Cord trained horses, and he was world-renowned for his ability to establish a rapport with even the most troubled animal. J.P. had been injured in Afghanistan, years before, and had parlayed a modest government settlement into a fortune.
J.P. looked around, taking in the empty tables and unoccupied seats at the counter. “So do you,” he said.
Brynne made a face, then laughed.
“Want to sit down?” Cord asked.
“No, thanks,” she replied. She had a personal rule: she didn’t sit with customers, even when the eatery was nearly empty and the invitation came from two of her oldest friends. “I’m on duty.”
J.P. saluted, the smart-ass.
Just then, the number one vehicle from the sheriff’s department whipped into the parking spot next to J.P.’s fancy rig. It was a massive SUV, dark green under sprays of mud, tricked out with top-of-the-line gear and emblazoned with insignia.
Brynne felt a lurch in the pit of her stomach.
Even after all this time, he still got to her, especially when the encounter was unexpected. And she figured she ought to be over it by now, since they weren’t kids anymore.
Nevertheless, there it was.
She watched as Eli got out of the rig, shut the door behind him and headed for the entrance.
He was easy on the eyes, especially in that uniform, but Brynne had other rules, besides the one about not sitting down with customers—she didn’t date cops.
Not anymore.
She was a law-abiding citizen and all that, but cops, like firefighters—she didn’t date them, either—were in almost constant danger, even in places like Painted Pony Creek, Montana. Back in Boston she’d had friends in law enforcement, before and after she’d fallen in love with a policeman.
She’d seen too many marriages break under the stress the job naturally entailed, visited too many hospital rooms, and attended too many funerals.
To Brynne, loving a cop meant being afraid, 24/7.
And if there was one thing Brynne Bailey didn’t need in her life, it was fear.
The little bell over the door jingled merrily as Eli came in from the cold.
Trooper crawled out from under the table and went, tail wagging, to greet the newcomer.
Eli smiled and bent to ruffle the dog’s ears, murmuring a greeting. According to his sisters, Sara, who was Brynne’s friend, he’d recently adopted a dog of his own, and named him “Festus,” after a character on that old Western chestnut, Gunsmoke.
“Coffee?” Brynne asked automatically. She wasn’t abrupt around Eli Garrett, just strangely careful.
“Sure,” Eli said. “Thanks.”
Brynne wondered if he ever thought about their history; if he regretted dumping her as gracelessly as he had.
Probably not, she decided.
To him, high school was a distant memory, water under the bridge.
Brynne didn’t dwell on the old days herself, of course, but sometimes recollections of losing Eli to another girl—Reba Shannon in particular—ambushed her.
When that happened, she had to remind herself that that was then and this is now. She and Eli, once so close, were mere acquaintances now.
Resolved to keep her cool, she went back behind the counter for a clean cup and saucer, grateful to have something to do, even though the task took less than a minute.
Eli was seated and reading the menu when Brynne set the cup down in front of him and poured coffee.
“What can I get you?” Brynne inquired lightly. It was what she said to everyone. Nothing special.
“Is the grill off?” Eli asked, without looking up from the menu.
“I can fire it up,” Brynne replied. “What’ll it be?”
“Burger with everything and an order of curly fries,” came the answer.
Brynne turned quickly and headed for the kitchen.
“Missed lunch,” she heard Eli explaining to his friends. “I could eat the north end of a southbound skunk.”
Brynne rolled her eyes, amused by the colorful, if hackneyed, description.
Men. Especially Montana men.
In the privacy of the kitchen, Brynne set to work. The fry cook was at the dentist and would be back in time for the evening rush. Brynne listened to the low rumble of male voices as she turned the dial on the grill to medium-high, washed her hands and gathered the makings of a deluxe burger—a thick meat pattie from the fridge, then a bowl of sliced onion, a plump tomato, a block of cheese, a slab of bacon.
One of the three hunks started up the jukebox.
Charlie Daniels fiddled his way into “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” and Brynne tapped one foot to the rhythm as the burger sizzled on the grill in front of her. The song was an oldie, but it was still a popular choice among the patrons of Bailey’s, along with a lot of other golden relics.
She added a slice of cheese to the burger, dropped the fries into the basket and lowered them into the bubbling oil, and, against her better judgment, let her thoughts drift back to her time in Boston.
And Clayton.
Clayton “Clay” Nicholls, a detective with the robbery division of Boston PD.
Brynne had met Clay when the gallery she managed had been robbed. Tall and muscular, with sandy-colored hair and a truly disarming smile, he’d caught her attention in that first moment they’d shared and held on to it long after the reports were filed and the investigation had been successfully closed.
Like museums, art galleries were usually targeted by very sophisticated thieves, familiar with state-of-the-art security systems and patient enough to plan their heists for months, if not years, before making a move.
In this case, the perps were young, inexperienced and impulsive.
The pair had been identified and tracked down within a few hours, balaclavas notwithstanding, caught on camera as they lugged armloads of paintings out the back way and piled them—Brynne still winced at the memory—into a rusted-out van with its doors open and its license plate clearly visible.
The plate would have led to an arrest all by itself, but these two, like most petty criminals, were a few trillion gray cells short of a brain. They’d yanked off their balaclavas, in plain sight of the security camera above the back door, high-fived each other in jubilant self-congratulation.
Clay and his team had had them in cuffs before the sun went down.
The stolen artworks had been recovered, expertly restored their former glory and returned to the gallery walls.
Of course Brynne had been relieved and grateful and, when Clay called three days after the incident to ask her out, she’d said yes without hesitation.