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He cut his eyes to her in the mirror, looking anything but amused.
“Or not,” she mumbled.
His expression was so empty, so lacking in emotion, he could have been cast from wax had his mouth not been moving. “I used to think if I ever saw you again, the only thing I would want to know is why. But now that you’re here, now that we’ve come face-to-face, I realize...” He looked back at her over his shoulder. “I don’t care anymore.”
Ouch. Whether or not hurting her had been his goal, that remark cut deep. Not that she had expected him to be miserable, alone and still pining for her, unable to move on with his life. But a girl could hope, right?
She banished that thought to somewhere deep down where it belonged. And having said his piece—short though effective as it had been—Nate finally got out and opened her door.
As she was climbing out, her battered knees protesting with a deep, stinging ache, she heard the side door on the house creak open. She looked over to see her mom standing on the back porch.
In Cait’s opinion, her mom, Betty, was as pretty now as she had been at seventeen, when she won the Miss Denver beauty pageant. She was thirty years older now, and a little bit softer around the edges, but she still had that spark. It had been difficult as a child, growing up in a household with females as beautiful as her mom and sister. No one ever came right out and told Caitie she was aesthetically inferior, but she knew.
Caitie sometimes wondered if her mom ever regretted not doing more with her life. During her stint as a beauty queen, a Chicago-based modeling agency had offered her a two-year contract. She could have had an exciting career in the city, but instead she chose to stay in Paradise, get married and work at the diner.
Gauging by her stunned expression, seeing Caitie with Nate was probably the last thing her mom expected on Caitie’s first day back.
“Hello, Nate,” she said, looking quizzically from him to Caitie. But as Caitie stepped out from behind the car door and her mom saw her disheveled appearance, including the dried blood caked on her knees, she gasped and clasped a hand to her bosom. “What on earth happened to you?”
Caitie had never been one to resort to sarcasm to make a point, but what the heck. “Nate and I were just getting reacquainted,” she said, smiling when she heard him grumble under his breath.
He never used to grumble.
“I’m going to assume that was a joke,” her mom said, though she looked as if she wasn’t sure.
“See ya, Betty,” Nate said, then narrowed his cop stare on Caitie. “Eight a.m. Don’t forget.”
Like she could forget that. “Thanks for the ride, Deputy Jefferies.”
He shot her a look.
Had he or had he not insisted that she address him by his rank? Now he didn’t like it?
Nate grumbled something incoherent as he got in the cruiser and drove away. He never used to grumble, and he sure did seem to frown a lot now. Perhaps the serious nature of his profession had jaded him.
But this was Paradise, where there was barely any crime to be jaded about.
Caitie turned back to her mom, who stood patiently awaiting an explanation.
“So,” she asked, looking Caitie up and down. “Rough morning?”
Feeling exhausted, as if she’d just worked a week of double shifts, when in reality it was barely eleven, Caitie sighed and said, “You have no idea.”
Chapter Three
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” her mom said, and Caitie followed her into the house. A pot simmered on the stove, and the scent of spicy tomato sauce hung heavy in the air.
At least the inside of her parents’ house hadn’t changed much. The furniture was older, the carpet worn in places, but the house was neat as a pin.
“Maybe you could tell me what really happened,” her mom suggested, lifting the lid and giving the sauce a quick stir. “Like how you hurt your knees.”
Caitie slumped into a kitchen chair. “You think this is bad, you should see the other guy.”
Her mom blinked. “Other guy?”
“I’m kidding. I did this to myself. Literally.”
“Where is your car? And why did Nate drive you home?”
“My car is dead in the ditch off the county road just past town. By the Johnsons’ field.”
“I see.” Her mom grabbed the first-aid kit from the top shelf of the pantry and set it on the counter, pulling out everything she needed. “How did it get into the ditch?”
“I pushed it there.” Her mom’s brows lifted in surprise, and Caitie quickly added, “And, no, I did not do it on purpose. It died in the middle of the intersection. I was trying to move it out of the way.”
Caitie gave her mom the short version of what had happened while she cleaned her knees. She was kind enough not to laugh, but she did crack a smile when Caitie described watching helplessly as the car plunged into the ditch.
“Why did you leave the diner?” her mom asked.
“To give you the—” Caitie closed her eyes and groaned. She’d left the damned folder in the backseat of Nate’s cruiser.
Really? All that for nothing.
“The what?” her mom asked, soaking a cotton ball with antiseptic.
“The papers dad sent home.”
She looked confused. “Papers?”
Caitie sucked in a breath as her mom dabbed her knees and the antiseptic burned her raw skin. “From the restaurant. Didn’t he call you?”
She was quiet for a second, as if she was trying to recall. “Oh, right. Those papers. He must have forgotten to call.”
“Well, I left them in Nathan’s car by accident.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s nothing urgent.” She swabbed antibiotic ointment on the scratches, then smoothed a large bandage over each knee. “There you go. Good as new. More or less.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Be sure to take the bandages off when the bleeding stops. The more air the scrapes get, the faster they’ll heal.”
“I’ll take them off tonight before bed.” She stood, wincing when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass on the side door. “I’m a mess. I need to put a clean uniform on before I go back to the diner. I’m sure glad those things still fit me.” They were even a bit loose on her. Thanks to the stress of being unemployed, she hadn’t had much of an appetite lately.
