“Right,” Cord admitted, grimly amused. Google did have a lot of answers—and, in his opinion, anyway, a lot to answer for. “How about returning the favor and telling us who you are and why you’re here.”

“I’m hungry,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard a word he said. “And I could really use a cup of hot coffee, strong, with three sugars and real cream. None of that powdered crap.”

J.P. sighed. “I’ll get you a hamburger and some java,” he told her. “On one condition, of course—that you stop jerking us around and tell us what’s going on here.”

She smiled Reba’s smile, and Cord, for one, felt as though he’d been gut-punched. “A hamburger would be awesome,” she told J.P. sweetly. “Make it a deluxe, with a double order of fries, extra cheese and bacon, crisp.”

“Not until you give us some answers,” J.P. retorted.

“Okay, but I intended to spill my guts all along.” She flung another glance at Eli, full of defiance. “I didn’t thumb my way halfway across the country to watch a bunch of yokels play poker in some backwater dive. I have a very good reason for being here.” A worried pause. “Does that mean I don’t get the burger?”

J.P. merely shook his head, walked to the inside door, which led to the main tavern, shoved it open a crack and called, “Hey, Molly. Mind taking an order?”

At last Cord and Eli sat down.

It was a relief to Cord, since his knees had turned wobbly.

Molly, a plump, sweet-faced woman they’d all known since childhood, appeared, pad in hand, trying to peer past J.P.’s shoulder and get a look at the girl.

Having lived in Painted Pony Creek since her teens, Molly knew just about everything that went on there, and she planned to keep it that way.

Now whispers were exchanged, Molly’s demanding in tone, J.P.’s easygoing and smooth as could be.

Molly sighed audibly. “Willie isn’t going to like it, that girl being on the premises, I mean. She can’t be more than sixteen years old, and the state could pull his liquor license—”

“The kid isn’t drinking, and technically, she’s not in the bar,” J.P. pointed out. “We’ll take full responsibility for her. Just bring the burger and fries, okay? Coffee, too. Lots of sugar and cream. The wet kind.”

“Not the low-fat stuff,” the girl specified decisively, before adding a belated “please.”