After she showered and dressed, she went to the porch to examine it in the daylight. The sun was just streaking over the horizon, turning the sky fuchsia, orange and gold. It was in her eyes until she opened the sliding glass door and stepped onto the porch. There, to her surprise, Nash was already working. He had lugged the tree limb into the yard. He’d also stacked loose limbs and slight branches in a pile. Her backyard was cleaned up.
“I’ll have to comp you another night,” she said.
“Don’t you dare.” He shook his finger at her. “I needed physical labor since I can’t work out like I usually do.”
“At a gym?” she asked.
“I just do weights at my place. It’s faster and easier. In my line of work, I don’t punch a clock. I might be at my office overnight. That’s a cop’s life.”
She supposed it was. “I bet your mother worries about you constantly.”
“Not so much since I moved to Mississippi and have been investigating white-collar crimes. She tells me she sleeps much better at night.” He shrugged. “Do you have a saw?” he asked.
“I do.” She pointed to the rear of the yard. “See that shed? It has a padlock. The combination is eight-two-three, right, left, right.”
“By the time I finish cutting up these limbs, it should be time for breakfast.”
“Omelets this morning. What’s your passion?” As soon as she said it, she knew she shouldn’t have.
“I’ll tell you about my passion another time when we’re alone. As for omelets, I like peppers, onions and hot sauce.”
“Coming right up,” she said with a laugh. “If you can eat that first thing in the morning, you can eat anything anytime.”
He wiggled his brows at her. “Including chocolate-covered strawberries at sunset.”
Was he hinting that that was something they could do together? She could imagine the chocolate, the sweetness of the strawberries, feeding them to each other. Then she could imagine kissing Nash.
To avoid those thoughts, she said, “The hardware store opens at nine. Do you want to go this morning?”
“Meet you at nine if all your guests have finished with breakfast by then.”
Her guests had finished by nine and she’d cleaned up. Including Nash, she had four guests right now—a couple and a young woman from Tennessee who was visiting relatives. She was hoping that by summer, reservations would pick up and all of her rooms would be filled.
Cassie was getting used to riding with Nash now in his SUV. She climbed in and fastened her seat belt. After he was inside, too, and had started the engine, she pointed to the GPS. “Does that really get you where you want to go?”
“Most of the time,” he said with a smile. “Why? Doesn’t your car have one?”
“No, I have an older car. People I run into and the parents of the kids I teach tell me I should have one. But I don’t travel that much so it seems like an expense I don’t need.”
“That depends on how good you are at reading paper maps or downloading directions from the internet.”
“I suppose if I ever take a long trip I’d think about it.”
The hardware store was less than a mile away and they were there and parked in no time. Cassie led Nash inside. She waved to Phil Lebeau, who was the owner. Phil was stocking shelves with faucets and fixtures, so she didn’t bother him.
Nash led her to the back of the store, where he found the wood he needed for the frame. Then he pulled out a roll of screening.
“I can carry that,” she said.
“Why don’t you take the wood strips. They’re lighter.”
She frowned at him. “I’m stronger than I look.”
He laughed. “Next time I’ll let you carry whatever’s heaviest.”
Next time. She liked the idea of having a next time with Nash, but she knew she shouldn’t get too attached to the thought.
“Do you have a good hammer?” he asked her.
“I do, and a set of screwdrivers and wrenches. I’m well prepared.”
He dipped his Stetson to her. “I should have known.”
After they had pieces of wood cut and brought everything up to the cash register, Phil came over to check them out.
After Cassie made introductions, Phil asked, “So you’re not helping her paint more rooms odd colors of paint?”
“What do you mean odd?” Cassie asked with a smile.
“Lime green and that coral color aren’t my cup of tea,” Phil grumbled.
“Have you ever seen the house?” Nash asked.
Phil shook his head. “Never have.”
“I don’t know how, but it all works. Her colors, furnishings and that mural all just tie in well together.”
“I suppose so or she wouldn’t have any repeat business.” Phil narrowed his eyes at Cassie. “You’ve never brought a beau along with you before.” He gave her a wink.
“He’s just a guest at the bed-and-breakfast,” she explained once more.
“A guest is going to help you make repairs?”
In a confidential tone Nash said to Phil, “She’s comping me a couple of nights.”
“Oh, I see,” Phil said with a knowing smile, and Cassie knew she turned a bright shade of pink.
Nash hooked his arm around her shoulders. “Cassie tells me she’s good with a hammer. I might let her help me.”
Phil laughed and bagged the smaller items they’d bought. “That house needed mostly cosmetic changes, and Cassie did them all herself. I’ve got to give her credit for that, no matter what color paint she used.”
After they checked out and were in the car once more, Nash turned to Cassie. “Why haven’t you ever taken a beau into the hardware store?”
“I didn’t do that this time,” she retorted.
