CHAPTER THREE

 

It was six o’clock in the evening and Kinley was finally leaving the restaurant. She and her manager, plus the executive chef, had been going over the supplies because the chef was changing the menu to reflect more of what the local farmers produced, so they were working on finalizing the menu change. Kinley was all about sustainable, local suppliers. Still, the day had been long and exhausting. She was looking forward to going home and crashing on the couch.

It was still relatively hot and dry outside as she locked the back door, indicative of the high plains weather she had been forced by necessity to get used to. Her non-descript Toyota sedan was waiting for her at the edge of the parking lot. She’d thought about getting a new car but she liked this one because it didn’t make her stand out. Two years later, laying low was still engrained in her brain. As she approached the car and put her key in the lock, a big Ford truck, newer model, pulled up into the stall next to her car. Kinley looked at the big, red beast of a pick-up and, as the door swung open, the first thing she saw was a big bouquet of flowers emerging.

Reed climbed out of the car, smiling at her. “Hi,” he said, holding the bouquet in one big hand. “I was hoping to catch you before you left.”

Kinley still had the key in the door lock, looking over the top of her car at the man and feeling rather dumbfounded. But she was simultaneously aware of another feeling as she looked at him; she realized that she was glad to see him. Something about that Marlboro Man in the flesh made her heart skip a beat.

“Uh… hi,” she said, her eyes twinkling rather humorously. “Nice flowers.”

“Thanks.”

“Got a date?”
He shrugged. “I was kind of hoping,” he said. “I haven’t exactly asked her out yet.”

Kinley lifted her eyebrows. “Really?” she said, knowing instinctively that he meant her and torn between the excitement and apprehension of it. “Well, good luck.”

He could see she was shutting the conversation down and he wasn’t going to let her; not this time. She was good at warming him to a conversation and then fleeing, but it wasn’t going to work tonight. He shut the door of the truck and began to move around her car.

“Do you think the flowers will do the trick?” he asked.

Kinley was very aware he was coming around the trunk of her car and into her personal space.

“Maybe,” she said. “They’re very nice.”

“Hypothetically speaking, if a man brought you flowers like these, would you at least feel sorry for him enough to go get a cup of coffee with him?”

He was nearly upon her by this time, the big yellow and gold mums in between them. Gazing up into his handsome face, she was still torn between excitement and anxiety, but the excitement side was winning. Even as she tried to grasp at the invisible strands of diminishing apprehension, her excitement in a handsome man’s interest overwhelmed her.

“Why are you asking me?” she asked. “You should be asking her.”

“I am.” He held the flowers up, smiling hopefully. “These are for you. I would be deeply honored if you’d accompany me someplace where we could have a cup of coffee.”

He said it so sweetly. It was really a darling, little proposal. Kinley couldn’t help the grin on her face, feeling herself relent. The apprehension was gone, edged out by the thrill. She reached out and reluctantly took the flowers when he held them out to her.

“Wow,” she finally said, looking at the flowers. “That’s the nicest offer I’ve had in a while. But I don’t think….”

“Please,” he cut her off. “Just let me buy a cup of coffee for the woman who saved my life.”

She looked up at him, the smile gone from her face. Then she swallowed hard, looking back at the flowers as indecision wracked her.

“You really don’t have to do that,” she said softly.

“I do,” he insisted, his voice quiet. “Look, I’ll be honest; what you don’t get is that when we met two years ago at that greasy spoon out on the highway, within the first thirty seconds of knowing you, I had already decided I was going to ask you out. You were sweet and beautiful, and you just had this glow about you. Now, I don’t get out much and I certainly don’t go around saying this to every woman I meet, but when I saw you yesterday again, it was like… like the sun just burst out from behind the clouds. There you stood, like a dream or an angel, and you’ve been all I can think about ever since. I just… I suppose I just want to thank you for what you did and hopefully make a new friend in the process.”

Kinley just stared at him. She was fully prepared to refuse him and run off, but she couldn’t seem to muster the will. Truth be told, she wanted to get to know him, too. It wasn’t healthy for her in the least, but he had managed to break down her resistance. After a moment, she simply nodded.

“Okay,” she agreed softly. “You win. Where do you want to go?”

Reed smiled broadly. “There’s a tea room down the street that’s open for dinner.”

She nodded. “I know it,” she said. “I’ll meet you over there.”

“Do you want to drive with me? It’ll save your gas.”

