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“In between the lothario looks, maybe.” She felt her spine straighten and wished she could temper her anger down a notch, but it hurt to think he was toying with her. “Don’t forget I just got played by a professional, so I’m once bitten, twice shy. And this is definitelynota good time for romance games around me.”
“The con artist romanced you?” He sounded genuinely surprised.
“Yes. Although not for long before I wised up,” she admitted. Part of the reason she’d come to Last Stand was to heal from all that. To find her own strengths and figure out who she wanted to be. “But I promise you, I’m not an easy mark anymore.”
Chapter Five
Two days later,Cal stood on a ladder, rolling paint onto his grandfather’s house in the late afternoon. Since Gramp insisted he didn’t want anyone hovering over him, doing work around the place was the easiest way to keep tabs on him while he recovered from the accident.
The nap on the paint roller was deep to saturate the porous stonework on the main part of the house. It splattered on him whenever he loaded too much paint from the tray, leaving his forearms frosted white. But the work was satisfying, with the tangible reward of beautifying the historic property. Plus with the view of his mother’s garden from this height, the chore allowed him to keep tabs on Josie too, since his effort to get close to her had gone south in a hurry. She was out there now, doing something with the hose. Patching it, maybe.
Funny that he’d learned more about her from her rebuff than he had with any of the questions he’d asked her. She’d lost her savings to a con artist—not through a tricky swindle, but because she’d trusted the guy. At least, that’s what he’d gathered by putting together the pieces.
The thought of it made him jam the paint roller harder into the stone crevices as he worked. He wouldn’t mind getting in the car and driving to Florida to find the guy. But she’d drawn a boundary around herself and her past the other night, a line in the sand that only an idiot would ignore. She was prickly about romance and with good reason. Even though the attraction clearly ran both ways, the hot caretaker didn’t plan to act on it.
Heard and understood.
Except he’d been a whole lot more disappointed about that than he should be given how briefly they’d known one another. Plus, she thought he’d been playing her, which didn’t sit well with him. He may have had an ulterior motive for sticking close to her. But he sure as hell hadn’t been faking his interest. So he’d sent over a truck the next day, with a farm hand from Rough Hollow Orchards, to help her with the bees. He’d stayed out of their way, giving her space.
After using up the rest of the paint in his tray, Cal had to descend the ladder to pour more. By the time he stepped off the last rung, he heard voices from the front of his grandfather’s house. With his view of the driveway blocked, he hadn’t noticed anyone pull in.
Then, Clint Ramsey’s too-hearty laugh put Cal’s teeth on edge. His father was here. Worse, he had just turned the corner of the house and spotted him. His wife followed him on too-tall heels, her short floral dress and carefully curled hair broadcasting her refusal to fit in to the more down-to-earth world of the Ramsey family. But then, Cal’s father was the one who’d turned his back on farming, his own father, and—eventually—Cal’s mom, in order to create a different life for himself in the gaudy mansion on the other side of Last Stand.
The betrayal had hurt Cal more than it hurt his brothers. Or at least, he thought it must. Cal had emulated his father. Worn his jersey number through high school and into college before his father’s infidelity. Wearing the number as a pro had come with a certain bitterness, but Cal had soldiered onward with it, knowing that fans appreciated the nod to a former idol of the game.
Remembering his phone call with his father two days ago—and his dad’s insistence that he would help Cal reclaim his spot on a roster—Cal seriously considered forgetting about the painting project and making a break for his convertible. If he wasn’t worried about getting paint on the BMW’s interior, he might have.
Dressed in an olive-colored jacket and khaki trousers, Clint Ramsey looked like he’d been styled by the wife almost two decades younger than him, or by an overambitious retail clerk, though the clothes were nice enough. Clint still worked out often and had avoided a paunch, but at sixty-four years old, he had the leathery skin of a man who’d spent every waking moment in the sun. He wore his now-silver hair the same way he had his entire life, slicked back and pomaded.
“Hello, Cal.” His father greeted him with a wave while Brittney struggled to keep up with his longer strides. “The house looks great. I didn’t know Dad wanted it redone or I would have gotten a crew over here.”
Clint had retired from baseball after a storied career as a pitcher was ended by injury. He liked to say if they had ligament replacement procedures—Tommy John surgery—in his day, he would have come back better than ever, but Cal had doubts about that. Clint had been spoiled by his success, his hubris growing in conjunction with his contracts, money that Cal’s mother had invested shrewdly. Clint had made a considerable sum in his career, but his first wife had quietly doubled it to ensure they could live comfortably for the rest of their lives. Clint enjoyed spending as much as he liked and being the center of attention, and once his own career ended he focused on his sons’ athletic talents, and began using the new “windfall” to build an extravagant house that no one else in the family had wanted. Clint still didn’t understand why none of his sons had been excited about a swim-up bar in the indoor swimming pool, but as long as his progeny made headlines as baseball players, Clint didn’t complain.
By the time Clint cheated with Brittney, Cal’s mother had seemed relieved to move back to the old house, to reclaim her previous life. Cal and his brothers had weathered their father’s overblown pride and insistent pushing the only way they could—by excelling in the sport their father loved.
These days, however, Cal didn’t feel the need to humor someone he found it tough to respect.
“Gramp never said he wanted the house painted,” Cal clarified, emptying the remainder of the five-gallon bucket into his tray. “But it was obvious to me a lot of things needed repair and updating. I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”
Clint scrambled back a step to avoid getting paint on his expensive-looking loafers while Brittney craned her neck to stare into the garden next door where Josie was staking a row of sunflowers. The three dogs lay in shady patches around the garden’s perimeter, never too far from her.
“Who’s that?” Brittney asked, fluffing her red-gold curls, her nose wrinkling as she studied Josie.
Maybe the thought of manual labor was too much for her.
“Mom’s caretaker,” Cal explained, wondering if it was too rude to climb the ladder and keep working.
“Your mother has a caretaker now?” His father sounded impressed. Or was that envy in his voice?
Clint swiveled to see for himself.
“I’d better get back to work.” Cal picked up the tray, balancing it carefully so the paint didn’t slosh out.
“Wait, Son.” Dad clapped him on the shoulder, jostling him enough to jar his arm and lose some of the bright white paint in the grass. “Sorry about that, but I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“I’ve got a lot on my plate this afternoon—”
“This will only take a second,” Clint insisted. “I made a call to one of my manager friends—you remember Dusty Reed—who’s getting back in the business. I mentioned you, and you know how much Dusty thinks of you.”
