Confessing to the Cowboy - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,71
the kitchen she leaned her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes, fighting against a wave of discouragement.
For the first time in her life she wished she had a best friend, somebody who knew her entire history and lived in another town. She would have sent Matt to them, away from this place of danger and tension, away from the man determined to own him.
She wished she had a best friend who she could talk to about her conflicting emotions where Cameron was concerned. She wished she had somebody to confess about their bed time together and how those magical moments in his arms had only managed to confuse her more.
But throughout the time before she’d landed in Grady Gulch she’d traveled light and stealthily, not making friends, not allowing herself any close acquaintances.
She knew that much of the latest gossip was about the fact that the number one suspect in the fire and the murders was her ex-husband, although nobody had said anything to her face. Except George Wilton, who had finally had the temerity to say something to her about it.
“So, sounds like you married a real bastard,” he’d said as he was finishing up his dinner.
“Something like that,” Mary had agreed and then left the old man to his meal.
She now opened her eyes and straightened as Cameron entered the room, carrying a goblet of deep red wine and a smaller glass of amber liquid.
He eased down next to her and handed her the glass of wine. She tried to ignore the scent of him that smelled like home and security. “Ah, this is just what I needed,” she said before taking a sip and then setting the glass carefully back on the coffee table. “Actually, what I probably need is to chug the whole bottle.”
He grinned at her. “You can do that if you want. You’d be safe here...and drunk, but I wouldn’t want to think about the headache you’d have tomorrow.”
She picked up her glass again and took another sip of the wine. “I’ve never been much of a drinker.” She stared at the deep red liquid. “Drinking is dangerous when you’re keeping secrets. You have a little too much, talk a little too much and suddenly you’ve said more than you intended to say and perhaps put yourself and your son in danger.”
“It must have been tough, believing you were running from the law, afraid to make friends with anyone or stay in one place for long,” he said, his eyes the soft green-brown hue that threatened to pull her in and hold her there forever.
“It was tough.” She broke eye contact with him to take another sip of the wine and then continued. “If it had just been me it wouldn’t have been so difficult, but I had Matt to consider.” Her mind swept her back to bad places, sleeping under bridges, hiding out in motel rooms that weren’t fit for humans. Afraid. She was always afraid of what would happen when her money ran out or if she was stopped by the police for any reason and they discovered she was wanted for murder.
“It was horrible,” she finally said. “By the time we landed here in Grady Gulch I was both broke and exhausted. I stepped into the café carrying Matt. Violet Grady took one look at me and him and before I knew it I was staying in one of the cabins out back, working here in the café. Violet was babysitting Matt during my shifts.”
She couldn’t help but smile as she thought of the eighty-two-year-old owner of the café. Violet Grady had been a strong, opinionated woman whose husband had built the café that she’d kept running years after his death at the age of seventy-seven.
“She never asked me a single question about where I’d come from,” Mary said. “She told me she didn’t care much where people had been, that it was where they were going that mattered.”
Cameron smiled. “That sounds just like Violet. She was definitely a character, but had a heart of gold.”
Mary’s smile faded and a new grief swept through her. “I had three wonderful years of working for Violet before she came to me and told me she was terminally ill and didn’t have long to live. Since she had no children and no family left, she considered me and Matt her only family. She wanted to leave everything to me, but I refused. Violet was nothing if not persistent. We finally came