Buch lesen: «Rodeo Baby»

Chapter One

The second Violet Summer laid eyes on the stranger, an unreasonable swell of sexual awareness bloomed.

The man wasn’t even her type, yet here she stood stunned, and bothered, with Lester Voile’s coffee and Mama’s Best Meat Loaf cooling in her hands.

Rats.

Rodeo, and the Summertime Diner, rarely saw anyone like the stranger sliding into the second booth from the front door—suave, urbane...and dressed like a cowboy?

If he’d ever ridden out on the range, Vy would eat an old boot.

He looked like a movie star acting the role of a cowboy but not playing him well.

She chronicled every detail, including the neatly ironed jeans. What cowboy worth his salt ironed his jeans? How many decades had it been since anyone ironed jeans?

Vy started toward his booth.

He set his cowboy hat, sweat-free and spotless, on the table in front of him. Sunlight streaming through the window shot rays through his golden hair. His strong, clean-shaven jaw sent shivers through her.

Even knowing he was too slick and polished to be a real cowboy, she found him attractive, deep in her gut where reaction came before thought.

No, he was not her type, but good grief, just what she needed—an instant attraction to an imitation cowboy. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about these days.

Irritated, she plunked Lester Voile’s meal on his table.

Ignoring Lester’s muttered thanks, she approached the stranger’s booth, self-protective instincts on high alert.

Why, Vy? He’s just a guy who’s dropped into your diner. A stranger. You know nothing about him. There’s nothing to protect yourself from.

Except her own unruly attraction.

She pulled out her notepad and waited, giving the stranger a minute to adjust to her presence. He knew she was there. As she’d approached, he’d checked out her legs from under his blond lashes.

He set aside the menu and looked up. With that blond hair, she’d expected blue eyes, not the deep, cool gray that studied her.

He smiled, his grin broad and confident. Good Lord, the man had dimples and used them to good effect.

Well, he could grin all day long. She was immune. Plus his smile didn’t reach his eyes, so it was just charm, not innate good humor or character, which she valued a heck of a lot more than personality.

Or, Vy, maybe he’s in a bad mood and trying to rise above it. Don’t make assumptions. People do have them, y’know. You’ve seen enough people come into the diner when their lives were low to not take it personally. Don’t do it now. Park your paranoia in your apron pocket and do your job.

She asked, “Can I take your order?”

“I’ll have the World’s Best Cheeseburger with everything but onions.” Why did he have to have a melodious, deep voice that spoke to Vy’s longings? She hardened her defenses.

She had her hands full running the diner, not to mention pulling together all of the concession stands for the revived fair and rodeo at the end of August.

Handsome men were not on her agenda.

Slowly, the man pulled his eyes away from hers and said, “What do you want, honey?”

Huh? What did she want? And who was he calling honey—

A young voice to her right spoke. Vy glanced toward the other bench of the high-backed booth.

Oh. He wasn’t alone. How had she missed that?

A young girl glared at the man. She couldn’t be more than twelve, maybe thirteen, cloaked in not only enough black punk accessories to build body armor but also plenty of baby fat and attitude. Straight white teeth and a flawless complexion hinted at beauty in development. The kid would be a knockout someday, despite her current wardrobe.

Vy had learned early to be a quick judge of character. Unless she missed her guess, the kid belonged in a prep school somewhere, not in a diner in a small town pretending to be tough.

Vy knew a lost baby chick when she saw one.

She used to be one.

“Chelsea, I’ll ask only one more time,” the man said, voice thick with forced patience. “What will you have for lunch?”

When the girl crossed her arms with a mulish jut of her jaw and refused to respond, the man ordered for her. “My daughter will also have a cheeseburger, but top hers with plenty of onions.”

“Daaad.” Chelsea sat up straight. “You know I hate onions.”

He held up one finger. “Then the next time I ask you a question not once but twice, you’ll do me the courtesy of responding.”

Hmm... With many of the fathers she knew, local cowboys and ranchers, the conversation would have gone something like “When I ask a question, you answer. Got it?” Nothing as refined as “You’ll do me the courtesy of responding.”

Vy bit back a smile. This fake cowboy gave himself away at every turn.

To Vy, he said, “We’ll both have fries with the burgers. I’ll have a coffee and my daughter will have a glass of milk.”

“But I want a soda.” Again with the whiny voice.

“Goes back to what I said earlier. I ask and you respond.” His attention swinging back to Vy, he held on to his grin desperately, but cracks in the wall of his charm showed. “Bring her milk.”

