Tina Leonard - The Cowboy SEAL's Triplets

Daisy felt every eye on her as she walked into The Wedding Diner the next morning. She was aware the town didn’t have a very high opinion of her, even though she’d managed to convince her father to give up pursuing the Hanging H, and even though she’d talked him into giving up on taking over the land where the Best Man’s Fork and Bridesmaids Creek lay in sleepy, small-town fashion. The Hawthorne’s Haunted H amusement park for kiddies was now situated on some land near Bridesmaids Creek, because Daisy had convinced the Hawthorne sisters that no one could take over their home and their business all at once if they weren’t tied together. Now the year-round haunted house was more of a community venture, which helped everyone in BC, because it was more centrally located, and people were assigned regular hours to run it. It was more lucrative for the town now, and with time, Daisy thought that its popularity would only grow.

But memories were long in BC, and she’d done an awful lot of bad. She smiled at everyone who turned to stare at her, and moved into a white vinyl booth that Jane Chatham, who owned The Wedding Diner, showed her to.

“You’re back,” Jane said, and Daisy nodded.

“We came back yesterday, Squint, myself and the boys.”

Jane’s gaze was steady on her. “Squint left town last night.”

Daisy blinked. “Left town?”

The older woman hesitated, then sat across from her. Cosette Lafleur—Madame Matchmaker herself—slid in next to Jane, her pink-frosted hair accentuating her all-knowing eyes.

Daisy’s heart sank. “He couldn’t have left.” He hadn’t said goodbye, hadn’t even mentioned he was planning to make like a stiff breeze and blow away.

The women stared at her with interest.

“Did you want him to stay, Daisy?” Jane asked.

“Well—” Daisy began, not knowing how to say that she’d thought she at least rated a “goodbye” considering she’d gotten quite in the habit of enjoying a nocturnal meeting in his arms. “It would have been nice.”

“Have you finally realized where your heart belongs, Daisy?” Cosette asked, and Daisy started.

“My heart?” How was it that these women always seemed to read everyone’s mind? A girl had to be very careful to keep her secrets tight to her chest. “Squint and I are friends.”

Cosette winked at her, and a spark of hope lit inside Daisy that maybe Cosette wasn’t horribly angry or holding a grudge with her about the whole taking-over-her-shop mistake she’d made.

“We know all about those kinds of friends,” Cosette said, nodding wisely.

“Still,” Jane said, “it does seem rather heartless of John to leave without telling you. Had you quarreled?”

Here it came, the well-meaning BC interference of which many suffered, all secretly cherished and she’d never had the benefit of experiencing. She had to say it was like being under a probing yet somehow friendly microscope. “We didn’t quarrel.”

“But you’re in love with him,” Cosette said.

“That may be putting it a bit—” Her words trailed off.

“Mildly?” Jane asked.

“Lightly?” Cosette said. “You are in fact head over heels in love with him?”

Daisy felt herself blush under all the scrutiny. Sheriff Dennis McAdams slid into the booth next to her, and the ladies wasted no time filling in the sheriff, who turned his curious gaze to her.

“He left last night,” the sheriff said, and Daisy wondered if John Lopez Mathison had stopped by to see every single denizen of this town to say goodbye—except for her.

“Yes, I’ve heard,” Daisy said.

“Not coming back, either,” the sheriff continued. “Jane, can I get some of your delicious double-dipped chicken-fried steak and mashed red potatoes with gravy? Maybe chase it with a slice of your four-layer chocolate cake?”

“Gracious,” Cosette said, “are you looking to have a four-alarm cardiac event, Dennis?”

“Just hungry, ladies.” He pushed back his worn Stetson with a grin. “Sitting up late at night with the fellows, having a good gossip and four-tissue wheeze gives a man an appetite.”

Jane eyed him with great curiosity. “A four-tissue wheeze requires a slice of four-layer chocolate cake?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dennis nodded. “Squint was really working on my ear holes. As were Sam, Phillipe and Robert Donovan.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Cosette said. “I can’t see you five ever getting together for a rooster session.”

“It happened,” Dennis said cheerfully. “The first order of business was Squint requesting that we call him John from here on. After all, Squint was his military name, and he’s gone back to being a cowboy. So, John it is. But the big news of the evening was Robert Donovan announcing he feels greatly that his daughter, our Daisy here,” he said, winking at Daisy, “needs a man.”

“What?” Daisy shook her head. “My father would never say such a thing. I’m with Cosette. This gathering never took place.”

“He wants a man to settle you here in town, far away from the influence of whatever is happening in Montana,” Dennis continued, untroubled by the ladies’ disbelief. “And I said there was no such man to do the job in this small town.”

“And?” Jane demanded, not leaving to put in the sheriff’s order, Daisy noticed. When the gossip was flying hot and steamy, food took a backseat. “What was said to Robert’s grand pronouncement?”

Dennis shrugged, very much enjoying being the center of the ladies’ attention. “John said he agreed with me, and—”

“What?” Daisy stiffened. “How dare he?”

They all looked at her.

“How dare he, what, dear?” Jane asked.

“How dare John agree with my father?” Daisy thought the former Squint Mathison might have reached a new level of annoying.

“Most folks rather agree with Robert,” Cosette said, nodding.

“So what happened then?” Jane demanded.

“Could you put my order in before I tell you the rest?” Dennis asked, rubbing his stomach regretfully. “I didn’t have breakfast.”

“Sing for your supper, Sheriff,” Jane shot back.

“Well, I was pretty proud of my two cents, I don’t mind saying,” Dennis said. “And then Sam said that he didn’t think even he had the necessary talent to pull off the job.”

“What job?” Daisy asked, her heart beginning an emergency tattoo. It sounded as if all the important men in her life—notwithstanding Sam Barr, otherwise known as Handsome Sam, and understood by all to be a trickster and prankster beyond compare—had clubbed together and cast her to the wind. “Pardon me, but I’m having great trouble seeing my father and my...my—”

“Your what, dear?” Jane Chatham asked, her eyes twinkling with interest.

“My...good friend John,” Daisy said, covering herself. “I have trouble seeing the two of them agreeing on anything, but certainly my father wouldn’t spend any time discussing my love life with my—”

“With your good friend John,” Cosette said. “Yes, yes, yes, we heard all that.”

“And yet, it happened,” Sheriff Dennis said. “Now may I have that supper for which I sang like a many-feathered bird?”

“Not really,” Daisy said as Jane and Cosette nodded in agreement that the sheriff hadn’t quite imparted sufficiently satisfactory details. Daisy’s heart rate was still revving as she began to realize that the men had sold her out and the one she’d been spending delicious nights with had slipped out without saying a word to her. “What was the point of this male bonding?”

The sheriff smiled. “You know how it is when we fellows get together. We just hash out life, come to no solutions and feel like we’ve accomplished something.”