Annie was speechless.
It took her more than a moment to collect herself. Her accelerating pulse, however, was a whole other story. But at least Danny had no way of knowing that it was currently going faster than a NASCAR racer, she thought, and all because of him.
When she finally regained the ability to form words, she bluntly asked him, “How did you know I work here?” She was grateful that at least her voice hadn’t cracked at the last second.
“I didn’t,” Dan answered.
But obviously Jamie did, he realized. Now his brother’s unusual request to run into town and make a payment in person made sense.
His younger brother had a lot of explaining to do once Dan got back to the ranch.
Anne assessed his response. Taking a breath, she peered at him over the desk. “If you didn’t know I’d be here, then what are you doing here?” As far as she could tell, he didn’t have an animal in tow.
“Jamie sent me,” Dan answered. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “He asked me to drop off his monthly installment on his vet bill.”
“Monthly installment?” she repeated, looking at him in confusion.
“That’s what he said,” Danny told her, handing over the envelope that his brother asked him to deliver.
Annie set the envelope down next to her computer. He watched as her finely shaped eyebrows drew together in perplexed consternation while her fingers flew across the keyboard.
“Something wrong?” he asked Annie, already sensing that something had to be off.
Unwilling to get specific just yet, she merely told Dan, “Just checking.”
But she’d aroused his curiosity. There had to be a reason for that doubtful expression on her face. “Checking what?”
She didn’t bother looking up. Instead, she evasively said, “If I made a mistake.”
“A mistake,” he echoed, waiting for some more information. When Annie said nothing further, his curiosity doubled in proportion. “In the accounting in general,” Dan pressed, “or—?”
Annie slanted a glance at him. This felt awkward all around. Why couldn’t he just back off like a normal person?
Because he wasn’t a “normal” person, she reminded herself. He was Danny and everything that entailed. He didn’t just go along with things; he had to have them spelled out.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to go with ‘or,’” she told him.
He laughed dryly as he watched her type on the keyboard.
“I guess a lot of things have changed in the last twelve years,” he remarked. “When did you learn to talk in code like that?”
The phone rang at that moment, preventing her from answering him. One eye still on the computer screen, she picked up the receiver.
“Brooks Smith’s Veterinary Clinic,” she answered as she put her finger up, indicating to Dan that their conversation was temporarily on hold. “How may I help you?”
For the next minute or so Annie questioned and advised the person on the other end of the call.
She sounded so self-assured, Dan thought. When he’d left Rust Creek Falls with his brothers, he’d left behind a sweet, loving, shy teenage girl who’d just touched the edges of self-discovery. He was looking at a woman now, a woman who had obviously known love, and pain, and during all that, managed to raise a daughter who reflected well on her.
“If you’re willing to wait until four,” Annie was saying to whoever was on the other end of the call, “I can have Brooks come out to your place to take a look at your mare.” She listened to the person’s response. “Good, I’ll let the doctor know. He’ll be at the ranch around four o’clock.”
Hanging up, she turned her attention back to him.
“Now can you tell me what you were talking about?” he asked Annie.
Her eyes darted back to the computer screen. “Well, it’s just that—”
The door behind him opened and they were interrupted again. Dan heard someone coming in. From the sound of it, the person wasn’t alone. Danny didn’t have to turn around to know that. He’d suddenly found himself to be a person of interest for an overly energetic bloodhound who all but inhaled him.
“Heel, Bowser,” a gruff voice behind him ordered. The bloodhound behaved as if no command had been issued, sniffing that much harder and all but climbing up on the side of Dan’s leg. “I said heel, damn it!” the man behind Dan said, irritated. “I’m sorry about this,” he apologized when Dan turned around.
“Mr. Mayfield,” Anne addressed the bloodhound’s owner as she got up from behind her desk and came around to the front. “Why don’t we check Bowser’s weight and then you can take him into the second room to wait for the doctor?” she suggested, making her way to an oversize scale in the corner just beyond the front door.
But the bloodhound hadn’t quite gotten over his fascination with Danny. “Why don’t I walk over to the scale?” he suggested to the dog’s owner. “It might make things easier for everyone.”
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Mayfield apologized. “Bowser’s usually better behaved than this.”
The man gladly took Dan up on his suggestion, holding tightly onto the bloodhound’s leash as Bowser followed Dan right to the scale.
Confronted with the scale, the bloodhound only put three of his four paws down on the scale. It took three tries and all three of them to get all four of the dog’s paws onto the scale at the same time in order to get an accurate reading.
Closest to the readout, Dan looked down at the numbers and announced, “One hundred and twenty-nine pounds.”
“You can take Bowser to room two,” Anne declared. Mr. Mayfield set off down the hall and she returned to her chair behind the desk. She looked a little frazzled and her hair was falling into her eyes.
Seeing her like that conjured up images out of their past. Images Dan had tried very hard to banish over the years.
Damn, he was never going to get over her, he thought, resigning himself to his fate.
“Why don’t we grab some coffee later when you get your lunch break?” Dan suggested to her. “You seem a little busy now.”
The phone was ringing again. “You think?” she asked, reaching for the receiver as she pushed her hair out of her eyes.
“What time’s lunch?” he asked. He didn’t want to turn up early and have Annie think that he was hovering.
She only had enough time to answer, “Twelve thirty,” before she picked up the receiver. “Brooks Smith’s Veterinary Clinic, how may I help you?”
The corners of Danny’s mouth curved as he walked out of the clinic. At this point, he knew that Jamie had deliberately manipulated him, using the so-called outstanding vet bill as an excuse to get him together with Annie again. He had no more place in her life now than he had earlier this week when he’d gone to see her, but he had to admit that it was nice getting to see her a second time.
