his shoulder. “You’ll be eating supper in Ruidoso, too? Why?”
“I’ve got a date. That’s why.”
Turning, Tyler walked to his truck to leave the flabbergasted cook staring after him.
Chapter Three
“Rosa, you look so pretty tonight!” Loretta, a longtime Blue Mesa waitress, stepped back from the booth and gave Rosalinda a full-length inspection. “I can’t ever remember seeing you in a skirt. Must be something special going on.”
Loretta’s remark brought a sting of heat to Rosalinda’s face. She’d donned the turquoise tank top and white tiered skirt because it was a warm summer evening. Not because there was anything special about tonight, other than the idea that Tyler Pickens might walk through the door and sit across from her.
Ever since she’d driven from the Pine Ridge Ranch this morning, she’d been asking herself exactly what she was doing. Cozying up to the enemy or simply wanting to be a woman again? No matter which way she answered, it would be wrong. Outside of an official interview, she had no business conversing in any form or fashion with Tyler Pickens. And why would she want to? He wasn’t the most charming or sociable guy she’d met in the past few years, though he was probably the sexiest. He was also a mystery. One that she wanted to unravel.
“Nothing special, Loretta. I do wear skirts and dresses, you just always happen to see me whenever I’m working.”
The young woman with a long red ponytail pulled out her order pad. “That’s for sure. You’re always working. Especially at this time of night.”
“I worked overtime last night investigating the fire out on the Chaparral Ranch. So I got off early this evening.”
Loretta tapped the end of her pencil against her chin. “Oh, yeah, I heard about the fire. Have you caught the person who set it?”
She gave the waitress a sidelong glance. “How did you know that someone set it? It could’ve been a wildfire.”
Loretta chuckled. “Rosa, you know how word gets around. Lawmen are in here for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Besides, if it had been a simple wildfire you wouldn’t have been working overtime.”
“You’re a smart girl,” Rosalinda said wryly. “What are you doing wasting away here in this restaurant?”
A furtive look came over the waitress’s face. “Waiting for a man to walk through that door and sweep me off my aching feet.”
She might as well keep waiting, Rosalinda could’ve told her. Gallant knights didn’t ride up to restaurants and save damsels in distress. A few years ago Rosalinda had worked as a waitress, too, at the Brown Bear Cantina, a dingy little diner down on the Mescalero Apache Reservation. During that time she’d fallen in love with a regular customer, but her feelings had all been one-sided. Johnny Chino had loved someone else and was now happily married to the woman. Thankfully, he’d never really guessed her flirting meant anything serious. Otherwise, it would be awkward working as his fellow deputy now.
“Good luck,” Rosalinda told her.
A customer at another table called out to Loretta and she said to Rosalinda, “I’d better go check on that table. I’ll get your coffee on the way back.”
The waitress swished away from the corner booth and because she was nervous, Rosalinda picked up the menu that Loretta had left behind. The Blue Mesa wasn’t a fancy place. But the simple, home-cooked food was so good that patrons ignored the scruffy seating and worn tile. The old establishment had been a focal point on Mechem Drive for more than five decades, and during all those years the city police and county law officers had used it as a gathering place.
Moments later, Loretta returned with her coffee and as Rosalinda stirred a huge dollop of half-and-half into the cup, she heard the bell over the front door jingle.
Glancing up, her heart immediately gave a hard jerk as she watched Tyler Pickens emerge from a small entryway at the front of the room. Except for replacing the cream-colored shirt with a pale blue one, he was wearing the same cowboy gear he’d worn this morning. And like it had this morning, the sight of him struck her hard.
He paused at the entryway long enough to allow his gaze to sweep the room. When it finally landed on her, he acknowledged the recognition by a faint incline of his head, then quickly made his way through the busy eating place until he reached the far back wall where she was sitting.
“Hello, Mr. Pickens,” she greeted him.
“What a surprise to find you here, Ms. Lightfoot.” The wry slant to his lips made the glint in his eye seem even more suggestive. “Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”
Because she didn’t know whether to groan or laugh, she ended up doing neither. And since she was off duty at the moment, it hardly seemed appropriate to remind him once again that she was Deputy Lightfoot to him, not a Miss or Ms.
She said, “Ridiculous is more like it.”
He took a seat on the opposite side of the table and eased off his gray hat. As he placed the headgear next to him on the bench seat, her gaze traveled over his black hair. It was thick with a slight wave bending the ends. Her mother would say the man needed a haircut. The wayward strands curving around his ears and onto the back of his neck gave him a reckless, bad-boy look. Add that to the day-old growth of beard shadowing his jaws and chin and the image was downright lethal, she decided.
He looked across the table at her. “Why? Because you told me where you’d be? Or because I’m here?”
“Both.”
“You’re out of uniform,” he stated the obvious as his gaze swept over her. “I got the impression you’d be stopping by here on your work break.”
“Since I worked through most of the night last night, another deputy offered to take over my shift. Once I leave here, I’m going to go home and crash.”
“Well, you look very pretty.”
From everything Undersheriff Donovan had told her about Tyler Pickens, she’d not expected him to be a flirt or anything close to it. Apparently, the man had a side to him that others hadn’t seen before. So why was he showing it to her?
Deciding she might not want to know the answer to that question, she picked up her coffee cup and gazed into the brown liquid. “Thanks.”
He was about to make some sort of reply when Loretta arrived. As the young woman took their orders, Rosalinda could see the waitress was bursting with curiosity, but thankfully she didn’t ask to be introduced.
Once she’d left, Tyler picked up the glass of ice water that Loretta had served him and took a hefty drink. Rosalinda was momentarily distracted by the long, brown fingers wrapped around the slender glass. This morning as he’d clasped her hands, she’d been struck by his calloused skin, the roughness that told her he used his hands for more productive things than signing paychecks.
“Do you live here in Ruidoso?” he asked.
“At Ruidoso Downs,” she answered. “I used to live down on the res, but that made the drive to Carrizozo even longer. In case you didn’t know, that’s where the sheriff’s department, courthouse
