But the way that Amanda greeted the two women . . . her hands started moving around as she described the potluck and her day . . . well, Kate envied her that moment.
“Look, Mama,” Gracie said as she bounded out of the van. “There’s Lisa’s truck! I wish we could really stay here forever.”
Paul drove up beside Jamie’s van and crawled out of his truck. He threw his cowboy hat into the passenger seat and helped Lisa get free of her seat belt. Gracie grabbed her hand, and together they skipped across the yard and into the house.
“I’ll be back to get her in an hour. If you need me, here’s my number.” He handed Jamie a piece of paper. “And thanks for letting her come over and play awhile.”
“Anytime.” Jamie smiled.
It was evident that Paul did affect Jamie, just like Amanda teased her about. But Kate wasn’t Jamie’s keeper, and she had more pressing things to think about that day than whether or not Paul and Jamie had chemistry.
“Hello, I’m Kate.” She introduced herself when she reached the porch. She stayed long enough to be polite and then went inside, changed into shorts and a comfortable shirt, and left by the back door. She went a little farther down the shoreline, because she spotted a big weeping willow tree that offered shade. She pushed back the limbs and spread out her quilt, settled in with her Kindle, and chose a book by Heather Burch titled One Lavender Ribbon that had been on her to-be-read pile for a couple of years. The blurb on the back mentioned letters, and of course, that appealed to her right then.
She read a few pages, yawned, and laid the Kindle aside. She only planned to shut her eyes for a minute, but when she awoke the sun was low on the horizon and Waylon was sitting beside her, his boots off to one side and his knees drawn up with those big arms wrapped around them. She shut her eyes tightly and then snapped them open—no, it wasn’t a dream. He really was sitting there, staring out at the lovely sunset with all the colors in a painter’s palette.
“Good morning,” she said.
“More like good evening.”
She propped up on an elbow. “How long have you been here?”
“An hour or so. I’ve been protecting you from spiders and snakes.” He smiled.
“And how many did you shoot? Spiders and snakes, I mean?”
“Not any. I ran them off with my evil stare,” he answered.
“Well, thank you for that.”
He turned to face her. “I saw that dirty look you shot my way at dinner. If I had something I could tell you, I would. We really are following leads, but they keep taking us into dead ends. Look at the way the water is reflecting the sunset. Isn’t that beautiful?”
Kate didn’t give a flying flip about the colors in the water right then. “So is this going to be the case that you don’t solve and everyone will have doubts about me and those other two the rest of our lives?”
He shook his head, sadness in his eyes. “I hope to hell not. It wouldn’t be fair to my folks to do that.”
“But your parents have passed away.” She frowned.
“Yes, but they did not want me to be a policeman. They scrimped and saved my whole life to put me through college and help me become who I am, even though they wanted me to stay on the ranch and run it. I owe it to them to finish on top of the mountain,” he said. “I’m freezing my retirement and quitting the police business at the end of summer.”
“Why?”
“I’m tired of the city, of the commute back and forth to the ranch, and this past year I’m liking ranchin’ better than chasin’ bad guys,” he said.
“I know exactly what you are talking about. My mother is retiring in December. I step up at that time and take over the firm. My dad was a professor and died when I was twenty-nine.” She bit the inside of her lip in frustration at herself for volunteering anything at all.
“I’m sorry. What happened?” Waylon asked.
“Heart attack—it was sudden.”
“I was older, but I don’t expect it hurt any less,” he said. “They’re both gone, and now all I think about is leaving the force and coming home to be a rancher. I waited too long for them to ever see it. Were you close to your dad?”
“I adored him. He was a gentle soul, a history professor with a specialty in the Civil War.” She’d opened the can of worms and it was impossible to put the lid back on the subject now.
“So you were vulnerable when Conrad came into your life?” Waylon asked.
Until that moment, Kate had not realized just what a big part the timing had played in her life. “I guess I was.”
“Explains a hell of a lot,” Waylon said. “I couldn’t figure out how anyone could con a woman like you.”
The sun had dropped below the trees, and that magical part of the evening had arrived. Called twilight, it wasn’t yet dark and yet wasn’t still light. Part of Waylon’s face was in shadows, part still clear—his chiseled features defined and sexier than ever.
She turned to stare at the lake instead of Waylon. “So you think I got conned because I was at a low place in my life?”
“I imagine that Conrad could spot a woman with a soft spot a mile away. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he stalked you to learn your habits before he introduced himself.”