As Jace disappeared inside his cabin, she turned away to the cabinet where she stored the canned and boxed food, taking down a package of pasta and jars of artichoke hearts, olives and pimientos. She didn’t even know where David was, she’d told Jace the night before, but that wasn’t true. She hadn’t spoken to him for six years, and the last time they’d talked had ended in a terrible argument, but she knew right down to the street and number where he was living. She knew the phone number, too, though she’d never dialed it.
Some days she wanted to so desperately she could hardly stand it. But she did stand it. She held off, stayed strong and made it past one more temptation.
But it got harder every time.
The pasta was cooking on the stove, the artichokes and pimientos waiting in a bowl, the olives draining in a colander and awaiting chopping, when a knock sounded at the door. Jace, she thought, her pulse quickening. She popped an olive into her mouth, wiped her hands on a towel and headed for the door. On the way, she closed the file she’d been working on, hesitated at the sight of her honeymoon picture, then shut down the computer.
She expected her neighbor to greet her with a fish or, at least, an invitation to a fish luncheon. Instead, she found his cousin and another woman on the deck.
“Hi, Cassidy.” Neely Barnett gave her an easy smile. “I hope we’re not interrupting your work.”
“Uh, no, I was just…fixing lunch.”
“Good. We came to see if we could entice you into coming to an organizational luncheon for the Founder’s Day barbecue. It’s at Olivia Harris’s house, and it would be a perfect opportunity for you to meet most of the younger women in Heartbreak.”
The blond woman beside Neely made a face. “Don’t be fooled,” she warned good-naturedly. “Bribing you with great company and better food is Neely’s way of persuading you to volunteer for an hour or three or five Saturday. She’s in charge of finding enough volunteers and she’s running short this year.”
Neely elbowed her. “Hush, Hallie, she’s not supposed to know that until it’s too late to say no. By the way, this is my sister, Hallie Marshall. She lives in Buffalo Plains with her husband, Brady, and my two gorgeous nieces. Hallie, Cassidy McRae, novelist and friend of Jace.”
Interesting introduction, Cassidy thought. Though novelist was supposed to be the part that impressed, she suspected friend of Jace carried more weight with the blonde. As she murmured something appropriate, she tried to think of a way to politely turn down both the invitation and the unasked request for her time Saturday. Going to the celebration was one thing. Having to deal with the people there was another entirely.
But it was hard to turn down the offer of pleasant company, especially friendly women. She’d had girlfriends before things got shot to hell, close friends with whom she’d shared practically every intimate detail of her life until six years ago. She missed the companionship, the closeness, the laughter, the having-someone-to-turn-to. She couldn’t replace those things with Neely Barnett, Hallie or their friends—couldn’t let them into her life for their safety or her own sanity—but oh, she was tempted, and after a day spent so far remembering better times, she was weak.
“You really don’t have to volunteer,” Neely said. “We’d love to have you come with us anyway. The meeting part will be over in no time and then it’s just a big, friendly ladies-only party.”
How close could she get to a group of women in only a few hours? How much danger could she put them in, when she’d been relatively safe herself for the past eleven months?
“Let me put a few things away,” she said at last, stepping back so they could come inside. While they waited in the living room, she drained the pasta, dumped it and the olives into the big bowl and snapped a lid on it, then put it in the refrigerator. She took a few minutes more to change into navy shorts and a red-and-white top, to touch up her makeup and run a brush through her hair, then returned to the living room.
After locking up, she followed the two women to the car parked beside hers—a sleek little convertible with the top down. So much for the brush through her hair.
“Hey, Jace,” Neely called, drawing Cassidy’s attention to the cabin she’d been deliberately ignoring.
“Hey, Jace,” Hallie added as she slid behind the steering wheel.
He was sitting on the deck, his chair shaded by the overhang of the roof, his feet propped up on another chair. “Neely. Hallie.” He waited a moment before adding, “Cassidy.”
Her smile of acknowledgment felt more like a grimace.
“Where are you guys off to?”
