Woman On the Run (37 page)

He’ll probably be busy for the next half hour, going over all the unfamiliar supplies, Julia thought. She checked the street again. Still empty. It was four thirty. Cooper said he wouldn’t make it before five.

Four thirty-three. Julia checked again and ran her eyes up the empty street.

Why not? What could possibly happen? She could just nip into the “Out to Lunch”, have a quick cup of tea, nibble on a few of Maisie’s masterpieces, have a laugh or two, then run back before Cooper or Loren would even know she’d been gone. Just for a quarter of an hour.

Feeling daring, she gave one last glance behind her, then shot down the street. She pushed open the doors of “Out to Lunch” and smiled as she took in the smells of wonderful food and the familiar sounds of a hen party.

“Sally!” Alice bustled over, a wide smile on her face. She’d obviously foregone the Power Ranger look and was dressed in a simple black dress. She looked young and fresh and happy. “It’s great to see you. But I thought Coop said—” She turned at a hand on her arm. “Yes, ma’am,” she said to a stout matron dressed in a dreadful shade of orange-yellow, “it’s in the back, to the left. Pink bow for the ladies. Blue bow for the gents. Here, I’ll take you there.” With a laughing glance back at Julia, Alice escorted the lady to the back of the room. They looked like an exclamation point and a pumpkin.

She’ll do okay, Julia thought fondly, watching Alice. She looked around. Now that it was full of people, the fern bar looked a little less cheesy. As a matter of fact, with Maisie’s mouthwatering spread out on a trestle table covered with a pale blue linen tablecloth and with pretty tea cups and saucers and several types of tea on offer, it actually looked…elegant.

Certainly, nobody was complaining. There must have been about thirty women in there and from the looks of them—and judging by the decibel level—they were all having a wonderful time. They were also devouring the food like locusts.

Julia narrowed her eyes at the solid row of backs around the table of food and gauged the terrain. She would have to make a beeline for the table. There wasn’t much time and she wanted a taste of everything. Resolutely, Julia went forward, prepared to do battle.

“Hey.” A young blonde stepped in her path with a plate full of everything going. “How you doing? Gee, it’s nice to meet someone I know. Have you tasted this chocolate foamy thing? It’s really great.”

Julia studied the young girl. Something about her was familiar… “Mary,” she said suddenly, remembering. “Mary…”

“Ferguson.”

“That’s it,” Julia said politely, eyeing the table. There were three goblets of mousse left. “We met at the bookshop in Rupert, didn’t we?”

“Yeah.” The girl picked up a cruller and bit into it. “Wow.” Her eyes rounded. “What are these things called?”

“Crullers,” Julia said. A hand snaked out from the crowd and took a goblet of mousse. One down, two to go. “Basically, they’re sweet fried dough. If you’ll excuse me—”

The girl laid a hand on her arm. “You were right, you know.”

“I was?” Another goblet disappeared and Julia gave an inward sigh. “About what?”

“I made a stupid move.”

“You made a—oh, now I remember.” Mary had talked about canvassing Eastern Idaho for clients for her law practice. “You mean you haven’t found any clients yet?” The sour cream apple cake was history and it looked like the chocolate Bavarian was on its last legs.

“No, I’ve found a few clients, but…”

Julia was finding it hard to concentrate on the conversation, her mouth was watering so much. She watched jealously as Mary finished off the last cruller on her plate. Too bad she was a hostage to the good manners her mother had drilled into her. “But?”

Mary sighed. “I don’t know. I got a divorce case and a personal injury.” She shrugged. “But the divorce is really bitter and the husband and wife are using the kids as hostages. And the personal injury—” She leaned forward and whispered. “The guy’s faking it. He’s hoping to make a lot of money out of the insurance company.”

“No.” Julia tried to look suitably shocked.

“He is,” Mary said solemnly. She pursed her lips. “I didn’t think it would be like…this. I thought it would be like on
L.A. Law
or
Murder One
. You know, fighting for justice, getting an innocent client off.”

“What kind of law does your father practice?” Julia asked.

