I match her smile. “Regina West. She’s got a younger sister, Matilda, and an older brother, Nathan, you may have known. We stayed at her house while we visited but I couldn’t tell you the street or neighborhood.”
Let’s see how good she is and just how thorough the packet she was given on me was. Regina West was a girl I went to school with, but her family moved away in seventh grade. We were best friends growing up, and I would love to find out how much of my past Mr. Smith knows. Nathan moved back to Eden about five years ago after he finished med school and opened a walk-in clinic there. There aren’t many family doctors in that area, so he is very well known and respected in the community.
Her brow creases as if she’s struggling with how to answer me. “That name does sound familiar . . .” She trails off, leaving the rest of her sentence unfinished.
Nope. I’m docking points. She obviously didn’t do any of her own research and relied only on what Mr. Smith gave her. And she would have been briefed on Nathan if my early friendship with Regina had been discovered, because we were inseparable before she moved. I’m guessing Mr. Smith didn’t uncover anything on me earlier than high school.
“Is Eden still where you call home?” Ryan asks. “I would think your company wouldn’t send you so far away for work.”
“I live in Raleigh now. Eden is a great place but it’s just really small, you know?” She shrugs then looks at me as if I’ll agree with her. “My company is short-staffed, so we’re all stretched a little thin. I’m sent where I’m needed.”
“Both of you girls have moved around a lot,” James says with a loud laugh. “Evie, I’m guessing if you moved in with Ryan, you plan to stay awhile. No more bouncing around? Or is this just a temporary stop?”
“James, you’re putting her on the spot.” Ryan’s voice has a hint of the bite I heard a few days ago in his office in Glenview.
She squeezes his hand hard enough that James squeaks out an “Ow!” And then under his voice he says to her quietly, “Thought you wanted to know if she’s staying.”
Yeah, there’s no way he works for Mr. Smith too. He’s not even remotely good at this, and she needs to do a better job of keeping her pawn in line.
“It’s a fair question,” I say, ignoring his last comment. “I wouldn’t have accepted Ryan’s invitation to move in if I had plans to move on.” Ryan’s thumb brushes softly across my leg, so I know he’s pleased with my answer.
“Once she sees the plans I’m working on for the vegetable garden and greenhouse, she won’t be going anywhere. It will be a two-person operation, so she can’t abandon me.”
My attention snaps to him. “You’re putting in a garden?”
He shakes his head slowly and his smile widens. “No.” A short pause and then he says, “We’re putting in a garden. You said you always wanted one.”
The blush that blooms across my face is genuine, and I wish I didn’t have to share this moment with the two other people at the table.
She leans forward, breaking the spell between Ryan and me, and asks, “Can you point me to the closest powder room, Evie?”
But Ryan is already standing up. “I’ll show you. I’m heading in to grab the steaks. Need to get them on the grill now or we’ll be having them for breakfast.”
She follows him inside, and I know she’ll take this moment to snoop through our stuff. It’s exactly what I would do, but more importantly, it’s what I want her to do. I’ve left a little something for her to find that I know she’ll report back to Mr. Smith. It’s a dangerous play, but I need him to put all his cards on the table. I’m sick of surprises.
The interesting thing about this situation is that I really can’t tell if she knows I’m here on a job, just like her. Or is she working me like she would any unsuspecting mark? Did her set of instructions tell her the mention of Eden, North Carolina, would set me on edge?
“James, how do you like yours cooked?” Ryan calls out as he steps back onto the deck holding a platter of marinated steaks and wearing an apron that says You don’t have to kiss me but you could get me a beer.
“Medium rare,” he answers, then moves to the grill.
I sip on my wine while I give that woman a few more minutes to rummage around in my things, then I get up from the table. “Looks like you forgot the veggies. I’ll go grab them.”
Ryan gives me a nod, then turns back to James.
I enter the kitchen, expecting to see her, but the room is empty. I glance at my watch. She’s taking too long.
Quietly, I move toward the stairs. As soon as I make it to the top, she’s exiting the upstairs hall bathroom.
“I was afraid you got lost,” I say.
She lets out a shriek and jumps slightly back, her hand grabbing at her chest. “Oh, I didn’t see you there!” Then her expression shifts into this endearing little grin. “I got caught up admiring those cute family pictures on the stairwell wall on my way up! Ryan was an adorable little boy!”
I look back at the images in question and have to agree. He was a cutie. And bonus points to her for the save. It’s a good excuse.
She moves toward the stairs and waits, as if she will follow me, but I step to the side. “I’ll meet you down there. Just need to grab something from my room.”
She hesitates just a second then smiles as she passes me. Once she’s out of sight, I go to our room at the end of the hall. There’s only one thing here she could find and I hope she did.
I move to the dressing table and open the drawer. Two pens and a pencil were arranged in a very specific way on top of a stack of papers and she would have needed to brush them to the side in order to read what was written there, and it’s obvious she did exactly that. I shut the drawer and go downstairs.
I head back outside with the vegetables, handing the tray to Ryan, then I light the candles I’ve scattered around the area now that the sun has fully set.
“Everything should be ready soon,” Ryan says.
Nodding, I say, “Perfect. I’ll get the rest from the kitchen.”
It’s not long before Ryan places a steak on each plate along with a helping of grilled veggies while I put garlic bread and a big salad in the center of the table.
“Everything looks delicious,” she says. “Y’all have outdone yourself.”
I cut a small piece of steak and bring it to my mouth, chewing it slowly. “We love to entertain,” I say, glancing at Ryan. He gives me that smirk, since we’re both thinking of the two weeks it took him to convince me to host our last dinner party.
“How much longer are y’all in town?” Ryan asks.
She looks at James as if she doesn’t know the answer.
“Maybe another couple of weeks,” he says. “As soon as Dad can get around a little better on his own, I’ll feel better about leaving.”
“It’s good you could take off this much time from work,” Ryan says, then takes a swig of beer. This is something he mentioned earlier this afternoon: his worry about why James was really back in town. If James had gotten his life together and was holding down a job like he said, it begged the question: how had he managed to get this much time off?
“The beauty of working from a laptop,” he says with a laugh. “Can work anywhere.”
“What is it that you do, James?” I ask.
He looks at the woman as if she’s the only one who knows the answer. She looks back at him with an expression that can only be described as hopeful that he doesn’t completely screw up this answer.
Finally, he turns back to us. “Lucca actually got me a job at her company. I’m working for her.”
He could have sold it better if he didn’t sound so glum. Instead of us thinking they are equals at work, he sounds like a charity case.
Ryan was not thrilled I had invited them to dinner. He banged around in the garage for a good hour then spent the rest of the afternoon hiding some of the obvious—and easily movable—valuables in the house, including my jewelry and any prescription meds he had in the medicine cabinet. The girls had mentioned James stole from Ryan the last time he was in town, but Ryan never admitted that to me. And you can’t tell if there’s beef between them by the way they are acting around each other now.