Creed's Honor Read Online Free PDF Page B

going to lunch,” she heard herself say, in a perfectly ordinary tone of voice, and was amazed. “I’ll check back with you later on.”
    “Good idea,” Becky agreed, with a little twinkle.
    Just as Conner had done earlier, the woman crouched to look into the dog’s eyes. “Don’t you be scared, now,” she said. “We’re going to take good care of you, I promise.”
    He licked her face, and she laughed.
    “Hey, Valentino,” Becky said. “You’re quite the lover.”
    Valentino, Tricia thought.
    Oh, God, he had a name now.
    But as Becky rose and started to lead the dog away, into the back, he made a sound so forlorn that Tricia’s eyes filled.
    “We have your cell number on file, don’t we?” Becky turned to ask Tricia, who was still standing inthe same place, feeling stricken. “You haven’t changed it or anything?”
    “You have it,” Tricia managed to croak. She felt Conner take a light hold on her elbow. He sort of steered her toward the doors, through them and out into the parking lot.
    “Lunch,” he reminded her quietly.
    Her cell phone chirped in her purse, and she took it out, looked at the screen, and smiled, though barely. There was a text from Diana’s ten-year-old daughter, Sasha. “Hi,” it read. “Mom let me use her phone so I could tell you that we’re on a field trip at the Seattle Aquarium and it’s awesome!”
    Tricia replied with a single word. “Great!”
    “No sense in taking two rigs,” Conner commented.
    The next thing Tricia knew, she was in the passenger seat of his big truck, the cell phone in her pocket.
    It’s just lunch, she told herself, as they headed toward the diner in the middle of town. Except for the upscale steakhouse on the highway to Denver, Elmer’s Café was the only sit-down eating establishment in Lonesome Bend.
    All the ranchers gathered there for lunch or for coffee and pie, and the people who lived in town liked the place, too. It was continually crowded, but the food was good and the prices were reasonable. Tricia occasionally stopped in for a soup-and-sandwich special, sitting at one of the stools at the counter, since she was always alone and the tables were generally full.
    Today, there was a booth open, a rare phenomenon at lunchtime.
    Tricia wondered dryly if the universe always accommodated Conner Creed and, after that, she wondered where in the heck that thought had come from.
    Conner took off his hat and hung it on the rack next to the door, as at home as he might have been in his own kitchen. He nodded to Elmer’s wife, Mabel, who was the only waitress in sight.
    Mabel, a benign gossip, sized up the situation with a good, hard look at Tricia and Conner. A radiant smile broke over her face, orangish in color because of her foundation, and she sang out, “Be right with you, folks.”
    Conner waited until Tricia slid into the booth before sitting down across from her and reaching for a menu. She set her cell phone on the table, in case there was another communiqué from Sasha, or a call from Doc Benchley’s office about Valentino. Then she extracted a bottle of hand sanitizer from her bag and squirted some into her palm.
    Conner raised an eyebrow, grinning that grin again.
    “You can’t be too careful,” Tricia said, sounding defensive even to herself.
    “Sure you can,” Conner replied easily, reaching for a menu.
    Tricia pushed the bottle an inch or so in his direction.
    He ignored it.
    “There are germs on everything,” she said, lowering her voice lest Mabel or Elmer overhear and think she was criticizing their hygiene practices.
    “Yes,” Conner agreed lightly, without looking up from the menu. “Too much of that stuff can compromise a person’s immune system.”
    Tricia felt foolish. Conner was a grown man. If he wanted to risk contracting some terrible disease, that was certainly his prerogative. As long as he wasn’t cooking the food, what did she care?
    She dropped the bottle back into her purse.
    Mabel bustled over,