Christmas in Cold Creek. RaeAnne Thayne

The Gulch?

      And not well, he noted as she splattered Maxwell House over the lip of Ronny Haskell’s coffee cup. Ronny didn’t seem to mind. He just smiled, somewhere in the vicinity of her chest region.

      â€œDo you want something else to drink?” Donna asked him, apparently noticing he hadn’t lifted his cup.

      He gave her a rueful smile. “To be honest, I need sleep more than caffeine today. A small orange juice will do me.”

      â€œI should have thought about that. One OJ coming up.”

      She headed toward the small grill window to give his order to her husband and returned a minute later with his juice. Her hand shook a little as she set it down and he noted more signs of how Donna and Lou were both growing older. Maybe that’s why they’d added a server to help with the breakfast crowd.

      â€œBusy morning,” he commented to Donna when she came back with the sweet roll, huge and gooey and warm.

      â€œLet me tell you something. I’ve survived my share of Pine Gulch winters,” she said. “In my experience, gloomy days like this make people either want to hunker down at home by themselves in front of the fire or seek out other people. Guess we’ve got more of the latter today.”

      The new waitress eased up to the window and tentatively handed an order to Lou before heading back to take the order of a couple of new arrivals.

      â€œWho’s the new blood?” he asked with a little head jerk in her direction.

      Donna stopped just short of rolling her eyes. “Name’s Parsons. Rebecca Parsons. But heaven forbid you make the mistake of calling her Becky. It’s Becca. Apparently she inherited old Wally Taylor’s place. His granddaughter, I guess.”

      That was news to Trace. He narrowed his gaze at the woman, suddenly put off. Wally had never spoken of a granddaughter. She sure hadn’t been overflowing with concern for the old man. In his last few years, Trace had just about been his neighbor’s only visitor. If he hadn’t made a practice of checking on him a couple of times a week, Wally might have gone weeks without seeing another living soul.

      Trace had been the first to find out that he’d passed away. When Trace hadn’t seen him puttering around his yard for a couple of days or out with his grumpy mutt, Grunt, he’d stopped by to check and found him dead in his easy chair with the Game Show Network still on, Grunt whining at his feet.

      Apparently his granddaughter had been too busy to come visit him but she hadn’t blinked at moving in and taking over his house. It would serve her right if he dropped Grunt off for her. Lord knew he didn’t need a grouchy, grieving, hideously ugly dog underfoot.

      â€œThat her kid?” he asked Donna.

      She cast a quick look toward the booth where the girl was still engrossed in whatever she was reading. “Yeah. Fancy French name. Gabrielle. I told Becca the girl could spend an hour or so here before school starts, long as she behaves. This is her second morning here and she hasn’t looked up from her book, not even to say thank-you when I fixed her a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream, on the house.”

      She seemed to take that as a personal affront and he had to smile. “Kids these days.”

      Donna narrowed her gaze at his cheek. “I’m just saying. Something’s not right there.”

      â€œOrder up,” Lou called. “Chief’s omelet’s ready.”

      Donna headed back to the window and grabbed his breakfast and slid it expertly onto the counter. “You know where to find the salt and pepper and the salsa. But of course you won’t need anything extra.”

      She headed off to take care of another customer and he dug into his breakfast. In the mirror above the counter, he had a perfect view of the new waitress as she scrambled around the diner. In the time it took him to finish his breakfast, he saw her mess up two orders and pour regular instead of decaf in old Bob Whitley’s cup despite his doctor’s orders that he had to ease up on the real stuff.

      Oddly, she seemed to be going out of her way to avoid even making eye contact with him, though he thought he did intercept a few furtive glances in his direction. He ought to introduce himself. It was the polite thing to do, not to mention that he liked to make sure new arrivals to his town knew the police chief was keeping an eye out. But he wasn’t necessarily inclined to be friendly to someone who could let a relative die a lonely death with only his farty, bad-tempered dog for company.

      Fate took the decision out of his hands a moment later when the waitress fumbled the tray she was using to bus the table just adjacent to him. A couple of juice glasses slid off the edge and shattered on the floor.

      â€œOh, drat,” the waitress exclaimed under her breath. The wimpy swear word almost made him smile. Only because he was so damn tired, he told himself.

      On impulse, he unfolded himself from the barstool. “Need a hand?” he asked.

      â€œThank you! I …” She lifted her gaze from the floor to his jeans and then raised her eyes. When she identified him her hazel eyes turned from grateful to unfriendly and cold, as if he’d somehow thrown the glasses at her head.

      He also thought he saw a glimmer of panic in those interesting depths, which instantly stirred his curiosity like cream swirling through coffee.

      â€œI’ve got it, Officer. Thank you.” Her voice was several degrees colder than the whirl of sleet outside the windows.

      Despite her protests, he knelt down beside her and began to pick up shards of broken glass. “No problem. Those trays can be slippery.”

      This close, he picked up the scent of her, something fresh and flowery that made him think of a mountain meadow on a July afternoon. She had a soft, lush mouth and for one brief, insane moment, he wanted to push aside that stray lock of hair slipping from her ponytail and taste her. Apparently he needed to spend a lot less time working and a great deal more time recreating with the opposite sex if he could have sudden random fantasies about a woman he wasn’t even inclined to like, pretty or not.

      â€œI’m Trace Bowman. You must be new in town.”

      She didn’t answer immediately and he could almost see the wheels turning in her head. Why the hesitancy? And why that little hint of unease he could see clouding the edges of her gaze? His presence was obviously making her uncomfortable and Trace couldn’t help wondering why.

      â€œYes. We’ve been here a few weeks,” she finally answered.

      â€œI understand your grandfather was Wally Taylor.”

      â€œApparently.” She spoke in a voice as terse and cool as the freezing rain.

      â€œOld Wally was an interesting guy. Kept to himself, mostly, but I liked him. You could always count on Wally not to pull any punches. If he had an opinion about something, you found out about it.”

      â€œI wouldn’t know.” She avoided his gaze, her voice low. He angled his head, wondering if he imagined sudden sadness in her eyes. What was the story here? He thought he remembered hearing years ago that Wally had been estranged from his only son. If that was the case, Trace supposed it wasn’t really fair to blame the son’s daughter for not maintaining a relationship with the old codger.

      Maybe he shouldn’t be so quick to judge the woman until he knew her side of things. Until he had reason to think otherwise, he should be as friendly to her as he would be to anyone else new in his town.

      â€œWell, I’m just up the road about four lots, in the white house with the cedar shake roof, if you or your daughter need help with anything.”

      She flashed a quick look toward the girl, still engrossed in her book.