Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel)

by Novak, Brenda

  “Is that your car?” the boy cried, delighted.

  Cassidy, getting out, hated to burst his bubble. “It’s a rental,” she said.

  Henry seemed a little deflated. “The kind you give back when you don’t need it anymore?”

  Cassidy squeezed his shoulder. “That’s the plan,” she said gently. She found herself wanting to explain that she didn’t need a car, since she had one, back in Seattle, but that would have been too much information for sure. She nodded in the direction of Duke’s truck. “Another breakdown?”

  Henry nodded importantly. “Dad says it threw a rod.”

  Cassidy was no mechanic, but she figured that prognosis was grim indeed.

  Chip, standing so close to Henry that they were nearly holding each other up, wagged his tail, panting. He seemed fascinated by the whole exchange.

  “Yikes,” Cassidy said, though secretly, she was hoping Duke would finally junk that old rust-bucket and buy himself a new truck. And behind that thought was another: G.W. looked almost as good from the back as he did from the front.

  He turned just then, almost as if he’d heard the gears turning in her head, nodded a greeting.

  “Can I have a ride sometime?” Henry wanted to know. He was checking out the car now, standing on tiptoe to peer through the driver’s side window.

  “Sure,” Cassidy said, distracted.

  G.W. walked toward her, wiping his hands on a rag. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his hair was attractively rumpled. “That pile of rusty bolts is a goner,” he said, jabbing a thumb over one shoulder to indicate Duke’s rig. “Talk some sense into your uncle, will you? Tell him it’s time to bust out his wallet and buy a new one.”

  Cassidy smiled. “This is Duke McCullough we’re talking about,” she reminded him. “He won’t listen to a word I say.”

  Henry was back. “Did you tell Cassidy about the flowers?” he asked his father. Then he looked up at Cassidy and said, “Somebody sent you flowers. They’re real pretty, too. A woman brought them all the way from Flagstaff, and Uncle Duke gave her a big tip for going to all the trouble.”

  “Slipped my mind,” G.W. told the boy. Then he met Cassidy’s eyes and said dutifully, “Somebody sent you flowers.”

  “Oh,” Cassidy said.

  Brilliant.

  Henry was tugging at her hand. “Don’t you want to look at them? Don’t you want to smell them or something?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “Who do you suppose sent them?”

  G.W. raised one eyebrow, and his mouth tilted up at one side. His expression said, Who indeed?

  “Let’s have a look,” Cassidy said, and rushed toward the house.

  Henry and Chip were right behind her.

  Sure enough, a massive bouquet awaited her in the middle of the kitchen table, spilling from a beautiful cut-glass vase. Roses, pink and white, at least two dozen of them, plus baby’s breath and lots of greenery.

  So, Shelby had been right. Michael was sorry for blowing her off the way he had. He wanted to make up.

  Cassidy waited to feel something, but she was still numb.

  Her hand shook slightly as she reached for the card, opened the tiny envelope, read the words inside.

  At first, they didn’t register.

  She read them again.

  The flowers weren’t from Michael, after all. They were from his mother.

  “It’s all for the best,” Mrs. Brighton-Stiles had dictated to some hapless florist in Flagstaff.

  ‘It’s all for the best’?

  Cassidy nearly laughed aloud. As kiss-offs went, this one was in a class by itself.

  “Are they from that guy you’re gonna marry?” Henry asked innocently, examining the impressive bouquet.

  “No,” Cassidy said, carefully tucking the card back into the envelope.

  “Then who sent them?”

  How was she supposed to answer that? She couldn’t say, ‘a friend’, because Michael’s mother wasn’t one. She’d never actually liked the woman, and she’d known all along that the feeling was mutual.

  So she finally settled on, “Just someone I know in Seattle.”

  “Oh,” Henry said, clearly confused but willing to take her word for it.

  “How about that ride?” Cassidy asked. “We can leave right now, if your dad says it’s okay.”

  Henry’s face lit up. “In your car?” He wanted clarification.

