“So that it’ll be more difficult for me to run away when you bring out your collection of shrunken human heads?”
“Now you’re catching on.” He pulled a second chair closer to her. “Prop your foot on this and ice your ankle for no more than fifteen minutes. Then we can reassess and see how bad it looks before you attempt to drive.”
She stared at the chair. “I don’t think all of this is necessary.”
Cal sighed. She was one of those patients. “It is if you want to avoid doing further damage to the ligaments in your ankle. At the risk of repeating myself, you need RICE – although in this case, not the kind you eat. It’s an acronym for rest, ice, compression and elevation. Unfortunately I don’t have any compression bandages on hand, but I can – and have – offered you the other three. Use them. I’ll go get you a towel,” he said, walking past her toward the laundry room.
He was greeted with ecstatic joy when he opened the door.
“Yeah, yeah. Hi. Shit, don’t start yipping,” he muttered when the dog started to do just that. Briefly closing his eyes in a bid for patience, Cal leaned down and opened the door to the crate. Approximately ten pounds of brown and white fluff came barreling out, tail wagging so hard that his whole rear end followed it, making it nearly impossible for the animal to walk in a straight line. Cal sighed.
And then he gave in to the inevitable, bending down to allow his face to be bathed in canine kisses.
“Okay, that’s enough. I’ll come back and get you later,” he said quietly. “Just go back into the crate for a little while.”
The brown eyes that had previously been so full of adoration looked at him as if he… well, as if he kicked puppies.
“Look, it’s nothing personal. I just don’t feel like explaining you. And you’ve already proven yourself not to be trustworthy when I leave you to your own devices.”
Cal raised his brows and pointed to the remains of his sneakers, which he’d discovered in a mangled heap at the end of his bed earlier that morning. It had been his first unpleasant surprise of the day.
The dog glanced at the reminder of his misdeed and then quickly looked away.
“Yeah, you should be embarrassed.”
But it got him back into the crate, and Callum closed the door but didn’t latch it. He pulled a towel out of the dryer, since he hadn’t gotten around to unloading them earlier. He’d been distracted by yet another unpleasant surprise, the one which had sent him traipsing around his property with a shotgun.
Cal’s mouth set into a grim line when he considered those No Trespassing signs that Ainsley mentioned. Except that people walking along the path by the creek weren’t the problem.
It was those who ventured across the creek and into his yard that concerned him. Although he didn’t really think that any signs were going to dissuade the kind of individuals that were prone to that sort of thing.
Cal shook off that thought. Since the T-shirt he wore under his flannel was dry enough, he shrugged out of the shirt and tossed it onto the washer. Then with one last warning glance toward the crate, he headed back to the kitchen.
He froze in the doorway. Rather than icing her ankle like a reasonable human being, Ainsley was standing on one foot, examining the back of the open pantry door. He couldn’t say he was surprised. He knew that the main reason she’d come back here with him wasn’t that she was infirm and needed his assistance, but rather that her curiosity outweighed her caution. He didn’t recall all of the details, but he knew that there’d been some sort of falling out between the Tidwell siblings – Ainsley’s father and her aunt – after Carly Paulson’s death. The circumstances behind which had been grist for the town gossip mill for months afterward, reaching him even though his family had relocated to Atlanta by that time. Then the grandmother died not long after and this place had been sold to the couple from which Cal bought it.
He wondered what it must be like for her, being back in her grandmother’s house after so many years.
“If you’re looking for biscotti or something to go with your coffee, I’m afraid this isn’t that high class of an establishment.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “I’m assuming that was a joke, although it’s kind of difficult to tell when you’re joking because you don’t seem to actually smile. And I know I’m being unpardonably rude by opening your pantry, but…” she shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “This was where my grandma always measured our heights – mine and my cousins’ – each time I’d visit. I wanted to see if the chart was still here.”
“It is.”
