Heaven Beside You (3 page)

“No, I don’t. I just was thinking it looks funny lit up like that. Kind of ruins the view.” He turned to her. “There. That’s better.”

“Better?” Her breath caught. So much for counterbalancing appeal.

“The view. It’s much better from this direction,” he said.

Cass glanced down to hide the blush she had to be sporting and realized she was still wearing her apron. And she’d been worried about what sweater to wear? “I should get the roast out.”

She spun around and dashed for the kitchen. The roast was done enough to take out, the rolls were not.

Maybe he’d agreed with her about the ski lodge, or he was buttering her up. But how would he know he was agreeing with her? What would be the purpose of buttering her up? She shivered at the thought.

“Anything I can do to help?”

Cass jumped and spun around holding the serving fork like a weapon. Jason leaned against the doorway smiling lazily. He seemed less harsh than he had before. She cleared her throat. “I suppose if you want a job, you can get this out of the roaster and start slicing while I make the gravy.”

“Gladly.” At the exact moment she lost her grip on the fork, his fingers brushed hers and she would have dropped it if he hadn’t been holding it. She fidgeted behind him while he moved the roast. “You look like you know what you’re doing.”

“I get a lot of practice. When the roads get bad up here, they can stay that way for weeks sometimes. I could probably get down the holler, but there’s no guarantee I’d get back up.” She took the roaster out of his hands and turned away to make the gravy.

“Couldn’t you stay with someone in town?” Jason asked over his shoulder. He’d picked up the knife and begun slicing.

She tried to stop imagining Jason’s long fingers wrapped around her serrated knife. “I could stay with my parents, but nobody wants that.” She poured the gravy into a stoneware gravy boat. Overkill again. When she ate alone, she dumped what she needed into a coffee mug.

“You don’t get along with your parents?”

She wondered if the question was more than idle curiosity and then dismissed that idea as a figment of her overactive imagination. Even if he was, as she sort of hoped and sort of feared, trying to seduce her, why would he care about her relationship with her parents? “Sure, as long as they’re in the valley and I’m up here. I usually spend about three weeks with them between Christmas and mid-January. About the end of that, we’re all ready to say our good-byes until summer.”

“What happens in the summer?”

“Dad gives nature walks and Mom does craft classes.”

“A real family affair.”

“Half the town does something. I’ve got a storyteller and another craft teacher and an astronomer, and a historian who does tours of local sites. There’s even a guy who comes up about once a week to show old movies on a sheet strung between the trees.” Speaking of which, she had to get started scheduling. It gave her something to think about that wasn’t Jason Callisto slicing roast beef in her kitchen.

Shiver
. Jason Callisto slicing roast beef in her kitchen.

She took out the dinner rolls. Double batch. They would freeze fine. Unless Jason ended up liking them and ate the lot.

Jason glanced at the rolls and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got enough campers in these cabins to support all that entertainment?”

“Oh no. There’s two lots of RV hookups down the road and a couple of tent camping areas. I can have up to two hundred people here on an August weekend.” She cradled the gravy boat in her hands to keep them busy.

Did he think it was hokey and provincial? It was kind of, but it was nothing to be ashamed of. When she’d bought the place, every cabin, including this house, needed extensive work. The town had been hanging on by a thread, full of older people who had nowhere else to go and half the shops had been closed. She’d done a lot with this place, and for the town below. In a way, the stupid ski lodge was her fault. She’d been so successful, she was surprised a McDonald’s and a Domino’s weren’t sitting side by side in the center of town by now. “I want to build a rec hall next year so we can do more stuff and have someplace for tent people to go if the weather gets bad.”

“So why aren’t you open in the winter?”

“Too cold. Who wants to go camping in the mountains in the winter?”

Jason shrugged. “I didn’t think it was too cold. My cabin’s nice and warm.”

“Wait until your fire goes out and you don’t notice until morning.” She carried the gravy boat to the table, trying to focus on extending her season and ended up thinking about Jason anyway.

“In the middle of the table?” Jason asked.

She jerked and sloshed gravy over the lip of the boat. “That’s fine.” She scraped the escaping drop from the side of the boat and licked it off her finger.

