“Ah, the chatelaine of the castle.” He executed a makeshift bow over her hand. “Zane Buchanan. I’m staying at your hotel.”
“Oh, I heard an earful about you from my fiancé, Doc.” She pointed at him with her free hand. “Piper, this is the scuba guy I told you about. Once Gray stopped panicking that an idiot was going to die wearing his air tanks and his family might end up suing us for every last dime, he really liked you.” She finished with a sweet smile directed at Zane.
“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to cause any alarm.” His devil-may-care grin ratcheted up a few notches. Casey didn’t know how Ella’s knees didn’t buckle beneath the full power of all that sexy allure. Then she realized she didn’t want to think about anyone else falling under Zane’s allure. He gave Ella’s hand a pat before he released it. “Truth be told, I didn’t intend to get caught. I don’t worry about repercussions until they smack me in the head.”
“Look, I’m glad you got all chummy with Gray and Ward, but they’re not the friends I’m worried about right now.” Casey jabbed both index fingers toward her snoopy friends. “These two are. Why’d you spy on us?”
“You let him play with your knife.” Piper’s voice was hollow and awed. “You won’t let either of us touch it.”
“Because you’re two of the girliest girls in the world. You hate dirt.” She glared at Piper first, then back to Ella. “You squeak when a twig snaps you in the face. And when you tried to shoot a rubber band at me sophomore year, it snapped back at you and you insisted on going to the nurse’s office. Of course I’m not letting you touch my knife.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Piper pursed her lips. Smoothed the front of her unwrinkled white linen dress that if Casey owned, would’ve crumpled into wrinkles just from hanging in her closet. Then she took Zane’s hand. “I’m Piper Morrissey. It’s a pleasure to meet you, and we don’t want to hold up this wonderful-looking lunch.” As she spoke, she put her other arm loosely around his shoulders and guided him into the outer office. “I hope you’ll let us borrow Casey. We have a girlfriend emergency that will just take a moment. By the time you finish looking at pictures of the park’s nineteen waterfalls, we’ll be out of your hair.”
And then she closed the door right on his heels.
Chapter Four
Casey’s jaw dropped. “He’s a very nice man. A very hot man, who was making moves on me. Why’d you kick him out?”
That sheen of charm Piper had used on Zane, the same one she used on all her winery customers, disappeared. She leaned against the door and crossed her arms over her chest. “Because we saw his moves. Heard his ultra-romantic offer. We also heard you try to turn him down.”
Oh, yeah. Casey had almost forgotten her righteous reasons for not falling under Zane’s spell. She bit her lip. Hard. There she went, bending the truth to herself again. The reality? That ship had sailed last night. Zane was adorable and sizzling hot and she could not resist him. The only thing she could do was resist the idea of him, in principle. “I’m too busy to date. I had to cancel on Pierce last night.”
Ella flopped into the folding metal guest chair. Her ponytail flew over her shoulder. Then she let her arms and legs droop to the sides and let her head fall back. “Ugh. Worst. Excuse. Ever. You can fall asleep over dinner with Pierce, the Prince of Boring, any old night.”
“And you have,” Piper said with a significant look.
Sheesh. She should never tell these two anything. Not that she ever let them live down their embarrassing moments, either. That’s what best friends were for. “It only happened the one time. I’d hiked about eight miles that day, and it was late, and—”
Ella curled back up, burbling with laughter. “It was only eight o’clock! You fell asleep because he talked about the miracle of molars for half an hour.”
The memory of that night was pretty blurry. Well, the memory of his conversation was blurry. Casey remembered every delicious detail of the saucy barbecued ribs, baked beans, hush puppies, coleslaw and fries that she’d shoveled down...in part to keep her un-comatose. And it wasn’t like she’d face-planted in the beans. It had been a simple head-bob. Pierce never noticed. Probably.
Piper cocked her head. “Didn’t Pierce bring that faculty member from Cornell to the Mayhew Manor party this month?”
