Needs A Little TLC (Spinning Hills Romance 2) (15 page)

“Like messy storage habits,” Dan said.

Sam looked sharply at him. “Having sufficient storage is at the top of every house hunter’s list. Now, if you guys would get going already, I can rip this carpet out.”

“Just make sure you don’t pull it out from under you,” Dan said, a little too seriously, before shooting him a mischievous look. “And don’t worry. I’ll help you get the girl, too.”

Sam slammed the door shut behind them and made sure to lock it.

 

It took Cassie three cups of coffee to feel like her usual Saturday morning self. She was at the Gypsy Fortune Café and Bakery and the three elderly owners were watching her a bit too closely. The idea that one of them might have seen her and Sam asleep and cuddled up on the porch the night before made her uneasy.

“I’ll take this one to go,” she said, pouring her third cup of coffee into a to-go cup.

“Go where?” Rosa asked.

“To the park. I feel like taking a short walk before I go home.”

“Home?” Sherry repeated, leaning against the countertop.

“I thought you were home,” Ruby said.

“I mean home as in where I sleep, not where I partially grew up.”

“I’ve never understood long commutes. Such a waste of time. You’re working here, you’re spending time with friends here—some say you even sleep here . . .” Rosa said, shrugging as if her words were said in innocence.

Knowing better than to engage, Cassie held back her sigh and made her way to the door. “Yes. My partners and I have been working hard,” she said brightly. “You’ll see when we all meet next Friday for the last Open Town meeting. Good-bye, now!”

“Wait. Won’t you be at the special meeting tomorrow at six?” Ruby asked.

“What special meeting?”

“At Town Hall. Some residents and a few business owners have raised concerns about Open Town. They said you never even asked for a permit,” Ruby explained.

Cassie spun around. “A permit? Open houses are always held on Sundays from two to four, that’s nothing new. Business participation is optional, and we’re not using public property.”

“Then clear it up,” Sherry said from behind the counter.

“I will.”

Cassie walked to the park, needing the cool morning air to help her wake up and think before she drove home.

It killed her to know she’d have to come back tomorrow, prepared to fight. She already had a closing at two, and a showing at four. She would barely make it.

At least she had the morning off. Her back was killing her and walking helped. Spending half the night on the porch cuddled up to a hard male body and then twisting and turning the rest of the night in a sleeping bag on the floor trying not to remember the feel of being cuddled up to a hard male body could do that to a girl.

Cassie sat down at the gazebo and let out the sigh she’d been holding in. Her relief was short-lived. Sam and Johnny’s mom, Marianne, was sitting on a bench nearby, talking to two other women. One was rocking a stroller, while the other kept looking over toward a little girl playing by the stream and then over to where Jake was playing with a couple of boys.

Marianne had always been nice to her, but Cassie knew it was because of who her father was. Marianne was too hard on Dan and had been too unkind to the girls Sam and Johnny had dated throughout high school for Cassie to think it was anything else.

Cassie wasn’t in the mood to say hello and she made a move to get up and leave, but the sight of Jake playing with some friends near one of the five streams that cut through the park stopped her. She observed the kids a little while and gathered they were trying to catch crawfish.

One of the boys directed the others to the stream next to him and they all ran over. “How’d you know they were there?” Jake asked him, eyes shining.

“I’m gifted,” the kid said, as if it explained a whole lot.

“Is that why you guys get pulled out of class for Math?” Jake asked the two boys.

“Yeah. We’re smarter than you,” one of them said.

“I’m good at math. You’re not smarter than me,” Jake told him. “And Gabe found the crawfish, not you.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “I don’t care. You’re the dumb one in our group.”

Cassie’s blood boiled and it took holding her breath and counting to ten to keep her from shooting up and saying something. But the last thing she wanted was to embarrass Jake. He already looked like he was ready to spit nails. The boy named Gabe seemed embarrassed.

“I’ll go play with the other dumb kids then,” Jake said, before running away. Gabe looked like he didn’t know what to do.

“There are no other kids here, see how stupid you are,” the boy called after Jake. Then Gabe ran off to sit by one of the women sitting with Marianne, took a phone out of her purse, and started playing with it.

Cassie stood and walked up to the boy, thinking his case was the saddest of all because he probably didn’t know better. “Hey, kid,” she called.

The little boy looked up, but he took a step backward, as if he was going to ignore her and walk away. “Wait. Do you want to know why Jake and Gabe ran away?”

He didn’t answer, he just stared at the ground and shifted from foot to foot, but she could tell he was angry at her for sticking her nose into his business. “Two reasons. One is because you were mean just now, and, two, because Gabe didn’t want to take sides.”

“So,” the boy mumbled. “I don’t need them.”

“But you were having fun playing Jake’s games, and making up games is smart. It requires creativity. And being good at math is awesome and you’re right to be proud of that, but putting others down isn’t smart because it makes people not want to be with you. You weren’t mean to Gabe, but you made him uncomfortable and he left, too. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

The boy shrugged again and ran over to Gabe. Cassie didn’t know if she should do or say anything else.

Jake spotted her then and his eyes lit up. The fact that he seemed happy to see her filled her with a new kind of pride, one she hadn’t felt before. She was gratified and humbled.

He ran over to her as she took long strides to get to him and they met midway, both smiling. “Hi. Do you like crawfish?” he asked.

“I do! Can I see the ones you have there?” she said, leaning a bit to look into his cup.

“You’re not creeped out?” He watched her closely.

“Me? Creeped out?” She greatly exaggerated a scoff.

