Chapter Five
Just a few blocks from the edge of town, Max was home alone doing his best not to think about Goldie’s dinner at the hotel.
The handsome and no doubt charming Donovan was in town having dinner with a pretty young woman, he told himself.
It was only one night. Still, it wasn’t like Goldie to be flirting with some stranger at the café—let alone having a late dinner with him at the hotel.
For the first time since their breakup, he realized that Goldie really might move on, have men in her life, maybe even find that special one who could give her what she desired—marriage, a home and family. What if they stayed in Dry Gulch, got married and raised their family here?
The thought had Max walking the floor. He kept thinking about how quickly Goldie had accepted the man’s invitation for dinner.
By now she could already be up in the man’s room.
That thought threatened to twist his heart into an even tighter knot.
What had he been thinking? That he could stay in this town and watch Goldie make a new life for herself?
He jumped at a sound outside his house. When he opened the door, he found his brother, Cordell, standing there with a six-pack of beer and a pitying look. Max didn’t want the beer or the pity, but he couldn’t turn his little brother away because tonight he was grateful for the company.
“Come in,” he said, stepping aside to let him enter. The last thing he wanted to hear about was Goldie’s date and yet he couldn’t help but imagine the worst. Not that he was about to ask. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Cordell laughed. “What a surprise,” he said as he plopped down in the living room and opened them each a beer.
His brother had lived here with him growing up before taking off to find himself.
When he’d come back, he’d bought the abandoned hotel, remodeled it and was now turning the property into a destination resort.
He’d also reignited his love affair with local attorney Josie Brand.
Everyone was waiting for them to announce when they’d be getting married.
The whole town and a good part of the county would want to attend.
“You should be happy for Goldie,” Cordell said after taking a sip of his beer.
“Not talking about it,” Max repeated. “How are things going with your big plans?” Cordell thought he could put Dry Gulch on the map with this resort he was working on. Max kept his doubts to himself.
His brother smiled. “Swimmingly.” He laughed.
“The pools are being dug. I have a huge work force coming in, so at least one of the pools will be ready for the summer season. Great luck that there was once a hot springs bath outside of town years ago. I’ve been able to tap into the thermal mineral water. It will be a huge draw.”
“I’m proud of you,” Max said, meaning it.
He’d been afraid that his brother would never pull his life together.
Unlike his older brother, Cordell was doing great.
People in town were fixing up their places, excited about Dry Gulch’s future because of his brother.
“You’ve done so much for this town in such a short time. ”
He told himself that was what he’d hoped to do by being sheriff.
When the conversation lagged, Max had to ask. “This man staying at the hotel, did he mention what he’s doing in Dry Gulch?”
Cordell took a sip of his beer before he answered. “Are you asking as sheriff? You do know I can’t legally give out information about my guests without a warrant?”
Max rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“I can tell you this. He’s paid up for a week but registered for two.”
That surprised the sheriff. “He must be interested in the café then.”
Cordell lifted a brow. “Or its owner.”
THE NEXT MORNING, a little hungover, Max couldn’t help but think about what his brother had told him.
His concern for Goldie had nothing to do with him being jealous, he assured himself.
It was about his fear that she might be getting herself into trouble.
He knew firsthand how little experience she had with men, since he’d been her first.
After their breakup, he’d been afraid she might do something foolish like rebound by falling for some smooth-talking guy driving a fancy sports car and get her heart broken all over again. It had seemed a long shot at the time.
But now it might be coming true. He felt afraid for her as he made his usual walk around town, only this time taking note of the license plate number on the sports car parked in front of the hotel. The residents he passed gave him the same pitying look he’d gotten from his brother the night before.
It seemed everyone had heard about Goldie’s date and just assumed that Max would be hurting over it. This was what he hated about small-town living. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. The townspeople all assumed he was still in love with Goldie.
He couldn’t help but think about the talk his soon-to-be sister-in-law Josie had with him a few months ago.
“Trauma can make people do something they later regret,” she’d said. “You almost died recently. Maybe worse, the truth about your and Cordell’s childhoods came out.”
“We had a mean stepfather,” he’d said, trying to brush it under the rug as if it was something he’d put behind him.
“It was more than that and we both know it,” she’d snapped.
“He almost killed the two of you and would have if you hadn’t stopped him all those years ago.
Cordell is living with what he did and so am I.
I’m worried about you though, Max. Have you thought about seeing someone you can talk to about this? ”
“You think I need a shrink?”
“I know you still love Goldie. Don’t punish yourself by not being with her.”
“If that’s all…”
“Max.”
He’d turned to look at her.
“You’re making a mistake,” Josie had said quietly.
“As everyone keeps telling me. But maybe she’s better off without me and maybe I’m better off alone. Have you ever considered that?”
“She isn’t and neither are you. Max, for years, you did everything you could to protect yourself and your brother.
That’s a heavy burden, especially when you were only a child yourself.
But that’s behind you. Your brother is a man now, capable of taking care of himself.