“The Harrises’ house. We’re having a Founder’s Day committee meeting,” Neely replied, stepping easily into the back seat. “Hey, call your mother. She’s wondering about you.”
He raised a hand, but said nothing else. Instead he watched as Cassidy slid into the passenger seat and buckled her seat belt. She felt his gaze, narrow and intense, until they rounded the first curve. Why intense? she wondered. Because he believed/suspected/knew she’d lied to him? And why that definite pause before speaking to her, as if…as if he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge her but felt he’d had no choice?
With some effort, she put him out of her mind and focused instead on the two sisters. Conversation was difficult with the wind rushing around them, snatching away every other word, but she’d learned one thing by the time they’d parked behind a row of cars at the Harris house. She could like Neely and Hallie…a lot. More than was safe. She should keep her distance, should come up with some excuse to return to the cabin right away and refuse any further contact with them.
Unfortunately, doing what she should didn’t always come easily to her. For months at a time, she did exactly that, no matter how hard, but then the time came when she had to do something to satisfy the emptiness inside her or go nuts. This, apparently, was one of those times.
The Harris house was like countless others she’d seen in her travels—average size, two stories, white with dark green trim, a porch stretching across the front with rockers and a swing for enjoying cool evenings. It sat in the center of a large yard with trees for climbing for the tomboy daughter and plenty of shaded grass for being prissy for her twin, and the usual outbuildings in the back. A half dozen horses were lazing near the barn, but there was no sight of the cattle Guthrie Harris raised.
Cassidy trailed up the steps behind Neely and Hallie, breathing deeply of the warm, flower-scented air. It was a perfect day for being lazy, warm enough to sap a person’s energy but not so warm that resting in a shady spot with a bit of a breeze was uncomfortable. That was exactly what Emma Harris was doing. Wearing a chambray sundress, with her long hair pulled back in a French braid, she sat primly on the porch swing, a book open in her lap and a well-loved doll beside her.
“Hey, Miss Neely, Miss Hallie,” she greeted in her little-girl-soft voice.
“Hey, Miss Emma,” Hallie responded. “What are you doing out here?”
“There’s too much noise inside and all the babies are asleep, so I come out here to read.” Emma glanced curiously at Cassidy before turning back to Hallie to hopefully ask, “Did you bring Brynn?”
“No, hon, she stayed home with her daddy and Lexy. Sweetie, say hello to Cassidy.”
“Hey, Miss Cassidy.”
“Hi, Emma. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” the girl said, sounding for all the world as if she were forty-eight instead of closer to eight. “You’d better go on in or the food’ll all be gone. Daddy says no one can cook like these women, which is a good thing because no one can eat like ’em, either.”
“See you, Emma,” Neely called as she reached for the doorknob.
Just as she touched it, the door flew open and Emma’s twin screeched to a surprised stop. “Hey! What’re you doin’ standin’ out here? The food and the air conditionin’ are inside.”
This time Neely performed the introductions. Instead of a prim, Hey, Miss Cassidy, Elly Harris strode forward and stuck ou
t her hand. “Howdy. Pleased to meetcha, ma’am,” she said in a bad movie cowboy parody, even going so far as to tip her cowboy hat before plopping beside Emma on the swing.
“Pleased to meet you, too, partner,” Cassidy said.
It was a curious experience, seeing the two of them side-by-side, so very much alike and yet so very different. They had the same bodies, the same faces, but where Emma’s pale brown hair was elegantly braided, Elly’s was cut short and stuck out from under her cowboy hat as if she’d grabbed the business end of a cattle prod. Where Emma’s sundress was neat and unwrinkled, Elly’s purple denim shorts and lime-green T-shirt looked as if she’d dug them from the bottom of the laundry basket and clashed almost painfully with her yellow socks and red tennis shoes. The tan hat was the only thing that didn’t make Cassidy’s eyes hurt to look at it.
