Marie Ferrarella - Cavanaugh Cowboy

Miss Joan gave him a somewhat impatient look. “Use your imagination, boy. I’m not going to spell it out for you,” she informed him. “I’m a lady.”

Sully chose to avoid the subject altogether by changing it. “You and Uncle Seamus have the same way of addressing me.”

Miss Joan raised her eyes to the handsome, rugged young stranger’s face.

“I’ll let you in on a secret. Saying ‘boy’ is a lot easier than remembering everyone’s names. Although I do,” the woman added authoritatively as a coda, just in case he thought she didn’t.

Sully smiled at this woman who apparently had once known his great-uncle extremely well. “I never doubted it, ma’am.”

Miss Joan surprised him by frowning. “Don’t keep calling me ma’am,” she chided. “Makes me feel like I’m a thousand years old.”

“No way, ma’—Miss Joan.” Denying her assumption, Sully quickly corrected himself before he wound up slipping again.

She nodded. “Keep practicing, boy. Meanwhile, sit down and take a load off,” she instructed, nodding at the stool that was directly to his right. When he did as he was told, she pulled out a menu from beneath the counter and slid it directly in front of him. “What’ll you have? We’re serving lunch, but I can have Angel whip up breakfast for you if you’d rather have that.”

Sully didn’t bother looking at the menu. He left it right where it was. “No need to go to any trouble,” he told Miss Joan. “I just wanted to stop by to say thank you and to pay my respects—”

“If you want to pay your respects,” Miss Joan informed him, cutting Sully off, “you’ll eat something like I said. Can’t have you wandering off with an empty belly.” She stopped and peered at him. “What are you grinning about?”

Sully did a little self-editing before answering the woman. “Uncle Seamus said you had a way about you.”

Miss Joan laughed and took a guess at the exchange between Seamus and his great-nephew.

“Probably said I was like a stubborn mule,” she corrected. Seeing that Sully was about to deny her assumption, she said, “And he’s right. I am. So stop sitting there, giving me lip, and order something. The sooner you eat, the sooner we can get you out to the ranch.”

“Then I can stay there?” Sully asked.

He knew that his great-uncle had said that the woman had extended the invitation, but Sully still had his doubts that the invitation had actually been tendered. He really didn’t want to impose if she didn’t want him staying at the ranch. After all, from start to finish, this had all been Seamus’s idea, not his.

“That’s what Seamus and I agreed on,” Miss Joan replied with an air of finality. And then her eyes bored into the young man before her. “Why, you change your mind about staying?”

“No, ma’—Miss Joan.” Sully caught himself at the last moment again. “It’s just that I am surprised,” he admitted.

“How so?” Miss Joan asked.

She was aware that not just her two waitresses, but almost everyone within the diner at this point was paying attention to this handsome, dark-haired young man with the liquid green eyes. That he was oblivious to the attention he was garnering spoke well of him.

“You don’t know me from Adam,” Sully replied. He was used to friendly people, but they all knew him. This situation was different.

“Maybe I don’t,” Miss Joan admitted. “But I know Seamus, and he wouldn’t send me someone who wasn’t trustworthy, even if that someone turned out to be a relative of his.” And that was that in her book. “You got any other doubts that you’re wrestling with that I can put to rest?”

A small hint of a smile curved the corners of Sully’s mouth. He shook his head. “None.”

“Okay, then,” Miss Joan declared. “Let’s get your order out of the way and then, while Angel makes it for you, you can tell me all about what that sly devil of a man is up to these days.”

Sully had a feeling that once he got back to Aurora, Seamus would ask him the same questions about Miss Joan. “Well, Uncle Seamus said to be sure to thank you for putting me up.”

Miss Joan waved a thin, slightly blue-veined hand dismissively.

“He already said that on the phone when he called. I’m interested in what he’d been doing for the last forty years before that phone call.” Then, because he didn’t begin to immediately answer, Miss Joan switched subjects like a rerouted runaway train and nodded at the menu she had placed in front of him. “Made up your mind yet?”

The woman jumped around from topic to topic like a frog landing on hot lily pads, Sully thought. But even though he’d been in her company for less than ten minutes, he knew better than to make that observation to her. So instead, he made his selection.

“I’ll have today’s special,” he told Miss Joan, pushing the menu to the side.

Miss Joan didn’t bother turning the menu around. Though it changed every day, she knew the selections by heart.

“Mandy,” she called over her shoulder, “tell Angel we need her special.” She fixed Sully with a look. “Rare, medium or well-done?”

He preferred rare, but he knew that to some cooks, that meant almost raw, so he went the safe route. “Medium.”

Miss Joan nodded, obviously approving his selection. “Good choice,” she pronounced. Glancing at the waitress she’d summoned, she saw that the young woman seemed rooted to the floor. Mandy was staring at Sully as if he was the most tempting ice cream sundae she had ever encountered. “Well, you heard the man, Mandy. Get a move on.”

Coming to, Mandy mumbled, “Yes, Miss Joan.” The brunette spun on her heel and made her way through the kitchen’s double doors.

Miss Joan didn’t bother suppressing the sigh that escaped her lips. There were times when the young women she took under her wing and into her employ could be a trial.

Turning back to Sully, she said, “All right, that gives us a little time to kill. Tell me what that old man’s been up to.”

The diner had slowly been filling up since he’d first walked in. Sully was aware of the way each and every one of the patrons who came in stared at him before they went to either a booth or one of the stools at the counter. But more than that, he was aware of their growing number.

“Don’t you have to see to your patrons?” he asked Miss Joan, hoping to redirect her attention toward something else.

The expression on Miss Joan’s face told him she knew exactly what he was up to. And she had an answer for that.

“I own this place, Sully. That means that I get to do what I want whenever I want—within reason. Since I’ve got two girls taking orders and bringing them back, plus a third girl coming in about fifteen minutes from now, that means that right now, I get to ask questions and find out what that old Romeo is doing these days.”

“Romeo?” Sully repeated incredulously.

He had been just about to take a sip of the coffee Miss Joan had poured for him, and now he was glad that he hadn’t. Otherwise he was certain that he would have wound up choking on it. Or, at the very least, spitting that coffee out in a spray and making unplanned, unwanted contact with the man he’d just glanced at sitting on his left.

“Your great-uncle,” Miss Joan clarified. “He might look like a harmless old man to you, but unless I miss my guess, there’s nothing harmless about him.” She fixed Sully with a deep, probing look. “Am I right?”

She had that right, Sully thought, recalling Seamus’s recent history. His great-uncle was more active than men half his age.

“Well, he gave retirement a try,” he told Miss Joan. “But then a few years back he showed up on Uncle Andrew’s doorstep one evening, saying that he just really wasn’t the retiring type and what he really wanted was to get back in the game.”