He had no idea how much longer he was going to be in Rust Creek Falls—technically, he’d taken only a month’s leave of absence from his job to come out here, but he could always leave earlier.
He could also stay longer, he told himself.
It all depended on how things wound up arranging themselves, he thought. But that was something he intended to keep to himself, at least for now.
* * *
While he waited for twelve thirty to come, Dan decided to explore the town of Rust Creek Falls so he could feel like a native of the area again and not like some clueless tourist finding his way around.
He found himself gravitating to a diner rather than a restaurant. The diner had caught his attention because of its sign out front. It boasted having “the best cup of coffee for thirty miles around” so he decided to put the claim to the test.
Dan didn’t know about “best” but the coffee was at least decent enough to merit a second order.
He nursed the second cup while sitting in a small booth next to a window. It was a deliberate choice. The vantage point allowed him to observe the citizens’ comings and goings without really being observed himself.
At this point, he wasn’t quite ready to reconnect with anyone he might have known back when he lived here. The truth of it was, he wasn’t quite up to answering questions that might come his way, either about what he was currently doing or about what had prompted his brothers and him to leave. That was something he wanted to tackle gradually—after he sorted a few things out with Annie.
Starting with her explanation as to why she’d acted so strangely when he’d said he was here with Jamie’s monthly payment.
Sipping his coffee, he scanned the entire dinner. There was an old-fashioned clock on the wall just behind the counter. He caught himself staring at it periodically for the next two and a half hours.
It seemed to him that the minute hand dragged itself from one number to the next with all the speed of a turtle whose feet had been dipped in molasses.
He put up with it as long as he could, then finally paid for his coffee, plus a tip, leaving ten dollars on the table and walking out.
Danny debated killing some more time by walking around Rust Creek Falls, but he still didn’t want to run into anyone that he might possibly know, so instead, he got into his car.
Driving around downtown, even at a snail’s pace, didn’t take any time at all. Before he knew it, Danny found himself back in the parking lot across from the vet clinic.
He killed another half hour just sitting in his Jeep. But this was Montana and it was definitely nippy in October. He didn’t want to just run his engine, using up gas needlessly. Besides, running an engine and going nowhere seemed almost too much like a metaphor for his life.
When it got too cold for him, he got out of his vehicle and went back to the clinic.
The moment he entered, the difference in temperature hit him immediately. There were far more warm bodies in the reception area now than there had been earlier.
Annie looked swamped.
There were people standing at her desk, looking less than patient, and she had just put the receiver down into its cradle, ending another call.
Even with all this activity going on simultaneously, she immediately looked toward the door the second he walked in.
Was she waiting for him? he wondered.
Nodding at her, Dan took a seat and made himself as comfortable as he could, given the current circumstances. He was prepared to wait as long has he had to. At this point, he felt as if he had earned that cup of coffee with Annie.
“You’re early,” Annie said to him when she finally had dealt with the three people at her desk and had answered the two more calls that had come in.
“I didn’t want to take a chance on missing you before you went to lunch,” he told her.
His words drew several interested looks from the people sitting in the waiting area.
Anne looked at the people in the crowded waiting room. “It might be a little later than twelve thirty,” she told him.
He shrugged almost philosophically. “I waited this long, what’s another half hour or so?”
Annie pressed her lips together, suppressing the words that rose to her lips in response to his comment. This wasn’t the time or place to say anything off-the-cuff. She knew that if she did, within less than a heartbeat, she would find herself the unwilling subject of a barrage of gossip.
Rust Creek Falls was a small town and there weren’t all that many things going on to spark people’s imaginations or to cut through the all-but-numbing boredom that was known to arise periodically.
In the background, Debi, one of the clinic’s technicians, had obviously overheard the exchange between Danny and her because the older woman stepped forward now and approached her.
“If you’d like to go out now and get lunch a little earlier,” the technician told her, “that’s all right. I’ll take over the desk while you’re gone.”
Anne bit her lower lip and looked at the other woman hesitantly. “Don’t you have to assist Brooks, Debi?”
The blonde shook her head. “Ellen’s doing that. And Kim is with Dr. Wellington, so you’d better take advantage of this very temporary lull before I change my mind or one of the doctors decide they need more than one tech at their side for a procedure,” Debi told her.
“But what about you?” Anne wanted to know. “When will you take your lunch?”
“Nathan is coming by later so I’ll wait for him. He says he ‘wants to talk,’” the woman confided. “I’d really rather stay busy until he gets here.”
From his vantage point, Dan had managed to overhear Anne’s part of the exchange and lip-read the rest of it. The moment the older technician told Anne to take her lunch early, he was on his feet, crossing to the reception desk.
“Looks like you’ve been cleared to go,” he told her as the other woman stepped away.
Anne felt butterflies fluttering in the pit of her stomach. Why did she feel as if she was about to go out on a first date? She wasn’t, for heaven sakes. This wasn’t even a date at all. She was just getting a cup of coffee with someone who had once meant a great deal to her.
Someone you had a baby with, the voice in her head reminded her.
With effort, Anne forced a ghost of a smile to her lips as she said, “Just let me get my purse and then I’ll be ready.”
Taking out her purse from one of the bottom drawers, Anne rose to her feet. She glanced at the phone, willing it to ring.
It didn’t.
She had temporarily run out of possible excuses.
“Okay,” she told Danny as she came around to the front of the reception desk, “let’s get that cup of coffee.”
Taking her elbow to help guide her out of the clinic, Dan murmured, “I thought you’d never ask.”
The butterflies went into high gear.