Leftover Love Read Free Page B

married and moved away.”
    “Yes,” Layne conceded.
    “Hey, Susie! How about some more coffee and a piece of that chocolate pie?” a male customer called to the waitress from the opposite end of the counter.
    “Be right there.” To Layne she said, “Good luck. Hope you find out what happened to her.”
    “Thanks.”
    After she had finished her coffee, Layne collected her check and worked her way to the line of customers waiting at the cash register to pay for their meals. Although fairly tall herself at six inches over five feet, she felt engulfed in the sea of hats crowning the heads of the men standing in line. Mixed in with the smell of tobacco smoke were the spicy scents of after-shave lotions and the smell of animals clinging to the woolen coats.
    As she was digging out the correct change for her meal check, she was roughly jostled. Layne staggered a couple of steps sideways before she could recover her balance and stop short of a table full of men. By some miracle, she hadn’t dropped anything.
    “Sorry, miss,” a deep and gravelly male voice said. “I guess I didn’t see you standing there.”
    When Layne looked at the person who had bumped into her, her glance encountered a mountain of a man. Her eyes were on a level with his wide chest, the impression of bulk intensified by a thick, fleece-lined jacket. He was a long, lean bear of a man, well over six feet tall by three or four inches.
    “No harm done.” As she offered the assurance, her gaze finally lifted its attention to his face.
    With a build like that, she had expected to see some craggy male face that resembled the models in cigarette advertisements. A keen sense of shock registered for a split second. There was nothing remotely attractive about the blunt contours of his sun-leathered features. They were all lean and harsh, his eyes darkly hooded by brows that grew thickly together. A dark brown Stetson was pulled low on his forehead, the jutting brim shadowing most of his face. If he were a Hollywood actor, he would have been typecast as a bad guy or an outlaw, she thought.
    The man seemed to sense her purely instinctive recoil from him. His lips came together in a severe line that only added to his uncomplimentary looks. Layne regretted that she hadn’t hid her reaction better. Broad, callused fingers gripped the pointed brim of his hat in a courteously respectful gesture as he made a place in line for her in front of him.
    “Thank you,” she murmured as she stepped into the opening.
    While she waited in line, she couldn’t help stealing looks at him. There was something oddly fascinating about a man so completely unattractive. Layne recalled her initial impression that he was a bear of a man. On reassessment, she discovered it was an appropriate comparison, because the man did possess a kind of animal appeal. He was a lonely male brute, Layne decided, then wondered why she thought of him as being lonely.
    If he noticed her covertly eyeing him from time to time, he showed no awareness of it. But he kept well clear of her, making sure there was plenty of space around her, so there was no more accidental contact. Layne was just as glad, since the last brushing had nearly sent her sprawling.
    After she’d paid for her lunch, Layne left the café. The blast of cold air drove out all thoughts of the man as she hurriedly buttoned her parka and dug her mittens out of her pocket. Despite the bright sunlight, the temperature was frigid.

Chapter 2
    One advantage of working as a reporter was that Layne was familiar with all the public information sources available to her. It was long, tedious work, checking through files and public lists. After a day and a half she had not come up with a single reference to a Martha Turner in any of the old records she’d checked.
    It appeared more and more likely that the waitress had been right the other day when she’d suggested that Martha Turner might have gotten married and left the area. It was her only