  “In my car,” Cassidy affirmed. It was back, that urge to hug the little guy.

  “Can Chip come with us?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “But remember—we have to get the go-ahead first.”

  “Dad will say yes,” Henry said, with exuberant confidence, running for the back door, bursting through the opening, Chip behind him, like always.

  Cassidy lingered for a while, looking at the roses. They were beautiful.

  She reached into her bag, found her cell, checked the screen. Nothing from Michael.

  Well, he hadn’t wasted any time bringing his mother up to speed on the situation, had he?

  Who else had he told?

  If she checked his social media page, would she find an anti-Cassidy rant posted there?

  Cassidy decided that none of it mattered. She turned her back on the bouquet and followed Henry outside.

  G.W. had evidently given his permission, because Henry was in the process of lugging his booster seat across the yard, headed for the rental car, and Chip was already ensconced in the back seat.

  “We have to use this stupid chair until I get taller,” Henry explained, breathless with the effort.

  Cassidy helped him install the apparatus across the seat from Chip. Henry climbed in, buckled up, and grinned with anticipation.

  Cassidy got behind the wheel, fastening her own seatbelt, and tooted the horn at Duke and G.W. They’d given up on the old truck by then, closed the hood and stepped away.

  Duke looked like a bystander at the scene of an accident.

  G.W. lifted a hand in farewell.

  Cassidy’s heart did that fluttery thing again as she backed up the rental car and turned it around. Some of the numbness subsided, leaving room for a flash of guilt. She should be inconsolable, or at least blue.

  She and Michael were over.

  There wasn’t going to be a wedding.

  Shouldn’t she be devastated?

  Shouldn’t she be sobbing and raging, throwing things, or listening to sad music in a dark room, or swilling beer in some seedy bar while Shelby sat across from her, elbows propped on a sticky table-top, chin in her hands, all sympathy?

  Instead, Cassidy realized, she was barely holding back a resounding, “Whoopee!”

  The way Duke acted, G.W. thought, you’d have thought somebody died.

  They were at Duke’s kitchen table, drinking beer. “I’ve had that truck for twenty years,” Duke lamented. “Twenty years.”

  The pink flowers added a funereal touch, and their heady scent made him want to open a window or two.

  “Well,” G.W. said carefully, “you have to admit, you got your money’s worth. How many rigs last that long?”

  Duke actually sniffled, and his eyes were moist. Duke, who spent a good deal of his time trying to run monsters to ground. “It had a name,” he confided. “It was Doris.”

  G.W. suppressed a groan. He wasn’t without sympathy—he knew a man could develop what amounted to a relationship with a good truck—but, Doris?

  Come on.

  “Annabelle and I went on our first date in that truck,” Duke reminisced.

  G.W. couldn’t help it. He sighed. “Duke,” he said. “You can afford a new one. And if your first date with Annabelle was that long ago, well, maybe that’s what you ought to be thinking about.”

  Duke looked surprised. And injured. “You know, I sort of expected a little more understanding. From my best friend, I mean.”

  G.W. did what he should have done a few moments before; he kept his mouth shut.

  Duke’s shoulders slum
ped slightly, and he gave a sigh of his own. “Truth is,” he said, “I’m pretty sure Annabelle would say no if I asked her to get married after all this time. She might take it as an afterthought.”

  Two decades, G.W. reflected. That was some afterthought.

  But he was touched, too. “If she did turn you down—and that’s pretty unlikely, if you ask me—you’d survive it. Chances are, the two of you would just go right on the way you have been. Would that be so terrible?”

  Duke was quiet for a long time. “I’m a damn fool,” he said, just when G.W. was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. “Running on about the truck, and Annabelle, when you—after what happened to Sandy—“

  G.W. said nothing. Shutting down was his default reaction, whenever her name came up. He did it automatically.

  Something was different this time, though. There was no pain, just a flood of happy memories. Sandy, radiant and rumpled, fresh from the delivery room, holding their newborn son. Sandy, laughing, teaching Henry to swim, turning the hose on G.W. in the front yard, shrieking with joyful indignation when he took it away, drenched her in the spray.

