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“When did we have time?” Surely, she joked.
“Do you still agree it’s a good idea?”
“I don’t know.” He clasped his hands at her waist. “I feel like we’re grasping at straws.”
“We are, Mitch. What else can we do?”
Chapter 19
“Yours or mine?” Cath opened her eyes and squinted against the glare of daylight coming through the bare windows.
The mattress shifted beside her. Mitch checked his phone and handed over her purse.
Cath recognized the caller and answered. “Hey. What’s up?”
“The landlord got emergency repair approval, but the patio’s a mess and the workmen leave the gate open all the time.” Rhonda called to someone. “Anyone can walk in. I’m moving in with Vince day after tomorrow. All the Mardi Gras tourists will be leaving town, and I can take off work.”
“Sounds smart.” Cath pushed her hair back.
“We’ve been slammed at the bar, or I would have called earlier.” The clatter of dishes came from Rhonda’s end. “But your old boyfriend came by. The fashion-plate guy with black hair?”
“Paul.” Returning like the abandoned suitcase on a luggage carousel.
“Yeah,” Rhonda said. “He was in the patio watching the workmen inside your apartment when I got back from walking Toto.”
Cath clutched her phone tighter. “You didn’t tell him where I was, did you?”
“How can I?” Her friend paused. “All I know is that you went off with that hunky guy. Are you still with him?”
“I’m staying with Mitch, yes. You didn’t mention that to Paul, did you?”
“I figured that was none of his business. I can see why you broke up with him. He was jerky to Toto.” More talking in the background. “My break’s over.”
“Wait. When did he come by?” She waited a beat, but Rhonda had hung up.
Her friend had disconnected. Cath lowered her cell and stared at nothing, her insides roiling. Paul can’t bother you unless you let him.
Mitch had already dressed. Now he handed her a steaming cardboard cup. “I only had instant.”
“If it’s coffee, who cares?” The smell energized her before she even took a sip. “At least you keep the basics here. I saw a can of turnip greens. Who considers that essential?”
“The store was out of canned okra.” His lips twitched.
“I guess that left you absolutely no other choice.”
“Roger.” He leaned his sexy hips against the counter and gestured to the phone. “That wasn’t your brother.”
Her brother! She pressed a hand to her sternum and dragged in a breath. Even if Les had lost his phone and couldn’t afford a burner, he could have borrowed a cell from Justin. But he hadn’t. Did that mean he couldn’t? Did that mean he lay dead in a ditch somewhere?
She bit her lip and blinked back tears. “Most people would simply ask who called.”
His eyebrows shot up as if she’d offended him. “I’m not most people.”
Thank goodness for that.
“Besides”—he stretched his arms into the sleeves and yanked his T-shirt over his head in that utterly masculine way—“that would be prying.”
“You’re still prying.” She reached for her jeans and sweater scattered next to the mattress.