“Yes. The biology teacher.” A shudder ran through Ella as she rebloused her pale orange dress over the wide tan belt. “She pinned me down when I was loading up on deviled eggs and tried to talk to me about ovum division. It almost kept me from eating any more of them.”
“Or was that because you’d already had half a dozen and were about to make yourself sick on them?” Ella’s weakness for deviled eggs was legendary. Joel had made her a buffet of twenty different kinds for her birthday last year. It’d been about fifteen kinds too many. He might swear till he turned blue that kimchi was a hot food trend, but nobody needed fermented cabbage mixed with their egg yolks.
“My point was that you and Pierce hang with other people all the time. You’re not exclusive.”
“I know.”
“So where’s this guilt coming from? Ditch the dentist, and go have a good time with the Doc.”
They were right. The unfortunate timing overlap of meeting Zane when she was supposed to be with Pierce was tripping Casey up. But that had been purely accidental. She’d known that long before they threw it in her face as a free pass.
Or was she rolling over so quickly just because Zane was so darn interesting? Casey hooked up with other men. But relationships? No. Nothing long term. Nothing serious. That was the good side of using Pierce as her backup. Yes—that’s what they were to each other. A solid backup plan. Not first choice.
“But we do have an understanding. Common courtesy, at the very least, says that if I can’t scrape together a couple of hours for dinner with Pierce, I shouldn’t find a way to make it happen for someone else.”
Piper narrowed her eyes. “Don’t use Pierce as an excuse. You never do relationships. Not really. You flit between men.”
Usually. But...Casey scarfed down another cracker sandwich. And felt a new rush of mini-guilt for enjoying the lunch Zane had prepared while he cooled his heels in the outer office. “What if I’m tempted to buck the trend? To jump into a relationship with Zane?”
“You’ve known him for how long?”
“In actual time spent together? Maybe forty-five minutes.” Silence filled the room, thicker than the fog that coated the lake every spring and autumn morning. “It’s insane, I know.”
“That’s why you have to do it,” Piper proclaimed. Then she licked her lips, looked up and to the side as if figuring out how to translate something. “Men are like splinters to you.”
“Hard?” Ella hooted with laughter. “Wood?”
“Not where I was going, but pretty damn funny. I meant that men never get more than skin deep with you. Ever. If this guy’s already got you tied up in knots, you have to go for it.” Piper threw open the door and beckoned Zane back in before Casey could respond. “So sorry we interrupted your lunch.”
“I don’t call two beautiful women stopping by an interruption. I call it good fortune.” After beaming a smile at the room, Zane sat back down and started putting a little bit of everything on two plates.
Casey scowled at her friends, still annoyed that they’d barged in at the worst possible moment. Even though they’d managed to talk her into going out with her handsome lunch date. “What are you doing here in the middle of the day, anyway? Don’t you both have jobs—besides snooping on me?”
“I’m the queen of multi-tasking,” Piper said breezily. Then her face sobered. “We wanted to give you the heads-up about a situation.”
Good things were never classified as a “situation.” Winning the lottery, getting engaged, getting a promotion—none of them were situations. Combined with a mid-d
ay, unannounced pop-in? If a skunk had just sprayed beneath her window, it couldn’t smell any worse. “This sounds serious.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Piper looked at Zane. Waited. He didn’t take the hint. Given his non-stop curiosity, he probably looked on whatever was coming as the lunch version of dinner theatre. Since he’d already been kicked out once, Casey didn’t have the heart to do it again.
“Go ahead and spill,” she ordered. “What’s going on?”
Ella looked at Piper, squared her shoulders, then looked back at Casey. “Joanna’s rented out the small conference room at the Manor. She wants to hold a meeting of the town council, along with a few other ‘important people’ to drum up support to kick Dawn out of office.”
“She can’t do that,” Casey said swiftly.
“Not on her own, no. But if she gets enough people with her, and enough signatures on a recall petition...” Piper’s voice trailed off.
Zane held up a hand. “Who’s Dawn?”
No point in beating around the bush. All Zane had to do was open the local newspaper to see if not an article, then an op-ed piece or a letter to the editor, all swirling around the subject. Casey took a swift swig of wine. “My stepmother. And the mayor of our town.”
