Chapter 1
Chapter One
Goldie Shaw sighed as she leaned on the counter at her café and stared out the window at the quiet main drag of Dry Gulch, Montana. In a matter of minutes, she would make two of the rashest, most dangerous decisions of her life.
The café was nearly empty this time of day. Only a couple of ranchers sat in one of the booths talking about cattle sales, wheat prices and the weather. She’d heard it all before, many times.
But that wasn’t the source of her discontent or the impetus that forced the spur-of-the-moment actions.
It was Sheriff Max Lander. She spotted him making his twice-daily walk—on the opposite side of the street.
After he’d broken up with her following their more than five years together, Max had made a point of giving her as much distance as humanly possible in the tiny Western town—and she was sick of it.
The breakup had blindsided her, forcing her to go through a wild-runaway-horseback-ride of emotions, from shock and hurt to heartbreak and anger.
The worst part was that she still loved Max, feared she always would.
No, she thought, taking that back, the worst part was that she knew soul-deep that he still loved her but was too stubborn to admit he’d been wrong to end things with her.
After a recent brush with death and unwelcome reminders of his dark past, Max had convinced himself that she was better off without him. At least that was his brother Cordell’s theory since Max had never really explained himself.
Whatever the reason, Goldie had been waiting around for him to come to his senses—and she was fed up with it. She’d recently threatened that she was going to take off with the next single man who walked into her café.
“I’d be careful with that,” her best friend joked. “I’ve seen some of the men who walk through that door. Seriously, you can’t just take off with some man and leave the café. You started Goldie’s. It’s your baby.”
She had to admit that the local attorney and her best friend, Josie Brand, had a point. The pickin’s around Dry Gulch were indeed slim. Add to that, Goldie loved and wanted just one man, she thought, glaring across the street at the sheriff.
But seeing him today had done more than spark her first hasty decision.
It had set a fire in her like none she’d ever felt before.
Josie was right though. Goldie couldn’t just take off and leave the café, since it was the only one in town and it was her baby, but it also had her anchored in Dry Gulch—and her feelings for the town’s sheriff.
There was, however, an answer to that problem.
She could sell the café.
Straightening, she nodded to herself. The thought shook her to the core, and yet she liked the idea of Goldie’s surviving even if her love affair with Max hadn’t.
Pulling out her cell phone, she called a Realtor in Billings—a good two to three hours away.
By morning, she promised herself, there would be a for-sale sign in her front window.
In that lingering state of anger, hurt and desperation, she made her second hasty decision, this one even more drastic and dangerous than the first.
* * *
“GOLDIE’S SELLING THE CAFé!”
Sheriff Max Lander looked up as his clearly winded deputy rushed into the building. He thought he’d misheard. Goldie would never sell the café. Shaking his head at how quickly rumors got started in this small, isolated town, he called out through his open office door, “Where’d you hear that?”
“Didn’t hear it. Saw it,” Deputy Rance Fletcher said as he approached his office. “There’s a sign in the front window of the café. Everyone’s talking about it. Goldie’s is up for sale!”
Max felt his heart drop as he looked past his deputy through the front window of the sheriff’s department down the main street. He could see several residents standing in front of the café, gawking at something in the window.
Picking up his Stetson, he said, “I have to see this for myself.” Without another word, he strode out of his office and headed for the front door, determined Rance had to be wrong. He knew Goldie, intimately, but mostly he knew her heart. She would never sell the café. It was her life.
He took his usual route, staying on the opposite side of the street of the café—and Goldie.
He’d done his best to keep from running into her since the breakup—no easy task given the size of the town.
But there was too much heartache between them, so seeing her was just too painful—even from a distance.
Not far down the main drag, he saw the for-sale sign and felt all the air rush from his lungs. It was true. The sign was hard to miss given how large it was.