She had to chuckle. “I drive a Toyota,” she pointed out, but surrendered when she saw his hopeful expression. “Oh, all right. But you’re not a serial killer or anything, are you?”

“Only in the winter months.”

“Good,” she said, locking up her car. “Then I’m safe, at least for now.”

Reed followed her around to the passenger side of his truck and opened the door for her. “You’re safe in any case,” he said, holding the flowers as she climbed in. Then he handed them back to her, his eyes fixed intently on hers. “You’ll always be safe with me around, okay? I would never let anything happen to you.”

God, what a chivalrous declaration. If he only knew. Kinley smiled weakly. “I believe you.”

The smile faded from his face, replaced with a deadly serious expression. “I hope you do.”

 

***

 

The Tea Room was a big competitor for the breakfast and lunch crowd against the Coffee Cakery, so much so that they had to open up at dinnertime just to make up for lost revenue. When the owner saw Kinley come in, she fell all over herself getting her the right table and making sure everything was perfect. When the blond, overly-done owner provided them with two garishly-designed menus and left the table, Kinley wriggled her eyebrows.

“She’s probably in the back figuring out how to poison my food,” she teased softly.

Reed grinned as he looked at the menu. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll go back there and watch every move they make as they cook your food.”

Kinley giggled. “Nothing intimidating about a big deputy hanging over their shoulder,” she confirmed.

He looked up at her. “Me?” he said, feigning shock. “Intimidating?”

“Yes, you,” she insisted, though it was with humor. “You’re a very big man with a gun. Do you intend to break out your service weapon and wave it around back in the kitchens while they make my meal?”

He couldn’t help but laugh at the mental image. Then he threw his hands up in the air and feigned waving a gun around for a couple of seconds as Kinley giggled uncontrollably. Because she was laughing, he was laughing. She had a gorgeous smile and a silly little giggle. He liked it a lot. The owner of the Tea Room came back to the table with two glasses of water in her hands as they were snorting and chuckling.

“You two are having a good time already,” she said with too much enthusiasm. “What can I get you for dinner tonight?”

Kinley and Reed settled down, looking at each other and shrugging. “Uh,” Kinley said, quickly looking over the menu. “I’m not sure what I’ll have. What do you recommend?”

The bouffant-lady seriously considered the question. “We have a lovely endive and shrimp salad.”

She had pronounced “endive” as “ahhhhhn-deev”, which almost sent Kinley into giggles again. The woman was pretentious. “Great,” she said, trying not to grin. “I’ll take that.”

The owner smiled thinly at her, perhaps sensing the fact that she was being laughed at, and turned to Reed. “And you, sir?”

Before he could open his mouth, Kinley interrupted. “Do you have anything with bacon?” she asked the owner.

Reed grinned broadly, shaking his head, as the owner nodded. “We have a chicken and bacon Florentine that’s very delicious.”

Reed handed her the menu. “I’ll take it.”

With a bob of the head to acknowledge the choices, the owner wandered away through the romantically-lit room. Reed was still smiling when Kinley picked up her water glass and returned her attention to him. She returned his smile, rather bashfully, and sipped her water.

Reed was very careful in the manner in which he started the conversation. Knowing what he did since the research he had done earlier in the day, he was pretty sure what subjects to avoid. As skittish as she was, he didn’t want to chase her off.

“So,” he said, folding his big hands on the table in front of him. “What made a girl like you want to open up a restaurant?”

Kinley shrugged as she set her water glass down. “It’s something I always wanted to do,” she said. “My grandmother was a wonderful cook and I learned from her.”

“Where was she from?”

“Indiana,” she replied. “My parents were both born there. My grandmother could throw a little of this and a little of that into a pot and it would be the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted.”

“So you took the family talent public.”

“I did.”

“Did you go to culinary school?”

She nodded. “The Cordon Bleu in Pasadena, California. I went right out of high school when I really didn’t know what I wanted to do yet with my life. My mom said I had to do something, so I picked culinary school because I thought it would be easy. Imagine my surprise when I found out it wasn’t.”

She made a face and he smiled. “I can only imagine,” he said. “So your folks are from Indiana; where did you grow up?”

“Pasadena,” she said, her smile fading.

“Do your parents still live there?”

Her smile vanished and she averted her gaze, He knew immediately that they had drifted onto one of those taboo subjects. He hastened to change the focus before she could answer.

