Cassie was in a strange mood when she left the tornado site, but Heath had offered to buy pizza and she couldn’t pass that up. Torn between loyalty to Darrell and attraction to Heath, she was in turmoil. Not that she still clung to Darrell’s memory like some wan heroine in a Southern novel who grows old and dies still mourning her loss, but that she felt a certain responsibility to preserve her late husband’s good name.
“I’m in no hurry to go home,” she told Heath inside the oregano-scented Pizza Pan. “Austin and Annalisa need some time alone with the new baby. I’m sure they’d prefer I make myself scarce for a while.”
She needed the distraction, as well. Too often of late, her sleep was disturbed by spinning thoughts and jack-rabbit memories she couldn’t quite pin down.
A video game played by a pimply teen whirred and clanged and flashed lights as he racked up points destroying space invaders. The greasy smell of cheese—her favorite smell in the universe next to the salon—permeated the vinyl booth.
“Did they tell you that?”
“No, they wouldn’t. But I’m trying to be sensitive.” She smiled. “They haven’t had much time alone since they married, thanks to moi.”
“When did they come home from the hospital?”
“Last night.” She fiddled with the plastic straw poked through a lid into the ice and Coke. “I’ve been thinking of getting an apartment.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“Oh, you know.” She fluttered her fingers. “They’re a family now, and I’m in the way.” Well, didn’t that sound pathetic and whiney?
“Have you talked to your brother about this?”
“Of course not, silly. He’d deny it, and it’s just a feeling I’ve had lately.”
He picked up one of her fingers and rubbed the back of it. The connection soothed, as he’d intended. Heath was good at that. Soothing. “Why not wait it out, spend some time with your new nephew first? See how things go in the next few weeks or months.”
“Maybe.” She wasn’t sure of anything lately. She, a confident businesswoman, one of the movers and shakers in Whisper Falls, had lost her self-assurance.
She looked at the strong, steady, masculine finger fiddling with her turquoise nail. Did Heath have something to do with this restlessness? She was afraid of that answer, afraid he did, afraid he had tilted her world. Like Louis’s trailer, tipped on its side and shaken, her neat, tidy life was flying apart since the night she’d followed an SUV down a ravine and met Heath Monroe.
“If you ever decide to go apartment hunting...” He let the offer ride.
“Maybe I should do that. Check out my options.”
“It might make you feel better, not that I think Annalisa and Austin are trying to dump you.” He pushed his Coke to the side. “I mean, come on. Why would they? Built-in babysitter.”
She laughed, his intention, no doubt. “Babysitter. Doting aunt. I gladly play both rolls. But I would like to look at apartments and small houses and see what’s available. Darrell and I visited some places on the bluff but he was leaning toward a trailer in the country like Louis’s.”
“You never rented an apartment together?”
“Whirlwind romances don’t have time for that, Heath. Darrell said something would work out when we returned from Mexico.” She pulled the straw from the cup, sucked the end of it. “In a sad way, he was right.”
“The chief set me up with my apartment, but I think there are a couple of others on the same street. Small but nice. Not too hard on the wallet.”
“Really?” She perked up. Maybe the change was what she needed. “I want to see them.”
“Then let’s do it. Tomorrow after work?” He lifted one eyebrow. “And after we could grab chili dogs and cheese fries.”
With a laugh, Cassie put a hand to her chest. “You sweet talker. I’m in!”
By the time she arrived at the ranch, the sun had disappeared, the porch light was on and the two faithful dogs didn’t bother to get off the porch to sniff and circle. Like a set of furry bookends, one lay at each side of the door, long tails thumping the wood floor.
“Vicious beasts,” she said, slowing to pat each head before letting herself inside.
Heath had kissed her good-night again. And she’d let him. Had wanted him to. She could still feel that whisper soft brush of skin against her mouth, the tickle of his facial hair. Gentle and sweet and a tad of dark passion he restrained so beautifully.