“I think since we’ve kissed, I could be considered your beau. And we did have lunch together. That could have been considered a date.”
“What did you consider it?” she asked softly.
“I consider our kisses very hot, and indicative of further exploration.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “That didn’t answer my question.”
“And you didn’t answer mine.”
“I did answer you before. I told you I’m too busy to even think about a relationship.”
She could see Nash wasn’t buying that, and she didn’t want to lie. “All right,” she said. “I had a relationship a few years ago, but it ended badly. I haven’t wanted to take a chance since then.”
“Did you break it off or did he?”
She was about to tell him that was a very personal question when she remembered what he’d told her about his family. “He broke it off,” she said, still feeling humiliated by the idea and why it had happened. As soon as she’d told Cody her mother was in prison, he’d turned tail and run.
“He was a fool,” Nash said.
Cassie appreciated the compliment but Nash didn’t really know her. If he really knew her, he’d leave before his time at the B&B was up. She was sure of it.
* * *
Back at the B&B, Cassie helped Nash carry everything inside and out to the porch. Her guests were out and about, so noise wouldn’t bother them.
Nash said, “I want to lay the boards out and mark them before I start. I had the pieces of wood cut according to the sizes I needed, but if for some reason we got it wrong, I want to know now.”
Cassie could see Nash was as precise about this as he was with everything else. Cut-and-dried, black-and-white, practical and precise. He was a cop, after all.
Nash had been working about an hour and she’d been doing laundry, when the phone rang. Hurrying to the kitchen she picked up the cordless phone there. Caller ID said the call was from out of area. She often got calls like that for reservations.
“Hello,” she said cheerfully. “This is t
he Bluebonnet Bed-and-Breakfast. May I help you?”
“I hope you can. My name is Marybeth Tremont. My son isn’t answering his cell phone and he gave me this number in case I couldn’t contact him on the cell.”
Cassie introduced herself, then assured the woman. “Nash is doing repair work for me, so he might have his phone turned off.”
“Repair work? Did you have some of those storms that came up through Texas to Oklahoma last night?”
“We did. A large tree limb crashed through the screen on my porch.”
“Oh my,” Marybeth said. “We had a bit of hail but I didn’t have any damage, thank goodness.” She seemed to hesitate a moment before she asked, “So Nash is doing the repair work for you?”
“Your son is a man of many talents. But then, a police detective has to be, I suppose.”
“So he told you about that, did he?”
“He did.” Cassie wasn’t going to go into exactly what Nash had told her because she wasn’t sure how much his mother knew.
“His work comes before everything,” Marybeth said with a sigh. “I certainly wish he could come home more. I miss him. I miss the days when he’d talk my ear off about sports and school and anything else that came into his head. He got quieter as he got older.”
“Maybe that had something to do with his work, too,” Cassie suggested.
“You’re probably right.” The woman hesitated a moment, then said, “I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Would you give Nash the message to call me?”
For some reason Cassie had the feeling that Nash’s mother was really missing him right now. “No need for that. I’ll get him. Just hang on.”
Cassie took the cordless phone out to the porch, where Nash was unrolling the screen. “It’s your mom.”
With an arched brow, Nash took the phone. Cassie left him alone on the porch so he’d have some privacy. She was in the kitchen about ten minutes later when he brought the phone back inside.
“I did have my cell turned off,” he said. “I didn’t want an interruption while I was hammering and measuring.”
Cassie wasn’t sure how to broach the subject she wanted to discuss, so she started with an easy comment. “Your mother sounds very nice.”
“Oh, she is. I’ve always told her she should have been a Southern belle. She always tries to be so tactful. Midwesterners are blunter.”
Cassie laughed. “I think that has more to do with personality than the part of the country where you were born.”
“Maybe so. Did she talk your ear off?”
“No, of course not. But I do think she misses you. Maybe you could take time to go home and visit her.”
He was already shaking his head. “You don’t understand my life. Work comes first.”
Before Cassie could stifle the words, she said, “Work will always be there, but you won’t have your mother forever.”
Nash didn’t respond to that, but his lips tightened and his jaw became a little firmer. “I just have to fit the screen and put the panel in place. I should be done in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“You can just leave the tools and remnants on the porch. I’ll clean up after you’re finished.”
“I finish what I start,” Nash said, then headed for the porch.
Cassie considered their conversation as she went into the laundry room. She was folding sheets when Nash came by and stood in the doorway.
He asked, “Need help with that?”
She just gave a little shrug. He must have taken that for assent because he took hold of the two ends of the queen-size sheet and brought it up to meet hers. Their hands brushed. Cassie’s gaze went to his, then she quickly looked away, folding the sheet again and again. She laid it in the wash basket.
“I thought about what you said,” Nash told her, “and you’re right. I should get home to visit Mom more.”
He had her attention now.
