So while he might not know what was eating at Natalie, he knew something was. And he suspected that she wouldn’t be averse to taking her frustration out on the less-than-proficient handyman.
Casey returned just after lunch. Natalie let him back in, noting that he’d brought help this time. “Hello, Kyle,” she greeted the second man.
A hard-carved ex-soldier in his mid-thirties, Kyle Reeves had been the McDooleys’ business partner for almost five years. Their late son, Tommy—Natalie’s favorite cousin in her childhood—had been Kyle’s best friend. They had served in the military together for several years, until a roadside bomb in the Middle East had ended Tommy’s life and almost killed Kyle at the same time.
It had taken Kyle a long time to recover, both physically and emotionally. He still walked with a slight limp and had a few faintly visible scars, which only added to his rough appeal.
Because Kyle had no family of his own, Mack and Jewel had taken him in. They had given him encouragement and support and had found in him a reason to put aside their grief and focus on someone else who needed them. He had become a surrogate son to them, and Natalie had no question that they loved him like one. Nor did she doubt that Kyle would willingly die for either of the couple who had given him a reason to keep living when, from what she had surmised, he’d been all too close to giving up.
Kyle returned her greeting with a nod. “How’s it going, Natalie? You comfortable here?”
“Very much so, thank you. It’s a lovely cabin.”
“It will be when we’ve finished the renovations.” He glanced at Casey with a wry half smile. “And if I can keep my cousin-in-law, here, from flooding the place.”
“Cousin-in-law?” she repeated, glancing at Casey, who stood quietly behind the man who was probably his senior by a decade. “You’re Molly’s cousin?”
He nodded. “On my father’s side. My last name is Walker, which was Molly’s maiden name.”
“I didn’t realize.” But it explained a lot, she decided. She knew now how he’d gotten the job.
He grinned as though he had somehow read her thoughts. “Gotta love nepotism, right?”
Her lips twitched with a smile she had a hard time containing. At least he admitted he hadn’t been hired for his maintenance skills.
“Molly told me to ask you to dinner,” Kyle said, shifting a heavy toolbox in his left hand. “Maybe Friday night?”
Though she still wasn’t feeling very social, it seemed ungracious to decline. “I’d like that. Tell her I said thank you.”
He nodded again. “She’ll be pleased. Since Micah was born, she hasn’t been able to get out much. She spends a lot of time with the kids and with Jewel, but she’ll enjoy having someone new to talk with for a change.”
Because she’d been so busy with her career the past few years, Natalie hadn’t been able to visit her aunt and uncle much. She had met Molly only a few times, but she liked Kyle’s bubbly, redheaded wife quite a bit. The young mother of three-year-old Olivia and two-month-old Micah had an infectious smile and an inviting Texas drawl. She seemed to have a knack for putting people at ease within minutes of meeting her. She had certainly done so with Natalie.
Leaving the men to work in the big, eat-in kitchen, Natalie returned to the bedroom she’d been sleeping in since she’d arrived four nights ago. This was the only real bedroom, though the couch in the large living room was a sleeper that pulled out into a queen-sized bed. The cabin had two bathrooms, a smaller one with a shower off the living room, and the master bathroom with a shower-tub combo. The master bath was also being renovated during this off-season remodel. A new toilet, sink and countertop had already been installed. There was no mirror in the bathroom now, though she could see that one had hung above the sink.
She’d been told that a new mirror would be installed within the next few days. In the meantime, she was able to use the mirror over the bedroom dresser for applying her makeup and doing her hair.
Like the rest of the small, older vacation cabin, the bedroom decor was country casual. A big iron bed was covered with a hand-pieced quilt for a bedspread and lots of comfy pillows. Matching oak nightstands topped with a pair of antique lamps sat on either side of the bed. Country prints hung on the log walls. What appeared to be homemade lace curtains framed the window that looked out over the mountaintops. Too bad she hadn’t been able to really appreciate the stunning view while she’d been here.
Her laptop sat on the tiny writing desk in one corner of the room. The screen saver had activated, and colorful animated fish swam across the screen. She’d always wanted a real aquarium, but her demanding career had taken so much of her time that she wouldn’t have been able to maintain or enjoy one.
She had time for an aquarium now, she thought glumly. Not that she would be able to afford one once her savings were depleted, as they would be rather quickly if the private investigator she had hired recently didn’t come up with some answers soon.
A flick of the wireless mouse made the screen saver disappear, replaced by a list of her former associates in the large Nashville law firm where she had worked for the past four-and-a-half years. It was a lengthy list—thirty-five members, seventy-five associates, and fifteen staff attorneys, which didn’t even count all the clerical staff. A big firm. A lot of suspects. And she could rule out only about half of them. She wondered if Rand Beecham, the rather eccentric P.I., had had any more success in the week that had passed since her last update from him.
She heard a clang from the kitchen, and a curse that sounded like Casey’s voice, followed by a quick laugh that might have come from Kyle. She glanced that way, then looked back at the names on her screen, her slight smile fading. Someone on this list had set her up, framed her for leaking confidential client information to the media in return for under-the-table payments. Because of that untrue accusation, she had lost a position she’d spent several long, hard years working to achieve. Until she proved her innocence, her career—her very life—was on hold.
“So, when are you coming home?”
Leaning back in a patio chair on the deck of the tiny, A-frame cabin in which he was staying—one of the two cabins currently under renovation and not rented during this off-peak season, the other being Natalie’s—Casey gazed at the wooded path stretched in front of him, and tried to come up with a satisfactory answer to his cousin’s question. “I don’t know, exactly,” he said into the cell phone he held to his ear. “A couple more weeks, maybe.”
“You’ve been there almost two weeks already,” Aaron Walker complained. “What are you doing there all this time?”
“Kyle and Mack are renovating two of their vacation cabins during the off season, and I volunteered to give them a hand.”
“You’re doing carpentry work?” Aaron made no effort to hide his skepticism.
“Yeah. And a little plumbing. Some painting. Cleaning gutters. That sort of thing.”
“You. Plumbing. That can’t be good.”
Casey was glad Aaron couldn’t see him wince as he remembered the way he’d soaked Natalie with a spray of cold water. Wouldn’t Aaron and his twin, Andrew, have gotten unholy delight out of that scene? Not to mention their slightly older cousin, Jason, who was always commenting on the younger trio’s proclivity for trouble.
Maybe he’d tell them about his first real attempt at plumbing sometime. But not now. “I’m doing okay. Kyle said I’ve been a lot of help.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve had your vacation and you’ve gotten to play with tools. So, don’t you think it’s