LITMIR.BIZ

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      She watched him leave, unaware of the wistfulness that marred her face. How she would have liked to walk across the bridge with him, to sit down at the small round table and enjoy the cool evening air, the savory aromatic food and the company of strangers. She was tired of being alone, tired of having no friends, tired of having to be on guard all the time. She was tired, tired, tired, tired.

      Besides, she hadn’t had lasagna in a long time.

      Wednesday morning found Cassidy stretched out on the couch, the television turned on but the sound muted. The picture was filled with snow and the static made the audio unbearable—and this was the channel that came in the best. She’d noticed the satellite dish on the neighboring cabin’s roof with some envy while washing the breakfast dishes. Too bad she couldn’t run a cable over there and tap into his better reception, but that would be illegal. Besides, she had no clue how to do such a thing. Inserting a plug into an outlet was the extent of her electronic abilities.

      On the dining table, the laptop made a faint hum as the fan came on. The screen was dark, but if she walked over and moved the cursor, the WordPerfect screen would pop up with the same lines that had been on it last evening when Jace Barnett had knocked. She’d been lying on the sofa then, too, trying to read a magazine but finding concentration too difficult to come by. She had tiptoed to the door, turned down his dinner invitation, then watched until he’d crossed the bridge. After closing the door she’d peeked through the blinds as he’d joined the man and woman on the deck. They had talked and laughed and eaten…and she had watched. Like the little match girl in the story her mother had read her long ago, on the outside looking in.

      Except she was inside looking out. More like a prisoner locked away for her crimes. But the crimes that made her a prisoner weren’t her own. She was the victim, but she was getting all the punishment.

      Unable to stand the flickering TV any longer, she surged to her feet, shut it off, then went to the window. The other cabin was still and quiet. She’d heard a boat putt past more than an hour ago, sounding as if it were coming from that way. If Jace Barnett was out on the lake, there couldn’t be any harm in her spending a little time outside in the sun, could there?

      She got a sheet from her bedroom, a pair of sunglasses and a book, and headed outside. After another trip back in for the boom box and a glass of water, she spread the sheet over the grass, settled on her stomach and started reading to the accompaniment of B. B. King.

      It was a peaceful, easy way to spend a morning, with the sun warm on her skin, the soft lap of the water against the shore, the buzz of bees among the wildflowers. Trade the sheet on the ground for a rope hammock and the glass of water for lemonade, and she would be as contented as a fat cat drinking cream in a sunbeam. As it was, she was almost contented enough to doze off. If she wasn’t careful, she would wake up with the sunburn to end all sunburns, and then what would she do?

      Gradually she became aware that the music had stopped. The sun’s pleasant warmth had become uncomfortably hot, and the bees’ buzzing had been replaced by slow, steady breathing…and it wasn’t her own.

      She opened her eyes and tried to focus on the lush embossed floral depiction an inch from the tip of her nose. She had dozed off, using the novel for a pillow, knocking her sunglasses askew. All the moisture had been sucked out of her skin that was exposed to the sun and redeposited in places that weren’t, dampening her clothes and making her feel icky.

      And there was that breathing.

      She lifted her head, sliding the glasses back into place, and saw her neighbor sitting a few feet away. He wore cutoffs, a ragged Kansas City Chiefs T-shirt and tennis shoes without socks, and he looked as if he hardly even noticed the heat. His own shades were darker than hers, hiding his eyes completely, but she didn’t need to see them to know his gaze was fixed on her. The shiver sliding down her spine told her so.

      “Working hard?”

      Hoping the embossed cover wasn’t outlined on her cheek, Cassidy slowly sat up, rubbed her face, then combed her fingers through her hair. “Doing research,” she said, holding up the book, then laying it aside.

      “Checking out the competition?”

      She shrugged.

      “So you write—”

      “Watch it,” she warned.

      “I was just going to say—”

      “I know what you were going to say. It was the way you were going to say it.” She picked up her glass, its contents lukewarm now, and took a sip. “‘So you write romance novels.’ Or ‘So you write trashy books.’ Or ‘So you write sex books.’ Wink, wink, leer.” Her gaze narrowed. “I didn’t tell you I write anything.”

      “Reese did—my cousin. He got it from Paulette.”

      Cassidy was half surprised the real estate agent had remembered long enough to pass the information on. The woman had shown little interest, other than to remark that she was going to write a book someday. Everybody was, Cassidy had learned in her short career.

      “Paulette says you’re from Alabama.”

      “California,” she lied without hesitation.

      “You have Arizona tags.”

      “It’s on the way here from California.”

      He didn’t seem to appreciate her logic. “I can see confusing Alabama and Arizona, both of them starting and ending with A. But Alabama and California?”

      “They both have ‘al’ in them. Besides, when people talk, Paulette listens for the silence that indicates it’s her turn to speak, not for content.”

      “That’s true. She does like to share her vast knowledge with everyone.”

      “Sounds like you know her well.”

      “She’s my cousin, three or four times removed.”

      It must be nice to have family around. She had relatives, too, but she hadn’t seen them in six years. No visits, no phone calls, no letters. It was worse than having no family at all, and so she pretended that was the case. Fate had decreed she should be all alone in the world, and there was no use trying to fight it.

      “Then you’re from around here,” she said, then shrugged when his gaze intensified. “You said yesterday you’d just moved out here a while ago.”

      “I was staying with my folks outside Buffalo Plains.”

      “Why move?”

      “Because I’m too old to live with my parents any longer than necessary.”

      Why had it been necessary? she wanted to ask. Had he lost his job? Gone through a lousy divorce that left him with nothing? Been recovering from a serious illness? Offhand, she couldn’t think of any other reasons an able-bodied adult male would move in with Mom and Dad.

      But instead of asking such a personal question, she asked another that was too personal. “Do you work?”

      Again his hidden gaze seemed to sharpen. “Nope. I occasionally help Guthrie Harris with his cattle, or Easy Rafferty with his horses, but that’s about it.”

      “Easy Rafferty. What a name.”

      “You heard of him?”

      She shook her head.

      “He used to be a world champion roper until he lost a couple fingers in an accident. Now he raises the best paints in this part of the country. He could teach that horse whisperer guy a few things.”

      A rodeo cowboy. She knew nothing about them—had never been to a rodeo or gotten closer to any horse than passing a mounted police patrol in the city—but they were popular in the books boxed up inside. So were Indians of all types, including cowboys. Though she had no trouble picturing Jace Barnett in faded Wranglers, a pearl-snapped shirt and a Stetson, something about the image didn’t feel quite right. She had no reason to think he was lying

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