His laughter was warm and unexpected. “Oh, honey, we haven’t agreed on anything yet except that my mom’s a good cook. Besides, you said that about the book you’re currently writing. I’m just asking about the process in general.”
“Why?”
He gave the same answer he’d offered in regard to the Wanted posters. “I’m curious.”
“Why?”
“I haven’t met many writers before, and most of them were newspaper or TV reporters.”
She grabbed the chance to turn the conversation back on him. “Now you’ve made me curious. How does a small-town Oklahoma cowboy manage to run into so many newspaper and television reporters? They do many stories on branding and castrating around here?”
Now it was his turn to think before he answered. “Nope, not many. But if there’s a reporter around, they seem to lock in on me. Must be my charm.”
Must be female reporters, Cassidy thought dryly.
“Okay, we’ll drop that part of the discussion. Can you at least tell me what kind of research you did before coming here?”
Absolutely not. She’d chosen Buffalo Lake the same way she’d chosen every other place she’d temporarily lighted in the past three years—spread out a map of the U.S., closed her eyes and pointed. “Just general stuff,” she fibbed. “Climate, topography, industry.” Please don’t ask, she silently prayed, but of course he did.
“And what did you learn about the climate?”
In the outside mirror she watched dust clouds swirl behind them. Looking ahead she saw heat waves shimmering in the air. “That it gets hot in summer. Damn hot.”
“And?”
She gave him another of those narrow gazes. “Why are you quizzing me? I’m not a student and you’re not my teacher.”
“I bet I could teach you a few things,” he said, his voice huskier than normal. Then he gave her a long, intimate look. “And you could teach me a few.”
Her throat had gone as dry as the road they were traveling. She couldn’t think of a response, though, until he turned back to the road, when the air rushed out of her lungs and she sank back against the seat.
As if the moment had never happened, he gestured toward the house ahead on the left, identifying it as Easy and Shay Rafferty’s place, where he helped out occasionally with the horses. Farther down the road on the right was Guthrie and Olivia Harris’s ranch, where he helped out occasionally with the cattle. Two young girls were playing in the yard. One, dangling upside down from a tree branch, waved so enthusiastically Cassidy feared she might fall. The other, sitting primly on a quilt underneath the tree, raised her hand without so much as a wiggle of her fingers.
“That’s the Harrises’ twins. Elly’s the tomboy and Emma’s the prissy one,” Jace remarked. “Which were you as a kid?”
“I wasn’t prissy.”
“Did you play with dolls?”
“Of course. That’s what little girls do.”
“Let me rephrase that—how did you play with dolls? Did you play house with them, like Emma, or cut them open and stuff them with firecrackers to see if you could blow them to bits, like Elly did last week?”
She’d played house, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Instead she folded her arms over her chest and pressed her lips together.
“That’s a clear enough answer,” he said with a chuckle. “Did you ever climb trees? Collect spiders? Make a pet of a mouse and keep him in your pocket? Or did you like to sit in the air-conditioning with your dollies and books and not get dirty?”
“I climbed trees,” she said in her defense. And she had, too. At least, a time or two. Until she’d fallen from an unstable limb and broken her arm when she was eight. After that, she’d kept her feet on the ground.
“And the rest?”
“I kill spiders and the only mouse I want around is attached to my computer.” Her expression slid into something that felt remarkably like a pout. “Besides, what’s wrong with staying cool and clean and reading?”
He laughed again, not a chuckle this time but a full-throated laugh. “So you were prissy. Of course, I could tell just by looking at you.”
“How?” she challenged.
“Because girly girls always grow up to be such womanly women.” Again that low, husky tone. Again the dry throat, the air rushing from her lungs, the general weakness spreading through her body.
Spending the next few hours with him couldn’t hurt, could it? she had convinced herself back in the Honda. Not just this one time.
She would have snorted in disdain if she could have found the breath. He was a dangerous man, and his relentless questions were only the half of it. Questions she could avoid. Emotions, though… She couldn’t escape them no matter how she tried. Feelings in general were okay. Feelings for other people weren’t. Those were the rules that governed her life.
The sooner she remembered and acted on that, the better.
Jace parked in downtown Heartbreak, climbed out of the truck and waited on the sidewalk for Cassidy. As she got out and walked toward him, her gaze was swiveling from side to side and around. Looking for anything in particular or just trying to take the whole town in at once?
He’d never tried to see his hometown through someone else’s eyes. It was so familiar to him that he wasn’t even sure he saw it through his own eyes, but rather through the eyes of the kid who had once lived here. He usually didn’t notice that the buildings looked pretty shabby, that the sidewalks were cracked, that half the buildings on the next block were boarded up. He didn’t pay attention to the paint peeling from old wood or the crack that had extended through the insurance agency’s plate-glass window for as long as he could remember. He looked and saw home.
What did Cassidy see?
He gestured toward Café Shay—really the Heartbreak Café, owned by Shay Rafferty—and they started in that direction. Just two days ago he hadn’t wanted Reese and Neely to see Cassidy, and now here he was taking her to lunch in Gossip Central. Somebody would be on the phone to his mother before they made it to the grocery store across and down the street.
But he didn’t even consider taking back the offer.
The bell over the door announced them and several dozen pairs of eyes turned their way. About half the customers greeted him before speculatively looking back at Cassidy.
Hell, they probably wouldn’t even be through with lunch before someone called his mom.
They’d just claimed the only empty booth when Shay showed up, balancing a chubby-cheeked baby on one hip. She set down two glasses of water, then two menus. “Hey, Jace, how’s it going?”
“Not bad. Shay, Cassidy.” He gave the briefest introductions possible, then reached for the baby, who came to him with a toothless grin and a drool. “And this is Liza Beth.”
“That’s her name today because she’s in a good mood,” Shay said, “but we’re thinking of changing it to something like…oh, I don’t know. Difficult. Tough.”
“Nah, she’s too pretty for a silly name like that,” he responded, directing his words to the baby who was gazing with great interest at his finger closest to her mouth. “Besides, one unconventional name per family is plenty.”
Shay smacked him on the shoulder. “Who are you calling unconventional? Easy or me?” Then she smiled across the booth. “It’s nice to meet you, Cassidy. Are you visiting from K—”
Jace shot her a look and she smoothly shifted. “Or are you making your home here?”