A Lot Like Home

by Kat Cantrell

  “I meant to tell you the other day. You look amazing.”

  Cassidy’s cheekbones had gained some definition, and sun streaks had lightened her long brown hair over the years. She’d always been pretty, but the teenager Havana remembered had grown into her looks.

  “Thanks.” Cassidy smiled, but her attention was clearly on the table where Caleb had apparently won the game of whatever they were playing, judging by the way he was crowing about it. “Can’t complain about the lack of excitement around here anymore, that’s for sure. That’s a boatload of gorgeous right there.”

  “If you like arrogant men who’ve never met a razor, sure,” she muttered.

  Cassidy glanced at her askance. “I was talking about the dark-haired one. Isaiah. I met him a few minutes ago when Serenity proudly presented all of them to those of us who hightailed it over here to get in on the action. He’s dreamy. Who were you talking about?”

  “Never mind.”

  Before she could change the subject to something that had absolutely nothing to do with the five strangers who had generated so much buzz, Aria sighed dramatically as she moved in on Havana’s other side, her hand on her chest as she too watched the card game in progress.

  “You can have the dark-haired one. I’ll take Tristan,” she announced as if they’d been doing a school yard pick, divvying up the former SEALs based on first come, first served.

  “Which one is he again?” Havana asked, struggling to remember the one who had introduced himself as such. That earned a scowl from Aria.

  “The tall blond. How do you not know that? Didn’t you take Caleb out to the springs yesterday?”

  “Oooh, you did?” Cassidy’s interest in the game vanished as she zeroed in on Havana’s face, clearly hoping for juicy gossip. Everyone knew you went to the springs with guys you liked. “Do tell.”

  Havana shook her head. Of course some blabbermouth had spread that news around, probably with far more editorial than was warranted. “Nothing to tell.”

  “Short answers means there’s plenty to tell,” Aria said wryly, her gaze back on the blond man sitting to Caleb’s right, who was laughing at something one of the others had said. “I thought you were unusually quiet last night when we were going to bed. I figured you were just tired. What did you guys talk about?”

  There was far too much suggestion in Aria’s voice for what had been an innocuous discussion about their hopes and dreams, the factors that had led them to this place and what the future held. Normal soul-bearing kind of stuff. It had been borderline intimate, which had ended abruptly when he threw a challenge in her face instead of continuing the truce she’d thought they’d fallen into.

  “In case you hens have forgotten, I’m engaged.” Why did she always have to remind everyone of that?

  “Easy to forget when he’s never around,” Aria countered with an exaggerated glance behind Havana. “For a couple who plans to spend the rest of their lives together, you seem to not want to actually be in the same room very often.”

  Ugh. Of course she should have brought Damian with her to the diner. Rookie mistake. She was so bad at being fake engaged. But he’d had some calls to make, and she hadn’t thought twice about waving goodbye when he dropped her off at the hotel to head back to La Grange.

  “We’re busy. Plenty of work to do on the resort. This is a not a vacation,” she explained hastily, and holy cow, could they change the subject already? With a hand to Cassidy’s arm, she asked brightly, “What are you doing these days?”

  “Teaching. Or I should say I’m hoping to. Tallhorse took me on as a kind of apprentice or intern, I guess. Next week, I’m supposed to do my first class by myself.” The other woman laughed self-consciously, her attention finally yanked away from the dark-haired boatload of dreamy at the table. “I’m more nervous than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be great.”

  Cassidy was the same age as Ember, and they’d been pretty fast friends. From what Havana remembered, Cassidy had been the calm, rational one of the duo. Of course, a lot could have changed in eight years.

  Caleb threw down a card, and half the people watching cheered what must have been a good play. He stuck both his index fingers in the air in an obnoxious show of victory. The other four men tossed their cards aside in apparent disgust.

  “I don’t know why I bother anymore,” the dark-haired one said good-naturedly. Isaiah, Cassidy had called him. “I can’t remember the last time I won.”

