Fifteen minutes later, they pulled into the restaurants/honky-tonk that had a parking lot full of trucks. Caleb reasoned that it must have good food or good whiskey if so many people were there. Katie reminded him that it might be the only place that was actually open and so it didn’t matter how good the food was as long as there was whiskey.
She was enjoying the simple back and forth conversation. Caleb had always been easy to get along with. He seemed so genuine, something she wasn’t used to after ten years of living with a man who’d artfully deceived her.
And he wanted to dance with her. He’d practically had to hit her over the head to get her to see that he wanted to hold her on the dance floor. Hold her. Like a real date.
For God’s sake, Katie wasn’t a virgin. She’d been married for nearly ten years, not that it meant much now. For all the years she’d been married, she and Bruce had spent more time living apart than together even though they’d lived under the same roof. Work and school schedules had seen to that. She couldn’t remember a time when they’d ever gone dancing or even had a date.
Katie had never been like some of the girls she knew who’d fawn over men. She wasn’t part of the local hockey bunny team, the girls who’d hang out at all the hockey games the boys in town played. Or like the rodeo bunnies that hung on all the men who would go on a weekend rodeo run and come back bandaged and broken from a fall from a bull or a bronc.
She knew too many girls she’d graduated high school with who’d ended up following a man like that. Those guys had big dreams of winning on the rodeo circuit and then became bitter when injury and lack of earnings forced them to quit. Sure, there were plenty of them who did well and she did like rodeo. She’d even promised to go to a few with Tabby when the rodeo season started again.
And she did love it. But she had dreamed of something more in her life. More than just a Saturday night in a honky-tonk or riding from rodeo to rodeo like a gypsy looking for gold.
Her heart pumped wildly in her chest as they made their way to the door. Music was already pouring out into the night from the jukebox along with the sound of the occasional burst of laughter.
“Whatever they’re cooking in there smells good. It’s making me hungry,” Katie said.
They walked to the front door and immediately saw a chalkboard with the day’s specials.
“Bison burger.”
“Is there any other kind?” the hostess said, overhearing their conversation as she walked back up to the podium that held the chart with seating arrangements for the restaurant.
“Are you here for food or for the band?” the hostess asked.
“Both,” Katie said.
She glanced at Caleb, who had an expression of satisfaction he was trying to hide. His mood had changed considerably since they’d left the house.
The hostess quickly checked the bar and then the seating chart in front of her. “All my tables in the honky-tonk are full but I have some space at the bar. You can order some food there and the bartender will bring it out to you.”
Caleb nodded to Katie.
“That sounds great.”
As they weaved through the people moving about in the restaurant and made their way to the bar, Katie noticed there were a few people on the dance floor. The stage where the musicians already had their equipment set up was dimly lit. Music from the jukebox grew louder as they got closer to it. When the song ended, the few people who’d been dancing stopped and headed back to their tables.
They ordered their dinner, having the same thing, bison burgers and fries. Katie ordered a tall glass of sweet tea because she was driving, and Caleb had a beer from the tap.
Before the food came out the band started playing. They were good and played some of the country music songs Katie knew. When a particularly fast song came on, everyone in the room seemed to get up on their feet and either run to the dance floor, or clap and move to the music near their table.
Caleb took Katie by the hand and led her into the throng of people and they danced, laughing and spinning until the song ended. Sweat poured down her forehead from dancing and being in such close proximity with everyone on the dance floor. She watched Caleb, just to make sure he didn’t overdo it and get dizzy. Concussions were a funny thing. You could be okay one minute and then fall flat on your face the next. Caleb didn’t appear concerned.
Caleb glanced over her shoulder to where their place was at the bar just as a slow tune started to play.
“Our food isn’t out yet.”
Katie turned too and saw that the bar was empty. “So it seems.”
She turned back to Caleb and he looked down at her in a way she’d never seen before. “Dance with me, Katie Dobbs.”
His eyes were dark with heat that made her catch her breath. “We have been dancing.”
“That’s not good enough. I told you what I wanted in the car. I want to hold you in my arms on the dance floor.”
