THE PRICE OF DEADLY SECRETS...

Someone is killing waitresses at the Cowboy Café. Three women are dead, and Sheriff Cameron Evans means to find out why. But as he works to solve the case, the hunky sheriff must push beyond his feelings for the café’s owner. There’s a murderer on the loose. Passion has no place here.

For Mary Mathis, the crime is personal. Not only are the victims her employees, they may be a sign of something deeper. Eight years ago she came to Grady Gulch fleeing a violent past that has scarred her for life. Now she has to discover if that history is dooming the women who work for her. She already knows it has made new love impossible—no matter what she may secretly desire.

He had no intention of kissing her, but as he stared down at her and saw the tremble of her full lower lip, he leaned down and covered her mouth with his.

She hesitated a moment and then returned the kiss, opening her mouth to his as her arms wound tightly around his neck. It might have been wonderful if he hadn’t tasted such desperation in her kiss.

It lasted only a moment and then he reluctantly stepped back from her. He wished he could hold her forever, that somehow he could unhear what she’d just told him about herself, about her past.

Cowboy Café: The heart of a small town, the soul of a hero...

Dear Reader,

It’s always with a bit of sadness that I come to an end of a series, and I especially hate to say goodbye to all the people of Grady Gulch, Oklahoma, and the Cowboy Café.

There’s nothing better than small towns that enjoy a sense of community pride, places where neighbors help neighbors without any expectation of repayment. My heroine, Mary Mathis, lands in Grady Gulch with secrets that threaten both herself and her son, secrets that she hopes nobody ever learns. Sheriff Cameron Evans is a man on a mission, wanting to discover everything he can about the lovely Mary who owns and operates the Cowboy Café. But when her secrets explode, death and destruction follow and Mary must learn to trust the very man who could destroy her.

I hope you enjoy this last book in the Cowboy Café series. Who knows, maybe someday in the future we’ll come back to visit.

Happy reading!

Carla Cassidy

Confessing to the Cowboy

Carla Cassidy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CARLA CASSIDY

is an award-winning author who has written more than one hundred books for Harlequin Books. In 1995 she won Best Silhouette Romance from RT Book Reviews for Anything for Danny. In 1998 she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from RT Book Reviews.

Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Excerpt

Chapter 1

Sheriff Cameron Evans was tired of finding women dead in their beds. He stood in the doorway of Dorothy Blake’s small bedroom and took in the tragic scene before him. It was definitely a bad start to a new week.

A light breeze fluttered the blue-flowered curtains hanging at the open window, blowing in the cold November early morning air.

Dorothy was clad in a pale pink nightgown and covered by a blue bedspread. Blood stained the spread around her neck but without that telltale sign it would appear that Dorothy slept peacefully. Her eyes were closed and her features showed no sign of stress.

Cameron tightened his hands into fists as two of his men wearing paper booties moved in to collect any evidence that might lead to a clue to the killer. He had little hope that they’d find anything. Two previous deaths in the same manner had yielded nothing. The murderer was smart and meticulous in his efficiency. Get in, slit the throat of a sleeping woman and then get out, leaving nothing behind for law enforcement to work with.

The window appeared to be intact, suggesting that it had been unlocked and had provided easy access. Cameron’s frustration grew as he thought of the town hall meeting where he’d cautioned all women living alone to make sure their windows and doors were locked at all times. Apparently there had been some at the meeting who weren’t paying attention.

“Where’s the kid?” Cameron asked. He’d been told before he’d arrived on scene that the body had been discovered by a teenage kid.

“In the kitchen with the dog,” Deputy Adam Benson said from behind Cameron. “He’s pretty freaked out.”

“I can imagine,” Cameron replied. He moved past Adam and headed down the hallway to the kitchen. There was nothing more he could do in the bedroom. His team was well trained and the coroner stood by to move in after the crime-scene team had taken their photos and done their work. In the meantime he had to speak to Jeffrey Lawrence, the young man who had found Dorothy an hour earlier.

Dorothy’s kitchen was painted a cheerful bright yellow, with white and yellow gingham curtains hanging at the window. Despite the day’s chill the sunshine streamed into the windows with welcome heat that battled with the cold air drifting down the hallway from the bedroom.

Jeff Lawrence sat at the small, wooden kitchen table, his blue eyes red-rimmed as he hugged a wiggly, small furry mutt close to his chest.

“I can’t get the picture of her out of my head,” he said as he swallowed hard in an obvious effort not to cry. “It’s like burned in my brain...all that blood and the smell.”

“I’m sorry you had to experience that. What were you doing here so early in the morning?” Cameron took the seat opposite the young man at the table.

“It’s my job...to walk Twinkie every morning before I go to school. I’m a senior and trying to save up some extra money for college.” Twinkie whined at the sound of her name and licked the underside of Jeff’s pointy chin.

“How long have you had this arrangement with Dorothy?”

“Since the beginning of summer. She and my mom are good friends and that’s how I know...knew Dorothy.” His eyes welled up with tears once again. “My mom is going to be so upset about all of this.”

Cameron waited a minute for the kid to get himself back under control and then continued, “How did you enter the house this morning?”

“I have my own key. Sometimes Dorothy worked the night shift at the Cowboy Café and she’d sleep in late in the mornings. If she didn’t answer when I knocked, then I used my key to come in and usually found Twinkie on the foot of her bed. Whenever Twinkie saw me she’d jump down and we’d go for our morning walk.”

“Is that what happened this morning?”

Jeff’s head bobbed like one of those big-headed dolls people put on their dashboards or desks. “Everything was the same as usual. I knocked on the door and when Dorothy didn’t answer I went ahead and let myself in. I walked down the hallway to her bedroom and Twinkie was curled up at her feet, just like usual. But this morning Twinkie didn’t jump off the bed when she saw me. She just whined and whined and I thought maybe she was hurt. So, I walked over to her and that’s when I noticed the blood...and the smell. I didn’t touch Dorothy, I knew she was dead. I just grabbed Twinkie and left the room and then called 911.”

“You did the right thing,” Cameron replied. There was no way Jeff was involved in the crime, at least not at the moment. The kid had the green cast of somebody on the verge of puking. He petted the dog as if the silky fur were the only thing holding him together.

“What’s going to happen to Twinkie? Dorothy doesn’t have any family, and I can’t take her. We already have a big dog, Zeus, who would eat this little girl for lunch.” Jeff looked distraught. “Twinkie is a great dog, friendly and well trained. I mean, I’m sorry about Dorothy, but you need to find a good home for Twinkie.” Jeff looked at him pleadingly.

Great, Cameron thought. Not only did he have another murder to try to solve, he also had the faith of a softhearted kid depending on him to find a tragically orphaned mutt a good home.

“Gather up all her doggie stuff, and I’ll see what I can do,” Cameron said. “Then go home. We’ll probably have more questions for you later, but right now I’d prefer you not talk to anyone about this crime except with your parents.”

Jeff nodded and got up from the table. As he began to gather up all things Twinkie, Cameron went back down the hallway where he met the coroner, who told him what he already suspected.

Time of death was between one and three in the morning, cause of death was a quick, clean slice across the throat. Dorothy’s hearing aids were on the nightstand. She’d never heard her screen being removed and the unlocked window sliding open. She’d never heard her killer’s approach.

“It’s just like the other two,” Deputy Benson said. “Three women killed in their beds, their throats cut.”

“And all three worked as waitresses at the Cowboy Café,” Cameron added. He frowned, thinking of how this latest murder would affect Mary Mathis, the owner of the café.

He couldn’t help the way his heart softened as he thought of her. He’d had a thing for Mary since she’d taken over ownership of the café five years before and for the three years prior when she’d worked as a waitress there...unfortunately it was an unrequited thing.

He couldn’t think about that now. He had plenty of other tasks ahead of him to find this killer who was tormenting his town.

Throughout the afternoon, his men canvassed the neighborhood to find anyone who had witnessed anything unusual, but Grady Gulch was a typical small Oklahoma town where most people were in their beds and sleeping in the wee hours of the morning.

Twinkie spent part of the day either snoozing on the rug in the living room or being walked by one of the deputies on scene. Cameron had already decided he’d take the pooch home with him for now and in his spare time try to find her a good home.

As Cameron attended to his duties overseeing the crime scene and directing his deputies, he couldn’t help but think of the other two victims. Candy Bailey had been a young woman killed in her bed in a small cottage behind the Cowboy Café. Shirley Cook had been a middle-aged woman murdered in her bed in her home.

Now Dorothy, sixty-four years old and looking to retire and putter in her garden after years of waiting on other people, was instead murdered while she slept.

He tamped down the unexpected rage that threatened to build inside him, a rage directed at the killer, who moved like a shadow in the night, who sought out the vulnerable and killed them without remorse and left no clues behind.

Who was this person? A native of Grady Gulch or one of the new members of town who had brought with them a dark soul and an evil directed at the waitresses of the popular café?

Before the night was over he needed to have a sit-down with Mary. It was something he dreaded, first telling her that another of her waitresses had been killed, although by the time he got to her she probably would have already heard. But he wanted to pick her brain as to why somebody might be targeting these women who worked for her.

