Chapter Ten
Main Street Diner
Cal did not go up to the Harrington cabin with donuts the next morning per Glenda’s suggestion. He also did not go up there the morning after that. Maybe Glenda was right and he should make some sort of overture, but Cal was certain keeping his distance was the better option.
Of course, then he’d had his tele-therapy session this morning, and now he didn’t know what the hell was the better option.
That was the thing about therapy. It never gave him any answers. Just more fucking questions.
What would happen, Cal, if you stopped walking away from things that might work out and started walking toward them? With an open mind?
How the fuck was he supposed to know? Sounded like a risk someone with his track record shouldn’t be taking.
Of course, he hadn’t told Dr. Michaels that. He understood the pattern well enough. Confess a thought in any sort of negative context and be presented with a what would happen if…
One was enough.
Because even if he wanted to avoid the question, even if he wanted to refuse to go where the question led, he always found himself … needing to answer the question.
So he’d gotten to the diner early and settled himself in the booth that had become Jill’s regular seat. He ordered himself a big breakfast, got out his own laptop, and focused on work.
He hadn’t taken any cases on yet, which he was grateful for with everything going on with Nate. It gave him time to focus on making sure his brother didn’t get caught up in police incompetence. And since he’d done fairly well for himself over the past decade, he didn’t need to hustle to survive.
For a little while anyway.
He was deep in the weeds of trying to get a sense of Jules Hyatt’s life and who else she might have employed besides Nate when he felt someone approach. And stop. And hover.
He looked up. Jill was standing there, a frown on her face. She had one hand wrapped around her laptop bag, and the other on her waist.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
She was wearing a big sweater that swamped her over baggy jeans. Her boots were a little muddy, and she had pretty, dangling gold earrings at her ears that matched the stack of bracelets on her wrist. It was a contrasting and charming combination.
“Eating. Working.” He smiled at her. “What about you?”
“You are in my spot, Cal,” she said darkly, dropping her bag on the bench across from him.
“I didn’t know you had a spot.”
“Yes, you did,” she said, emphasizing each word.
“Okay.” He lifted his hands, made a what are you going to do? gesture. “Yes, I did. It just seems you’re kind of pissed at me, and I don’t understand why.”
She just stared straight at him. “Yes, you do.”
Well, this was … different. At least coming from Jill. Calling him out on all his lies. He didn’t quite know what to do with it.
What would happen if … yeah, yeah, yeah.
“Okay, let’s say I kind of know why, but I also don’t fully know why.” When she still didn’t sit, just stood there, he figured she wasn’t going to give him any easy outs. She probably shouldn’t. “Are you offended I suggested using Jake’s interest in you for our nefarious purposes?”
She inhaled through her nose. When she spoke, it was careful and precise. A bit like she’d been anticipating and preparing for this eventual face-off.
“I’m offended that you brought it up in front of everyone including my grandmother. And I’m offended that you used it like some kind of … wedge.”
He frowned at her because he was a smart guy, or so he thought, but he didn’t understand what that meant. “Wedge?”
She let out a gusty sigh then sat down across from him. She leaned forward. He found himself moderately distracted by the little tattoo on her wrist he still hadn’t managed to make out.
Some kind of flower or leaf.
“When was the last time you went out on a date?” she demanded.
He blinked up at her. Dark eyes, intense and direct on his. Uh-oh. He scratched a hand through his hair. Thought dimly about that haircut he needed. Anything but the word date and Jill Harrington.
“Okay, how about this?” she continued when he didn’t answer. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve even thought about the possibility of going on a date?”
“Uh. Well.” He found himself shifting uncomfortably in his seat like a chastised child. “No.”
“Three years. Over three years. I have lived an isolated life with my mostly mute grandmother, who was recovering from a stroke for a lot of that time, and even to this day, with all her progress, some pretty serious trauma. Everything I’ve been has been in service to her, and whatever I have left over has gone to my job. ”
“That’s very honorable.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s family and love and something I was happy to do. But what maybe I didn’t realize until recently is that whatever skills I had in the interpersonal department once upon a time belong to another Jill who doesn’t exist anymore.”
Since he understood that sentiment all too well but also couldn’t actually see how it could be true for her, he felt some of the guard he was trying to keep up slide down a little bit. “I’m sure she exists.”
Jill rolled her eyes, a response Cal didn’t fully understand. He thought he was being gentlemanly and kind and understanding, all things considered. And she was rolling her eyes at him.
“The point is,” she said firmly. “I find this whole … thing uncomfortable. Because everything is so twisted up and weird here. For all I know, Jake was feigning interest to pump me for information about Nate or you. For all I know, you’re feigning interest because my grandmother told you to.”
“Jill—”
“No, you didn’t want to talk, so you’ll sit there and listen.
I’m twenty-eight years old. I’ve had one long-term relationship in my life, and I haven’t been on a second date in something closer to four years.
I don’t want to go back to Boston. I like my life here.
But I also don’t want to be alone forever.
At least, not because I didn’t try. But I’m rusty and unsure, and I don’t like that because that is not how I used to be.
So, no, I don’t appreciate you throwing out Jake’s …
interest like a joke or a ploy when I’m not sure what it even was. ”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, so no more kind of jokes about Jake flirting with you.”
“And no more talking about being not too old for me unless you’re planning on doing something about it.”
Okay, so maybe he’d tiptoed a little too close to the fire the other day, and maybe she deserved some honesty in the face of that. It wasn’t that he wanted to be giving off mixed signals. It was just…
What would happen if…
“It’s not that I don’t want to do something about it.”