Other than Tootsie, the poodle, the living room was empty, but a high-pitched wail of angry infant came from down the hall. Tootsie raised up on Cassie’s leg, shiny button eyes beseeching.
Cassie scooped her up. “Unless you and I can find another home, you’ll have to get used to it, Toots. Babies cry.”
Boy, did this one ever cry.
Cassie followed the sound down the hall to the nursery she and Annalisa had prepared. The room was both pretty and masculine in the palest brown and baby blue. “Master Levi is not a happy boy. What did you do to him?”
She was kidding, but Annalisa wasn’t in the mood for jokes.
“Nothing. I don’t know.” Her usually perfect hair was disheveled and there was a major milk stain on her robe. “Why is he crying so much?”
“Don’t look at me. I can fix his hair.” And yours, but she wasn’t about to say that tonight. “After that I’m lost.”
“Me, too.” Annalisa’s gorgeous blue eyes were vexed and worried. The puffiness in her face had subsided but the fatigue had not.
“Let me do something. I don’t know what he needs, but you need to rest. Where is my pig-hearted brother?” She would tear a strip off him for leaving Annalisa alone. The woman had just experienced childbirth and surgery!
“He went into town.”
“Town! What for?” Cassie was indignant. How dare he?
Annalisa offered a wan smile. “You look as if you’ll wring his neck.”
“I will. I can’t believe he’d leave you this way. Where did he go? The feed store? The jerk. You’ve had surgery. You need help.” She rushed to her sister-in-law’s side and took the baby. Levi felt as light as a hairbrush. But softer and more flexible. Scary flexible, like a bundle of warm towels.
“Don’t be mad at Austin.” Annalisa smiled a little, sheepish as she shuffled toward the padded rocker. The expensive handmade rocker Austin had bought from an Ozark wood craftsman. “He went to the store for me. I craved mint chocolate-chip ice cream.”
That took the fire out of Cassie’s smokestack. “Oh. Well, in that case, I’ll let him live another day.” She pulled Levi Austin close to her chest and cooed, “There now, my little man. Let Aunt Cassie fix it.”
The baby squinched his eyes tight and screamed. That was a seriously red face.
“Is it time for him to eat?” she asked over the wail.
“Just fed him.”
“Tummy ache?”
“I don’t know how to tell.”
“Me, neither.” Cassie had run the gamut of her baby knowledge but she understood women and Annalisa was pale and wobbly. “You look like you’re about to pass out. Go to bed. I can handle him until Austin gets back.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go.”
“Call me if you get tired of dealing with him.”
“Go.”
Like an old lady, a slightly bent Annalisa held to her incision and shuffled across the hall to the room she shared with Austin. She left the door open, an action Cassie found endearing. Annalisa’s mother instinct was strong. No matter how weak and tired, she’d be back in an instant if Cassie didn’t find a way to soothe her baby.
Rocking and cooing and saying completely stupid things to a crying baby who couldn’t have cared less, Cassie walked back and forth across the floor. This was the way things would be if she had a child. The way of a new mother, anxious to do the right thing and not knowing what that was. Feeling her way in the dark, hoping for the best, trusting God to get her through.
At the moment, that was the story of Cassie’s life. As if the tornado had swept through Whisper Falls and torn away the protective cocoon she’d been hiding in for three years. Maybe longer.
She shifted the baby to her shoulder and patted his back, careful to support his downy bobble head. With his sweet breath warm on her neck, she hummed “Blessed Assurance”—something she needed more of—and slowly, slowly Levi’s cries shuddered to a halt.
“Thank You, Lord,” Cassie murmured, nearly limp with gratitude and relief.
She patted and hummed a while longer then placed the tiny boy in his crib. This time he didn’t stir. Standing above him, watching him sleep, a powerful love gripped Cassie.
