The Texan's Tennessee Romance (6 page)

“Love ’em.”

They sat at the kitchen table with their meals, and Natalie searched her mind for conversational topics that didn’t stray too far into personal territory. They talked more about the renovations to the cabin, and a few more things that needed to be done inside before it was rented out again. They chatted about the A-frame in which Casey had been staying, and how Kyle and Mack had decided to install a pool table in the loft now being used as a cozy sitting room with a spectacular view.

Casey admitted he hadn’t taken advantage of the many local tourist attractions during his stay. He added that Molly wanted him to accompany her and Olivia to the Dollywood theme park the following week, leaving the baby with Jewel. Kyle wasn’t enthusiastic about amusement parks, but Molly had promised Olivia she would take her soon.

“I haven’t been to the park in years,” Natalie said, “but I always had a good time there. I’m sure you’ll have fun with Molly and Olivia.”

Casey took another bite of his almost completely eaten taco. Washing it down with a sip of the peach tea she had prepared, he complimented her again on the simple meal. That led to a casual discussion of their favorite foods and specialty restaurants.

“There’s a place back home in Dallas that makes the best barbecue pizza anywhere,” Casey enthused. “Topped with pulled pork, barbecue sauce, onions, jalapeños and three different kinds of cheese. The best.”

“Sounds messy.”

“Totally. And a lot of people follow it up with an antacid chaser. But it’s still good.”

“I’ve only been to Texas a few times,” she said. “And then only to Dallas and Houston for business purposes. I haven’t seen much of the state except for the insides of some very nice conference hotels.”

“Oh, there’s lots to see in Texas,” he assured her. “From the coast to the plains, it’s a pretty diverse state. I’ve spent most of my life in the Dallas area.”

“I always seem to be there midsummer. It was always hot.”

He shrugged. “You get used to it.”

“Will you be going back soon?”

She hadn’t meant to ask any questions for fear of giving him an opening to ask a few in return. That one had just slipped out.

Casey didn’t seem to find the offhand inquiry particularly significant. “Yeah. I guess. I mean, well, most of my family’s there. I just came here to visit Molly and Kyle, and then I volunteered to help out a little with the repairs. I’ll probably head back to Texas in another week or so.”

She couldn’t help noticing that he looked as if he were discussing an upcoming dental procedure. What was so bad at home that he would rather hole up here, cleaning gutters and scrubbing a deck on a pleasant Saturday?

He gave a slight shake of his head, as if clearing his mind of unpleasant thoughts. “What about you? When are you going back to Nashville?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, looking down at her plate. “I’m…between jobs at the moment, and I’m taking the time to make some career decisions.”

She stood abruptly before he could respond. “Aunt Jewel made me one of her famous key lime pies. I haven’t even had a chance to cut into it yet. Would you like a slice for dessert?”

“Sure. I love key lime pie.”

“I’ll make some decaf coffee to go with it.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“No, thanks. It’ll just take a few minutes. Feel free to move into the living room, if you’d be more comfortable. The TV remote is on the coffee table if you want to watch the news or something while I make the coffee.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll check the weather forecasts. I’m hoping they aren’t predicting rain tomorrow. I’d like to get the sealant applied to the deck in the morning.”

“Sure, go ahead. I’ll bring the pie and coffee into the living room when it’s ready.”

She heard a weatherman’s booming voice from the other room before she even had the kettle filled with water. Setting the kettle on a burner, she scooped coffee beans into the small grinder she’d brought with her from home.

It had been surprisingly easy to be with Casey tonight, she mused as she transferred the coarsely ground coffee into a French press and set a kitchen timer for four minutes. He hadn’t done anything to make her feel uncomfortable, hadn’t asked any questions except a follow-up to the one she’d asked. He’d been pleasant, entertaining, a little flirtatious. And her bruised feminine ego had responded eagerly.

She needed this right now, she told herself. Needed to spend some time with someone who wasn’t looking at her suspiciously, who could make her forget about all the problems back home and just have a little fun for a change.

She was in no hurry for the evening to end.

“Wow, that pie looks good,” he said as Natalie took a seat on the couch beside him. He noted that she could have sat in one of the chairs, but she’d chosen to sit next to him instead. Very friendly and companionable. Maybe she was starting to like him a little despite his questionable maintenance skills.

Unaware of the direction his thoughts were taking, she replied lightly to his comment, “My aunt is a really good cook. Desserts are her specialty.”

“It tastes even better than it looks,” he said, swallowing a creamy bite and reaching for his coffee. “Good coffee, too,” he said after taking a cautious sip of the hot beverage.

“Thanks. I buy my beans from a coffee and tea specialty store in Nashville. It’s one of my favorite places to browse.”