“Got it.” She pointed to his cowboy hat. “No need to leave your hat on the table.”

She indicated the hooks that lined the walls on both sides of the front door.

“Wouldn’t want you to spill anything on your spotless, brand-spanking-new hat.”

Laughing, she returned to the kitchen, glad to leave the tension coiled at the table like a rattlesnake. She regretted that they’d wandered into her diner. She welcomed all business, but not the heartache on that poor girl’s face and the fissures in the careful facade of the father’s cultured shell.

The man looked like he belonged more in the Tradition Golf and Country Club way up the highway in Festival than he did in the Summertime Diner in Rodeo, but who they were and what they were doing here were none of her business or concern.

Ha. As if you could ever keep your nose out of other people’s business.

Vy grinned and turned her attention to picking up orders.

* * *

SAM CARMICHAEL, AKA Sam Michaels, watched the waitress walk away, the sway of her nicely rounded hips captivating.

Her nametag read “Violet,” a soft, old-fashioned name for a woman with intelligence and cheekiness snapping in her gaze.

Violet Summer.

One of the five.

No, at last count there were six of them, the people who were reviving his grandfather’s amusement park, the people he’d come here to investigate. Using Gramps’s fairgrounds, five local women planned to stage a fair and a rodeo at the end of the summer. Recently they’d added a newcomer, an accountant, to their team.

They had leased Gramps’s land for one dollar and a handshake.

No contract.

Sam was here to make sure Gramps wasn’t being taken for a ride.

The waitress—a damned good-looking woman with jet hair, clear skin and a retro fifties’ tight bodice and flared skirt—entered the kitchen, cutting off his view of her.

She had purple eyes. No, to be more accurate, he’d say violet, purple softened with a hint of gray. He’d never seen a color like them.

Or maybe he had. Elizabeth Taylor had purple eyes. As a boy, he used to enjoy watching old movies with his mother, but he’d never seen such an unusual color in the flesh before.

Were they real? Could they be contacts?

His fascination with the woman overcame his pique with his daughter’s incessant, grinding resistance.

Chelsea slumped low in the booth across from him.

Sure, divorce took its toll on kids, but it had been a full year since he and Tiffany had signed the papers, and more than a year and a half since Tiff had said, “I’ve met someone else. I want a divorce,” gutting Sam.

Standing, he sighed. Nineteen to twenty months wasn’t nearly long enough to process betrayal and greed. Tiffany’s, not his.

While his daily mantra ran through his head—success is the best revenge—he hung his hat where the waitress had indicated, then returned to his table, nodding to the old guy two booths away eating meat loaf and mashed potatoes.

The man, ancient and wrinkled, eyed him suspiciously.

This diner and the bar at the end of the street called Honey’s Place were the only eating establishments as far as he could tell.

Guess they were stuck with diner food with corny names. World’s Best Cheeseburger...

The diner could have been picked up and plunked down in any fifties’ town. He was surprised there weren’t Elvis and Chuck Berry songs blaring from jukeboxes.

Deep red leather banquettes framed gray Formica tables. Red-and-white-checked cotton place mats sat at the ready.

The paintings on the wall came as a surprise. He expected nostalgic black-and-white photos but instead saw rustic, wild landscapes. Were the artist and scenery local? He couldn’t deny they were good. He also couldn’t deny the scenery around this little town was spectacular.

“Why can’t we use our own names?” Chelsea picked at her peeling nail polish. He wished she’d quit with the unrelieved black. “Why do we have to pretend to be other people?”

“Shush.” Sam shot a glance around the diner. No one seemed to have heard Chelsea’s remark, thank goodness. “We have to be Sam and Chelsea Michaels so I can determine what’s going on about the rodeo.”

“Why don’t you just ask?”

She’s still so young, he reminded himself, and so naive.

“I don’t trust people to be honest.”

“Maybe you should. Maybe we aren’t all the creeps you think we are.”

He stilled. “You actually believe I think you’re a creep?” he whispered, unable to mask the hurt that coursed through him. Hadn’t he proved his love all of the times in her childhood he’d held her and told her how much he loved her?

She shrugged. Love her or not, he’d come to hate her shrugs as much as her eye rolls. Double for the word duh. And d’oh.

The waitress returned. Black eyeliner tilted up at the corners of her eyes and deep red lipstick emphasized lush lips. She fit right in with the decor. Did she have to dress in that fifties’s fashion?