The fact that the first two murdered women had worked at the café he might have written off as a strange coincidence, but three dead waitresses made a definite pattern that had to be explored. A serial killer, just what he needed, some creep who had chosen this place—his town—to play out some murderous fantasy or whatever darkness was in his mind.

He stepped outside on the front porch and looked around the neighborhood. It was late afternoon and everything that could be done here had been done.

Despite the grimness of the situation he couldn’t help the small smile that curved his lips as he watched Adam Benson holding Twinkie’s leash and heading toward him up the sidewalk.

Cameron had a feeling when Adam joined the force a month ago he hadn’t considered that one of his official duties would be walking a dainty little dog named Twinkie.

The Benson family had been to hell and back in the past two years. Adam’s sister Cherry had been killed in a car accident, his eldest brother Sam had tried to kill a woman and remained in jail awaiting trial on attempted murder charges. Adam’s youngest brother Nick had left town soon after Cherry’s death, leaving Adam alone to deal with the family ranch and emotional baggage that had sent Adam into the bottom of a bottle for a brief period of time.

Nick had come home and reunited with his girlfriend, Courtney, and their child, Garrett, and Adam had moved into a rented room upstairs in a house owned by a wheelchair-bound woman who he’d eventually fallen in love with.

The Benson men, except Sam, who remained in jail charged with attempted murder, had found love and were in the process of building lives with the women who had captured their hearts.

Adam had shown himself to have all the qualities of a good lawman when Melanie Brooks, his handicapped girlfriend, had been kidnapped by one of his own deputies. That man was in jail and Cameron had offered Adam a job on his team. In the month that he’d been working for Cameron, Cameron had never questioned his decision to hire Adam. He’d proven himself to be intelligent, hard-working and detail meticulous.

“As I recall this wasn’t in my job description,” Adam said good-naturedly as he approached where Cameron stood. “Have you figured out what you’re going to do with the little pup?”

Cameron released a sigh as he looked at the tiny dog that appeared to be smiling up at him. “I suppose I’ll take her to my place for now until I can find a suitable home for her, unless...”

“Oh, no,” Adam quickly protested. “Melanie would kill me. We’re in the middle of planning a wedding and we’ve already decided that pets are out of the question for us.” He handed Cameron the leash as if he couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.

“Guess I’ll run her by my place and then head to the café. I need to talk to Mary. There’s got to be a reason this guy is killing her waitresses.”

“And if we can figure out the ‘why,’ maybe we can identify the ‘who,’” Adam replied.

“Exactly,” Cameron said. “For now I want you to find out the names of all of Dorothy’s friends and set up interviews. I’ll be back in the office later this evening to check on progress.” He leaned down and picked up Twinkie in his arms. The friendly little beast snuggled against him as if she were already home.

Minutes later Cameron was in his car and headed to his place. Home was a comfortable ranch house on five acres of land. He had a couple of horses, but no cattle. The horses were strictly for riding and not for business.

It was a nice place but also a lonely place for Cameron who at thirty-five had assumed by now it would be filled with a wife and a couple of kids.

Unfortunately the minute he’d seen Mary Mathis in the café, he’d also seen her in his mind as the woman who belonged in his home. Equally as unfortunate, Mary had made it clear that she didn’t belong in his home, on a date or in any other space with him beyond friendship.

By now Mary probably would have heard that she’d lost another waitress. The grapevine in Grady Gulch was strong and healthy and it had been hours since Dorothy’s body had been discovered.

A frustrating part about these crimes was that Cameron didn’t know how to anticipate who might be next. He didn’t know what to do to keep other women safe.

After the last murder he’d held a press conference and warned women who lived alone to make sure they kept their doors and windows closed and locked, to be aware of their surroundings and if they felt threatened at all to call 911.

He had a feeling that nobody in town had taken his warnings seriously. Candy Bailey had been a young woman and initially her boyfriend, Kevin Naperson, had looked good for the murder. Cameron still had his eye on the young man, but couldn’t tie him to Shirley Cook’s murder.

If Cameron was perfectly honest with himself he’d admit that he had no viable suspects for any of the murders. He had a couple persons of interest, but nobody who popped to the top of the pathetic list.

Several tall trees stood sentry on either side of his house and a nice-sized pond glittered in the not-so-far distance. The barn was located behind the house and the entire back acreage was fenced to keep the three horses where they belonged.

Once he was in the house it didn’t take him long to set up space for Twinkie in the laundry room. The dog not only had her own little wardrobe, but also food and water bowls and a tiny four-poster bed that appeared to have never been slept in.

With the dog settled, Cameron left the house once again and headed toward the Cowboy Café and a talk with Mary. As always when he drove toward the café, myriad emotions filled his head.

The café was the place in town to go for friendly conversation and a warm and inviting atmosphere. The food was terrific and the prices were appealing. Mary had managed to turn a restaurant into a home away from home for many of the people in the small town.

She’d also managed to twist his heart in a million ways without doing a thing but talking to him and looking at him with her bright blue eyes. But he couldn’t go there now. At this moment he couldn’t think about Mary, except in the capacity as a piece of a puzzle to solve a series of crimes. This visit to the café was all business.

The first thing he did as he entered the large, popular eating establishment was add his hat onto one of the hooks along the entranceway. The second thing he did was gaze toward the counter, where the pretty blonde usually stood.

She wasn’t there. A quick glance around told him she was no place in the front of the café. In her place, behind the counter, Rusty Albright stood surveying the surroundings like a bouncer ready to pounce.

Rusty was a big man with ice-blue eyes and a smashed, crooked nose that told a story Cameron had never heard. He was Mary’s cook and right-hand man when it came to running the place.

“Rusty,” he said with a nod of his head. “Is Mary around?”

Rusty shook his head. “She’s been gone since this morning. Matt’s school had a take-a-parent-to-school day and so she’s been with him all day.” He shook his head. “Had to eat one of those nasty school lunches and everything.”

Cameron glanced at his wristwatch. It was almost four. School let out at three forty-five so if they came right back, they should be here anytime.

“I heard we lost Dorothy.” Rusty frowned. “Any leads?” He asked the question without enthusiasm, as if knowing what Cameron would reply.

“Not yet. It’s early in the investigation. Do you know if Mary has heard about Dorothy?”

“Doubtful, but you can ask her yourself.” He nodded toward the door. “She and Matt just walked in.”

Cameron turned around to see Mary and her ten-year-old son Matt entering the café. The beautiful smile that curved her lips, the sparkle that lit her eyes let him know that she hadn’t heard the latest news and he hated the fact that he would be the one to snatch away her smile, to darken her eyes with pain.

“Hey, Sheriff Evans,” Matt greeted with a friendly grin.

“Hey, yourself,” Cameron replied affectionately. He’d told Matt a dozen times that he could call him Cameron, but Mary had insisted her son use Cameron’s official title. “I just heard that your mom spent the day at school with you. That must have been weird.”

Mary laughed, the sound twisting softness around Cameron’s heart. “I think embarrassing would be first on the page if we were listing adjectives.”

“Nah, you didn’t embarrass me,” Matt replied. “At least you didn’t call me honey pie like Billy Morton’s mom did.” Matt stifled a snicker.

“True, although I did consider calling you honey pooh bear a couple of times.”

Matt looked horrified at the very thought, and Mary laughed.

“You wouldn’t do that to me,” Matt said.

“Probably not,” Mary agreed.

At that moment Jimmy Rosario flew through the front door. “Mom, Jimmy’s here,” Matt said, stating the obvious. “We’re going to play some catch in the back, okay?”

“You have one hour and then it’s dinner and homework time,” Mary replied. “And stay away from the cabins.” Her intense love for her son shone from her eyes as she watched him and his best friend disappear out the door.

She turned back to Cameron and must have seen something in his features that stole some of the light from her eyes. “What are you doing here at this time of the day?”

Normally Cameron came by at the end of the night, just before the restaurant closed to have a cup of coffee and share some friendly talk with her. Aware that the restaurant was filling quickly for the dinner rush, he was reluctant to share his information with her here in the middle of the gathering crowd.

“Can we go someplace private to talk?”

She gazed up at him for a long moment, biting her full lower lip in a gesture of anxiety. With a quick bob of her head she gestured for him to follow her through the kitchen and to the doorway that led to her and Matt’s living quarters behind kitchen.

He walked into a large living room that not only had a sofa, chairs and a television, but also had a small table and chairs in one corner. In all the years he’d known her, he’d never been in these rooms in the back of the café. As far as he knew, few people were invited into this private space that she and her son called home.

“Nice place,” he observed. The blue overstuffed sofa looked broken in and inviting, and the entertainment center held a television with the latest video game system and an array of paperback novels.

“Thanks. There are two bedrooms. Matt’s is there,” she pointed at a doorway to the left of the room. “And mine is there,” she said, this time pointing in the opposite direction of the living room. “We also have a full bath. The only thing we don’t have is a kitchen, but of course we have the café kitchen at our disposal any time we want anything.”

She stopped talking and tucked a tendril of her shoulder-length, light blond hair behind one ear. “But, you aren’t here to talk about my living arrangements. Something has happened.” She said the words as a statement, not as a question.

He nodded and fought against the release of a deep, weary sigh. “There’s been another one.”