“My grandfather on my mother’s side is from England,” he said. “That’s where my middle name comes from, Dewolfe. Grandpa comes from a family with a family tree a mile long. When I was a kid, he used to tell me that I was descended from knights and that it made me invincible. He and I used to go in the back yard and fight each other with sticks, pretending they were swords. My mom used to get pissed about it. Well, pissed about that and the fact that Grandpa also taught me how to insult people in French.”

She lifted her eyes from the tabletop, smiling wanly at his sense of humor. “What did he teach you?”

“Votre mère est un hamster.”

She burst out laughing. “What does that mean?”

“Your mother is a hamster.”

She continued to giggle. “Do you use it often?”

“Often enough,” he said. “It also came in handy when I lived in Washington D.C. You’d be surprised how many times I needed to insult someone in French.”

As he’d hoped, her attention was diverted from the taboo subject and she seemed to take interest in the conversation again. At least now she was grinning.

“I’d believe it,” she said. “I would also believe that you’ve come from a long line of knights.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you look like what I would imagine them to look like,” she said. “You said yesterday that you worked for the Marines?”

He nodded. “Captain Reed D. McCoy until I opted out.”

“Why did you opt out?”

His good humor faded somewhat. “It was time, I guess,” he said. “Plus, my dad needed me here.”

“What do you mean?”

He sat back in his chair, relaxing to the conversation. “My dad is the sheriff of Fremont County,” he said. “His office is based in Lander, south of Riverton, but his jurisdiction is all of Fremont County. We also work in conjunction with the Lander Police Department and the Shoshone Police Department. About three years ago, my dad became sheriff and cleaned house. Turned out there was some corruption going on and he got rid of the problem children. There’s still a lot of stuff going on, but it’s getting better. Or, at least, it’s not out of control. We’re getting a handle on it. He asked me if I’d be willing to come back and work for him, so I did.”

Kinley listened with interest. “It must have been quite a change from the Marines.”

“Not much,” he said. “A cop is a cop. I was with the military police before I joined Investigative Services, so it really wasn’t all that different.”

She thought on that a moment, thinking back to her own career in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. But she wasn’t willing or ready to speak of that yet. That was something that stayed locked up deep inside her. She sincerely wished she could have spoken with him about it because it seemed like they had a lot in common. So, she simply nodded.

“What about family?” she asked. “Did you have to uproot them from Washington to move them back here?”

He cast her a long glance. “You’re assuming I’m married.”

She cocked an eyebrow in return. “I’m assuming you’re not if you asked me out to dinner. If you are, then I’ll be leaving.”

He shook his head, putting his big hand on hers as they rested on top of the table. “I was,” he said quietly. “That ended about eight years ago. When I came back to Wyoming, it was just me. My two boys live with their mother on the east coast and visit me during the summer. It was hard being away from them at first, but then I just got used to it. I really miss them sometimes.”

Kinley was staring at him. It was hard being away from them at first. I really miss them sometimes. At least he got to see his children. She never would again. She didn’t feel the least bit sorry for him; not one little bit, but in the same breath, she felt some sympathy. She understood what it was like to be separated from one’s children. She understood all too well.

For an evening that had been going so beautifully well, she could feel the familiar grief and pain welling up in her chest. His innocent statement had her panic rising and it was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. She knew she had to get out of there, away from him, before she exploded into a million slivers of anguish.

She tried hard not to think of her children; so very hard. She blocked them out, ignored the memories, because it was the only way she could retain her sanity. To pretend they never existed was the only way. But as Reed spoke quietly of his boys, she could suddenly see two little, smiling faces looking back at her, a girl of seven and a boy of six. They tried to speak to her but she shut her eyes, blocking them out again. Her panic had reached the boiling point. She had to get out of there.

“I… I need to use the restroom,” she said, bolting to her feet and snatching her purse. “I’ll… be right back.”

Reed started to stand up but she was already gone, moving very quickly through the dining room and back into the hallway towards the rear where the restrooms were. Her head was down and her manner was edgy. He thought, perhaps, he should go with her to make sure she was okay, but he decided it was better not to. She might think he was being needy or clingy or, even worse, nosy. So he forced himself to sit back down and wait for her to return. He thought hard on their conversation, wondering what might have upset her so. She had such a habit of running away. Something in the woman was so deeply hurt and so deeply tragic.

Dinner was served a few minutes later. He really wasn’t surprised when Kinley never came back.