Without saying a word, she stepped into his arms and waited for him to wrap his arms around her, he took her hand in his and slowly guided her across the floor. The dance floor wasn’t nearly as crowded now that the fast tune had ended. It gave them much more room to move. But Katie liked just standing there with Caleb lifting her face and pressing her cheek against his. She felt his hot breath on her neck and could swear she heard the beating of his heart with every move he made.
Katie wanted to weep. It had been a long time since she’d been in the arms of a man. Since she had come back to Sweet, she’d had a total of one date and it had been a disaster. Both she and the man she was out on the date with admitted it and called it quits halfway through the night. They hadn’t even finished dinner. It was the one and only time she took a blind date from a well-meaning friend. And maybe for that reason alone, loneliness had settled into her over the winter in a way she’d never felt lonely before.
But being with Caleb was so easy. There was never any awkwardness. Without a doubt, he was the reason why that lonely feeling had ebbed over the last few weeks.
“You’re not half bad, Caleb Samuel.”
He pulled away just enough so he could look down at her and she could see his smile.
“Only half bad?”
“Actually, you’re pretty good at this. It makes me think you’ve had some practice.”
He cocked his head to one side. “Well, you know me and some of the other officers down at the station managed to do some dancing when things are slow. Just to keep up on it.”
She laughed. “Yeah, those slow nights can be rough.”
“Exactly.”
They began dancing again, and they resumed their position with his face so close to hers that she could feel the heat of his skin against her cheek. She closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder, letting the music and the touch of the man she was with fill her with peace.
But just as they began to fall into a rhythm, she suddenly felt Caleb’s muscles tighten under her hands. He pulled back abruptly and stared at a place beyond her at the bar.
Katie turned to see where Caleb was looking, but all she saw were two people running into the swinging door of the kitchen.
“What is it?” she asked.
Before he could answer, Caleb dropped his hands from her waist and ran through the bar towards the kitchen door. Then he disappeared.
* * *
Caleb could hardly believe his eyes. He’d only caught a quick glimpse of the woman standing by the doorway, and then she’d disappeared into the kitchen. His mind immediately registered Julie, his baby sister, who was no longer a baby anymore.
He felt empty as he pulled away from Katie’s arms, and sprinted across the dance floor to the back of the bar where he’d seen the woman who looked just like his sister. His heart pumped as he moved and the sudden burst of adrenaline made his head a little woozy.
“Hey, you can’t be back here.” the bartender said, reaching across the bar in an attempt to get his attention.
“I’m a cop.”
“And I’m Tinkerbelle,” the bartender said in a droll voice.
Caleb pulled his badge out of his wallet flashed it at the bartender. He hated the delay this was causing him. If that really was Julie, he needed to get to her quickly before she disappeared.
But just as fast as he flashed his badge, the bartender lifted his hands as if in surrender. “Gotcha,” the bartender said. “They went somewhere back there.”
As he was pushing through the swinging door, Caleb heard the bartender say, “Jerome is not going to be happy about you being back there.”
Caleb didn’t know who Jerome was and he didn’t care. He’d deal with Jerome when the time came. He quickly looked around the kitchen. Several people working at food stations, making sandwiches and burgers. He saw one person with two identical plates that looked like what he and Katie had ordered. Suddenly Caleb wasn’t hungry and didn’t care about it.
“Did you see a woman and man run through here?” he asked the cook.
A young kid standing at the dishwasher looked up at him as if bewildered and the man with a knife in his hand used it to point to a hallway leading to the back. “They went out back. But you won’t get too far if you go down there. Jerome doesn’t like—”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Caleb ran down the small hallway with a set of closed doors. Two of them were marked restroom, which he surmised were for people that worked there. Another door was partially open. Caleb took a chance and knocked on the door.
There was a heavyset man sitting behind a beat-up metal desk that had seen better days leaning back in his chair with one foot propped up on the edge of the desk as he talked on the phone. His eyes widened as he saw Caleb breach the sanctity of the office.
“I’ll call you back,” he said to whoever he was talking with, and then hung up the phone quickly. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in the back of my honky-tonk?”
“I’m a police officer,” Caleb said, flashing the badge he still held in his hand.
The man scrutinized the badge and then Caleb’s face. “Good for you. That don’t explain what you’re doing in my kitchen or my office.”