* * *

Mary didn’t just sit on the sofa, she crumpled into it, her legs unable to hold her upright as the horror of his words echoed in her head.

There’s been another one. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that somebody else she’d considered her café family had been murdered. If it wasn’t one of her waitresses from the café, then Cameron wouldn’t be here now.

“Who?” The word whispered out of her on an edge of dread.

“Dorothy Blake.”

Pain shattered through Mary and her vision blurred with tears as she thought of the older woman who’d always come in with a bright smile, who despite enjoying her job was looking forward to retirement and planting a big vegetable garden beside her stupendous flower garden in her backyard.

Lowering her face into her hands as she realized she had no control over her tears, she was vaguely aware of Cameron standing next to the sofa, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Overwhelmed by the pain of loss, Mary began to weep in earnest. It wasn’t just the tragic death of Dorothy that caused her heart to swell with agony, but also the recent loss of two other waitresses, both of them murdered, as well.

She wasn’t sure how long she cried before she felt the weight of Cameron sitting down beside her, smelled the familiar spicy scent of his cologne, and in the very depths of her soul she wanted to throw herself into his arms, feel his strength surrounding her. For just a minute, for just an agonizing second, she wanted to be wrapped in his arms and feel his heart beating against her own.

But she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t do that. Instead she drew a deep shuddery breath and sat back, summoning the inner strength that had gotten her through most of her entire life.

“Why? Why is somebody killing the women who work for me?” she asked miserably. Once again she caught her lower lip and reached up to twist a strand of her hair.

Cameron frowned, the gesture doing nothing to detract from his handsomeness. His face was all angles and planes that radiated strength. His warm hazel eyes were now deeper in hues of brown than usual. “I don’t know. But I can tell you that two dead waitresses was a coincidence, three is a definite pattern. There’s no question in my mind now that we have a serial killer targeting your waitresses.”

“But that’s crazy. What on earth could these women have done wrong that would warrant their deaths? Serve cold coffee?” A faint hysterical laughter attempted to escape her lips, but was instantly swallowed as she gazed at Cameron for answers.

“I wish I could tell you why, and I definitely wish I could tell you who.” His jaw clenched tight and, for a moment, his eyes were cold and hard. “I’m just hoping Dorothy’s murder can give us something, anything that might provide a lead. This guy has been so damned careful and so damned lucky.” Frustration drifted from him in waves.

Mary dropped her hand from her hair and instead placed it on him, able to feel the muscles in his forearm beneath the long-sleeved khaki shirt he wore. “You’ll get him. You’re an intelligent man, Cameron. You do your job well and you have good men working for you. It’s just a matter of time before you have him in custody.”

He smiled at her, that sexy uplift of his lips that warmed her like no other man’s had ever done. “There are days I feel like I should be digging ditches instead.”

“You know you love what you do, and hopefully you’ll catch this madman before another woman dies.” She stood from the sofa, finding his nearness slightly overwhelming. Escape. She needed to escape from him before she followed through on her impulse and leaned into him.

“And now I’ve got a dinner rush to attend to,” she said, attempting to focus on business and not on how much she wanted Cameron’s arms around her, not on the horror of Dorothy’s horrendous death.

“I intend to warn your waitresses again about locking up doors and windows, about safety issues before I leave the café. You might also tell them the same thing. Each and every one of them is a potential victim until I get this guy behind bars.”

“I’ll remind them.” Her heart pounded at the knowledge that simply by working for her, women she cared about were placing their lives in potential danger.

As the two of them reentered the main café area, Mary got to work helping expedite orders as Rusty went back to the kitchen to cook with his helper, Junior Lempke.

The dinner rush was always busy, but with the news of Dorothy’s murder making the rounds, the restaurant was unusually full. Mary worked, always conscious of Cameron’s tall, commanding presence as he pulled each waitress aside and spoke to each of them for a couple of minutes.

When he finally left, she focused solely on what needed to be done to keep the people in her café happy and well fed. At six o’clock Matt and Jimmy came in and sat at a small table for two near the counter. It was the usual place where Matt ate and most nights Jimmy was with him.

Mary had a feeling Liza Rosario wasn’t much of a cook, but she often had Matt over for playdates with her son. Jimmy was a bright, nice boy who was Matt’s best friend and Mary didn’t mind feeding the kid dinner each evening as she suspected dinner at home would be something frozen and heated or from a box.

If the boys had their way, they’d order burgers and fries every night, but Mary always ordered for them, insisting they eat real meals with real vegetables. Tonight was meatloaf, green beans and applesauce, along with two huge glasses of milk.

The evening rush seemed to last forever. Just when she thought things were starting to slow down, more people would arrive. It was always this way when tragedy struck...friends and neighbors gathered here to find solace or laughter or just simple conversation and connection.

Jimmy eventually went home and Matt went back to their living quarters to work on his homework before his bath and bedtime. Mary kept her mind emptied of everything but the basic minute-to-minute things she needed to do to keep the café running.

At ten o’clock she locked the door and turned the sign hanging there from Open to Closed. She’d tucked Matt into bed an hour before and normally this was the time that Cameron would show up for a quick cup of coffee before he headed home.

She didn’t expect him tonight. He had a murder to solve. Dorothy’s murder. Her heart crunched with pain as Rusty stepped up next to her. “Kitchen is clean, grill is ready for the morning. You want me to help you clean up out here?”

“No thanks. I’ll take care of it.” She’d sent the waitresses home at closing time rather than have them stick around to clean their stations and sweep and mop the floors, which was part of their usual jobs.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Rusty’s tough-guy features didn’t change, but his gruff voice was softer than usual.

Mary smiled at him with genuine affection. “I’m fine, or at least I will be fine. Cleaning up will help me decompress a little bit. Go home, Rusty.” Home for the big man was one of the cabins that Mary rented out located directly behind the café.

Three of the cabins were currently vacant. In one of them Candy Bailey, a young waitress, had been murdered. The other one had also been rented to another waitress who had moved out right after Candy’s murder. The third had been empty for a long time and the fourth was Rusty’s place.

“If you need me just call. You know I can be here in two minutes,” Rusty said.

She nodded. “Thanks. Really, I’ll be fine.”

Minutes later as she swept up the floor between the tables, her thoughts returned to the murders. She’d managed to keep her mind fairly numb until the café had closed and she was alone, but now the horror reached out to chill her to the bone.

Three murdered women. Three dead waitresses. Had each of the women somehow offended the killer when serving him? Was he somebody who visited the café regularly? She couldn’t imagine any of her customers being capable of such a thing. But she also knew how a pleasant face, a friendly smile could hide the soul of a monster.

She switched the broom for a mop and continued cleaning the floor while her head raced with thoughts. If the killer was a customer, then Cameron had a huge pool of potential suspects to investigate. Almost everyone in the small town of Grady Gulch, Oklahoma, came in to eat at one time or another. Many were regulars, others were occasional diners. There was also the possibility that the killer didn’t ever eat here at all.

Three waitresses...friends...women she had considered part of her extended family were now gone. Why? What would drive somebody to kill them? A piercing ache shot through her as she finished up the floor and began to wash down tables and chairs.

Did somebody have a grudge against the café? Against her personally? She couldn’t imagine either. The café was popular, and she and Matt had worked hard over the past eight years to fit in and become a part of the close-knit community.

This couldn’t be about her past. Her heart iced over at the very thought. No, that was impossible. This couldn’t be about her and the man she’d once married.

She emptied her mind of everything as she focused on finishing the chores. When the café was ready for opening the next morning she walked through the kitchen toward the door that led to her living quarters.

The navy blue ginger jar lamp set on the end table by the sofa created a soft glow of light around the living room. The first thing she did was move to stand in Matt’s bedroom doorway.

As she gazed at her sleeping son, her heart expanded with love, and for a moment all thoughts of murder left her mind. Matt was a well-adjusted, good boy, who rarely needed a stern word or a disapproving look.

Sometimes she worried that he was too accommodating, that in his eagerness to please he’d make mistakes and trust the wrong people. But they were normal motherly concerns and she had bigger worries plaguing her mind.

She walked through the living room and into the bathroom, needing a quick shower before going to bed. As she stood beneath the warm spray of water, her thoughts turned to Cameron.

In another lifetime, he might have been the man she’d invite into her heart, but she was living in this lifetime and had decided long ago that nobody, especially no man, would ever be allowed too close.

She couldn’t let any man close to her, there were too many secrets in her past, too much of herself she’d never be able to tell anyone. She feared that if she tried to have a relationship she’d slip up, make a mistake and all would be lost.

Still, there were times when she was in her bed alone that she longed for strong arms to reach out to her, when she wished for an intimacy that she’d never really experienced before with any man.

There were also times she wished she had somebody to talk to about Matt, someone to brag to when he did something amazing and to commiserate with when things went wrong.

Each time she tried to imagine who that man might have been, an image of Cameron filled her mind. Over the past several years he’d made it a habit to stop in at the café right at closing time.

He’d drink the last cup of coffee in the pot and they’d sit and talk. She’d been there for him when his younger brother had died two years ago in a tragic farming accident and his grief had not only shattered his heart, but also made him the sole child of his older parents.

He’d been there for her when Candy Bailey had been found murdered in one of the cabins she rented behind the café. They’d gone through bad times together and had also shared a lot of laughter.

