Texas Strong (2 page)

Grins and chuckles filled the room.

“You gonna be closed that weekend, Ruby?” someone asked.

“I’m gonna be over at the fire station keeping an eye on you, Raymond Benefield.”

Laughter rolled through the diner, and another day in Sweetgrass Springs was underway.

“Seriously, Josh Marshall will be at the work day?
Movie star
Josh Marshall?” Ruby’s new waitress Chrissy Daniels asked young waitress Brenda Jones. “Getting s hands dirty with, I don’t know, carpentry and stuff?” She fanned herself. “Getting…sweaty?”

“I know, right?” Brenda straightened one of the small flower arrangements she brought in after the days she worked at Veronica Gallagher’s flower farm. “I thought I’d faint the first time he walked into the cafe. He’s really nice, though, and down to earth.” She gave a nervous glance toward Jeanette. “His older brother is even more handsome, if you can imagine.”

Chrissy blinked. “Um…no. That can’t be possible.” She, too, glanced over, then filled another napkin holder as they set up for the supper rush. She’d been a waitress enough years to understand about pecking orders. Jeanette was top of the heap, and right now she felt extra vigilant because Scarlett was still in the hospital and Ruby wasn’t young.

The bell over the door rang, and someone walked in, a big man, tall and broad, with a badge on his shirt.

Brenda stiffened, just a little, and Chrissy couldn’t help wondering why.

He wasn’t strictly handsome, she thought. He had a rough edge to him, a rugged cast to his features. He didn’t look like a happy person, either. Around him was a sort of force field, an invisible barrier separating him from every else.

He looked like the loneliest man on earth. Not that his features betrayed him; his face was stone still, set in lines of authority and rigid control. But in his eyes, she caught a shadow…a hunger, barricaded almost immediately by what she thought of as iron doors rolling down, landing with a sharp thud.

Chrissy glanced about her, but everyone she saw was moving along in normal fashion, as though nothing had happened. Some appeared uneasy, others studiously ignored him as he stood like a tall, broad oak in their midst. But everyone else left him alone, so alone that her feet were moving before she thought.

Her movement snagged his immediate attention. Blue eyes regarded her as if from behind a sheet of glass.

But a spark of curiosity flared.

“Would you like to sit?” she asked, clutching her ordering pad. Up close, he was even more dominating, and inside she jittered. “Or are you here to meet someone?”

Bitter amusement flared for a second. “You’re new.”

His voice could be hard, she thought, and intimidating, but she heard the edge of resignation in it.

“I am. My name is Chrissy Daniels. Do you come here often, Sheriff?” The star on his chest gleamed.

“Deputy Sheriff. And no, not any more often than I have to.”

Her eyes widened. “But the food is great, and everybody loves Ruby and Scarlett.”

A corner of his mouth turned up, and she thought he might have a great smile if he ever chose to use it. Somehow the tension around her made her think he didn’t use it much.

“You really are new to town.”

She frowned, wondering what he meant. Her lips parted to ask.

“Tank, stop glaring at my new waitress and come get your food,” Jeanette barked.

“He wasn’t—” Chrissy began.

His large, rough palm gripped her arm for one brief second. “Don’t bother defending me. It won’t help.” Just as quickly his touch was gone, then he was gone, moving across the room with a surprising grace for such a big man.

She watched him go, torn by the urge to stop him, to ask what he meant, to make someone explain why, in a town that had been nothing but welcoming, this man was all but shunned. She didn’t understand, but she didn’t want to rock the boat. She needed this job. Wanted more every day to belong to this place.

So she said nothing as she watched him go, her own palm clasped over her skin where he’d touched her. Where his loneliness was a fine powdered residue over her own.

“You’d be wise to steer clear of him,” Jeanette said after he left.

“Who is he?”

“Tank Patton. He’s Veronica Gallagher’s brother and mostly covers Sweetgrass and this eastern half of the county.”

“Veronica’s really nice.”

“They’re nothing alike.”

Chrissy frowned, but before she could ask more, the door opened again, and a small, curvy blonde dressed in the very latest fashions stepped inside. “There you are—” the blonde said, pointing at Jeanette. “I have a bone to pick with you. Why haven’t you returned my calls?”

“Because it’s a crazy idea,” Jeanette said. “And I’m busy. Some of us have to work for a living.”

Click-clack, click-clack
, the blonde’s sky-high mules beat a tattoo on the floor as she steamed over. “I am a busy woman, and I don’t have time to fly from L.A. to shake some sense into you. I hand you an opportunity to change your whole life by making a gown that would be worn in Cannes, and you don’t even call me back?”

Chrissy blinked and glanced at Brenda. “What?” she asked quietly.

“Jeanette is a genius with a sewing machine,” Brenda whispered. “She doesn’t get much chance to wear her garments here, but she made Scarlett’s wedding gown and Ruby’s, too. They were both stunning.”

Jeanette shrugged and tried to turn away, but the blonde was having none of it.

“Who is she? Are she and Jeanette friends?”

“Not really. Hayley isn’t from here. She knew Mackey in Hollywood. She stages really high-end property in L.A., and she even has her own TV show. She saw the wedding gowns Jeanette made for Ruby and Scarlett, and she wants Jeanette to move to L.A.”

“Why?”

“Jeanette truly has a gift.”

“So why is she waiting tables?”

“The question of the century. Best I can tell, she’s been in Sweetgrass so long she’s grown roots halfway to China.”

