Confessing to the Cowboy - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,70
left him, he promised that he’d kill me and now he’s doing just that and he won’t be happy until I’m finally dead.”
She’d had a horrible sense of impending doom that she’d been unable to shake since awakening to the blazing flames in her living room the night before. She felt as if the end game could occur at any moment and her greatest fear was that after all these years Jason would ultimately win.
“Mary. I’m not going to let that happen. You have to trust me.” There was a burning determination in Cameron’s eyes that she desperately wanted to believe, but he was only one man and at the moment Jason seemed so omnipotent.
“I’m going to see you to work each morning and I’m going to take you and Matt to my house each night. When you aren’t here surrounded by people, I’m going to be stuck on you like white on rice,” he said.
She smiled at his silly cliché. “Let me go place your order.” She left the counter and went into the kitchen where Rusty and Junior were working side by side on prepping for the dinner rush.
Minutes later she served Cameron his meal and then moved away from him, not wanting anyone to see her lingering around him. It was certainly probable that Jason or whoever was working for him knew she and Matt were staying at Cameron’s place, but there was no reason to give them the idea that it was anything except professional safekeeping, especially after the fire.
Thankfully, for the past eight years of being in Grady Gulch Mary had never shown any overt romantic interest in any man, although she’d certainly had plenty of the single cowboys hit on her.
There had been some speculation about her and Cameron, the waitresses had even teased her about it. But nobody knew anything beyond the perception that the two of them shared a deep friendship. Nobody knew about that morning in her bed, when he’d made love to her so exquisitely, when he’d breathed life into a lifeless body and soul and made her believe in love and happiness once again.
However, at that moment she’d believed that it would just be a matter of hours, at the most a day or two, before Cameron would have Jason behind bars and she could continue her life without fear. She didn’t believe that anymore.
Now her constant companion was a kind of fear she’d never known before. She suspected each and every man who entered her café doors, had learned to be suspicious of every crackle of a tree limb, each unusual noise that might reach her ears. She didn’t like the woman she was becoming, afraid to love, afraid to care about the people who had been in her life for the past eight years.
Thankfully the dinner rush kept her busy and shoved all troubling thoughts from her mind. Matt spent his time working on his homework at a table in the corner and then playing a handheld video game until they could leave.
When closing time came gratitude sprang through her as Cameron walked through the door, ready to take her and Matt back to his place. He looked tired and stressed, but also like a safe barrier to ward off evil.
“Everything okay this evening?” Cameron asked once they were in his car.
“Fine. Of course, the fire was the hot topic—excuse the pun,” she replied.
Matt laughed and Cameron cast her that slow, sexy grin that exploded a fireball of heat in the bottom of her belly. She didn’t ask him what, if anything, he and his deputies had come up with during the afternoon and evening. She feared his answer would be the same as it had been when he’d come in to eat...basically nothing.
The conversation on the drive back to Cameron’s consisted of Matt’s school-day adventures, the fact that the plows had done a great job clearing the roads and how much Twinkie had probably missed them all during the long day.
As they walked into Cameron’s front door, Matt was greeted by Twinkie, who danced and jumped on his new owner as if unable to get enough of him. After a quick visit outside, Matt and Twinkie headed for the guest bedroom he was temporarily calling home.
Cameron motioned Mary to the sofa. “I’m about to have that scotch I mentioned earlier today. Would you like something to drink?”
“You have any wine?”
“A bottle of red.”
She nodded. “A glass of red wine sounds heavenly.”