The style suited her spectacular figure, emphasizing generous hips, a tiny waist and full breasts. The lush proportions worked, reminiscent again of Elizabeth Taylor.

Give your head a shake. For Gramps’s sake, it wasn’t wise to find her attractive. She was one of them. Once he determined how the women resurrecting the local fair were ripping off his grandfather, he would shut them down and move back east.

The sooner he could get back to New York to set up his next business venture, the better.

Careful, his rational, less emotional side cautioned. You need to first determine if they are indeed cheating him. But that one-dollar lease disturbed him.

The waitress put his plate in front of him and then Chelsea’s in front of her. He couldn’t smell onions on Chelsea’s burger, but that meant nothing. There were so many scents in the diner he wasn’t sure he would be able to.

Chelsea peeked under the top of the hamburger bun. A tiny, mean-spirited smile that usually meant trouble formed at one corner of her mouth.

Sam braced himself. Where had his sweet daughter gone and who was this stranger now in possession of her body? Apparently, once a girl turned thirteen, demons took over.

He glanced at the waitress. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the closest exorcist lives, would you?”

Violet smiled—even, white teeth framed by cherry red. “We’re plumb out. We burned the last one at the stake with all of our witches a hundred years back.”

Sam stared. She’d gotten his joke! His ex-wife’s reaction had always been a frown because she hadn’t understood his humor. Chelsea used to get his jokes but had become too cool to laugh or even smile. He’d grown used to their negativity. The waitress’s willingness to play along was pure pleasure. He perked up.

She jerked her chin toward his daughter. “It’s surprising what a good cheeseburger will do to expel demons.”

Chelsea took her time looking over the waitress insolently. Apparently, once she’d become a teenager, she’d lost all of the good manners that had been drummed into her throughout her short childhood.

“You dress funny,” she said with a snicker.

“Chelsea!”

Violet leaned one hand on the table and rested her other on her hip. “So do you.”

Chelsea scowled. “You’re only a waitress. You can’t talk to me like that.”

“When you are rude to me, I can respond in any way I please. If you don’t like it, you can leave. Are you going to eat your meal or should I take it away?”

“I’ll eat.” Sam detected grudging respect in Chelsea’s tone.

The waitress straightened away from the table. “Take the silver spoon out of your mouth first so you don’t choke.”

A grudging smile bloomed on Chelsea’s face.

How did the woman know they had money? To fit in, Sam had dressed down in denim and a plaid shirt, along with cowboy boots and hat.

Chelsea wore black punk. What about them said money? Nothing, as far as he could tell. He had to be more careful. The woman’s intuition disturbed him and he struck out at her.

“I asked you to load her burger with onions.” He hadn’t really wanted the waitress to, but Chelsea had many lessons to learn and Sam had no patience left for teaching them. Every stop on this ill-conceived trip, every mile of highway traveled across country and every single black inch of asphalt navigated had been littered with heartache for both of them. When all roads had steep uphill pitches, all you wanted was to roll backward and give up.

He wished he could turn back time and start over with his daughter.

Violet flipped her violet gaze on Sam. “Do you want her to eat or not?”

“At this point, I don’t much care,” he groused. Tired, hungry and out of patience, he wished he was back home in Manhattan where he belonged.

“Mom says I shouldn’t eat too much,” his child piped up. “She says I’m too fat.”

“You’re not fat!” Sam hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but Tiffany’s complaints about Chelsea had worn him thin. “You’re perfect, okay?”

“You should eat, kid.” The waitress smelled like fried food and roses.

Sam held his breath. Nobody called Chelsea a kid and got away with it. On her young, chubby face, thunder started to build.

Then Violet added, “It takes a lot of calories to feed that much ’tude.”

Chelsea burst out laughing, stunning Sam. His daughter, who hadn’t laughed in months, who hadn’t given him a genuine smile in twice that long, picked up her burger and happily bit into it.

Violet sauntered away while Sam envisioned himself getting down on his knees and kissing her feet...and every inch of her calves. She had great calves, strong but feminine.

She returned with their drinks.

“Has anyone ever mentioned that your name matches your eyes?” They were gorgeous.

“Nope. Not once. That’s a new one.” She slapped cream and sugar onto the table in front of him.

His jaw hardened. She had no right to treat him badly. It was just mild harmless flirtation. “You’ve got a lot of attitude.” He didn’t like sarcasm. Didn’t like people treating him badly. Back home—

Well, he wasn’t back home, was he?

“Let me speak to the manager,” he ordered.