They were adorable, and the sight of them together stirred a longing deep inside that Cassidy hadn’t let herself feel in more months than she could remember. She was grateful when Neely led the way inside the house and the closed door blocked her view of them. She could come here, she counseled herself as she followed Neely and Hallie into the living room. She could spend time with these people and treasure every moment of it. She could envy their normal lives, their husbands, their friends and especially their children.
And then she could go back to her own life, because she couldn’t be a part of theirs. She couldn’t be their friend, couldn’t pretend for even an instant that she was like them in any way. She couldn’t have what they had.
No matter how desperately she wanted it.
Chapter 6
Around noon Monday, Jace picked up the phone to call the registrar’s office at the University of California at Los Angeles. He didn’t get past the area code before disconnecting. He made it as far as looking up the number for the Kansas City FBI office, but stopped there. He already knew honesty wasn’t Cassidy’s strong suit. Did he really need proof?
Besides, what would knowing accomplish? Finding out that she’d never graduated from UCLA wouldn’t tell him why she’d lied about it. Ditto for finding out that she didn’t live in Lemon Grove. As for the details of her husband’s death…okay, so he was curious, but he didn’t need to know the facts. Deep inside, he didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to be touched even peripherally by the effects of violent crime. Didn’t want to feel obligated to somehow help her, to make things right for her. Yeah, it sounded selfish as hell, but hey, he could be selfish. He wasn’t a public servant anymore. He could stand by and do nothing, and not be responsible.
Besides, the whole process of checking out her story smacked entirely too much of an investigation, and he was out of that. He fully intended to stay out of that, so much so that he’d rather have suspicions about her than proof.
Though, for a man who’d spent his entire adult life seeking out proof, settling for suspicions was a difficult thing.
On Tuesday he took half a dozen frozen perch to his mother, deflected her questions about his new neighbor and returned home with two brown paper bags filled with frozen casseroles.
On Wednesday he went to Tulsa, for no reason other than to get away from the cabin. He ate lunch, saw a movie and passed an hour or two in a bookstore before returning home.
On Thursday he took the john boat to the northernmost point on the lake where his uncle Ronald lived, borrowed his Jet Ski and spent the next few hours with the wind in his hair, working muscles he hadn’t used in too long, pretending to enjoy the laziness of the day.
On Friday he did nothing.
Unless watching Cassidy’s cabin counted.
And on Saturday he talked himself out of taking off for Tulsa again. In the past six days he’d caught only glimpses of Cassidy, and he was fine with that. He didn’t miss her at all. Didn’t consider crossing the bridge and knocking at her door just to see her up close, to hear her voice, to smell her subtle fragrance. He didn’t even think about her…much. She wasn’t the least bit important, which made it all right, therefore, to spend more time with her.
When he pulled into the clearing in front of her cabin shortly after ten o’clock, the passenger-side door of her car stood open and she was on her way down the steps with a plastic-wrapped plate in both hands. She stopped abruptly, pink tinting her cheeks as a guilty look spread across her face. As soon as it formed, she wiped it away, then continued toward her car.
He shifted into Park, climbed out and folded his arms across his chest as he leaned against the fender. “Sneaking off without me?”
If her hands hadn’t been full, she would have shrugged carelessly. As it was, only her shoulders lifted. “I’m walking upright in broad daylight. How does that qualify as sneaking?”
“We had a—” Date, he’d been about to say, but it was the wrong choice, implied the wrong thing. “An agreement, remember? I would pick you up, and we would meet Reese and Neely at their place at eleven?”
“I remember. I just wasn’t sure you did. You’ve been keeping your distance this week.”
“I thought that was what you wanted.” Not, he admitted grimly, that his decision had had anything to with what she wanted. His only priority these days was to look out for himself. If Cassidy had any needs that were sexual in nature, he would be happy to volunteer. Anything else, though, and she was out of luck, at least with him.
She looked as if she knew that what she wanted had played little part in his decision, but she didn’t press the issue. Instead she shifted the plate to one hand, then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I told you last week this isn’t necessary. I’m perfectly capable of going by myself. That’s how I do most things.”
