Five minutes later she stepped out of the Nowhere and walked across the street. One car, the sheriff’s cruiser, was in the café’s parking lot. The lunch run was long past being over. She wasn’t surprised he’d kept to his word.
Brandi was shivering when she made it to the table in the back where he sat alone. “This place still open?” she asked.
He looked up from his cell phone. She caught the surprise in his eyes before he glanced away.
“I’m buying your lunch, Sheriff. You have a problem with that?”
“No.” He stood and moved his hat off the empty chair. “You think you could call me Dan? I don’t think of myself as on duty while I’m eating.”
She slowly slipped into the place across from him and stared at the menu. Most men, including her father, were liars or manipulators. But this one had something about him that said he could be trusted, at least as long as lunch, anyway. All she had to figure out was if Sheriff Dan Brigman was what he seemed. Not that she planned to stay around long, but at least if those honest eyes were true, she might start to believe in people again.
It might be fun to eat a meal with someone for a change. She could pretend to be happy, and interested and normal.
She glanced at the menu for a few seconds more, then ordered the lunch special when the waitress appeared. The girl looked tired, or maybe bored, and wasn’t overly concerned with the last two customers in the place.
When the waitress went back through the kitchen door before it stopped swinging from her arrival, Brandi was suddenly aware that she was alone with the sheriff.
“You look exactly like the woman I pictured would be wearing that boot,” he said, as if trying to start a conversation.
“How’s that?”
“Wild and free. Beautiful.” He glanced down, twirling a chip in the tiny bowl of hot sauce.
There was that shy smile again, she thought. Another hint that the sheriff might be one of the real people in this world of marionettes. “You don’t mind if I’m wild, do you? I’d think a thing like that might make a sheriff nervous.”
“Nope. I don’t mind. You’re the kind of beautiful that could haunt a man’s dreams, Brandi Malone. Being wild just adds spice to perfection.”
No one had said such a nice thing to her in years. He seemed to be seeing her as she wanted to be. Wild and free, she almost whispered aloud.
To prove him right, Brandi leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.
When she pulled away she whispered, “You taste like salsa, Sheriff.”
He just stared, and she swore she could be hypnotized by those steel-blue eyes.
Brandi ate one of his chips dipped in the hot sauce, then took a drink of his iced tea. He just kept watching her. No one had accused her of being wild and free for years, and she loved it. She loved the version of herself she saw in his eyes.
She glanced around the empty café. The lone waitress was probably in the back warming up the last two specials. “Aren’t you going to say something about me kissing you?”
He leaned back and spoke so low even if people had been at the next table they wouldn’t have heard. “I wouldn’t mind if you decided to do that again.”
Before she could decide, the waitress swung through the kitchen door with two plates of enchiladas.
“Maybe later.” She grinned like the wild woman he thought she was. “If I’m still around and you’re still available.” After all, how much harm could one more kiss do?
As they ate, the sheriff asked her where she was from and how she ended up at the Nowhere Club.
She avoided answering and asked him how long it had been since he’d been kissed.
Unlike her, Dan answered directly. “Three years ago on New Year’s Eve.”
Brandi nodded. “The midnight kiss. Openmouthed or closed?”
When he didn’t answer, she knew. Closed, she decided. She would have sworn the handsome sheriff was blushing.
“You’re right about me, Sheriff. But I’m drifting more than free. I live out of a suitcase and travel whenever and wherever I like. I’m not looking for a man to tame me or tie me down or tell me he loves me. I make no promises, but if you’d like to share a meal or something now and then, I might be interested.” Brandi couldn’t believe she was stepping out of her comfort zone to even think of getting together with him. But one kiss with him was like one taste of salsa on a salty chip. She wanted another.
Dan took a long drink of his iced tea.
She knew she’d shocked him, but if she was going to spend a while with a man for the first time in years, she wanted all the cards on the table. And, she decided, she wanted to be remembered as being someone’s unforgettable encounter, no matter how brief. She’d like to be the one woman, the one memory that would always make Dan Brigman smile.
He ate, and she picked at her food.
Finally, he broke the silence. “What time is your last set over tonight?”
“Eleven. Why?”
“I’ll pick you up for a late supper.”
“If you can find a place around here still open, I’ll be hungry.”
He left a twenty on the table and stood.
“I...” She’d told him she’d pick up the check, and she planned to.
“It’s not happening,” he answered, as if he knew what she was about to say.
She followed, already wondering if she’d done the right thing to join him here. She hated bossy men, but then maybe there was some kind of rule that sheriffs can’t accept gifts, even a lunch.
She’d been just fine staying away from men. She liked being alone. She hated strings and planned to live the rest of her life without getting attached to anyone. So why had she hinted at another promise? Another meeting? Why had she offered to spend time with him before she knew what kind of man he really was? Maybe honest blue eyes lied? She hadn’t been around enough to know.
Brandi mentally slapped herself. She was overthinking this. Just go with it. She was wild, remember.
Maybe it was enough that he had kissable lips and he made her feel young like she had ten years ago when she’d first been on the road. She’d been twenty-five then and loving the gypsy life of a singer.
When they stepped out of the restaurant into the little tin windbreaker foyer, the sheriff turned and helped her with her coat. The plastic window in the entryway door looked like it was shivering as wind howled over the cloudy day.
He lifted part of her curly hair, caught under her collar. “Before we step out I want to give you something back.”
Before she had time to say a word, he pushed her against the rattling, icy tin wall and kissed her full out. Openmouthed.
Her sheriff might be quiet, but he definitely wasn’t shy.
Brandi forgot all about being cold. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt alive. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back like this one kiss might be the last in her lifetime.
His arms tightened around her. She leaned into him. This wasn’t a first-time, hesitant kiss. She could feel him breathing, his heart pounding next to hers. A tiny spark came alive inside her where only dead embers had lain for so long.
When he broke the kiss, he didn’t say a word; he just circled his arm around her shoulders and held her tightly as they faced the wind and rushed back across the street.