by Susan Crosby
Her words slammed into him. “We still need to find Eva. Track down the birth certificate.”
“That’s the job you hired me to do. I don’t have to live here to do my job. You needed help with Danny. You will have help from your parents.”
He didn’t have an argument for that—not one he could say out loud, anyway, without scaring her off. He met her serious gaze for several long seconds. “Stay,” he said finally. “Please.”
“You only have one guest room set up.”
“They can have my room. I’ll sleep on the couch in my office.”
“Why would you do that?”
Because life is better when you’re around. “Because my mother will take over, otherwise.”
“You mean, she won’t if I’m here because she might think she’s invading my turf?”
“Exactly.”
“But I’m not. She can see I’m not. We don’t sleep together.”
“She wouldn’t know that. She would think we’re being considerate.”
He heard his parents approaching. Danny was fussing but not crying. His mother always had a magic touch with babies.
“Bottle, please.” Crystal held out her hand.
“I have a feeling I’m never going to hold my son again,” Heath said as he passed her the bottle.
“Of course you will. When I’m gone.” She smiled sweetly.
Cassie lifted her brows as if to say, “See? You don’t need me.”
“You must be exhausted,” Cassie said to his parents. “I’ll get my stuff and take off.”
“Oh, no. We wouldn’t hear of it,” his father said.
“It’s fine, really. Heath, would you join me upstairs for a minute, please?”
He went with her to the guest room as his parents continued to argue against her leaving.
“Do you have another set of sheets for the bed?” Cassie asked.
“I have no idea.”
“You have no idea?”
“People come. They stay. They go. I strip the bed and wash the sheets and put them back on.”
“Do you have a linen closet?”
They found another set of sheets and changed the linens, plus the bathroom towels. Cassie packed up, then set her belongings by the bedroom door.
They’d barely spoken.
“We’ll stay in touch,” she said.
“I can’t believe you’re leaving me here to eat cardboard.”
She laughed. “I’m sure it’s not that bad. Anyway, there’s plenty of food in the refrigerator that will satisfy the carnivore in you.”
“She will have already thrown it out. She’ll want me to do a purging, too.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t want to know.” He was playing it up because it was making her laugh.
“You’ll survive,” she said.
“Will you stop by now and then?”
“Sure. Keep me up-to-date on everything you hear from your lawyer, okay?”
“I will.”
She turned away. He reached for her hand, stopping her. “Thank you for everything, especially getting me out of the house tonight.”
“You’re welcome.”
He tried to see below the surface. She had a slight smile on her mouth, but not in her eyes. He lifted his other hand to cup her cheek. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t lean into him, either. “You sleep with the light on.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
She would’ve gone headstrong into the yard, barefoot and in pajamas, with a gun in her hand, but she had to have a light on when she slept? Her complexity intrigued him. “Stay,” he repeated.
“I can’t.”
“You don’t want to get to know my parents?”
He’d hit a nerve. Her eyes flickered with something. What? And why?
“I’m sure your parents are wonderful. It’s obvious you don’t just tolerate them.”
Yes, he loved them, but they couldn’t have picked a worse time for a surprise visit. He and Cassie were just getting to know each other.
“At least stay until morning. It’s too late to be driving now.”
“I pull all-night surveillances, Heath. This is no big deal.”
“Cassie.” He brushed his thumb along her cheek, then lifted his other hand to frame her face.
“Earthie,” she responded.
He figured she was putting distance between them. They’d talked around their feelings before, both of them afraid to move too fast. He wasn’t going to let her take too many steps away from what they’d begun. “Is Cassie short for Cassandra?”
“No.”
“Short for anything?”
“I think ‘any’ or ‘thing’ would be short for anything.”
He smiled. She clasped his wrists but didn’t make him take his hands away from her face. She looked worried, though. Or scared. Of him? Of her feelings?
“We’ve been up here a long time. Your parents—”
He stopped her words with a kiss, more than a brush of lips, less than a merging. Her fingers tightened on his wrists, then drifted down to his waist. He tipped her head back a little, changed the angle of the kiss, took it deeper. Her lips parted on a sigh. Her arms wound around him. She pulled herself closer, aligning their hips. He moved her against the wall and pressed into her. Her breath caught, then she moaned. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, her warm, wet, welcoming mouth, and she lifted her body into his. He lost all sense of time. He only knew he wished he had forever.
She broke away, pressed her face into his shoulder. He gathered her close, felt her shake, heard her breathing slow. He waited for her to say something about it being a mistake, that they had said they would wait until everything was resolved before they saw where the relationship might go. He wasn’t sorry. Nor did he want her to have regrets.
“Okay,” she said at last. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?” The kiss was just okay? Everything was okay?
She stepped away and picked up her overnight case, garment bag and briefcase.
“Okay, what?” he repeated.
“Now we know.”
“Know what?”
“What’s between us.”
