Cassidy Harte and the Comeback Kid

She didn’t want to talk about this. Especially not with someone who had a reputation for garbling stories until they had no resemblance whatsoever to the original.

On the other hand, Slater’s return was a rock-solid guarantee that the whole ugly business was going to be dredged up all over town, anyway. She might as well get used to answering questions about him. “It was a long time ago,” she said tersely. “We were engaged, but it didn’t work out.”

There. That was a nice, succinct—if wildly understated—version. It seemed enough for Greta. “You were engaged to the CEO of Maverick Enterprises?”

“Like I said. A long time ago.”

“Wow! That’s so romantic. Maybe he came back to try to win your heart again.”

When pigs fly.

“I strongly doubt it,” she murmured, then tried desperately to change the subject. “When you’re done there, you can start squeezing the orange juice.”

Greta wasn’t so easily distracted. “For what it’s worth, I think he’s gorgeous. Like some kind of movie star or something.”

Gorgeous he might be. But Cassie didn’t have the heart to tell the starry-eyed teenager that beyond that pretty face, Zack Slater was nothing but trouble.

She was telling the truth.

Two hours later Zack poked at a runny omelette and half-cooked hash browns with his fork, trying hard to pretend he didn’t notice the sullen whispers and the not-so-subtle glares being thrown his way by the Salt River locals.

When he had lived here before, Murphy had a well-earned reputation for good, hearty meals. Either the service and the menu had drastically gone downhill or Murphy was saving all the edible food for his other customers.

He supposed he was lucky to get anything, given the overwhelmingly hostile atmosphere in the diner.

When he walked into the café—with its red vinyl booths and mismatched paneling—the breakfast conversation of the summer crowd had ground to an awkward halt like a kid cartwheeling down a hill and hitting the bottom way too fast.

At first he figured everybody focused on him only because he was a new face in town. It was a sensation he was well acquainted with after spending most of his life being the worthless drifter who would never quite belong.

By the time the waitress slammed a menu down in front of him, the tension in the diner still hadn’t eased a bit, and he began to suspect the attention he was receiving had its roots in something else.

So a few people remembered him from a decade ago. Big deal.

Soon the whispers began to reach him, and it didn’t take long to hear his name linked with Melanie Harte’s.

Cassie hadn’t been making it up. Judging by the reaction at Murphy’s, everybody in town thought he had not only had been chicken enough to run out on his sweet, loving bride-to-be less than a week before the wedding but that he’d stolen her brother’s wife in the bargain.

The one taste of greasy eggs he’d managed to choke down churned in his gut.

Son of a gun.

He had known that leaving so abruptly a decade ago would cause a scandal, that Cassie would be hurt by it. He’d had his reasons for going, and at the time they had sure seemed like good ones.

Hell, when it came right down to it, he hadn’t really been given much of a choice, had he?

At the time—and in the years since—he had tried to convince himself that leaving was the least hurtful option. He was going to break her heart eventually. He knew it, had always known it, even as they had planned their future together.

This way was best, he’d decided. Better to do it quick and sharp, like ripping off a bandage.

But he would have stayed and faced all the grim consequences if he had for one moment dreamed everybody would link his disappearance with a twisted, manipulative bitch like Melanie Harte.

What the hell were the odds that they both had decided to run off on the same night?

Cassie would never believe it was only a coincidence. He couldn’t blame her. He had a hard time believing it himself.

Giving up on the eggs, he sipped at his coffee, which was at least hot and halfway decent. Of course, Murphy and his glowering minions probably hadn’t had time to whip up a new pot of dregs just for him.

What was he supposed to do now? Going into this whole thing, he’d been prepared for a tough, uphill climb convincing Cassie to give him another chance.

To forgive him for walking out on her.

Tough was one thing. He could handle tough, had been doing it his whole life.

But he’d never expected he would have to take on Mount Everest.

Maybe he ought to just cut his losses and leave. He had plenty of other projects to occupy his mind and attention. Too many to waste his time on this hare-brained idea.

This little hiatus from company headquarters was playing havoc with his schedule. Maybe it would be best for everyone involved if he just handed the Lost Creek over to one of the many competent people who worked for him and return to what he did best.

Making money.

He sipped at his coffee again. Why did the idea of returning to Denver now seem so repugnant? He had a good life there. He’d worked damn hard to make sure of it. He had a penthouse apartment in town and a condo in Aspen and his ranch outside of Durango.

He had a company jet at his disposal and a garage full of expensive toys. Everything a man should need to be happy. Yet he wasn’t. He hadn’t been truly happy since the night he drove out of Star Valley.

“You want anything else?” The waitress stood by the table with a coffeepot in her hand and surliness on her face.

Yeah. He wanted something else. He wanted a woman he couldn’t have. Was there anything more pathetic?

“No. I’m finished here.”

“Fine. Here’s your tab. You can pay the cashier.” She yanked the ticket from the pocket of her apron and slapped it down on the table, then turned away without an ounce of warmth in her demeanor.

Okay. So this little junket into town had established he wasn’t going to be welcomed back to Star Valley with open arms by anyone. He fingered the tab for a moment, tempted to climb into his Range Rover parked outside and just keep on driving.

No. That’s what he had done a decade ago, and look where it had gotten him. He wouldn’t give up. Not yet.

He could show Cassidy Harte—and everybody else in town, for that matter—that his stubborn streak would beat hers any day.

With new determination he slid out of the booth, reached into his wallet and pulled out a hundred, just because he could. He left it neatly on top of the ticket then walked out the door, leaving the whispers and glares behind him.

The morning air was clean and fresh after the oppressive atmosphere inside the diner. It was shaping up to be a beautiful summer day in the Rockies, clear and warm.

He nodded to a man in uniform walking through the parking lot toward him, then did a double take.

Hell.

Cassie’s middle brother, Jess, was walking toward him, fury on his features. Great. Just what he needed to make the morning a complete success.

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