She knew he was romantically interested in her, and although she enjoyed their evening conversations, she never allowed him to believe their relationship would be anything other than friendship.

The cost of developing anything meaningful with Cameron was too high. She might mess up, accidently share too much with him. He was a sheriff and as far as she knew, there was no statute of limitations on murder.

Chapter 2

Cameron sat in his office alone and sipped a cup of strong coffee, hoping for an adrenaline rush that would get him through the day. It was just after seven in the morning and he hadn’t gone to bed the night before until well after midnight.

He’d just collapsed onto the king-size bed when he heard a faint scratching on a door down the hallway and remembered he was now, at least temporarily, a pet owner.

He’d jumped out of bed and opened the laundry room door. Twinkie exploded out and raced to the front door, obviously in desperate need of a potty break.

Cameron opened the door, and watched the little mutt as she sniffed the grassy area until she found a place she liked. When she’d finished her business she came back inside and looked up at Cameron expectantly.

“Good girl,” Cameron had said, and Twinkie’s tail had wagged in response, then she raced straight to Cameron’s bedroom and placed her front paws on the edge of the mattress.

“Oh, no, little girl. That’s my bed.” Cameron got the four-poster bed from the laundry room and set it next to his. “This is Twinkie’s bed.”

The dog had looked at it as if she’d never seen it before in her life. Cameron ignored her, got into bed and turned out the bedside lamp. The whine began low in Twinkie’s throat as her front paws tap-danced on the side of the mattress.

After fifteen minutes of trying to be firm, Cameron had given in and pulled the pup on top of his bed. Twinkie immediately curled up at Cameron’s feet, her body warmth radiating through the blanket.

A spoiled tiny dog wasn’t exactly what he thought about when he considered bedmates, but for now the furry dog was all he had.

He’d awakened at dawn after a night filled with haunting visions of dead women, each of them pleading for justice. His nightmares had been a strobe-light event with the dead reaching out to him.

Now here he sat in his office, sipping coffee and waiting for it to be time for the staff meeting he’d called with all his deputies that would occur in another twenty minutes.

While the coffee sent a jolt of caffeine-driven adrenaline through him, it did nothing to make his thoughts any more clear as to solving these crimes. He didn’t expect his team to have anything to report to him to answer either of those questions. He reared back in his chair and released a sigh of weary frustration.

At some point today he needed to get out to his parents’ place. It had been a full week since he’d been there and he knew there would be things that needed to be done. Since his brother, Bobby’s, death, Cameron had been trying to help them around the ranch to fill in the shoes of the child they had lost.

The relationship between him and his father had become strained long ago when Cameron had decided to run for sheriff instead of staying home to help with the family ranch. With Bobby’s death the relationship had only become more difficult.

He sat for another fifteen minutes, then swallowed the last of his coffee and stood. Now wasn’t the time to think about family dynamics or anything else that didn’t pertain to murder. It was time to meet with his team and see if they could figure out how to stop this killer before he struck again.

Minutes later he stood at the head of a long table in the conference room, six deputies seated on each side of the table. They were an even dozen, all good men who made up the law in Grady Gulch and the surrounding area. Thankfully they were in charge of a small county.

“Morning, gentlemen,” he said. “Let’s get down to business.”

For the next hour the men reported what had been done so far in the investigation into Dorothy’s murder. The neighborhood had been canvassed, friends had been interviewed and, just as he’d suspected, they had little to report.

Her neighbors had heard nothing throughout the night, friends indicated that they couldn’t imagine Dorothy having any enemies. Yada-yada-yada, Cameron thought. It was the same song, just a different victim.

No forensic evidence had been left behind, no fingerprints to process, no dropped glove or footprints to cast, this killer was definitely smart enough to cover his tracks well.

“There’s no question now that this killer is targeting the waitresses at the Cowboy Café,” Cameron said when the others were finished with their meager reports. “That’s the only connection that’s obvious between the victims.” He instantly thought of Mary and wondered if she was in danger, as well.

In her capacity as owner of the café she rarely worked the floor, but she did work behind the counter often and could be considered a waitress.

“Adam, I want you to check and cross-check the personal lives of these women and see if there’s anyplace else they connect besides their work at the café. Maybe they go to the same hairdresser or use the same gym. I want to know anyplace these women’s lives might intersect besides the café.”

“Ben,” Cameron said, directly his attention to Deputy Ben Temple, who he considered his right-hand man. “I want you to spend the next couple of days hanging out at the café. See if you notice anyone acting strange, if you see anyone who appears to be focused in on a particular waitress. The rest of you divide up and I want every friend and every neighbor or acquaintance from the previous victims reinterviewed.”

It was work that had already been done, but Cameron was grateful and proud that nobody on the team complained. Half the men he dismissed to go home and sleep, the other half who worked the day shift he dismissed to begin their work.

Once the meeting was finished, Cameron went back into his office and pulled on his jacket and his hat. He knew that it was important for him to be seen around town this morning, to assure the public that he and his men were working overtime to catch the evil that was at work in their town.

It wasn’t something he was particularly looking forward to doing. People would want answers, and unfortunately he had none to give. He believed it was important to delegate the investigation work to his deputies, but he’d learn what they discovered every step of the way. He was a puzzle guy, he liked to gather pieces, and then attempt to put together the puzzle that would eventually solve the crime.

The last murder that had occurred in Grady Gulch had been two years before, when Jeff Davie had shot his wife, Cheryl, in a domestic dispute. It had been an open-and-shut case as Jeff had confessed to his crime.

Cameron had never had anything like this to take care of before...the murder of three women. He wanted to believe he and his team were up to the task, but if things got too dicey he’d have to request help from the FBI, thus undermining he and his team’s ability in the face of the people in town.

As he stepped outside, the blustery air half stole his breath away. Only early November and already he could smell winter in the air. Thankfully the cold wind had chased most people off the streets.

He walked alone down Main, waving into shop windows as he passed. Why now? Why in the last three months had the murders begun to occur? There had to be a trigger of some kind, either that or the murderer had moved here in the past couple of months. There had been several new families and single men who had moved to Grady Gulch in the past year or so. Cameron made a mental note to check each of them thoroughly.

What he’d like to do was head to the café and check on Mary. When he’d told her about Dorothy the night before and she’d fallen onto the sofa and began to weep, there had been nothing Cameron wanted to do more than pull her up into his arms, hold her tight against him in an effort to comfort.

But he wasn’t sure that she’d welcome his touch, his closeness. She definitely gave him mixed messages. Although she’d told him a dozen times that she didn’t need or want a man in her life, occasionally he caught a whisper of longing in her eyes as she looked at him, a yearning that made him want to believe her eyes and not her lush lips.

He steeled himself as George Wilton walked out of the hardware store and nearly bowled him over. Wearing a thick, long black coat and a hat with huge ear muffs that flapped against his gray whisker-grizzled cheeks, he looked prepared for the snowstorm of the century.

“Heard Dorothy Blake was murdered last night,” he said with a scowl, which wasn’t unusual. George always found something to scowl about.

“Heard right,” Cameron replied.

“Craziness, that’s what’s taken over this town. You gonna find this creep before he kills all the waitresses from the café?”

“That’s my plan, George.”

“Yeah, well, my plan is to marry some twenty-three-year-old hottie who thinks I hung the moon, but that ain’t happening anytime soon. Hope your plan works out better than mine. You know I take most of my meals at the café. What will I do, where will I eat if this creep manages to kill all the waitresses and Mary has to close down?”

Leave it to George to think about his own creature comforts rather than the loss of the three women. “Mary isn’t going to close down the café and we’re going to catch whoever is responsible for these crimes,” Cameron said with a confidence that didn’t quite make it into his heart.

George’s scowl deepened. “Well, you’d better hurry up about it,” he said as he moved past Cameron and headed in the opposite direction down the sidewalk.

Hurry up about it. How Cameron wished he could do just that. Snap his fingers, speak an ancient incantation, wiggle his nose and magically have the guilty party behind bars. But he knew from experience that it was going to take hours of pounding pavements, talking to people and seeking any minute detail that might have been overlooked that could break the case wide open.

As the day passed, Cameron found himself unable to get Mary out of his head. Outside of the families of the dead women, Mary would be the person most touched by their deaths. Not only because they worked for her, but because she considered the people who worked at the café her extended family.

In one of their late-night talks she’d told him she had no family, that Matt’s father had been killed in a car accident when Matt had been just a baby. She and her husband had both been only children of parents who had passed away. In her isolated grief over her husband’s death she’d taken Matt and left her hometown in California and wandered until the wind had blown her into Grady Gulch.

Somebody was killing the waitresses at the café. Was it possible that it wasn’t some enemy that the women shared, but rather somebody trying to hurt Mary? Maybe he was making too big a leap, but it was a possibility that had to be considered, along with a dozen others.

The day passed far too quickly, with far too many questions remaining unanswered. A noon meeting with his men yielded nothing worthwhile and a quick stop at his parents’ ranch reminded him that he’d never be the son his father had wanted, that the son he’d loved was gone and he wasn’t even a pale substitute in his eyes.

