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He didn’t know a whole lot of personal stuff about the town founder, and, from the looks of it, there was a whole lot less than Davis had expected to discover about a man who’d been so key to this town’s development.
But, after about an hour of frustration, he finally did uncover something. A tidbit that would require much more research.
An article with the headline: Amati Dies of Unknown Causes.
The text was extremely vague, just an extended obituary about Amati’s love of privacy and his leadership qualities. It was as if Tony’s death hadn’t rocked St. Valentine much at all. Then again, common knowledge had always maintained that he’d died alone, out of the public eye.
When Davis saw another article, planted deep in the back of the same edition, he looked even closer.
Sheriff Kills Burglars in Home.
Davis went over that story, too, yet it offered about as much as Amati’s obituary had.
He didn’t know what it was exactly, but something was poking at him—the “other” sense all reporters relied on.
That nudge-nudge that kept them up at nights.
There wasn’t much else to go on, but it was a mystery Davis decided to pursue in his spare time, between overseeing the next biweekly edition and reporting on preparations for Founder’s Weekend so the story could go out to bigger outlets, hopefully attracting some visitors to St. Valentine in a week.
It’d be just what this town needed … and what he needed for them.
He locked up the office at midnight, spying Mr. and Mrs. Osborne and Violet coming out of the bar and grill down the street.
Was it his imagination when he saw Violet hesitate as they secured the big doors in front of the saloon’s entrance? Was she looking toward the newspaper office because her reporter radar was up and running, too, after meeting the stranger?
Or was she looking down here for a different reason altogether, one that made Davis’s reluctant heartbeat race? Was she just as eager to see him once again as he was her?
As Davis caught Violet’s gaze under the moonlight, he couldn’t move. He was frozen by the hunger for her that had only grown hour by hour, sending him to the Queen of Hearts after his party, even after he’d made it crystal clear that he’d found closure with her.
But had he?
Violet seemed to be under the same spell, unmoving, as her parents headed toward their truck, which was parked in an alley beside the building.
Davis couldn’t stay away, and he moved toward Violet. Standing near their vehicle, her father watched Davis from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat.
“Gary,” Davis said, nodding to him, then greeted his wife, as well.
Andrea Osborne smiled at Davis but her husband merely grunted out Davis’s name. Despite their having worked together to shut down the mine, there was still an avalanche of disappointment there—a father’s hard feelings for the kid who’d broken his daughter’s heart once upon a time.
Davis came to a stand in front of Violet, who was still near the bar’s doorway. His blood sang through him—all he wanted to do was touch her, just as free and easy as they had been in high school.
“Saw you talking to that stranger,” Davis said, straight to the point. “Did you find out who he is?”
“His name is Jared.”
“And?”
“And what? He wanted something to eat and he’s probably miles out of town by now.”
Davis had the feeling that she meant to end the conversation right there with him, but he wouldn’t let that happen. And, truthfully, it wasn’t just because he wanted this story.
What the hell did he want, though?
“I already did a little research,” he said.
“You did?” she asked.
There was a spark in her—the reporter’s excitement that had turned him on back when they’d worked on the school paper.
“You do know,” he said, “that I do a lot of the reporting around here.” His trust fund investments gave him that luxury in sleepy St. Valentine.
Before she could respond, her dad said, “Violet?”
He apparently wanted to scoot back to their ranch, where Violet was no doubt staying.
“They’re my ride,” she said. “I came home to find my old car dead in the barn. It’s being fixed.”
“If you want a look at the archives to see what you can find out about Amati,” Davis said, “you could stick around. I could drive you home, since your family’s place is on the way to my own.”
Had he really just said that?
Even under the gas lamps that lined the street, he could see how Violet’s gaze had gone wide. Her eyes were like brandy—something he could get drunk on.
But then she looked toward her waiting parents, and Davis could just about guess what was going through her mind.
She hadn’t come back to St. Valentine to mess around with an old flame—she was here to recover and regroup. And the minute she got the chance to skedaddle out of town again, she wouldn’t have time for Podunk stories like this one.
“I’m opening the saloon with Mom in the morning,” she said, an excuse if he’d ever heard one.
But he could still detect the temptation in her tone. The story had intrigued her.
As he heard her parents’ truck doors slam shut, temptation swarmed him. An opportunity—a lure for Violet to come around his office, for him to see her again.
Bad idea, said a little voice inside him. Real bad.
Nonetheless, he heard himself saying, “Did you know that the paper didn’t report on Amati’s cause of death? He’s a presence in those saloon photographs and in town history, so why was he practically a nobody in his obituary?”
“You’ll get to the bottom of it.”
The same anger that had haunted him for years reared up again. He wasn’t going to let her get away that easily this time. “Something’s going on here. And if it’s big enough, it might even serve to bring in some much-needed tourists to St. Valentine. It could pump up the economy, and that includes the saloon, Vi.”
She blew out a breath, as if he’d hit a mark.
It wasn’t fair, but he said it anyway. “This story could really give this town some profile. And working on it might also go a long way in making your stay here easier.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I’ve seen what you’re going through—the looks, the snide remarks.”
“Jennifer was the only one offering up the sarcasm.”
“We both know she won’t be the last.”
As she took that in, he waited. Say yes, Vi …
“Do you really think this look-alike will amount to anything?” she asked.
“Yeah. Just call it a gut feeling.”
