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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 he’d left behind. She’d even wished him a painful end underneath some bucking bronc or twisting bull more than once, but she’d never figured she’d actually find out what happened to him after he left the dust of Amarillo behind him.
Well, now she knew. He was alive, well and disgustingly handsome.
But what the hell was he doing in Tennessee?
She entered the conference room quietly and set the box on the long credenza that took up most of the length of the nearest wall. Someone had already started a pot of coffee brewing, and she slipped back out of the conference room to retrieve a cooler of ice cubes for the two dozen bottles of water, juice and soft drinks lined up like soldiers at attention on one end of the sideboard.
Halfway there, she heard footsteps behind her and shot a quick look down the hall. The Gates’ CEO, Alexander Quinn, was coming up the hall behind her, his expression impossible to read. As usual.
She turned to face him. “Did I forget something?”
“What happened while you were out?”
She thought about trying to lie, but Quinn had spent a couple of decades in the CIA. Seeing through lies was part of his business. “I ran into someone from the past. From Texas.”
Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “I see.”
“He wanted me to fork over seven thousand dollars. I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I sort of faked it, but—”
“But you’re not sure he believed you?”
“No.”
Quinn was silent for a moment, his hazel eyes holding her gaze without making her feel uncomfortable. For a man who had lived on lies and adrenaline, he had a calming effect on most people, and she wasn’t immune herself. “What’s his name?”