Carla Cassidy - Guardian Cowboy

Dinner at the café wasn’t exactly a formal affair, so she pulled on a pair of jeans and topped them with a coral-colored sweater she knew complemented her chin-length brown hair and brown eyes.

At five to six that evening she stood at the window next to the door with her coat in hand. March had definitely roared in like a lion, hanging on to the cold and blustery winds of winter.

She was ready for spring, with warm breezes and the scent of new grass and flowers in the air. A smile touched her lips as a memory of her father jumped into her mind.

Her father had loved spring, too. One day, when she was about ten years old, he’d pulled her out of the house and onto the front lawn. Together they had stretched out on the ground. “Listen,” he’d said.

“What am I listening to?” she’d asked.

“The earth’s heartbeat,” he’d replied. “Sometimes it’s just nice to be quiet and listen.”

A sharp pain of grief pierced through her heart. Her dad had died of a heart attack when Janis was sixteen. That was the day every ounce of love had been taken from Janis’s world.

The pain was vanquished by the sight of Sawyer’s truck pulling into the small parking lot.

Her heart began to beat with the anticipation and excitement of the evening to come in his company.

Before he could get out of the truck, she pulled on her coat and stepped outside the door. She ran to the passenger door and got in.

“Hi,” she greeted cheerfully.

“Hi, yourself,” he replied. “You know, I would have walked up to your door to get you like a proper gentleman if you hadn’t run out so quickly.” He pulled out of the parking area behind the bar and onto Main Street.

“There was no reason for you to get out in the cold,” she replied. The interior of the truck smelled pleasant and masculine, with hints of rich leather and his woodsy cologne.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“I’m starving. What about you?”

“I can always eat, but tonight was a good night to head to the café instead of eating at the ranch. Cookie made meatloaf and I’m not particularly partial to it.”

“What’s your favorite meal?”

She noted how his stiff shoulders began to relax as the conversation remained light and easy. The poor man was probably afraid she was going to bring up last night. She didn’t intend to even mention it until the end of this night when she’d tell him the truth.

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing better than a big, juicy cheeseburger. What about you?”

“French fries. I like them plain or smothered with cheese or covered with chili.”

He laughed and flashed her a quick glance. “That’s not a real meal.”

“Bet me,” she replied, making him laugh once again.

By that time they’d arrived at the Bitterroot Café. Sundays, the place was usually packed at lunchtime, after church services let out. But on Sunday evenings there were not too many diners.

Janis was glad. It would make conversation easier. She knew she was intensely physically attracted to Sawyer, but she also recognized that she didn’t know that much about him. By the end of this meal, her attraction to him just might be dead.

Amanda Wright greeted them as they walked in. A month ago, she’d bought the café from Daisy Martin, a fiery redhead who had owned it for as long as anyone could remember.

Janis knew that wasn’t the only change that had occurred in Mandy’s life. A month and a half ago, after a whirlwind romance, she and Brody Booth had run off to Las Vegas and gotten married.

“Lately it seems like weddings are in the air in Bitterroot,” Janis said once they were seated in a booth and had shrugged out of their coats.

Sawyer’s gaze turned wary and she couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t worry, Sawyer, shotgun weddings went out of style a long time ago. Besides, I don’t have a big brother or a daddy to come after you.”

He visibly relaxed. “But isn’t June Little, who works at the mercantile, your mother?”

It was Janis’s turn to stiffen slightly. “She is, but I don’t have any kind of a relationship with her right now.”

“That’s a shame,” he replied.

Before the conversation could go any further, Carlie Martin appeared to take their orders.

“How’s it going, Carlie?” Janis asked the pretty blond waitress.

“It’s going,” she replied. “We had a hellacious crowd in for lunch but, thankfully, it’s been a fairly slow night, so we’ve all managed to catch our breaths.”

After a little more small talk, Sawyer ordered a burger and fries. Janis opted for a chicken and bacon wrap, a new item on the menu, and a side of fries.

“Tell me why you don’t have a relationship with your mother?” he asked once Carlie had left the booth.

“Oh, it’s a long, boring story. I’d much rather hear about you,” she replied. “Through the years I’ve heard so many rumors about all you men on the Holiday Ranch.”

He grinned. “Probably at least half of them aren’t true.”

She could listen to the sound of his deep laughter forever. “So, you weren’t all found under lily pads in Big Cass’s pond.” She’d wanted him to laugh again and she was successful.

“No,” he replied, a sparkle of humor in his eyes. “And we weren’t all brought in from a reform school when we were kids. But we were all runaways or throwaways who took to the streets when we were young.”

“And which one were you? A runaway or a throwaway?”

“A runaway,” he replied.

“Why?” These were the kinds of things she wanted to know. Who he was as a man, where he’d come from, and what forces might be at play in his life that made him drink himself into a stupor on most Saturday nights when he came into the bar.

He looked so sexy tonight in his jeans and a rust-colored shirt that matched his slightly unruly hair and stretched across his broad shoulders.

“Unlike a lot of the other men who suffered from mental and physical abuse, I ran away when my mom died because I didn’t want to go into foster care.” He gave a dry chuckle. “At fifteen years old, I thought I was old enough and strong enough to survive on my own. But if it hadn’t been for Cass Holiday and Francine Rogers, I probably would have died on the streets or wound up in jail.”

“Who is Francine Rogers?” Everyone in town had known Big Cass Holiday, who had died a year ago in a tornado.

“She was a social worker and a good friend of Cass’s. She worked the streets at night in Oklahoma City. She tried to reunite kids with their parents, if possible. She’s the one responsible for getting us all off the streets and working for Cass. Unfortunately we heard Francine passed away a couple of months ago.”

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of their orders. “Anything else I can get you?” Carlie asked once she had placed their plates in front of them.

“I think we’re good,” Sawyer replied. When she left, Sawyer looked at Janis, his eyes lit with curiosity. “Now, tell me about you. I know you’ve worked at the bar for a long time, but I don’t know much about your personal life.”

“That’s because I don’t have much of a personal life,” she replied ruefully as she dragged one of her fries through a puddle of ketchup. “I live at the bar. I work at the bar. And that’s about the sum of it.”

“What do you do for fun?”

“I love to read and sometimes I just like to drive out into the country and sit and listen to the soft noise of nature at work.” A blush warmed her cheeks. “I know it probably sounds silly.”

“It doesn’t sound silly at all to me,” he replied. “Living with eleven other rowdy cowboys, sometimes I just need to get away and enjoy the sounds of nature. When that happens, I usually grab my fishing pole and head down to the pond.”