He set the platter on the table, but she caught his gaze skittering away from her mouth. “My manager’s cousin vacationed here a few years ago and really liked it, but I guess it was smaller then. He didn’t say anything about all those activities you talked about.”

“It gets bigger every year. I just got my RV hookups for last season and I’m running out of room already.” She ducked back into the kitchen for a deep breath and grabbed the potatoes and carrots and the basket of rolls at the same time. “What about you? All we’ve done is talk about me.”

“There’s very little about me that hasn’t been printed up in a tabloid someplace,” he muttered as he settled into a chair.

How true was that? Many of those tabloids were tucked in a box under her bed. Maybe she could check tonight after he left.

If he left. Hmm. “I’m sure that isn’t true,” she lied. “How about your family?” Father deceased, mother still living, four sisters, she thought.

“I have four sisters, all older than me. My mother still lives in Illinois and two of my sisters are close by her, the other two live in California near me. My father died when I was a kid. That’s about all there is to tell.”

“Are you close?”

He shrugged and served himself some potatoes. “Sure.”

“I’m not interviewing you.”

He looked up and met her eyes. For a moment he stared, then he grinned, making her breath catch. “I guess not. Sorry, habit.”

“I understand.” Her heart pounded in her throat. Photographs couldn’t capture that grin, somehow rawly sexual and endearing at the same time.

“So what do total strangers talk about over dinner?” he asked, that gleam never leaving his gaze.

Cass smiled. Steamy eye contact or not, this she excelled at. She spent so much time chatting with total strangers, she hardly knew what to say to people who knew her. “What’s your favorite movie?”

“Boy, current or for all time?”

She laughed. This would make things easier. Talk about neutral subjects, then she wouldn’t have to wonder what his lips would feel like against hers.

“You know, I’ve always liked
From Here To Eternity
.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Really? I’ve never seen that one.” Not all of it, anyway. Everyone had seen the beach scene. The stars rolling through the surf kissing. How was it everything led back to kissing? She should be relieved he hadn’t picked
Fatal Attraction
, the way she was headed.

“You should. It’s a classic. Maybe one night while I’m up here we can rent it.” He bit down on the piece of meat on his fork.

Cass watched his white teeth sink into the tender meat. Her mouth felt like parchment. He had such beautiful, full lips. “It is something I’ve always meant to see,” she managed to say without her jaw unhinging.

“Do you have Netflix or a Red Box in town?”

“Red Box? No, but we have a little video rental place. I can call Walter and see if he has it, if you like.” Cass picked up her fork. If she didn’t start eating, he would wonder. She had to attempt to act normal. Not easy, under the circumstances. This was every high school fantasy she’d ever had. Her favorite rock star, sitting across the table from her chatting and making flirtatious motions. At least she hoped they were. She wanted them to be.

“No hurry. We have two whole weeks. What about you? What’s your favorite movie?”

Fortunately, she had a pat, but true answer ready for that question. One that had nothing whatsoever to do with kissing. “
The Haunting
. The original black and white one with Claire Bloom.”

“The original? I thought there was only one.” He reached for another roll, pausing with his hand over the basket, and looked at her. He liked the rolls. Cass suppressed an irrational desire to giggle.

“No, the one with Catherine Zeta Jones was a remake. I’ve got the original. Widescreen. It’s very scary and everything is done by suggestion.” To distract her gaze from his hand on the rolls, she glanced at her DVD shelf. She’d gotten the DVD for Christmas and hadn’t even opened it yet.

“If that’s an invitation, I accept. After dinner?”

She nearly dropped her fork. Bad enough to have him for dinner, but to have him sitting in her living room, on her couch all evening watching a movie? She’d have to make popcorn—did she have any in the house? In separate bowls, it would help her tone down a little bit. Might ruin his appetite for the trifle though. Maybe if she kept making food for him, her mind and hands would be too busy to embarrass her. “If you like.”

“Great, but is it going to scare you to watch it now?” He studied her across the table as he split open a roll. His eyes seemed darker than she remembered from pictures. Concern or invitation? Did he want to cuddle during the movie to keep her from being too scared?