He set his cup down and then turned to face her on the couch while he swallowed another bite of the pie. He was fully aware that she didn’t want to answer questions about herself. He’d have to be blind to miss the signals. While she was perfectly amenable to congenial small talk, she had no intention of sharing too much of herself.

He’d gone along with her obvious wishes during dinner. But now he was tempted to push his luck a little. Because Natalie Lofton intrigued him too much for him not to at least try to learn a little more about her. Preferably from her, rather than anyone else.

“How long have you lived in Nashville?” That seemed an innocuous enough way to begin.

She looked into her coffee cup. “Pretty much all my life.”

“I’ve always lived within a few miles of Dallas, myself,” he confided. “I guess we have that in common. Not moving around a lot, I mean.”

“I suppose so.”

He suspected that she did not want to talk about careers, since she didn’t seem to have one at the moment. He wasn’t particularly interested in talking about his own, either. He would be hard-pressed to explain exactly what had led him to take an unpaid and inconveniently timed leave of absence.

Family seemed like another relatively harmless topic. “Do your parents still live in Nashville?”

“No. My mother and her husband live in Mississippi, and my dad lives in London.”

He hadn’t realized that her parents were divorced. He knew his family was atypical, but divorce just didn’t happen in the Walker clan, so it hadn’t occurred to him. But she hadn’t sounded particularly bitter, so maybe that wasn’t a sensitive subject for her. “Your dad is Jewel’s brother, right?”

“Yes. They were the closest in age of the five siblings.”

“Five?”

She nodded. “Only three are still living.”

“So you come from a big family, too.”

“You’d think so, but Tommy was Aunt Jewel’s only son, I’m Dad’s only offspring, one of my uncles never had children and the others had three kids between them, none of whom I know very well. I asked my dad once why his family wasn’t closer and he said he didn’t really know. They just drifted apart after their mother died when he and Aunt Jewel were still in school.”

“But you’ve been close to your aunt.”

“Yes. Not as close as I would have liked, since we live several hours apart, and I haven’t been able to make it to east Tennessee very often the last few years. But we’ve always had a special bond between us.”

“I’m pretty close to my aunts, too,” he offered. “Especially Aunt Taylor—she’s married to my dad’s twin brother. Since I was almost always with their boys, Aaron and Andrew, she and my mom claim they pretty much co-mothered the three of us. The rest of the family called us the ‘terrible trio.’”

That made her laugh, and he found himself mesmerized by a quick flash of dimples at the corners of her mouth. He hadn’t noticed those before—but he hadn’t seen her laugh that many times before. At the risk of sounding clichéd, he thought she really should do so more often.

“I don’t know why that doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “Were you known as, um, accident-prone, perhaps?”

He frowned at her. “Very funny.”

“Sorry.” She set her empty pie plate back on the tray. “You said you and your twin cousins are the same age?”

“Almost. Aaron and Andrew are a few months younger than I am. They’re twenty-five. I turned twenty-six in July.”

She gave a little smile. “I’ll celebrate my thirtieth birthday this coming January.”

Which confirmed his guess about her age. “So you’re, what? An Aquarius?”

She waved a hand. “Capricorn, though I don’t really follow horoscopes.”

“I’m a Leo. I have a cousin who’s recently gotten into that sort of thing. She’s pretty good with it. It’s amazing how accurate she can be with her charting and stuff.”

His cousin Dawne had actually warned him that he was headed for a crisis a year ago, when it had appeared to everyone else—and to him, for that matter—that he was leading a charmed life. She’d seen something in his stars that had told her he had some serious choices to make, and that the outcome of those choices could lead either to a lifetime of contentment or one of quiet despair.

He’d almost forgotten that conversation until now. Maybe he should call Dawne tomorrow and ask if her star charts had any useful advice for him now that he’d actually reached the crossroads he’d been warned about.

Natalie seemed to have no interest in discussing astrology. “Can I get you any more coffee?”

“No, thanks. I guess I’d better be leaving if I’m going to get more done tonight.”

She put her cup on the tray. “Just set your dishes on the tray,” she said, motioning toward the coffee cup he’d just drained. “I’ll take care of them.”

Somewhat reluctantly, he stood. “Thanks for the meal, Natalie. It was really good.”

She walked with him toward the door. “It was nice having the company.” She sounded as if she really meant it.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow then. I should be around sometime late morning to waterproof the deck.”

“I won’t be here much tomorrow. I promised Aunt Jewel I’d join them for church in the morning and then for Sunday lunch. Do you have a key if you need to get into the cabin while I’m gone?”