You deserve to be happy and not anxious about what tomorrow might bring.
Don’t let your chance for happiness pass you by because of fear. You’re too strong for that.”
With that, she’d walked out. For months, he’d been more than aware of how people felt about his breakup with Goldie. Everyone seemed to agree: Sheriff Max Lander was making the biggest mistake of his life.
But now there was a new undercurrent that unsettled him. He saw it in the residents of Dry Gulch’s pitying looks, heard it in their whispers. Not only was he making the biggest mistake of his life—he was about to lose Goldie forever.
Back at his office, he ran the plates on the red sports car. A bank owned the car for some years to come, but a man named Donovan Cole was making the payments. Armed with a name, Max typed it into the law enforcement database. Was he really going to do a background check on the man?
Hell, yes, he was.
GOLDIE FELT GOOD this morning after last night—even with the disapproving looks now coming from the three elderly women sitting in a booth at her café. Armed with a pot of coffee and three cups, she approached them warily.
“Have a nice evening?” Penny Birch inquired in an accusatory tone, as if Goldie had been cheating on the sheriff.
“Yes, thank you, I did.” She put down the cups and proceeded to fill them.
“A bit flashy, isn’t he?” Carla Wilson asked and pursed her lips.
“I like the sheriff better,” Emily Danvers blurted, making the other two women give her an impatient look. Apparently the three had had a plan when they’d come in this morning and Emily had ruined it. “Don’t look at me like that. We all like Max better.”
Goldie had to bite her tongue not to tell them to mind their own business.
“The sheriff is a fine man, but we aren’t seeing each other anymore.
” They gave her a look that said they’d been waiting for her to do something about that.
She was trying. “What else can I get you, ladies? Perhaps a blueberry muffin to split among the three of you? It’s on the house. ”
They turned up their noses as if bribery wasn’t going to shut them up.
“It would be a shame if the sheriff had to spend his life alone,” Penny said and tutted.
“Yes, it would, but it’s his choice,” Goldie said. “I’d better get another pot of coffee going. Let me know if you decide to have breakfast.” The three came in often just to drink coffee and discuss what was wrong with the world. When they did eat, they ate like birds.
Fortunately, as Goldie was making more coffee, the bell over the door tinkled, announcing her first appointment with a possible buyer for the café. She hurriedly led Arnold Adams to a booth away from the three busybodies.
Arnie, as he told her to call him, was a nondescript man of small stature with an all-business demeanor, which was fine with Goldie. He asked a lot of questions about the café as she showed him around and he made her an offer much higher than she’d been led to believe the place was worth.
Something about him made her uneasy. “I’m going to have to think about it since I have several other potential buyers interested,” she told him.
“I’ll be staying at the hotel. I’ll put together a formal offer for you this afternoon. If you get a better offer, give me a chance to counter it.” With that he left, and she went back to see if she could get the ladies anything else.
“You’re really going to sell Goldie’s?” Carla Wilson asked, clearly upset.
“Surely not to that man,” Penny said, turning her nose up as she watched Arnie leave. “The least you could do is sell to someone local.”
“I’m selling to whoever makes the best offer,” Goldie said more to herself than to them. “I’m sure whoever buys it will be just fine.” The look from the three women told her they didn’t agree as she walked away, rankled by everyone’s attempt to tell her what to do with her life.
She reminded herself that all of this had begun when she’d decided to do something drastic about her situation. She was beginning to regret it.
At the tinkle of the bell over the door, she turned to see Donovan come in. He looked so handsome, the smile on his face warming her and making her forget for a moment her irritation. As he took a stool at the counter, she was glad to see a friendly face—even one she was paying for.
Last night had been fun. She’d realized that she had needed it.
She and Max had lived together as if they were married for five years and yet Max had never even mentioned marriage.
Nor had he made any romantic overtures after the first year or so.
They’d fallen into a comfortable day-to-day pattern with Max apparently having all that he wanted.
“Give the milk away free and a man won’t see any reason to buy the cow,” Penny Birch had once said to her. Turns out, the woman apparently knew what she was talking about.
Goldie, though, had never questioned that Max loved her, but she’d come to realize that she had asked too little from him.
She’d never challenged him, always been agreeable and easy to get along with.
He’d seemed afraid of marriage—no doubt thinking of his mother’s last disastrous relationship—so she’d never pushed it.
Believing that love conquered all, Goldie had just assumed that one day Max would ask her to marry him, and they’d have children and live happily ever after.
Maybe love wasn’t enough, she’d come to realize. Or maybe it needed a good hard shove, she thought as she made her way down the counter to Donovan. Max had taken her for granted. But not anymore.
Stopping in front of the man, she leaned on the counter and returned his smile. “What can I get you, Mr. Cole?”
“Just this for starters,” he said as he reached over, cupped her cheek and drew her into a kiss.
The loud, pointed whispers of disapproval from the three elderly women’s booth told her that everyone in the county would soon be hearing about the kiss and Goldie Shaw’s new beau.