The weight of discouragement and frustration pressed heavily on his shoulders as he stopped by the house to let Twinkie out of the laundry room. The little dog danced with excitement at the sight of him and licked the underside of his jaw when Cameron picked her up his arms. Cameron suddenly understood why people had pets.

Twinkie didn’t care that he had no clues to the three murders, didn’t care that he couldn’t be the son his parents wanted. All Twinkie needed from him was food and water and love, and the love was returned unconditionally.

If only people were more like dogs, he thought as he watched the little pooch leaping through the grass like a tiny gazelle in the yard. He called the dog’s name, and she came running back to Cameron and followed him back through the front door.

He started to lock Twinkie back up in the laundry room and then changed his mind and decided to give her the run of the house. He almost felt guilty leaving the little pooch alone again, but his day was far from over.

Twinkie needed a home where somebody could spend time with her, he thought as he headed toward the café. She was definitely a social butterfly and would thrive where there were people to appreciate her friendly nature.

It was late, almost ten, and he knew that on Wednesday nights ten was closing time at the café. Mary would probably be waiting for him with a last cup of coffee ready to pour. She’d have questions he couldn’t answer and he had questions for her, as well.

With three Cowboy Café waitresses dead, he couldn’t help but believe in the possibility that Mary was somehow in the center of the storm.

* * *

Minutes before ten, with the café empty and Mary ready to call it a night, Cameron walked in the front door. He flipped the sign on the door to Closed and then hung his hat on a hook.

She hadn’t been sure he’d make his usual stop given the fact that he had a fresh murder to investigate, but she couldn’t help the way her heart beat just a little more rapidly at the sight of his handsome face. And she couldn’t help but recognize her beating heart was a combination of pleasure and a faint edge of dread as she studied his grim features.

“Bad day?” she asked.

“Bad life,” he replied and sat on one of the stools at the counter.

She turned to pour him a cup of coffee and tried to ignore his spicy cologne scent that always shot a hint of warmth through her. It wasn’t a particularly unusual fragrance. She’d smelled it on other men, but it didn’t affect her in the same way when worn by anyone else.

“No leads?” she asked as she placed the cup of strong hot brew in front of him.

“Nothing to brag about. Dorothy’s sister is flying in sometime tomorrow from back East.”

Mary looked at him in surprise. “I didn’t know Dorothy had a sister. She never mentioned having any family.”

Cameron took a sip of his coffee, his hazel eyes more brown than green. “Younger sister. Apparently the two weren’t close, so I doubt that she’ll have any information that would be helpful to the case.”

The weary lines that creased his forehead did nothing to take away from his sexy features. Mary had been drawn to him since the first day she’d met him, like a moth to a flame that would quickly burn her to death.

“Did you talk to Winneta Baker? She and Dorothy were close friends,” she said, trying to stay focused on the conversation rather than her desire to stroke her hand across his brow to somehow ease those lines of stress.

He nodded and raked a hand through his thick hat-tousled dark brown hair. “Adam spoke with her. She provided the only information that might prove to be a clue. Apparently the night before her murder Dorothy saw somebody skulking around in her yard.”

Mary leaned forward, her heart beginning a new rapid beat. “Casing the place?”

“Possibly. Unfortunately Dorothy couldn’t tell who it was in the dark. All she told Winneta was that she thought it was a big man.”

“Gee, that narrows the suspect pool,” Mary said wryly. “You-all grow them big here in Grady Gulch. At least half the men around here would be considered big.”

He took another drink of his coffee, his eyes narrowed above the cup as he looked at her. Something in that gaze clenched a knot in her stomach.

He doesn’t know, she told herself. He can’t know. I covered my tracks too well. It’s been too many years. Still the intensity of his gaze made her feel as if he could see right through her, straight through to her soul and all the secrets she’d kept there for so long.

He lowered the cup once again, his gaze still holding hers. “I think we have to talk about the possibility that somehow these murders are related to you.”

A gasp escaped Mary. Even though in her darkest nightmares she’d worried that somehow she was a part of the madness that had been taking place, that somehow she was responsible for the deaths of the three women, hearing her fears spoken aloud by him horrified her.

“Me? You mean the café. It’s obvious the murders are tied to the café,” she replied.

“No, I mean you personally.” He leaned forward, as if aware of the impact his words had on her, as if he wanted to somehow touch her, to reassure her that everything was going to be all right. “We have to consider it, Mary,” he said softly.

“I know.” She pulled up a stool on the opposite side of the counter and sat. “I’d already considered the possibility when Shirley Cook was murdered. Now, with Dorothy’s murder, the possibility that somebody is killing my waitresses in an attempt to hurt me and the café is even stronger.” She was aware of the slight tremble of her voice.

“Has somebody given you any trouble over the last couple of months? Have you fired somebody who might have a grudge against you? Have you sensed any ill feelings coming from any of your customers or friends or even the people you’re working with now? Has anyone expressed interest in buying the café?” He was all lawman now, the questions firing from him like bullets from a gun.

She held up a hand to stop the questions as her brain felt as if it might explode. “Trust me, I’ve racked my brain all day, Cameron, trying to come up with a name, the face of anybody who would want to hurt me, but I’ve come up completely empty. Since I’ve owned this place nobody has ever mentioned anything about wanting to buy the café and I haven’t had problems with anyone.” The only person who’d ever wanted to hurt her was gone forever. She’d seen to that personally.

There was no way she could believe this attack on the waitresses had anything to do with the life she’d lived before the one she’d built here in Grady Gulch. There was no reason for her to tell him anything about the horrors she’d suffered in that previous lifetime, the sins that she’d committed to protect all that she held dear. It was history and that particular part of her history couldn’t ever hurt her again unless somehow Cameron discovered what she’d done.

Cameron sighed, the lines across his forehead cutting deeper than usual. “I figured that would be your answer. I’ve tried and tried to think about who might hold a grudge against you, but I can’t think of anyone, either. As far as I know you’ve only made friends here in town, no enemies that I’m aware of.”

Before he could say anything more, the back door of the café opened and Junior Lempke came running in. “Junior!” Mary said in stunned surprise. She’d given the mentally challenged man a key to the back door six months before, but he’d never used it before.

“Mary, Mary.” He raced toward her, his moon-shaped face radiating happiness. “Look, look what I have.” He held out a cell phone. “Mom got it for me as a surprise. It’s just for me.”

“That’s wonderful, Junior,” Mary replied. Junior was thirty-two years old but had the capabilities of a twelve-year-old. A lack of oxygen at birth had resulted in his diminished capacities. Mary had hired him as a busboy over a year ago and now had him doing some of the prep work and cooking.

“Sheriff Cameron, it’s my very own phone,” Junior said as he turned his attention from Mary. “My mom programmed it for me. If I punch one I call home. If I punch two I call Mary.” He flashed her a bright smile. “And if I punch three I call 911.”

“That’s great, Junior. Your mother must think you’re very responsible,” Cameron said with a smile at him.

“I am responsible. I am, aren’t I, Mary?”

“You’re one of the most responsible workers I’ve ever had,” Mary agreed with a gentle smile.

Junior nodded, obviously satisfied and proud of her answer. “Okay, I’ve got to go back home now. I’ll lock up behind me because I’m responsible.” Without waiting for replies, Junior turned and headed back to the kitchen door he’d come through.

Mary found herself smiling after him. She’d taken a chance on hiring him and discovered that people had underestimated his abilities and his need to feel productive. She turned back to look at Cameron, whose eyes were narrowed in thought.

“Wonder what Junior does at night. I know his mother pretty much lets him come and go as he pleases.”

Mary turned back to look at him in surprise. “Surely you don’t think Junior is capable of such crimes. He doesn’t have the cunning, he doesn’t have the mental capacity to make plans and assure escape without detection. Besides, Junior loves me and he loves the women who work here.”

“What about Rusty?”

“What about him?” Mary realized her tone had become slightly defensive. “You know Rusty has worked for me for years. Yes, he has a temper, but he also has a strong protective streak when it comes to the waitresses.”

“But what do you know about his past?” Cameron persisted.

“Enough. I know he lost his wife and child in a house fire years ago. I know that he drifted from place to place, eaten up by grief and drinking too much for a long time and he finally wound up here working for me. Cameron, you’re looking at the wrong people.”

“I have to look at everyone,” he replied. “I’ve got to either dismiss them completely as suspects or put them on my list of potential suspects.”

“You have a list of potential suspects?” she asked hopefully.

His lips curved up in a slow, rueful smile. “I’m working on it. Right now I have a list with every man in town on it and I’m trying to weed it down.”

“Maybe it’s a woman,” Mary said.

Cameron stared at her in surprise and leaned against the back of the stool. “To be honest, we hadn’t even considered the possibility.”

“But there have been no sexual overtones to the murders, so a woman could have been responsible, right?”

Once again Cameron worried a hand through his hair, and for just a moment Mary wondered what that brown richness would feel like beneath her fingertips.

“Thanks, you just put all the members of town over twelve years old on my potential suspect list.”

She smiled sympathetically. “Sorry, it was just a thought.”

“Unfortunately it’s a viable thought. Even though Dorothy told Winneta she saw a large man outside her house the night before her murder, it could have been a big woman or a normal-sized person casting a large shadow in the moonlight.” He raised his cup and drained the last of the coffee. “Walk me to the door?”

