Cassidy Harte and the Comeback Kid. RaeAnne Thayne
and surliness on her face.
Yeah. He wanted something else. He wanted a woman he couldn’t have. Was there anything more pathetic?
“No. I’m finished here.”
“Fine. Here’s your tab. You can pay the cashier.” She yanked the ticket from the pocket of her apron and slapped it down on the table, then turned away without an ounce of warmth in her demeanor.
Okay. So this little junket into town had established he wasn’t going to be welcomed back to Star Valley with open arms by anyone. He fingered the tab for a moment, tempted to climb into his Range Rover parked outside and just keep on driving.
No. That’s what he had done a decade ago, and look where it had gotten him. He wouldn’t give up. Not yet.
He could show Cassidy Harte—and everybody else in town, for that matter—that his stubborn streak would beat hers any day.
With new determination he slid out of the booth, reached into his wallet and pulled out a hundred, just because he could. He left it neatly on top of the ticket then walked out the door, leaving the whispers and glares behind him.
The morning air was clean and fresh after the oppressive atmosphere inside the diner. It was shaping up to be a beautiful summer day in the Rockies, clear and warm.
He nodded to a man in uniform walking through the parking lot toward him, then did a double take.
Hell.
Cassie’s middle brother, Jess, was walking toward him, fury on his features. Great. Just what he needed to make the morning a complete success.
Chapter 4
Uncomfortably aware of the patrons inside the café craning their necks out the window to watch the impending scene, Zack straightened his shoulders and nodded to the other man.
Hard blue eyes exactly like his sister’s narrowed menacingly at him, and Jesse folded his arms across his chest, a motion which only emphasized the badge pinned there. “Slater.”
“Chief,” he answered, remembering that Cassie had told him her brother now headed the Salt River PD.
The other man stood between him and his vehicle and showed no inclination to move out of the way as he stood glowering at Zack. Yet one more person who wasn’t exactly overjoyed to see him turning up in Star Valley again.
Zack couldn’t say he was surprised. For while he hadn’t known Jesse as well as Matt, Jesse had at least tolerated him.
Even so, neither brother had been exactly thrilled at the developing relationship between their baby sister and the hired help—a penniless drifter without much to his name but a battered pickup and a leather saddle handed down from his father.
Although they hadn’t come right out and forbidden the marriage, they hadn’t been bubbling over with enthusiasm about it, either. He hated to admit their attitude had rubbed off on him, making him feel inadequate and inferior.
He’d gotten their unspoken message loud and clear. Their baby sister deserved better.
Jesse had been a wild hell-raiser back then. Hard drinking, hard fighting. In a hundred years Zack never would have expected the troublemaker he knew ten years ago to straighten up enough for the good people of Salt River to make him their police chief.
Of course, the fact that Jesse was a cop didn’t mean a damn thing. Not around here. Zack knew more than most that a Salt River PD uniform could never completely cover up the kind of scum who sometimes wore it.
He shifted, wary at Jesse Harte’s continued silence. Either he was gearing up to beat his face in or he was going to order him out of town like a sheriff in an old Western.
The irony of history repeating itself might have made him smile under other circumstances.
And while he was definitely in the mood for a good, rough fight, he had a feeling Cassie wouldn’t appreciate him brawling with her cop of a brother on Main Street.
If he had learned anything after ten years of building a successful business from nothing, he’d learned that sometimes diversion was the best course of action. “I understand congratulations are in order,” he finally murmured, stretching his lips into what he hoped resembled a polite smile. “When’s the big day?”
Jesse continued watching him with that stony expression. “Next month.”
“Lovely time of year for a wedding.”
The other man had apparently contributed all he planned to in the conversation because he didn’t respond. Zack finally gave up. “Nice talking to you,” he murmured coolly, prepared to walk through him if he had to.
Jesse stepped forward, shoulders taut and his face dark. “You’re not welcome here, Slater.”
Big surprise there. He felt about as wanted in Salt River as lice at a hair party.
Jesse took another step forward, until they were almost nose to nose. “Now, why don’t you make this easy on yourself and everybody else? Just go on back wherever you came from and forget about whatever game you’re playing.”
He tensed. “Who says I’m playing a game?” he asked, even though he was. It was all just a risky, terribly important game.
“I don’t care what you’re doing here. I just want you to leave. No way in hell will I stand by and let you hurt my family again.”
The hands he hadn’t even realized he had clenched into fists went slack as he remembered what people thought of him. What Cassie thought of him. That he had run away with Melanie, destroying her own dreams as well as her brother’s marriage.
What a mess. Damn it, Melanie had left a new baby, no more than a few months old. He remembered a sweet little thing with dark curly hair and big gray eyes who had immediately stolen her aunt Cassie’s heart.
Melanie had abandoned her husband, her baby daughter, her whole life here in Wyoming. And everybody thought she did it because of him.
No wonder the whole town despised him.
“I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” Jesse muttered. “You screw up one time—drive one damn mile over the speed limit—and I’ll be on you like flies on stink. I’ll tie you up in so much trouble you’ll be begging me to let you leave town.”
He didn’t doubt it for a minute. “Good to know where we stand.” He offered a bland smile but wisely refrained from holding out his hand. “Nice seeing you again.”
Since the police chief still showed no inclination to step aside and let him pass, he finally moved around him and headed for his Range Rover.
Leaving would be the easy thing, he thought as he pulled out of the parking lot and headed on the road back to the Lost Creek. The smart thing, even. But he’d taken that route once and lived with the guilt and self-doubt for a decade. He wasn’t ready to do it again.
Not yet, anyway.
Cassie hung up the phone in her small office off the main kitchen of the ranch and fought the urge to slam her forehead against her messy desk three or four dozen times. If she received one more call about the scene in front of Murphy’s between Slater and Jesse that morning, she was afraid she couldn’t be held responsible for the consequences of her actions.
She had a whole afternoon of work ahead of her, planning menus and ordering supplies, and she didn’t have the time—or, heaven knew, the inclination—to sit there listening to salacious gossip.
What had Jesse been thinking to confront Zack in front of the most popular hangout in Salt River, where he could have optimum visibility? As if all the busybodies in town needed a little more fuel to add to the fire. She was sure the grapevine was just about buzzing out of control over Zack Slater’s triumphant return.
It all made her so furious she wanted to punch something. She had spent ten years trying