Page 19 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

Come to think of it, Cat kind of thought that they were, now.

“I’m betting you’re a local,” Ramona said. “Born and raised?”

“Don’t tell me there’s a local tattoo, or something,” Cat said with a smile. “Is it all over my face? How have I never seen it?”

“If I was going to ask someone to picture what the perfect Montana mountain girl would look like, I’m pretty sure that it would be a picture of you,” Ramona said. “That’s all. I mean it as a compliment.”

“I wouldn’t be offended if there was a tattoo,” Cat confided in her, because the coffee was doing its heavy lifting and she was running with it. That was what she did now—she ran with things. “I’d just be mad that I missed the experience of getting it. In my dreams, I’m covered in tattoos, sleeves and legs and all around my back. But in real life? Not a one.”

The doctor looked at her a moment. “I’m pretty sure there’s a tattoo parlor down in Marietta.”

“There sure is. But I can never decide what I actually want.” Cat tipped her iced coffee in Ramona’s direction. “Since we’re sitting here, having become best friends in the past five minutes, I can tell you that that’s a life issue for me. Wanting a whole lot of things, not sure what.”

“I think that’s an issue for most people,” her new friend replied.

“I’d rather examine that issue with some letters after my name,” Cat said with a laugh. “That seems more like acareer. My current quarter-life crisis, as I believe these things are known, isn’t much more than me brooding around. Which I do every fall anyway, according to my mother.”

“You work in the General Store, don’t you?”

“I do, and I always have, and I suppose I always will.” When Ramona raised a brow, Cat shrugged. “It’s a family thing, and my family’s been here since the beginning. And we’ve been running the store since shortly after the beginning. That makes it a tradition.”

“And you don’t like the tradition.”

“I actually love the tradition,” Cat said quietly, a little surprised to find that she meant it. “I think I’m trying to decide if I have a personality outside the tradition, or if the tradition is who I am. There are no wrong answers. But I do wonder.”

A family came to the counter then and placed a loud, long order, so it was a few moments before the ravenous children were placated with some garlic knots and the two of them could pick up the conversation again.

“I’m going to need help,” Ramona said. “I need someone to run the office once I get the clinic up and running, if I really want to see patients and all the rest.”

Cat grinned. “Are you offering me a job? I should compliment people in pizza joints more often.”

“I’ve seen you around since I moved here at the end of June,” the doctor said, and though she shrugged, her gaze was shrewd. “Everybody knows you and your family, so there’s some accountability there whether you’re happy with that tradition or not. Better still, everybody seems tolikeyou, and that takes some doing in a small town. Might be an asset.” She smiled. “I’m not actuallythatimpetuous. There would be an interview process to make sure we suit. If you’re interested, come by the clinic and let me know. No pressure.”

“You’re in old Mr. Dade’s house,” Cat said with nod. “Over by the library.”

“Old Mr. Dade was my grandad,” Ramona said, her smile a little deeper, then.

And Indy came rushing back over then, delivering them their orders with a huge smile on her face, so there was no time for Cat to register her surprise that a man who had been very old when she was a kid, and always on his own as far as she’d ever known, had actually had a family at all. Much less a fancy granddaughter from back east.

“I hope I’ll see you both later tonight or sometime this weekend,” Indy was saying. “Every night we’ll have live music, happy hour until eight o’clock, a whole two-for-one appetizer situation, and locals always get their first drink free.”

Both Cat and Ramona made interested sort of noises, though Cat knew as the two of them walked out and said their goodbyes on the street that she would not be doing that. Not because she didn’t like it at Mountain Mama, or the idea of the evening that Indy had laid out before them, but because she knew that Wilder was unlikely to come here.

He preferred the Copper Mine, so that’s where she would accidentally-on-purpose end up tonight and likely every night, though she wasn’t sure she liked the fact that Tennessee had noticed her sudden new interest in the place. That probably meant that others had, too.

But then, this was a very small place. The smart bet was that everyone noticed everything. Kind of the way she noticed their deputy sheriff talking to Sarah Jane Stark, the librarian, out in front of the barn where all the knitting enthusiasts gathered. The same way she noticed Deputy Atticus Wayne lift a hand to wave to a passing truck, all neighborly.

And she noticed the truck, too. She recognized it, just like she recognized Boone Carey behind the wheel and the nod he delivered to Atticus.

But what really got her attention was Wilder in the passenger seat.

And she certainly noticed—and felt, deeply—the way Wilder’s gaze hit hers like a bolt of lightning and then—

Moved on.

As if she was… a shrub. A fire hydrant. A garbage can.

And because everything between them was a secret, she had to keep walking. She had to not react. She had to give Boone and Wilder the same noncommittal smile she gave everyone she passed, and she hated it.

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