A flush flooded Cassidy’s cheeks, so Jace answered for her. “She writes romance novels. The one she’s working on now is set in this area.”
“How wonderful. What is the name and when will it be out?”
“I—I don’t—” Cassidy broke off to take a sip of water. “I haven’t settled on a title yet, and I don’t know when…when it will come out. Probably never, if the guy next door doesn’t stop interrupting my work time.”
Shay grinned at Jace. “That would be you, I presume. He’s a terrible distraction,” she said to Cassidy. “Wants attention all the time. Just like Liza Beth.”
“Hey, we resent that, don’t we, Liza?” He moved the baby to cradle her in his lap, and she snagged his finger at last, guiding it into her mouth. “I’d’ve been perfectly happy not having any attention last winter, but it didn’t keep any of you away, did it?”
“What happened last winter?” Cassidy asked.
Shay opened her mouth, looked from Cassidy to him, then closed it again and smiled. “I believe I’ll take my child and send the waitress over to take your order.”
“Nah, let Liza stay—at least until the food comes. She’s happy enough for the moment.”
“You don’t have to say it twice,” Shay said with a laugh. “Cassidy, nice meeting you. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”
She left and a young waitress appeared. Without looking at the menu, Jace ordered a double cheeseburger and onion rings. Cassidy studied the menu for a moment, then asked for the lunch special. Then she folded her hands together on the tabletop and gave him a raised-brow look.
He ignored it as long as he could before faking a grouchy look of his own. “What?”
“What happened last winter?”
“Not much. Oklahoma winters can be really mild or really cold—but then, you know that, having researched the climate.” He let a little good-natured sarcasm slide into his voice on the last words. “We had a couple ice storms that shut things down for a day or two, and we had a tornado in January. That’s something you don’t see a lot of.”
She continued to look at him, her expression unchanging.
“They have tornadoes where you come from?”
“Occasionally.”
“In San Diego? I wouldn’t have thought so.”
“Lemon Grove,” she corrected him. “And none of that answers my question. What happened with you last winter?”
He leveled his gaze on her, as steady and measuring as hers was, then smiled coolly. “I’ll make you a deal. You answer all those questions of mine you’ve danced around, like what your pen name is and what your book is about and what kind of research you did, and I’ll tell you about last winter.”
She smiled, too, a bright smile that involved her whole face without bringing one bit of warmth to it. “It would serve you right if I agreed.”
He shrugged.
“Fair enough.” Then she lowered her gaze to the baby. “She doesn’t look anything like her mother.”
“Nope. She’s the spittin’ image of Easy, except she’s prettier and has all her fingers. He’s only got seven.”
“Jace! You shouldn’t joke about that.”
“Hey, I’m just repeating what he said. Besides, I think we’re distantly related. I’m mostly Osage and he’s mostly Cherokee, but a few generations ago somebody from his father’s side married somebody from my mother’s side.”
“So you’re probably tenth or twelfth cousins.”
He grinned. “It still counts as family. At least, when you want it to.”
“You like kids,” she commented, her gaze lowering to the baby.
He looked down, too, at Liza Beth’s dark skin, eyes and hair, her fat cheeks and the mouth that managed a grin in spite of her gnawing on his finger. “I like most people.” Even some of the people he’d arrested over the years. Civilians tended to think that cops and crooks were mortal enemies, but that wasn’t always the case. Sure, most bad guys weren’t anxious to go to jail, and some would do anything to avoid it, but a lot of them didn’t hold grudges. They were doing their jobs and he was doing his. No hard feelings.
“Then why were you trying to avoid attention last winter?”
He gave her a steady, censuring look. “We agreed, remember? If you don’t answer questions, I don’t. No fair trying to sneak around the back way.”
Her only response to his rebuke was a nod, then she glanced at Liza Beth again. “Why aren’t you married and raising a houseful of kids?”
“I always figured I would be, but…” He finished with a shrug, then studied the faint wistfulness in her expression. “You want to hold her?”
Her hands flexed and came up off the tabletop, a prelude to reaching for the baby, then she caught herself. She dropped her hands into her lap, put on a taut smile and shook her head. “I keep my distance from kids.”
“Why? You don’t like them?”
“I like them fine—at a distance.”
There was that itch again. Jeez, why lie about liking kids? It was about as inconsequential as things got in the bigger scheme of things. About the only time not liking kids mattered would be when she already had them. Otherwise, so what?
Maybe she regretted not having any, so she pretended not to like them. Maybe she couldn’t have any, so pretending eased the pain. Maybe she had one or two or three, and had lost them for some reason, so it was guilt she was easing.
His wondering was interrupted by the waitress with plates of food. She set them down, then reached for the baby. “Her daddy just came in to get her, so I’ll take her now.”
“See 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