“I’m surprised neither you nor the previous owners painted over it. In fact,” she glanced around the kitchen, which resembled a relic from the nineteen-fifties. “The house looks much the same. Just… older. It’s a bit disconcerting considering I’d been mentally preparing myself for everything I remembered to be gone, or at least altered beyond recognition.”
“The previous owners didn’t do shit as far as I could tell, except live here. You wouldn’t believe what this place looked like when I bought it. Anyway, I plan on stripping the paint from all of the doors because they’re solid walnut underneath, but I haven’t gotten around to taking them off yet. There’s a lot of stuff I haven’t gotten around to yet. The outbuildings were my first priority.”
“I noticed that the detached garage is twice the size it was before.”
“My work space. Here.” He crossed the room and handed her the towel. “I can get you a dry shirt if you want one.”
“I’ll be fine. Thank you. What sort of work is it that you… oh, hell.”
She’d made the mistake of putting pressure on her bad ankle, and Cal grabbed her before she could fall.
She landed against him, her palms resting flat against his chest. The towel fell to the floor. They both froze for just a moment, and then Ainsley laughed with what he somehow knew was uncharacteristic discomfort. She seemed to be the type who was always sure of herself, her actions. He flattered himself to think it was solely her proximity to his person that was making her shaky, but suspected it had more to do with finding herself in familiar surroundings with an unfamiliar man.
He steadied her, and she glanced up at him. Without the boots – which she had, at least, removed – the top of her head skimmed the bottom of his chin.
Her eyelashes – why the hell was he noticing her eyelashes?
Maybe because they were black and longer than he’d ever seen on a human, even after she’d wiped off the makeup that smeared when she’d fallen into the creek.
They stared at each other for several moments, only their mingled breath disturbing the silence, until Cal began to think that maybe it wasn’t just her surroundings that were getting to her. His gaze drifted down to her mouth, and he had an overwhelming – and overwhelmingly stupid – urge to kiss her.
And then he heard a cacophony of nails skittering across the wood floor.
“Oh,” Ainsley said, removing her gaze from his face and directing it toward the Hairball of Doom. “Oh my God. Is that a Cavalier King Charles spaniel? She’s adorable.”
“He,” Callum corrected, bending down to scoop up the dog with one arm before he could jump on Ainsley and knock her over. Although why he bothered with the correction, he didn’t know. It would probably be less humiliating for all of them if she assumed the animal in the stupid little sweater and hair bows was indeed a female. Having a female dog that one dressed like that was bad enough. Having a male and subjecting him to that sort of ridiculousness was almost unforgivable.
“What’s his name?”
“Cujo.”
She glanced at him sideways.
“Okay, it’s… Beaumont.” Cal felt actual pain upon the admission. His mom couldn’t have picked a more pretentious sounding name if she’d tried. The dog tried to leap from his arms into Ainsley’s, and she laughed and reclaimed her seat. “May I hold him?”
“Only if you put your ankle up.”
She shot him another look, but
did as he suggested, and Cal placed Beau in her lap. “Behave,” he murmured in his sternest voice, although he doubted the dog understood the word. He didn’t seem to understand anything that didn’t involve treats or walks or asking him who was a handsome boy. How Cal had allowed himself to be talked into dog-sitting for two weeks, he honestly had no idea.
But when he saw Ainsley’s smile, heard her laugh as Beaumont showered her with doggy affection, he found himself smiling, too. The dog was a pain in the ass, but he was kind of hard to resist.
Cal had a similar thought about the woman.
Because he did, he bent down to pick up the towel from the floor and laid it on the table. “Don’t let him near that or he’ll chew it to pieces,” he instructed. “How do you take your coffee?”
“What? Oh, black.”
Cal lofted an eyebrow.
“Is that a problem?”
“Of course not. I don’t mean to stereotype, but you strike me as more of the pumpkin spice latte type.”
Her expression turned droll. “And me without my yoga pants.”
