His chuckle was just the right amount of rueful not to cause offense. “One vice at a time, doll.”
Tina sighed loudly and dramatically. “One of these days you’re going to realize what you’re missing.”
He lifted his coffee cup. “No doubt.”
She laughed and went off again to serve her other customers.
“She’s way too young for you,” Nell muttered from the side of her mouth.
“Calm your outraged sensibilities.”
“I’m not outraged,” she retorted. “But I imagine Judge Potts might have something to say about your flirtations.”
“I doubt that, too.” He folded his arms on the counter and leaned on them as he watched her. “I’m glad things are working out with Vivian.”
“You could have warned me about her house, you know. It’s a little more than just big.”
“Ten bedrooms at last count. She’s made some noises lately about adding another wing.”
Nell nearly choked on her coffee. “For what?”
“Who knows?” His green eyes stayed focused on her face in a way that felt intensely intimate. “Vivian knows her own mind. I’ve seen what she can do with her money for others. I say if she wants to build another wing for herself, it’s her business.”
“Maybe it’s a wing for Montrose.”
Archer laughed outright. “He’s a trip, isn’t he?”
Nell couldn’t keep from smiling, too. “That’s one word for it.”
“He’s devoted to Vivian, though. And she to him, I’d have to say.”
Nell lifted her eyebrows. “Are they—”
“God no,” he said immediately, grimacing at the thought. “That’s an idea that makes me want to wash out my brain. I take it she hasn’t mentioned ‘dear Arthur—’” he air-quoted the words “—to you, yet?”
She shook her head.
“He was her final husband and according to her, the most decent man to ever exist. And he was the greatest love of her life. Most of those good things she’s done with her money since she’s transplanted herself here have been because of the late, dear Arthur.”
“How long ago did he die?”
“Quite a few years now. None of us ever met him. But he’s a presence in Vivian’s life regardless of how long he’s been gone. She’s still trying to live up to his standard.”
“I don’t know if that’s romantic or sad.”
Archer shifted and his arm brushed hers again.
Then she realized he’d pulled out his wallet and the cash he extracted and set on the counter was far too much for just a coffee.
She bristled. “I can afford to buy my own lunch.”
“Actually, it’s for the cat food.”
“What?”
“The cat.” He pushed the stack of bills closer to her. “Food,” he repeated as if she were thick.
“We’re back to that again?”
“He doesn’t have a name. But he keeps coming around to eat and I’m going to be gone for the next several weeks on a case. Wouldn’t want him to starve.”
She didn’t touch the money. “Why is it up to me to get him fed? You spend a lot of time in Cheyenne and Denver. More time than here, probably. What do you do then? Surely you have someone else who—”
“You just said it yourself. You owe me. And I know you like cats because you told me so a long time ago.”
She remembered the conversation very clearly. Because it had been the same day she’d ended up in his bed.
Not a guest room bed, either.
She shifted, trying to squelch the memory of bells ringing. Cymbals crashing. “My last experience taking care of a cat was more than twenty years ago.” The cat she’d told him about. The one who had been her mother’s. The one who’d disappeared after she died.
Only later, after her father had sold the bookstore, did Nell suspect the cat’s exit had been his doing, too.
“It’s not complicated,” Archer said drily, completely ignoring her discouraging tone. “You pour some kibble in the bowl and the cat comes around and eats it.”
“Don’t you live out toward Braden?” She distinctly remembered Ros mentioning it once. She’d been highly annoyed because she’d needed to see him about something and it had necessitated the long drive.
“Yep.” He tipped the coffeepot over his mug again, getting the very last few drops.
“I am not going to use your guesthouse,” she warned adamantly. “If that’s what you’ve got brewing in your mind.” There was absolutely no logic to that offer, if he’d even been serious about it in the first place. She wouldn’t be beholden to him, and he knew it.
“It’s going to be a pain driving out there just to feed a cat, but that’s up to you.” He honestly sounded as if he didn’t care.
She exhaled, impatient with herself for even allowing herself to get sucked into this. “There’s really a cat?”
He gave her an innocent look that she didn’t buy for a second. “Would I lie?”
Chapter Five
Nell eyed the empty pet food bowl.
She’d filled it with dry cat food the afternoon before, set it on top of the stone pillar where Archer had told her to set it, and now it was empty.
She looked at the pillar. It was about a foot across and at least six feet high. Taller than she was. Not so tall that a cat wouldn’t be able to get up to it, though.
It was part of a gate marking the entrance to Archer’s property. Archer said he never bothered to close the gate. He didn’t keep any livestock on his ten acres of land. He just liked having the space around the house.
The house that Nell had chosen not to drive to. She didn’t need to see it up close.
It was bad enough to know that the land where it was located was positively majestic in a stark sort of way. Scrubby brush grew in pale grayish-green shoots and sprigs of wildflowers clung around the bases of the boulders that dotted the relatively flat landscape.
It looked like a home for dinosaurs and snakes. Not for a stray cat.
Did birds eat cat food?
It seemed like a more plausible reason for the empty bowl.
Still feeling like she was playing in some silly game with Archer, she poured
