Read Creed's Honor for Free Online

with a stub of a pencil and a little pad, grinning broadly as she waited to take their orders.
    Tricia asked what kind of soup they were serving that day, and Mabel replied that it was cream of broccoli with roasted garlic. Her own special recipe.
    Women in and around Lonesome Bend were recipe-proud, Tricia knew. Natty guarded the secret formula for her chili, a concoction that drew people in droves every year when the rummage sale rolled around, claiming it had been in the family for a hundred years.
    Tricia ordered the soup. Conner ordered a burger and fries, with coffee.
    Then, as soon as Mabel hurried away to put in the order, he excused himself, his eyes merry with amusement, and went to wash his hands.
    Tricia actually considered making a quick exit while he was gone, but in the end, she couldn’t get around the silliness of the idea. Besides, her SUV was still over at the veterinary clinic, a good mile from Elmer’s Café.
    So she sat. And she waited, twiddling her thumbs.
     
    D AMN , C ONNER SAID SILENTLY , addressing his own reflection in the men’s-room mirror. It was no big deal having a friendly lunch with a woman—it was broad daylight, in his hometown, for God’s sake—so why did he feel as though he were riding a Clydesdale across a frozen river?
    Sure, he’d been a little rattled when Malcolm told him Brody and Joleen were on their way back to Lonesome Bend, but once the adrenaline rush subsided, he’d been fine.
    Now, he drew a deep breath, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and hit the soap dispenser a couple of times. He lathered up, rinsed, lathered up again. Smiled as he recalled the little bottle of disinfectant gel Tricia was carrying around.
    Of course there was nothing wrong with cleanliness, but it seemed to Conner that more and more people were phobic about a few germs. He dried his hands and left the restroom, headed for the table.
    Tricia sat looking down at the screen on her cell phone, and the light from the window next to the booth rimmed her, caught in the tiny hairs escaping that long, prim braid of hers, turning a reddish gold.
    Conner, not generally a fanciful man, stopped in midstride, feeling as though something had slammed into him, hard. Like a gut punch, maybe, but not unpleasant.
    Get a grip, he told himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mabel and everybody at the counter looking at him.
    Pride broke the strange paralysis. He slid into the booth on his side, and was immediately struck again, this time by the translucent smile on her face. He’d never seen anybody light up that way—Tricia’s eyes shone, and her skin glowed, too.
    “Good news?” he asked.
    She didn’t look at him, but he had a sinking feeling the text was from a guy.
    “Very good news,” she said. Her gaze lingered onthe phone for a few more moments—long ones, for Conner—and then, with a soft sigh, she put the device down again.
    Conner waited for her to tell him what the good news was, but she didn’t say anything about it.
    “Do you have a dog?” she asked Conner.
    Momentarily tripped up by the question, he had to think before he could answer. “Not at the moment,” he said.
    “Maybe you’d like one?”
    Mabel arrived with their food, and Conner flirted with the older woman for a few seconds. “Maybe,” he said, very carefully, when they were alone again. “Sometime.”
    “Sometime?”
    “We’re pretty busy out on the ranch these days,” he told her, picking up a French fry and dunking it into a cup of catsup on the side of his plate. “A dog’s like a child in some ways. They need a lot of attention, right along.”
    Belatedly, Tricia took up her spoon, dipped it into her soup and sipped. He could almost see the gears turning in her head.
    “Dogs are probably happier in the country than anywhere else,” she ventured, and her eyes were big and soulful when she looked at him. He felt an odd sensation, as if he were shooting down a steep slope on a runaway