Sounds lonely, he thought, but caught himself before saying so out loud. “It’s pointless for both of us to drive into town in our own cars when we can go together. Besides, if I show up without you, I’ll get the third degree from Neely, and I try to avoid that when I can.”
For a moment her face tightened—because he’d made it sound as if his only interest in taking her was to appease his cousin?—then she shrugged. She scooped her purse off the front seat and slammed the door before walking around to the opposite side of his truck.
Now that he had her in the truck, he didn’t know what to say to her, so he settled for silence instead, filled only by the music from the stereo. The CD was one of his favorites—an old Trisha Yearwood—but it seemed to only increase the stiffness that held Cassidy upright in her seat.
“You don’t like country music?”
“Not so anyone would notice.”
He pressed the button that switched the stereo from CD player to radio. More country music spilled out of the speakers before he turned it down a few notches. “What do you like?”
“A little of everything, except country. And classical. And rap. And bluegrass. And I’m not fond of—”
“Whoa. You can’t say you like everything, then make all those exceptions. About all you’ve left is rock, jazz and blues.”
“Exactly.” Her smile was all the brighter for being unexpected. She’d been so pissy this morning that he’d figured they were in for one long and uneasy day…unless he chose to charm her out of her wary mood, and he wasn’t sure at the moment that fit in the category of looking out for himself.
He gestured toward the stereo, giving her permission to find her own station, then pretended to watch the road while watching her from the corner of his eye. She leaned forward, pressing the scan button, letting it slide through five or six stations before stopping it on a Tulsa oldies station. She didn’t turn the volume up, though, but left it at background level as she settled back in the seat.
“How was the meeting Sunday?”
“Fine.” She glanced at him. “Did you tell them to invite me?”
“Me tell Neely and Hallie what to do? Their husbands barely get away with that…sometimes. They’re strong-minded—and friendly—women.”
“I like them. I liked everyone.”
She sounded…not surp
rised. Wistful. Did she have any friends back home, wherever that might be? He imagined, working alone and at home as she did, making friends could be tough. Where was she likely to meet anyone? At the bookstore? The grocery store? Maybe the office supply store? Of course, there was the Internet, with support groups and special interest loops for every subject under the sun, but virtual friends couldn’t meet you for a margarita at the local Mexican restaurant.
“Folks around here are easy to like,” he remarked as if he hadn’t taken a brief detour into feeling sorry for her. “Most of them, at least. Be wary of any females you meet today with the last name of Taylor, though. Inez, her daughter, Chris, and her sister are the self-appointed arbiters of taste and propriety around here, and they love to sharpen their tongues on the unsuspecting.”
“Every town has someone like that. Back home it was this woman named Mardelle Simpson. My father called her a viper and my mother referred to her as ‘that woman.’ She could broadcast gossip up the entire east coast faster than the air-waves.”
That damned prickle down his spine came again. “I thought you were from California.”
Her cheeks turned pink again. For a woman who liked to lie, it was a shame her involuntary blush response betrayed her so often. “I live there now. I’m from…Virginia.”
“Can I give you some advice?” he offered, deliberately keeping his tone conversational. “Don’t hesitate when you’re about to tell a lie. You shouldn’t have to think about where you’re from, so it’s like waving a red flag.”
Now the pink turned deep crimson and her fingers knotted together in her lap.
He continued as if they were discussing something as unimportant as the weather. “Why lie about it anyway? You don’t live there now, and naming the state doesn’t narrow it down much. Most of them are big places. Why bother with a lie?”
“I have my reasons,” she said stiffly.
Like maybe she suffered from some psychiatric disorder characterized by the compulsion to lie. Or maybe she was wanted back there in some East Coast state other than Virginia. Maybe she’d been a witness to her husband’s murder—if there had been a murder, if there had been a husband—or maybe she was the one who had killed him. Maybe he was alive and well and looking for her as they spoke. Maybe she’d stolen from him, or hidden his kid, then disappeared, or his favorite form of entertainment had been knocking her around. He knew too well from the domestic cases he’d worked that abusive men hated losing their victims.
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