Christmas Rescue at Mustang Ridge. Delores Fossen

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      Or in nondiner lingo: fried eggs and buttered toast.

      The lingo was all mixed up in her head now. Mixed up with things like Herman’s butt pinch and the squirrel-brown uniform she wore five days a week. Sometimes six. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t good. But Maggie didn’t fight it.

      She hadn’t fought it or anything else in a long time.

      “Top off my coffee, darlin’,” Herman drawled, and added a wink. Flirting with her.

      Didn’t the man realize he was old enough to be her father? Her boss, Gene Dayton, sure did. Gene was busy frying more eggs and sausages on the grill, but even through the haze of griddle smoke and grease splattering, Gene still managed to give Herman a look that could have frozen the hottest part of Hades.

      Later, Gene would lecture her about letting men like Herman run roughshod over her.

      And he’d actually use the word roughshod.

      She’d nod, pretend to agree. Pretend that it mattered. Because it was easier than explaining why she wasn’t looking for a fight. Not with Herman. Not with Gene.

      Especially not with herself.

      She reached across the tiled counter for the coffeepot. The tile was a dingy yellow now with even dingier hairline cracks running through it. Still, it was clean. Maggie should know since she’d been the one to clean it. It was the part of her job she liked best.

      The only part, she amended.

      The bell jingled over the door as she was topping off Herman’s coffee. Maggie looked at the wall clock, not the glass door. Ten twenty-three. The bell ringer would be Ted Halvert, owner of the town’s newspaper, the Coopersville Crier.

      Ted was a few minutes early, but he was the only customer Maggie was expecting this time of day. For most people, it was already too late for breakfast, too early for lunch, and the Tip Top didn’t have enough ambience for people to drop by for just coffee or conversation.

      “Got your table ready, Ted.” Maggie leaned back over the counter to set down the coffeepot, turned to give Ted the smile he would expect.

      The smile froze on her face.

      And the pot slammed on the dingy tile that she’d just cleaned.

      The sound of the breaking glass registered in Maggie’s mind, but something else took over. Another set of lingo. A different set of rules.

      She reached for a gun that she no longer wore.

      Her riffling hand slid right across the shoulder holster that wasn’t there, either.

      “Megan?” Gene called out. “You okay?”

      It was her name now. Megan Greer. Her “relocation” name that had become second nature like cleaning and fake smiles, but Maggie couldn’t process it or Gene’s question.

      Her breath stalled in her lungs. The blood rushed to her head. And everything she’d put behind her, everything she’d tried to choke down in a deep dark place, all of it came crashing back.

      Because of Sheriff Jake McCall.

      It was him all right. All six feet, three inches of him. Standing there in the tinsel-decorated doorway of the Tip Top, glaring at her from the brim of a black Stetson. Beneath his buckskin shearling coat, Maggie saw the shoulder holster.

      A real one.

      And Jake’s hand was on the butt of that real Colt .45.

      “Are you here to finish things?” Maggie whispered. Not much sound in her voice, and everything inside her began to fall apart.

      Unlike Jake.

      He stood there, unmoving and unruffled, those Winchester-blue eyes drilling holes in her. Now, here was a man who could ride roughshod over her.

      And she would deserve it.

      “Megan?” Gene called out again.

      Everyone had their eyes trained on Jake and her, and even though Maggie’s eyes were on Jake, she knew Herman was already putting his hand on the little Smith & Wesson he carried in the slide holster in the back of his jeans.

      And he’d draw it.

      Gene, too.

      Even though Jake looked, smelled and acted like a cowboy cop, his mute reaction, the outlaw stubble and narrowed bloodshot eyes would alarm everyone. It wouldn’t be long before Gene pulled the Saturday night special he kept by the cash register. He didn’t know how to use it, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying to protect her.

      Maggie had to do something to defuse the situation, or soon bullets might start flying.

      “I’m okay,” Maggie gutted out. She forced a smile. God, that was hard because her jaw muscles had frozen. “This is an old friend.”

      That was hard, too. And it lit a bad angry fire in Jake’s eyes. Because they weren’t friends any longer. And there was little chance of her ever making it happen again.

      Especially since he’d likely snapped and come here to kill her.

      She’d had nightmares about it, of course, but hadn’t thought it would actually come down to it. Jake wasn’t the sort to take the law into his own hands. He definitely wasn’t a killer, but after what’d happened to Anna—her sister—Maggie wasn’t sure what sort of man he was these days.

      Maggie peeled off her apron, hoping no one noticed that her hands were shaking like crazy, and she grabbed her coat from the wooden peg on the back wall. She tossed the apron on the hook, missed but didn’t pick it up. Too many steps to process and there were more important steps now.

      “I’m going on my break,” she called out to Gene, and didn’t wait for him to challenge that. “Let’s take this outside,” Maggie added in a whisper meant only for Jake’s ears.

      Since she wasn’t sure Jake would go for her suggestion, she risked hooking her arm through his. He wasn’t shaking like her, but he was cold, making her wonder how long he’d stood out there watching her.

      Plotting and planning what he wanted to do to her.

      The question was—would Maggie let him do those things?

      Possibly.

      Jake wasn’t the only wounded soul who was sick and tired of dealing with the aftermath of what had once been a life.

      A blast of icy air slammed into her when she opened the door, and the silver-colored bells on the tacky plastic holly wreath jangled and jumped. Maggie said a quick prayer that Jake would budge, and she cursed herself for not having prayed sooner. Because it worked.

      Jake budged.

      And he walked out into the bitter cold with her.

      “This way,” he growled, and he took the lead, heading toward the parking lot. No snow, but СКАЧАТЬ