When Austin returned ten minutes later, Cassie left her brother in charge of his wife and son and took her bowl of ice cream to her bedroom. She hadn’t told Austin about the trip to Louis’s trailer. He wouldn’t approve. He thought she should let go of the past and move on. Perhaps she would have if Heath hadn’t come along. But Darrell had been an important part of her life and now their short life together stood in question. Before she could move forward, she needed to close the door on the past. She simply had to know if her love and life with Darrell had been real.
Setting the red ceramic bowl on her dresser, she thought of the old chest and the things she’d found at the tornado site. She was still puzzled as to Heath’s reason for wanting the map and the lipstick lid, but she trusted him to return them. She felt good admitting that. She trusted Heath. Trusted him with Darrell’s belongings, trusted him to do the right thing. Maybe she even trusted him with her heart.
She paused to examine the notion. Found it good and right and tucked it away inside. Someday soon, she would be ready, though she could scarcely believe a man like Heath would want her for anything more than a pal. But he did. Every action seemed to court her, to woo her, to draw her to him.
She’d had little time to look through the items she’d found this afternoon, but now she could. She spread the handful of documents on her bed, driven by a bittersweet eagerness to sort through them. One at time she opened the envelopes, read the enclosures. Mostly they included the normal, everyday bills of living with several pieces of advertisement, as if someone, probably Darrell, had tossed random mail into the drawer for later perusal. A glossy brochure for scuba equipment and reef diving. Another for condos on the beach. Another for Buenos Aires. The latter made her frown. Darrell had never mentioned Buenos Aires.
“Meet Dias. Cavern 2. 8.” She read aloud from a slip of paper stuck inside one of their honeymoon brochures.
Cassie frowned at the words, pulse tripping in her throat. The writing was Darrell’s. But who was Dias? She put aside the note to rifle through the others in hopes of a clue. She came across a reminder to rent a boat at a certain place and another with directions to a dive shop. The latter notation soothed her. Dias was likely another scuba enthusiast Darrell wanted to connect with in Mexico. No big deal. Nothing nefarious. No need to tell Heath.
Or should she? Weren’t these items more proof that her honeymoon was exactly as it should have been?
A little voice niggled at her brain. What if they’re something else?
They weren’t. That’s all there was to it.
She should tell Heath. Show him.
The photos of crystal white sand and impossible blues of the Mexican seas gleamed under the overhead light like a beacon pointing the way.
For a long time, she sifted through the mementos, regretting without grief, mulling without resolution. Then, she slid them into a drawer beneath a stack of colorful scarves, and left them there.
“There you are, you lazy Fed. Where have you been?”
Heath had just ambled into the police station, past Verletta at the dispatch desk, past the administrative assistant who made both his and the chief’s life easier, and into the cluttered office of his boss.
“It’s six in the morning, Chief. I’ve been asleep for the last six hours.” More like four, but who was counting? Last night, he’d been restless enough to clean his apartment and shoot a few emails to his brothers and mom. He’d even done some research on Mexican drug trafficking routes. Imagine that. The map he’d gotten from Cassie had rung a bell. He hadn’t completely connected the dots to Darrell Chapman, but he had a good start now that he’d seen the map. “What’s up?”
JoEtta shoved a cup of black coffee into his hands. “Had a call this morning. Some bigwig in another time zone without sense enough to look at the clock.”
“Must have been a Fed,” Heath drawled. Then he sipped the scalding brew, grimaced, and went back for another sip.
The chief smirked. “How did you know?”
He hoisted the coffee in a salute. She’d given him the mug with the “I see guilty people” logo. “Saw that dig coming. Who called?”
“Somebody trying to lure you away from Whisper Falls. Asked permission to contact you. As if my disapproval would stop him.” She yanked another mug from the single shelf beneath the coffee cart.
“Why, Chief,” he said, in the slowest Texas drawl he could muster. “I’m starting to think you like having my sorry federal agent hide hanging around.”
She sniffed, shot him a narrow glare. “Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back. You’re helpful at times. When you’re not lollygagging over that hairstylist.”