He told himself there was no reason for him to be disappointed that she had other plans. He wasn’t coming back for social reasons, but to work. He probably wouldn’t have seen her much, anyway. “I’ll bring Kyle’s key, but I’m planning on just working outside tomorrow.”

“Yes, well, feel free to come in if you need anything.”

“Thanks.” He stepped out onto the porch, then hesitated. Turning, he said, “Hey, Natalie?”

She paused in the act of closing the door behind him. “Yes?”

“Maybe I could return the favor sometime. Treat you to dinner, I mean.” Not exactly a smooth invitation, he thought with a slight wince. “There’s a really nice steak-and-seafood place in town. I’ve been told the trout there is the best. Maybe we could try it out one night this week?”

He could almost see the debate going on inside her head. She looked tempted…but a little nervous about accepting. What was it about him that would make her nervous?

“Maybe,” she said after a moment. “If there’s time.”

He wasn’t sure what that meant, but at least it wasn’t an outright rejection. “Okay. We’ll talk about it later then.”

She moved back a step into the cabin. “Good night, Casey.”

“Goo—”

But she had already closed the door between them.

She winced as she remembered her reaction when he’d asked her out. Even though he’d framed the invitation as a way of repaying her for the dinner, it had been clear that what he’d suggested was a date. She’d been so disconcerted that she’d all but shut the door in his face. It wasn’t like her to be so flustered by a simple dinner invitation.

The truth was, Casey Walker made her nervous. And while she’d told herself that it was nice to have such an attractive diversion from her current problems, she wondered if it would be a mistake to get involved—even temporarily—with a good-looking, younger man who obviously harbored secrets of his own.

She really should be focusing more intently on her problems at home, she chided herself. She didn’t have time for a dalliance. But Casey was pure temptation in blue jeans and a tool belt. Would there really be any harm in flirting with him a bit while Beecham conducted her investigation?

Carrying the bag of leftovers her aunt had insisted on sending with her, she entered through the front door and went straight to the kitchen to put the food away. She debated whether she should go out to greet Casey. It wasn’t as if he was there for a social reason. He was working, and she didn’t want to interfere with that process.

Coward
.

She slammed the refrigerator door shut, annoyed with that nagging little voice in her head and with herself for acting so foolishly. And then she cursed herself again when someone knocked loudly on the front door and she almost jumped out of her shoes.

Sighing in exasperation, she walked through the living room to open the front door with a smile. “Hello, Casey.”

He nodded, looking a little distracted. He wore a denim shirt, blue plaid flannel jacket and jeans, all of which showed evidence that he’d been doing rather dirty manual labor that day. “Hi. Listen, that dog’s hovering around again. I think maybe he came back for another meal. Do you have anything?”

“I just brought home enough leftover pot roast for a whole pack of dogs. I’ll get him some, and a bowl of water.”

“I’ll come in and help you carry it out. We can’t walk on the deck because the sealant is still drying.”

“All right.”

He followed her into the kitchen. “Did you have a nice visit with your aunt and uncle?”

She answered as she refilled the plastic bowl she’d used the day before with fresh water. “Yes, I did. Very nice.”

Handing him the water, she opened the fridge and pulled out the plate of leftover roast. “Did you have any problems sealing the deck?” she asked to keep the small talk going.

“No. I used Kyle’s sprayer and everything worked fine.”

“Good. So I should be able to walk on it tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Give it twenty-four hours or so and it should be good to go.”

She warmed the meat just to room temperature, only a few seconds. She didn’t want the hungry dog to burn its mouth. “Okay,” she said, taking the plate from the microwave. “Let’s go see if he’s still there.”

“I have a feeling he will be,” Casey replied, letting her precede him. “He looked pretty hungry. And hopeful.”

“Should we call animal control while it’s here?”

Casey hesitated. “Give me a couple of days to see if I can make friends with him first. Maybe Kyle will know someone who’d give the dog a home if we can get it to trust us.”

Natalie was still wearing the clothes she had donned for church that morning, a black waist-length jacket buttoned over a lace-trimmed green cami with a knee-length, black-and-green checked skirt. Fortunately, her black shoes had a reasonably sensible, two-inch heel so she had little trouble following Casey across the uneven lawn toward the woods.

She spotted the dog just as Casey stopped ahead of her. Looking as ragged and dirty as it had the day before, it lurked in the shadows, watching them warily, prepared to run if they made any sudden moves.

Holding the water bowl in his left hand, Casey reached out with his right to take the food plate from Natalie. He crooned quietly to the dog as he took a few slow steps forward and knelt to set the bowls on the ground. “Here you go, buddy. Come on. Have some nice pot roast.”

Casey stayed by the plates, waiting to see if the dog was hungry enough to approach the food even with Casey so close. The dog remained where it was, looking from the food to Casey and then back again, its thin body quivering.

