Читать книгу One True Thing - Marilyn Pappano - Страница 7

Slow as molasses in winter, the sun crept across the morning sky, bathing the landscape in bright light so harsh it leached the color from the day. Somewhere in the not-too-far distance, an overly excited canine burst into a frenzied fit of barking and…

Oh, jeez, that sucked. Frowning, Cassidy McRae gazed at the scene in front of her and tried again.

Fat clouds stirred overhead, casting lazy shadows over the forest. A hawk circled, its wings outstretched, its fingerlets rippling in the self-generated breeze, its eagle-eyed gaze searching…

An eagle-eyed hawk? Sheesh.

How about… In the distance, a buck appeared on the verdant lakeshore, its gaze alert and wary as he approached the water for a drink, his impressive antlers casting equally impressive shadows on the smooth glassy surface.

She snorted in much the same way her imaginary buck might. There were many things she couldn’t do in life, and it looked as if turning an evocative phrase was one of them. Calling herself a writer couldn’t make it so, any more than claiming to be a Martian would make that true.

For example, take the scene in front of her. A real writer would be able to describe it in such rich detail that her reader would feel the morning air, soft, still bearing the faint memory of the dawn coolness but growing heavy with the promise of heat. She would smell the clean fragrances of the woods, the lake, the wildflowers blooming in profusion in the tall grass, and she would hear the birdsong, the faint hum of insects and the gentle lapping of the water against the shore.

She, not being a real writer by anyone’s definition, would say the scene was rustic. Very country. More accurately, very un-citylike.

See? She couldn’t even decide for herself what it was.

Besides safe.

Buffalo Lake stretched out to the north and west, still and quiet in the morning. Trees lined the shore—blackjack oaks, cedars, an occasional maple and elm. A mimosa grew to one side, its leaves lacy, its blossoms about to burst into bloom.

The centerpieces of the scene were the cabins, one on each side of the narrow inlet and connected by an aging wooden footbridge. One cottage stood front and center, the other a hundred feet to the south and west. She ignored that one. It was empty, the real-estate agent had told her, and virtually identical to the one in front of her—the one that was going to be her home for the next however many days.

It had been used as a hunting cabin, the agent had told her on the drive out from Buffalo Plains the day before. Cassidy might not have the best imagination around, but she’d translated that into nothing fancy with her first look. Wide brown planks formed the siding, with a brown shingled roof. The window frames and door had once been painted turquoise, but had mercifully faded to a dull sky-bluish shade. There were two chairs on the deck that fronted the house—metal, with contoured seats and backs. At one time they had been a green as hideous as the turquoise, but years of relentless Oklahoma summers had left them dull and faded, too.

This was it. Home—for as long as she felt safe. In the past three years that feeling of safety had proved elusive at best, but maybe this time it would last a whole month. It would be a first, but if there was one thing she’d learned, there was a first time for everything. Love, loss, betrayal, deception, treachery…

The silence, heavy and complete, made her realize how long she’d been sitting in her car. With a fortifying breath, she pulled the keys from the ignition and climbed out.

In the thirty minutes since she’d left the motel in Buffalo Plains, the June heat had become a palpable thing. It created a sheen of perspiration across her forehead and down her arms, and made her clothes cling uncomfortably. She would pretend not to notice, she decided as she unlocked the trunk. She’d been pretending a long time. She was good at it.

Hands on her hips, she gazed into the trunk. Everything she owned was packed here. Her clothes. A laptop computer and printer. Linens and cookware. A few mementos. Every tiny thing that said Cassidy McRae existed, crammed into a space half the size of a small closet.

It was pitifully little.

She slung the laptop case over her shoulder, then hefted the largest of the suitcases before turning from the car. Immediately she froze and the suitcase slid from her fingers. When it landed on the uneven ground, it fell against her leg and leaned there.

A man stood at the near end of the footbridge, his gaze on her. His feet were bare. Heavens, most of his body was bare, except for a pair of faded cutoffs that rode low on his hips.

