in her eyes. No surprises there. She’d known of all the challenges and goals she’d set for herself, this would be the most impossible. Natalie wasn’t inclined to feel an ounce of forgiveness, and understandably so. If Candace were in her place, she wouldn’t feel very forgiving, either. But if she could just find it in her heart to listen—not forgive, not forget, just listen….
“Do us all a favor and get the hell out of town. If you set foot on the ranch again, we’ll have you arrested, and if you go near Natalie again, I swear to God, I’ll make you damn sorry.” He delivered his warning in a voice so fierce, with such force behind it, that she had little doubt he meant every word of it. Then he slid to his feet, almost bumping into the waitress.
“Hey, Josh, can I get you—” The waitress broke off, perplexed, to watch him walk away, then slowly shifted her suspicious gaze to Candace. Making no effort to be friendly, the woman set the dishes down with a thud, sloshing pop onto the cardboard back of the legal pad, then walked away.
So was that the kind of influence the Rawlins family held in Hickory Bluff? Candace wondered wearily as she stared at a chicken salad sandwich big enough for three. Their enemies were the town’s enemies? Was the waitress’s loyalty to Josh in particular, or was the entire town likely to turn against Candace if she stayed?
She was feeling perverse enough to find out.
Chapter Two
Supper at the Rawlinses’ house that evening was an unusually somber affair. Natalie was withdrawn, Tate concerned about her, and Josh…. Truth was, Josh was pretty much in the dark. He didn’t know exactly who Candace Thompson was—someone Natalie had once been friends with, whom she now despised, whose name couldn’t even be mentioned at the table without stony silences or, worse, an awful hurt look sliding over Natalie’s features.
But, bottom line, Josh didn’t need to know any details. Rawlinses stuck together. It was how they got through the bad times, and it made the good times that much better. He didn’t need to know what Candace had done. Natalie was family, and her enemy was the family’s enemy.
Too bad her enemy was so damn pretty.
He finished the supper dishes he’d volunteered to wash and dried his hands, then went into the living room. Tate was sitting on the couch, J.T. snoozing on his lap and Natalie curled up against him. She looked as if she were a thousand miles away, in a place too melancholy to bear.
“I…I guess I’ll head on home,” he said.
“See you in the morning,” Tate responded.
Moving closer, Josh gently ruffled J.T.’s hair, then squeezed Natalie’s hand. She didn’t lift her head from Tate’s shoulder but gave him a sad smile.
The night was chilly, making him glad he’d brought a jacket. The sky was dark and clear, the stars so bright that it seemed he could reach up and touch them. He whistled tunelessly as he crossed to his pickup, then headed home. He lived on the south end of the property, a half mile west of the road in a stand of timber. He and Tate had built the house themselves eight years ago, working in their free time. They’d had precious little of it, so the place was plain and purely functional, which suited him just fine. He didn’t spend much time there, and if he ever married and had kids, he would have to build on. Any prettying-up could be done then.
The road that ran between the two houses was little more than two ruts in the grass. Just before it entered the trees, another narrow lane angled off to the left, giving him quick access to the county road through a rickety gate. The main road went straight, then zigzagged through the trees before finally reaching the clearing where the house stood. It was a simple frame house, painted a dark rusty red. The front porch stood only a foot off the ground, so he hadn’t bothered with railings, and he generally ignored the steps centered in front. He parked at the side, stepped directly up onto the porch, then went in.
The place always seemed so quiet compared to Tate’s house—though this evening next door had been an exception. Of course, having a three-year-old in residence made a hell of a difference. It was nice to walk into Tate’s and hear laughter, chattering and singing, to smell scents like food cooking, perfume and other feminine things, to see childish and womanly touches all over.
Just as it was nice to come in here and find the quiet and privacy he expected.
As he settled on the couch, he listened to the messages on the answering machine. Two were from Theresa, the steadiest of the recent women in his life, one just asking for a call, the other inviting him over later in the week. The third was from the wife of one of his buddies. They were going to a concert in Tulsa on Saturday and would he be interested in going along with her cousin, Stacey.
He grimaced. He’d met Stacey before, and while she was gorgeous, her biological clock was ticking loudly, making her eager to get married. Every time he spent even a few minutes with her, he felt lucky to have escaped unharmed—or unhitched.
It was barely eight o’clock. Too early for bed. He turned on the television and flipped through the channels but found nothing that caught his interest. He considered returning Theresa’s call, but figured she’d be busy grading her fifth-graders’ papers. He ate an apple and tried to finish the thriller that had been sitting on the end table since the last time he’d put it down over two weeks ago. Obviously, it wasn’t thrilling enough.
What he needed was a distraction, and where he usually found his distractions was Frenchy’s, the same place he’d recommended to Candace Thompson for a cold beer. What were the odds she would show up after their conversation at Norma Sue’s? What were the odds she was even still in the county?
And so what if she was and she did go to Frenchy’s? That didn’t mean he had to speak to her or anything. For damn sure he didn’t have to stay home and avoid one of his regular hangouts just because she might be there.
He wasted another ten minutes, trying to talk himself out of it, but when he was done, he grabbed his jacket and Stetson and returned to his truck. When he drove through the gate and onto the county road, he turned left, the shortest route to the bar. He looked for the blonde’s car in the parking lot and was satisfied when he didn’t see it. As tension he hadn’t even been aware of drained from his shoulders, he parked and headed for the door.
Frenchy’s wasn’t much—but then, nothing in Hickory Bluff was. The building was long and squat, built of concrete blocks that had been painted red once upon a time, then white and most recently, gray. Of course, most recently was about ten years ago, so patches of all three colors, as well as bare concrete, showed through.
The floor inside was cement, and the interior surface of the blocks was painted black, as if the windowless building hadn’t already been dark enough inside. Booths lined three walls, and the floor space was shared by tables and chairs, pool tables and a dance floor. A bar ran the length of the back wall, and a bandstand took up one end of the building. Frenchy’s offered live music every other weekend, some of it pretty good. The rest of the time they made do with a juke box, and it was pretty good, too.
Josh knew everyone in the place, and said hello a half dozen times on his way to the bar, where the owner was wiping the counter. He wasn’t French, and his name was Otis. Rumor had it that back in his younger days, he’d met a singer in Paris by the name of Genevieve. They’d fallen in love, and he’d come back here to build this place, where he would tend bar and she would provide the entertainment, but she’d never come to join him and he’d never found out why.
One night, when Otis had been drinking away his profits, he’d confided in Josh that the
