Kiss Me Katie! & Hug Me Holly! (16 page)

Holly's Jeep was still parked out front of the café, assuring him she hadn't run for the hills.

Or the nearest big city.

He'd give her until the end of the week. Hell, he'd give her until the end of today.

He walked into his building and surprisingly enough, there she stood by the front desk, with containers of food.

She let out a tight smile at the sight of him. “Hungry, Sheriff?”

He could see that she expected him to be. He could see also that she hadn't lost her inherent…cityness. She wore a two-piece number today, with a snug top and a short, wide skirt that screamed fashion. He had no idea who the maker was, or even the material, but he had no doubt it
was the latest fashion, made by someone expensive.

“I brought breakfast,” she said.

Tearing his attention away from the way the ice-blue color of her outfit emphasized her eyes, he looked at the food she'd put out. Steaming eggs, sausages, cinnamon buns…the works. “Wow.” He didn't know which stunned him more—her little smile, which made her seem young and vulnerable in a way he'd never imagined, or the fact she'd actually brought
him
food. “You cooked?”

“Don't look so surprised.” She lifted a blond eyebrow. “Food is the way to a person's stomach.”

“I thought food was the way to a man's heart.”

“I don't care about your heart. All I care about is you liking the food.”

“Why?”

“So you can influence the people in town, of course.”

Thinking she was kidding, he laughed. Leaning against the desk, he crossed his arms and studied her.

She looked the same as ever; cool, calm and collected. And very sure of herself. But he was beginning to think maybe that was all an act. If she was so sure of herself, she wouldn't be here.
“Excuse me for being cynical,” he said. “But yesterday I got the distinct impression you didn't like me much. Why do you really care what I think of your food?”

“Actually, I don't care what you think. But like I said, the people of this town do, and since I didn't exactly bowl them over yesterday—”

“You yelled at them, you spilled on them, you treated them like they were dirt beneath your heels,” he pointed out.

“Yes, well, maybe I could use a little honing up on my people skills. So are you going to eat this damn food and tell everyone you know it's good, or what?”

He shook his head at her audacity, but she didn't back down in her quest. She actually expected him to help her.

Jud walked in the front door, saw the two of them and stopped short. Pulling up his slipping pants, he lifted his nose and sniffed. “What's going on here?”

Holly looked at Riley, expectation and hope in her gaze. It was so far and away from the mistrust and sarcasm she'd been showing him since yesterday, he could only stare at her.

“Well?” Jud asked again.

Holly's gaze pleaded with him.

If he didn't help her, she'd be gone before sundown. A really tempting thought.

If he
did
help her, she might keep looking at him with those eyes that made him want to drown in them.

Idiot, he told himself, even as he held out an empty plate to Jud. “Help yourself. It's breakfast.”

Holly smiled.

“From Café Nirvana,” Riley added. “It's a special treat.”

Jud looked at Holly with a good amount of suspicion, but with Riley holding out an empty plate, and all the steam and good scents rising from the food, he didn't have a prayer in resisting. When the plate was heaped high, Jud dug in with his fork and…choked.

“Yuck!”

“Yuck?” Riley looked at Holly. “I thought you said it was good.”

“It
is
good!” she claimed, but she bit her lower lip uncertainly.

Riley whipped around to Jud, who was dumping the food in the trash.

“Those eggs are fake!” he yelled.

“They're low cholesterol,” Holly whispered.

“And that sausage!” Jud spit into the trash can. “It wasn't sausage at all!”

“It's turkey meat.” Holly winced at the loud, heavy thud they made as they hit the bottom of the can. “It's much healthier.”

“It's disgusting,” Jud said. “Don't tell me all your meals are going to be this bad.”

“I'm thinking of trying other lean dishes, yes. Like meat loaf from low-fat ground turkey.”

Riley groaned.

“What's that mean?” she demanded, whirling to him.

“Sounds…lean.”

“Exactly!”

“Oh, man.” Riley shook his head, grateful he'd already eaten. “You're going to go give us all that newfangled California junk, aren't you?”

“Your cholesterol will thank you. I've got some salads planned—”

“Gee,” Riley muttered. “Sounds appetizing.”

“I think so.”

