Chapter 7
CHAPTER
SEVEN
As Cash changed into his swim trunks later that evening, he really wished he had Lark’s phone number.
He hadn’t asked her for it once since she’d arrived, as they’d spent almost all of their time together, except for a couple of hours in the afternoon while she took a nap, and now a couple of hours after dinner.
After cleaning up, Cash had gone down the hall to the master suite, where he’d flopped himself on his bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering what in the world he was doing.
At the same time, he could tell when a woman was interested in him, and Lark was definitely interested, despite her previous coldness and sarcasm. He wasn’t sure what had changed from this morning to this evening, only that something had.
He grabbed his hot tub towel from the hook beside the bedroom door and stepped out into the hall. He didn’t know if he could just call throughout the house that he was going to get in now, so he simply opened the linen closet and pulled out a fresh towel for her.
He went past her bedroom, refusing to stop and glance inside.
He didn’t hear her breathing or moving, and he really missed the way that Sweetie used to alert him of Lark’s forthcoming presence.
He emerged into the main part of the large living room, dining room, and kitchen area, with a hallway that led down to the front door and a formal living room, which Cash never used.
Lark’s mother kept a grand piano there, and a couch and loveseat set where she surely entertained the neighbors when they popped by.
He glanced down at his phone. “Should have gotten her phone number,” he muttered before threading his way between the island countertop and the back of an armchair he liked to sit in and watch the sunset in the early evenings.
“There you are,” Lark said.
Cash dang near jumped out of his skin. She rose from the end of the long couch pressed into the corner of the living room, and she wore an oversized swimming suit cover-up with bright tropical flowers splashed across the black fabric.
She grinned at him. “Did I surprise you?”
“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle. “I didn’t see you there.”
“You said you got in around ten,” she said. “I’ve been waiting out here for fifteen minutes.” She swallowed, and Cash tracked the movement in her slim throat.
“Did you find a swimming suit?” he asked, as she had said near the end of their dinner that she wasn’t sure if she had one here at the house or not.
She nodded, and after another swallow, said, “Yeah, it’s not great, but….” She looked over her shoulder and then back at him, those pretty hazel eyes wide and filled with trepidation. “It’s dark outside, right? You don’t turn on any lights or anything?”
“There’s lights on the hot tub,” he said. “They sort of pulse through the various colors. At least, that’s the setting I like.”
His own nerves shook at him for a couple of reasons. One, he hadn’t shared a hot tub with a woman ever, and it felt like a very intimate thing to do. And two, Cash wasn’t sure how he felt about having another person in the time and space he’d carved out for himself.
He liked to talk to the stars, or God, or himself, and he didn’t know how to do that with Lark only a few feet away from him.
He’d told himself at least ten times in the sixty seconds it had taken him to shed his clothes and pull on his swim trunks that he didn’t need to talk to himself tonight; he had her to talk to.
He lifted the extra towel he’d gotten for her. “I got you a towel.”
She twisted and bent and picked one up off the couch. “I got one too.”
“Oh, well, that’s fine,” he said.
“Yours looks nicer, though,” she said, and she tossed hers back to the couch. She took a couple of steps forward but moved between the couch and the loveseat and toward the back sliding door, while Cash had to go on a different trajectory to catch up to her.
“All right then, Cashew,” she said, her voice filled with teasing. “Show me how this hot tubbing is done.” She beat him to the sliding glass door while Cash tried to get his body and mind to catch up to her.
“Oh, wow, it’s cold out here,” she said, stepping over the lip of the door and onto the deck.
Cash followed her, bending to push the button on the towel warmer he’d purchased and set just outside the door. He crammed both their towels in and settled the lid on before straightening.
“Cashew?”
“Hey, it’s not cowboy,” she said.
He darted around her to open the hot tub, which was easy, as the McClellans had the cover installed on a rail.
He simply had to push off the hot tub cover, and it folded and tucked away just over the side of the deck.
Then he sat on the edge, his usual way of getting in, and plunged his feet into the hot water before easing his whole body in with a long, satisfied sigh.
“Oh yeah, that feels good.” He glanced over to where Lark stood just beyond the lip of the hot tub. “It’s just hot water, sweetheart. It’s not gonna hurt you.”