Mentally she clicked into author mode. The midday sun overhead gleamed on all that exposed skin, adding depth to the rich, warm brown and found highlights in the hair secured in a ponytail with a leather thong, despite the dull matte hue of the black. He looked hostile, she thought with a shiver of apprehension. Dangerous. Savage.

A hot blush that could compete with the blazing sun for intensity warmed her face at that last thought. She couldn’t say for certain, but thought it was probably politically incorrect to describe a Native American as savage, even if it was dead-on accurate. Those flinty black orbs devoid of emotion, that long, hard, lean, muscular body poised to attack, the complete and utter lack of emotion on his ruggedly handsome face….

She gave her head a shake to clear it. The physical description was accurate, if wordy, but the emotional part was way off. He didn’t look the least bit hostile, dangerous or savage. Truthfully he wasn’t so much standing there as lounging, not so much poised to attack as loose and relaxed, and his eyes, brown rather than black, showed a normal amount of friendly curiosity.

His gaze moved over her, shifted to the car, then back. Leaning against the railing with a confidence she wouldn’t display around the silvered wood, he folded his arms across his chest. “It’s a sure bet you’re not one of Junior’s kin,” he said in the accent she was quickly coming to associate with Oklahoma. There had been a time when she’d thought all Okies spoke like Reba McEntire, but two hours in the state had convinced her otherwise. It wasn’t really a drawl, not a twang, not as readily identifiable as a Southern accent or a New Englander’s. It was pleasant, she decided, sounding of the heartland, of cowboys, ranchers, farmers and good-natured, small-town folks.

“Who’s Junior, and how do you know I’m not related to him?”

“Junior Davison. He owns that cabin.” He nodded toward the house behind her. “And I know you’re not related because all the Davison kin have an unfortunate tendency toward red hair, freckles and fat.” His gaze skimmed over her again. “You don’t.”

No, her hair was blond—this week, at least—her skin was freckle-free and her metabolism made short work of the calories she took in. The rest of her life might have been shot to hell, but at least she had a few things to feel grateful for.

Having a neighbor wasn’t one of them.

She stooped to pick up the suitcase again. “No, I’m not related to Junior.”

She made it only a few feet before he spoke again, this time with a hint of a challenge. “Then who are you?”

It was a legitimate question, no matter that it made her stiffen. If the situation were reversed and a complete stranger was moving into the house next to hers, she would at least want to know his name. As remote as these cabins were, she would probably want to know a hell of a lot more than that about him.

Still, when she turned back to answer, it was grudgingly. “Cassidy McRae. I’m renting Junior’s place.” She paused, not wanting to give the impression that she was neighborly, but she was moving in next door to a complete stranger in a remote location. The least she needed to know was what to call her only neighbor for three miles. “Who are you?”

“Jace Barnett. I live there.” He gave a jerk of his head to the house behind him.

“Really. The real estate agent said that place was empty.”

“No matter how often she insists she knows everything, she doesn’t.”

So he was familiar with Paulette Fox. The woman had spoken with great authority on every subject that came to mind, as if every word had come straight to her ear from God’s mouth. Why, she’d lived her entire life in Buffalo Plains and Heartbreak, the wide spot in the road some twenty miles south, and there wasn’t a soul in the county or a thing going on that she wasn’t intimately familiar with.

Except for the rather major fact that the isolated, neighbor-free cabin she’d promised Cassidy was neither as isolated nor neighbor-free as she’d thought.

“Actually, to be fair to Paulette, I just moved out here a couple of months ago. I haven’t seen her since then.”

“Lucky me,” Cassidy murmured.

He pretended not to have heard. “Not that she wouldn’t have lied to you if it meant renting this place. No one’s stayed there in years—not since Junior’s kids put him in the nursing home.”

“Too bad for Junior.”

“Nah, he doesn’t know the difference. His mind’s gone. He doesn’t even know his kids when they come to visit—which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

He was probably right, especially when those same kids had seen fit to put their father in a home the minute he’d become trouble. She couldn’t imagine doing such a thing to one of her parents…if she had parents. At least, in the real world.

