Confessing to the Cowboy Read Free Page A

of his words echoed in her head.
    There’s been another one. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that somebody else she’d considered her café family had been murdered. If it wasn’t one of her waitresses from the café, then Cameron wouldn’t be here now.
    “Who?” The word whispered out of her on an edge of dread.
    “Dorothy Blake.”
    Pain shattered through Mary and her vision blurred with tears as she thought of the older woman who’d always come in with a bright smile, who despite enjoying her job was looking forward to retirement and planting a big vegetable garden beside her stupendous flower garden in her backyard.
    Lowering her face into her hands as she realized she had no control over her tears, she was vaguely aware of Cameron standing next to the sofa, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
    Overwhelmed by the pain of loss, Mary began to weep in earnest. It wasn’t just the tragic death of Dorothy that caused her heart to swell with agony, but also the recent loss of two other waitresses, both of them murdered, as well.
    She wasn’t sure how long she cried before she felt the weight of Cameron sitting down beside her, smelled the familiar spicy scent of his cologne, and in the very depths of her soul she wanted to throw herself into his arms, feel his strength surrounding her. For just a minute, for just an agonizing second, she wanted to be wrapped in his arms and feel his heart beating against her own.
    But she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t do that. Instead she drew a deep shuddery breath and sat back, summoning the inner strength that had gotten her through most of her entire life.
    “Why? Why is somebody killing the women who work for me?” she asked miserably. Once again she caught her lower lip and reached up to twist a strand of her hair.
    Cameron frowned, the gesture doing nothing to detract from his handsomeness. His face was all angles and planes that radiated strength. His warm hazel eyes were now deeper in hues of brown than usual. “I don’t know. But I can tell you that two dead waitresses was a coincidence, three is a definite pattern. There’s no question in my mind now that we have a serial killer targeting your waitresses.”
    “But that’s crazy. What on earth could these women have done wrong that would warrant their deaths? Serve cold coffee?” A faint hysterical laughter attempted to escape her lips, but was instantly swallowed as she gazed at Cameron for answers.
    “I wish I could tell you why, and I definitely wish I could tell you who.” His jaw clenched tight and, for a moment, his eyes were cold and hard. “I’m just hoping Dorothy’s murder can give us something, anything that might provide a lead. This guy has been so damned careful and so damned lucky.” Frustration drifted from him in waves.
    Mary dropped her hand from her hair and instead placed it on him, able to feel the muscles in his forearm beneath the long-sleeved khaki shirt he wore. “You’ll get him. You’re an intelligent man, Cameron. You do your job well and you have good men working for you. It’s just a matter of time before you have him in custody.”
    He smiled at her, that sexy uplift of his lips that warmed her like no other man’s had ever done. “There are days I feel like I should be digging ditches instead.”
    “You know you love what you do, and hopefully you’ll catch this madman before another woman dies.” She stood from the sofa, finding his nearness slightly overwhelming. Escape. She needed to escape from him before she followed through on her impulse and leaned into him.
    “And now I’ve got a dinner rush to attend to,” she said, attempting to focus on business and not on how much she wanted Cameron’s arms around her, not on the horror of Dorothy’s horrendous death.
    “I intend to warn your waitresses again about locking up doors and windows, about safety issues before I leave the café. You might also tell them the same thing.