Cherokee Stranger

When James glanced her way, Emily thought about her upcoming surgery. Would he find out? Would Harvey tell him?

“I’ll check on your order,” she said to James, hoping to prod Harvey back to his stool.

But the gossip guru remained where he was, blabbing about Lily Mae Prescott.

Finally, when she brought James’s breakfast, Harvey excused himself, pleased that he’d spoken his piece about Lily Mae.

After the older man paid his bill and left the restaurant, James lifted the brim of his hat, exposing his eyes.

Those haunted eyes.

“They must have been lovers,” he said.

“What?” Emily realized she’d left the coffeepot on his table all this time. That her brain was completely addled.

“Harvey and Lily Mae.”

His words sunk in. “You think he and she—”

“A long time ago. When they were young.”

She blinked, stared at him, blinked again. “No one has ever assumed that before. Lily Mae drives Harvey nuts.”

“Because he can’t get her out of his system.” James tapped on his chest. “It happens sometimes. A woman gets inside you, and you can’t let her go. You—” He paused, as if suddenly aware of what he was saying, of what he was feeling.

Emily didn’t know how to react. She knew he was thinking about the other blonde, the woman she reminded him of. “I better go. Let you eat your meal.”

She attempted to turn away, but he stopped her.

“Wait. Emily, wait.”

Her pulse jumped. “Yes?”

“You didn’t…you haven’t—” he stalled, reached for the ketchup “—found someone else?”

Embarrassed, she shook her head. “It wasn’t that important.”

His hand slid down the base of the bottle, then back up. “Wasn’t it?”

“No. It was just a whim.” She released the air in her lungs. Was he caressing the glass? Molding it like a woman’s body?

His voice turned rough. “I just wanted to be sure that someone else didn’t…”

Didn’t what? Take her virginity? Make her feel good? She chewed her lip, tasting the gloss she’d applied earlier. “I have to get back to work.”

She grabbed the coffeepot and left him alone, staring at the ketchup bottle in his hand.

After a short while, she returned, asking if he wanted anything else. Avoiding eye contact, he shook his head, and she put his bill on the table.

He lingered at the booth, a lone figure in dark clothes, scattered light from a shaded window sending shadows across his face.

Other customers filtered into the diner, and Emily went about her job, taking orders, chatting with people she knew.

Later, as she balanced two breakfast specials, she scanned the room to see him, to look at him one more time. But he was gone, his bill paid, his food barely eaten.

She cleared his table and reached for the shiny gold ornament that held her tip.

It wasn’t a money clip. It was her hair barrette, the one he’d hooked to his jacket on the night they should have made love.

The night he’d left her wanting more.

Three

Emily lived seven miles from town on a paved country road. Her yellow-and-white house, James noticed, looked like a cottage, something out of a gingerbread fairy tale.

He parked his newly acquired truck and sat behind the wheel, hoping the purpose of his visit wouldn’t put her off. He hadn’t seen her for several days, since he’d left the diner without saying goodbye. But he’d run into Harvey Osborn this afternoon at the hardware store, and the old guy had given James an earful.

So here he was, parked on her street, preparing to confront her.

A woman he barely knew.

A woman who had cancer.

He studied the decorative lamppost in front of her house, wondering if the Creator had put Emily in his path for a reason. If meeting her was part of some sort of divine plan.

Yeah, right.

Did he honestly believe the Creator gave a damn about him? That he was even worthy of a plan?

James wasn’t exactly the disciple of a deity. He was an ex-con, an accessory to murder, a man who had no business associating with someone like Emily.

He cursed beneath his breath and exited his vehicle, knowing he should head back to work instead, forget about Emily, keep his distance. But he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t. He needed to talk to her.

Taking the shrub-lined walkway to her stoop, he adjusted his hat, shielding his eyes, guarding his emotions.

Her dome-shaped door displayed a four-paned window, but he couldn’t see through the smoked glass nor could he predict what awaited him on the other side.

What was he supposed to say to her? How was he supposed to start this conversation?

James knocked, rapping softly. Within a heartbeat, within one anxious, chest-pounding thump, Emily answered the summons, and he had to remind himself to breathe.

Her hair, that honey-blond mane, waved in a loose natural style, springing softly around her face. And her eyes, as green as a sunlit meadow, caught his, trapping him beneath the battered brim of his hat.

She could have been Beverly, he thought. The lady he’d loved.

“James?”

She blinked her sweeping lashes, and he told himself she wasn’t his wife. Her resemblance to Beverly wasn’t that specific.