At Zane’s long, low whistle, Piper filled in the rest. “About a month ago, the city planner and the treasurer ran off together. They took all of the town’s money with them.”
He looked at Casey. She tried not to grimace. Pissy-face was never one you wanted to show off on a first, or even third date. But it’d be impossible for him to miss her obviously clenched jaw. “Sounds like a whole lot of trouble,” Zane said flatly.
“It is.” Ella nodded, her ponytail bouncing. “Dawn knew nothing about it. At all. Nobody did. Not even the husband of the treasurer, who’s a tad more worried about his wife cheating on him and disappearing than the emptying of the town coffers.”
“Sounds like you’ve identified the thieves. And that the misappropriation of funds was localized to them.” Zane’s dark brows knitted together. “Why do they want to run Dawn out of office?”
“Because people always need a scapegoat, and she’s the only one still around.” The words tasted bitter on Casey’s tongue, like unflavored cough syrup.
“That’s not a good enough reason.”
“Not to anyone with two brain cells to rub together, right? Instead of coming together to figure out a way through all this, the town’s split down the middle.” Not quite the middle. Sentiment was divided in more of a sixty-forty split. Happily, the majority supported Dawn, and believed her innocence. As did, crucially enough, the local, state and federal authorities trying to track down the missing money. But that didn’t make Dawn feel like any less of a pariah. Which made Casey see red.
Her stepmother had given up everything to give Casey a good life. She’d been an exemplary mayor for years. Her general store was the unofficial hub of the town. For anyone to even look sideways at her was unthinkable. Casey knew that big heart of hers was easily bruised. The last few weeks hadn’t been easy for Dawn. And it killed her to watch the kind, generous woman struggle.
Ella stood. “We thought it would be better if you let Dawn know. About the meeting. There’s a good chance people will be talking about it even if they don’t go. We don’t want her to be blindsided.”
“And we didn’t know you had a date, or we would’ve waited to talk to you tonight,” Piper added. She sounded repentant. Didn’t stop her from leaning over to snake an olive off of Casey’s plate.
There was plenty of time to worry about Dawn later. Casey had honed that to a fine science over the last few weeks. If she could only get her nosy friends out the door, maybe Zane would pick things up where they left off. She’d rather have kisses for an appetizer than more olives. “I don’t have a date...yet. We were negotiating.” Casey jerked her head toward the door. “And it’s really a two-person discussion.”
From behind Zane, Ella held up two thumbs, grinning wildly. “Be sure to let us know how that goes. Nice to meet you, Doc.”
He half rose from the chair. Old-school manners that impressed the heck out of Casey. “I hope to see both of you again soon.”
“Me, too. Especially if you’re sporting just swim trunks again.” On a gale of laughter, the two women rushed out the door.
Zane held his hands out wide, palms up in question. “Did they use up all the time you’ve got for lunch, or can we continue?”
The paperwork wasn’t going anywhere. It wouldn’t magically disappear, but the Park Service wasn’t beating down her door for it. Piper had made a good point with her silly splinter analogy. And if most men were a surface splinter, Zane felt like one of those long vampire-killing stakes, angled deep to her heart. She’d be an idiot to ignore it.
“Are you kidding?” Her hesitation lasted only a second. Might as well go with the truth. “This spread is the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me. I’m not wasting or rushing a single bite of it.”
“I’m equally flattered and flabbergasted. What sort of philistines have you been dating?”
“Flabbergasted?” His vocabulary really did crack her up. “Because you’re suddenly eighty? Or it’s the 1890s?”
“It’s a good word. Don’t mock the well-spoken.”
“I don’t mix with the Hobart crowd very often. Guess you could call me more plain-spoken.”
“I like how you speak.” Zane brushed a thumb across her lower lip. “I want to hear more. So I’m asking again. Will you let me romance you?”
“I’m pretty sure I’ll let you do whatever you want to me.” Did that dreamy, head-in-the-sexual-clouds voice really belong to Casey? Embarrassing. Not untrue, just embarrassing.