“Real estate. I used to think it was boring, but now…” Mary sank a fork in the chocolate Bavarian and Julia watched as the fork moved to her mouth. She wanted to weep. “Now, I don’t know. No deadbeat dads and no fake medical certificates in real estate.”

“Maybe you should rethink your position—maybe your father’s practice isn’t so bad, after all.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Mary said. “Say. This is really good, too.” She pointed with her fork at the Bavarian. “I was going to stick it out until Christmas, but you know what? I think I’ll go home after Thanksgiving. It’s only a few days away and Alice said the ‘Out to Lunch’ is going to have a real blowout for Thanksgiving. Then I think I’ll just pack up and go back home to Boise. Dad’s being real good about not saying ‘I told you so’.”

“Mmm,” Julia answered politely, trying to sidle past her. The lone goblet of mousse just sat there, a sitting duck. It wasn’t going to last long. “See you on Thanksgiving, then.” A woman reached out for the mousse and Julia lunged to get there first. Suddenly, an iron hand clamped on her shoulder, and yanked her back.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” A deep angry voice sounded from above and behind her.

Uh-oh
, Julia thought.

Chapter Eighteen

“What the fuck was that about?” Cooper asked for the thousandth time. He had hustled her out of the fern bar without even allowing her to say goodbye and had frog-marched her to her house, his restless eyes searching up and down the street the entire time.

Over the last half hour, he had worn a hole in her threadbare carpet, pacing as he chewed her out. “I thought I told you—”

“Not to leave the store,” Julia finished wearily. “Yes, you told me.”

“You knew you weren’t supposed to go to Alice’s, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Cooper.” Julia’s eyes were closed.

“You knew it was dangerous. We’ve gone over it a hundred times.”

“Yes, Cooper.”

She was usually so vibrant. Everything about her now seemed dull and subdued. Her eyes were firmly fixed on the floor as she struggled for control.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, hauling in a long, calming breath and finally looking up. She raked a hand through her hair. “You’re only trying to protect me and I behaved like a child. I apologize, Cooper.”

Cooper was finally able to look through the haze of white-hot rage flashing through him when he’d seen her at Alice’s, chatting with a blonde girl and eyeing the dessert table. He’d dragged her out of there so fast she hadn’t had time to say goodbye to anyone, still clutching her dessert spoon. And all the while he had pulsed with rage.

But the anger had been better than the fear. And the fear had come first, when he’d entered Jensen’s grocery store and found it empty. Fear such as he had never known had flooded through his system when an apologetic Loren had come in from the back room, wiping his hands on a floor-length apron, saying, “Sorry, Coop. I got carried away out back. Where’s…?” and then Loren had looked around white-faced, horror dawning in his eyes.

Julia hadn’t been there and Cooper had felt the bottom drop out of his life.

He’d watched Loren swivel his head, looking for her, knowing already that it was too late. “Oh, God, Coop—” Loren had whispered. “She’s not here.
Ohmigod
, what have I—” But Loren had been speaking to empty air because Cooper had already shot into the street. He headed arrow-straight for the only place she could be, other than dead.

Alice’s ladies’ tea party.

No matter that they’d fought bitterly over her going, as they’d fought bitterly over the fact that she wanted to go to Maisie’s Thanksgiving celebration at the Out to Lunch. No matter that she was under strictest orders not to go anywhere unless he or a handpicked man escorted her.

Though she knew in her head that someone was after her, Julia was completely out of her element. She wasn’t wired for the chase. But he was. He’d hunted men and knew what a potent taste it was.

He’d forced Herbert Davis to e-mail him the entire Santana file and his worry and fear had streaked up into the stratosphere.

Santana wasn’t just any smalltime thug. He was a major mobster with the savvy and cruelty to go with it. Cooper knew enough about law enforcement to realize that a bounty of two million dollars meant that all the terminators across the States would be angling for information on her whereabouts. Right now, the U.S. Marshal’s Office stood between Julia and Santana, but two million was a lot of dead presidents.

“I’m sorry, Cooper,” Julia said again softly and looked up at him. “I shouldn’t have gone.”