“No. Why?” His foot lay under the table right next to hers. Accidental or intentional?

“I would have thought watching scary movies would be the last thing you’d want to do up here on the mountain by yourself.” He smiled. “You must not scare easily.”

“Oh, I scare.” She was scared silly right now. That he was flirting with her and that he might not be. And really, really terrified, either way, she would end up humiliating herself. “I can’t watch
The Shining
anymore. And forget about those
Sleepaway Camp
movies.”

He laughed. The husky quality of it raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “I can see that. I wouldn’t want to find you writing
all work and no play makes Cassandra a dull girl
all over the walls.”

“It doesn’t match the decor.”

He laughed again, but this sounded a little less seductive and a little more mirthful. She relaxed and tried to eat. Maybe she would have leftovers like she’d planned. Her appetites had focused on something, someone, else.

“So what do you do up here all winter?” he asked. “When you’re not writing on the walls.”

She smiled. “I read, and watch movies, and I paint.”

“And cook. It’s very good, by the way.” He waved his fork around the table, managing to take in everything, including herself. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“You’re welcome.” Cass looked at her plate. She needed another noncommittal topic of conversation to steer her mind away from the eight hundred pound gorilla across the table, but couldn’t think of anything else. Over the years she’d had her share of guests flirt with her, but this time he didn’t come with a wife and kids in tow, and he wasn’t a burgeoning mountain man looking for a comfortable place to spend the winter.

Jason Callisto had no wife and kids, and she’d been dreaming about him her entire adult life.

“What kinds of things do you read?”

Cass let him steer the conversation. For a man who didn’t know what total strangers talked about over dinner, he did a dandy job of coming up with topics. They spent the rest of the meal on books, as he said he spent a lot of his time on tour reading or watching television series. Toward the end, the conversation drifted to books that had been made into movies, which is what they were talking about when the phone rang.

Annoyed by the interruption, she grabbed her plate and headed for the kitchen. She’d become neutral enough her head wasn’t spinning, but like walking a tightrope across the Grand Canyon while juggling fine china, any lapse in concentration would be the end of her. “Hello?” she answered the phone.

“Hi, sweetie, we just wondered if your guest made it.”

She grimaced. Only her mother could call with such deadly accuracy.

“Yes, Mom, he did.” Cass closed her eyes. She had to get her mother off the phone before her concentration lapsed. She couldn’t work on two fronts and her mother could just about read minds. “Listen, Mom, I have a dinner guest.”

Her mother missed a beat. A sure testament to how odd that was. Let the mind reading begin. “A dinner guest?”

Jason tapped her shoulder. “Do you mind if I put on some music?”

“Go ahead,” she said, and then she felt the blood rush to her face. She hadn’t hidden her Touchstone CDs. He would see the whole collection in chronological order and think she was a freak, or worse, a groupie. But instead of going into the cabinet, he picked one up from the sideboard and popped it in. Nat King Cole from her Christmas pile. The soothing tones of the CD filled the room, but somehow managed to leave her unsoothed.

“I see.” Mom could pack more meaning into fewer words all the time. Soon she’d be communicating solely through expressions.

“I shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

Jason began clearing the table. He’d located the dish soap and started filling the sink with steaming water while he carried the plates to it. If she stayed on the phone long enough, he might pack up the leftovers and wash the dishes. He walked past her with a damp rag to wipe down the table. “I’ll call you later.”

“I’ll wait up. ’Bye, sweetie.” Mom hung up before Cass could counter. Seriously, very soon the phone would ring and she would, upon hearing nothing, know it was her mother
and
what was meant by the expressions being made at the receiver on the other end. Nothing would need to be said because her mother would be able to read her mind. They might skip the phone altogether. Her mother could stare up the holler, communicating telepathically.

“You didn’t have to do all that,” Cass protested.

“All what?” Jason strolled back into the kitchen with the towel. “If you get started putting away the leftovers, I’ll work on the dishes and we can get to the movie. Do you have any rubber gloves?”