  Yes, he was kind of dreamy if you liked boyish charm and that type who never forgot his smile at home. He had extremely unusual eyes, one blue, one green, and that alone was enough to keep a woman’s attention for a while.

  “December. Two years ago. At the base.”

  That comment had come from the one sitting backward in a chair at the head of the table. He was blond too, but that’s where his similarities to Tristan ended. His hair was darker, and he wore it short. Tristan’s was pale, long, and pulled back at his crown, plus he had an angelic face that could have easily graced a magazine cover. The man set apart from the others had a hardness about him that said you didn’t want to get too close, and if you crossed him, look out.

  “Do you have to catalog everything, Stillwater?” Caleb said to him with a grin. “Maybe you could delete a few files up there in your brain.”

  “Why?” he asked in perfect seriousness. “I have unlimited storage.”

  “What’s that one’s name?” Havana asked Aria out of the corner of her mouth. Clearly she needed to get a handle on her adversaries because she didn’t for a moment believe that Caleb wouldn’t call on his friends to help him blow her shopping center plans into oblivion.

  “Hudson. Like the river,” her sister murmured back. “The other one is Rowe. Caleb’s brother.”

  Oh, yes, the one she’d registered had the same last name. She’d scarcely even noticed him sitting there on the other side of Caleb. He hadn’t said a word the entire time they’d been playing cards, and he kind of blended into the background since his nondescript brown shirt was the same color as the vinyl stretched across the back of the booth.

  Funny how she’d thought to herself that Caleb was the one who might blend into his surroundings given the right circumstances, but his brother was the one who had accomplished it.

  “Since they’re done with the show, how about a cheeseburger,” Havana suggested to Aria, hoping she’d morph back into a waitress before Serenity’s pen pals generated a new wave of excitement. “I’m starving.”

  Aria started like she’d forgotten she worked here. “Sure, right away.”

  When Aria broke away from the group, Caleb glanced up to catch Havana watching him, pulling her into a staring contest. What, did he think he intimidated her? Boldly she kept her gaze on him, eyebrows slightly cocked in feigned amusement.

  “You always win card games?” she couldn’t help but call out to him. “How much do you cheat?”

  “He doesn’t cheat,” Rowe Hardy said immediately, his quiet brown eyes lifting to meet hers. “He keeps track of the cards better because he’s smarter than everyone else.”

  Caleb shrugged that off with a lopsided smile for Rowe. “I count cards. So what? Useless skill unless you gamble, and I don’t.”

  Which said a lot about his character, and she wished she didn’t appreciate that about him so much. Or that his brother had been the first to defend him against a false accusation. They were clearly close, unlike Havana and her sisters, which made her throat tight for more than one reason. They also had the same eyes, but where Rowe’s were soft and unremarkable, Caleb’s snappy almond-colored irises had haunted her dreams last night. Against her will, no less.

  She didn’t want to dream about him, and she definitely didn’t want to admire a single thing about him. Especially not the fact that he’d figured out how to maintain a relationship with his brother into adulthood, likely because he hadn’t run off at the first opportunity.

 
Serenity had been chatting with a small knot of women, but she chose that moment to saunter over, joining the fascinated group of onlookers that hadn’t quite dissipated after the card game ended.

  “Did you have a nice day, Havana?” she asked politely with less warmth in her voice than a subzero freezer.

  Their relationship was still strained. Had been since about forty-five seconds after Havana had explained that the few dilapidated buildings along J Street, named for Mavis who lived above Voodoo Grocery, would be taken down to pave the way for the shopping center.

  Actually, the strain had always been there flitting around them. She and Serenity had never quite meshed, largely owing to completely different life philosophies. Havana had embraced the responsibilities thrust on her at ten. Serenity had done her best but had seemed baffled by her three new charges, often sticking her head in the sand when things got too complicated. Force wasn’t even Serenity’s real last name. She’d borrowed it from Star Wars, a constant reminder that they might be related by blood but not much else.