“A girl just ran through the kitchen, and then came back here. Do you know where I can find her?”
“Crystal?” The man’s bushy eyebrows narrowed, and then he muttered what sounded like a curse under his breath. “Is she doing drugs or something? Because I can’t have any of that happening in my honky-tonk, dammit.”
“I just need to talk to her.”
“Crystal!” he hollered from his chair behind the desk. His voice boomed in the room. “Where is that girl?” he complained, as he finally lifted himself from his chair, making it squeak from his weight. He adjusted his pants and then hollered again. “You out there, Crystal?”
“What, Jerome?”
Caleb heard the woman’s voice from outside the hallway. A few seconds later, a woman appeared in the doorway.
“I could hear you yelling all the way out in the parking lot,” the woman said. It was the woman he’d seen. Her hair was the same color as Julie’s, and she was about the same height and build. But it wasn’t his sister.
Her eyes flashed with anger at Jerome and then turned and looked at him suspiciously.
“What were you doing out there when you should have been out delivering food to the customer?” Jerome asked.
“It was my break. I had a smoke.”
“Are you in some sort of trouble?” Jerome asked. He glanced at Caleb, and then back at her. “You got a cop here asking about you.”
The woman’s eyes widened with panic. “Hey, are you trying to get me fired? I don’t know who you are or who you’ve been talking to, but I didn’t do anything wrong to bring cops after me.”
“It’s okay,” Caleb said, trying to fix his mess up before it escalated into something explosive. “It’s a mistake.”
“A mistake?” Jerome asked, his eyes narrowing.
“She looks like someone I have been looking for. I apologize.”
She shook her head. “You should be surer of yourself before ruining someone’s reputation. I didn’t do anything, Jerome.”
“Get back to work,” Jerome said, waving her off.
Crystal scowled. “I’m going.”
Caleb sighed. “I’m sorry for the confusion. I’d better get back to the bar. My food is probably done.”
Jerome grunted. “I don’t like trouble in my honky-tonk. It makes the customers twitchy.”
Caleb walked through the kitchen feeling like an idiot. He’d left Katie all alone on the dance floor. He’d just left her after he’d told her he’d wanted to dance and hold her in his arms. What kind of idiot does that?
* * *
It had been days since he’d talked with Katie. Ever since he’d run off on her while they’d been dancing—holding each other—he’d felt like a jerk, embarrassed by his reaction to seeing that girl. What kind of man let’s go of a beautiful woman like Katie Dobbs and runs after another woman? He’d spun all kinds of lines in his mind of what Katie probably said and thought about him for what he’d done.
Medical bills had come in the mail, and while he knew his insurance would cover most everything, Katie had said she wanted to know about anything that hadn’t been covered. Plus, she wanted a running total of expenses for her insurance company. He took a quick photocopy of the bills on his home printer and then took the original paperwork to put in his file cabinet in his home office.
He pulled the drawer where he kept medical records and information on life insurance that he needed to keep on file, and sifted through the files until he found a blank folder to put the medical bills in. That’s when he saw a folder marked Julie that he’d completely forgotten he had.
He pulled it out and looked at it. He remembered creating the file when he’d been discharged from the army and helped his parents empty out their house for their move to New Mexico. He’d kept the paperwork and remembered only giving it a quick glance at the time. With the eye of a twenty-two-year-old.
One envelope stuck out like a sore thumb. He pulled the paperwork from the file cabinet and looked at it more closely. At the time, he’d thought Julie had gone to see a doctor for a routine physical. Most colleges require students to have them before attending school. But the name on the envelope was one he’d come to recognize over the years as a police officer. Dr. Lawrence Cross was an OB/GYN. He delivered babies.
The only reason why Caleb would know that is because he’d gone on a call where one of the women in town went into labor fast and Dr. Cross ended up delivering the baby in the parking lot of the medical center in town.
His sister was young at the time, barely eighteen years old. There were lots of reasons why a girl of eighteen would go to an OB/GYN. Caleb certainly didn’t know everything about the female body, much as he was fond of it.
