Julia Calhoun Fitzgerald had no problem commanding a full surgical team in the operating room during an emergency decompressive craniectomy, but she could be naked, standing on her head and yelling from a bullhorn, and nobody in the Cowgirl Up Café would give her a second look.
“May I get some...” Julia’s voice trailed off when she realized she was talking to the back of the busboy’s turquoise T-shirt. He’d unceremoniously dropped the plate of food off on the counter between her seat and the empty one next to her, not bothering to ask if she had everything she needed.
She looked down the counter and saw an unused place setting two seats over. She could either sit here, going unnoticed for another twenty minutes—which was how long it’d taken for the waitress to take her order in the first place—or she could reach over and grab the neighboring paper napkin and utensils. She decided to do the latter.
After centering the newly acquired napkin in her lap, Julia neatly cut her oversize breakfast burrito in half with surgical precision, then clamped her lips shut at what looked to be sausage gravy oozing out of the center. This couldn’t be right. She lifted her head and looked around the restaurant, hoping to catch the attention of the lone waitress who was darting between several crowded tables, fumbling with her order pad before picking up a stack of dirty plates from an empty table.
Was this place always so crowded? Since being stationed at the Shadowview Military Hospital last month, Julia had come into her aunt’s restaurant only twice, and both times were right before closing when most of the small town of Sugar Falls, Idaho, shut down for the night.
And speaking of Aunt Freckles, where was she anyway? Julia could’ve sworn the calendar app on her fancy new smartphone said they were supposed to meet at the café at eight this morning.
She glanced at her gold tank watch—one of the more modest pieces she’d inherited from her mother—and noted that she had only about fifteen minutes before she was supposed to meet the contractor at her new house.
Julia used her fork and knife to probe at the contents of the flour tortilla on her plate, then leaned forward and sniffed at the batter-covered meat inside. This was definitely not what she’d ordered. She carefully set her utensils down on either side of her plate and took a sip of her orange juice while observing the other customers and trying not to eavesdrop on the intense conversation going on in the booth to her right.
“There’s no way the Rockies are going to make it to the play-offs this year, let alone win the pennant.” One of the older-looking cowboys slammed his fist on the table, making the salt and pepper shakers rattle as the equally elderly man beside him nodded in agreement. “And if you try to tell me their bull pen is stronger than the Rangers’, I’ll call you a liar.”
Julia squirmed in her seat, trying not to listen to the heated discussion but unable to tear her gaze away.
“Now settle down, Jonesy,” said the younger man sitting on the opposite side of the booth. He was holding up his hands, the sleeves of his gray flannel shirt rolled up to reveal strong, tan forearms that could only be the result of years of outdoor physical labor. His short auburn hair was messy—probably due to the green hat precariously hanging on his bouncing knee—and his square jaw and smirking lips made Julia’s pulse want to do the opposite of settle down. Luckily, though, his quiet voice, or maybe his overall size, had the proper effect on Jonesy, who took a couple of deep breaths before nodding. Sexy Flannel Shirt continued, “Nobody said anything about their pitchers. All I said was...”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the server approach, and Julia turned away from the conversation, slightly lifting her hand in an attempt to get Monica’s attention. At least, she thought the name tag read Monica. She couldn’t be sure since the woman kept passing by in a blur, not even glancing in Julia’s direction.
“Excuse me.” Julia tried again when Monica rushed behind her side of the counter, this time balancing three plates of food in one hand and a carafe of coffee and a bottle of syrup in the other. But the young woman still didn’t look her way.
Sighing, Julia decided that she’d settle for eating what she could off the plate. She hated being late, and since the contractor was a good friend of her aunt’s, Julia wanted to make a good impression. She picked up her fork and began eating the home fries, which she had to admit were delicious, if a little greasier than her usual breakfast fare. Just as she swallowed the last bit of potatoes, she heard a choking sound coming from the booth beside her.
Sexy Flannel Shirt had his hand covering his mouth, and Julia sprang into rescue mode. Within four strides, she’d pulled the man out of the booth and wrapped her arms around his torso, locking them in place directly above his upper abdomen. His chin almost collided with her forehead when he whipped his head back quickly to look at her.
“You’ll be okay,” she said in her most authoritative tone. “Try to stay calm.”
“I would be a hell of a lot calmer if I knew why you were latching onto me like that,” the man replied. If he was capable of speaking, he was capable of breathing.
Oh no.
Julia rose awkwardly to her full height, her hands disengaging so slowly, she could feel the softness of his flannel shirt under her fingers. And the tightness of the muscles underneath. Obviously her senses were on high alert because of the quick adrenaline rush she got whenever she was in an emergency situation like this. Even if it was a false alarm.
She quickly clasped her overly sensitive hands behind her back.
“Sorry,” she said to Mr. Flannel, as well as to the two older cowboys sitting with him at the table, their eyes as large and round as their stacks of blueberry pancakes. “I thought you were choking.”
“I thought so, too,” the man admitted. “Then I just realized that I was being poisoned by whatever was inside my chicken-fried steak burrito.”
He pointed to his plate, and Julia suddenly realized where her breakfast order had ended up.
“It looks like you got my egg white and veggie delight wrap.” She picked up the plate and walked back to her seat at the counter, then returned with his meal, the spilled gravy not yet congealing. “I think I got yours by mistake.”
“What happened to my hash browns?” he asked, looking at the empty space alongside his burrito.
A defensive heat rose up from the neckline of Julia’s hospital scrubs, all the way to her hairline. Who put chicken-fried steak in a tortilla, anyway? “I, uh, ate them when I realized that the burrito wasn’t what I ordered.”
“Most people would’ve just sent the order back if it was wrong,” he said, his lips twitching, giving her the impression that he found her mistake hilarious.
Oh really? She wanted to ask. They wouldn’t gasp and choke and pretend to be poisoned? But she didn’t know this man, or the rest of the people in this town. Yet. And Julia didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot with her new neighbors. Although she had a feeling that with all the eyes—including Monica’s, finally—in the suddenly quiet restaurant staring at her, she’d already made quite an impression.
The pressure on her sternum felt as if someone were trying to save her from choking...on her own embarrassment and she had to silence the whispers of one of the other few times she’d been so foolish. She returned to her seat and picked her leather satchel up off the floor, retrieving her wallet out of the front pocket before walking back to his booth.
“Here.