Shoving away the thought—the regret—she glanced at Jace. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got work to do.” When he showed no intention of returning to his side of the bridge, she deliberately went on. “That’s why I’m here. Not to relax or make small talk with the neighbors. To work.”

Her first lie of the day. There had been a time when the only lies she’d told were harmless little fibs. I love the gift… Yes, that dress looks wonderful on you… The cake was to die for… No, you don’t look like you’ve gained five pounds. Those days were long gone. Now the number of lies she told was limited only by her exposure to people to tell them to. Ask the same question ten times and she would give ten different answers. That was how she lived her life these days.

Correction—that was how she lived, period.

“What kind of work?” Friendly curiosity again.

It shouldn’t have annoyed her, but it did. She wasn’t the type to become chummy with someone just because they happened to live in the same building or on the same block. It had taken some time, but she’d learned not to become chummy with anyone. Leaving wasn’t such a big deal if there was no one special to leave behind.

“The kind that requires a great deal of privacy. Nice meeting you,” she said in a tone that made it clear she’d found it anything but nice. Then she turned toward the house as if she hadn’t just been rude to a friendly stranger. She didn’t look back as she let herself in, and didn’t peek out the window on her way to deposit the computer on the dining table and the suitcase in the bedroom. She did glance toward the bridge when she returned to the car for another load and saw that he’d gone, but not far. He was sitting on his deck in a metal chair that matched her own, a bottle of water in hand, and watching her. She pretended he wasn’t there.

It was harder than it sounded.

Within an hour she’d unloaded and unpacked everything. Cheap aluminum pots and pans, cheaper plastic-handled cutlery, an off-brand boom box with a box of CDs. White sheets and pillowcases, a yellow blanket and a blue print comforter. Clothes that came from Wal-Mart, Kmart and Target, shoes from Payless. Her days of upscale retail experiences were long over. She’d been a world-class shopper, and some days she missed it a lot.

Other days, when she got overwhelmed by the enormity of the life that had been taken from her—twice—she couldn’t care less about shopping.

With nothing left to do, she walked through the cottage, out of the bedroom, past the bathroom and into the living room/dining room/kitchen. “Well, there’s three seconds out of my day,” she said aloud. Only eighty-some thousand to go.

Finally she let herself wander to the window. There was no sign of Jace Barnett. Good. Life was safer without the complication of people.

And lonelier, her inner voice pointed out.

She turned away from the window and gazed around the room. Her monthly two hundred dollars’ rent included furnishings—sofa, chair, coffee and end tables, dining table with three chairs, bed and dresser. All of it was early-impoverished American, all of it ugly enough to make her wonder what in the world the people who’d created it had been thinking. It was a far cry from the leather, stone and luxurious fabrics of her old home, and for one instant it made her want to cry. It was so shabby. Her life was so shabby.

This wasn’t the future she’d envisioned for herself twelve years ago, or five, or even three. She’d intended to follow in the footsteps of every blessed female in her family for generations. She’d planned to be so middle-class, married-with-kids, minivan-PTA-soccer-church-on-Sunday average that she would bore to death anyone who wasn’t just like her.

Odd how easily a little curiosity, greed and bad luck had changed everything.

Her sigh sounded loud and lonesome in the big room, and galvanized her into action. She fixed herself a glass of instant iced tea, then sat at the dining table and opened the laptop. “I am a writer,” she announced as the machine booted up. “I am a writer.”

When she was a yoga instructor, she’d practiced affirmations daily, but it was easier to believe I can do this when “this” was nothing more complicated than the Salute to the Sun routine. Writing a book was a whole other business, and one she knew little about.

“Failure is just another chance to get it right,” she murmured as she clicked on the icon for her word processing program. She had a million such lines. Work is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration… Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right… You can’t win if you don’t play the game… Today is the first day of the rest of your life… If you can dream it, you can do it.