She nodded. In another lifetime she would have walked with him to her bedroom. They would have made beautiful love that would banish all thoughts of murders and evil. But in this lifetime she walked him to the front door of the café.

He grabbed his hat from the hook and set it on his head, looking every inch an intelligent, sexy man. Instead of reaching for the door, he placed his hands on her shoulders, his eyes lightening to a more golden-green hue.

She wanted to fall into that light, an illumination that whispered of desire and safety and all the things she dreamed about at night. But she knew it was a false light, a mirage that would disappear if he knew about her past.

“I’m worried about you,” he said softly.

“About me?”

His hands slid down her arms and then back up again to her shoulders. “You might be the owner of this café, but that makes you the head waitress and somebody is killing waitresses and we don’t know if that somebody might consider you the ultimate prize.”

His words shot a shuddering chill down her body. Until Dorothy’s murder nobody had been sure what was driving the murderer. Now they could make an educated guess that whoever it was had a thing for waitresses.

“But I’m different,” she said, her voice a faint whisper. “I’m different than the other waitresses who have been killed. I don’t live alone and I have Matt.”

“And we don’t know how this killer might escalate.” He raised a hand to her cheek and she found the impulse to lean into him and instead took a step back, away from his touch. He dropped his hand and instead shoved both of his hands into his coat pockets. “I’m just saying you need to be careful, Mary.”

“I promise I will be. Doors and windows firmly locked and I’ll sleep with one eye open,” she said in an effort to lighten what had suddenly become a tense tone.

“I’m not kidding. Life wouldn’t be the same for me without you in it.” He frowned as if irritated with himself. “Grady Gulch wouldn’t be the same without your famous apple pie. Lock up after me,” he said.

“Always,” she replied.

When he’d stepped out the door she carefully locked it, then turned out all the lights except the dim security ones over the long counter and went back to her living quarters. Her cheek still burned from his touch and the desire she’d had to lean into him.

She stopped at Matt’s bedroom door, surprised to find him still awake. “Hey, buddy, why aren’t you asleep?” She eased down on the edge of his bed as he sat up, his blond hair tousled with the beginnings of a bed head.

“I heard what Sheriff Evans said and I just want you to know that I’ll never let anyone hurt you.” His voice held all the vehemence a ten-year-old could hold. “I’ll protect you always.”

Mary’s heart squeezed tight and she reached out and shoved a strand of his pale blond hair off his forehead. “Thanks, but that’s not your job. That’s the sheriff’s business. Your job is just to be my favorite son.”

He eyed her with a small smile. “Mom, I’m your only son.”

“Well, then, that makes your job easy.” She rose from the bed and kissed him on the forehead. “Don’t worry, Matt. Sheriff Evans is a good sheriff and he’s going to get the bad guy and nothing bad is going to happen to me.”

“You promise?” Matt asked, this time his voice filled with youthful concern.

“I promise,” she replied firmly. “Now, get to sleep. I don’t want you snoozing through math class in the morning. If you can’t go back to sleep right away, then think about what you want to do for your birthday on Saturday.”

Matt’s tension wafted away as a smile touched his lips. “My birthday...yeah, I’ll think about that,” he said and then dutifully closed his eyes. Within minutes he’d fallen asleep, hopefully to dreams of birthday cake and colorful balloons, and Mary moved away from his door and fell onto the sofa in the living room.

The left side of her head suffered a faint pounding that spoke of the beginnings of a headache. Three dead women...not just employees, but also friends.

She’d scarcely had time to grieve for Dorothy as the café had buzzed with business all day. Weddings and deaths brought people out of their isolation and into the café to talk with friends and neighbors.

Now, in the quiet of the room, she still couldn’t find the grief that Dorothy deserved. Instead the only emotion she could tap into was a simmering anxiety that bordered on terror.

Was Cameron right? Were these murders really about somebody trying to get to her? Was somebody toying with her?

Destroying the people she loved, the business she’d built before finally killing her?

Why? And who? She’d never gotten any negative vibes from anyone who had entered the café, the people she visited with day after day.

But Mary knew better than most that monsters could wear smiling faces. They were chameleons who could blend into any setting, who appeared like ordinary human beings. They could be charming and make you believe any of their lies.

Oh, yes, Mary knew very well about monsters. A little over thirteen years ago she’d married one...and then she’d killed him.

Chapter 3

“I think we need to look at all the newcomers to town,” Cameron said as he faced his men the next morning.

“How new of newcomers?” Deputy Larry Brooks asked.

Cameron frowned thoughtfully. “Let’s say anyone who has moved to town within the last year or so. I also want somebody checking into anyone Mary Mathis does business with, vendors and services she utilizes and people who repair the café equipment.”

“You have a premonition or something that she’s our next victim?” Deputy John Mills asked as he moved a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

“No, but I think we can all agree that these murders revolve around the café and that’s where our investigation should stay focused,” Cameron replied.

What he didn’t need to focus on was how soft her cheek had been when he’d touched it the night before, how he believed he’d seen desire flame up sharp and hot in the depths of her blue eyes. Wishful thinking, he mused as he also remembered how quickly she’d stepped back from him.

He dismissed these wayward thoughts and once again gazed at the men who worked for him. “Brent, I want you to check to see if any murders like these have occurred any place else in Oklahoma. If you find nothing, then expand the search to include Texas and Kansas. This killer is just too good for Candy Bailey to have been his first. Someplace he’s honed his craft and if we can find where, then maybe we can identify who.”

“Unless he’s a local,” Adam Benson said.

There was a moment of silence. Nobody wanted to believe that a killer walked among them, that somebody who had been born and raised in the small town was a cold-blooded murderer.

“Damn, but I hate this case,” Ben Temple said as he twirled a pen between his fingers as he broke the momentary silence.

“We also can’t rule out a female killer,” Cameron said. The room exploded as the deputies talked about the pros and cons of the possibility of a woman perp.

“I just don’t want to think about any woman I know being capable of doing something like this to another woman,” Adam said. “But I can’t forget it was a woman who tried to kill Courtney Chambers and take my brother’s baby from her.”

“And I don’t like the idea of one of our own home-grown men involved in this,” Brent said. “We’re a close-knit community. I know most every single man by name, have talked to them over a cup of coffee or been to their houses.”

By eight o’clock everyone had their assignments and had dispersed from the room. Only Adam remained behind. “You look exhausted and the day has barely begun,” he observed with a critical gaze at Cameron.

“I’m all right, just couldn’t sleep much last night.”

“I don’t think any of us are going to get a lot of sleep until this creep is behind bars.”

Cameron nodded. “How’s Melanie?”

Softness swept over Adam’s features. “She’s terrific. Her dance costume business is really starting to take off and she’s keeping busy with it. I’m trying to talk her into a Christmas wedding.”

“That’s great,” Cameron replied, truly pleased for the couple who had been to hell and back. Melanie had been a successful dancer in New York when idiopathic neuropathy and foot drop had landed her permanently in a wheelchair. Adam had moved into her upstairs apartment and the two had fallen in love.

Before their love could be fully realized Melanie had been kidnapped and left in a field to die. The perpetrator had been Deputy Jim Collins, one of Cameron’s best men, and Cameron would forever feel more than a bit of guilt for not seeing how sick Jim was, sick enough that he’d harbored an obsession that had turned into a sick rage against Melanie.

“What worries me is that our perp is somebody like Jim, somebody who wears the face of a friend or neighbor and easily hides the evil in his soul,” Cameron said thoughtfully.

Adam stood and clapped him on the shoulder. “Stop beating yourself up about Jim. He didn’t just fool you, he had us all fooled. We’re going to find this creep, Cameron. We’re all committed to finding him so we can give you back your quiet, beautiful town.” With these words he left the conference room.

Cameron remained seated, working over in his mind the duties he’d given his deputies, making sure that everything that had to be done was being done.

A million possibilities roared through his head. Could it be another waitress who was killing women she didn’t like working with? Was it perhaps a man who hated the fact that his wife worked at the café? Or was somebody trying to destroy the café itself?

Certainly Mary had already felt the effects of the first two murders. Several of her regular waitresses had quit working based on fear. Now, with Dorothy’s murder, he had a feeling she would lose more waitresses.

How long could she keep the café open with a dwindling staff? And why would anyone want the popular place that was the hub of the small town closed down?

Nothing about these murders made sense. No matter how he twisted what little facts he knew around in his head, there was no easy explanation to find, no answers haunting the edges of his consciousness.

Frustration drove him up from the table. Nothing would get accomplished by him sitting here thinking. He needed to do something in order to advance the investigation.

And he needed to find a home for Twinkie.

She was getting under his skin with her tiny kisses and happy dances. Whenever he sat anywhere in the house she managed to get into his lap and curl up with a contented sigh. He’d actually dressed her in a little furry leopard print dress this morning, worried that she might get too cold in the drafty old farm house where he lived.

He should have a bulldog or a German shepherd, if he was going to have a dog. Not some designer diva who already thought she owned not just his house, but him, as well.

With a change in the direction of his thoughts, he decided to head to the café for breakfast and to check out the crowd. While he ate a couple of eggs sunny-side up he might see somebody who piqued his interest as a potential suspect or find out something Mary had thought about while they’d been apart.

