“Hang on a sec.” She stood and moved toward the kitchen doorway, thinking she would hear better if she went outside to the big wooden deck attached to the back of the vacation cabin. Closing the door behind her, she let a brisk, late-autumn breeze toss her hair as she sank into a green-painted Adirondack chair. “Okay. Now. What interesting tidbit?”
“Cathy Linski just bought a new car. A pretty fancy one. Convertible.”
Frowning, Natalie asked, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What does that have to do with me?”
“Well, a month ago, Cathy was whining about not having any money and being on the brink of bankruptcy. Now all of a sudden she’s spending money like crazy. When someone asked her what’s going on, she just laughed and said she came into a windfall and she’s going to enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Oh. That is interesting,” Natalie murmured, following Amber’s line of thought. She wondered if Beecham knew about this development.
“Yeah. It’s not much to report—might have nothing at all to do with your situation—but I thought you’d want to know.”
“That’s all you have?”
“I’m afraid so. Everyone’s been pretty closemouthed around here for the past couple of weeks. Nobody mentions you at all.”
Natalie bit her lower lip, then released it with a slight sigh. “Okay. Thanks, Amber. Let me know if you hear anything else, okay?”
“You got it. I’d better get back to work. Steve’s not nearly as tolerant as you were about personal time during the workday.”
“Don’t risk your job because of me. You can always call me when you get home. It’s not like I’m doing anything else in the evenings.”
“You want my advice? Try to have a little fun while you’re there in the mountains. You’ve been working too hard for a couple of years. This is your first time off work in, like, forever. Surely there’s some interesting guy there who can help you work off some frustration, if you know what I mean.”
Natalie didn’t have to ask for clarification. Amber thought there were few problems that couldn’t be alleviated by a night of partying. A hard worker during the week, she was an equally zealous fun-seeker during the weekends. She’d nagged Natalie for months to join her at some of the wilder Nashville clubs on a Friday or Saturday night, promising a “hot time” that would make all the tension knots in her neck and shoulders mysteriously disappear. Amber couldn’t understand why Natalie had been at all hesitant to accept.
At the time, Natalie had been worried about damaging her image as a serious, hardworking, ambitious attorney. Little had she known then that her reputation would soon take a much harder hit than if she’d merely been seen partying in a few clubs.
As for “some interesting guy”…she glanced toward the back door of the cabin, thinking of Casey, and knowing exactly how Amber would react if she could see him. She’d be all over the sexy maintenance man like “white on rice,” as Aunt Jewel would say, and she’d think Natalie was crazy for not at least trying to flirt with the guy. But then, Amber wasn’t in the process of fighting for her professional life, either.
“You’d better get back to work,” she said, deciding not to address her friend’s advice. “Thanks for calling.”
“You bet. We’re going to figure out who set you up this way, Nat,” Amber said loyally. “And when we do, everybody’s going to know about it. I’ll make sure of that.”
As she disconnected the call, Natalie wished there was some way she could let Amber know how much that support meant to her. So many of the people she had considered friends had dropped her like a hot potato after she was summarily fired from her position with the firm. They had been all too willing to believe she’d let greed trump ethics and had engaged in behavior that they should have realized was utterly foreign to her.
Unable to appreciate the nice weather or the beautiful scenery surrounding her, she closed her cell phone. Her lips felt dry and she realized she was thirsty. She’d stocked the fridge with her favorite bottled water. Rising, she moved toward the door, wondering idly if Casey had finished installing the fan yet.
He was standing at the sink when she entered the kitchen. Though his back was turned to her, he seemed to be fumbling with the roll of paper towels on the counter.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked.
He started and turned toward her, his left hand cupped in front of him. Something about the way he held it made her study him more closely. Only then did she notice the blood that dripped from his palm.
Sighing lightly, she moved toward him. “What have you done now? Let me see.”
If Casey’d had access to a teleporter, he would have beamed out of there right that minute. But since his sci-fi fandom was of no use to him just then, he squared his shoulders and tried to look nonchalant even though he was bleeding all over her kitchen.
“It’s just a scratch,” he assured her, closing his fist before she could see the wound. “I’ll wash it off and wrap a paper towel around it until it scabs over and it’ll be fine.”
“You don’t get that much blood from ‘just a scratch,’” she argued, reaching for his wrist. “I think you should let me look at it.”
“What are you, a doctor?” he asked, reluctantly opening his fingers.
“No, but I played one on TV,” she answered absently, wincing as she looked at the ragged gash across his palm.
“Kidding,” she added with a glance up at his face. “I’m not an actor. Casey, this is more than a scratch. How did you do it?”
Amused by her automatic quip—so he wasn’t the only popculture fan in the room—he shrugged, having no intention of telling her exactly how he’d sliced himself. “Just carelessness. I really don’t think it’s all that bad.”
She studied his palm again and the sight of her bent over his hand, peering so closely he could feel her warm breath on his skin, made an odd feeling go down his spine. At least, he assumed it was her closeness and not blood loss causing that sensation. He was a healthy, red-blooded—hah—young man, after all.
She glanced up at him again. “You’re dripping blood all over my floor and you find it funny?” she asked a bit too politely.
He stifled his inappropriate grin, suspecting she wouldn’t share his humor in the situation. “Sorry. I’ll clean up the mess, of course.”
“First, we’re going to have to stop the bleeding.” She tugged him toward the table. “Sit down. There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom.”
“I don’t—”
She gave him a look that reminded him oddly of his mother’s famous don’t-argue-with-me expression. His libido effectively quashed, he sank into a chair.
She returned a few minutes later carrying a small, white plastic box which she set on the table and opened purposefully. He grimaced when he saw that the first item she removed was an alcohol pad. That was going to sting.
“When’s