Not one of them helped her when faced with a blank screen. She thought maybe a candy bar would help, so she got up and rummaged through her purse until she found one. Music might help, too, so she detoured past the boom box and put in her favorite Eric Clapton CD. Finding the screen still blank, she decided a few games of Free Cell might get her creative juices flowing.

Two hours later, the screen bore a heading that read Chapter 1 and nothing else. Oh, she’d typed a few lines, then mercifully deleted them. After the third wipeout, her fingers seemed to pick out keys on their own.

I am a writer. I AM a writer. I am a WRITER.

“So write, damn it!” she muttered under her breath.

Frustrated, she pushed away from the table and went to stare out the window, refusing to let her gaze stray to the southwest. The bulk of the lake lay to the north, the rental agent had told her. This section was just God’s afterthought, so it had the peace and quiet Cassidy had told her she needed.

Except for Jace.

She wondered why nosy Paulette didn’t know he was living next door. Why would he want to live all the way out here? Of course, she’d passed houses along the dirt road on her drive out from Buffalo Plains that morning, but mostly they were ranch or farm houses. Naturally someone who earned his living off the land would live here, too.

But the lake was surrounded by thousands of acres of woods. No pasture for livestock, no fields for crops and, as far as she could tell, no other means of support. She would certainly never choose such a place if she had to drive into town to a job every day.

The idea of going to a job every day—the same job—made her melancholy. She’d done that for a lot of years and had never really appreciated it until she’d found herself working for a week here, ten days there—if she was lucky, three weeks someplace else. As soon as she’d learned a job and started to fit in, she’d had to move on. Finally she’d quit fitting in. This time she didn’t intend to even try. She would pass her time here at Buffalo Lake just as she’d passed it at a hundred other places and, when it was up, she would move on, just as she’d moved on from everywhere else.

Just once, though, she would like to settle down, to call the same place home next week and next month and next year. She would like to think in terms of forever instead of right now, to make friends, to have a life…but that was impossible. Like the shark, if she stopped moving, she would die.

But knowing that didn’t ease her longing. It made it a little more bearable, but nothing, she was afraid, would ease it.

Besides death.

Though Jace had gotten his first official job when he was fifteen, he’d been working years longer. His parents had believed that taking care of the house and the livestock was a family responsibility, so he’d started pitching in as soon as he was old enough. He’d worked his way through college, taken three days off after graduation to move to Kansas City, then gone straight to work for the department.

He liked not working for the first time in his life. Not having to get up at five-thirty to run before work, not spending more time at the shooting range each week than he did on dates, not dealing with lowlifes and lawyers, not carrying a gun with him everywhere he went. He liked not being a target for scorn and disdain, or for nutcases with weapons, and not spending more time frustrated than not.

He liked being a bum, sleeping until noon and not seeing a solitary soul unless he wanted. He’d told his parents, Reese and Neely so repeatedly. They didn’t believe him, but that didn’t make it any less true. They thought he was burned out. Brooding. Bored. In serious need of a badge and a gun.

Burned out? Maybe. Brooding? Nah, he’d gotten over what happened in Kansas City. Now he was just bitter. In need of another cop job? Never.

What about bored?

His gaze shifted to the window and the Davison place. Cassidy McRae had pulled up out front around ten-thirty. It was now six-fifteen, and he’d spent way too many of those hours watching the place, even though he hadn’t caught more than a glimpse of her passing a window. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have other things to do, like…clean house. Take Granddad’s old john boat out on the lake and catch some fish for his mother to fry. Drive into town and replenish his supply of frozen dinners. Mow the little patch of grass out front that he hadn’t yet managed to kill.

But why be productive when he could kick back on the couch and watch the neighbor’s place during commercials on TV? Being curious took little energy and less incentive and, as a bum, he considered the less energy and incentive expended, the better.

Besides, she was the first woman he’d really looked at since Amanda had moved out of his apartment and his life. She was the first woman he’d noticed as a woman, with all the possibilities and risks that entailed—the first who had reminded him of how long he’d been alone. Granted, he didn’t know anything about her—whether she was married, where she was from, what she did, whether she was aloof because she was shy or preoccupied or disagreeable by nature.