She made a huffing noise, and then started to pull her swimsuit cover-up up the length of her body.
Cash wanted to look away but found he couldn’t.
She moved faster and faster the higher the cover-up got, and he barely caught a glimpse of her bright pink swimsuit covered in Care Bears before she stepped down into the hot tub and almost disappeared beneath the surface of the water.
Her teeth chattered, with only her head showing, as she said, “Mm, this does feel amazing.”
He grinned at her and moved toward the controls on the hot tub, which caused her to slide over to the other side of the hot tub. “I’m just going to turn on the jets and the lights.”
He positioned himself in the corner pocket with jets and reached over to do that while Lark took his favorite spot in the opposite corner from him.
The jets started, causing that rumble and vibration which soothed Cash so much.
He pressed the light button just once, and it would rotate through the pink, purple, teal, green, yellow, orange, and red lights every few seconds.
“The jets last twenty minutes,” he said. “I usually stay out for two cycles, but you can go in whenever you want.”
“Okay,” Lark said.
Cash moved around the filter, which sat between the two far corners, and into the other corner seat, now adjacent to Lark. The waterfall and another seat remained between them, and he left it that way.
Lark leaned her head back, the tip of her knee rising out of the water like an iceberg for only a moment while she found her balance and equilibrium in the water. Cash pressed all the way back against the jets and positioned his feet against the ones in the floor in front of him.
“If you go to bed at midnight,” he asked. “What time do you get up?”
“Between eight and eight-thirty usually,” she said. “If I don’t have an early class. Sometimes I have to be over to the Agricultural Department by eight for my job. But on vacation….” She smiled, her eyes closed and her face tipped up toward the stars. “Hopefully closer to eight-thirty.”
Cash nodded, though she wasn’t looking at him, and he couldn’t stop staring at the goddess being illuminated by colored light and the Wyoming moon only feet from him.
“What time is church?” Lark asked.
“Ten,” he said. “I have to set an alarm on Sundays.” He chuckled. “I’m planning to have the dough done before I go to the sermon, and I can fry everything up and decorate it when we get back. I figured we’d have lunch and then dessert.”
“That’s fine,” Lark said.
Cash swallowed, because he’d left his phone on the corner of the dining room table, the way he always did when he came outside to get in the hot tub. But right now, he really wished he had it, so he could text his cousins and cancel tomorrow’s lunch plans with them.
“I invited some of my cousins over,” he said.
Lark’s eyes opened, and she looked at him. “You did? Who?”
“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” he said quickly. “I can probably cancel on them.”
“I don’t see why you’d need to do that.” Lark sat up a little bit, clearly getting her feet under her instead of laying out flat.
“It’s Boston and Cora,” he said. “They’re engaged.
And Joey and Adam—they’re married. Bryce and Codi, who are also married too and have a little boy.
And Kassie and Reggie and their little girl.
” He rolled his neck, suddenly very tired to be talking about the Young family.
“And technically, Kassie and Reggie aren’t blood relatives, but they all live up here in Dog Valley, and we get together pretty often on Sundays. ”
Lark smiled at him. “That’s nice, Cash.” She sobered as she reached one dripping hand out of the water to wipe her hair out of her face. “I miss that kind of family time.”
“So maybe it’ll be okay if they come over?” he asked. “I’m just making sweet and sour meatballs and mashed potatoes, and then the doughnuts.”
“And it’s what, eight people?”
“Eight adults, and two little kids,” Cash said. “Plus me and you. I’m planning on making enough food, so when Wade and Jet get in later, they’ll have something to eat.”
“Oh, right,” she said. “What time is their flight?”
“I think they land in Jackson at eight forty-five,” Cash said. “Which means they won’t get here until at least ten-thirty.”
Lark swallowed and nodded again. “If your cousins are over, maybe you won’t be able to go to Grammy’s with me.”
“I still can,” he said. “You won’t go until four or five, right?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Lunch is at twelve-thirty,” Cash said. “It’ll be fine. No one wants to be over here that long anyway.” He gave her a smile, and they settled back into the blissful, bubbling silence.
Cash closed his eyes, pointed his face heavenward, and let his thoughts do whatever they wanted. Of course, they conjured up an image of Lark in that swimming suit, and he grinned into the night sky.
“Where’d you get that swimming suit?” he asked.