Nothing in her expression changed. She was not amused, charmed, or soothed. He also realized with a little twist of shame that she didn’t believe him. That—and maybe it was the isolation talking in her head—she didn’t think there’d be any reason for two men in Marietta, Montana to want to.
That didn’t mean he had any right to act on his want-tos. God knew he’d acted on them mostly when he shouldn’t have before. So, he tried to be honest, without getting too deep into it all.
He tapped his forehead. “Bad bet in here.”
Something in her gaze softened, and he didn’t care for that. Not because it felt too close to pity, but because it seemed … softer or something. Like an understanding no one could possibly have.
“Look, I apologize if the signals are a little mixed,” he said, trying to walk the right line that didn’t hurt her feelings and didn’t tread too close to emotional truths he didn’t want to mine.
“No, not if. I get it. They are. Like I said, the interest isn’t feigned or imagined.
I just shouldn’t really be indulging in it, but sometimes my charm gets the best of me.
” He tried to flash said charm with a grin he’d once employed quite effectively.
But she still had that soft look in her eye that made him uncomfortable. And very grateful when his phone buzzed. He looked down at the screen. A text from Nate.
“Where are you?”
“Diner.”
“Okay. We’re coming.”
“Problem?”
Cal looked up from his phone, realized he was frowning. “Text from Nate. They’re coming here. They must have found something. Not sure if that’s good or bad.”
“I’ll get out of your hair then.” She started to gather her things, but that didn’t make any sense.
Baffled, he frowned at her. “Why would you leave? You’re part of this.”
She stood there, hand around the handle of her bag but not picking it up from where it sat on the booth cushion. She looked down at him, not quite a frown on her face, but he didn’t know how to characterize it.
He didn’t really know how to deal with her and that was … disorienting. He always knew how to deal with people, and if he didn’t, he found a soft spot and poked at it until they got mad. He always knew what to do with mad.
But he didn’t want to touch any of her soft spots. He didn’t want to send mixed signals, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want her around. “I mean, we can be friends, right?”
Her eyebrows drew together, like she didn’t understand the word friends in this context. But then her expression smoothed out. “Yes, we are friends.”
“Good. Then sit.”
She still hesitated for a moment, but after a few seconds, she slid back into the booth.
It didn’t occur to him until this moment of sitting across from her in a weird kind of silence that if she was irritated that he was giving off mixed signals that meant…
She was interested.
He’d been so focused on his feelings that he hadn’t really considered…
Talk about rusty.
Especially when he couldn’t quite think of anything to say, when he always had something to say.
*
Nate couldn’t parse the tension between Cal and Jill when he and Sam arrived at the diner. Jill was kind of frowning, and Cal looked oddly shocked by something. They didn’t speak.
Nate looked down at Sam, who looked up at him at the same moment. The same questions in her eyes that were in his head.
Then, in unison, they shrugged.
It made him smile in spite of himself. Well, at least they both didn’t know what to make of the situation.
Cal noticed them first, looked something like relieved when they approached the booth. Cal slid closer to the window, then Jill did the same on her side. Nate took the space next to Cal, Sam the space next to Jill.
No one spoke.
Nate shared one more glance with Sam, who gave him another small shrug. They must have interrupted something, but Nate couldn’t imagine what.
“Didn’t mean to crash your breakfast, but we need your help,” Nate said into the awkward quiet.
Why bother with preamble? “Sam and I were talking last night, and I remembered that Jules did go to the police, right? She claimed they didn’t do anything for her, but if she actually went and talked to someone… ”
“She might have told them something more concrete,” Cal finished, easily following their line of thought. “That’s a good thread to tug.”
“I guess we might be private investigators after all,” Sam murmured. “But you told us to be careful. I didn’t think it was smart to go poking around the Livingston or Bozeman PDs, especially if it might cause anyone to close ranks.”
“Also a good thought.” Cal rubbed the backs of his fingers against his jaw, back and forth, a gesture of being deep in thought himself. “I’m not sure I’ve got an angle myself. Cops tend to poker up around lawyers.”
“What about Jill?” Sam suggested, reaching across the table and plucking the untouched biscuit off Cal’s plate.
Much to Nate’s surprise and relief. She hadn’t done more than pick at her breakfast at home.
“Um, what about me?” Jill replied.
“You use the writer angle. No one in Livingston or Bozeman is going to know your connection, and we won’t be using it anyway.
” She took a bite of the biscuit and chewed.
“You call both departments and then see who you can get to talk to you about who a person would go to if they were worried about harassment.”
Jill didn’t exactly jump at the chance.
“It doesn’t have to be Jill,” Nate supplied. “It doesn’t have to be anyone. Maybe—”
“No, I’ll do it.” Jill nodded, as if convincing herself. “It’s just a phone call.”
It made Nate uncomfortable. All these people rallying around doing things for him. It felt like … it felt like…
Well, he didn’t know what the hell it felt like except wrong. Because the only time in his life when he’d had help had been before his mother had died, and he didn’t like to think about that time at all.
A phone trilled, clearly coming from Jill’s bag.
“Sorry,” she murmured, but she pulled the phone out and an expression of worry crossed her face as she answered quickly. “Is everything okay?” Her shoulders immediately slumped in some kind of relief as whoever was on the other end spoke.
When she ended the call, she let out a long breath.
“That was Grandma. She wants Cal and Nate to come up to the cabin, if you can.”