What he did know was minimal. That she drove a red Honda with Arizona tags and a heavy coat of dust—a two-door that blended in easily with thousands of other little red two-doors on the road. There were no bumper stickers, no college affiliations or radio station advertising on the windows, no American flag or novelty toy flying from the antenna, no air-freshening pine tree hanging from the inside mirror. It was about as unremarkable as a car could get.

He knew she was far from unremarkable. She was pretty, slender, five-eight, maybe five-nine, with short blond hair and pale golden skin. He hadn’t gotten close enough to identify the color of her eyes, but hoped they were brown. He’d always been a sucker for brown-eyed blondes, especially ones with long legs and full lips and an innocent sensuality about them.

He knew next to nothing, but affairs and relationships and almost-engagements had been built on nothing more. As long as she wasn’t married, a cop or too needy, he could enjoy having her next door. He didn’t lust after married people, he’d had enough of cops to last a lifetime and enough of people who needed something from him to last two lifetimes.

He couldn’t help but wonder, though, what had brought her to Buffalo Plains, and why she was staying all the way out here. She’d said she was here to work, but people didn’t come to Buffalo Plains to work. They came for reasons like Neely’s—hiding out from an ex-con who’d thought killing her was fair punishment for his going to prison. Or her sister, Hallie Marshall, escaping a life that had become unbearable. Or Hallie’s stepdaughter, Lexy, who’d run away from home to find the father she’d never known.

But to work? When any work she could do over there in Junior’s cabin could just as easily be done someplace else? Someplace better?

Maybe she was hiding, escaping or running away, too.

He wouldn’t even wonder from what.

He was debating between SpaghettiOs and a sandwich for supper when the sound of an engine drew his gaze to the window. Reese parked his truck under the big oak nearest the cabin, then he and Neely got out, each carrying a grocery bag. By the time they reached the deck, Jace was opening the screen door. He stood there, arms folded over his chest. “Hey, bubba. Don’t you know it’s rude to drop in on someone without calling first?”

“We tried to call,” Reese replied, “and all we got was voice mail. You have your cell phone shut off again, don’t you? And you don’t check your voice mail, so you leave us no choice but to drive all the way out here.”

In spite of his scowl, Jace wasn’t really pissed. Reese was his only close cousin, and they’d been raised more like brothers. They’d been buddies and partners in crime since they were in diapers. They’d gone to school together, kindergarten through twelfth grade, and attended the same university. When a shoulder injury had ended Reese’s pro baseball career, he’d gone into law enforcement in part because Jace was doing it.

Now Reese was the sheriff hereabouts…and Jace was a disgraced ex-cop.

Though he hadn’t invited them in, Neely nudged him aside and crossed the threshold. “We come bearing mail and food, and we’re staying for dinner.” Retrieving a rubber-banded packet of letters from the bag, she handed them over, then continued to the kitchen.

Stepping back so Reese could enter, too, Jace thumbed through the mail sent in care of his folks. Bills for the necessities of life—electric, gas, cell phone, car insurance. He didn’t have to pay rent because he and Reese had inherited this place when their grandfather died. He’d never relied on plastic much even in Kansas City, and had even less use for it holed up out here. His only other expenses were groceries and an occasional tank of gas, plus his one luxury—satellite TV. A man had to do something day after day.

Reese left the grocery sack in the kitchen, then helped himself to a beer from the refrigerator—fair enough, since he’d brought them the last time he’d visited. After brushing his hand against Neely’s shoulder, he returned to the living room and dropped into a chair. “What have you been up to?”

Jace shrugged. “The usual.”

“Exciting life,” Reese said, his tone as dry as the Sahara in summer.

“I’m not looking for excitement.” Truth was, he wasn’t looking for anything, and he wasn’t sure that would ever change. For as long as he could remember, all he’d ever wanted to be was a cop. Since he couldn’t be that anymore, he didn’t have a clue what he could be.

“You give any thought to coming to work for the sheriff’s department?”

