Daddy in the Making. Crystal Green

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СКАЧАТЬ Texas. They told him that he went on business trips, such as for selling and replenishing livestock—the type of trip he’d been on when he’d had the accident. He’d felt a connection to home when he’d returned there, although there’d been something else, as well, along with the comfort, a yen to go somewhere beyond the ranch. And, months later, it’d turned out to be St. Valentine, for whatever reason.

      He stepped onto the boardwalk, taking off his hat and running his fingers through his hair. His heart was beating a mile a minute.

       Brown hair … gray eyes …

      At the flash that kept coming to him every once in a while, his pulse jerked to a pause before jumping to a start once again.

      He was just anxious about getting this over with, getting on with his life. That had to be it.

      As he and Emmet walked toward the hotel, then entered the lobby, Conn took a moment to absorb the fringed lamps, the velvet-upholstered furniture, the scent of lemon polish and wood. Tasteful maroon-and-beige wallpaper lent some ease to the tone of the room, but Conn wasn’t feeling so easy at all.

      They moved to the reception area, where tourists lingered, reading framed newspaper articles on the walls about the so-called ghosts that haunted this Old West establishment—supposedly a gentleman and a lovelorn woman from the 1930s. There would also be articles about the town founder, Tony Amati, and that was why these tourists had come to town on a warm November weekday, Conn thought. They’d been lured by a new mystery that had been uncovered by a couple of town reporters who’d realized that old Tony, the former Texas Ranger, had died under a shroud of seeming conspiracy and strange circumstances.

      To hear the tales, Amati, who’d settled in these parts and founded St. Valentine way back in the late 1920s, had started to matter more than ever around here after a man who was his spitting image had wandered into town over four months ago, before Conn had arrived. People had started looking very closely at the pictures of the town founder then, comparing them to the stranger, the cryptic Jared Colton. They’d started getting very interested in Tony, too—a man who’d done so much for St. Valentine, yet had managed to remain a puzzle all the same.

      Both Tony and this modern-day stranger had certainly captured everyone’s romantic inclinations and imagination. And the town, which had suffered through rough economic times, was now starting to benefit from the story, attracting more and more tourists. Just how had Tony died? everyone wondered. And why had he been so darn reclusive? Everyone wanted to poke around and solve the mysteries. Magazine articles and travel shows had been sniffing around town, too—there’d even been some kind of TV ghost show that had camped out in the St. Valentine Hotel, the papers said.

      Yup, Conn had sure done all the research he could about St. Valentine before coming out here. Not that it had helped with his own mysteries.

      â€œAny of it look familiar?” Emmet asked.

      â€œNot really.”

      Emmet gestured toward the reception desk. “You want to find out if you checked in here that night?”

      The hotel had wanted to see some ID in person before giving out that kind of sensitive information. “Yeah.”

      Conn took a step toward the long desk, then stopped in his tracks, stilled by a bolt of electricity.

      A woman with brown curly hair pulled into a side pony tail that flowed past her shoulder, her torso covered by a white old-fashioned, high-collared blouse that was obviously a part of the hotel’s uniform. She had a lush mouth in an angular face, and light-colored eyes that reflected the same blindsided attraction he was feeling.

      All Conn could do was hold his hat to his stomach, which was flipping end over end, crackling with the tremors dancing through it. It was as if a bright light was blazing over his sight, a lightning strike that illuminated that night again.

       White sheets on a bed … a woman lying down on them, her hair curled over the pale linen. “Come here, cowboy,” she whispered …

      She’d been in St. Valentine.

      She was the reason he was here. Somehow, he knew that without a doubt.

      When his vision cleared, she was still staring at him, just as if she’d seen one of the ghosts that this hotel was supposed to house.

      Did his knees ever go this weak with all those other women he’d supposedly been with? It sure as hell hadn’t happened with the nurses at the hospital. Then again, they hadn’t looked like this brunette.

      Besides, something inside him told him that this had never happened before.

      But how could he know for sure?

      Clutching the necklace until its edges dug into his palm, Conn left Emmet and went to the desk. The woman was still behind it, by herself, but from the way she looked away from him, down at the counter, Conn could tell that she wished she had any guest but him in line for some service.

      In fact, as she glanced up again, her gaze had gone from thunderstruck to steely, all in a tumultuous second.

      He didn’t even have the chance to utter a hello before she said in a low tone, “So you’re back.”

      Steely, all right. A gritted comment that nearly set him back on his heels.

      This was the woman in his fragmented memories, right? The limpid-eyed lady who’d begun to appear to him recently at night, giving him pleasant dreams. The one who’d been so happy to be in his bed.

      He showed her the necklace, the R split in half across his palm. She sucked in a breath, but then, as if she was real good at recovering quickly, that breath turned into a small laugh.

      â€œYou came here to return this?” She was still talking quietly enough so that her voice didn’t carry. “Better late than never, I suppose.”

      Return it? Why had he taken it in the first place? He thought that maybe he should apologize about something, but he wasn’t sure just what it was he would be sorry for.

      â€œCan we talk?” he asked. “I need—”

      â€œTalk? That’s a good euphemism.” She laughed again, taking up a pile of paper and neatly straightening it on the desk. “I’ll tell you what, cowboy—you just keep that trophy of yours and we’ll call it even.” She nodded at the necklace he was still holding. “You’ve had it for going on four months, anyway.”

      Four months. She would’ve been here, at the St. Valentine Hotel, during his fateful trip.

      He glanced down at the necklace again. The letter R. Then he looked up at her name tag.

      Rita.

      Except, on the tag, her name in cursive was one continuous string, unlike the separated necklace. Unlike his life now.

      She called over a young clerk who was straightening a rack of brochures, and once she was manning the desk, Rita walked to the far end of the structure, to a quiet corner where the desk still barred her from СКАЧАТЬ