“You don’t have to go back,” her mom said. “Deb is feeling better so she’ll finish out her shift.”
Confused, Caitie asked her, “How do you know that?”
“Your father told me, of course.”
“Dad called?”
“Yes, after you left the restaurant.”
Huh? “Mom, a minute ago you said that he didn’t call.”
She blinked. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. You said that he must have forgotten to call.”
Her mom sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s this darned migraine medicine. It makes me loopy sometimes. What I meant was, he forgot to tell me about the papers. But, yes, he did call.”
That must have been some powerful stuff she was taking. “So, I’m off the hook?”
“Yes, he’s all set for the day shift.”
As much as she wanted to help her parents, she was relieved. It was too much too soon. “I do have a few errands to run. Although I no longer have a car to run them with.”
Her mom tucked the first-aid kit back into the pantry. “Take my car—I won’t be using it.”
“Are you sure?”
“But only if you promise to bring home a gallon of milk. We ran out last night.”
At first she thought her mom was kidding, since she had been the one to send Caitie out that morning. “Mom, you know I got the milk already.”
“You did?”
This was no joke. Her blank expression said she had no idea what Caitie was talking about. “Remember, I forgot the diner key, and it was so early everything in town was still closed, so I had to drive all the way to the twenty-four-hour store at the service station on the highway.”
With a frown her mom pulled the fridge open, and there on the shelf sat the gallon of 2 percent milk. “Darned medication,” she muttered. “I would lose a limb if they weren’t all sewn on.”
“Do they have any idea what’s causing you to have so many headaches?”
“It could be a hormone imbalance, since it seems to coincide with menopause.”
“Have you thought to try homeopathic remedies? Holistic medicine? Maybe you could try cutting processed foods from your diet. Or gluten.”
“I’ll definitely consider that,” she said, though to Caitie it sounded as if her mom was humoring her.
Her mom walked to the stove and lifted the lid off the pan, giving the sauce another stir. She looked fine, but something just seemed...off. Something other than chronic headaches.
“Is everything okay?” Caitie asked.
Her mom turned to her and smiled. “Of course, honey.”
She sounded genuine, so why didn’t Caitie believe her? Could she and Caitie’s dad be having problems?
Her parents had always had a good marriage. Sure, they argued occasionally. What couple didn’t? Mostly about money or the diner. But Caitie’s mom had always seemed happy with her modest, small-town life. At least, that was the way it had always appeared to Caitie.
When Caitie had presented her mom with her college acceptance letter, and finally had the courage to admit her plan to move to the East Coast, her mom’s reaction had surprised her.
“If you want out of this town, if you want something more from life, leave while you can,” her mom had told her. “Don’t let anything or anyone hold you back.”
Caitie had done exactly that, but her mom’s words haunted her for months afterward. Had it been her way of saying she regretted giving up the chance at a lucrative and prestigious modeling career to stay in Paradise? And had that regret begun to cause a rift in her parents’ relationship?
She would ask her sister what she knew, but Kelly had been so self-absorbed with school and her very active social life, she wouldn’t see a tsunami coming until it crashed down over her head. No that was unfair. Kelly had always been self-absorbed. She had inherited their mother’s beauty and her pinup model figure. She had always been the pretty one. Not that Caitie had gone three rounds with an ugly stick. She was attractive in an average way. Pleasant to look at, but nothing to get all excited about.
There had been times when she wondered what it was that Nate saw in her, when there were other girls—prettier girls—who would have given anything to be with him. Those first few months of dating him, she’d lived in a constant state of flux. Happy beyond her wildest dreams, yet always waiting for the ax to fall. For him to realize how much better he could do. She truly believed it was only a matter of time before he dumped her and moved on to someone else.
Her mom replaced the pan lid and set down the spoon, saying offhandedly, “So, did anything interesting happen at the diner this morning?”
Way to be subtle, Mom. “Did Dad tell you?”
“We talked,” she admitted. “He said there was tension.”
A minimalist point of view. “Dad was being kind.”
Her mom winced. “It was that bad?”
“At first Nate wouldn’t even look at me. Like he thought he would turn into a pillar of salt should our eyes meet.”
“What did you expect?” she asked, looking puzzled. “A hug?”
Caitie blinked. Whose side was she on? “No, of course not. But—”
“You knew you would see him. You had time to prepare. Imagine if Nate had just suddenly shown up unannounced. Would you have reacted any differently?”
She sighed. “Probably not.”
“It’s also possible that deep down he still has feelings for you.”
“He has feelings all right. He hates me.”
“He did stop to help you.”
“Only because he had to. It’s his job. It was obvious he didn’t want to be there.”
“He drove you home. And let you wait to fill out a report. He didn’t have to do that.”
Let’s give him a medal. “Why does it seem as if everyone is on his side? Yes, I left, and I didn’t do it very well, but I spent most of those first few months miserable, lonely and missing him, while he was back home knocking up and marrying my best friend.”
“Just remember that there are two sides to every story.”
“I don’t care about his story. It’s done. I’m over it. I’ve moved on.”
“It seems to me that if you had truly moved on, you wouldn’t care what Nate did or didn’t do.”
Oh, ouch. A direct hit. And the worst part? She was right. When it came to speaking her mind, Betty Cavanaugh rarely held back. She didn’t sugarcoat either, sometimes making her keen observations a bitter pill to swallow.
