The Bridal Quest. Jennifer Mikels

      Jessica couldn’t mask her incredulity. “What? I don’t even know—”

      Nothing fazed the woman. “Better than that, huh?” She peered over her wire-rimmed glasses at Jessica. “Handsome? Sexy?”

      Politeness stretched only so far, Jessica decided. “Trudy, I don’t think—”

      The charms on her bracelet clattered as she set down her coffee cup. “Oh, he’s sexy, all right.” Grinning, she placed her hands on the counter and heaved herself to a stand.

      “See you,” Jessica said.

      “Likely.” The woman’s eyes sparkled. “Since you and the sheriff might be an item.”

      Jessica laughed as Trudy ambled toward the door. The woman was eccentric, probably a gossip and delightful.

      As the breakfast rush dwindled down, she refilled water glasses, checked sugar containers and set up several sets of silverware.

      By eleven-thirty, the lunch crowd began to wander in. Tables filled quickly. Every stool at the counter was occupied. She noticed that no one sat in her first booth and wondered if she’d already earned a reputation for dropping dishes, and people were avoiding her.

      At twelve-thirty, she learned that she had nothing to do with the booth being left empty. She was in the middle of delivering an order of meat loaf when the bell jingled, announcing a customer and she heard Herb’s greeting. “Afternoon, Sam. Your usual booth is waiting for you.”

      The sheriff’s usual booth was the empty one in her station.

      What happened next really was his fault, she decided. He shouldn’t have been so good-looking. Then she wouldn’t have been eyeing him instead of watching where she was going. She wouldn’t have dropped the tray of dishes.

      Plates clattered to the black-and-white tile floor of Herb’s Diner. Heads swung in Jessica’s direction. And her boss, Herb scowled.

      Feeling knots in her shoulders, she rolled them slightly before she began picking up the glass.

      A broom in her hand, Cory Winston sidled close to Jessica and began to sweep splintered glass in a pile. “Let me give you a hand.” A bottle blond in her early thirties, Cory had worked for Herb since she’d graduated from high school. “Don’t feel bad, hon,” she said low. “Every single female in town notices him.”

      Jessica raised a hand and nudged back a few strands of her auburn hair. Him, she assumed, was the sheriff.

      “But don’t get your hopes up. He’s a widower, and not looking.”

      “Oh, that wasn’t—”

      Cory pushed to a stand before Jessica could explain that she wasn’t interested. Better for Cory to think she was as attracted to the sheriff as every other female. She couldn’t have explained that she’d been like a runaway bride. What would she say? I’m on the run. Hiding from my family. Don’t tell the sheriff. As much as Jessica liked Cory, she couldn’t trust her with that secret. “I feel as if I’m on his wanted list,” she said, aware of his unwavering stare on her.

      Cory laughed, but a speculative tone colored her voice. “He is giving you a lot of attention.”

      Too much, Jessica thought. She frowned at the broken plate on the floor before her. She would rouse his suspicions if she didn’t stop acting so nervous.

      There was no real reason for it. Neither her mother nor her grandfather would have notified Willow Springs or any other Nevada police or sheriff departments that she was missing. Her mother’s grand sense of propriety demanded a more discreet method for finding her daughter, like a private investigator.

      While Jessica gathered the last of the large pieces of broken plates and cups, the diner’s dishwasher mopped up the slivers of glass. Jessica thanked him, then hurried behind the counter. Nearby Herb glared. How much would he deduct from her pay for that accident? She needed every penny. For someone who’d never worried about money before, she’d become obsessed with the lack of it lately.

      Plastering a smile to her face, she scribbled a customer’s order for blueberry pancakes on a ticket. He was a local delivery man, and he’d flirted earlier with her until Cory had commented about his wife and baby girl. Now he halfheartedly smiled, then buried his face in his newspaper. She wished another man would follow suit and not give her so much attention.

      Sam considered it part of his job as sheriff to learn about anyone new in town.

      Any stranger would have aroused his curiosity. That sounded like a reasonable excuse for keeping an eye on the new waitress at Herb’s Diner as she scurried from the cook’s station with several plates of pancakes.

      But Sam rarely lied to himself. His curiosity about a stranger only partially accounted for his interest in her. True, she looked out of place. Too classy-looking even in the brand-new jeans, snow-white sneakers, and the diner’s only concession to a uniform, a blue polo shirt.

      She was a leggy woman with shiny auburn-colored hair caught back at the nape of the neck and held in place by a giant gold clip. She had an oval face, soft blue eyes, a straight nose, and a generous mouth. Plain and simple, the woman was a knockout.

      Distracted by male voices raised in disagreement, he observed Morly Wells, sitting at a nearby table. A day didn’t pass without an argument about something between the retired postal worker and his best friend, Lloyd Guthrie. Sam listened for a moment to them, then shot a look at the clock on the wall above the counter. The girls were late. He thought about a half-finished quarterly statement on his desk that was due in the mayor’s office by the end of the week. He should be thinking about budgets and requisitions.

      He would have been, but he looked up from the menu and saw Jessica Scott smile. Not at him, but an old-timer at the counter. Something slow moved through him. He was surprised by it though he shouldn’t have been. He’d always been a sucker for a sunshiny smile. But a long time had passed since a woman had really captured his interest. Not since a year and a half ago—when his wife had died.

      The clatter of silverware on the floor made him look again in the direction of Herb’s new server. The woman had her problems. He saw her picking up the cutlery she’d dropped. While she walked with finishing school grace, she bordered on klutzy. She stopped before Morly to fill his coffee cup, and knocked over a glass of water. Morly jumped back before he wore it. She won’t last a week, Sam decided.

      Crouching, Jessica gathered the silverware and dumped it on a tray. As she expected, she received the dishwasher’s glare. When had she gotten so clumsy, she wondered?

      On a sigh, she turned around. Unable to put off the inevitable, she drew a deep breath and headed toward the first booth in her station, toward Sam Dawson.

      “I see you got the job.”

      “Uh-huh,” she murmured. Close up, Thunder Lake’s sheriff was something, with his sun-streaked brown hair. Faint lines crinkled from the corners of the bluest eyes she’d ever seen.

      Again that deep, no-nonsense voice floated on the air. “Herb said you were here at daybreak.”

      So he’d asked Herb about her. Her stomach clenched. “Yes.”

      “Have you decided to stay?”

      “I’m not sure.” Tensing, she tightened her grip on the pencil in her hand. She needed to be friendly, she reminded herself. “The people I’ve met have been really nice.”

      “We try to be.”

      Honest to the core about her feelings, she acknowledged the quickening of her pulse had as much to do with a male-female tug as nervousness. He unsettled her. He made her aware. All good reasons to keep her distance. “Would you like coffee?”

      “Dying for one. My dispatcher at the office makes it so strong it tastes like motor oil.”

      Breathe, Jessica, she berated herself. “We have good coffee here.”