“She’s not staying.”
He wondered about that as the line went dead. Lolly had at least two secrets that she was keeping from her father. Donovan had to wonder how many more there might be.
JOSIE HAD BEENexpecting the sheriff to stop by. She’d known it was just a matter of time before he came to her about Goldie.What she hadn’t expected was to see Max looking so drawn and unhappy. He’d lost weight, but it was the hollow look in his eyes that broke her heart.
She had wanted to shake some sense into him for months but knew matters of the heart were complicated. Also, she’d never met anyone more stubborn than Max Lander. She couldn’t force him to see reason. He’d have to find that himself.
“Sheriff,” she said, motioning to a chair across from her law office desk.
He had removed his Stetson, balancing it on his knee as he teetered on the edge of the chair as if not planning to stay long. “I need your help. I’m worried about Goldie.” She lifted a brow and bit her tongue. “I need you to tell me what is going on with her.”
“Don’t you think you should ask her?”
“You know I’m the last person she’d tell anything. First, she sells her café out of the blue and now she has something going on with this Donovan Cole guy.” He raked a hand through his hair. “She saideverythingshe’s done was to prove that I still loved her. What was she talking about? What else has she done?”
Josie sighed. “You didn’t bother to ask her?”
“She marched off before I could, not that I suspect she would have told me anyway. She’s so…angry.”
“Can you blame her?”
He wagged his head, dropping his gaze to his boots. “You don’t have to tell me what a fool I’ve been, all right? I’m worried about what she’ll do next.”
“So am I,” Josie admitted.
“I tried to warn her about Donovan. I fear she’s in over her head. It’s bad enough that Donovan Cole comes from an old money family that’s now broke. His only source of income as far as I can tell is from romancing women with money.”
He stood to pace her small office.
“His most recent girlfriend was Lolly Mandeville, the daughter of crime boss Malcolm Mandeville. So, what is he doing here in Dry Gulch, apparently romancing Goldie? Even with the sale of the café, she isn’t going to have the kind of money he’s used to. Then I discovered Goldie paid Donovan’s hotel bill inadvanceof his showing up here. Why would she do that?”
Cordell, she thought with a curse. Of course he’d told his brother. “For the same reason she put the café up for sale,” Josie said. “She felt she had to make one final attempt to see if you still loved her by paying Donovan Cole to make you jealous.”
Max stared at her. “She…hired him?” That Goldie would do something so desperate, so dangerous… He stumbled to a chair and sat down hard before putting his head into his hands again. “I drove her to that?”
“She came up with the idea on her own, but she was desperate, Max,” Josie said.
Had he thought Goldie would just wait forever for him to realize he couldn’t live without her? Now he feared he’d waited too long. He couldn’t bear another moment without her back in his life. But he also couldn’t have chosen a worse time to tell her how he felt. He had criminals in town planning what he believed was a bank job. But if Donovan’s cover was acting as Goldie’s boyfriend, it was best if the man didn’t suspect Max was on to him and Arnie.
He lifted his head as a wave of relief rushed over him. “So, Goldie’s not in love with Donovan?”
“Well, she wasn’t when she hired him. Can’t say how she feels about him now though.”
The opposite of relief felt like a bucket of ice water in the face. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”
“Whatever you do, you can’t let Goldie find out that you know she hired Donovan to make you jealous.”
He nodded. “I’m scared Goldie’s gotten herself in the middle of something bad and I’m not sure exactly what it is, only that it could be dangerous. Telling her how I feel right now…” He shook his head. “I really doubt she would believe me, let alone forgive me. Worse, it could put her in even more danger.”
All he could think about was how he was going to stop all of this before it really was too late.
DONOVAN WASN’T SURPRISEDto find Lolly’s car still parked in front of the hotel. What he needed to know was how long she planned to stay in Dry Gulch and why. He found her in the hotel bar downstairs. She glanced over at him as he took the stool next to her and ordered a beer.
“When did you start drinking beer?” Lolly asked with a frown.
He gave her an impatient look. “Why are you still in town? Lolly, if you know what your father’s up to—”
“Right, he tells me everything,” she said with a huff. “I have no idea, and I can’t read his mind. If I was clairvoyant, I would have known you’d run out on me.”
