“That’s real sweet.”
He squeezed her around the shoulders, just for a second. “I know. Don’t tell anybody I said it.”
She laughed.
“You should get back to bed,” Casey said. “You’ll need whatever sleep you can get tonight.”
And as if on cue, the dreaded noise drifted down from above—a soft, single coo, promising full-blown wailing to follow inside a minute.
“Spoke too soon,” he said, just as Abilene stood.
She paused to look back at him as she slipped her feet into blue flip-flops, smiling shyly. “Thanks for the distraction.”
“Don’t know if I should say you’re welcome, or apologize for letting it get as far as it did.”
“Don’t apologize.”
He nodded.
She pursed her lips, then bent down and kissed his cheek. “Night.”
“Sleep well.”
She smiled a final time, then headed for the stairs, holding up the legs of her pajama bottoms like a kid, to keep the hems off the floor.
Like a kid. So unlike the woman who’d just turned him inside out—and without ever crossing third base. He shoved the thought aside.
Get your head on straight. Tonight was a one-off. A slip of her good sense, probably a need to escape from whatever thoughts she had coursing through her mind regarding what might come once her ex was out.
A dangerous ex, Casey thought, and that child’s father. Sometimes he caught himself nearly getting attached to that baby, and had to pull himself up short. Just because I can change diapers now, and heat formula, and have puke stains on the shoulders of half my shirts, doesn’t make me anything more than a babysitter to that kid.
The only thing he’d earned for sure was James Ware’s anger, should the man find out how close Casey had gotten with his ex and his daughter. He swallowed, collar feeling tight.
Just keep it to yourself. Hope maybe you get nicknamed Uncle Casey, but beyond that, leave it the fuck alone. Quit feeling shit you have no right to feel.
No right, because he was his mother’s son, with a sad fate likely awaiting him. And because he was his father’s son to boot. He wanted to think he’d never turn his back on a commitment as huge as a child, but then again, if he’d been a big enough shit to skip town when his mom had started getting bad . . .
And because sure, he’d done better in the past few months, but that didn’t change one important fact—at the end of the day, Casey was every bit the criminal Abilene’s arms-smuggler ex was.
The only difference is, I’ve been smart enough not to get caught.
And he’d better hope to hell that good, God-fearing girl never found out the truth about him.
Chapter 6
Client’s paranoid, major boner for discretion. Wants you. $30K in your stocking if you come out of retirement. Fucking hurry, he’s losing his nerve.
Casey rolled his eyes at the text. He’d forgotten about it until six thirty, while he’d been brushing his teeth. He tossed his cell in his duffel bag, resolving not to reply. “Fucking no means no, Em,” he muttered to the empty den, then pulled on a clean tee and a sweater. He ought to just toss the pay-as-you-go phone in the nearest wood chipper and cut the fucking cord with his old life. All those contacts gone, and no way for any of them to reach him, no temptation to go back to that scene, lucrative or not . . .
Soon. Maybe not just yet, but soon, he thought, remembering that house of Abilene’s, those beauty school classes. No sense burning bridges just yet.
The smell of sausages had woken him, and he headed for the kitchen, finding Jeremiah Church sitting alone at the table, leafing through a newspaper.
“Hey, man.” Casey passed by, reading the headline over his friend’s shoulder. “‘Canola Meal Prices Stagnate, Expected to Dip.’ Wow, fucking riveting shit.”
“I’d mock your business right back, if I had the first clue what it is you do, Case.”
“I’m a bar owner.”
“And before that you were a youth minister¸ I’m sure.”
Casey walked to the coffeemaker. “You seen Abilene yet?”
Miah shook his head. “Think she’s sleeping in.”
“Good.” And you didn’t hear any weird noises coming from the den last night? Nothing that made you worry for the sanctity of your family’s couch? His body roused at the thought and he felt his face warm.
“Ware’s out when, exactly?” Miah asked.
“Ten. High alert starts around noon—he couldn’t get here any quicker than that, if he can even manage to find out where Abilene’s staying. But she’s driving out to Elko with your mom in a bit, anyhow. Baby’s got a checkup.”
“That’s probably best. Keep the girl distracted.”
The girl. Right. Abilene the girl, so impossible to parse with Abilene the woman who’d sexually assaulted Casey last night in the best way. He swallowed, trying to dismiss the memory of her mouth against his, her hand between his thighs. Worst possible day to get distracted, Grossier. He turned his thoughts to her ex and let the anxiety scare some slim measure of his excitement away.
He stirred milk and sugar into his coffee and took a seat opposite Miah, taking note of his friend’s clothes. He was the ranch’s foreman, but he wasn’t dressed in his usual dirty jeans and boots and flannel, prepared to spend the day on horseback. Instead he was sporting gray corduroys and a black button-up—the equivalent of formal wear, around here.
“Way you’re gussied up, I’m guessing you’re stuck showing those environmental people around again.”
Miah rolled his eyes. “Another survey, yeah. Meant I got to sleep in an extra hour, though.”
“What are they after, exactly?” Casey knew only that they showed up wielding clipboards and hard hats, and that they’d been by twice since he’d moved Abilene in.
“Silver State, the casino’s new contracting outfit,” Miah said, “is requiring the town to conduct a geological survey. They say they’re worried about run-off from the construction messing up our groundwater, things like that. Sounds all conscientious and admirable, but I’ve got my money on them just wanting to cover their asses against any potential lawsuits. After what happened with Virgin River, they’ve got to know the town’s feeling skeptical about the entire project.”
Virgin River Contracting had been the proposed Eclipse resort casino’s first construction company, but they’d turned out to be corrupt. Some higher-ups had tried to keep the accidental death of an illegal worker secret, so they wouldn’t risk the bonuses promised to them by the casino’s development company, for finishing on time. That crime had snowballed, resulting in the death of a sheriff’s deputy—a good friend of Casey’s, once upon a time, in fact—who’d seen too much, and then the sheriff himself, who’d been tangled up in the contractors’ racket.
“In theory it’s a good thing,” Miah said, “regardless of the motivation. Though it kills me to be spending my morning chaperoning them around when the last thing I want is for that casino to even go through. How many people have lost their lives now, yet we’re still willing to welcome the goddamn thing? Welcome it to come through and rip this whole town to pieces, and for what? Some tax breaks? A load of menial service jobs built on tricking people out of their hard-earned money? Jobs that probably won’t pay well enough to even keep the struggling locals in town once the property values get bloated out of all reason.”
Miah wasn’t alone in his thinking there. Plenty of people in Fortuity hoped the casino wouldn’t get built—Casey’s brother being one of the louder voices in that camp. Casey was undecided. A part of him would always resent the casino; a childhood friend would still be alive if not for that project. But on an impersonal level, he wasn’t afraid of change, and the competition to the bar didn’t scare him. Bring on the tourists, in fact. He was alone in his ambivalence among his friends, though. The rest of them liked their town the way it was.