Cavanaugh Cowboy. Marie Ferrarella

       Chapter 1

      Miss Joan knew the minute that Sully Cavanaugh walked into her establishment.

      She wasn’t looking toward the diner’s entrance at the time, but she saw the suddenly dazed expressions of utter admiration on her waitresses’ faces. The two young women, Mandy and Beth, appeared to have been suddenly struck speechless.

      Mandy recovered first. Sighing deeply, the dark-haired young woman murmured, “That is one tall, cool drink of water.” Sheer appreciation rang in her voice.

      “There’ll be no sipping from that glass,” Miss Joan informed both the young women sternly. “He’s the great-nephew of a friend of mine.”

      “I’ll say he’s great,” Beth pronounced with enthusiasm.

      Miss Joan frowned and waved the two young women toward their work areas. “You two have tables to bus,” Miss Joan reminded the mesmerized duo. “I suggest that you get to them before the piles get too large.”

      As a police detective, Sully was used to walking into unfamiliar places, his every footstep carefully observed, with only seconds for him to assess whether or not his life was in jeopardy. This situation wasn’t that serious, but he was still aware of the fact that he was being closely scrutinized.

      Probably because he was a stranger, Sully guessed. From what he’d gathered from his great-uncle, Forever was, for the most part, a small, tightly knit community.

      The thin older woman at the counter made him think of an eagle, dissecting his every step as he drew closer to her. She was trim, narrow shouldered and a redhead, most likely a natural one once, but given her age, he guessed that she sought out a little artificial help to maintain the deep red color.

      She’d been beautiful once, he thought. And he could see that back in the day, she had definitely been the type who had caught his great-uncle’s eye.

      “Excuse me,” Sully said, clearing his throat.

      The redheaded woman looked at him, and then at his hat.

      Belatedly, he remembered to take off the black Stetson that his great-uncle had gifted him with when he’d left Aurora, bound for Forever. He wasn’t accustomed to wearing a hat, but the sun outside made it almost a necessity.

      Running the brim along his fingers, he said, “I’m looking for Miss Joan.”

      Miss Joan stopped wiping down the small counter space directly in front of her. Leaning slightly forward on the hand that was against the counter, she informed him, “You found her.”

      Sully put out his hand. “I’m Sully Cavanaugh. I think that my great-uncle called you to say that I was coming out.”

      Miss Joan glanced down at the offered hand but waited a beat before finally shaking it.

      “No, he said he was sending you out for your own good,” she corrected. “He said something about you needing a place to regroup.”

      Sully was accustomed to being a private person and waiting before offering any information beyond the bare minimum. This woman already seemed to know more about him than he was happy about.

      “I don’t know about that—”

      “He did,” Miss Joan continued, cutting him off. Hazel-green eyes slowly slid over the length of his torso, making no secret of the fact that she was assessing what she saw. “You look a lot like Seamus,” she told him. “Back when he was young and good-looking,” she added. “I imagine he’s rather old, craggy and fat by now.” Her voice rose slightly at the end of her statement, a silent invitation to be contradicted.

      “He’s still pretty trim,” Sully told her. “And I think he sees himself as wise, not craggy.”

      “But he is old,” Miss Joan said, noticing that the young man before her hadn’t said anything to contradict that.

      “Old?” Sully corrected that impression now. “Not so you’d notice.”

      Miss Joan waved a hand at his words. “You’re his family. You have to say that.”

      Rather than protest, Sully took out his cell phone. He pressed the app where he kept family photographs and found the one he’d taken of his great-uncle earlier in the year.

      He held it up for her to view. “Judge for yourself, Miss Joan.”

      Rather than taking the phone from him, she took hold of Sully’s hand to steady it. Miss Joan peered intently at the photograph he had pulled up.

      She pursed her lips and asked suspiciously, “When was this taken?”

      Sully thought for a moment. “Around the first of the year.”

      Her eyes narrowed, looking at him like a seasoned interrogator. “This year?”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      “My, my,” she murmured under her breath, releasing his hand. “If I wasn’t already spoken for, I might think about looking Seamus up again, see if some of that old magic was still there.”

      Sully slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Old magic?” he echoed.

      Although Sully had always considered himself to be pretty open-minded, it was hard picturing someone his great-uncle’s age having anything that even remotely resembled a love life.

      Miss Joan gave him a somewhat impatient look. “Use your imagination, boy. I’m not going to spell it out for you,” she informed him. “I’m a lady.”

      Sully chose to avoid the subject altogether by changing it. “You and Uncle Seamus have the same way of addressing me.”

      Miss Joan raised her eyes to the handsome, rugged young stranger’s face.

      “I’ll let you in on a secret. Saying ‘boy’ is a lot easier than remembering everyone’s names. Although I do,” the woman added authoritatively as a coda, just in case he thought she didn’t.

      Sully smiled at this woman who apparently had once known his great-uncle extremely well. “I never doubted it, ma’am.”

      Miss Joan surprised him by frowning. “Don’t keep calling me ma’am,” she chided. “Makes me feel like I’m a thousand years old.”

      “No way, ma’—Miss Joan.” Denying her assumption, Sully quickly corrected himself before he wound up slipping again.

      She nodded. “Keep practicing, boy. Meanwhile, sit down and take a load off,” she instructed, nodding at the stool that was directly to his right. When he did as he was told, she pulled out a menu from beneath the counter and slid it directly in front of him. “What’ll you have? We’re serving lunch, but I can have Angel whip up breakfast for you if you’d rather have that.”

      Sully didn’t bother looking at the menu. He left it right where it was. “No need to go to any trouble,” he told Miss Joan. “I just wanted to stop by to say thank you and to pay my respects—”

      “If you want to pay your respects,” Miss Joan informed him, cutting Sully off, “you’ll eat something like I said. Can’t have you wandering off with an empty belly.” She stopped and peered at him. “What are you grinning about?”

      Sully did a little self-editing before answering the woman. “Uncle Seamus said you had a way about you.”

      Miss Joan laughed and took a guess at the exchange between Seamus and his great-nephew.

      “Probably said I