“You had doubts?” He’d been sure of his attraction. He thought she’d been, too.
“There’s a difference between anticipation and actuality.”
“So, the actuality matched the anticipation?”
“Surpassed it.”
“And that scares you, Cassie? Worries you?”
She nodded.
“Because?”
“Earthie!” His mother’s voice broke the tension, puncturing the cloud of privacy they’d made.
“I have to go,” Cassie said, walking away at her usual fast clip.
“We’ll talk about this.”
She looked over her shoulder at him but didn’t respond.
He didn’t follow her to her car, but veered into the nursery, where his father was rocking a sleeping Danny while his mother rearranged the stacks of tiny clothing in a nearby dresser.
“Cassie said goodbye,” he said, stepping into the room. Goodbye.
Cassie made an effort not to speed through the streets of Sausalito, forcing herself to pay attention to the road. Still her thoughts darted back to Heath and the kiss. She had learned as a child to compartmentalize her emotions, and in her career she hadn’t been put in any dangerous situations yet that would test her ability to control her feelings. Risky, yes, but nothing life-threatening. Still she’d kept her head just fine—until now.
She’d known Heath was going to kiss her and had let him, even though she knew she shouldn’t. What did that say about her? How could he break through years of self-discipline, and even more years of presenting an unemotional front, when she’d known him only four days?
She could’ve stopped him with a word. Instead she welcomed him, encouraged him, and even sought more.
&nbs
p; Why?
Even if she knew why, did she want to acknowledge it? She was scared—and a little desperate. Scared, she could live with. Scared, she understood. But, desperate? She couldn’t remember feeling desperate before. She’d learned early to have a plan and follow it, which tended to eliminate the possibility of desperation.
But she hadn’t counted on Heath. Or Danny.
She’d already laid claim to both of them. Foolish thing to do. Incredibly foolish thing to do. She should know better.
Cassie knew what would happen next. Heath’s parents would stay long enough that everything with Danny would be settled—custody, a nanny, even Heath’s comfort level as a new parent. He would be driving again, taking Danny places. His world would expand—without her.
Cassie wouldn’t be necessary any longer. Once again, not necessary to anyone.
She paid the toll on the Golden Gate then headed for home. After a few minutes she punched the speed dial for Jamey on her cell phone.
“I know it’s late—okay, really late—but could I come over?” she said when he answered.
“Sure. What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you.”
Jamey lived less than a mile from Cassie, but while she rented a studio apartment, he’d bought a house for the first time in his life, having given up a twenty-year career as a bounty hunter to finally settle down.
“You look like you just lost your best friend,” he said to her when he invited her inside.
Okay, so maybe she wasn’t so good at keeping her feelings compartmentalized, after all—or at keeping her expression composed.
“Beer?” he asked when she said nothing.
“Thanks.”
“Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”
She sat on the sofa, leaving the overstuffed chair for Jamey, but after a few seconds she pushed herself off the couch and paced the length of the room. Jamey passed her a bottle. She didn’t sit down. He did. Then he waited.
“I’m not being objective,” she said at last.
“About?”
“Heath.”
“Ah.”
She shared what happened—except for the kiss.
“Why did you leave?” he asked.
“Because he didn’t need me there.”
“Sounds like he did. He asked you to stay.”
Cassie finally sat down. She took a long sip then leaned back, forcing her muscles to relax. “I don’t want to get to know his parents.”
“Why?”
“It just pulls me closer and closer, and…” She shrugged.
“It makes for another opportunity to get hurt.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. And Eva could come back, changing everything, as well.
“Too many people have come and gone in your life already. Too few have stayed.”
She nodded. It was a painful admission. She had a hard time keeping people in her life, because she always tried to beat them to the punch and leave first.
“And your biological clock is ticking.”
“That clock has been striking midnight since I was about thirteen years old.”
“Is that part of the allure of Heath, do you think? He comes with a ready-made family?”
“Probably. But not completely. When he kissed—” She stopped.
“Ah.”
“I thought I might not see him again,” she muttered.
He laughed. “You don’t do excuses well, Cass. A spade’s a spade with you. Don’t start now.”
“Okay.” She scraped the label on her bottle with her fingernail, avoiding Jamey’s gaze. “He appeals to me. But you know what it’s like being a P.I. It seems like an exotic job, so getting dates is easy. Building a relationship is hard.”
“Can’t blame it all on the profession, although I agree with you for the most part. Anyone who doesn’t do nine-to-five has a tough time being a partner. But some of your problem in relationships has to do with your past. Your abandonment issues, if you want to get psychological about it, and your fear of caring too much, because it means you would have more to lose.”
“I know. But knowing it doesn’t seem to fix it. I have a social life. I have friends.”
“And people are fascinated by what you do. At parties you’re expected to entertain with tales of your derring-do.”
“The problem is, we can’t talk about our derring-do,” she said.