Another hesitation. She was going to tell him to stick this story where the sun didn’t shine, wasn’t she? The worst thing about it was that he knew another no from her would chew at him for the rest of the night, the rest of …
He wasn’t sure just how long it’d be.
“Davis,” she said softly, “I can guess how much it would mean for you if you could do something wonderful for this place.”
“Earlier, I swear I saw the girl who never turned her back on a story. Where did she go?”
“You know where she went.”
A short burst from her parents’ pickup horn made her walk away. But he still felt her on his flesh, singeing away at him.
“Violet?” he asked.
She stopped in her tracks.
His pulse was flying. “The newspaper office will be open tomorrow before you get to the saloon.”
She bit her bottom lip, glancing at the bar and grill.
He pushed the subject, his heartbeat racing. “I’ll be passing your ranch on the way in.” Damned if he wasn’t going to give up. Damned if he was going out on a limb here, against all his common sense.
Her parents’ truck purred as she gave him that wide-eyed look that told him the promise of making a gesture of goodwill to the town mattered to her just as much as it did to him.
“Okay,” she said. “I can look at the archives for about an hour, just to see if there’s anything to this.”
“And to do a freelance write-up for the Recorder?”
“If the research pans out. Maybe.”
Was she about to say something more?
He never found out, because she’d already jumped into her parents’ truck, leaving Davis with a tight grin.
He’d lost her once, but he had her for a morning now.
Chapter Three
After a night of searching the internet on her laptop without much success, Violet was up just after dawn, the birds chirping outside the window of the little cabin she was staying in on her parents’ ranch.
Back in the days before her mother and father had purchased the saloon, when Dad was a full-timer at the mine, Mom and the Osbornes’ employees had run this spread that had been in the family for generations. They’d bred American Quarter horses until, after several bad years of business, they’d had to sell off most of the land and stop the operation altogether. That was when her parents had decided to invest everything they had left in the bar and grill, and this decision had left the employee cabins empty, except for this one. Mom had fixed it up just before Violet had arrived, trimming it with gingham curtains and polishing the pine furniture. It was a stark contrast to her old apartment, with its view of Wilshire Boulevard’s skyscrapers in the near distance and the elevator just down the hall, where every doorway seemed to hide an actor or a budding director behind it.
She left the cabin, knowing Mom would’ve cooked an amazing breakfast—chocolate chip pancakes. It’d been a while since Violet had eaten such a thing; not since her last short trip here months ago. Her job had kept her too busy to be in the kitchen very much, and she’d become accustomed to grabbing hot coffee and limp sandwiches on the fly.
She opened the main house’s front door, the aroma of those pancakes making her mouth water. From the entryway, she could see the hall leading to the bedrooms—the one she’d grown up in would still be untouched, with its posters of all the places Great-Aunt Jeanne had experienced while writing her upscale magazine travel articles—Monaco, Madrid, Berlin. Whenever Great-Aunt Jeanne had visited, she’d always told Violet about salon talks with poets, riding in speedboats with princes.
She would’ve been proud that Violet had spread her wings and explored everything outside this “hick town” that she had escaped, too.
Violet just tried not to dwell on what her aunt would’ve done if she knew her great-niece had landed back in St. Valentine.
She made her way into the kitchen, the whoosh from an overhead fan chasing away some of the heat already settling in for the day.
Mom was wielding a spatula at the stove, her curly gray hair in a ponytail. “Just a few more minutes and I’ll be done.”
“Can’t wait.”
“We can have a family breakfast, just like we used to. Your dad’s going to be out of the shower anytime now.”
Oops. On the way home last night, Violet had neglected to tell her parents that Davis would be picking her up this morning. Mom would be okay with it, but Dad?
He emerged earlier than expected from the hallway, his graying head wet from the shower. “It’ll be a scorching one today.” He bent down to kiss the top of Violet’s head and sat for their family meal.
Might as well get this over with. “I wish I could stick around for a long breakfast this morning,” she said, “but I’m off to town soon.”
Mom looked over her shoulder, balancing a pancake on the spatula. “How are you going to get there?”
“It’s covered.” Violet nonchalantly poured herself a glass of orange juice from the pitcher on the table. “Davis is picking me up.”
Dad sat up straighter in his chair, so Violet spoke before he could.
“I’m working on a small story that could bring some positive attention to St. Valentine in time for Founder’s Weekend.”
“Hmph,” Dad said.
“Gary,” Mom said. “Don’t start.”
Violet said, “There’s really nothing to start about. It’s work, and I can add it to my résumé so future bosses can see that I’m still sharpening my craft.”
She neglected to add that she’d been happy when Davis hadn’t brought up anything personal again last night, after he’d caught her post-closing time at the bar and grill. When he’d started talking about the stranger instead, she’d just about wilted with relief. Yeah, that’s what it had to be—relief. Because surely it hadn’t been some kind of disappointment that they were veering around everything else in favor of talking about the Tony Amati look-alike.
Mom brought the platter of pancakes to the table, but Dad didn’t dig in just yet.
“That’s all it is?” Dad asked. “A story?”
“Yes. I figure it might … I don’t know, it might go a long way in showing everyone that I want to contribute while I’m around. Coming back here made me realize that I have some things to clean up in this town.”
Mom sat down, too. “And a news story’s going to do that?”
“It could. It’s a gesture, a way of saying that I’m not any better than anyone here. That I do care about this place.” Violet picked up her orange juice glass.