Cal’s hand froze on the handle of the coffee pot, his mind conjuring images of her ass in yoga pants.
Definitely grabbable.
“I learned my first year of law school,” she said, causing the delightful mental image to vanish like a mirage “that cream and sugar may taste good, but they also speed up the inevitable crash. And then you have to drink even more coffee, thus perpetuating a vicious cycle.”
“So you’re a lawyer,” he said as he placed her mug in front of her.
Apparently he hadn’t disguised his distaste very well, because she pursed her lips. “Criminal defense. My shirt hides my dorsal fin.”
It certainly wasn’t hiding much else.
Ainsley’s hands stilled on Beau’s long, silky ears and she shot him a disgusted look. Cal realized that he’d given voice to his thoughts. It was probably time to get his mind out of the gutter, or else she really would think he was a deviant.
“Sorry.” But the apology was half-hearted at best. Cal took the seat across from her, and sipped his own coffee. “Of course, if I were a total asshole, I wouldn’t have offered you a towel.”
She shook her head and then availed herself of said towel, draping it over her shoulders. Beau had already settled onto her lap and closed his eyes, and Ainsley divided a pointed look between the two.
“Either you use him as chick bait or he belongs to your girlfriend.”
“How do you know I’m not gay?”
She stared at him a moment, and then shook her head. “You’re not gay. No self-respecting gay man would have threadbare towels that don’t appear to coordinate with the décor. Not to mention that you’ve already commented on my boobs on two separate occasions.”
“Well, if God didn’t mean for men – straight men, that is – to notice them, he wouldn’t have put them right there on the front of the female chest. And I’m not the kind of man who uses an animal to meet women.”
“Your girlfriend’s, then.”
“If you want to know if I’m available, you should just ask. But no, Beaumont belongs to my mother. I somehow allowed her to talk me into watching him for two weeks while she and her husband take a cruise around the Caribbean to see if she can shake a lingering cold. Because that’s the kind of reasoning on which my mother operates. And furthermore, kennels – or so I’ve been told – are sterile, heartless places filled with bigger dogs simply waiting to consume their smaller companions as an afternoon snack.”
She laughed, and Cal felt his blood stir again. So he took another sip of coffee. But when she glanced up from stroking the dog’s head, that blank look was back in her eyes. It seemed clear that something was troubling her.
“Where is who?”
She blinked, and shifted her gaze toward him. “I’m sorry?”
“When I first came upon you at the stream, you said something along the lines of where are you. I wondered who it was you were missing.”
Just then there was a knock on the kitchen door, which startled Beau into a round of frantic barking.
“Hush,” Cal ordered. He glanced at the shotgun he’d left propped against the counter, but figured that anyone who was here with a questionable purpose probably wouldn’t bother to knock. “Excuse me,” he said to Ainsley as he pushed back from the table.
The old lace curtains he hadn’t yet removed from the windows obscured his view, so he pushed aside the one covering the door.
Both eyebrows shot up when he recognized his visitor.
Cal pulled opened the door. “That was quick,” he said to Ben Paulson. “The grapevine must function a lot more efficiently than I thought.”
Paulson frowned. “You were expecting me?”
“Not really. And certainly not yet.”
“What…” but then he looked over Cal’s shoulder, his eyes going wide. “Ainsley? What the hell are you doing here?”
“Hi Ben,” she said from where she stood awkwardly on one foot beside the chair, having sat Beau on the seat.
Cal wasn’t sure why she sounded defiant, and was equally unsure that he liked the hostility in the sheriff’s tone.
“What’s going on here?” he addressed Paulson, not quite ready to move aside to invite him in.
The other man’s eyebrows snapped together. “That’s what I’d like to know.”
CHAPTER SIX
TALK about your awkward homecomings.
