Cassidy Harte and the Comeback Kid by RaeAnne Thayne Read Free Book Online Page B

expression.
    She shrugged off the unease. She had too much work waiting for her, to sit here trying to figure out what was going through the mind of a man who was a virtual stranger to her now.
    â€œDo you want more green peppers?” Greta asked.
    She saw that Slater had diced a half dozen, far more than she really needed for the huevos rancheros. “No. That’s plenty. Why don’t you start putting together the fruit bowl?”
    While Greta moved around the kitchen gathering bananas and strawberries and grapes, she kept sending curious little looks her way. Cassie ignored them as long as she could, then finally gave a loud sigh. “What?”
    Greta yanked a grape off a cluster and popped it into the bowl. “Just wondering what that was all about. What’s the story with you and the new boss?”
    For a moment she was surprised at the question, then she realized the teenager would have been only a child a decade ago, too young to hear about the biggest scandal in town. “Nothing. No story.”
    Greta raised her eyebrows doubtfully. “What were you saying has been over for ten years, then?”
    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?”
    â€œLike I said. A long time ago.”
    â€œWow! That’s so romantic. Maybe he came back to try to win your heart again.”
    When pigs fly.
    â€œI 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.
    Â 
    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