Casey sighed, stood and moved back to Natalie’s side, several yards from the food. “Okay. We won’t get too close.”

Apparently reassured, the dog crept closer to the food. It ate quickly, finishing the roast and then cleaning the plate with a few more licks before washing the meal down with several noisy laps of water. Satisfied, it looked at Natalie and Casey again. After a moment in which none of them moved, it gave a couple of quick, tentative wags of its matted tail, then turned and ran back into the woods.

“I think he thanked us,” Casey murmured, glancing at Natalie with a grin.

Though she wasn’t prone to anthropomorphizing, she returned the smile and said, “Maybe he did. Do you think he’ll be back?”

“Could be. I’ll pick up some dog food this evening. That would be healthier for him than table scraps.”

“I’m not sure we’re doing him any favors by not calling animal control. At least he’d be safe and well-fed in an animal shelter. And the nights are starting to get pretty cold.”

“I don’t think they’d be able to catch him,” Casey argued. “And I don’t like the thought of him being trapped. I think I’ll be able to tame him enough to find him a home. He seems like he wants to make friends. He’s just a little skittish.”

“And how long do you think it will take to tame him to that point?”

“I, uh, don’t know,” he admitted with a shrug. “If I haven’t made any progress in the next couple of days, I’ll call animal control and ask for advice.”

She looked at him curiously. “Why are you so reluctant to call them? I’m sure they can catch him very humanely. And it would be so much safer for him to be…”

“In a cage?” Casey broke in to ask. “Deprived of his freedom and locked up somewhere for his own good?”

Startled by his tone, she tilted her head to study him more closely. “Um—?”

His face darkened with what might have been a flush. “Sorry. You’re right, he’d probably be better off in a shelter. But I’d still like to give it a couple of days. The weather’s supposed to be nice for the rest of the week, so I think he’ll be fine.”

She couldn’t say she understood, but it wasn’t as if the dog was bothering her. “Should we leave the water bowl out?”

Still looking a little sheepish, Casey shrugged. “Wouldn’t hurt, though there’s plenty of water around this area.”

“And the food?”

“No. Too many other critters to be lured out if you leave food sitting out here. We’ll just feed the dog when we see him.”

She nodded and picked up the empty plate. “Fine. There’s more of the leftover pot roast, if you’re hungry.”

He chuckled. “Feeding the other stray in your yard?”

Smiling a little, she said, “I’ll even get you a bowl of water, if you’re thirsty.”

He shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ve already eaten. I brought lunch with me today. I ate at the picnic table and enjoyed the view. It was nice.”

“So, you’re finished for the day?”

“Almost. I just need to do a little more caulking on the west end of the cabin. Maybe another hour or so today.”

She nodded. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be inside.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Without looking back at him, she went inside. She changed into jeans and a sweater, then put water on to boil for tea. Her computer sat on the coffee table. She reached for it, then changed her mind. She just couldn’t face another fruitless search right then.

Glancing at her watch, she noted that it was only four o’clock. She had a long evening ahead with little to do. It was too late to go out for a walk, since it would be dark soon. She thought about calling someone—her mom, her dad, or Amber, maybe. But she couldn’t think of anything to say if she did. Nothing had changed.

She picked up a novel she’d been trying to read for the past week, though she’d had a hard time concentrating on it. She made it through about five pages before a tap on the front door brought her attention out of the story again.

The way Casey glanced downward let her know he’d noticed she’d changed clothes, though he didn’t comment. “I’m calling it a day. Anything you need before I leave?”

“No, thank you. Have a nice evening.”

His mouth crooked into a wry smile in response to her ridiculously clichéd words. “Thanks. Same to you.”

She’d almost closed the door before she jerked it impulsively back open. “Casey?”

Halfway down the steps, he looked over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

She tried to think of a good reason to keep him there a little longer, to delay the inevitable return to solitude and worry. “Do you like to play games? You know, cards and board games?”

His eyes lit up. “Sure. Doesn’t everyone?”

“I found a whole stack of games in the cabinet next to the fireplace. Maybe you’d like to stay and play Scrabble or something for a while? I have some of Aunt Jewel’s leftovers I can heat for dinner. If you don’t have any other plans, of course,” she finished, belatedly realizing that he might have things he’d rather do.

He smiled. “I was going to work in the cabin tonight, but playing games sounds like a much nicer way to spend the evening. I warn you, though, I’m pretty good at Scrabble. And I play to win.”

Something about his smile made her very glad she’d let herself give in to temptation. She smiled back at him, ignoring the little voice in her head warning her to step carefully. “So do I.”

He walked back up the steps. “Looks like the competition’s on.”