like animals much.
“He’ll be here at the clinic awhile,” Conner said, ostensibly referring to the dog. “Have lunch with me.”
Tricia blinked. She didn’t know what she’d expected, if indeed she’d expected anything at all, but it hadn’t been an invitation to lunch. Was this a date? The thought sent a small, shameful thrill through her.
“Natty’s a good friend of mine,” Conner went on, adjusting his hat again. “And since you and I seem to have started off on the wrong foot, I thought—”
“We haven’t,” Tricia argued, without knowing why. The strange tension between them must have made her snappish. “Started off on the wrong foot, I mean.”
Again, that slow grin that settled over her insides like warm honey. Agitated, she tugged at the leash again and this time, the dog was willing to follow her lead. Relieved, she made her way to the doors.
But Conner came right along with her. He was a persistent cuss—she’d say that for him.
“My, my,” Becky said, rounding the desk to take the leash from Tricia but looking all the while at the dog. “I see a bath in your future,” she told him. Then, meeting Tricia’s gaze, she added, “We’re looking at an hour and a half at the least. More likely, two. Dad’s schedule is packed.”
The dog whined imploringly, his limpid gaze moving between Tricia and Conner, as though making some silent appeal. Please don’t leave me.
She’d better toughen up, Tricia thought. And now was the time to start.
“Mr. Creed and I are going to lunch,” she heard herself say, in a perfectly ordinary tone of voice, and was amazed. “I’ll check back with you later on.”
“Good idea,” Becky agreed, with a little twinkle.
Just as Conner had done earlier, the woman crouched to look into the dog’s eyes. “Don’t you be scared, now,” she said. “We’re going to take good care of you, I promise.”
He licked her face, and she laughed.
“Hey, Valentino,” Becky said. “You’re quite the lover.”
Valentino, Tricia thought.
Oh, God, he had a name now.
But as Becky rose and started to lead the dog away, into the back, he made a sound so forlorn that Tricia’s eyes filled.
“We have your cell number on file, don’t we?” Becky turned to ask Tricia, who was still standing in the same place, feeling stricken. “You haven’t changed it or anything?”
“You have it,” Tricia managed to croak. She felt Conner take a light hold on her elbow. He sort of steered her toward the doors, through them and out into the parking lot.
“Lunch,” he reminded her quietly.
Her cell phone chirped in her purse, and she took it out, looked at the screen, and smiled, though barely. There was a text from Diana’s ten-year-old daughter, Sasha. “Hi,” it read. “Mom let me use her phone so I could tell you that we’re on a field trip at the Seattle Aquarium and it’s awesome!”
Tricia replied with a single word. “Great!”
“No sense in taking two rigs,” Conner commented.
The next thing Tricia knew, she was in the passenger seat of his big truck, the cell phone in her pocket.
It’s just lunch, she told herself, as they headed toward the diner in the middle of town. Except for the upscale steakhouse on the highway to Denver, Elmer’s Café was the only sit-down eating establishment in Lonesome Bend.
All the ranchers gathered there for lunch or for coffee and pie, and the people who lived in town liked the place, too. It was continually crowded, but the food was good and the prices were reasonable. Tricia occasionally stopped in for a soup-and-sandwich special, sitting at one of the stools at the counter, since she was always alone and the tables were generally full.
Today, there was a booth open, a rare phenomenon at lunchtime.
Tricia wondered dryly if the universe always accommodated Conner Creed and, after that, she wondered where in the heck that thought had come from.
Conner took off his hat and hung it on the rack next to the door, as at home as he might have been in his own kitchen. He nodded to Elmer’s wife, Mabel, who was the only waitress in sight.
Mabel, a benign gossip, sized up the situation with a good, hard look at Tricia and Conner. A radiant smile broke over her face, orangish in color because of her foundation, and she sang out, “Be right with you, folks.”
Conner waited until Tricia slid into the booth before sitting down across from her and reaching for a menu. She set her cell phone on the table, in case there was another communiqué from Sasha, or a call from Doc Benchley’s office about Valentino. Then she extracted a bottle of hand sanitizer from her bag and squirted some into her palm.
Conner raised an eyebrow, grinning that grin again.
“You can’t be too careful,” Tricia said, sounding defensive even to herself.
“Sure you can,” Conner replied easily, reaching for a menu.
Tricia pushed the bottle an inch or so in his direction.
He ignored it.
“There are germs on everything,” she said, lowering her voice lest Mabel or Elmer overhear and think she was criticizing their hygiene practices.
“Yes,” Conner agreed lightly, without looking up from the menu. “Too much of that stuff can compromise a person’s immune system.”
Tricia felt foolish. Conner was a grown man. If he wanted to risk contracting some terrible disease, that was certainly his prerogative. As long as he wasn’t cooking the food, what did she care?
She dropped the bottle back into her purse.
Mabel bustled over, with a stub of a pencil and a little pad, grinning broadly as she waited to take their orders.
Tricia asked what kind of soup they were serving that day, and Mabel replied that it was cream of broccoli with roasted garlic. Her own special recipe.
Women in and around Lonesome Bend were recipe-proud, Tricia knew. Natty guarded the secret formula for her chili, a concoction that drew people in droves every year when the rummage sale rolled around, claiming it had been in the family for a hundred years.
Tricia ordered the soup. Conner ordered a burger and fries, with coffee.
Then, as soon as Mabel hurried away to put in the order, he excused himself, his eyes merry with amusement, and went to wash his hands.
Tricia actually considered making a quick exit while he was gone, but in the end, she couldn’t get around the silliness of the idea. Besides, her SUV was still over at the veterinary clinic, a good mile from Elmer’s Café.
So she sat. And she waited, twiddling her thumbs.
* * *
DAMN, CONNER SAID SILENTLY, addressing his own reflection in the men’s-room mirror. It was no big deal having a friendly lunch with a woman—it was broad daylight, in his hometown, for God’s sake—so why did he feel as though he were riding a Clydesdale across a frozen river?
Sure, he’d been a little rattled when Malcolm told him Brody and Joleen were on their way back to Lonesome Bend, but once the adrenaline rush subsided, he’d been fine.
Now, he drew a deep breath, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and hit the soap dispenser a couple of times. He lathered up, rinsed, lathered up again. Smiled as he recalled the little bottle of disinfectant gel Tricia was carrying around.
Of course there was nothing wrong with cleanliness, but it seemed to Conner that more and more people were phobic about a few germs. He dried his hands and left the