When he arrived at the café the breakfast rush was in full swing. The parking lot was almost full and most of the table space was taken. Cameron rarely sat at a table, preferring a stool at the counter where Mary served the customers.

Cameron moved to an empty stool and smiled at Mary, who looked tired and slightly overwhelmed by the amount of people inside.

A glance around the place let him know only three regular waitresses were working the large floor. Normally there were five or six during this time of the morning.

Mary greeted him with a cup of coffee and a forced smile. “We don’t usually see you here at this time of the day,” she said.

“You’re going to be seeing me a lot around here,” he replied. Her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d already been weeping that morning.

“Casing the joint?” Her smile didn’t quite reach the center of her eyes.

“Casing the customers,” he replied. “Are you doing okay?”

She nodded, the artificial light overhead sparkled in her pale blond hair, accentuated by the black Cowboy Café T-shirt that clung to her full breasts and emphasized her small waist. “Fine, although three of my waitresses called in sick this morning and I have a feeling their illness is going to be permanent.”

“They’ll come back once we solve the crime,” he said with an optimism he didn’t quite feel. His town would be scarred after this. People would talk for years to come about the reign of terror when good women working at the café had been killed. He hated that, he hated that already the killer had left a lasting mark on Cameron’s hometown.

“You want some breakfast?” Mary asked.

“Absolutely, give me the Cowboy special with the eggs sunny-side up.” He watched as she walked away to place the order with the kitchen, unable to help but notice the sway of her shapely hips in the tight jeans.

He whirled around on the stool. He was here on business, not to appreciate the sexy shape of Mary Mathis. He’d already spent almost eight years lusting after Mary.

Several of the diners nodded in greeting as their gazes met his. Familiar faces, friendly faces, and yet one of them might be the killer. The thought brought a knot of anxiety into the pit of his stomach, making the idea of breakfast far less appealing.

Mary returned to where he sat, as usual the countertop between them. “So, I’m guessing there’s nothing new.”

“The mayor got me out of bed this morning with a call for action,” he said, grimacing as he remembered the early-morning phone call. “Dorothy’s sister is flying into Oklahoma City late this afternoon and is renting a car and meeting me at the office around six. I’ve got everyone on the team working different angles, but there’s really nothing new. I still have three dead women and no real leads.”

“It will all come together, Cameron. You’re an intelligent man and have a great team. I know you’re going to catch this guy.” Her voice rang with an optimism he couldn’t quite find in himself at the moment.

“Hopefully sooner than later,” he replied. “Hey, you want a dog?”

She frowned. “A dog?”

“I’m not sure how it happened but I seem to have gained temporary custody of Dorothy’s dog.”

She stared at him for a long moment and then laughed. “You have Twinkie?” She laughed again, the sound warming him despite the fact that he had a feeling he was the object of her amusement.

“Sorry,” she said, finally getting herself under control. “It’s just that Dorothy used to carry that dog everywhere with her. She always had her dressed to the nines and looking more like a fashion accessory than a real dog.”

He scowled. “She’s in a leopard-print dress today. I was afraid my place was so drafty she’d get cold. I need to find her a good home.”

Mary grinned again, as if imagining the dog traipsing around his house in her leopard finery. “Sorry, no dog for us. I don’t have time for a dog, but I’ll ask around for you. I know how sweet Twinkie is so you shouldn’t have a problem finding somebody to take her off your hands.”

“Thanks, I’d appreciate it. A dog named Twinkie just doesn’t seem right for me. If I was going to get myself a dog it would be a big one named Bruiser.”

A light of laughter lingered in her eyes. “Ah, that male ego, it gets in the way all the time.”

“Order up,” Rusty yelled from the pass window.

“That’s probably your breakfast,” she said as she hurried away. She returned in a jiffy with a large platter and set it in front of him.

“Later I want to pick your brain about some of the regulars who come in here, especially anyone who has started coming in on a regular basis over the last year or so.” He reached for his fork, although his appetite had fled the moment he’d thought about what lay ahead of him.

What he’d like to do was sit and eat his breakfast and fantasize about the woman who’d served him. He’d like to believe that someday Mary would let him into her life, into her heart. But he didn’t have time for silly fantasies.

He knew a lot of cowboys came in here and flirted with her and he suspected there were times she flirted back, but she’d always made it clear that she had no interest in any romantic relationship.

Apparently the death of her husband in a car accident had tainted her for seeking any other relationship with another man. Her husband must have been something special.

As he began to eat his breakfast, his thoughts shot in other directions. He needed to get out to the family ranch and see his parents, he had to find a home for Twinkie and most of all he had a serial killer to catch before he killed again.

Mary was far too conscious of Cameron as she went about her business serving other customers, and he lingered over his meal. When he’d finished eating, he gestured for a second cup of coffee, and then twirled around on the stool and eyed the rest of the customers.

Although she was too far away and he faced away from her, she knew that his eyes were more brown than green and narrowed in deep concentration. He wasn’t the local law casually enjoying a cup of coffee and visiting with other customers. He was a predator on the hunt for another predator.

As the rush began to slow down, Mary wiped down the counter and thought of the past couple of months. She’d lost two good waitresses to romance and love.

Lizzy Wiles had blown into town and had worked at the café for several months before she’d fallen in love with local rancher Daniel Jefferson. The two had married a month ago and Lizzy was now a full-time rancher’s wife.

Courtney Chambers had been another waitress who had left her job when her boyfriend, Nick Benson, had returned to Grady Gulch to discover that when he’d left almost two years prior Courtney had been pregnant with his child. The two had worked out their past issues, rediscovered their love for each other and had also gotten married. Courtney was now enjoying the luxury of being a stay-at-home mother and there was a rumor that she was pregnant again.

Mary missed the two women, who had been hard workers and friends. And now she was missing three more waitresses, all killed by the same person.

She hadn’t been surprised when several of the waitresses had called in sick that morning. It had become frighteningly obvious since Dorothy’s murder that working as a waitress at the Cowboy Café was dangerous.

How long would it be before all the waitresses quit? For the past five years, since she’d taken over ownership of the café, business had boomed. She’d never had trouble covering the expenses and had actually put away a substantial amount of money for Matt’s college.

But she was aware of the fact that everything could change in the blink of an eye. She’d always been suspect of her good luck after she’d fled her home in California. The first couple of months on the road had been difficult, but once she’d landed in Grady Gulch magical things had fallen into place.

Somewhere in the very depths of her heart she’d always feared it was all too good to be true, that when she least expected it, it would all disappear. It would be taken away from her as penance.

“Whew, busy morning.” Lynette Shivers, one of the waitresses, stepped up next to Mary. “Hopefully we’ll get a little breathing room before lunch.”

Mary smiled gratefully at the young woman. “I’m just glad you and the other two are here. I wouldn’t have blamed any of you for deciding not to work here anymore.”

“No creep is going to scare me away from my job,” Lynette said with a burst of bravado. “I like working here and I’m not about to quit.”

“I just want you all to stay safe,” Mary replied.

“I am staying safe. So far these murders have only happened to women who live alone. Regina Maxwell moved in with me last week, so I’m not by myself in that house and we check and double-check the windows and doors all the time to make sure they’re locked tight.”

“That’s good to hear,” Mary replied. Regina Maxwell was another of the waitresses who was working that day. Regina was only twenty-four, a bit flightly and often talked too much to the customers, but she was also a favorite among the diners.

“Besides, Denver Walton invited me out on a date for this weekend,” Lynette said with a special smile lighting her green eyes. “I’m hoping he’ll come in at some time today to firm up the plans.”

Mary wanted to warn the young waitress that Denver wasn’t a good bet for any kind of a long-term relationship, but she didn’t have the heart to dispel the happiness in Lynette’s eyes at the moment. There would be time later to warn her about giving away her heart too easily to a man like Denver Walton.

The two women got back to work preparing for the lunch rush to come. Joe Lina, the mailman, arrived with a pile of mail for Mary. “I’ve got a fistful of things for you today,” he said as he set the pile on the counter.

“Catalogs and bills,” Mary replied. “That’s all I ever get.”

“My wife gets dozens of catalogs in the mail. She says looking through them is her favorite hobby. Sometimes she finds something she wants to order and usually has to send it back for some reason or another, but mostly she just looks.”

“Most of the catalogs I get are advertising new restaurant equipment that I either can’t afford or don’t want or need. But it is fun to thumb through them,” Mary agreed.

Joe waved a goodbye and Mary carried her mail to the coffee table in her living room and then returned to the café.

Lunchtime came and went and it was about three when Mary poured herself a cup of coffee and sank down on a stool behind the counter to rest her feet for a few minutes.

Deputy Ben Temple was the only customer in the place at the moment. He sat at a table for two against the far wall, a cup of coffee at his elbow and the morning newspaper spread out in front of him. He’d been there through breakfast and lunch and she knew he’d probably be there through dinner, as well. In fact, she had a feeling that he’d be a permanent fixture in the café until the murderer was behind bars.

He’d not only watched every person who walked through the café door, he’d also interviewed each of the three waitresses working that day, asking if they had anyone in their lives who didn’t appreciate the fact that they were waitressing. Apparently he hadn’t gotten any shocking answers from anyone, for he remained seated and hadn’t used his cell phone to contact anyone.