“Actually, it’s more what you’re going to do to me...”
* * *
When Casey appeared on the top of the stone steps that marked the trailhead of Watkins Glen State Park, Zane waved to catch her attention. After all, there were about thirty other people milling around him. It might be a Wednesday, but in the middle of June, apparently hordes of people had the day free to traipse past the park’s famous waterfalls. Zane felt a tiny bit more righteous than all of them, having put in his solid two hours of work at the college yesterday. “I’m ready,” he yelled as he took the steps two at a time to get to her side.
“Holy hot crap on toast.” Casey slapped a hand over her mouth. It didn’t stay there for long, as a hoot of laughter escaped. “You look like Indiana Jones dropped into the middle of a hiker horror flick.”
Not exactly the reaction he’d been shooting for. On the other hand, the half comparison to a sexy and gun-wielding, Nazi-hunting professor felt like a good fit. Strapped low on his hips like a gun belt were two water bottles. A coil of rope hung at his side exactly like Indy’s iconic whip. Except that his rope was fluorescent orange. Zane struck a pose as he joined her at the wide stone landing. One arm curled up to bust out a biceps. The other tilted his wide-brimmed, dark brown hat farther down on his forehead. “Is that good or bad? Dashing? Adventurous?”
“Is ridiculous a choice? Because that’s what I’m leaning toward.”
Zane looked down. Thick socks bordered the top of his hiking boots. Two pairs, in fact, to ward off blisters. He’d picked up his utterly normal cargo shorts at a nameless mall back in Arizona. Nothing ridiculous there. They looked identical to what Casey wore, aside from not being forest-ranger green. “What’s your issue?”
“From the knees down—and the neck up? Nothing at all. You’re rocking the rugged sexiness. Enough to model on a poster for a camping store. I could stare at your legs all day long.”
Over the years, Zane had been called lots of things. Smart, analytical, brilliant, focused, perceptive. But this was the first time to be stamped with the ruggedly sexy label. He liked it.
Casey barre
led on, waving her hand at his midsection. “What you’ve got going on in between’s the problem. You and your wallet got taken advantage of with this purchase.”
He patted the satisfying bulges of his vest pockets. “Women don’t understand the primal need for extra gadgets on a dashboard, either. Men are just wired differently.”
“Wired to be suckers, is more like it.” She led him across a bridge that immediately enveloped them in the dark of cliffs and trees. The bright sunshine disappeared, replaced by a flickering, muted light that cast shadows on the already dark gray cliff faces. Water tumbled against rocks. Not anywhere Zane could see, but the sound echoed, bouncing from cavern to rocks to valley.
Casey was probably one of those people who didn’t understand the importance of a mini-fridge for beer near the television. Or why every man needed a Bluetooth-enabled barbecue thermometer that could read the meat’s temperature from two hundred feet away. Yeah, he’d gotten a little excited flipping through SkyMall on the flight out. If Zane did settle down here, the first thing he’d do was buy a big grill. And then he’d invite Casey over to eat a nicely charred steak...and her words. “This hiking vest is—”
She cut him off. “It’s ten pounds heavier than it should be, and not something anyone wants to wear/sweat in during summer.” A family walking by didn’t bother to pretend they hadn’t overheard her. The mom was all smugly superior, the kids pointed and giggled, and the dad looked at Zane as though reliving his own tongue-lashing in the not-too-distant past. “Sorry, I’m not trying to pick on you. I just want you to enjoy this hike, and not be so weighted down. What have you got in there?”
“The bare necessities.”
“Want to know what supplies I’ve got on me right now?” Casey made a big show of patting her own pockets. “A bottle of water. Period. But this isn’t your fault. Who sold this to you? Because I need to slap them back a notch or two. Was it Ogden? Tall guy with an Adam’s apple almost to his chin?”
“That’s the one.” He’d had about enough of her poking at him. “I’m not a complete rube. I turned down the freeze-dried astronaut ice cream.”
All for You Page 6
