style="font-size:15px;"> Taking a seat next to Nash, careful their elbows didn’t brush, she pulled the sugar bowl over to her mug of coffee. “I learned that from our conversation. He told me you’d been friends for years, that you often helped him out with construction projects around his house, that you were good with his kids and his dog. He gave you an A-plus rating.”
Nash laughed. “Maybe Dave wasn’t used to giving references. He wanted to make sure he didn’t miss anything.”
“He acted as a friend should. Anyway, your accent isn’t pure Mississippi, is it?”
Again Nash gave her a short answer. “I was born and raised in Oklahoma, and if you put too much sugar in that coffee, you’re going to crash later today.”
She’d been too busy looking at Nash’s thick brown hair, and studying the jut of his jaw. She hadn’t been paying attention to how many teaspoons of sugar she’d put in her coffee. She’d have to drink it no matter how sweet it was. “No, I don’t crash. I just eat more sugar or drink more caffeine.”
“Let’s see,” Nash said with mock seriousness. “Didn’t your website say something about serving healthy breakfasts and dinners?”
“That’s for my guests who want healthy. I eat when I can and usually on the go, especially when I do Paint and Sip presentations.”
“Paint and Sip?” He looked perplexed.
“It’s a recent wine trend. Local wineries have me in for a Paint and Sip night. I teach their customers how to paint a painting in one night while they sip wine.”
“What a great marketing tool,” he said.
“It is, and it brings in extra money.” She always needed to do that. Her life had been that way since she was a child.
“How about you?” Nash asked. “Are you from Austin?”
Should she tell him? Why not? After all, he wasn’t from around here. “I grew up not so far away.”
The cinnamon rolls were round and she took hers apart, licking the sugar glaze off her fingers as she did. When she turned toward Nash, he was studying her.
“What?”
“Do you always eat your cinnamon rolls that way?”
Noticing his was gone with two big bites, well, maybe three, she shrugged. “I prolong the experience. Besides...aren’t sweets better if you can lick them off your fingers?”
Something glowed in Nash Tremont’s eyes and she wished she hadn’t said that. There was coiled energy in the man and plenty of sensual energy, too.
As she felt tongue-tied, not knowing what else to say, he drank most of the coffee in his mug. Leaning back a degree, he gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Your cinnamon rolls are delicious and the coffee is just what I needed. If you don’t mind, I’ll take a travel mug full of it along with me again.”
“I don’t mind. Would you like another cinnamon roll for on the road?”
“Yes, I would,” he agreed.
“I’ll wrap one for you. Will you be here for dinner tonight?”
There was no hesitation in Nash’s voice. “No, I won’t. I’ll be having dinner out.” He’d brought his travel mug with him and now he filled it from the urn in the dining area. “Will more guests be checking in?”
Cassie had hopped up from her stool and was wrapping a second roll. “Yes. Thank goodness there will be another couple today. Do you like to mingle when you go out of town or take vacations?”
“I don’t take many vacations.”
“A workaholic?”
“Something like that,” he acknowledged.
Going back to the counter he picked up the roll she’d wrapped in foil. Then he gathered his Stetson from one of the hat racks on the wall and took out his keys. “Thanks again for breakfast. I’ll see you sometime.” Then, without another word, he was gone.
Cassie had noticed how he avoided personal questions and turned them around on her. She shrugged it off. Maybe Nash Tremont was just a very private man.
* * *
Nash gripped the steering wheel of his SUV tighter as he followed the car’s GPS directions to the library. But even with that greater tactile stimulation of his hands, even though his thoughts should be perusing the dates of the archives he wanted to look up, he felt bothered by what had happened at the bed-and-breakfast. He shook his left hand, then he put it back on the wheel and shook his right. Still he could feel a tingle in his fingers from the warmth of touching Cassie Calloway. It was absolutely crazy.
He hadn’t even looked at a woman with real interest since Sara. His bitterness over what had happened with her had leveled off into disappointment. The divorce rate among cops was well above the average. He’d told himself that over and over again. He’d told himself that his work was enough.
Suddenly his dashboard lit up. A female computer voice told him, “Mom is calling.”
He reached to the dash and pressed a button on the digital screen. “Hi, Mom.” He’d called her when he’d reached Austin so she wouldn’t worry.
“I thought I’d give you a call before we both got involved in our days.”
He checked the time on the dash. “This is early for you, isn’t it?” It was only 8 a.m.
“I’m going into work early today, lots of new car policies to write up. Must be spring. Drivers like to spruce up their cars or buy a new one.”
Nash smiled. His mother worked for an insurance company that wrote car and homeowner policies. She’d been working there for years and seemed to enjoy it.
“How do you like Austin?” she asked.
It seemed like an idle question but he knew she was fishing. “You didn’t tell anybody I was coming here, did you?”
“Who would I tell?” she asked innocently.
“If anyone calls from my office in Biloxi, you tell them I went camping in the backwoods, okay? And if Ben Fortune phones again, stick with the story that you don’t know where I am.” Some of his half siblings had tried to get in touch by mail and phone, but he’d ignored their requests.
Nash heard his mom let out a sigh. “I still don’t understand why you can’t be honest about what you’re doing at work.”
“Because I’m not supposed to be doing it.” He’d told her this before when he’d explained why he was spending time in Austin.
“This is on your own time. Why would anybody care?”
“There’s a hierarchy. The chief told me to drop this, so he’d be very unhappy if he knew I didn’t.”
“I get that. Are you sure you don’t want to look up your father
