She couldn’t push Grant out of her mind, but she could at least do what she was being paid to do. She hurried over to the bar and began loading up a tray. “Marty, you work most nights, right?”
The bartender didn’t stop polishing glasses with his towel. “Most.”
“Has he been in here before? Grant Cooper?”
“That’s the guy you were just talking to?” Marty shrugged. “He’s been in a couple times.”
“Recently?”
“Yeah, I guess. The last few weeks, anyway.”
“He ask any questions?”
Marty smiled wryly. “Yeah, what’ve we got on tap.”
“About something other than beer?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Why? What’s the story?”
“No story. I was just curious.”
“You’re never just curious, little... Ali,” Squire interjected, stopping next to the bar and handing her a twenty. Not too long ago, she’d learned that the prosperous rancher from Weaver was sort of her relative. “Gloria and I are headin’ out now.”
Ali held up the twenty-dollar bill between two fingers. “What’s this?”
“Bribery. For next time you pull me over for speeding.”
“I’ve got a better idea, Squire.” She plucked the hat off his gray head and tucked the twenty into the hatband. “Just stop speeding.”
He guffawed and clapped her on the back with one of his big, rough hands. “You’re a good girl, Ali, even if you got that uppity shrew for a granny. Ya oughta be finding a husband like that sis of yours has now.”
She shook her head. “Nobody left who’s worth marrying, Squire, since you’ve been hitched to Gloria all these years.”
Standing near the doorway, Gloria sniffed loudly. “You’re welcome to the old coot, Ali,” she called. “You just say the word.”
“Eh, she needs a young buck like that fella she was just talkin’ to.” Squire winked at her as he headed toward his wife and the exit. “Someone who can keep up with her.”
Ali chuckled as was expected of her, and picked up the heavy tray.
But the truth was, she was thirty years old. She’d been dating since she was sixteen, and in all that time, she’d never met a man she’d been inclined to marry. And even though there’d been all sorts of inclinations circling inside her since she’d met Grant Cooper, none of them were in the “proper” realm of marriage.
As for her thoughts of Grant inhabiting an improper realm? Now that was a whole different kettle of fish.
But it was a lot more important to get Grant Cooper on board when it came to finding his sister than it was to think about properly improper-ing him.
She finished delivering the drinks and returned to load up her tray again.
“You going to work again tomorrow night?” Marty had pulled out the schedule and set it next to the drink station.
She sighed. The thought of spending another five hours wearing high heels held no appeal whatsoever, particularly after spending eight hours on her feet doing traffic duty, which was Gowler’s latest punishment for her. But she still needed to get her truck out of the shop. “Yeah. And probably the night after that, if I can.”
Marty scribbled on the schedule with his pencil. “You got it, little lady.”
She made a face and tossed a lemon curl at him. “Very funny.”
“I thought so.” He grinned. “So what is behind your curiosity with that guy, Grant? Been a while since you dumped Keith Gowler. You finally looking for some fresh flesh?”
“Don’t be gross, Marty.” She preferred not to think that she’d dumped Keith since they’d only dated a few weeks, but it was true she’d been the one to put the brakes on dating him. “Grant might be a link to Layla.”
Looking surprised, Marty stopped what he was doing. Most everyone in town, and particularly those who worked at the bar, knew a baby had been abandoned on the Swift brothers’ doorstep last month. “He’s the baby’s father?”
“Uncle. He’s Daisy Miranda’s brother.”
He propped his elbows on the bar. “No kidding. First time he came in, he told me he was staying at the old Carmody place outside of town.”
“I know that now, so don’t rub it in, okay?” Ali had been to New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho and California—all on her own time and Linc’s pennies—following the circuitous trail that Daisy Miranda had left in her wake after quitting her job at Magic Jax. What Ali had learned along the way was that there had been only two consistent things about Daisy. One—her inconsistency. And two—her habit of sending postcards to a man named Grant Cooper that were routinely marked “return to sender.” But one of those postcards had gone against that trend. It had been returned to the post office right here in Braden with a label on it containing a forwarding address for a desolate ranch located nineteen-point-six miles outside of town.
“Did you ever meet the Carmodys?” Marty pulled a tray of clean glasses from the dishwasher and started emptying it. “Roger and Helen?”
Ali shook her head. “I don’t recall, but I suppose our paths would have probably crossed somewhere along the way. Can’t really live in Braden all your life and not have run into everyone else.” She nabbed one of the glasses, filled it with water and gulped it down. She hadn’t had time to eat between her shift at the police department and when she’d gone on duty at Magic Jax, and her stomach was growling in the worst way. “I assume you did.” Since he knew their names and all.
“They went to the same church as my grandma. Helen died way before he did.” He made a face. “I think they were as uptight as my grandma, too.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about that. But I do know the bank took back Roger Carmody’s property about ten years ago and he was forced to move away. I did not know, until just this week, however, that it had been bought at auction by none other than Grant Cooper, who turns out to be the brother of Daisy Miranda. He never lived there, though. Until now. He’s got his work cut out for him. Leaving it vacant all those years was just an invitation for vandals.” She set her glass in the rack of dirty dishes. “He’s here and claiming he doesn’t know anything about his sister’s whereabouts or her baby.”
“You don’t believe him?”
Did she? Ali picked up her loaded tray again. “I think it’s a lot of coincidences.”
“In other words, you don’t believe him.”
There was something about Grant Cooper that made her instinctively want to believe him.
Or maybe it was just those darned aqua eyes.
“It’s too soon to tell, Marty. It’s just too soon to tell.”
* * *
Eighteen hours later, Ali was working her way along Central Avenue, trying to pretend her feet hadn’t turned into blocks of ice despite her boots as she monitored the frost-rimmed parking meters lining the four blocks of the downtown area. Since it had been snowing steadily since that morning, she didn’t feel particularly inclined to punish the folks who didn’t want to keep running out to feed coins into the meters every ninety minutes. But she also knew if she didn’t write at least a few parking tickets, Gowler would accuse her of being soft. And being “soft” wasn’t going to earn her an opportunity to move up the ranks—assuming he ever forgave her for dumping his son.
So she kept tramping up and down the snowy street looking for the worst of the offenders. She pulled out her pad and halfheartedly wrote out a couple citations, tucking