“That would be me.”

“Okay, then. Is the owner in?”

She tapped one red-tipped fingernail against her chin. “Let me think. Yes. That would also be me.”

Chelsea giggled.

Good Lord. Two against one. “You don’t know much about business and good customer service, do you?”

He’d meant to put her in her place, but she turned to the customers in the large room and called out, “Does anyone have trouble with how I run my business?”

One and all shook their heads no.

Damn. He hadn’t meant to draw attention.

“Do I give good customer service or not?”

“Good service, Vy,” the old guy two tables down yelled. “Love the mashed potatoes. What did you say you put in them?”

“Garlic, Lester. That’s why they’re called garlic mashed potatoes.”

“Makes sense.” Lester nodded. “Like ’em. Refill my coffee when you get a minute?”

“Sure thing. I’ll get right on it as soon as I can get away from this table.”

Heat in Sam’s cheeks burned. His daughter watched him with a mocking smile. The townspeople watched him curiously. Great. He’d wanted to avoid drawing attention to himself, but here he was center stage because of this bad-tempered woman.

She presented her back to him and walked away.

“All I did was be nice to her,” he mumbled while he doctored his coffee.

“You gave her your fake, cheesy grin, Dad. You were flirting with her badly.”

He pinned his daughter with a hard glare. “What do you know about flirting?”

She rolled her eyes. Sick of the action, he pulled out of his pocket a small change purse he’d picked up at a souvenir shop on the way. “You rolled your eyes. Pay up.”

“Daaad.”

“Pay up.” He held out the purse. “Now.”

She took a quarter out of her pink knapsack and dropped it into the change purse.

“It’s getting heavy,” he remarked.

“You’re mean to take money away from your daughter. I’m only thirteen years old!”

“Thirteen going on twenty. Your mother gave you all kinds of money before we left. I give you a good allowance. You ain’t starving, kid.”

“Aren’t. It’s aren’t starving. Just because we’re in this tiny town doesn’t mean you have to speak like the locals.”

Sam grinned, but didn’t apologize. “What was wrong with my flirting with the waitress?”

“Owner.”

“Owner,” he conceded.

“You’re coming on way too strong. It makes you sound corny. Maybe you forget how to do it right because you’re getting old.”

He bristled. “Since when is thirty-nine old?”

She shrugged.

A minute later, he said, “There’s nothing wrong with flirting. It’s what men and women do when they’re attracted to each other.”

“I know, but don’t be so artificial about it.” She mimicked him with a false voice, “‘Your violet eyes match your name,’” and, worse, with a fake smile. She looked like a politician.

“Her eyes do match her name.” Defensiveness made him petulant.

“Yeah, and that’s so obvious. Everybody must say that to her. You have to notice different things and say more original stuff.”

“Like what?”

“She’s funny. She makes me laugh.”

“At my expense. I’m not about to compliment her on her sense of humor when I’m the butt of her jokes.” He liked her legs, especially her calves.

“So should I have said, ‘Great calves, lady’? Yeah, that would have gone over real well.”

Chelsea peered around the edge of the booth to look at Violet’s legs as she stood chatting with customers at another table. The girl turned back to him with wide eyes. “Her calves are kind of big. You think they’re great?”

“Sure. They’re shapely.”

The thoughtful frown on Chelsea’s forehead intrigued him.

“There’s nothing wrong with a woman being shapely.”

She nodded, still thoughtful.

“I wasn’t kidding, Chelsea. You are perfect the way you are. Your mom stressed too much about being thin.”

“So, like, didn’t you like her that thin?”

“I wouldn’t have minded if she worried about it less. It was always on her mind. She ate like a bird.”

“Not really, Dad. Lots of birds eat half their body weight every day.”

He smiled slowly because Chelsea was smiling, too. When she was small, they seemed to have this ability to read each other’s minds and get each other’s jokes before they’d even been delivered. “Can you imagine your mom eating half her body weight?”

She laughed then sobered. “She used to binge and purge.”

Sam’s lips thinned. “Purge. You mean...”

Chelsea sighed. “Yeah. Didn’t you know? Mom used to get rid of her food after dinner all the time.”

He’d known, of course—she was painfully thin—but had hoped Chelsea had remained ignorant. It seemed she’d been aware all along.

Kids always did seem to know everything you tried to hide from them.

He wanted his daughter to have healthy behavior.

“Chelsea, promise me something?”