“Right. Being a P.I. opens some doors, because people are fascinated, but closes others, for whatever reasons. We never know who to trust, do we, never know whether someone is interested in us or our jobs. I’ve been burned, too.”
“But you have stories to tell from your past, Jamey. Scars. I was a paper pusher until I came to work at ARC. A researcher.”
“And it’s easy to be objective when you’re dealing with facts. But this time you’re dealing with a man and a baby. Give yourself a break, Cass. Relax. Do your job and see what happens from there.”
She knew he was right, but it didn’t stop her from wishing she hadn’t left Heath’s house, even as she also knew she’d done the right thing, professionally, by leaving. “This is too much for my puny mind. Talk to me about something else.”
“My child turns eighteen this month.”
She met his gaze. “You’re getting anxious.”
He nodded.
Cassie raised her bottle to him. “To the possibilities.”
“The possibilities.”
She stayed a little longer then made her way home. The daisies she’d bought on Friday brought a smile as she put away her clothes. She opened the sleeper sofa, straightened the bedding, then stacked pillows so that she could watch television for a few minutes in bed. Too late for Letterman, she settled on headline news. She picked up a piece of wood from her end table, a carved turtle, and ran her fingers over the surface. It wasn’t smooth and polished, but primitive—and yet exquisite. At least to her.
She tucked it under her chin and pictured her grandfather sitting on the front stoop of his run-down old house, carving the turtle with the knife he sharpened with a whetstone. She could still hear the raspy sound of the blade across the stone. She could see him test the blade against his thumb, smell the scent of the wood as he whittled and carved, all the while talking to her about his past, the lessons learned, her mother.
Cassie had a box of small wooden carvings, her grandfather’s and hers. Pieces of her past, her way of staying sane and keeping memories alive when there was no one else to share that part of her life with. No blood relative that she knew of. No best friend for life because she’d moved so much.
She wanted a family. She wanted ties that bound. Because of that she knew she was vulnerable to Heath and Danny in a way she never had been before.
Now she just had to figure out what to do about it.
Ten
Heath walked to the top of the driveway and eyed the long, bumpy road, now cleared of brush. Danny slept in his arms, having fallen asleep during their fifteen-minute walk around the property. Four men with chainsaws had spent the better part of the day getting rid of the overgrowth and hauling it away. The silence now soothed Heath, especially since his talkative mother was gone, too.
Which sounded harsh, he realized, when he’d actually enjoyed her more this time than ever before. He’d appreciated her spirit, her zest for life, her dive-right-in attitude. And his father had spoken up more. He and Heath had taken walks around the property, identifying what should be trimmed. He’d forgotten how much his father knew about such things.
But now Heath was waiting for Cassie. Although she’d come twice to visit during the week his parents had been there, he hadn’t spoken to her alone, although he’d tried and she’d resisted, kindly but firmly. He’d started to push her a little until he saw something in her eyes that made him stop. She seemed nervous—or scared, he wasn’t sure which.
So he made up reasons to call her at work, and she kept each conversation short and businesslike, except for a softenin
g in her voice when she asked about Danny. And while she’d been sociable to his parents, she’d been aloof, too.
Or maybe just self-protective.
A complicated woman, Cassie Miranda. He’d caught her once—just once—watching him with what could only be called lust in her eyes. He’d just made a wish and blown out his birthday candles at an impromptu fortieth birthday party his parents put together. He’d looked at her, the object of his wish, and she’d looked back, as if his parents weren’t there. As if they were a normal man and woman with normal attraction. Dream on.
He’d called her as soon as his parents announced they were leaving, hoping he wouldn’t have to go over her head again to get her to return to…him. The job. But she’d said she would be back after work that evening, with no hesitation at all.
Heath turned to go back into his house when he heard a car heading up the driveway. Cassie. Adrenaline rushed through him, jump-starting his heart, his lungs, his muscles, and everything else that mattered.
Danny stirred as Heath went to meet her at the car.
“You got your forest tamed,” she said, after reaching for her briefcase.
She smelled good. Not like perfume but something totally unique. Maybe just her shampoo. Whatever it was, he wished he could wallow in it. “It’s just the beginning,” he said calmly, as if he didn’t want to sweep her into his arms and kiss the daylights out of her. “The crew will be back later to finish the rest of the property.”
“That’s great. How’s my Danny Boy?” she asked, bending over him and giving him a kiss. He turned his head toward her. Heath almost did the same.
“He survived his first week of Grammy Crystal.”
Cassie grinned. “And you?”
“I need meat.”
“Groceries are in the trunk.”
He passed Danny to her, not trying to avoid touching her as he had in the past. He wanted to touch. Needed to. She kept her focus on the baby, not giving Heath a hint about her feelings, but he didn’t believe it was just a job to her anymore.
As he got the food and her belongings out of the car he watched her walk toward the house, her face close to Danny’s as she whispered to him. They met up in the kitchen, where he set down her suitcase and garment bag so that he could put away the groceries.