Jud pulled at his sagging pants. “I want the fat, woman!” He glared at Riley as if this were all his fault, then walked out.

The silence was deafening.

Holly straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin.

Riley sighed, rubbed his hands over his face, then looked at her. “Well, that went well. You were exceptionally charming and sweet.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I'm easier to get along with when people agree with me.” But she looked out the window at the empty parking lot in front of Café Nirvana and chewed on her very red, very shiny and perfectly made-up bottom lip.

A lip he suddenly, irrationally, had the most shocking urge to suck into his mouth.

Where was a cow emergency when he needed one?

S
LEEP ELUDED
Holly that night. No surprise really. She'd set a new record, even for herself. Alienating an entire town in less than forty-eight hours.

She lay wide-awake in the small bedroom of her tiny apartment above the café. The Mendozas had cleared out quickly for their move to Montana, and yes, the thought came with a tad of bitterness.

Okay, more than a tad.

At least they'd left the furniture. The floors were hardwood and bare except for a few southwestern throw rugs. The walls were bare, too, but for such a small place there were a lot of windows.

The better to let the heat in.

Actually, it wasn't that bad, if you didn't count the extremely fat, rude Harry, who'd insisted on coming up with her.

He lay snoring in the kitchen sink.

But other than him, the place was clean and all hers, which made it…almost cozy. Her place in Los Angeles had been rented from a business ac
quaintance, and so had her place before that. She'd never really had a place of her own, but looking around the very small but oddly homey apartment now, she thought maybe if she could pick her own, it wouldn't be so different than this.

Except for the cat.

It would be nice to be able to call a place her own, but she couldn't do that until she figured out where she wanted to be for the rest of her life.

And where she wanted to be was back in a big city, any big city, where she could lose herself in her work,
normal
work. Where she could be around people like her.

Only the truth was, she'd never been around people like her.

She could tell herself it was the pace of the big city she missed. The movie theaters, the shops…Thai food.

But that was a lie, too.

She didn't miss those things; she didn't miss any of it. She just wanted to belong somewhere. Anywhere.

Damn, now she was right back to where she started, wallowing in self-pity.

She couldn't help it. Everything was wrong. She'd been assured by her parents this would be a short interlude, that the restaurant would sell
quickly. That she would be fully staffed. That her duties would be purely managerial.

None of that had happened, which should have made it easy for her to back out. After all, her parents hadn't kept their part of the bargain, why should she?

But the new and improved Holly
wanted
to keep her bargains. She wanted to come through.

She wanted her accomplishments acknowledged.

And to do that, she had to succeed.

At any cost. Which meant if she had to continue to cook and clean and serve until she got it right, if she had to force people back into that café and eat her food so that a prospective buyer would be impressed, that's what she would do. And tough beans to the local population who didn't want to cooperate.

Finally, this decided, sleep claimed her.

She dreamed about cooking, and how she'd almost,
almost,
enjoyed herself today while teaching herself to make breakfast from a cookbook. She dreamed about Jud admitting he'd been wrong about her food being inedible. She dreamed about an obnoxious cat.

And she dreamed about one grinning, sexy sheriff.

 

B
Y THE NEXT MORNING
, Holly was ready to dole out lots of tushie kissing and smiles that she didn't especially feel.

The biggest problem, of course, was what to serve for breakfast? The café was low on supplies and she hadn't yet had a chance to get any paperwork going, so she hadn't ordered anything.

She'd have to go get what she needed herself. Determined, she got in her Jeep, unable to help noticing Riley's truck was already in front of the sheriff's station.

So he worked hard, so what? It was no reason to feel a little…
melty
on the inside. She worked hard, too, dammit, and pushing him from her mind, she drove to the one and only grocery store in town.

She loaded five big containers of instant oatmeal—
not
low fat—into her cart, and at the last minute added several baskets of blueberries for color. See? She was thinking like a restaurateur already.

At the checkout, she was thoroughly inspected by a midtwenties buxom redhead with the biggest hair Holly had ever seen. Though it was barely seven in the morning, the woman was cracking a big wad of green bubble gum. Checking out Holly's cream-colored skirt and matching box
jacket, she sniffed. “Going to be a scorcher today, you know. You'll be sweatin' in those fancy clothes.”