“Nope.”

“You give any thought to anything?” Now there was an irritated edge to Reese’s voice that had appeared somewhere around the tenth or twentieth time they’d had this conversation. Reese thought Jace had had plenty of time to get his life back on track, and he wouldn’t accept that Jace’s only plans for the future dealt with sleeping, eating and fishing. He didn’t believe Jace could walk away from being a cop.

The hell of it was, Jace couldn’t even accuse him of not understanding, because Reese had been through it before. All he’d ever wanted to do was to play baseball, and he’d lived the dream—made it to the big leagues—then had it taken away from him.

But Reese had found something else he wanted—two other things, Jace amended with a glance at Neely. The only thing Jace wanted was for life to go back to the way it had been a year ago. And since he couldn’t turn back the clock…

“You looking for an answer that doesn’t suck or just ignoring me?” Reese asked.

“I think about a lot of things.” But being a cop again wasn’t one of them.

Reese watched him for a moment, his gaze narrowed, then apparently decided to drop the matter for the time being. “Whose red car is that out there?”

“Her name’s Cassidy McRae. She’s renting Junior’s cabin.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard about her from Paulette.”

“What did you hear?” Jace could find out anything he wanted to know about his neighbor with a little effort. But he knew from experience it was better to keep Reese’s mind on something other than him, or the conversation would inevitably drift back to old discussions they were both tired of having.

“Not much. She’s from Alabama, she’s a writer, and she’s working on a book. Wanted someplace quiet where she wouldn’t be bothered.”

Alabama, huh? That wasn’t a Southern accent he’d heard this morning. But living someplace at the present time didn’t mean she’d been born there. He’d lived nearly half his life in Kansas City even though he’d been born and raised right here in Canyon County. Most of the people he knew had gotten where they were from someplace else.

What kind of book was she writing and why had she come all the way to Oklahoma to do it? Surely she had an office at home where she wouldn’t be bothered. And why did she have Arizona tags on her car if she was from Alabama?

He let the aromas from the kitchen distract him for a moment. Tomatoes, onions, beef and cheese…his mother’s lasagna. For an Osage married to an Okie, Rozena made damn good lasagna. That for supper, along with leftovers for tomorrow, was worth putting up with Reese’s bitching.

“Want to eat inside or out?” Neely asked, standing in the kitchen doorway with plates and silverware. When both men shrugged, she made the decision by heading for the door. She returned for a clean sheet from the linen closet, disappeared again, then came back once more for a bowl of salad. “Why don’t you invite your neighbor over for dinner?”

Oh, yeah, that would go over well with Ms. I’m-not-here-to-make-small-talk-with-the-neighbors. Dinner with said neighbor, his cousin the sheriff, and his cousin-by-marriage, who would need only one look at her to start visions of matchmaking dancing through her head.

“She’s not particularly neighborly.”

“Oh, she’s probably just a little shy or busy getting settled in. But she has to eat, and we have plenty of wonderful food. Go on. You be neighborly. Show her how it’s done.” Then Neely gave him a suddenly sly look. “Unless there’s some reason you don’t want us to meet her. Is she pretty?”

Matchmaking, he reminded himself. She’d tried it a dozen or so times when they’d both lived in Kansas City, with often painful results. She nagged him as much as Reese did, just in a gentler fashion, about giving up the vegetating and getting back to living, and she thought a romance with a pretty woman the perfect solution to his problem.

So he lied. “She’s old enough to be our mother. This tall.” He held his hand about four feet above the floor. “Round. Wears thick-soled shoes and nerdy glasses. Not my type.”

Apparently she thought she’d been more subtle because the look she gave him was reproving and the words she said an outright lie. “I’m not trying to get you a date, Jace. I’m talking about inviting a woman who’s new in town to share the dinner your mother so generously made for us. Do you have a problem with that?”

Not trying to get me a date, my ass. She’d tried to set him up with the checker at the grocery store just last week. Two weeks before that, it had been her secretary’s visiting niece, and the month before that, it had been the new waitress at Shay Rafferty’s café in Heartbreak. Neely wanted to fix his life, whether he was willing or not.

