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“Why? It isn’t important that you know how to do everything as long as you hire people that do. Your father is a wonderful man and I admire him a lot, but his methods are sadly outdated.” She tempered her statement. “I don’t mean to be criticizing him. I just want you to be successful and important in your own right.”
“I’ve made a commitment to my father. You may be able to back out of a promise without any qualms, but I don’t find it so easy,” he inserted stiffly and started to turn away.
“I’ve spoiled the afternoon, haven’t I?” Tara said contritely. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s the first time you’ve said that.” He paused, wanting to believe her, yet remembering how she had tried to press her ambitions on him.
“It is, isn’t it?” She laughed. “I’ve made so many mistakes with you that it seems I shall always be begging your forgiveness.”
He arched a brow. “Now, that would be a novel experience.”
“There are a lot of novel experiences we haven’t shared.” She leaned toward him and tipped her head in an age-old gesture girls learned almost before they left the cradle. This time he gathered her into his arms and kissed her hard, breathing roughly when it was over. She ran the tip of her nail over his mouth. “You still love me, don’t you, Ty?” The purring certainty in her voice was enough to put him off. He let her go and moved toward the horses to break the spell she’d woven around him again.
When Chase pulled his truck up in front of Sally’s Place, he almost didn’t see the camping trailer parked in the building’s shade. Only the nose of the trailer hitch was poked into the sunlight, and Chase had caught the flash of light reflecting off its metal surface.
The sight of it brought him up short and changed his direction, and he went over to take a closer look. An electric cord ran from the trailer through the opened slit of the restaurant’s kitchen window to hook the trailer to a power supply, and a wooden step had been set out in front of the trailer door to supplement the retractable metal ones. A thick film of dust and dirt covered the exterior, indicating it had traveled some distance since the last time it had been cleaned.
No one seemed to be about, but the windows were cranked open, a further indication someone was staying in it. Chase walked to the rear of the trailer. The license plate on the bumper was bent and half covered with road dust. The trailer was carrying Texas tags. He rubbed enough of the dirt off to read the numbers, then straightened, more puzzled than before.
Using the back entrance, he walked through the empty kitchen and out the swinging door into the restaurant side of the caf6-bar. There weren’t any customers around, just Sally going around to the tables filling the sugar containers.
“Hello, Chase.” Pleasure glowed in her quietly expressive face. “I saw you drive up and wondered where you had disappeared.” She continued pouring sugar from the pitcher into glass containers. “I’ll be through here in a minute. Help yourself to some coffee.”
“I noticed that trailer parked alongside your building.” He took a cup from the plastic rack and filled it with coffee. “Who does it belong to?”
“A man named Belto
n. Actually there’s three men living in it, but I think Belton owns it.” She screwed on the cap and wiped the outside of the jar before setting it down and moving her tray to the next table. “He came in . . . Saturday, I guess it was, and asked if he could park their trailer there and plug into my electricity. He offered to pay me seventy-five dollars a month, but I couldn’t accept that much. So I just charged him fifty.”
“What do you know about him?” Chase frowned.
“He’s from Texas.” She shrugged lightly. “I know they’re working somewhere around here. All three of them wear those black engineer’s boots. They look like those oil men that used to be out at your place—the way they dress, I mean.”
“I don’t like the idea of you having three strangers parked right outside your window, especially with you sleeping by yourself upstairs. It’s not safe.”
She smiled at his grimness. “What is the difference whether they are ten feet away or two hundred? They would have parked the trailer somewhere. Why shouldn’t I get the benefit of charging them to park here? Plus, it’s three more paid breakfasts and dinners, not to mention they asked me to pack a lunch for them the last two days.”
“You’re too trusting.” Chase resisted her logic.
“It’s good business,” Sally returned calmly. “And I make sure all the doors are locked and bolted before I go to bed at night. And if worst comes to worst, I have a gun.” She was quietly mocking him.
“How long are they going to be here?”
“Through the summer, I guess. Maybe longer. One of them was asking about the vacant houses in town. He wanted to know who owned them and whether any of them were suitable to live in now. I had the feeling they might be moving here for a considerable length of time.” She filled the last container and walked to the counter where Chase stood sipping at his coffee. “It would be nice to have people living in some of those abandoned houses again. Some of them just need minor repairs.”
“They didn’t say who they were working for?” He persisted in his search for information.
“No. And they paid in cash—two months in advance.” She smiled at his serious expression, inwardly pleased at his concern for her safety. A man’s protective instincts were strong, always wanting to shield those he cared about from harm. Sally poured a cup of coffee for herself and walked around the counter to sit on a stool, prompting Chase to do the same. “Tuesdays are always so slow,” she remarked, changing the subject. “What’s the latest on Ty and his girlfriend? He brought her in last Friday night. Everyone in three counties is speculating on the outcome of that romance.”
“I have the feeling he’s going to marry her.”
“You don’t sound very happy about it,” Sally observed. “She’s a gorgeous girl.”
“And used to a totally different way of living,” Chase added dryly.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I’ve seen the wildest bachelors become tame and respectable once they’re married.”
“And some stay wild and irresponsible—the way your husband did,” he reminded her.
