didn’t notice his approach. She was too busy folding away her designer sunglasses and stowing them in a leather handbag.
Once he was standing at the side of her table, he said in a low voice, “Hello, Clementine.”
The greeting caused her head to jerk up. Recognition flashed in her eyes and just as quickly her rosy-beige skin turned the color of a sick olive.
“Hello, Quito.”
His nostrils flared as he tried to draw in the oxygen his body was craving. Clementine Jones was as beautiful, no he mentally corrected himself, she was even more beautiful than he remembered. Her waist-length hair was straight and glossy and the color of a west Texas wheat field just before harvest time. Eyes as blue as a New Mexican sky were almond shaped and fringed with long dark lashes. Her lips were full and bow shaped, and at the moment naked. The point of her chin was slightly dented and though it wasn’t evident now, when she smiled there was a dimple in her left cheek.
Clementine looked as classy and out of place in this diner, Quito thought, as a Mustang would in Linc Ketchum’s remuda on the T Bar K.
“This is quite a surprise,” he said, “seeing you back in town.”
Her gaze fluttered awkwardly away from his as she shrugged a long strand of hair back over her shoulder. “Yes, it’s been a while.”
“Eleven years is a long time,” he stated.
The idea that he’d kept count had her gaze swinging back to his. Pink color seeped into the skin covering her high, slanted cheekbones.
“How have you been, Quito? Still the sheriff, I see.”
Something inside him snapped, then ricocheted around in him as her gaze slipped to the badge pinned to the left side of his chest.
“I’m making it, okay. The people around here still want me as their peacemaker and I’m glad to oblige.”
His drawl held the faintest edge and she must have picked up on the sharpness because the corners of her lips tightened ever so slightly.
“Must be nice to be wanted,” she murmured.
“You ought to know,” he countered softly. “See ya’ around, Clem.”
He turned away from the booth to leave and noticed Betty heading toward them with her pad and pencil.
As he started toward the exit Quito jerked his thumb back at Clementine’s booth. “Treat her right, Betty. She’s used to the best.”
Clementine tried not to look at the man as he left the café, but her eyes seemed to have a mind of their own and she watched his tall, solidly built body ease past the glass door and out of sight.
“Good mornin’, miss. You havin’ breakfast this mornin’?”
Sighing with a sadness she dared not examine, Clementine turned back to the waitress hovering at the edge of her table.
“Just coffee and toast. And maybe a little jam—any kind will do,” she told the waitress.
Betty quickly scribbled the order down then cast a faint grin at Clementine. “You must be new around town. I’d remember someone as pretty as you.”
Clementine flushed at Betty’s compliment. “Thank you. I used to live in this area for a while. I’m just back for a short visit.”
Curiosity raised Betty’s eyebrows. “Oh. You lived here in town? I live on Fourth. Little yellow house with a mesquite tree in the front yard.”
Clementine shook her head as she told herself she was going to have to get used to this. People were naturally going to be asking her why she was here, how long she planned to stay and where she’d been. The best thing she could do was to be honest.
“I didn’t live here in town. My parents owned the house south of town—the white stucco with the red tile roof. It’s on the mountain.”
Since there was only one house that fit that description, Betty’s mouth formed a silent O. “You mean the Jones house?”
Clementine nodded. “I didn’t know if anyone would remember. It’s been a long time since we were here.”
Betty was flat out amazed. “Remember? Why, honey, everyone remembers you Joneses.”
“Hey, Betty! Are you gonna talk all day over there or are you gonna pour me some coffee?”
The waitress glanced over at the man sitting on a bar stool. Even though his griping appeared to be good-natured, she stuck her pencil behind her ear and said, “Gotta go, miss. I’ll bring that toast right out.”
After Clementine ate breakfast she drove down main street and parked her black sports car in front of a log structure with a sign hanging over the door that read Neil Rankin, Attorney at Law.
Small sprinklers were dampening the patches of grass in front of the building. To the right-hand side of the steps stood a huge blue spruce tree. The pungent scent from its boughs was fresh and crisp to Clementine’s nostrils and she could only think how different this little corner of the world was from Houston and many of the poverty-stricken places she’d visited in the past couple of years. The sky was clean and sharply blue. The scents of evergreen, juniper and sage laced the dry air. And the men were just as rough and tough as any Texan on the streets of Houston. Especially one, she thought. The one with a badge on his shirt and a gun on his hips.
Feeling as though every last bit of air had drained from her lungs, she slumped back against the seat and passed a trembling hand across her forehead.
Why are you so upset, Clementine? You knew you were going to run into the man sometime during this stay. You knew you were going to have to look upon his face again.
Drawing in a ragged breath, she tried to push the voice away and gather her shaken senses.
She turned her gaze on the passenger window and stared out at the town where she’d once walked and shopped. Above the roofs of the buildings, in the far, far distance, the peaks of the San Juan Mountains were capped with snow and as she studied their majestic beauty, her thoughts turned backward to a time when she and Quito had walked along a quiet mountain path. Even though it had been summer, patches of snow had lain in the shadows and in the meadows dandelions as big as saucers had bobbed in the warm sun. She and Quito had lain down in the grass and the wildflowers and made love. The trees and the sky had been their canopy and the earth had been their bed. She’d fallen in love with him that day and her life had never been the same since.
Several minutes passed before Clementine was composed enough to leave the car and enter the lawyer’s office. The front area of the building was modestly decorated with plastic chairs and a coffee table loaded with magazines. In the center of the room, close to a door marked Private, was a wide desk with an Hispanic woman seated behind it. A nameplate on the corner said her name was Connie Jimenez.
As Clementine approached the desk, the woman continued to chat on the telephone. After two long minutes, she hung up and quickly apologized.
“Sorry about that. Some people think they can butt their way into anything.” The middle-aged woman had black, slightly graying hair and she smiled at Clementine with