“But there’s a reason I left Oklahoma and there’s a reason why I don’t go back and visit more.”
“And that is?” she prompted. She couldn’t expect him to answer her, but she thought she’d try anyway. He took a few steps toward her.
“I grew up in a small town where everybody knows everybody.”
“So did I,” she admitted.
“So you understand how everyone knows everybody’s business. If something happens in a family, it’s like an announcement goes out to the whole town. If it’s not in the small newspaper, it’s on people’s lips when they meet at the coffee shop or see each other at the family restaurant.”
She wished she could take Nash’s arm or his hand or give him a hug because he looked as if this was very hard for him to say.
He continued with, “People heard my mom had had an affair with a married man, an outsider. Those who knew her realized she did it for love. But others who didn’t know her as well figured she was out to get something that she couldn’t get in other ways.”
“You mean they thought she was looking for a sugar daddy?”
“Yes. Exactly. Which wasn’t the case. So I heard rumors when I was growing up. My mom told me the truth when I was six or seven, and she told it in stages. I probably became a cop because there was some authority in that, a don’t-you-mess-with-me message.”
Because everyone is at least a little afraid of law enforcement? Cassie wondered. She knew how afraid of law enforcement she’d been when they’d come to collect her mother.
“I had a girlfriend on and off during high school,” Nash went on. “She didn’t seem to care what anybody else thought of me. I liked that about her.”
“I imagine she was pretty, too.”
Nash sighed and answered, “Yes, she was. After high school, we kind of went our separate ways. I went to the police academy and she went off to college. She was earning a business degree so she could be her dad’s office manager. He ran a carpet and tile home improvement store.”
“And because it was a small town, you knew when she returned.”
“I did. But we didn’t reconnect again until a couple of years later. Her father was mugged on the way to the bank to make a deposit. I was sent to the scene.”
“So you reconnected.”
He nodded, but his lips tightened. A moment later he admitted, “We did. I went to work finding the kid who did it, and together we helped her dad overcome the effects of the mugging. I celebrated with her and her family the night the perp was caught. Right after that, she and I started dating again. When I turned twenty-six, we’d been dating for two years, and I had made assumptions during those two years. I expected we’d get engaged, be married and have a family. Something about turning twenty-six just clicked with me. I wanted something solid, not like what my mother had had. I had a job, though the hours could be crazy. I also had money in the bank from overtime and from security work.”
“You were ready,” Cassie acknowledged, thinking Nash must have always been mature for his age.
“I was ready and I thought she was, too. I bought a ring. When I gave it to her, I didn’t see the happiness on her face that I expected to see.”
From the lines etching deeper around Nash’s eyes and mouth, Cassie could see the emotional toll his story was taking on him. But this time she didn’t say anything, she just waited.
“The bottom line was that Sara didn’t want to marry a cop. She didn’t want to worry every time I left for a shift. She didn’t want to settle down with me and not have a real life because of my crazy hours. It turns out during those hours, she was dating someone else in nearby Norman. He was a college professor.”
“Oh, Nash, I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head and waved his hand as if he didn’t want her sympathy or pity. “I was a fool. I was blind. I hadn’t read any of the signs. Because of that, I knew I wasn’t husband material and realized I had to up my profe
ssional game. I decided to change my life. I moved to Mississippi and became an investigator for white-collar crimes.”
“And you don’t go back to Oklahoma because the memories are just too painful.”
“And I don’t want to go backward. I want to move forward.”
“But aren’t you going backward investigating your biological dad and his wife?”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Then how do you see it?”
“I see it as trying to right a wrong. If Charlotte did what I think she did, she deserves jail time.”
“What if your biological father was involved?”
“Then he does, too.”
Cassie was dubious and shook her head. “I still think you’ll regret it.”
“I’ll find out, won’t I?”
Somehow she and Nash had stepped closer to each other. She caught the scent of his aftershave, sweat, the essence of everything male.
Nash gazed steadily at Cassie. “This conversation got way too serious,” he decided. “I think we both need fun in our lives.”
“And how do you suppose we find that fun?”
“I’ve been searching sites in Austin and I found what looks to be a great zoo. I think we should go.”
That wasn’t at all what Cassie had suspected he’d suggest, but maybe it was a good idea. “Tomorrow?” she asked.
“You’re on.”
* * *
When Cassie and Nash emerged from the zoo office and headed for the timber-lined gravel path, she told him, “This zoo is one of Austin’s best-kept secrets. Wait until you see the tigers’ play area.”
“Play area?”
“Yep. You know how household cats have those condos and cat trees that go to the ceiling?”
“I’m not real familiar with the concept,” Nash said with a grin.
“Maybe I could explain it better if I told you that it’s like a kid’s jungle gym. The tiger can go from one level to the other and play or sun himself. In fact, do you mind if we head toward the wolves, and bears, and tigers and lions?”
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