Page 3 of Reckoning with the Cowboy
The two of them looked at each other. Josie shook her head to indicate she wasn’t picking it up. Her sister folded her arms and let it ring another three times before she couldn’t take it any longer and answered the call.
“If you’re calling to tell me that Cordell Lander is back in town, you’re too late,” Amy Sue said into the phone. She listened for a moment, her gaze going to Josie, then she said, “Thank you for letting us know,” and hung up.
Feeling her sister’s gaze boring into her, Josie sighed. “What?”
“That was Tammy down at the sheriff’s department.” Tammy Brooks was a former classmate and the daytime dispatcher. “If you wanted to see Cordell, he won’t be hard to find. He’s in jail. Max arrested him.”
* * *
MaxLander sworethe moment he was outside the sheriff’s department. The last person he’d expected to see walk through that door was his brother. He shook his head as he started down the street toward Goldie’s Café. No longer hungry, he still couldn’t stay in the office. He wasn’t up to dealing with Cordell yet.
Whatever ill wind had blown his brother back into town, it spelled trouble. It always had, always would, he told himself. If Cordell thought he would get preferential treatment in his hometown, he was sadly mistaken. Max had done everything he could to keep his brother from jail before Cordell had left town. He couldn’t protect him anymore, he told himself as he pushed open the door to the only café still open in town.
When his brother had left six years ago, he hadn’t wanted him to leave. They’d been safe here in Dry Gulch now for years. Max knew it didn’t make a lot of sense, this fear of his, but he’d worried about Cordell getting into serious trouble away from here. This was their safe haven. He feared his brother didn’t understand that.
His mood, however, picked right up when he spotted Goldie Shaw behind the counter. Her long blond hair was pulled up into a ponytail, her bangs just above her big brown eyes. The warmth of her smile had always been his undoing. His heart did a cartwheel in his chest at just the sight of her.
He headed for her, needing a kind word. Bad-boy Cordell Lander’s return would soon be all anyone was talking about. Max hoped to put that off as long as possible.
“Hey, Goldie,” he said, already feeling better as he slipped onto a stool that had seen better days.
“The special?” she said, returning his smile with a wink.
“You know it.”
She chuckled and headed into the kitchen to tell the cook. Goldie knew just how he liked his meat cooked and what sides he’d want with it. She tried to make everything special for him. She’d put up with him for almost six years. She was too good for him.
“When are you going to marry that girl?” Tanner Frost demanded from down the counter. The older bearded man was hunched over his soup, spoon suspended as if he’d read Max’s thought and felt the need to ask the question the entire town had been asking for years now.
“Just eat your soup, Frost,” Max said with a groan as he looked through the open serving space to the kitchen to see if Goldie had heard. She was busy talking to the cook, a teenage boy named Ronnie Dean. Max was sure she was distracted. He didn’t want her to be offended by his harsh remark. But he knew Frost wasn’t the only one wondering about his intentions with everyone’s favorite café owner.
Goldie returned, smiling as soon as her gaze fell on him. Damn, he loved this woman, couldn’t imagine living without her. How could he explain to her what was taking him so long to make her his wife? He could barely explain it to himself. But his wild brother showing up certainly brought the reason home, didn’t it?
“Is it true?” Goldie whispered. For just an instant, he thought he’d been wrong and that she’d heard what that fool Frost had said. “Is Cordell really back?”
* * *
Cordell lay onthe bench in the smallest of the cells, the drunk tank. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been here before. But he couldn’t help feeling impatient. He’d driven almost straight through from Florida to get home to warn his brother. All the driving, all the worrying, all the second-guessing himself had worn him out. He drifted right off, startling awake to find the sheriff banging on the bars.
Pushing himself up to a sitting position, he leaned his elbows on his knees, before shifting his gaze to his brother. “Enjoy your lunch?”
“What are you doing here?” he said, sounding exasperated.
Cordell rose, stretched, yawned and walked slowly over to the bars and his brother. He had come to warn Max, but it was a hell of a lot more than that. He knew his brother was going to need his help and that Max would fight him on that. That’s if his brother even believed what he was about to tell him.
Max passed a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper through the bars to him. Cordell took it, tearing off the paper and devouring it in a few bites as his brother watched. “When was the last time you ate?”
“It’s been a while,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to take the time to eat. Grabbed something only when I bought gas for the truck. Goldie make the sandwich? It’s really good.” He paused before he asked, “You two still together?”
Max sighed. “If you need money—”
Cordell shook his head. “It’s not that.”
“So why would you take the chance, coming back here, knowing you have warrants out on you?” his brother demanded.
He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and swallowed the last bite of the sandwich as he wadded up the waxed paper. Max reached through the bars for his brother’s trash as Cordell cleared his voice and said, “I was down in Florida in this motel on the Gulf side. The TV was on. I wasn’t really watching it until I recognized his voice and looked up and—”
“Is this going to be one of your long-winded stories?” Max interrupted.
