasure in proving it to you and in hearing you say ‘You were right, Liam’ when this is all over.”

He walked slightly ahead of her to the restaurant’s double doors. The establishment’s hours were posted to the right of them. Luckily, they had opened for lunch merely a half hour ago.

Which meant that they were free to go in.

He held the door open for her. “Let the adventure begin,” he said.

She looked at him as she walked past Liam and went inside.

“My thoughts exactly,” she informed him tersely.

Neither one of them had a clue what the other actually meant by that but there was no way either of them was about to admit that.