Trouble When You Walked In (Contemporary Romance) (18 page)

“It’s time to be the honey. Boone’s the bee.” Sally tugged on Cissie’s hand.

“No,” Cissie said. “
I’m
the bee, and I’m going to sting him for trying to move the library. I’ll go get made up for the TV show if that will win me some votes, but I won’t do it for Boone. Everybody, out of my way.”

She grabbed her purse from the front desk. Laurie came trotting after her. Cissie didn’t even bother to look back to see what Sally was doing.

On the sidewalk, Hank Davis yelled, “Boo!” as she walked by.

But she didn’t even flinch.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When Boone got home, he could feel Cissie in the house. He wished he couldn’t because he needed to focus. He went straight to his study, shut the door, and called Ella. An hour later, they’d accomplished what they’d set out to do—to get through a big document from the county they hadn’t had time to cover that morning when he’d gone to her house.

When he hung up, he tried to think of an excuse to go upstairs, but he’d made that floor so self-sufficient, there was nothing his guests really needed.

Besides, he still had tons of schoolwork to do. He needed to eat something easy and catch up on entering some student test grades in the online system the school used. He zapped a quick frozen dinner in the microwave, ate it quickly, and was on his way to his study again when Cissie and Nana came downstairs and caught him in the hallway.

At least, he thought it was Cissie.

Her hair was different.

Way different. It had golden-brown highlights that shone in the glow from the amber wall sconce like silken threads in a tapestry. And she looked like she’d just had a satisfying roll in the hay. He could see that the effect came from someone chopping her hair into different lengths around her face—it was wispy and kind of messy. But it was also curled on the ends, as if she’d decided she was also a demure lady.

She wore jeans and an old mustard yellow barn coat, and she’d never looked prettier.

“How are you two ladies?” he asked.

“Stupendous,” Nana said.

“Pretty good.” Cissie didn’t look quite at him.

He wondered if she was embarrassed about her hair. Or maybe it was the scene she’d caused in the diner with that bug. Or their knees touching …

“Your hair looks nice.” He thought it looked fantastic. But he didn’t want to overdo it.

“Thanks.” She sent him a tiny smile, and shoved up her glasses.

Her glasses!

They no longer had invisible frames. They were narrow tortoiseshell, geek-chic modern, straight out of a women’s high-end fashion magazine. He wouldn’t compliment her on them, though. If he overdid it, she’d think she looked bad before, and she never had. Even at her most buttoned up, she was someone he should have noticed long ago.

“I’ll buy you a new pair of khakis if the cleaners can’t get the stains out,” Cissie insisted, those blue eyes earnest with regret.

“No need.” He’d refused to let her launder his pants, and there was no way he could get them clean. “I have a lot of pants in my closet. Besides, you’re not the one who screamed and knocked over the coffee and pie.”

“Goodness, all over a silly bug,” said Nana.

None of them had had a chance to discuss the situation the night before, maybe because Cissie had clearly hidden herself away upstairs and Nana had been at rehearsal.

“It came from outside and got stuck on her hair,” Cissie explained, “but it was in the restaurant, which is reason enough to be … squeamish.”

He knew she really meant hysterical and out of control. It was nice of her to let the mayor of Campbell off the hook. “I wondered why you were being so friendly to Janelle. You two aren’t exactly pals.”

“Well, she should be Cissie’s pal now,” Nana said. “I would have let the bug stay.”

Cissie’s purse was slung over her shoulder, so the two women were obviously headed out. Boone felt a little bereft at the idea of being alone in the house, although he knew he should get back to work. “Where are you off to?” he asked anyway.

“We have to take more pictures of the house for the insurance people before the sun goes down,” said Nana. “They just texted Cissie. They want to see more before they give final approval to the contractor tomorrow morning.”

Boone had been superbusy the last couple days, but he’d checked on the site on his own the morning after the tree fell, when the roofers had covered the house with tarps and the tree cutter had started working. The insurance company had hired the most reputable guys right away.

“Today I had to show them documentation that we got the tree pruned regularly,” Cissie said, “and that no arborist had ever suggested it would fall.”

