The Cowgirl in Question Part 4

What was new was Antelope Development Corporation or ADC as Brandon had called it. Rourke hadn't noticed the office the first time he drove past. He'd been too busy looking across the street at the Longhorn Cafe.

He'd always asked Brandon about Ca.s.sidy, afraid she might clear out of town before he got out of prison. So he knew that Ca.s.sidy had bought the Longhorn Cafe and it had been thriving under her management. She'd also bought the old Kirkhoff place at the edge of town.

"And Blaze?" Rourke would ask his brother.

"She's working for Easton Wells. He started ADC across the street from the Longhorn."

"What's ADC?" he'd questioned, frowning.

"Antelope Development Corporation. Mostly they deal with landowners and coal-bed methane gas well leases."

"Our old man must love all those wells everywhere around the property," Rourke had said. Asa McCall would shoot anyone who even suggested doing anything to his land but farming and ranching it.

"There's money in that gas," Brandon said. "A whole lot of money. You can't believe the wells that have gone in around the county."

"Blaze seeing anyone?"

Brandon would shrug. "You know Blaze."

Yeah. He knew Blaze, he thought as he pulled into a s.p.a.ce in front of the Longhorn Cafe and sat for a moment trying to see inside the cafe through the front window. The afternoon sun made the gla.s.s like a mirror, reflecting him and his old pickup.

He'd been waiting for this day for so long he could hardly believe it had finally come. He got out, slammed the truck door and walked toward the entrance to the cafe. Town seemed a lot busier than it had eleven years ago.

He saw people he used to know, but he didn't acknowledge them. Most just stared. He knew he'd changed in the past eleven years. He told himself maybe they didn't recognize him. Or maybe they didn't want to. Maybe they were afraid of him.

He pushed open the door to the Longhorn. The bell tinkled and he stepped into the cafe, and was. .h.i.t by the mouthwatering smell of freshly baked bread.

His stomach growled and he realized he hadn't eaten since breakfast. He took a stool at the counter. The cafe was empty this late in the afternoon except for one couple he didn't recognize at a booth. He could hear voices in back, the clang of pots and pans, the creak of an oven door opening and closing.

He picked up a menu, telling himself that Ca.s.sidy probably wasn't even here. The menu covers were the same plastic with a local color photograph of red bluffs, tall blue-green sage and a longhorn steer in the foreground. It had been a shot of the McCall Ranch. He liked that she hadn't changed it. And wondered why she hadn't, given how at least one McCall felt about her.

The McCall Ranch was the only one around that raised longhorns. There was no money in anything but beef cattle, but his father kept some longhorns, raising them as his great-grandfather had. A reminder of what had started the ranch, a link to the past that Asa hadn't been able to let go of.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ca.s.sidy come out of the back of the cafe. She didn't recognize him at first. Not until he looked up from the menu and his eyes met hers.

Ca.s.sIDY STOPPED dead in her tracks. Although all day she'd been expecting to see him walk into the cafe, she was shocked to see Rourke sitting at the counter, shocked that after all these years, he really was free and home.

Her heart thudded in her chest so loudly she swore he had to have heard it. Except he wouldn't know why. He'd think it was out of fear.

Her biggest shock was how much Rourke had changed. He'd been more of a boy than a man when he'd left, tall and lanky, not yet filled out at twenty-two.

Now there was no doubt that he'd become a man, from his strong jawline to his broad, muscular shoulders. But there was a coldness to him that showed in the pale blue of his eyes, a hardness that hadn't been there before. Bitterness and anger showed in the hard set of his jaw, in the way he carried himself, a wariness, a spring-coil tension like a wild animal that knew he had predators nearby.

Her heart dropped at the thought. Rourke believed she was one of those predators. She shuddered to think what his life had been like the past eleven years in prison. And the part she'd played in sending him there.

"Rourke," she said, and forced her feet to move toward him, careful to keep the counter between them. She put down the rack of gla.s.ses she'd been carrying, shoving her shaking hands deep into her ap.r.o.n pockets so he wouldn't realize how much just seeing him affected her.