Or not a homecoming, precisely, but at least a family reunion on a very limited scale. That she was standing in her grandma’s kitchen with Ben seemed perfectly normal. That they were scowling at each other, par for the course. That they were doing so in front of a strange man who now owned the kitchen was uncomfortable, to say the least.
“I asked what you were doing here.” Ben strained the words between his teeth.
“You expected me to sit home and wait for you to dole out the occasional drop of information whenever it suited you? You know me better than that. Or on second thought, maybe you don’t, considering I haven’t seen you in years.”
“Don’t even try to play the injured party, Ainsley. I didn’t force you to stay away. Although you picked a hell of a time to return, I’ll give you that. And a hell of an interesting choice of people to visit.” He narrowed his gaze in Callum’s direction.
Cal didn’t straighten away from the counter against which he’d been leaning, but Ainsley got the impression that his casual stance was deceptive. Ben was the one who was outwardly angry, and the one armed with a gun that was almost certainly loaded, but something told her that it was the other man who bore watching.
“Are you implying something, Paulson?”
“No, I’m coming right out and saying it. First, you start messing around with my sister and then you go missing right about the same time she does, and then when you finally decide to show yourself I find you here with my cousin. So I want to know where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing.”
“What?” Ainsley said at the same time Cal did straighten away from the counter, his expression clouded when he said: “Sabrina is missing?”
“You’ve been dating Bree?” Ainsley demanded, feeling a little sick. Had she just been sitting here sharing coffee – and mild flirtation – with the man who may have had something to do with her cousin’s disappearance?
Something wet nudged her hand, and she automatically stroked the dog’s soft fur, seeking comfort.
“Yes,” Ben said and Cal sighed and said “No,” but his attention was on Ben. “Missing for how long? Are you sure she didn’t just…” he made a gesture with his hand “flit off like she does?”
“Flit off? Are you saying she’s irresponsible?”
“No, I’m saying she has a history of going where she wants, when she wants, without answering to anyone else. I had a very pointed discussion with her about it, and she acknowledged that I was right. It’s not like it’s some big secret.” He raised his eyebrows. “Everybody i
n town knows what she’s like.”
“You sonofabitch,” Ben said in a low, dangerous tone. And then he lunged.
“Stop. Stop that!” Ainsley cried out, grabbing the dog before he could jump down and join the melee. “Ben. Callum. Oh!” Ainsley jumped back just in time to avoid being hit by a chair that came flying her direction when the two morons in front of her bumped into the table. They were jockeying for position, Ben trying to land a solid punch and – unless she was mistaken – Cal trying to prevent him from landing one, but not really throwing any of his own. They were similar in size – both tall and broad-shouldered, and she knew that Ben at least had had formal training – but again she got the impression that it was Callum Elias who was the threat. Not because he appeared vicious, but rather because he seemed to be restraining himself. As if he was afraid of what might happen if he allowed himself to fight back. Granted, Ben was an officer of the law and assaulting one was a bad idea, but then Ben had thrown the first punch. The only punch, come to think of it. Cal hadn’t allowed him to get another shot in.
Another chair crashed to the ground, causing the dog to whimper in fright. “That’s it,” Ainsley said, setting the animal on the counter as she limped around the grappling men toward the sink. She dumped out the rest of the coffee Cal had brewed and then filled the pot with icy water.
Which she promptly dumped over both of their fool heads.
“Now that I have your attention,” she said when they sprang apart, panting and blinking water from their eyes. “You,” she pointed the empty pot at her cousin “should be ashamed of yourself. That’s hardly the way to conduct any sort of professional interview, whether the subject in question is in fact messing around with your sister or not.”
“Not,” said Cal, and she pointed the pot in his direction.
“And you,” she said, “obviously have some explaining to do. I wouldn’t blame you for invoking your Fifth Amendment rights at this point and calling an attorney to start filing a lawsuit against my idiot cousin for police brutality. However, I hope you will accept that there are extenuating emotional circumstances which in all likelihood precipitated his actions.”
The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set Page 33