Country Proud (Painted Pony Creek #2) - Linda Lael Miller Page 0,9
tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
“We interrupted something, didn’t we?” she whispered. A mischievous twinkle lit her amber eyes.
Embarrassed again, Eli deflected. “Of course you didn’t,” he said. “Brynne and I were just talking, that’s all.”
“Liar,” Carly countered with a smile, keeping her voice low. “Did you finally ask her out?”
“Is the whole damn town playing matchmaker?” Eli demanded, but he couldn’t help a twitch of a grin.
“Probably,” Carly answered. “Did you?”
“Did I what?”
Carly rolled her eyes and, in that moment, she looked more like Cord than Reba. “Did you ask Brynne out?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Are you satisfied?”
“No,” Carly said. “What did she say?”
“She said she doesn’t date cops.”
More kids were coming through the door, and a few called out hellos to Eli as well as Carly.
Carly sighed dramatically. “She dated a police detective in Boston,” the girl confided, sotto voce. “I heard her telling Shallie about it once. Evidently, it was a real shitshow, and Brynne got her heart broken.”
“Language,” Eli said, with mock sternness.
Carly laughed. “Right.”
“Go join your friends,” he told her.
She kissed his cheek again, then did as she was told.
Eli carried his check to the cash register and waited for Brynne to take his money.
When she did, he handed over a twenty.
She made change. He add it to the tip.
The kids were making a ruckus, but it was a happy sound, full of holiday merriment. They were hoping for a heavy snowfall so they could sled and go snowboarding in the nearby mountains.
“So,” Brynne asked quietly, meeting Eli’s gaze and holding it. “Are you going to be my guest at the New Year’s Eve party or not?”
He imagined the scene. Practically everybody there would be a friend of Brynne’s, so he wondered how she thought this thing was supposed to go.
“I might stop in,” he allowed.
“I hope you do,” Brynne replied.
And the conversation was over.
Eli waved to the kids, and Eric gave him a thumbs-up. He and his nephew hadn’t always been on the best of terms—the kid had gone through a rough stage, gotten involved in some stuff he shouldn’t have—so Eli reckoned the gesture was better than a middle finger.
His shift was almost over for the day, and he was glad.
He’d go home, let the dog out, crack open a beer, kick back and watch a little Netflix.
Damn, he needed a hobby.
Outside, he surveyed the darkening sky, gunmetal gray and boding ill for snowplow operators, nervous drivers and the sheriff’s department.
The noise from inside Bailey’s was muffled, but it was poignantly joyous, too.
He thumbed the fob to unlock his SUV and headed toward it, head down, snowflakes chilling the nape of his neck.
* * *
ONCE HER WORK-DAY was over—after 10 p.m.—Brynne climbed the stairs behind the kitchen to her apartment on the second floor.
Her cat, a rescued tabby named Waldo, met her at the door, winding himself around her ankles and meowing piteously for a snack.
Brynne smiled and bent to pet him. “Don’t give me that poor-starving-cat routine,” she said. “You had supper at six, like always.”
Waldo subsided, but only slightly.
Brynne flipped on the lights and surveyed her spacious living room with a sense of lonely satisfaction. When she’d taken over the restaurant after her parents retired, she’d had the former storage/office space completely renovated, putting in a living room with bay windows overlooking Main Street, along with a streamlined kitchen, a master suite and a truly decadent private bath.
There were two small guest rooms as well, linked by a full bath and, of course, a powder room down the hallway.
Brynne sighed, kicking off her shoes and padding across the kitchen to fill the electric kettle and plug it in. A nice cup of herbal tea and a long, decadent soak in her garden tub would help her to decompress.
Running the café wasn’t exactly stressful, but it was a thriving concern, as it had been when her mom and dad ran it, and it kept her busy for as many as twelve hours a day.
And that was good, because when Brynne wasn’t rushing from one task to another, solving problems and putting out fires—sometimes literally—she started thinking about her life.
The mistakes she’d made.
The opportunities she’d missed.
The three years she’d wasted loving Clay Nicholls and believing that he loved her in return.
“Stop it,” she said aloud.
Waldo meowed again, more insistently this time.
“Beggar,” Brynne scolded fondly. While the water heated for her tea, she took an open can of tuna from the refrigerator and spooned a few flakes into Waldo’s empty dish.