  The years with Sandy had been good ones, better than good, but they were gone, and so was she.

  “I’ll move on if you will,” Duke said. Sometimes, he saw too much; G.W. guessed that was a hazard of long-term friendships.

  “There’s one flaw in your logic,” G.W. replied. “The kind of ‘moving on’ you’re talking about requires a woman. You’ve got one. I don’t.”

  “Cassidy’s not going to marry that Michael yahoo, you know,” Duke informed him. He nodded toward the roses. “Those flowers? They’re from his mother.”

  G.W. glanced at the bouquet, frowned. “Okay. That’s weird. I’ll give you that. But where are you getting your information?”

  Duke grinned. “I read the card. As for the break-up, well, Shelby told me. Called me on her way back from Flagstaff. She was worried about Cassidy.”

  G.W. was alarmed, but he managed to hide it. Or, at least he hoped he had. “She was that upset? Cassidy, I mean?”

  “Did she look upset to you?” Duke asked.

  G.W. considered. Shook his head. “I guess not.”

  “You guess right,” came the answer. “Cassidy didn’t want to marry this guy; I knew it all along. She’d just painted herself into a corner, that’s all. Gotten in over her head. She came home so she could think things through.”

  “You’ve got it all figured out,” G.W. said, unconvinced. For once in his life, though, he’d have liked to be wrong. “And you’re not giving Cassidy a whole lot of credit here, it seems to me. She’s a woman, not a kid. She knows her own mind. It follows that, if she accepted the man’s proposal in the first place, she planned on following through.” He paused. Looked at the flowers again. “Couples fight. Then they make up. My guess is, this whole thing will blow over and the wedding will be on again.”

  The sound of tires on gravel alerted them to Cassidy’s return from the ride with Henry and the dog.

  Conversation over.

  “Nice flowers,” Duke commented that night, as he and Cassidy shared a light supper, just the two of them.

  Cassidy merely nodded, chewing. They were having chili, the kind that comes in a can. It was a favorite of theirs from way back.

  “Guess I’ll be getting a new truck,” Duke persisted. For a man, he talked a lot. What ever happened to that Mars/Venus thing?

  “Seems like a good idea.”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on, Cassidy?”

  She smiled. “Sure. First, though, you have to tell me the truth about your alleged encounters with Bigfoot and his ilk.”

  “Honey,” Duke said, with a twinkle, “Bigfoot has no ilk. And what’s this ‘alleged’ stuff?”

  “Tell me,” Cassidy said. “Did you really see a sasquatch?”

  Duke thought for a few moments. “I saw him,” he said, very seriously.

  Cassidy waited.

  Duke shook his head, reflective. “At least, I saw something. Heard it, too.” He paused, reached for another piece of cornbread. The silence stretched so far that Cassidy finally had to prompt her uncle to go on, albeit gently.

  “And?”

  “I have my theories,” he said, after a long time.

  “Such as?”

  “The human mind is a powerful and mysterious thing, Cassidy,” he answered. “I wonder sometimes if the things people see—angels, demons, ghosts, the monster in the closet—I wonderful they’re not—well, projecting them somehow.”

  “You mean, they’re hallucinating?”

  But Duke shook his head again. “No,” he said. “I think they might be creating these phenomena, externalizing some part of their own psyche. That’s not the same as imagining them. Something has to be making all that noise, doing all that damage. So, I guess what I’m saying is, I think maybe most people’s definition of the word ‘real’ is way too limited.”

  “But you actually saw a Bigfoot,” Cassidy pointed out. Maybe, she thought, she didn’t want to put ‘paid’ to the critter’s existence herself. Did everything have to have an explanation? What kind of a world would it be with no mystery, no magic?

  “I did,” Duke agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t seeing some aspect of my own subconscious mind.”

  She knew all the stories. Some of Duke’s sightings had been all his own, but others had been shared with as many as half a dozen other people. “Your monster-hunting friends, though. What were they seeing? Hearing?”