She sipped her coffee and thought about the customers she considered regulars. Joe Lina rarely missed a meal here, but despite his unpleasant nature there was no way she could believe the old man capable of killing anyone.

Although the theory was that Candy Bailey’s killer had walked in through the front door either invited or not invited, the killer had gotten to the other two women by climbing through windows. In Shirley Cook’s case, the window had been unlocked. She wasn’t sure if that had been the case with Dorothy.

Whoever it was had to be agile and move with an almost inhuman stealth. George Wilton was definitely on her “no way” list.

As the dinner rush began around five she wasn’t surprised to see Cameron walk back through the door. She also wasn’t surprised at how her wayward heart leaped at the sight of him.

Sometimes in the evenings when they sat alone and talked, she found herself wondering what those lips of his would feel like against her own, how they would feel trailing a slow path of kisses along her jawline and down the length of her neck. She found herself wondering what it would be to wake up in the morning and have his big, strong body curled around hers.

As he hung up his hat and then walked toward her, his eyes glimmered with a warmth that threatened to pull her in, but she steeled herself against it...against him.

“Coffee?” she asked as he slid into his usual stool.

He shook his head. “No thanks, I’m all coffeed out.” He shrugged off his thick jacket and hung it on the back of his stool. “I think we’re in for an early winter. The wind is blowing so cold and I swear I smell snow in the air.”

“Then how about a cup of hot cocoa instead?” she asked. He looked tired, dispirited and her need to comfort him was strong. The only way she knew to do that was through food or drink. She didn’t dare attempt any other way to give him comfort.

“Actually, a cup of cocoa sounds great, along with a little inside information.”

She eyed him curiously. She served his cocoa, pulled up a stool on the opposite side of the counter and watched as he drew the cup to his mouth, took a sip and then quickly licked his upper lip for any errant chocolate residue.

“Inside information?” she prompted him, not wanting to focus on his sinfully sexy lips.

He glanced around, obviously grateful that the café was just beginning to get busy and nobody had yet to sit on the stools on either side of him.

“A little earlier Adam and I worked up a list of some of the newer members of the community and a few of the locals that bounced around in our heads. I’d just like to get your general impression of them.”

She nodded, eager to help but unsure that she could. “Okay, but you understand I only have a limited time with most of the people who come in here to eat, and most of the time they are on their best behavior.”

“Understood, but it’s possible you know more about your customers than you realize.” He took another sip of his cocoa and then leaned forward. “Thomas Manning,” he said.

She frowned as she thought of the middle-aged man who came in every couple of days for dinner. “I don’t know much about him at all. He always comes in alone, he brings a book with him and reads while he eats.”

“Doesn’t visit much with anyone?” Cameron asked.

“Not really. He pretty much keeps to himself, but he’s always pleasant to anyone who speaks to him and none of the waitresses have ever complained about him.”

“John and Jeff Taylor.”

Mary couldn’t help the smile that curved her lips when she thought of the two young twins. “I know they were raised by their mother someplace back East after their mother and father divorced when they were five years old. When their father, Jonathon Taylor, died, he left them his ranch just outside of town.” She shrugged. “They seem like nice young men trying to fit into a lifestyle that’s a bit alien to them. Jeff is quieter than John, but both of them seem like good people.”

She watched him take another sip of his cocoa, aware of the growing crowd of people filling the café. “I’m assuming Brandon Williams isn’t on your list of suspects.” Brandon had moved to Grady Gulch about six months before. He was a big veteran confined to a motorized scooter. Scars marred his face and he was missing facial hair and was bald, yet his pleasant personality made him a favorite among the waitresses.

“Physically Williams is a write-off, as are several other men in town. The man or woman we’re seeking is physically fit and filled with some crazy compulsion to kill waitresses. So far we haven’t found any other solid connection between the three women other than the fact that they all worked here for you.”

“So, you’re fairly sure it’s somebody who has a personal grudge against me or the café,” Mary said, fighting off a new shiver that threatened to stalk up her back.

“Trust me, that’s something uppermost in my mind.” His eyes turned the soft golden green that made her want to both fall toward him and run away from him at the same time. “I need a list from you of every vendor, repair company or anyone else you have contact with for the café business.”

“There aren’t many, but I can have it for you by tomorrow,” she replied.

At that moment Rusty called to her from the kitchen. “This is really a bad time to have a long discussion,” she said as she got up from her stool. “The dinner rush is heating up. Will you be stopping by later tonight?”

He frowned. “Doubtful. I’ve got a meeting with Mayor Davidson at eight and I don’t know how long I’ll be with Dorothy’s sister.”

“Dell giving you a hard time?” she asked as she thought of the young mayor who had been elected two years before.

“He’s been okay until this last one, but he’s more than a little frantic right now. I just wish I had some information to let him know we’re on top of this.” He got up and grabbed his jacket. “Go on,” he said as Rusty called for her again. “I’ll catch up with you sometime tomorrow.”

Mary watched him shrug on his jacket, grab his hat and then disappear out the door. As she hurried to the kitchen her thoughts remained on Cameron. The weight of the safety of the entire town rested on his broad shoulders and this wasn’t the first time he’d faced difficulties as sheriff of the small town.

In the past couple of months he’d had to deal with the kidnapping of a baby and the disappearance of Adam Benson’s girlfriend. In that particular case he’d had to arrest one of his own. Along with the bigger crimes came the smaller ones that all towns suffered. Domestic abuse, robberies and bar fights had already kept Cameron’s team of deputies pretty busy, now with these murders they all had to be stretched to their very limits.

She knew there were a dozen women in town who would love to be Cameron’s rock, the one he came home to every night after a long, hard day. But he’d never looked at any of them. For the past eight years that she’d been in town she’d never heard any gossip about him and any woman.

Several of the waitresses teased her and told her that it was obvious Cameron was crazy about her and was just waiting for her to give him a signal that she was open to him. She hoped that wasn’t the case, for he would wait forever. She didn’t want Cameron to live the rest of his life alone—that was a choice she had made for herself, but would never choose for anyone else.

As always, the dinner rush pushed all thoughts out of her head as she focused all her concentration on running a successful café.

By the time the café closed and all the cleanup was finished, Mary was tired. Despite her aching feet and overall exhaustion it always took her a little while to wind down before going to sleep.

After checking that Matt was sleeping peacefully, she took a long, hot shower and then pulled on the oversize Cowboy Café T-shirt that she used as nightwear. Finally she sank down on the sofa, the pile of mail in a stack on the coffee table.

The first thing she did was separate the stack into three piles—catalogs, bills and advertising trash. She frowned as she picked up what was obviously a card envelope in her favorite lavender color. It was addressed to the Cowboy Café. Curious, she opened it and pulled out a glittery card that read Happy Anniversary.

She frowned in confusion. She opened it to discover a traditional anniversary verse printed inside and no signature. Why would anyone send such a card to the café? Had the café originally opened its doors on November 10?

As the day’s date reverberated around in her head, she gasped and the card fell from her hands to the floor.

Her heart beat with a frantic rhythm that threatened darkness at the edges of her consciousness. She bent over, with her head nearly in her lap and tried to regulate her breathing as images from the past crashed through her brain.

It had to be a coincidence, she thought as she finally raised her head. Her heartbeat slowed from an explosive rapidity to one of simmering panic.

Coincidence, her brain repeated, desperate to believe it so. After all, the card hadn’t been addressed to her personally, but rather to the café.

It couldn’t have anything to do with her or her past. She leaned over and picked up the envelope from the coffee table. The postmark was from right here in Grady Gulch.

“Nobody knows,” she whispered, her voice making the words sound more like a mantra, a prayer rather than a statement of fact.

With a new panicked wildness she ripped both the envelope and the card into tiny little pieces and carried them to the trash can in her bedroom.

She sat on the edge of the bed and clasped her trembling hands together. Who had sent the card and what could it possibly mean?

Over the past eight years had she mentioned anything that personal to anyone? She didn’t think so, but how could anyone in Grady Gulch know that thirteen years ago on November 10 she’d married a monster named Jason McKnight. Who in town might know about her past? Who in Grady Gulch might know what she had done?

* * *

He wished he could have been there when she’d opened up the card. He wished he could have seen the stunned horror wash across her pretty features as she realized what it was, what it meant.

Everyone in town loved Mary Mathis...everyone but him. He hated her. Everyone thought she was good and kind, but she wasn’t. She was a selfish bitch who only pretended there was goodness in her heart.

The Waitress Waster, that’s who he considered himself to be, a cheesy name for a serial killer, but he’d claimed it as his own. He only wished he’d been present each time that Mary had learned that one of her precious waitresses had been killed.

He’d wanted to see her grief in the dimming of the brightness of her blue eyes, in the tremble of her lush lower lip. By now she had to realize that the murders were all related and that they were all aimed at the place she called home, at her personally.

He hoped her heart beat with frantic fear each time she got into bed to sleep. He hoped she feared everyone around her, unsure where danger might arise.

Foreplay, that’s what the dead waitresses had been to him...a prelude to the big event and of course the big event was the destruction of the café and all that Mary loved, the final big event would be the utter destruction of Mary Mathis.

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