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Natalie couldn’t help but return his smile. It was hard not to respond to Aaron’s irrepressible charisma. Casey shot her a look over his shoulder that she couldn’t quite interpret. Surely he wasn’t checking out her response to his cousin’s apparently habitual flirting?
She took her wet jeans out of the dryer, piling them into a plastic basket. And then she and Buddy moved into the living room while Casey and the twins tore into the dryer. To give herself something to do, she checked her e-mail—what little there was of it. She had heard nothing more from Beecham since he’d left yesterday, so she had no idea if he was making any more headway on her case. She suspected he had not.
An interesting cacophony of sounds came from the laundry room. Thumps, squeaks, creaks, hammering. Curses—from Casey—and laughter—mostly Aaron’s—interspersed with calm instructions—Andrew’s. After perhaps half an hour, all three came out in the living room, grinning like warriors who had just won a skirmish.
Lifting an eyebrow in Casey’s direction, she asked, “You fixed it?”
“Yep.”
Andrew cleared his throat rather loudly.
“Okay, we fixed it,” Casey confessed. “But I could have managed that one on my own,” he added in Andrew’s direction. “Anyone could have seen that the belt had just slipped off the drum.”
“I expected to find that the belt had broken,” Andrew said. “That’s what happens more commonly. It’s rare to find that it’s just slipped off instead.”
“You can dry your jeans now,” Casey told Natalie. “The dryer should work just fine.”
“Thank you. Thank you all,” she added, glancing at his cousins.
“It was nothing,” Aaron assured her with a smile.
Both Casey and Andrew scoffed at that.
“It was nothing for you, you mean,” Casey accused. “You didn’t do anything.”
“I held the flashlight.”
Shaking his head, Casey turned back to Natalie. “These miscreants and I are going to a little Mexican place downtown for dinner. Molly said it’s pretty good. Would you like to join us?”
“Yes, please come, Natalie,” Aaron seconded with a smile. “I’d appreciate having an intelligent conversation with someone during dinner, something I certainly won’t get from these two.”
She smiled back, but shook her head. “Thank you, but I have some calls to make this evening. I’m sure the three of you have a lot to catch up on.”
Telling them he would join them in a few minutes, Casey sent his cousins outside. Exchanging “Good nights” with them, Natalie noticed that Andrew, especially, looked at her a bit longer than necessary as he moved toward the door. As if he were studying her face, looking for…what? Whatever it was, his scrutiny made her uncomfortable, as if he were seeing more in her expression than she wanted him to know about her.
Casey gazed down at her when they were alone. “Are you sure you won’t come with us? My cousins will be on their best behavior. Mostly.”
“No, not tonight, thanks.”
He put a hand to the back of his neck and squeezed, his expression somber. “We were going to talk before they showed up to interrupt us. There are still some things I think you and I should clear up.”
She knew he was right, but now wasn’t the time. Not while his cousins were waiting outside for him. “We’ll talk later. You’d better go. They’re waiting for you.”
Nodding, he reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be thinking about you tonight,” he murmured. “I seem to be doing that a lot lately.”
A little sigh escaped her before she could stop it. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, too,” she admitted. “Too much, I’m afraid. There are things…well, this isn’t a good time for me.”
“I know,” he murmured. “Me, either. But that hasn’t seemed to stop me from wanting to be with you.”
She gazed up at him, moistening her lips as she tried to think of something to say.
He cupped her face in one hand and leaned over to brush a kiss across her lips. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. Good night, Natalie.”
She barely resisted an impulse to grab hold of him and give him a kiss that would make the spicy Mexican food he planned to eat later seem tame in comparison. After he’d let himself out, she sank onto the couch, wishing she had given in to that particular urge.
Chapter Eleven
B ecause he was so dirty from the manual labor he’d done that day, Casey insisted on returning to the cabin where he’d been staying so he could clean up before dinner. His cousins followed him inside, carrying the bags they’d brought with them from Dallas, since they intended to spend the night in the A frame.