Cooper’s rage and the fear behind it were starting to subside. He still didn’t trust himself to touch her, so he tucked his hands in his jeans pockets and took a step back. “No, you shouldn’t have.”

“I shouldn’t have disobeyed you.”

“No.” The stark word hung there heavily in the air.

“You were worried.”

Worried was an understatement. Terrified was more like it. “Yes.”

“Still—” Julia struggled to keep her voice light. “Still, it’s hard to imagine a Rupert Lady in cahoots with Santana.”

“You don’t know anything about it,” Cooper answered. He realized how harsh his voice sounded only when he saw her wince. She seemed to be retreating from him without moving a muscle and he didn’t know how to hold onto her. “The danger can come from any quarter, at any minute and if you’re not prepared—you’re history in a heartbeat.” He watched those beautiful eyes widen and he swore viciously at a fate which had made such a lovely, gentle woman a hunted creature. “I’m not going to let Santana get you, no matter what. You can take that to the bank.”

“He already has.” Her voice was quiet and it took a moment for what she said to sink in.

“What the hell do you mean by that?” Cooper knew his voice sounded hard as he checked her out, ceiling to basement. She didn’t look hurt in any way. The very thought of it…he clenched his fists.

Julia lifted her head. Her turquoise eyes were wide and shadowed with sadness. “Santana’s already won, Cooper. He’s already taken my life away from me. My job is probably gone and I haven’t seen my home in almost two months. Who knows when I’ll see it again? All my plants will be dead. And my cat.” She made a stab at a laugh, then angrily wiped at her eyes, promising herself that she wouldn’t cry. “Federico Fellini. I named Fred after him.” At the sound of his name, Fred lifted his muzzle from the floor and he gave a questioning thump of his tail. “Though God knows Fred’s nothing like Federico. No hard feelings, Fred.” As if he understood, Fred dropped his muzzle back onto his paws with a whine.

Her voice was desolate and empty. “Everything I had. Everything that’s me…it’s all gone. I don’t have a life any more. He’s already taken my life away.”

It was true. That vivid aliveness that was such a hallmark was gone. She looked as if someone had dimmed the lights inside her. Santana had taken away her life, her core, her very essence.

Cooper could count the new lines in her face, the dark bruises under her eyes, the brand-new lines of tension bracketing her mouth.

She’d lit Simpson up, single-handedly. Simpson had been dying for a long time. But now, with the new eatery and Loren branching out, who knew? Maybe Simpson might survive after all.

Cooper didn’t know too many people who could suffer the loss of a home, a job and a life, find themselves parachuted into a strange town, and yet make friends. He certainly couldn’t have. If the same thing had happened to him, he wouldn’t have had the courage to plunge into the life and soul of a town, make friends, turn people’s lives around. He wouldn’t have had the courage to start a love affair and give as much as she’d given him.

“Cooper?” He could see her anxiety rise as she watched him. “Are you still mad at me?”

“No.” He let out his breath slowly and reached out to gather her close, grateful that she was there. Alive and in his arms. “Not mad. Just scared.”

She clutched his back. “Me, too,” she whispered.

Cooper pulled away a little. “Then why—” he began, then stopped. He knew why. She’d done all of the planning and a lot of the work in redecorating Carly’s. The “Out to Lunch”, now. Of course she wanted to join in the fun.

“I…care,” he said finally, the words wrenched out of him from some place deep inside.

“I know, Cooper.” Her eyes were as soft as her voice as she pulled away. Those wonderful, expressive eyes, sad and tired now, when they should have been sparkling with her triumph. It wasn’t fair that it had been taken away from her. “And I made you worry because of my selfishness. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

A stone would have been moved. And as often as Melissa had accused him of it, Cooper wasn’t a stone. “Yeah,” he said huskily. “I forgive you. It was my fault anyway. I shouldn’t have been late.”

“Don’t, Cooper. Don’t blame yourself.” Julia reached up to touch his bristly cheek. He hadn’t had time to shave this morning. “I’m the one to blame. It’s just that I can’t help myself. I can’t live like you want me to. I’d have to be deaf and dumb and…not care about anyone, I guess. I wanted to see how Alice was doing.”