“I take it the two of you know each other?” Cade said dryly.
Raven chuckled and sighed. “Best friends in school,” she explained.
“Right.” He nodded.
“Darby’s friendly with everyone,” she admitted with a smile as she watched her friend disappear into the back.
“She doesn’t seem to like your cousin or aunt and uncle much,” he pointed out.
Raven’s back tensed. “They’re an… acquired taste.” She wished more than anything she could scoot over or, better yet, sit somewhere else.
“How goes your assessment of the place?” he asked, taking a sip of his drink.
“Fine,” she answered, unwilling to give him anything further.
It was then that she noticed the old dog lying by his feet. She hadn’t even spotted him when she’d walked in.
Nodding, she asked. “Is he yours?”
Cade glanced down at the snoring dog and smiled. Up until then, she hadn’t seen him smile. The movement transformed his entire being. Somehow, he went from a sexy broody alpha male to a too-hot-to-handle sex god with the slight curve of his lips.
Damn. She was in deep trouble. How the hell was she going to keep her secrets from a man who looked at her with eyes that seemed to bore into her soul?
She knew he wanted answers about that night ten years ago. So did most of the people who had survived. But she just couldn’t give them to anyone. There was no way she could live with herself if her secrets were exposed. No amount of counseling could save her from the fate of saying the words out loud. Even alone.
She’d resolved herself to taking what had happened on her seventeenth birthday to her grave and no amount of sexy, sulky looks from Cade Stone could ever make her reveal her darkest secrets.
Chapter Four
There were never butterflies, just fire
Cade sat on the stool next to Raven and observed the interaction of the three friends with a watchful eye.
It was extremely hard to not get drawn into the laughter and fun. Especially when Darby and Carrie were involved. Over the years, he’d come to like both women. Darby for her quirkiness and ability to make anyone laugh, no matter how bad their day was going. Carrie for her seriousness and her ability to ask all the wrong questions at the wrong times.
Both ladies had survived the fire and had remained friends with Raven Brooks, the proof of which was displayed directly in front of him.
While he watched the trio, he realized that Raven was still so reserved. Guarded.
He surmised it had something to do with him sitting directly next to her. Then again, it could be that every single eye in the diner was on her.
No one in the place was watching the trio as if enjoying the friend’s reunion. Instead, they watched Raven with spiteful gazes.
Some of those looks were downright scary, and he wondered if anyone would have confronted her if he hadn’t been sitting next to her. He didn’t want to find out, not this early in the game, at any rate.
He needed to get information and answers out of her. Which meant he couldn’t afford for her to get spooked out of town. Not just yet.
So he stretched his lunch out a little longer and waited for the friends to wrap up their reunion.
When Raven and Carrie walked out of the diner, he was right behind them.
Carrie gave Raven a hug, glanced at him, gave him a quick nod, then disappeared down the street, no doubt to the little building she rented for the newspaper she wrote.
“Why are you still here?” Raven turned on him.
“I live here,” he answered easily.
Raven’s eyes narrowed at him, then Blue walked over and nudged her leg with his nose.
Seeing the smile brighten her face as she bent down and gave his dog a pet, he felt his heart skip slightly at how utterly beautiful she was.
He’d always believed her to be plain looking when she’d been younger. So much had changed.
“What’s his name?” she asked, smiling up at him.
“Blue,” he answered. His dog’s ears perked up slightly.
“Blue?” Raven questioned. “What a… unique name.” She chuckled when the dog nudged her for more attention.
“He came with it,” he said. When she looked up at him in question, he added, “He flunked out of the police force. It was his lifelong dream, when he was a young pup, to be a search-and-rescue-dog, but alas, his training interrupted his nap time too much.” He shrugged slightly and enjoyed the sound of her laughter.
This time when she stood up, he saw kindness in her eyes rather than concern.
“They say you can tell the kind of person by the company they keep.” She tilted her head slightly and assessed him. “Blue, here, proves that you can be a kind person.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “Did Blue tell you that?”
“No, but my gran always says that she never trusted a person who didn’t like dogs.”
Since she’d given him the opening, he figured he’d take it.
“Your gran and mine were best friends,” he said.
She looked slightly surprised, before nodding. “Yes, I seem to remember that. How is your grandmother?”
“She’s doing well.”
“Is she still living in the big place?” Her voice dropped off slightly, and he saw worry fill her eyes.
“Yes,” he added quickly. “She was lucky that it was spared since it was made of stone and set aside from the rest of the homes due to the yard being much larger.”
“That’s good.” She seemed to shrink back as if disappearing into her thoughts. Her eyes moved to the diner and then down at her watch. “I have… a meeting.” She started to move away.
He wanted to say something more, to get her to feel more relaxed around him. It was the only way to get her to trust him and open up. But instead, he snapped his fingers and helped Blue into his truck and then watched her drive away in an older sedan.
As he was making his afternoon inspection rounds, he ran into Jake Green, who owned and ran a local landscaping business, All Things Green.
“Hey, man.” Jake bent to give Blue some attention. “You’re just in time. We’re celebrating getting the new gig up at the resort.”
“Oh?” Cade asked, a little curious.
“Yeah, I guess Raven Brooks is back in town. Seems like she wants to do an entire overhaul on the grounds,” Jake said.
“Really?” He figured on letting Jake tell him everything, since he knew the man was a talker.
“Yeah. We sure needed the job. You know how it’s been lately. Not a lot of people can afford to have someone do their yard work. But getting the job to do the entire grounds up on the resort…” He whistled. “Not just maintenance, but an entire restoration. She wants plants, new pathways, the whole nine yards.”
“That’s good.” Cade wondered where the money was coming from. His grandmother had mentioned that Raven had attended business school in San Diego shortly after graduating high school, when she’d moved in with her grandmother.
Since his grandmother had lost contact with Raven’s grandmother two years ago, she didn’t know much more.
Rumors around town were that the resort was in the red. Deeply so.