The insurance company had better not give these ladies grief.

“Can I come with you?” Boone’s school chores would have to wait, but he consoled himself that he was giving moral support to two people who might need it.

“I’d love it if you took my place,” Nana said, looking suddenly older and weary. She was a good actress, but Boone was no dummy. “Tonight’s my only night off from the theater until the weekend.”

“You don’t have to go with me,” Cissie told him. “I can manage.”

“It’ll go quicker with two people taking pictures,” he said. “We’re running out of time. We can take my fun truck.”

His ’65 Chevy, cobalt blue with shiny chrome bumpers.

Cissie had no choice but to say yes, unless she wanted to be extremely rude, which he knew she would never be. She hugged Nana, and they were off.

They weren’t going on a date, but when they walked down the front steps of his house together, Boone felt a different vibe between them.

“I’ve seen you in this truck around town,” she said at the shed. “I’ve always wanted a ride in it.”

“Oh, yeah?” When he opened the door for her, he couldn’t believe she’d been living below him on the mountain for years and they’d never connected, not even to wave to each other when he was driving.

The truck rode smoothly down the steep road. He kept his gaze ahead—you really had to when one little mistake meant you’d go off the edge of a cliff—but he was very aware of her. She smelled like honeysuckle and warm cotton.

There was some tension in the air, definitely, and for a lot of reasons. But he’d do his best to put her at ease. “So are your parents really leaving it up to you and Nana to take care of everything?”

He turned into the Rogerses’ property. It was fronted by nothing more than a beat-up black mailbox. The truck swayed and bounced down their dirt driveway.

“They’re very laid back,” Cissie said.

He stole a glance at her now that it was safe to do so. “They must be. They sound a lot different from my parents.”

The house came into view—it pained him to see the remnants of that beautiful old tree cut up into pieces and stacked for hauling away. The front porch and kitchen were nothing but matchsticks and broken windows.

“It’s so sad,” she said.

Her profile was beautiful, he thought, as he put the truck into park. They looked at the scene for a good ten seconds without speaking.

“All the stories told on that porch,” Cissie whispered. “All the living done in that kitchen.”

“You’ll rebuild. And you’ll be happy with it.” He got out, walked around the truck, and opened her door.

“Thanks.” She slid out.

“I wish I could fix this for you right now.”

Her smile was a little wobbly. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Why don’t we each take pictures, and then we’ll compare them when we get home?”

“Sounds good.”

Home. He liked thinking of her going back there with him.

What was wrong with him? He was getting soft. He really didn’t want someone to share his life with up close and personal—he was a public servant with some private issues, and he’d like to keep it that way.

But for now, he enjoyed seeing this woman blossom right before his very eyes. She looked sexy and cute walking around with that camera in her hand.

“Stop!” he called to her.

She looked back, caught him poised with his camera, and grinned despite herself.

He snapped the picture.

“Not fair!” She laughed. “Stand still.”

So he did. He was used to getting pictures taken for the paper with constituents—at the recent spate of church autumn festivals, he’d been besieged—and the
Bugler
often took photos of him on the sidelines of Kettle Knob Academy football games.

Cissie snapped the picture and lowered her phone. “You should have been a menswear model. For Levi’s.”

“Someone must have paid you to say that.”

“Nope.” She sounded a little flirty, but then she turned away from him to take another picture of the house.

He wanted to race up to her, grab her by the waist, turn her around, and kiss her. But of course, he couldn’t do that. He walked thoughtfully past the freshly cut wood and took pictures of the house instead. They only crossed paths once, and when they did, Cissie sighed and said, “This is torture, seeing everything up close.”

“Yeah, it is,” he agreed.

But he meant her. It was torture not pulling her close and kissing her.

He took a bunch more pictures to dull the sexual ache. It didn’t work, especially when she came up to him and he could smell her shampoo or perfume or whatever it was that reminded him of lace and flowers and dainty girl stuff.

“I think I’m ready to go,” she said.

“Already?”