  “Who can say?” Duke replied. “Seeing is a subjective thing, and so is hearing. Maybe their experience was different from mine, their own version of whatever these things are. Since I can’t get into their heads, I can’t be sure how closely their vision matches up with mine.”

  “Maybe,” Cassidy agreed thoughtfully.

  “You could come along on this next expedition,” Duke suggested, finished with his meal but making no move to rise from his chair. “Find out for yourself.”

  “Not a chance,” Cassidy said.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, I’d be absolutely terrified.”

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

  She shook her head, smiling. “I’ll take your word for it,” she responded. “Besides, I kind of enjoy wondering and, judging by the size of your blog following and all those loyal podcast listeners you have, I’m not the only one.”

  Duke was quiet for a few moments. He pushed his empty chili bowl to one side and rested his hands on the table, fingers interlaced.

  “You could work with me, Cass. On the podcasts, I mean. The show could use a feminine touch. I’d pay you a salary, of course.”

  “You’re still trying to take care of me,” Cassidy said.

  “Sue me. You’re my only brother’s only child. I happen to love you. And, anyway, it’s true that you’d be an asset to the operation.”

  Cassidy thought the idea might grow on her, but she wasn’t ready to commit, so she just said, “Okay, I’ll give it some thought.”

  A comfortable silence fell, but it didn’t last long.

  “It’s your turn,” Duke said, when Cassidy didn’t immediately volunteer anything about her cancelled wedding.

  “You’re not going to let me off the hook, are you?” she asked.

  Duke smiled. “Nope,” he said. “A deal’s a deal, sweetheart. I answered your questions. Now, you’ll have to answer at least one of mine.”

  Cassidy’s shoulders sagged with the heavy sigh she uttered, then straightened again. She managed a tentative smile in response to Duke’s.

  “How do I plan to vote in the next election?” she spoke lightly, stalling.

  “Nice try,” Duke countered. “What happened between you and Michael?”

  “We broke up.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s two questions. I only promised to answer one.”

  “Come on, Cassidy. How can I help you if you wo
n’t talk to me?”

  She straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and smiled again, though her mouth didn’t wobble this time, like it had moments before. “You want the truth? Okay, here it is. I’m not very proud of myself at the moment. I’m supposed to be this strong, independent woman, smart, sensible.”

  “So far, you’re right on. Except for the part about not being proud of yourself, that is.”

  Duke’s words warmed Cassidy’s somewhat bruised heart, but her self-esteem was still suffering. “Thanks, but you’re biased,” she said. “If I’m so smart, how come I fooled myself into believing I loved a man I sometimes don’t even like very much?” She put up both hands, palms out, to stop her uncle from answering. She’d come back to Busted Spur, back to the ranch, she knew now, not to prepare for a wedding, not even to get a little perspective before she took a profound step, as she’d thought. No, she was here to choose between more than getting married or not getting married—a lot more. She was here to choose between one life and another. “Somewhere along the way,” she went on, finally, and with a sort of broken resolution, “I misplaced myself. Oh, I had a great time in Seattle, at least at first. Everything was new and different. I met Michael. I created a role for myself, and then I played it.”

  Duke patted her hand. “What’s next?”

  “First,” Cassidy said, making the decision in that moment, “I’m going back to Seattle.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “You’re doing what?” Shelby asked, when Cassidy showed up at her house bright and early the next morning, bearing doughnuts and specialty coffee.

  “I think you heard me the first time,” Cassidy said sweetly. “I’m going back to Seattle.”

  Shelby’s mouth dropped open. Then she snapped it shut again. “Why?”

  “Actually, there are a number of practical reasons.”

  “Cassidy.”

  Cassidy relented. “Some things,” she said, with a note of sadness, “have to be done in person.”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance, Michael and I need to talk. Face to face. I can’t simply turn my back on what we had together, even if it was mostly a fantasy on my part.”

  “That’s it? You’re going all that way to break up with the man? Excuse me, but am I missing something here? Because I really thought you’d already done that.”