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“He’ll know it’s because of you anyway,” West said over his shoulder.
“I know,” Cass said.“I still want you to tell him.”
“Okay, hon,” West said.He groaned as he stood.He met Cass in the kitchen, holding his plate to the side as he wrapped his free arm around her waist.“When I retire, we’ll get a big motorhome and travel the country.”He smiled down at her, and Cass sank into the comfort of his arms.
“You’ve been looking at them again, haven’t you?”
“And the schedule for when I have to submit my paperwork.”
Cass beamed up at him, the love between them as strong as ever.“You have that chart memorized.”
“I can file by September first,” he said.“Be done at the end of February.”He slid his plate onto the counter and took her fully into his arms.He swayed, a soft, low, deep hum starting in the back of his throat.They danced right there in their kitchen, the bright lights blazing overhead, as if it was their senior prom.
“You’ll never do it,” Cass whispered.
“Yes, I will,” West said, his voice throaty.“I don’t know how many more cases I can handle.”He worked for the state of Texas as a homicide investigator.Sometimes he traveled, but more and more, he’d been sticking to the Coastal Bend and the local and Southern Texas cases.
“When’s the deadline after September?”she asked.
“January first,” he said.“Done by June thirtieth.”
“Conrad will be graduated by then,” she said.
“We can travel,” he whispered, lowering his face until he touched his cheek to hers.The house stood in silence, the moment between Cass and West intimate and comfortable.Perfect.They didn’t fight much, and he put up with Cass’s early bedtime and even earlier morning alarm, while she endured his boxes of case files all over the house and the way he sometimes forgot he had a family while he worked a particularly disturbing case.
They had big plans for their lives after Conrad graduated, and Cass laid her cheek against his chest and listened to his heart beat and his throat hum as he danced her around the kitchen.
It wasn’t until later, after she’d climbed into bed, the soft golden glow of dusk finally disappearing into grayness, that she remembered her phone and Bea’s “big news.”
She scoffed aloud and picked up her phone from where she’d already plugged it in.After the two pictures Bea had sent, as well as all of the others saying how those views were indeed spectacular, Bea had messaged another picture.
Cass blinked, her throat drying up as she tried to make sense of it.Bea stood against the railing with a handsome man, the two of them the definition of “young and in love,” though Bea wasn’t all that young, and she certainly couldn’t be in love with Grant Turner already.
Could she?
She could, Cass thought but couldn’t vocalize.She couldn’t stand the thought of Bea leaving Sweet Water Falls, and she tried to swallow.She’d already brushed her teeth, and she should have plenty of saliva.
She couldn’t swallow.All she could taste was the metallic side of mint, and her stomach lurched.
Grant stood a head taller than Bea, and he held her against his side casually and yet powerfully.She fit there, tucked into him, and she looked…happy.Beyond happy.Full of bliss.Jolly.Joyful.
Cass couldn’t even come up with enough adjectives forhappy.Bea was all of them.She broadcast them from her eyes, her smile, her very being.
Cass’s own happiness seemed to be crumbling around her, and she hated the feelings cascading through her like water off a tall cliff.She should be overjoyed her friend had found this man.After all she’d been through, Bea deserved the very best in the world.The best house, the best food, the best man.
Grant certainly looked like he could be that man, and Cass scrolled down to read Bea’s caption.Aren’t we the cutest?She’d laughed afterward, but Cass’s throat was too narrow to get out any sound.
Another picture came up, this time of Bea and Lauren, and again, they both looked like someone had sprinkled particles of joy over them.Lauren hadn’t looked that happy in months, and Cass smiled, her heart softening at the wonders Hilton Head Island could apparently achieve.
The texts had come in quickly then, and every single one of the women in her group had wondered where she was and why she hadn’t responded to anything.
Beryl lifted his head and rested the heavy thing on her lap, looking up at her with doleful eyes.She sniffed, and in that moment, she realized she’d been weeping.Beryl had always been her best friend whenever she was sad, and he edged further onto her lap now as if to say,I’m right here, Cass.Don’tbe sad.
She wasn’t even sure why she had tears in her eyes.Thankfully, none of them had trickled down her face.She smoothed back Beryl’s floppy ears, those big brown eyes of his falling closed.“I know, buddy,” she whispered to him.“I’m okay.”
She was—or she would be.Cass hated change, as she liked planning when things shifted so she could be prepared in every way.Emotionally, physically, all of it.If she’d planned for Bea to meet the man of her dreams within minutes of arriving on Hilton Head Island, she wouldn’t be dealing with quaking lungs and a nervous pit in her stomach that everything she loved and adored about her life in Texas was about to change.
Sorry, she quickly typed out, taking a steeling breath as she did.West and I were eating dinner, and then I left my phone inside while we went out to check on his new horses.The pictures areAMAZING, Bea!You look full of starlight and glitter, and wow!Grant is sooogood-looking.