Jake grinned before handing her the cup. “You let it go then.”

Cassie sat down on the dewy grass, unmindful of her jeans, and set her coffee cup down next to her. She then scooted down to the water’s edge and leaned over to let the crawfish go. Jake sat down next to her and proceeded to tell her more facts about the little critters than she’d ever heard in her entire life. Cassie peppered him with questions, but she noticed he kept looking over at his two friends. She wished she could say something to him about what had just happened, but an instinct she didn’t even know she had told her all he needed from her was to sit there and be interested in what he had to say.

A while later, Jake excused himself with such sweetness, her heart squeezed, and he ran over to the slide.

Cassie got up to leave, but Marianne spotted her then and called her over. Should she say something about the meanness she’d witnessed to the ladies on the bench? Again, her gut told her not to say a thing.

Cassie slapped a polite smile on her face and made her way over. Marianne hugged her tight, kissed her cheek, and stepped back to get a good look at her. “Cassidy, honey, it’s so good to have you back, you look wonderful.”

“You look great, too, Mrs. Amador,” Cassie said sincerely. The older woman looked nearly exactly the same as she had a decade ago.

Marianne turned to the women who were sitting on the bench. “Jenna and Megan, this is Cassidy McGillicuddy, Senator McGillicuddy’s daughter.” She began with the real reason she’d always been happy to see her hang with her boys. One of the women frowned ever so slightly.

Cassie knew the look. There were generally four reactions. Some people made sure they did something, be it a subtle gesture or an obnoxious comment, to let her know they didn’t share her father’s politics. Others were clearly impressed. A select few acquired a calculating look in their eyes. A handful truly didn’t care who her father was. “Cassidy, this is Jenna Woods, she’s president of the newly restructured PTA, and this is Megan Cornerstone, her husband is our town’s first pediatrician. He opened an office on Upper Hillside, right in front of the middle school.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Megan said as she stood up and shook Cassie’s hand limply.

Jenna’s smile was tight.

The two were obviously among those who didn’t share her father’s politics. Cassie used to hate it when people treated her like she was an extension of her father, but she’d learned people like that either eventually came around, or they weren’t worth her time.

“Thank you, it’s nice to meet you, too.” Cassie nodded to them both, but her thoughts were elsewhere, wondering if the restructuring of the PTA was among the things bugging Sam.

“I’ve been by your office twice, but you’re never there,” Marianne said. “I’m guessing it has to do with this Open Town I keep hearing about.”

Megan and Jenna exchanged a look. Cassie caught it. These two women were probably among those protesting, too. Marianne seemed oblivious to it.

“Of course.” Cassie continued to smile as she planned a polite escape.

Jake and the mean boy came up to them then, from opposite directions. The little boy who’d been mean to Jake whispered something in Jenna’s ear, but the woman wasn’t paying much attention to him.

Jake scuffed over, eyeing the other little boys, a subdued look in his eyes. She’d thought he had a little bit of his uncles in him, but at that moment, he was his father, hiding his emotions well and not letting anyone see they’d gotten to him.

Oh, how she wanted to lead him away and talk to him. But she knew he’d only say he was fine. “Mom’s here!” he yelled a second later.

Cassie’s heart plummeted to her feet. Sooner or later, she’d known she’d run into Sam’s ex-wife. Her heart pounding, Cassie forced herself to glance toward the parking lot and the car Jake was running toward.

A woman opened the driver’s side door and put her foot out, as if she were going to get out, but when she looked toward the park, she got back in the car. From a distance, Cassie could only make out long blond hair and sunglasses.

She looked away before Jake reached the car, not ready to see more and feeling ridiculous over how much it pained her to see someone Sam had loved and possibly still did. It brought up questions she didn’t want to care about, like how they’d met and fallen in love, why they’d called it quits, and who’d pulled the plug.

“Sam’s working on your grandmother’s house today, by the way,” Marianne said before getting up and walking to the car, too. “I’ll stop by soon so we can catch up.”

Cassie had basically just spent the night with Sam, and the last thing she needed was to see him again so soon. But he was a father now, she had a concern about his son, and that trumped all.

She walked up the trail and headed around to the front door, then opened it with the key Sam had given her. She stepped inside, reciting what she wanted to say in her head so she could get it over with quickly and be on her way.

But when she looked up, she halted. Walls had been removed and the house was
gutted
. She stood there, a new feeling working its way through her. The house would be rebuilt and filled up with things that would belong to somebody else. The idea of it made her feel as gutted as the house.

Sam looked toward the door, surprised to see Cassie standing there. She looked like a statue, unmoving. Was it hard for her to see the house so bare? “The wiring and plumbing will both be done this week, and after that, the walls will be back up. But it must be hard, seeing it his way.”

Cassie turned, but she didn’t seem surprised to see him. “You tore down a few walls for good, though. It’s strange. It doesn’t feel like the same house.”

“They’re the same bones.”

“I know. I’ve just never seen a house I cared about like this. It’s fine, though.” She waved a hand, but he could tell she wasn’t fine at all. There was nothing he could say, though. All he could do was show her, when he was done, and hope that she’d like it, that he did her grandmother justice, and that he’d captured the past and a future for someone else.

“I came to talk to you about something that just happened with Jake. Something silly, but if he were mine, I’d want to know.”

Sam pushed away from the wall. “What happened?” he asked, walking toward her.

When Cassie finished telling him, he sighed heavily. “No matter how much I wish I could pick and choose his friends or order him to stay away from certain kids, I know I shouldn’t, and so I don’t, but I do try to warn him and he doesn’t listen.”