She glanced past him to the street and beyond it to the large window of the ADC where Blaze was standing, watching them. Her stomach churned. Blaze was hoping for a show. What did did Rourke have planned? Rourke have planned?

"Ca.s.sidy." There was a softness to his voice that belied the icy malice in his expression.

His voice was the only thing about this man that was the same as the boy she'd been unable to get out of her thoughts for years. She hated what just the sound of that voice did to her.

"I heard you were released," she said, needing to say something. "I'm glad you're back."

He smiled at that. "I'll bet." He looked down at his menu.

"Rourke, I-"

"I'll have the same thing I used to."

A hot roast beef sandwich, a coffee and a salad with blue-cheese dressing.

She stared at him. "I was hoping-"

"You do remember what I used to order when your mother worked here, don't you?"

Fumbling, she pulled her pen and order pad from her pocket and wrote down his order, writing fast so he wouldn't see how her hands shook.

He smiled a smile that had no chance of reaching his eyes.

There was so much she wanted to say to him, but she could see he wasn't going to let her.

Back when she and Rourke were teens, Ca.s.sidy's mom would have taken Rourke's order. Ca.s.sidy would have been bussing tables, lurking in the kitchen so Rourke wouldn't see her, feeling ashamed to be caught sweaty, in her white uniform, her ap.r.o.n soiled from clearing dirty tables.

He was looking at her as if he knew her deepest, darkest secrets, knew that she hid in the kitchen when he came in, and listened to him talking and joking with her mother.

"Anything else?" she asked, looking down at the scribbled order on her pad, then up at him.

"No." His expression was colder than the grave.

She stared at him, confused. She'd expected him to lay into her the moment he saw her. She wished he had. His silence was more frightening. Tension arced between them like a tightwire. She felt as if she were balancing on it, unsteady, ready to fall any moment.

"I'll put your order in," she managed to say.

He picked up the menu to look at it again, then without a word turned away from her to stare out the front window, toward ADC and Blaze? He was enjoying her discomfort. He wanted to make her suffer, drag this out.

She turned and walked back to put in his order, trying hard not to run. She wished Kit would come in for her s.h.i.+ft, but Ca.s.sidy knew she wouldn't leave anyway. She couldn't escape Rourke. Not in a town the size of Antelope Flats. Not even in a state as large as Montana.

Needing desperately to keep busy and yet not wanting to hide in the kitchen, she returned to the counter with more clean gla.s.ses and utensils.

She could feel his attention on her, hard as stones, but he didn't say a word. Nor did she try to talk to him. It was clear Rourke was calling the shots.

Kit came in finally, pa.s.sing Ca.s.sidy and making big eyes at her as if to say, Did you see who's sitting at the counter? Did you see who's sitting at the counter?

"You want me to wait on him?" Kit whispered on one of Ca.s.sidy's trips to the kitchen.

"No. I have it covered," she said, wondering if Rourke was straining to hear their conversation, just as she had strained to hear his so many years ago.

She returned to the counter to refill the sugar, salt and pepper containers. The one time she looked in his direction he was smirking at her as if he knew what she was up to and it didn't fool him for a minute.

She should have picked another task to do. She spilled sugar, knocked over salt and pepper shakers, fumbled and dropped things. Come on, Rourke. Just get it over with. Come on, Rourke. Just get it over with.

The bell dinged that his order was up. She hurried back to get it, so nervous she felt nauseous.

She wiped perspiration from her forehead with her arm. Her skin felt flushed, then dimpled with goose b.u.mps as a chill rippled over it. She blotted her hands on a clean towel, avoiding the sympathetic looks of Ellie, Kit and Arthur.

"Don't you want me to call the sheriff?" Arthur said.

"No!" She lowered her voice. "Please. I can handle this."

Picking up Rourke's order, she hurried back out to the counter and put it down in front of him.

"Thank you," he said, his eyes boring into her.

"Can I get you anything else?" Her voice only broke a little but she could see that he heard it, relished in the fact that he had her fl.u.s.tered.

"No thanks. I have everything I need. At least for the moment," he added.

She was weary of this game and desperate to say the words she'd wanted to say to him for eleven years. "Rourke, I think we should-"

"I'll let you know if I need anything else," he said, cutting her off.

