Her Cowboy Distraction(10)

The only thing Lizzy knew about her boss was that her husband had died  years ago, and like Daniel, Mary had sworn she wasn't open to ever  having another romantic relationship.

What was it about people closing themselves off to love? Lizzy only  hoped that in both Daniel's and Mary's cases they eventually allowed  themselves to love again. And Mary certainly couldn't do better than the  man who kept the law in town, the man who looked at her as if he'd  gladly take an order of her to go.                       
       
           



       

"None of your business, Lizzy," she muttered beneath her breath. Her  business was the fact that the café was ready to open in the next couple  of minutes and still no sign of Candy.

She moved behind the counter and topped off Cameron's coffee. "How's the crime-fighting business?" she asked.

"Just the way I like it, slow and easy." He smiled, but she noticed his  gaze shot through the pass window as if to catch a quick glimpse of  Mary. "And how's the waitressing business?" he asked, his focus back on  Lizzy.

"Fine, but it won't be long before I'll be heading out of Grady Gulch."

He looked at her in surprise. "I'm sorry to hear that. I thought you  were probably going to stick around. I know Mary will be sorry to see  you go. She's told me how much she enjoys both you and your work ethic."

"Mary has been wonderful to me," Lizzy said. "And I love Grady Gulch,  but this was never meant to be a destination, rather just a pit stop  along the way."

Mary reappeared from the kitchen. "Lizzy, I'm about to open the door and  it seems that Candy must have overslept … again. Would you mind running  to her cabin and getting her up and over here? We're going to need her  in another hour or so when the real breakfast rush begins."

"No problem," Lizzy replied.

Mary moved closer to her. "I'd send Junior but he's already started  cooking, and besides, it would take him ten minutes to get up the nerve  to knock on her door, and by then he will have forgotten what I sent him  there to do."

"I don't mind banging on her door to get her lazy butt out of bed," Lizzy replied.

As she went through the kitchen, her thoughts returned to Daniel. She  would probably see him again on Friday night and she wondered what he  would order, two pieces of peach pie or an apple and a peach? An apple  would be an open invitation for her to join him for a few minutes at the  booth.

It was absolutely ridiculous for her to want him to order her a piece of  pie, for her to want to believe that he'd had as much trouble getting  her out of his mind as she'd had in getting him out of hers.

She left the café and noted that the sun had now made a full appearance  in the morning sky and it had already warmed up by several degrees since  she'd come into work thirty minutes ago. It was going to be a hot June  Oklahoma day.

She didn't even want to think about how crabby Candy would be if Lizzy  had to wake her. Candy was cranky on most of the days when she wasn't  pulled from her beauty sleep.

Knowing that she was working the morning shift, Lizzy had gone to bed  early the night before and, much to her chagrin, had dreamed about  Daniel. They had been a series of hot, wild dreams of the two of them  making love, and when she'd awakened she'd been almost disappointed to  find herself alone in the bed.

She reached Candy's cabin and knocked on the door. "Candy, it's me,  Lizzy. Hey, girl, you're supposed to be at work right now. The café is  opening in about two minutes. Wake up and pull yourself together."

She waited for a response but heard nothing coming from inside the  cabin. "Candy." She knocked again, this time harder, and to her surprise  the door creaked open a little bit. "Candy?"

Maybe she'd never come home the night before and hadn't realized that  when she'd left for the evening her door wasn't closed all the way. But,  Candy was always here at night, she thought. Candy had no place else to  go. Her boyfriend lived with his parents, and she wasn't from Grady  Gulch.

All these thoughts flew through her head as she stood at the door and  wondered if she should just walk in or not. Maybe Candy was in the  shower and couldn't hear her. She finally decided to walk in.

"Candy?" she called one more time as she entered the room. The smell hit  her first, the coppery scent of blood. The unmistakable odor assailed  her just a moment before she saw the waitress.

Candy was in the middle of the sofa bed, her eyes staring sightlessly up  at the ceiling. She was dressed in jeans and a pink blouse and blood.

There was so much blood. Lizzy's legs threatened to buckle beneath her  as she tried to make some kind of sense of the scene before her.

Move, her brain commanded, but she was frozen in place, frozen by  horror. This wasn't right. What had happened here? Her brain couldn't  take it all in.

With a sobbing gasp, on trembling legs she backed out of the cabin, her  heart racing so fast that a sickening nausea rose up inside her. She  choked against it.

Dead.

Candy was dead.

Somebody had killed her.                       
       
           



       

Oh, God, while Lizzy had slept peacefully in her cabin next door last  night somebody had come in there and killed Candy. Or this morning while  Lizzy had stood in the small shower stall enjoying a bracing shower to  wake up, somebody had been inside Candy's cabin cutting her throat.

Run!

Lizzy's mind roared with the command. Move! Finally her brain made  contact with her limbs. She hadn't realized she was crying until she  whirled around and headed for the back door of the café, suddenly aware  that her vision was misted with tears.

She burst through the back door and raced past the kitchen, where Junior  was flipping strips of bacon with a fierce look of concentration. He  didn't even look up from the grill as she ran past him.

Bursting into the dining area, she collided with one of the stools,  which instantly crashed to the floor. "Lizzy!" Mary cried in alarm as  Lizzy grabbed hold of Sheriff Evans's arm.

"Candy …  She's dead," Lizzy gasped. "She's been murdered."

He jumped off the stool and ran toward the kitchen, with Mary close  behind him. Lizzy collapsed onto the stool he'd vacated and hung on to  the counter, trying to banish the terrible vision of Candy that lingered  in her head.

Several people stood at the front door, expecting their early morning  cup of coffee and maybe a plate of biscuits and gravy. They had no idea  of the drama that was going on out back. They would know soon enough,  she thought as she heard the sound of sirens in the distance. The  sheriff had probably called in his entire five-man force.

Who could have done such a terrible thing? Was it possible Candy's  boyfriend, Kevin, had killed her? Had they had one of their legendary  fights? One that had reeled wildly out of control?

What if it hadn't been Kevin? What if it had been some crazed predator  who thought the women in the little cabins would be easy prey? And if  that were the case, why Candy's cabin? Why not Lizzy's or Courtney's?

She shivered, colder than she'd ever felt in her entire life as her  thoughts careened into dark places. She realized that all she really  wanted at that moment was strong, warm arms around her, somebody holding  her close and telling her it was all going to be okay.

Unfortunately, the only man's arms she wanted around her were the arms of a man who still had his around the wife he'd lost.

* * *

"You hear about the murder over at the café?" Leah Jennings, the clerk  in the hardware store, asked as she rang up the new set of bolts Daniel  was buying to replace a rusted set in the barn.

"Murder at the café?" Daniel looked at Leah in surprise. "What are you talking about?"

"Seems that one of those gals who lives in those cabins behind the café  was killed sometime in the middle of the night." Leah leaned toward him,  her eyes wide behind her glasses. "Murdered," she whispered.

Daniel's heart lurched sickeningly, and he backed away from the cash  register on legs that had turned to wood. "What? Who?" He felt a roar in  the back of his head as a vision of Lizzy standing in front of one of  those cabins filled his head.

"I'm not sure which one of the girls. I've been stuck here in the store  and haven't had a chance to get over to the café and get the full scoop.  Mike Mathews came in a little while ago and said the café had been  closed all morning and through noon, but it's open now."

Daniel had stopped listening when she'd been unable to identify which  woman had been killed. The roar in his head grew louder as he stumbled  toward the front door of the store. "I'll be back later," he said as he  flew out of the door and headed for his truck.