“What the hell?” he said under his breath. He hadn’t realized that he’d stopped walking and now stood in front of the hotel that his brother had bought. Cordell was determined to build a resort here in Dry Gulch, something else Max thought was a bad idea. Had everyone in this town lost their minds?
“Guess Goldie is really doing it,” Cordell said with a sigh as he stepped out of the hotel lobby and onto the sidewalk to join his brother.
“She wouldn’t,” Max said as more people gathered on the other side of the street, looking as bewildered but not nearly as upset as he was. “She won’t sell it.”
“I don’t know. I heard she’s already gotten several offers. Apparently, it’s now worth quite a lot of money.”
He shot his brother an angry look. “If so, then this is all your doing. You and your fancy ideas about making this town into a tourist destination.”
Cordell laughed. “Those fancy ideas are all coming together, I’ll have you know. I told you. I’m putting this town on the map. My latest construction job is in the millions.”
Max gave his brother credit for turning his life around, making something of himself—and helping this town. But right now, he was too upset to acknowledge Cordell’s success. “I don’t understand this.”
“Don’t you? If Goldie’s selling and leaving town, then I’m afraid that is all your doing, Max.
What did you expect her to do? Hang around hoping you’d realize you regret breaking up with her and stop her?
” He shook his head. “Doubt your stubborn streak could let you admit your mistake, so I hope you can live with the consequences.”
His brother turned and walked back inside the hotel, leaving the sheriff standing flat-footed on the pavement. Worse, Max knew his younger brother was right. If Goldie was leaving, it was because he was running her out of town. He tried to tell himself that it was the best thing for them both.
But just the thought made him question if he could live with never seeing her—even from a distance—ever again.
* * *
GOLDIE HADN’T THOUGHT the café would sell right away—maybe not ever.
To her surprise, she began getting calls at once from all over the Northwest—even at what she thought was a ridiculously high asking price.
Her Realtor had assured her that the café was worth it.
Goldie was certainly getting a lot of interest. She had prospective buyers on their way from as far away as Minot, North Dakota, and Napa, Idaho.
People had heard about Dry Gulch because of the resort Cordell had started when he’d reopened the hotel.
She’d seen for herself his plans behind the hotel with the mineral water pools and the cabins and summer horseback rides.
In the winter, he would rent snowmobiles.
He was even talking about maybe a small ski area in the mountains outside of town.
Cordell’s dreams for the town were all coming true, and now Goldie was going to benefit from it—if she really did sell the café.
More and more it looked as if it was going to happen, and she felt herself panicking. Josie assured her that it could be a good thing given how much the place was worth. It shocked her. She’d started the small diner-style café from scratch and on a shoestring.
If she invested the money from the sale wisely, she’d never have to work again. That thought left her wondering what she would do with her days. She’d always worked from the time she could get babysitting jobs to waitressing at the former café in town before it closed, and she opened Goldie’s.
Looking up from the latest phone call inquiring about the café, she spotted the sheriff standing across the street.
She recognized both Max’s stance and the set of his shoulders, not to mention the expression on his face.
He’d seen the for-sale sign, she thought with both satisfaction and a deep sadness.
Did he know how hard this was going to be for her, to give up her “baby”?
Was she really going through with this? What if Max didn’t care?
How far was she willing to go with what had really been a wild, hare-brained dare?
She couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Dry Gulch, but how could she stay if her attempts to make Sheriff Max Lander admit his true feelings for her failed?
How could she leave the place that had always been her home?
Then again, how could she stay when she couldn’t help seeing Max most days—even from a distance?
But it was the big question that haunted her. What if she was wrong and Max no longer loved her, as he apparently wanted her to believe?
* * *
MAX HADN’T BEEN able to sleep last night after seeing that damned sign in Goldie’s café window.
Like many nights, he had the nightmares.
Even after all these years, they felt so real that he often awoke screaming.
Not that he didn’t still live them in the daylight.
The memories haunted him, making him feel scared, unworthy and vulnerable, even though his abusive so-called stepfather was now dead.