you, sweetheart,” Jace said, brushing a kiss to Liza Beth’s forehead before handing her over. The kid didn’t want to give up her pacifier, and sucked hard enough to make a pop when his finger pulled free. Immediately she screwed up her face as if to cry, then she caught sight of her father and was all smiles again. How could anyone not want to brighten a kid’s world like that just by walking into it?
He waited until Cassidy had taken a bite of the chicken-fried steak that was the day’s special, then asked, “What made you pick Buffalo Lake for your vacation—uh, work?”
After studying him a moment she levelly replied, “I told you—the book I’m working on takes place here.”
“Here, specifically? Or in the general area?”
Her only response was a shrug.
“The state’s got some really nice resorts, places where you could find the privacy and quiet you want, along with all the conveniences and a few luxuries…but not around here. I’m having a hard time picturing you sitting in your apartment in Lemon Grove, saying, ‘I think I’ll rent a run-down cabin on the shore of a small lake no one outside Canyon County, Oklahoma, has even heard of.’”
As he expected, she chose to answer the wrong part of his comment. “The cabin’s not run-down. It’s rustic.”
“You’re playing with words.”
A smile flashed across her lips, then disappeared. “That’s my job.”
And his job was finding out the truth…at least, it had been. For the first time since the disciplinary hearing last winter, he was tempted to do a little cop work. As temptations went, though, it was a mild one, just a passing thought that he could find out her truth if he wanted. If he cared enough. Since he neither wanted nor cared…
She surprised him when, after a moment of paying proper attention to the potato-and-cheese casserole accompanying the steak, she actually offered him some information. “You’re right. I didn’t leave Lemon Grove with the intent of coming to Buffalo Lake. I knew I was coming to Oklahoma, but I didn’t decide on an exact destination until I got here.”
“Why here? Why not Shangri-La or one of the other resorts?”
“Do you know how much rent the Davison family is charging for the cabin? Two hundred bucks a month. Furnished. I can spend six months there for the cost of—what?—maybe a few weeks at one of those resorts. Besides, conveniences and luxuries are just a distraction I don’t need.”
“That’s redundant, isn’t it? Or is there a distraction you do need?”
Her face colored, making him wonder if she was remembering Shay calling him a distraction. Wants attention all the time, she’d said, which wasn’t exactly true. He didn’t want everyone’s attention—just Cassidy’s at the moment—and he didn’t even want that all the time.
Just more than was wise.
Without waiting for an answer that he really didn’t think was forthcoming, he polished off the last bite of his burger, then drained the last of his pop. “What do you do on a hot summer day in Lemon Grove?”
“I sit in my air-conditioned office and work.”
“All the time? You don’t go to the beach or into the mountains? No drives north to L.A. or south to Tijuana?”
“I’m not an outdoor sort of girl. What can I say? I’m dedicated to my job.” That much was one-hundred-percent true, Cassidy reflected. Her job was staying alive, and she was committed to it twenty-four hours a day.
She took one last bite of tender, battered steak, then pushed the plate away. As if alerted by some sixth sense, the waitress immediately appeared. “Did you save room for dessert? Manuel baked up some dewberry cobblers this morning.”
Though she didn’t know what dewberries were, Cassidy was tempted. “Cobbler” was enough to do that to her. Peach, cherry, blackberry—she wasn’t finicky. She loved them all, especially warm from the oven with a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream melting over them. But she’d stuffed herself on chicken-fried steak, potatoes and creamy cucumber salad and didn’t have room left for one single berry.
“None for me,” she said politely.
“How about a couple servings to go?” Jace suggested, giving the waitress a smile that made her melt like the ice cream Cassidy had been fantasizing about.
While the woman left to get his cobbler, Cassidy let her gaze slide around the restaurant. The fixtures showed a lot of hard wear, much like the customers. Even so, it held a certain homey appeal. It was a place to meet friends, to catch up on news, to enjoy good food at good prices, to connect with other people. Once upon a time she’d had favorite restaurants where she’d been greeted by name, where the waitresses knew her favorite dishes, where she’d connected.
She missed that.
“You ready?”
Refocusing her attention, she saw Jace was holding a foil pan and their ticket and was about to stand. As she slid to her feet and slung her purse over one shoulder, he dropped some ones on the table, then gestured for her to precede him to the cash register near the door. There she withdrew her wallet, but he gave a shake of his head.
“I can pay for my own lunch.”
“It was my invitation.” He handed a twenty to the waitress, pocketed his change, then followed her outside.
Though the grocery store was only half a block away, they drove. Jace parked in the shade of a huge oak, then glanced back across the street when he got out. “I need to make one stop,” he said when she joined him at the back of the truck. “Why don’t you go on in, and I’ll catch up with you.”
“Sure.” She was not disappointed, she told herself as she crossed the parking lot. She always did her grocery shopping alone and there was no reason to mind it today.
Always shop on a full stomach, her mother preached. The theory, as Cassidy recalled, was that she wouldn’t make impulse purchases based on hunger. The downside was that, with her stomach so full, she couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for any of the foods available.
It was going to be a salad kind of week, she decided as she gathered the ingredients for chicken salad, pasta salad, garden salad and potato salad. She added a few staples—cereal, milk, ice cream and chocolate—along with a paperback from the limited selection, and was finishing up on the pop-and-potato-chip aisle when a man near the checkout caught her attention. Jace, she thought with a rush of warmth that was more pleasurable than was good for her.
No, not Jace. The clothes were a match, but this man’s back was to her and there was no long, silky black ponytail to be seen. His hair was short, as short as hers.
Then he turned, saw her and started toward her.
“You cut your hair,” she blurted when he was still fifteen feet away. Damn! As if he hadn’t been handsome enough before. He was a dangerous man, she’d decided on their way into town. Now she amended that to very dangerous.
He combed his fingers through it, dislodging a few stray hairs. “It’s getting too hot to wear it long. I never liked it that way anyway.”