“Sure. Didn’t you take a lot?” She got elbow to elbow with him to scroll through her pictures. “Mine are pretty good.”

“Mine, too. But let’s go look at the sunset.” He didn’t dare grab her hand. He angled his head toward the front of her property, where the lawn disappeared into nothing but rock, a sparse couple of bushes, and empty space, below which were rolling mountains and a scarlet red sun dipping behind them and casting beams of light across the magical landscape.

They walked to the promontory together.

“Why,” she said, “would anyone live anywhere else but here?”

“I don’t know.” He was quiet. “If something took me away, I’d always have to come back.”

“Me, too.” She inhaled a deep breath and smiled up at him.

There was no agenda there, just a connection between two small beings admiring a big, beautiful world.

“Thanks for letting me join you.” It felt right and natural to reach for her hand.

She grasped his fingers back. Squeezed. Let go a half second later. “We should get back. I have to watch
Jeopardy!
with Nana.” She shot him a shy-as-a-rabbit smile and walked away.

Scurried, more like it.

That made him smile, but still he lingered for another second or two. A magnificent tree and part of a homestead might be gone, but there was so much left here on Rogers land to cherish and protect—a view, a family history, two incredible women. No insurance company in the world could assess or cover their value.

Boone’s legs were longer, so he beat Cissie back to the truck and had the door open and waiting.

“You’re such a gentleman,” she teased him.

“I am.” Something in him, near his heart, stirred. He was fifteen again, on a first date.

But it wasn’t a date.

And they were both in their thirties. Real love—the passionate, soul-wrecking kind—was for people with boundless futures. For dreamers and doers who weren’t tied down by facts, like families who needed them, jobs that were fulfilling but weren’t perfect, and towns that had grabbed hold of them long ago and demanded they never change.

She looked down at her lap, and he shut the door. He wanted to know more about her. He could ask Nana, but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. He got that Nana didn’t come tonight for obvious matchmaking reasons. Older people couldn’t stand seeing two younger single people together but
not
together.

He just knew that Cissie’s grandmother was back home chortling right now, and he didn’t begrudge her that—in fact, he was crazy about Nana. But he was going to go about this his own way.

“What was it like for you, growing up in that house?” he asked Cissie on the way back up the mountain.

“I always assumed everyone had parents like mine. There were no rules. They almost treated me like a peer.”

“That must have been weird.”

“I amused them—they asked me questions and laughed at all my answers. When I was a teen, they liked to engage me in big intellectual debates. They were very affectionate but only up to a certain point. Inevitably, they went back to their research and left Nana in charge of the household. And of me.”

“Wow.” His parents were all over him, all the time. Still were.

“Can you imagine having Nana in charge of you?” She chuckled.

“No. I’ll bet you two got up to all kinds of mischief.”

“Nana did. Not me. Both my parents and Nana encouraged me to be an independent thinker—but their way was through academia. Hers was all over the place … in the store, on a stage, at school. I didn’t cooperate, however.”

“You were shy at school. You seemed to love the rules. Forgive me for saying.”

“It’s okay. You’re right.” She smiled, but he saw some wistfulness there. “The last thing I wanted was to be Miss Independent. It was too scary. I wanted parameters that I never got. I wanted to be fenced in with all the other kids. I didn’t know how to, so I made rules and stuck to them. At least it was something.”

He was quiet a minute. “You like being a librarian?”

“Yes.” She sighed. “I admit that part of it is because it’s an orderly profession. There’s cataloguing. Stacks of books. Alphabetical everything.”

“Are you OCD at all?”

“Nope. Just neat and organized. I can walk away from a mess if there’s something better to do.”

“Like what?”

“Something exciting … like a great movie. Or a good book.”

“Or a cute guy?”

“No,” she said. “Stop teasing me.”

“I’m not teasing. You told me about the boyfriend in college. But surely, since then…”

“I’ve been out on the rare date. Not locally. It’s always been when I visit my college girlfriends, who sometimes set me up with their guy friends. It’s happened at a couple weddings, baptisms, and thirtieth birthday parties, too.”