He didn't want to hear her tell him how sorry she was for what had happened to him. Or how badly she felt about the part she'd played in it. He wanted to be angry. To make her suffer. Didn't he know how much she'd suffered already?

No, she thought, looking into all that icy blue. He wanted to strike out at her for his own suffering. He wanted someone to pay. And he'd decided eleven years ago, who that person would be.

She stared at this hardened, cold, embittered man with only one thing on his mind: getting even with her. The realization left her feeling empty inside.

He'd never paid her any mind at all-except for one kiss when she was thirteen and then again after Forrest's murder. He'd looked right through her before then.

She refilled his coffee cup. He thought she'd framed him for murder. That he'd been the only one to live his life under a cloud of suspicion for the past eleven years.

If he thought he could make her feel more guilty, he was wrong. She had blamed herself all these years.

Just do it, Rourke. Do whatever it is you've been planning to do to me for the past eleven years.

He must have seen the change in her. His eyes narrowed and he frowned as if suddenly confused.

There was a crash of pots and pans from the kitchen, followed by some mild cursing. Ca.s.sidy hurriedly returned to the kitchen.

Arthur looked up sheepishly. "Nerves," he whispered.

She smiled at him, knowing how he felt, and bent to help him and Kit retrieve the clutter of pans that had fallen from the shelf. Ellie had finally left, it appeared. "These all have to be washed."

"I'll do it," Kit volunteered, kneeling beside her on the floor. "Are you all right?" she whispered.

Ca.s.sidy nodded. She felt as if she'd just gotten the news that someone close to her had died. Only she and Rourke had never been close. Their only connection was his need for revenge. And her need to set things right.

She'd tried to just before Rourke was moved to the prison in Deer Lodge. She'd gone to the jail to try to talk to him but he'd been too angry to listen-let alone believe her.

Ca.s.sidy handed Arthur a pan as she rose. Hiding her tears, she made a swipe at them, then turned to go back out to the counter. Rourke would would talk to her. And if he didn't, well, she'd talk to talk to her. And if he didn't, well, she'd talk to him. him.

But when she reached the counter, she looked around in confusion.

He was gone.

She stared in surprise at the spot where she'd left him just minutes before. His plate was empty. He'd left the price of his meal and a generous tip on the counter.

She was torn between relief and regret. Both made her weak. She leaned against the counter, fighting back her earlier tears. She felt drained, bereft.

"Go on home," Kit said as she scooped up Rourke's empty dishes and wiped down the counter. "You've had a long day."

Ca.s.sidy could only nod. It had been the longest day of her life.

She took off her ap.r.o.n, hung it up and went to her office to retrieve her purse again. This time, she didn't hesitate. She opened the back door, trying not to run. She desperately wanted to go home, take a hot bath, mourn for all that had been lost.

The door swung open and she stepped out.

Rourke was leaning against his old pickup, arms folded across his chest, his cowboy hat pushed back, the last of the day's sunlight on the face she'd dreamed about for eleven years. Some of those dreams had turned into nightmares.

Chapter Four.

"Let's go for a ride," Rourke said, motioning to his pickup as he considered what he would do when she refused.

Ca.s.sidy glanced at the truck, then at him. "If you want to talk, we can go in my office."

"Any reason you wouldn't want to go for a ride with me?" he asked.

She c.o.c.ked her head at him, that look in her eyes again, the same one he'd seen earlier in the cafe. Anger? What the h.e.l.l did she she have to be angry about? He thought of the photo in his pocket. He didn't know what to make of it any more than he did of her now. He would have to learn to read this woman better. have to be angry about? He thought of the photo in his pocket. He didn't know what to make of it any more than he did of her now. He would have to learn to read this woman better.

"I know you're trying to intimidate me," she said quietly.

He smiled at that. He'd just graduated from the school of intimidation. "That's what you think I'm trying to do?"

"Yes," she said, but to his surprise, she walked around the front of the pickup, opened the pa.s.senger-side door and climbed in.

He was momentarily taken aback. He'd expected her to put up an argument. Maybe even yell for help. Or at least threaten to tell his brother the sheriff that she was being hara.s.sed.