A sense of dread filled her as she watched their progress. She did not want Cole meeting her son—not today, not ever—though that was likely to be tricky if she decided she was back home to stay. After the awkwardness of the past few minutes, she was beginning to see that staying in Winding River might not be feasible. She couldn’t live with the kind of panic that had streaked through her when she’d seen Jake unwittingly heading straight toward his daddy.
“You guys, I have to run,” she said, dropping some money on the table and slipping out of the booth. “I have to get home.”
“But our food…” Lauren began, then glanced outside and fell silent.
Cassie circled around behind Cole, giving him a wide berth, hoping that her friends would keep him occupied just long enough for her to catch Jake and her mother and detour them away from the restaurant.
“I’ll call you,” Karen said.
“And we’ll see you tomorrow night,” Lauren added.
“Absolutely. I can’t wait,” she said before dashing off to intercept her son.
She was dismayed when she realized Cole had fallen into step beside her. Just outside the door, he gazed down into her eyes, his expression vaguely troubled.
“Why the sudden rush, Cassie? I didn’t scare you off, did I?”
His tone mocked her, but there was that contradictory flicker of concern in his eyes. She didn’t know what to make of either, and right now she didn’t have time to grapple with it. Disaster was less than half a block away.
“Of course not,” she said a little too sharply. “I just have to get home, that’s all. I promised my mother I wouldn’t be gone long.”
His expression softened. “How’s your mother doing?” he asked with apparent sincerity.
Cassie thought back to the special bond Cole and her mom had shared. It, too, had died when Cole abandoned Cassie. If she were a more generous person, Cassie mused, she might regret that. Cole, who’d lost his own mother at an early age, had basked in the attention Edna had given him.
Cassie glanced outside and saw that her mother was disappearing through a door down the street. Apparently she’d caught a glimpse of Cole and wisely hurried Jake toward the trendy new restaurant and coffee bar Cassie had noticed earlier. Cassie breathed a sigh of relief and turned her gaze back to Cole.
“Fine,” she said. “My mother’s just fine.”
He seemed startled by that. “Really?”
Something in his voice told Cassie he knew something she didn’t. She stared at him intently. “Why did you say that like that?”
He evaded her gaze, his expression suddenly uneasy. “Like what?”
“Stop it, Cole. Don’t play games with me. Is there something going on with my mother that I don’t know about? Is she keeping something from me?”
“You’ll have to ask her that.”
All thoughts of Cole’s near-miss encounter with his son fled as she stared at him and tried to read his deliberately enigmatic expression. He was hiding something. It was plain as day. “Dammit, Cole. Tell me.”
“I just inquired after your mother, Cassie. I was being polite,” he insisted mildly. “Don’t read anything more into it.”
“Nothing with you is ever that simple.”
“You’re a fine one to talk.”
Her temper flared, and her gaze clashed with his. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind. There’s no point in dredging up old news.” He bit back a curse, then shook his head. “I knew coming into town today was a mistake.”
Cassie was startled by the note of betrayal in his voice. “Have you been rewriting history, Cole? You left me. It wasn’t the other way around.”
“Wasn’t it?” he asked with unmistakable resentment.
Her own bitter memories, always just beneath the surface, bubbled up. “How can you ask that? One night you were making love to me, telling me how incredible I was, the next day you were gone.”
“I explained that.”
“Explained it?” she repeated incredulously. “When was that? Until you walked through the door at Stella’s a few minutes ago, I hadn’t seen or heard from you since the night you stole my virginity.”
He winced. “Dammit, Cassie, it wasn’t like that. I didn’t steal anything. We made love. It was a mutual decision. Besides, I left you a note. I know you got it, because you sent me an answer. Do I have to remind you what was in it? You said you wanted nothing more to do with me, that I should go back to college and forget all about you. You said you intended to get on with your life and that I was no longer a part of it.”
Disbelief washed over her. This was ridiculous. Why would he make up such an absurd lie? No doubt to soothe his own conscience.
“I never wrote such a note and you know it.”
“Really?” he said scathingly. “Remind me to show it to you sometime. I’ve kept it all these years as a reminder not to trust a woman’s pretty words of love, especially when she says them in my bed.”
Before she could recover, he turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Cassie staring after him, wide-eyed with shock. Not one single word he’d said made a lick of sense. She’d never gotten any letter from him. Nor had she sent a reply. But it was clear that Cole believed otherwise.
She felt a blast of cool air as the door to Stella’s opened behind her. “You okay?” Gina asked, draping an arm around her shoulders.
“I’m…” She thought about what had just happened. “Confused, I guess.”
“About what? Your feelings for Cole?”
“No. He said some things. Things that didn’t make any sense.”
Gina’s gaze narrowed. “What things? If he upset you, I’ll get the others and we’ll beat him up for you.”
The comment drew a weak smile. They would do it, too. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Cassie said. “But I love you for offering.”
“Come back inside and eat your burger.”
“I can’t. I need to find Jake and my mother. I want to make sure that Cole didn’t catch a glimpse of them.” She thought then of his odd reaction to her claim that her mother was fine. “I need to talk to Mom about something else, too.”
“But you’ll be at the party tomorrow, right?”
“I’ll be there,” Cassie promised. She met Gina’s gaze evenly. “You and I need to have a long talk.”
“About?”
“Whatever’s going on with you.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Gina said, giving her a hug.
“Then what was that remark to Cole all about? You sounded as if you might actually consider hanging around Winding River instead of going back to New York. I can’t believe you would ever walk away from your restaurant.”
“I was joking,” Gina insisted. “Surely you didn’t think I would seriously consider marrying your guy?”
“Cole’s not my guy, and that wasn’t the point. You might have been joking about that, but you sounded serious about the rest, about staying here.”
“So?” Gina said, her expression defiant. “It’s home. Are you telling me that the thought of staying here hasn’t