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“Joining me for lunch?” she asked him. “Didn’t quite get enough the other night? I have to say, I feel the same,” she teased.
Instead of leaving, Daisy paused her writing and looked up from her order pad. “The other night?”
For a brief moment, Caleb thought she recognized Izzy as a patron from the night before last, but he realized that Daisy had never actually served Izzy and likely hadn’t seen her at all since the place had been so packed that night.
“She—” he began when Daisy cut him off..
“Oh. My. Gawd! Are you—Are you… Sioux Falls?” Daisy gasped.
Shooter put his drink down and Easy did the same. Everyone looked shocked while Izzy only seemed perplexed.
“Is this what you were going to say?” Shooter asked. “That your woman’s in town?”
Caleb shifted in chair. “I—”
“Oh my God!” Daisy repeated and dropped her pad onto the table. She grabbed Izzy’s hand and shook it. “I… We… have wanted to meet you for the longest time!” she declared. “Oh my God! I cannot believe I’m serving Sioux Falls!”
Izzy glanced at Caleb, who was momentarily stunned into silence. All eyes were flitting between himself and the Boucher woman in earnest. To speak up and say that she wasn’t the woman he’d been seeing several towns over would undoubtedly lead to them asking what he had intended to talk to them about then… and who was the real Sioux Falls. And none of this was going the way Caleb had envisioned it, not that there was ever a good time to admit to your friends that you used the cover of your job to kick the shit out of assholes and that your ‘woman’ was everyone’s woman—for the right price.
Caleb looked away from them and directed his gaze at Izzy. “She’s not here to see me,” he announced. “She’s in town trying to hunt down a friend she’s lost touch with.”
Not quite a lie, but far from the whole truth. Caleb was betting that Isabelle had at least as much invested in keeping the whole truth a secret just as much as he did. He didn’t know much about the business of bounty hunting, but it seemed to him that it had to be much harder if the person you were looking for got word that you were searching. If she wanted to keep her identity and her business a secret, she’d play along.
Isabelle handed the menu back to Daisy. Caleb held his breath as he waited. She managed to flash a winning smile at the waitress. “I’m Isabelle. Most people call me Izzy,” she said.
Daisy, somewhat deflated, took the menu back. “Oh. So you’re not here to stake your claim on him?”
Izzy raised an eyebrow. “Stake my claim?”
Daisy nodded. “That’s what Jimmy did,” she replied, indicating the younger man. “When I left town, he went all the way to Nebraska to get me back.” She glared at her boyfriend. “Course he’s the one who chased me off in the first damn place!”
“I love you, baby,” Easy declared loudly. “I was an asshole. But I’ve changed my ways.”
Daisy sighed and blew her short blonde hair out of her eyes. “I’m Daisy, by the way. And it’s disappointing that you’re not here specifically for Doc. I was beginning to think you were either a fantasy, butt-ugly… or a guy.”
Izzy laughed. Caleb rolled his eyes. Easy was horrified. “Daisy!” he scolded. “I told you he’s not gay!”
Daisy shrugged. “Well, you can’t always tell.” To Izzy she said, “But you’re here, and you’re damn hot. I keep checking for an Adam’s apple but I don’t—”
“Daisy!” Easy bellowed.
Daisy shrugged again.
Izzy glanced at Caleb. “You think I have a claim on him?”
Daisy grinned. “Well, hell yes! I’d say so, anyway. Girl, I don’t know what you do for him—or to him—but he comes in here every weekend and the honkey tonk honeys try their damnedest to get into that man’s Levi’s.”
“And no luck?” Izzy asked, curious.
“Nope,” Daisy said as she shook her head. “Not a one.”
“Well,” said Izzy. Caleb steeled himself. She was sharp. She obviously hadn’t missed the veiled threat that he knew exactly who she was and why she was in town. But she seemed to be enjoying this exchange. A little too much.
“I could do worse,” Izzy mused, “than Caleb Michael Barnes. Cop. Ex-Army Ranger. I wouldn’t even have to change the monograms on my bath towels.”
Caleb smirked at her. It appeared that while he was looking into Isabelle Boucher, he’d made enough of an impression for her to look into him. He wondered, though, if he’d have to end this charade before he ended up enlisted to pick out curtains to go with those towels. Thankfully Izzy took pity on him.
“I don’t think I’m the marrying kind, though, Daisy,” Izzy said, sighing dramatically.
Daisy gasped. “That’s exactly what he says about you!”