Scowling, he rose from his chair. “Jeez, she bosses me around in my own house. All right, I’ll invite her to dinner, but she’s gonna say no.”

“But you’ll feel better for having made the effort,” Neely sweetly called after him.

After checking out McRae that morning, he had eventually put on a shirt, but he’d never made it to shoes. He winced as he stepped on a rock on her side of the bridge, then again when he walked onto the deck. Where his was sheltered by the cabin from midafternoon on, hers got full sunlight until dusk. The weathered boards were uncomfortably hot underfoot.

From across the inlet came the sound of his screen door banging—Neely making another delivery to the patio table—so he deliberately stood at an angle that would block her view of the door, then knocked. The Unplugged version of “Layla” was playing inside—the only sound at all until suddenly the door opened a few inches. Cassidy McRae looked none too happy to be disturbed.

He wouldn’t mind being disturbed a whole lot more.

She had changed from this morning’s jeans and T-shirt into shorts and a tank top in shades of blue. Her feet were in flip-flops edged with a row of gaudy blue flowers, and her toenails were painted purplish blue. She would have looked depressingly young if not for the glasses she wore. The blue metal frames added a few years to her baby-owl look and made her eyes look twice their size.

She pushed the glasses up with one fingertip. “Yes?”

Brown eyes, he noticed. Dark, chocolatey brown, staring at him with only a hint of impatience that made him remember his reason for bothering her. “My mother sent dinner—the best lasagna outside of Italy. Want to join us?”

“Who is ‘us’?”

“My cousin Reese and his wife Neely. He’s the sheriff here, and she’s a lawyer over in Buffalo Plains.” He wasn’t sure why he’d offered the extra info. To assure her that they were respectable, which might make him respectable by association?

She glanced in the direction of the kitchen. Looking over her shoulder, he saw the laptop open on the table, the word processing screen filled with text. Her book? He wondered what it was about, how she sat and pulled coherent thoughts and sentences from her brain and transferred them to the screen. He would rather face a short drunk with a bad attitude than sit at a computer all day trying to be creative.

“I’m working,” she said at last when she looked back. “I shouldn’t stop.”

There—that was easy. He could accept her reply and go home. Reese and Neely wouldn’t see her and find out he’d lied in his description. Neely wouldn’t get that evil gleam in her eye and, with her none the wiser, he would save himself a lot of future hassle.

But instead of saying goodbye and leaving, he shifted to lean against the jamb. “You have to eat.”

“I’ve got food.”

“Already cooked and ready to dish up? The best lasagna in the English-speaking world?”

For a moment her clear gaze remained fixed on him, as if she was wavering. Then she glanced at the computer again and went stiff all over. “I appreciate the invitation, but I can’t accept. I have to get back to work.”

Definitely no Southern accent. No accent at all, in fact. Had she consciously gotten rid of it, or had she lost it by living in a lot of places?

“Okay. It’s your loss. You won’t find such good company for…oh, a few miles, at least, the food can’t be beat, and there’s probably something incredible for dessert.”

“Sorry,” she murmured.

He was supposed to feel relieved. Neely and Reese would return home, none the wiser about his neighbor. He wouldn’t have to spend the evening hiding any hint that he thought she was gorgeous from prying eyes or have to deal with Neely’s inevitable attempts to get them together. He wouldn’t have to explain why he’d lied when describing her.

But mostly what he felt was disappointment. It was no great loss, no matter what he’d told Cassidy. Sitting across the table from a pretty woman would have been a nice change from the way he’d spent his last one hundred and eighty-plus evenings. Being tempted to spend his night differently would have been damn nice. But not tonight, apparently.

When he reached the bottom of the steps, he turned, walking backward for parting words. “If you change your mind, you know where to find us.”

She gave no response—no nod or murmured thanks or sorry. She simply stood there and watched.

He was on his own side of the bridge before she finally closed the door.