where Mara Jennings was concerned. But now that she was standing right in front of him, so close that he could lean forward a few inches and touch her arm, his tongue felt like lead and his pulse began to roar in his ears.
She must have felt his scrutiny, for her cool blue eyes flicked his way, her own gaze resting a brief moment on his face before sliding back to the waitress at the counter.
She hadn’t recognized him.
Was that possible? He’d been a little lax about getting his hair cut since he left the rodeo circuit, and he’d put on ten pounds now that he wasn’t shooting through gates on the back of a thousand pounds of pissed-off beef and trying to hang on for eight seconds of sheer adrenaline. But it wasn’t his face that had gotten crushed under Coronado’s rolling body. His looks hadn’t changed that much.
Then her gaze snapped back, her brow creasing slightly as her eyebrows dipped to a V over her nose.
He managed to find his voice. “Hi, Mara.”
She froze in place for a moment, her expression going completely blank. Then she gave a short nod. “Hi.”
“So, this is where you disappeared to. I wondered.” He licked his dry lips. “I was so sorry to hear about your sister.”
A flicker of pain darted across her still face, so brief that he wondered if he’d imagined it. But when she spoke, her voice came out on a soft rasp. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry about everything, really. Especially the way things ended.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Forget about it, Jack. I have.”
The hardness in her tone shouldn’t have come as a surprise, given how badly he’d messed up the last time they saw each other. And the cool indifference should have been a relief, a reassurance that his selfish stupidity hadn’t crushed her spirit completely.
But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong with Mara Jennings.
“I know it’s been a long time, but I’d really like to talk to you a little more, try to explain a few things. Could you make some time for me?”
She shook her head. “Jack, I’ve moved on.”
“There’s still the matter of the money.”
Her brow furrowed again, her eyes darting toward him before sliding away. “This is about money? Really?” She sounded confused.
Now he knew something was wrong.
“Seven thousand dollars, Mara. Plus four years of interest?”
Her lips pressed to a thin line. “Was there anything in writing?”
He stared at her, unease twisting a knot in his gut. “No, of course not. You know there wasn’t.” He took a step closer to her, unable to stop himself. “Are you okay?”
Alarm flickered in her eyes before she turned toward the waitress, who’d just returned to the counter with a box filled with individual brown paper sacks. She didn’t answer his question as she pulled out a credit card and handed it to the waitress to process.
While Darlene was running the credit card through the system, Mara continued to ignore him, her small, round chin lifted with a hint of haughtiness he’d never seen in Mara Jennings during the year he’d known her.
He might not have changed much in four years, but clearly she had.
She took the credit card back from Darlene, signed the slip and picked up the box of lunch bags, then turned toward the door without even glancing his way. She was going to leave without saying anything else, he realized.
Part of him argued to just let her go. If she didn’t want to deal with the past, he shouldn’t make her.
But there was still the issue of the money.
Before he could keep his feet from moving, he’d stepped into her path, forcing her to stop so quickly she almost dropped the box of lunches she carried. He caught the sliding box and steadied it for her, his fingers brushing over hers.
Her gaze snapped up to meet his, and she took a quick step backward. “What do you want?”
“I get that you don’t want to deal with the past. I’m not asking you to forgive me or anything like that. But seven thousand dollars is a lot of money—”
“And you just said there was nothing in writing.” Her husky voice was edged with disdain. “So you can’t prove I owe you a damn thing. Now excuse me.”
She passed him quickly and left through the front door of the diner, passing Jack’s brother-in-law, Riley Patterson, and his wife and child as they entered. Riley’s craggy face split with a grin at the sight of Jack standing in the middle of the diner. “What did you do, strike out with the redhead?”
Riley’s wife, Hannah, lowered her son, Cody, to the floor so he could hurry over to Jack. Reaching down, he picked up the three-year-old, tucked him close and looked over his head at Riley. “Do you remember me telling you about needing to make amends to a woman I hurt in Amarillo?”
Riley’s smile faded. “Was that her?”
“I thought it was,” Jack answered, remembering the cold, haughty air of the woman he’d just watched leave the diner. “I guess it is.” He waved toward an empty booth, inviting them to take a seat. He settled onto the bench seat across from them, setting Cody down beside him. “But something very strange is going on.”
“Strange how?” Hannah asked before Riley could speak.
“Well, I brought up the seven thousand dollars, and she acted like she didn’t remember it at all. Which was weird enough. But when I pressed her on it—” He shook his head, the flutter of unease in his gut returning. “She asked me if we put anything in writing, and when I told her of course not, she said I couldn’t prove she owed me a thing.”
Hannah and Riley exchanged a quick look. “Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand?” Riley asked.
“Believe me, I didn’t.” He shook his head. “Four years after the fact, she doesn’t remember that I scammed seven thousand dollars from her. How is that even possible?”
* * *
DON’T PANIC. THERE’S no need to panic.
She entered through the front door of the two-story Victorian mansion on Magnolia Street, breathing deeply through her nose and releasing both air and tension through her mouth with each determined step. The office conference room was about ten paces down the narrow central corridor, and she timed her respiration accordingly—one breath, three steps. By the time she knocked on the door and received the invitation to enter, she had managed to present an outward air of calm.
But inside, she was freaking out completely.
Of all people to run into here in Purgatory, Tennessee—Jack Drummond? The cowboy with a heart of stone.
God, she’d been loathing that name for four years, loathing even the mere thought of what he’d done, the wreckage