Heath’s smile tightened. That hairdresser was taking a lot of his time. If not for the troubling matter of her late husband...”
“Well?” Chief demanded, a hand on her hip showing her typical impatience.
Heath flinched. He’d been thinking of Cassie again and had lost the train of conversation. As cover, he took another sip of coffee. The chief could sear the hair off a bald eagle with this stuff. “Well, what?”
“Do you, or do you not, want to talk to that bigwig Fed?”
“No need.”
“No? Not interested in hogging all the glory anymore?” The constant jabs at his former DEA status didn’t bother Heath. The chief knew the truth. She’d bowed to his knowledge and asked for his take on situations a number of times. She respected who he was. Correction, who he’d been. The joking around was just the way they related.
“Citations for extreme bravery clutter up my walls. Fame and fortune fades.” He gave her an ornery grin. “Besides, somebody’s got to keep these backwoods police chiefs in line.”
JoEtta guffawed, jostling coffee onto the floor. She rubbed at the splatters with her boot toe. “So, you like us here in Whisper Falls, do you?”
“Something like that.” He did. That much was true. Yet he remained troubled by the vow to his father’s memory, worried he wasn’t doing enough. Small town life was sweet, but it didn’t offer many opportunities to bag the really bad guys. All the more reason to push harder on the Carmichael case.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about going back to the agency.” Flexibility had been part of their deal, a six-month trial period for both parties.
“Oh, I’ve thought about it.” He took a chair, studied his coffee. “There are...situations.” And he wasn’t sure if the situations kept him here or gave him reasons to leave.
Chief Farnsworth circled the desk and plopped down, equipment and chair rollers clanking. “Cassie Blackwell?”
Feeling the acid burn in his gut, Heath set the coffee atop a file cabinet. He’d never even come close to having an ulcer. No use starting now.
He drew in a slow breath and let it out every bit as slowly. “Yes. Cassie.”
The chief tilted back in her chair, crafty eyes studying him for two beats. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this drug business, Heath.”
The chief never used his given name. It made him feel young, vulnerable. He much preferred her bluster.
“Maybe. I hope not. She seems like a nice girl.” Nice girl. Yeah. Sure. Congratulations, Monroe, you slid that one out as if Cassie was nothing more than an acquaintance on the street. As if you didn’t have crazy thoughts about her. Talk about compromised.
“But you’ll keep digging.”
“Have to.” He turned to retrieve his coffee.
“Your daddy was a good cop, too.”
The statement turned him around, frowning. Had they discussed his father?
“Mace Walters told me.” Those shrewd eyes narrowed, seeing more than he liked to show.
“Mace talks too much.” Mace. Old friend and easy reference. But no use getting riled. His father’s career was public record. Anyone could do an internet search and find the information in a matter of minutes. Heath sipped at his coffee, hiding the turmoil that spewed to the surface at the mention of his father.
“I needed to know who I was hiring. A family of law dogs, so to speak. Commendable. None of my brats followed in my renowned footsteps.”
He could see that bothered her but knew better than to commiserate. She’d spit in his eye. He also knew she’d thrown in the latter intentionally, a way of showing him that she, too, had a cross to bear.
“Dad died in the line of duty, a drug raid gone bad.”
Lips tight, she nodded. “A sorry shame, too. So you became a DEA agent.”
“Somebody’s got to do it.” He gave up on the coffee and set the mug aside for good. “But today I’m satisfied to be Whisper Falls’s assistant chief.”
“Sure about that? You’re seeing an awful lot of Cassie lately. What if the investigation into her husband goes south on you? How will you feel about Whisper Falls if that happens?”
“It already has gone south. All the way to Mexico.”
But the chief already knew that, just as she knew he’d hired Holt to dig around across the border. “I could take over from here. Call in the city boys. Leave you out of the equation.”
He was touched. In her inimitable manner, JoEtta was offering him a way out of the sticky situation.
“Too late, Chief. Cassie knows I started this investigation. Now, I have to finish it.”