She made a noncommittal sound, which he took as permission to continue. “Never do that. Okay? Never. Enjoy your food and your life. Nothing is worth that kind of behavior. It didn’t buy your mother more love or more respect. Okay?”

“Yeah.” She stared at the fry in her hand. “Okay.”

“Eat up.” He picked up his burger.

On her way along to another customer, Violet slapped a bowl of ketchup onto their table.

What was her problem?

He was a paying customer like everyone else in the diner and deserved as much respect, but she’d taken an instant dislike to him.

Or maybe it was you trying to get her into trouble with her manager, Sam, who just happened to be her.

Starving, he bit into his burger and instantly sat up straight.

“This is good.” He wiped juice from his chin. “Excellent.”

“Yeah. It’s the best burger I’ve had since we left home.”

“No fooling.” It was the best he’d had in years.

“The fries are good, too,” Chelsea said.

He bit into one, twice fried so they were crispy. Vinegar and pepper sharpened the side dish of coleslaw.

Maybe eating here wouldn’t be so bad, after all, if the rest of the meals lived up to their corny names.

For the first time since leaving home, he felt in harmony with his daughter. He’d missed that amazing feeling.

A craving arose in him to relax with her and have fun like he used to do, to tease her and hug her and call her goofy pet names.

He didn’t want to be this uptight guy he’d become since Tiffany’s betrayal.

On impulse, he blurted, “Let’s share dessert?”

She brightened a little. “Okay.”

They argued for a good five minutes about what they would share.

“I’m too full to eat a whole dessert,” he said.

“Me, too.”

“So we have to come to an agreement. We do that by negotiation.”

“Dad, I hate when you teach me. Why can’t we just talk?”

“I thought we were just talking.”

“No, you’re lecturing and I’m—”

They were interrupted by Violet plopping a plate in the middle of the table with small portions of four desserts and two forks.

“Knock yourselves out,” she said. She slapped their bill onto the table and walked away. He checked the total. Too reasonable. She needed to raise the price points on her meals.

“She heard us arguing.” Chelsea stared at the plate before picking up a fork and tasting the cherry cheesecake. “Oh, that’s sooo good. She’s smart. She has good solutions to problems.”

“She does.” Sam had to agree. Why hadn’t he just asked her if she could sell them portions? So would she have a solution to his biggest problem?

He motioned her over.

She watched him with what could only be described as neutrality. Apparently, it was too much to expect friendliness.

“We’re going to be in the area for a while. Can you recommend a place to stay?”

“Hotel? Bed-and-breakfast? A rental room for a longer stay?”

“Dad needs a job.”

Sam choked on a bite of cheesecake and coughed. After a gulp of coffee, he glared at his daughter. No, no, no. This wasn’t what he’d wanted. He’d planned to glide in under the radar, to get the lay of the land and to see if he could get answers before having to commit to the last, desperate level of subterfuge.

But now it was out in the open. Damn.

“Not really. I—”

“A job? As a ranch hand? Sure,” the owner responded almost gleefully. “That can be arranged. There’s always room for a hardworking cowboy on any ranch in the county. Especially for an experienced one, which you must be at your age.”

Your age? Why was everyone fixated on his age?

Chelsea laughed, enjoying this too much.

“You have your daughter with you,” Violet said, “so that will limit the living arrangements. You can’t stay in a bunkhouse. Let me see what I can do. I’ll make a few calls.”

“But—” She left before he could stop her.

“Thanks a lot.” He muttered, directing his displeasure toward Chelsea. “Now I can’t renege without looking foolish. You shouldn’t have mentioned I needed a job. That was supposed to be a last-ditch scenario. I mean really last-ditch. I’m not a cowboy.”

Chelsea sat back and crossed her arms. He hated her scowl. She used to be sunny and carefree. God, what had he and Tiffany done?

“You shouldn’t be dishonest, Dad. You shouldn’t be pretending to be someone you’re not.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“Sure you do. Don’t you remember what you always used to tell me?”

He blinked. “I’ve told you a lot of things.”

“‘Your choices define who you are.’” She mimicked him perfectly at his pedantic worst.

He asked quietly, “Do you really dislike me so much?”

She didn’t meet his eyes. Folding and unfolding a corner of her place mat, she mumbled, “No. I don’t dislike you.”

He believed her. On the other hand, she made sense about the choices he was making here in this town. They weren’t his best. But what else could he do? Gramps needed help. The second Gramps had called last week with concerns about the fair, Sam had packed and left. His gramps meant more to him than...than air. More than his father did.