But when he slipped the paperwork out of the envelope, he quickly learned that the procedure Julie had was a pregnancy test. It was positive. The date of the test was days before she’d left town.
* * *
Katie wasn’t at home, Caleb soon learned when he drove by the house and found Kas and Tabby alone. He swung by the bank to see if she’d decided to go back to work and use her vacation time later on when she cleared up the dispute over the chapel property. But when he didn’t find her at work, he knew where she’d be.
His nerves already on edge and ready to explode, he drove out to the chapel on Lookout Ridge. Sure enough, Katie’s car was in the parking lot.
Caleb swerved into the parking lot and slammed on his brakes, parking his truck right next to Katie’s sedan. The cease and desist order notice was still clearly visible on makeshift door. Katie was nowhere to be found outside.
Dammit! Didn’t that woman have any regard for the law at all?
Feeling like a locomotive as he climbed out of the truck and slammed the door, he walked to the plywood door he’d made with Katie and pushed it open. Despite the noise he’d made, he’d surprised her when he walked inside.
She bolted upright from sweeping dirt into a dustpan and dropped the contents all over the floor again.
“You’re going to need a shovel, not a dustpan to clean this place up.”
Rubber barrels were placed throughout the chapel. Caleb could tell already that Katie had been here for hours as it looked much tidier than it had on the day the roof collapsed. He glanced up to the ceiling and saw plywood was now covering the big hole that had let all the snow in and weakened the beam. A brace had been put under two sections of the beam to help shore up the roof and prevent it from caving in again.
The snow on the floor had been shoveled away or melted. He felt heat coming from somewhere, since the windows were open a few inches, he quickly decided there was most likely a propane heater somewhere tucked in a corner that he couldn’t see. The large beams that had hit him on the back and the head were no longer inside the chapel.
When had she had time to get this done?
“Katie, you’re making a habit of this, and I don’t like it. What part of cease and desist don’t you get?”
Katie still looked startled by being found inside the building. Still, she propped her fists on her hip and lifted her chin. “I’m not letting that Hollywood guy keep me from getting this job done. The court date to lift the cease and desist order is in a few days. I wasn’t going to let another snowfall cause any more damage, so I called Ash and he and a few of his friends came down and took care of shoring up the roof. It’s only a patch. The whole roof needs to be replaced. But until that happens, at least I’ll be able to save these floors from being ruined.”
“Do you think that rules don’t apply to you?”
“You’re not one for following rules much yourself. I know for a fact the doctor said you weren’t supposed to drive yet. Don’t tell me you hitched a ride with someone. Because I won’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want. I’m here. And so are you. And neither one of us are supposed to be because that sign to cease and desist is still on the door.”
She waved him off. “That’s just a technicality. We’re working on that.”
“Well, while you working on it, you can’t be working in here. You know that.”
“You’re not working at all right now so you can’t arrest me.”
“Someone else can. Someone who isn’t as nice as me.”
“I’m not working, per se. I’m just cleaning up. I want to get rid of a lot of this debris. That way when I get out of court and the judge throws Mr. and Ex-Mrs. Callahan off my back, workers can get in here and we can hit the ground running.”
“You still shouldn’t be here alone. You never know if that Hollywood lawyer or one of his lawyers will stop by to see if you’re complying.”
“What are you doing here anyway? You’re supposed to be resting.”
“I’m sick of resting. I’ve been looking for you.”
“How long? What, you got dizzy when you were driving? You should have called me and I’d have come over.”
“Yeah, about that.”
He stopped himself short. What was he going to say to her? She’d come over every day until that night he’d bolted on her at the honky-tonk.
“I’m sorry about the other night,” he finally said, fighting for words that were there but he had a hard time forming.
“You were upset,” she said quietly. “You could have called to say you were sorry, even though there wasn’t a need.”
“I wanted to see you.”
“But you’re not—”
“I’m not going to get woozy while I’m driving. I’m fine.”
He wasn’t fine. He was a mess. But it had nothing to do with the bump on his head.
She fluttered her fingers. “Woozy is not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about that big crash that happens when you get woozy while you’re driving and then you hit a big tree.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to sue you.”
