Nothing that Max could find suggested the man had any experience in food service. Maybe his brother was right. Maybe Donovan wasn’t interested in buying the café. Which made Max even more suspicious about what the man was really after here in Dry Gulch.
Seeing that Donovan’s last address was in Laramie, Wyoming, he decided to do more digging. He told himself he’d have to be careful. If Goldie found out, she’d get the wrong impression. Max didn’t want her thinking that he was butting into her business, let alone that he was jealous. He just wanted to make sure she was safe. He wanted the best for her.
His gut told him it wasn’t Donovan Cole.
If not to buy the café, then what had brought the man to Dry Gulch? Had he merely been passing through, happened to stop at Goldie’s for lunch and taken a liking to the café owner? Not that Max could blame him. Goldie was beautiful, but she was also smart and funny—and about to come into a bunch of money from the sale of her café if the rumors were true.
Which was why Max had to find out everything he could about this man who’d apparently taken an interest in her. He worried she was vulnerable after their breakup. He told himself that as sheriff, it was his duty to make sure this man didn’t take advantage of her.
He thought the answer might be in the time Donovan had spent in Laramie. That’s how he came across a woman by the name of Lolly Mandeville. He found several photographs of the two of them together on social media. The last name rang a bell. Just as he’d feared, Lolly Mandeville was the daughter of Malcolm Mandeville, the head of a large crime family.
That certainly raised red flags. How involved had Donovan Cole been with Lolly and her criminal relatives? It made him even more suspicious about what the man was doing in Dry Gulch.
Chapter Seven
After a pleasant enough dinner with Goldie the night before, Donovan had attempted to talk her into coming up to his room. She’d declined. He feared she was giving up and he’d soon be out of a job. He’d offered to walk her down to her cousin’s house where she was staying but she’d again declined.
“I really need to be alone right now,” she’d told him. “Let’s talk tomorrow.”
That had sounded ominous.
Since seeing Arnie in town, he told himself maybe it was for the best if she canceled their arrangement and he moved on. He had to admit that Arnie being here in town wanting to buy her café made him nervous. Clearly, Donovan felt, he hadn’t gone far enough away from Wyoming and the Mandevilles. Maybe he would head for California after this. If he had more money, he might skip the country.
The knock on his hotel room door made him smile in anticipation that it might be Goldie. For her to come up to his hotel room could mean something good. Maybe he’d stay in Dry Gulch a little longer, he told himself as he went to answer the knock.
But he was quickly disappointed—and alarmed. “Arnie?” he said as the little man pushed his way in, closing the door behind him. “What are you—”
“Listen up, I have a message from Malcolm.”
That shut him up, at least for a moment. “If this is about Lolly—”
“The boss wants to know what you’re doing here.”
He didn’t owe either Malcolm or his former prison cook any answers. “I could ask what you’re doing here.”
Arnie just gave him a look, one that had probably served him well while in prison. “Or I can call Malcolm. I’m sure he’d love to come up here and ask you himself.” He took a step closer. “What’s the story with you and the owner of the café?”
Donovan realized he didn’t want to tangle with Arnie—let alone Malcolm. “She hired me to make her former boyfriend jealous.”
“Isn’t her former boyfriend the sheriff?” the cook asked. He nodded. “That’s it? You know I’m buying the café. You aren’t doing anything that could foul up the sale, are you?”
“No.”
“Good, because Malcolm really wouldn’t like it if you did.” Arnie turned and headed for the door. Donovan was trying to imagine why the crime boss would care about any of this when the cook stopped and turned back. “Make sure you don’t.”
This was the last thing he’d wanted to hear, Donovan thought as the cook left. He wanted nothing to do with whatever Mandeville was planning for Dry Gulch. The moment the hotel room door closed behind Arnie, Donovan began to pack. He traveled light so it didn’t take long. As he finished though, he thought of Goldie. If he just had a few more days here…
He thought of their kiss and began to unpack. He couldn’t leave just yet. Goldie was signing the papers for the sale of her café tonight. If he held it together for just a little longer, he might be leaving here if not with Goldie at least with her money. She might not want to lie around on a tropical island, but he sure did.
LOLLYMANDEVILLE COULDN’Tbelieve Donovan had left the way he had, sneaking out in the middle of the night. She’d knownthat he wasn’t in love with her. Or her him. But she’d expected better, which only made her angry at herself.
She’d thought about going to her father and asking him to deal with it. He’d certainly scared off enough of the young men who’d come around the ranch. But she feared that her father might already suspect her true interest in Donovan Cole. Just as she suspected the man himself might have figured out her plans for him and that was why he was long gone.
Angry with the turn of events, she looked across the huge ranch breakfast table at her brother, Bobby. She had no idea where her father or the hired men who came and went here at the ranch were. But none of them seemed to be around. It was just the two of them here now.
She watched her brother play with his food for a moment, still thinking about Donovan and what—if anything—she was going to do about him running out on her. She couldn’t let him get away with this. Once she found out where Donovan had gone, it would be so easy to send her brother after him to show him who was really in charge, since she could get Bobby to do anything she asked.
Except she couldn’t trust Bobby not to mess it up and get himself into trouble, which would come back on Lolly in a big way. Neither of them wanted to be in trouble with their father.
