Out of the Storm (Buckhorn, Montana #1) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,36
that the man had come back. Jon could have kept going, but he hadn’t.
Collin walked across the highway toward her. He looked defeated. She felt an ache in her heart thick with guilt and relief and regret. He’d been so good to her and look what she’d done to him. She didn’t want to hurt him. But she couldn’t walk away from the man she believed was her husband. There had to be a reason why she was feeling this way. Why she’d felt that jolt the moment she’d seen him standing in his workshop. She wasn’t wrong this time. Maybe more painful, she was still in love with Danny. She always would be. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t found another man—until Collin. Her heart had always been overflowing because of Danny’s love.
* * *
COMING OUT OF the café kitchen, Bessie found a small crowd huddled at the front window trying to see through the frost on the glass and the falling snow outside.
“Seriously?” she asked as she joined them and saw that Lindsey was crying.
“What?” she demanded of the pregnant young waitress.
“It’s just such a touching love story,” Lindsey said. “She thinks Jon Harper is her dead husband. She’s been waiting for him to come back for twenty years. She’d given up hope and agreed to marry Collin Matthews. He’s the blond man she’s with.” As if Bessie didn’t know that. “But then their car breaks down on their engagement trip, and she stumbles into Jon’s workshop and sees him and knows in her heart he’s her husband. Only he doesn’t know her because he has amnesia.”
“It sounds like a soap opera,” Bessie said. “And where did you hear all this?”
“Shirley, at the motel. She said they yell a lot, and one day when she was cleaning an adjoining room, she heard them arguing about it.” Lindsey wiped her eyes. “It breaks my heart. What if Jon really is her lost love?”
“I wouldn’t believe everything Shirley says she’s heard through a motel-room wall,” Bessie said, though kindly. She knew that a lot of this was Lindsey’s hormones at work. “And don’t go spreading this story. They’re leaving town.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” the cook said and pointed across the street. “Jon left, but he came back.” Now in her fifties, Rene Carson had been passing through sixteen years ago after being dumped by her boyfriend. She’d come into the café hoping to earn enough money to catch a bus back to California and had ended up staying instead.
“Everyone in town already knows the story,” said Vi Mullen as she peeled herself off the window to return to her seat. “She’s not leaving.” Mabel Aldrich nodded as she hurriedly returned to her seat in the booth across from Vi.
“She better not leave,” the cook said and turned back to the kitchen. “I’ve got ten bucks in the pool. I’m counting on her to stay.”
“I’ve got all my pin money on her staying,” Mabel said.
“Don’t tell me that people are wagering on this,” Bessie said with disgust. “What is wrong with you? This is their lives you’re gambling on.”
“Rene’s right. Jon is the love of her life.” Lindsey was wiping her eyes again. “How can she leave him now that she’s found him? It’s so sweet.”
Bessie didn’t see anything sweet about it as she looked out the front window to see Kate covered with falling snow as she stared at Jon’s workshop. Collin Matthews was making his way toward her. Bessie could just imagine the conversation that had taken place with Jon and Collin into the workshop.
“It’s more of a human tragedy than a love story,” she said to herself before turning away.
* * *
WHEN COLLIN REACHED KATE, he must have seen the tears streaming down her face. “Let’s talk at the motel,” he said, taking her arm. “It’s freezing out here.”
She still hadn’t moved. Past him she could see that he’d left the one carriage-house door open. A familiar figure stood in the doorway. The man who called himself Jon Harper. She stared at him, her heart thundering in her chest, until he stepped back and closed the door.
“He’s not Danny. Do you hear me?” Collin was practically yelling over the snow and the wind that whipped the flakes around them. “He says you’re wrong. He wants you to leave town. He says he can’t help you, he’s sorry, but he isn’t the man you want or need.”
She didn’t argue as she let him lead her back to the motel.