She offered him a smile. “That’s a relief. My days are already filled with the Hollywood guy and his soon-to-be-ex right now. At least sit down so I know you’re not going to fall down and hurt yourself again.”
He did as he was told, not because he felt dizzy at all. He was just tired. Tired of the way he felt deep in his heart a longing for something he didn’t have. Of wanting something, or someone who was ten feet away from him and yet, felt so far out of his reach.
Katie continued to stare at him. “Are you okay? Do you want me to drive you home?”
“I want some answers.”
She frowned. “About what?”
“You and Julie used to go riding together your last year of high school, right?”
“Yeah. Lots of people did. There were a few of us who would go down to the Lone Creek Ranch after school. Sometimes on weekends. After a while, Julie and I just kind of went riding together.”
He carefully chose his words. “Did you see Julie outside of riding?”
She shrugged and then thought a minute. “A few times. We saw each other in class, but we mostly hung out at the ranch.”
“Was she seeing anyone?”
Katie blinked. “I…don’t know. She never mentioned anything.”
“Never? You spent all that time together and didn’t talk?”
Katie laughed. “You really want to hear about all the things that Julie and I talked about?”
Did he? He was beginning to think he didn’t really know his sister very well, which was shocking since he’d always considered them close.
“Yeah, I kinda do.”
Her mouth dropped open and she stared as if she didn’t understand. Hell, he didn’t understand a lot of things. He mostly didn’t understand how his little sister could get pregnant at eighteen and then take off.
“We talked about stuff that teenage girls talk about. You know, makeup, the boys we knew, and clothes, and boys, and more boys. Stuff like that. You know just teenage girl stuff.”
“Did she ever tell you why she left?”
Katie shook her head. “Those few months before she left, I was dating Bruce. He started working at the ranch. I didn’t see her because I was with him.”
He nodded but it still didn’t make things clearer.
“Who else was working at the ranch then?”
“Levon,” she said with an air of sadness. Levon had died over the winter when a disgruntled ranch hand had been hell-bent on destroying Tabby and her horse, Tenterhook, over an ownership dispute. “Some of the other hands. And of course, Hunter.”
“Hunter Williams?”
Katie laughed as if it were an inside joke between her and Julie. Then she shrugged. “Yeah. I do remember Julie talking about him. A lot.”
“What did she say?”
Katie frowned again. “What is this all about?”
“Just answer the question. What did she tell you about Hunter Williams?”
“This is starting to sound like an interrogation.”
He drew in a deep breath. “No, just a conversation between two friends.”
“She talked about him. We both did. He’d started coming out to the ranch to shoe the horses. Julie and I used to say we needed to schedule our time for when he was there. We both thought he was, you know, good looking.”
“You thought he was good looking?”
She frowned. “You sound like you’re jealous.”
Maybe he was. But he was still a little angry. Maybe even a little crazy after what he’d seen in that file.
“Did they…ever go out on a date?”
“I think she mentioned they’d gone out a few times, but I didn’t know any details.”
“You rode together all the time and she didn’t give you any details?”
“Caleb, you’re not making any sense. Just ask me what you want to know. If I know what it is, and if I know the answer, I’ll tell you.”
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
As Katie sat down next to him, her mouth dropped open. It was clear Katie hadn’t known anything by the look of shock on her face.
“No. I knew she liked Hunter. But we never talked about that. And I never asked because I never had any reason to suspect.”
“It’s funny you would offer that type of information when I didn’t ask you if you suspected.”
“You’re trying to get at something and I figure you thought I had the answers. I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
He got up from the pew and looked around the chapel, feeling as if he were in an episode of the Twilight Zone.
“All this time we’ve spent together. You should have told me, Katie.”
“Told you what? That Julie had a crush on a farrier in town?”
“What else haven’t you told me? I need to know.”
“I don’t know anything else. I mean it. I was so busy with Bruce and graduating and getting out of Sweet that I…I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Seems everyone was getting out of Sweet then. Well, I’m not. This is my home.”
He started walking toward the chapel door as his head began to swim.
“Caleb, I don’t know what else I can say that would help you.”
He turned to look at her. “If you had known she was pregnant. Would you have told me?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he turned away from her. The emptiness he felt in the pit of his stomach was hard to bear.