Those “fancy” clothes were light and cool, and very chic. Holly knew she looked good; looking good was important to her. It gave her a semblance of being in control. “I'm fine, thank you.”

“This it?” Her tone was a one on a friendly scale to ten. “
This
is what you're going to offer at the café for breakfast?”

“Look—” Holly peered at the woman's name tag “Isadora—”

“Dora.”

“Dora, then. Could you just check me out here? I'm in a bit of a hurry.”

“Why?” She bagged the oatmeal, sniffing disdainfully at the blueberries, as if even she knew that nothing, nothing at all, could decorate instant oatmeal. “You don't have any customers waiting.”

“How do you know?”

“My momma's sister's boyfriend's third cousin is the sheriff's receptionist. She can see you through the windows, all by yourself inside the café. Your arrival, and the clearing out of the café, has been the biggest gossip to hit town since
Jimmy Dalton got caught in the bowling alley trying to cheat Lester Arnold.”

“Terrific,” Holly muttered.

“And then you went and caught the eye of the sheriff, which really grinds my butt.” Dora's long, metallic-blue fingernails clicked loudly on the keys as she punched in the prices. “I've been trying to catch his eye since he came back from college. He's the hottest, sexiest, most amazing man I've ever seen, and he's looking at
you.
” She rolled her eyes and blew a huge bubble, popping it noisily. “Go figure, especially since all you've done is give him sass.”

“You don't get out much, do you?” Holly took cash out of her purse and slapped it down.

“You're telling me you don't think he's hot?”

“Hot? No.” Only a little lie, one of the many she'd told, so she couldn't imagine she was going to hell for this one. “Pesky, yes. Mr. Know-It-All, yes. Insensitive? Oh, definitely. But hot?” Holly laughed. “You can't mean it.”

“You're blind, girlfriend.” Dora looked disgusted. “Completely blind. That man is a walking, talking fantasy.”

Holly thought that just maybe Dora was right, but she'd roll over and die before admitting Riley made her yearn and burn. It'd simply been
a while since she'd indulged in any fantasies, much less the real thing, so it was no wonder he set her hormones off. She could handle hormones, and she could handle one Riley McMann. Piece of cake.

What she couldn't handle was everything else.

“I suppose,” Dora said, “that you prefer those pudgy, suit-wearing, smart-talking city boys who don't know the back of a horse from their own—Oh, never mind. The sheriff isn't into women like you anyway. He'll look his fill and get over it. There's still hope for me.” Dora primped up her already huge hair and sent Holly a nasty grin. “Don't you think?”

“What I think is, you're validating my inherent mistrust of everyone in Little Paradise.”

Dora laughed. “Feel free to vacate.”

“Gee, this is such a friendly town. Imagine, I thought I'd have trouble making friends.”

Dora had the good grace to smile sheepishly at that. “I'm sorry. I'm really not usually so rude to customers.”

“Well, aren't I special?”

“It's just that the Nirvana is a town landmark, you know? And honestly, even you have to admit, you've pretty much ruined it all in one day.”

The unfairness of that reared up and bit Holly, making being nice back all but impossible. “I
didn't ruin it all by myself. You people helped by being as inhospitable and ungiving as possible. I could use some help here.”

Holly couldn't believe that those last words popped out of her mouth. She'd never in her life asked another soul for help. She certainly hadn't meant to start now.

“Really?” Dora looked intrigued. “You don't look like a woman who needs help from anyone, you look pretty self-sufficient to me.”

That was quite possibly one of the biggest compliments she'd ever had, not that she was about to admit it. “I'm capable, thank you very much. But you don't, by any chance, know someone who wants the job of chef or waitress?”

“Working for
you?
”

“Well, yeah.”

Dora feigned disinterest, took Holly's money and gave her change.

Holly thought that was the end of that, until Dora stopped her from leaving. “How much are you going to pay?” she asked.

“Can you cook?”

“Better than you.”

“Come prove it.” Holly knew she didn't sound like a warm, fuzzy boss, but she didn't trust anyone
in this town farther than she could frown at them. “Wow me.
Then
we'll talk pay.”

