“You can say that again.”
Their eyes met and held in a moment of pure appreciation for what nature had so splendidly given this area of the country.
“What kind of dressing do you want on your salad?”
He told her and she walked away. The quiet conversation that buzzed around him reminded him why he liked Sagebrush. Here in this small town he wasn’t the illegitimate son of a Mafia princess and Chicago’s most revered citizen. Here he was that wild boy who’d had his ear pierced and wore a leather jacket even in the heat of summer. Here he was a man without a family—and Seth needed that.
Here he was a friend of the McCoys and treated as such. That warm feeling was why he’d returned in late fall when winter beckoned around the corner.
Lynn brought his coffee and salad and then hurried away to take care of the rest of her tables. Another waiter brought his steak, which was perfectly cooked.
The meal was one of the best he’d had in a long time, simple food prepared for taste instead of presentation. Seth knew he’d made the right decision. The tension that had been dogging him receded. It didn’t disappear completely but ebbed enough for him to relax his shoulders.
Lynn looked tired, he thought.
And not unlike his half-sister Tara had looked when she’d been trying to have her missing husband Michael declared legally dead. What kind of problems hung on her shoulders? Why wasn’t Matt here to relieve that burden for her? He knew that Matt McCoy and he shared more than friendship but also an overwhelming urge to protect those dear to them.
What was Matt thinking to let his sister work in a diner when there wasn’t any reason for it? The McCoy spread was the biggest and most profitable in the area. Seth knew this not only from his youth but also from his yearly treks to meet Matt for vacations. They always discussed the ranch. But never Lynn.
She stopped by to refill his coffee cup. “Can you join me for a minute?”
“Just real quick.”
“You’re a hard worker, Lynn.”
“Thank you,” she said tentatively.
“Why the hesitation?”
“The last time you complimented me I found myself soaking wet on a cold evening.”
“Hey, you’re safe for now. I’ve grown into a boring old lawyer,” he said.
“Not boring or old. Lawyer?”
“Okay, get it out of your system,” he said, knowing few people could resist the urge to lob a few lawyer jokes when they actually met one.
“What?” she asked, all innocence. She looked breathtakingly lovely in the dim light of the diner.
“You’ve got to have a joke about lawyers.”
“Not me. Besides, I have nothing but respect for you,” she said.
“Yeah, right. If memory serves, the last prank you played on me involved stealing my clothes and leaving me naked at the swimming hole.”
“I left your hat, didn’t I?”
It had been uncomfortable to be outsmarted by a girl a few years younger than he was. Because at home no one got the jump on Seth Connelly. He still felt a little embarrassed when he recalled the number of times she’d gotten the better of him. “I think we’re square.”
“Yeah, I think so. Are you here to see Matt?”
“Yes.”
“He’s not home.”
“I thought his tour ended last month.”
“It did but he was on an assignment that he felt needed him and reupped.”
Damn. He wasn’t going to be able to stay at the McCoy Ranch if Matt wasn’t there. He’d counted on the wide-open spaces, the cattle lowing in the distance and the fragrance of jasmine to lull him to sleep.
“I’m surprised you didn’t call first.”
“I didn’t know I was coming until I got here.”
She nodded. “I’ve got to get back to work. You take care, Seth Connelly.”
She walked away and this time he watched and wanted. She was exactly as he remembered from that late-summer night. Sweet and funny but tempered with the experiences life had used to test her. And he knew that it was probably for the best that Matt wasn’t here and Seth would be moving on…again.
Lynn McCoy let the smile drop from her face the minute she entered the kitchen. She’d been worried that maybe Matt had sent him. But it seemed he was only looking for Matt, not trying to find out what kind of trouble she was in. Trouble was about the only thing she had right now.
And it looked as if another helping was on the way. Childhood crushes were supposed to end well before thirty. Lynn knew this in her rational mind but her heart beat a little bit faster as she thought about Seth Connelly. He hardly resembled the rough loner who’d first visited her family’s ranch the summer she was eleven.
Now he had the kind of quiet self-assurance he’d lacked as a youth. Though his gray eyes were stormy like the north Atlantic, his body language said there was nothing he couldn’t handle.
He’d looked surprised to see her at the diner. She knew he had to be. After all, the prosperous McCoy ranch had never failed to support the generations.
What had brought him to Montana in October? There wasn’t much in the way of tourism in Sagebrush. Besides, she knew he was involved in his family’s business and wondered if he was having family problems again.
Part of what had initially drawn her to Seth had been that he was so alone. Though she knew she could never really trust him, her brother considered Seth closer than a blood relation.
Her first impulse had been to settle into the booth with him and spend the evening catching up on the past, but she knew that she fell in love too easily and she’d learned that lesson the hard way. She felt almost proud of the way she resisted that urge.
She waved good-night to the cook and left before she gave in and returned to the corner booth where Seth sat. Keep walking, Lynn. The night air bit into her clothes and she shivered in her leather coat. It had been her grandfather’s and would keep her warm once she buttoned it.
The employee parking area was well lit, and Lynn approached her truck with no trepidation. But the stenciling on the side gave her pause. The McCoy Ranch—Home Of The Best Beef In Montana.
For how much longer? She had barely one hundred head left because that was all she could work on her own and still make ends meet. Tears burned the back of her eyes at her own stupidity. Trusting too easily had been her biggest weakness. Though she’d never be able to look at the world with a truly cynical eye, a part of her had been forever changed when Ronnie had taken her money and left her.
The highway ran behind the fence and she listened to the cars flying past. She’d never understood the obsession everyone had with getting out of Sagebrush. She’d loved her hometown and had never ventured farther than the airport in Billings to pick up friends.
Suddenly her entire world was in danger of falling apart and she was at the end of the line. She’d tried everything she could. She’d sold all the horses except for Thor, her gelding, leased part of the grazing pasture, boarded horses for the folks in town and taken this job. But there still was more debt than she could cover.
What was she going to do? Her plan, which had seemed so brilliant in the middle of the night, seemed a little weak today. She’d worked double shifts at the diner, and as she waited on tables, her mind had puzzled over the options.
There seemed damn few. Then the past had