  “It was fine.” Which wasn’t even a lie. Any day she got one step closer to her shopping center project was a good day. She just needed to take about ten more steps, or the resort would be in jeopardy and then the shopping center wouldn’t even be on the table. “Did you think more about the cash offer Damian made for the hotel? It’s more than fair, but I think there’s some wiggle—”

  “She’s not selling,” Caleb cut in flatly, because of course he was listening in and assumed he was invited to participate in the conversation. “Your money is no good here.”

  A couple of the onlookers chuckled out loud, which put a twinge in her stomach. Lennie Ford, the owner of the antique store next to Ruby’s, had hung around to listen, and the longer the conversation went on, the more his mouth downturned. Not good. He’d been on the fence about selling to Damian’s investors despite Serenity’s hatchet job to Havana’s pitch, and she’d honestly thought he might be skewing toward a yes. Or at least he had been until Caleb Hardy showed up.

  Honestly, that man could sell ice to Santa Claus with his almond-colored eyes and smooth voice that slithered through a girl’s senses whether she wanted it to or not. Fine. Since she’d stumbled thus far in her persuasion techniques, she could take a few tips from Mr. Hardy.

  It was time for her to get down to the business of beating the former SEAL at his own game.

  Nine

  “Maybe you could butt out of things that are none of your business,” she suggested sweetly to Caleb and deliberately turned her back on him. “Lennie, wouldn’t you like to reopen your antique store in a premier shopping center with guaranteed traffic?”

  How he stayed in business, she’d never know. She was offering him a lifeline in the form of cold, hard cash. The mystery was why he wasn’t jumping at it. That’s where she had to focus, on his hesitations.

  Lennie, who might be part giant, crossed his heavily tattooed arms over an enormous barrel chest and stared down at her. “Fancy customers aren’t my gig.”

  “But they could be,” she said smoothly despite the live thing in her stomach that had grown from a twinge to something much sharper. Channel Caleb. Nothing fazed him, and he had this charisma about him that you couldn’t ignore, even when you tried really hard. “Everyone loves antique shopping, and they’ll like that you have such an… eclectic array of goods.”

  In addition to antiques, Lennie sold his artwork. He’d long given up his former trade as a tattoo artist, but he still liked to draw with colored pencils and displayed his masterpieces proudly on the walls of his shop. The pinup girls and horned demons that he favored weren’t her cup of tea, but she couldn’t deny he had talent.

  Except all of that meant he wasn’t a regular antiques dealer. Or even much of a run-of-the-mill shopkeeper. He cared about Mavis J, whom he was in a relationship with, and telling stories about the old days, in that order.

  “I don’t know,” he muttered. “Would I be able to keep providing services to folks?”

  The antique shop also served as Superstition Springs’ local video rental swap and occasionally a barber shop when Mavis J had a slow day. She was the only one in town who had skills with scissors, and Lennie didn’t mind hair on the 1940s barstools that lined the original mahogany bar that had come with the building.

  When Havana had been a teenager, Lennie had served homemade cookies on that bar to all the schoolkids once Tallhorse had finally freed them for the day. She could still feel the empty air between her feet and the floor as she perched on one of the barstools and swung her legs.

  Where had that memory come from? She hadn’t thought about Lennie’s butterscotch cookies in ages, but when he’d crossed his arms, the shield with the phrase Born To Kill inked above his wrist was right in her line of sight, as it had been a decade ago. Seeing it brought back the sweet scent of cookies hot and fresh from the oven and along with it, the realization that she’d always associated antique stores with butterscotch.

  But they didn’t all smell that way. In fact, none of them did except Lennie’s. His store was special.

  She swallowed. Did the kids still come by for cookies? They wouldn’t if he moved into a shopping center. Because there would be no place for him to live above the shop and thus no oven available upstairs. And there would be no kids, most likely, if everyone moved on to bigger and better things.

  Well, he could still sell his drawings. That wouldn’t have to change.

  “Sure,” she told him. “Of course you can still give out videos and whatnot. You can run your store however you see fit. And the increased traffic alone will go a long way toward affording the rent.”