Dora sized her up for a long moment. “You're not exactly Miss Merry Sunshine. Are you mean to your employees?”

“Mean? No. Tough? Yes.”

“I can handle tough. How about fair?”

“Yes.” Or so she hoped. She hadn't gotten a good look at the café's finances yet. Hell, she hadn't done anything yet but sink. But she looked at Dora and willed her to want it, even as she pretended not to care one way or the other. “Makes no difference to me, if you want to bag groceries all your life. But if you're interested in more, in the freedom of cooking what you like when you like it, well then…” With that hopefully enticing speech, Holly grabbed her bag and walked out of the store.

The café was still empty. Just as it'd been since she'd spilled, growled and cooked every single person away.

But she was convinced she could fix this. She could. And she could do it before her parents found out.

She hoped.

Since she was entirely by herself—what else was new?—and she couldn't count on Dora taking
the bait, she placed a nice, big, friendly sign in the window, announcing that she needed a chef and a waitress.

Plenty of people stopped to look at the sign, some pointed and smiled, some even laughed, but no one,
no one,
stopped and inquired within.

And the café remained stubbornly empty, despite the fact she'd cooked up the instant oatmeal for breakfast. It'd been easier than she thought, too.

Until it went cold and turned into cement.

Even Harry wouldn't touch it.

Disgusted, Holly went to the front door and checked it, thinking maybe she'd left it locked.

As she opened it, a mangy, ragged mutt walked right in and sat. Half of one ear was gone, his fur was matted and dirty, and yet he walked in like he owned the place.

“Oh, no,” she said to him. Her. It.
Whatever.
“I've already inherited a nasty cat. You just take yourself right on back outside, this isn't a charity stop.”

The dog cocked his head and panted as if he hadn't had water in five days. Dammit. “Okay, just one little sip of water, then you're outta here. Do you hear me? I've got bigger problems than you.”

As if he understood, and smelled a sucker while
he was at it, he lay down and…smiled. She would have sworn he did!

Muttering to herself, Holly went into the kitchen and rustled up a bowl of water. Backing through the double doors, carrying the bowl, she said, “And don't take this wrong, but man, you need a bath.”

“Care to scrub my back while I'm in it?”

Oh, perfect. Riley McMann. He was back, and though she hadn't turned around yet, hadn't set her eyes on his tall, leanly muscled body, hadn't looked into his deep-brown, laughing eyes, her knees wobbled anyway.

Self-consciously, she turned to face him, holding the bowl of water and feeling ridiculously stupid.

“You didn't seem like the stray type,” he murmured, taking the bowl from her and setting it before the dog.

“I'm not.” But she watched the scrawny dog lap at the water gratefully and felt her heart tug.

“Or a people one.”

“Why don't you go back to your job?” she suggested. “And while you're at it, rescue me from this dog.”

She wanted the dog out because there was something about the way his stomach was practically hollow, the way he seemed so happy to have been
allowed to remain inside, with her, that really got to a person.

No. No, she was absolutely
not
sympathizing with this dog simply because they were both loners. “And do it quick before he scares off any more customers,” she added.

“Yeah, it's the dog scaring off the customers,” Riley said softly, his gaze never leaving hers, the look in it telling Holly he saw so much more than she wanted him to.

“I need to get lunch going.”

“For who?”

Good point. “Look, can you take the dog away or what?”

“Why don't you just put out a sign that says, Eat At Nirvana, The Place That Runs Customers Off, And Dogs, Too.”

She stared at him, baffled by the complexities of small-town living. “You're telling me that kicking this dog out is going to be bad for my business?”

“Princess,
you're
bad for business. But the dog, he could be good. It could show people you do have a…softer side.”

“I don't want to show any softer side.”

But he'd given her an idea, and energized, she grabbed another piece of paper and scribbled:

Free Dinner Tomorrow With Your Receipt From Today. Come Try Our New Family-Style Dinner.

She taped the note to the window, right next to the Help Wanted ad. Beaming, she looked at Riley. “With the dynamics of the gossip mill in this town, I'll be full of customers in less than ten minutes. They won't be able to help themselves, they're far too curious—and cheap—to ignore this.”