“Isn’t she needed here?” Chrissy asked. “Especially now? Ruby and Scarlett really depend on her, don’t they?”

“They do, but—” Brenda hesitated.

“What?”

“Jeanette had a big crush on Ian before Scarlett showed up.”

“Seriously?” Not that Ian McLaren wasn’t scorching hot. But he was so clearly married, wrapped up in Scarlett to an extent that he didn’t notice other women.

“Ian never seemed to realize it. But I think being here is hard for Jeanette. Ruby told me that Jeanette wanted to leave Sweetgrass after high school, but her parents needed her, and by the time they were gone, she didn’t know how to leave, I guess.”

Ruby spoke up from the kitchen. “Chrissy, your order is up.”

Chrissy moved into action. Her path took her alongside where Hayley had drawn Jeanette away from the tables.

“You could be designing Emmy gowns, Oscar ones, too, one day,” Hayley insisted. “I got you this job, I can get you more. It will all build from there. Or you could work with me styling homes. You have a fabulous eye, Jeanette, and you’re wasting your life in this podunk town.”

As Chrissy passed, she saw emotions warring on Jeanette’s face, longing mingled with caution.

She couldn’t imagine why the decision wasn’t already made. If she didn’t have two kids to support, she’d jump on an offer like that.

Sweetgrass, however, was perfect for her. Just this morning, Ruby had told her that her husband Arnie was willing to rent her his former home, now vacant since he’d moved into Ruby’s big old home behind the cafe. Ruby swore it would be affordable, and Chrissy didn’t want to get her hopes up, but she could hardly wait to get off work to go look at it. The more she experienced Sweetgrass Springs, the more she believed that her children would thrive here, and she felt as if she’d at last drawn a deep, cleansing breath, knowing they could be safe in this town that was already taking her to its collective heart. Then when Ruby’s Dream, Scarlett’s high-end restaurant, finally opened, Chrissy stood to make some really good money if it panned out as envisioned. Maybe one day she’d be able to at last buy them a little house that would be their own.

Chrissy owed Spike Ridley, the Goth pastry chef she’d met when she was pricing a tattoo in Austin. It was Spike who’d convinced her to check out this little town.

For so long, her luck had been the wrong kind, from terrible taste in men to never completing her education. Of course, one of those lousy choices in companions had fathered the two children who were her life.

But she wanted more for them, wanted so very much she’d been afraid she could never provide. Her sister Laura was married to a surgeon and was always trying to help, but Chrissy had her pride. Laura had practically raised her, and Chrissy wanted, more than anything, to make both her children and her sister proud of her.

Maybe at last her luck had turned.

Chapter Two

B
ridger Calhoun was more thankful than ever that he’d convinced Legs to live in Sweetgrass Springs. Yes, he’d said he’d go with her if her life as a big-city lawyer was crucial to Penny’s well-being. He’d even meant it.

Mostly.

But as he strode out of the parking garage and across the street to the Austin hospital that would hold all the inhabitants of Sweetgrass several times over, he knew he could never be happy in a big, crowded city. He was a country boy and proud of it. He’d done all the traveling he wanted while in the SEAL Teams. He’d sampled the world’s high points and darkest valleys, seen the spectrum of what humans could do to one another.

Give him the peace of Sweetgrass any day.

Peace
. Inwardly he snickered. Yes, it was a tiny burg, though growing more swiftly all the time, but it was never, ever boring. Sweetgrass possessed more than its own share of eccentrics.

He’d built his woman a home of their own, he’d watched her thrive as chief operating officer of her twin Jackson’s video game empire, had built a volunteer fire department he was proud of—and to put the cherry on top of the sundae, the love of his life was pregnant with his baby.

He’d spent so much of his life alone, separated from his siblings after their father had killed their mother and then himself. He couldn’t wait to be a dad. To make a family with his long-legged Penelope.

The only fly in the ointment was his role as the sole medical care in town. Yes, he was a former SEAL medic, trained and certified as a paramedic, as well. He gave the citizens of Sweetgrass the best medical care he could, and he knew his best was damn good.

But just under two weeks ago, a medical nightmare had unfolded. Scarlett McLaren had gone into premature labor and nearly bled out before she could deliver. He’d battled with everything he had, but the truth was that if Penny’s brother hadn’t owned a helicopter and gotten her to this Level One Trauma Center in time, both of them would have died, all Bridger’s fighting for their lives notwithstanding.

He needed help. His newly-located sister Molly was an OB/GYN resident in Chicago, but she wouldn’t be ready for another year. Sweetgrass was too far from the nearest hospital, and though Jackson had committed his resources to building a clinic with all the bells and whistles Bridger could want, Bridger was only one man, and he was not a doctor. He was getting physician’s assistant certification in his spare time, but—

Spare time. Hah. He had none, and when his own child was born, he wanted to be there, hands-on. Between being fire chief and the town’s only medical professional…there wasn’t enough of him to go around.

But that was a problem for another day.

Right now he was here to consult with the NICU nurses. Scarlett and baby Georgia would be released soon, and he wanted to be sure he had the equipment he needed, in case Georgia required more than normal newborn care. He’d been reading up, but he wanted to talk to those who did the work every day.

Scarlett’s situation had been unusual, but his sister-in-law Rissa would deliver in seven months, and his Penny in eight. He hoped each would have a normal delivery in the hospital, just as Scarlett had planned for herself.

But life had taught him that planning could go out the window any second, and he was taking no chances.