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Humiliation drove through her, but she couldn’t do anything about the situation.She’d learned to accept things as they were, even if she didn’t like that, and she supposed that was one good thing that had come from West’s death.
Harrison slid her onto the loveseat in the foyer, and they both sighed.“All right.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Do you have medical supplies here?”he asked.
She shook her head.
“Is your son here with you?”
She shook her head again.“No, I came alone, just for a couple of days.I’m flying back tomorrow night, and we’ll leave Friday morning to drive.”
He nodded again.“Okay, can you stay here while I run to my place and get a few things?”
“Yes,” she said.“I’m fine.Really.”She didn’t necessarily want to be alone, but she’d come to the island alone this morning.She hadn’t even told Bea she was coming.
Harrison straightened and looked down at himself, as if just now realizing he was half-naked.Cass did the same, drinking in the flat planes of his abs and then the bulk of muscle in his chest.
“Uh, I’ll be right back,” he said.He fled like a scared rabbit, and Cass leaned into the loveseat and pressed her eyes closed.
Her only consolation of the past ten minutes was that river of attraction in Harrison’s gaze.“River rapids,” she murmured, because Cass wasn’t twenty and dating her first serious boyfriend.She and Harrison weren’t dating at all, but she’d come to accept that shecouldgo out with him, and she wouldn’t feel guilty about it.
The silence in the house allowed her mind to wander, and she thought through the phone call with Bea a couple of years ago when she’d first met Grant and wanted to take him from island tour guide to boyfriend.
Cass smiled as she thought about guiding Harrison along the same path, but from construction manager-slash-doctor to boyfriend.
“If Conrad is mad about the house,” Cass told herself.And he was.“He’ll be livid if you start dating Harrison.”
She let that thought sink into her head for a moment, and then she brushed it away.Just as she’d told her son, she was an adult, and she had her own life to live.So did he.He’d left the house immediately after his high school graduation, and he’d barely returned in the year since.Was she to waste away there simply because that had once been her plan?
“No,” she said aloud, echoing what she’d told him.“Plans change all the time.”She hadn’t been the most flexible person previous to West’s death, but it was definitely a lesson she was learning on a daily basis now.
Sariah said she couldn’t come to Texas to help with the move, but she supported Cass in her decision to sell the house, leave Texas, and move to the beach house.So far, at least.Cass suspected her daughter was so overwhelmed with her move overseas that she couldn’t be bothered with what Cass had going on.
Jane had barely responded at all, and Cass knew thatwasher response.And it meant she wasn’t happy about the choice, but again, she was never around.She had her own path to trod, and Cass only knew she was still doing her therapy appointments because the charges hit her card when Jane did them.
Cass wanted her to attend those and at least talk to someone, even if it wasn’t her.
She often felt like she still needed someone like that, but she’d stopped going to her therapist a few months ago.She’d run things by her Supper Club last week, and the only person who’d seemed even the tiniest bit put out about her departure had been Lauren.Cass understood why, because Lauren needed a lot of personal support, and she didn’t have anyone else.
She, Bea, and Cass were close, but Cass had gone to lunch with Joy, who said Lauren would be okay.They went to lunch every week, and Lauren was coping with all the changes in their Supper Club and around Sweet Water Falls.
To Cass, outside of herself, she didn’t think Lauren had much change to deal with, but she’d also learned not to judge how another should handle any given situation.
The front door opened again, and Harrison said, “It’s just me, Cass.”
She opened her eyes and noticed the black T-shirt hugging his arms and chest as he walked in.He might look better in that than he did out of it, and instant heat flooded her face.“Hey.”
He held up a tackle box.“Got my first aid kit, so we’ll get you all patched up, and then see if you can stand.”He looked from her face down to her ankle and back.“I should’ve put ice on this before I left.Be right back.”
He darted back into the kitchen, and she heard him getting ice out of the fridge.He returned iceless to the formal living room, and said, “I need a bag.You’ve literally got nothing here.”
“I know,” she said.“I’m staying in a hotel tonight.It was one night.”
Harrison had nearly left the room before she’d finished the explanation.“Be right back.”
He did return quickly, this time with a plastic wrapper stuffed with ice.He twisted the top and put it on her ankle.