  “Rent?” His expression darkened. “You never said anything about rent. I own my shop now.”

  Where was Aria with that cheeseburger? A nice interruption wouldn’t be out of line. But when she glanced behind her, all she saw was the tight-jawed faces of Serenity, Mavis J, and several other townspeople who were blatantly eavesdropping. As were Caleb and his four friends.

  “Well, didn’t I?” she asked brightly, knowing full well she hadn’t, but come on. He was nearly sixty years old and had owned a tattoo place in Austin. Surely he knew how the world worked. “Oversight. But of course you’d pay rent. The structure would be owned by Scott Co., Damian’s investment company. The money you’d get from the sale of your shop will help go toward your new expenses.”

  Mavis J, who had apparently closed up the grocery store in time to join Havana’s worst nightmare, sidled up to stand near Lennie. He pulled her into a half embrace, cradling her against his side. They’d been a couple for something like twenty-five years, but they’d never married and didn’t live together. Plus Mavis J was half Lennie’s size, which always made for an interesting visual. Yet another oddity of Superstition Springs that she didn’t get and had no idea how to leverage.

  Apparently Caleb’s slick-talking ways encompassed more than just an ability to screw a woman’s head on sideways. There was an art to this kind of persuasion that Havana lacked.

  Aria saved her by bustling through the crowd with Havana’s plate held high. She plunked the cheeseburger and side of fries down on the SEALs’ table, directly in front of where Havana was currently standing. But as she moved to pick it up, grateful to have an excuse to flee, Isaiah bulleted out of the booth.

  “Please, sit down,” he insisted, waving at his newly vacated patch of vinyl in the booth. The one next to Caleb.

  She swallowed again. How could she graciously refuse? She couldn’t, not with Lennie and Mavis J glaring at her and Serenity standing there with her jaw clenched tight enough to sever nails. Havana needed all the points she could get, and fleeing would only leave everyone with a bad taste in their mouths over the concept of rent. Honestly. That was the thing that had them tripped up?

  She sat down.

  Caleb’s warmth immediately bled through the scant few inches between them, winnowing into her pores, heating them with the raw sense of awarenes
s. His thigh was right there, next to hers. Probably less than six inches. In the Yukon, they’d been separated by the center console and the curved sides of his bucket seats.

  There was nothing between them now but spiky sexual tension.

  “Maybe you could see your way to giving local residents a discount on rent,” Caleb suggested right as she took a bite of the mouthwatering cheeseburger.

  Lennie and Mavis J perked up, their attentions riveted on Caleb. The cheeseburger turned to ash in her mouth. Somehow she swallowed it, scrambling for words. “I don’t know if I can—”

  “Scott’s your fiancé,” Caleb reminded her, stressing the word fiancé in a high voice as if he was mimicking her for all the times she’d tossed that out. “Don’t you have influence with him?”

  “Of course I do.”

  She didn’t. Not the way he’d made it sound, like she had Damian wrapped around her finger. She’d never had a relationship like that, where a man did things for her for no other reason than because.

  All at once, she recalled Caleb’s definition of a real man—one who spent one hundred percent of his time making sure you never looked at another guy twice. If Caleb was the man in question, that was a given regardless. She could barely peel her gaze from him at this moment, and they weren’t even an item.

  So his brand of warfare was chemical. Or more to the point, chemistry. Obviously he knew how to use his appeal to get women to fall all over him. She wasn’t impressed.

  “Could you find out?” Mavis J asked point-blank. “We need to understand everything you’re trying to get us to agree to, Havana. That’s good business.”

  Well, duh. Of course. If anyone had given her the slightest indication that they were interested, she’d have started talking contracts immediately. “Everyone has to sell. Or there won’t be anything to agree to. Serenity, are you open to talking about it?”

  She shook her head. “I like the ideas that Caleb came up with. I think that we should try that before we take a bulldozer to historic buildings that can’t be unleveled.”