Page 19 of The Paradise Plan

“Your secretary quit,” she said.“I’mhelpingyou.”

Grant grinned at her, and Bea huffed.“I’m teasing, sweetheart.”

Harrison looked over to Cass, who watched the exchange in the front seat in a similar fashion as he did.They’d talked a little the other night, over peach pie and ice cream, but he knew very little about her.

He didn’t know how to start a conversation with a woman like her.His chest vibrated in a strange way, and his phone buzzed, drawing his attention.Thankful for the distraction, he busied himself with answering texts from one of his workers, and then he dove into his email.As the drive went into the second hour, he finally looked up from his phone.

Bea read something on her tablet in the front seat.Grant drove, humming along to the song playing over the radio.Cass looked over to him at the same time he looked at her.He nodded to the lap desk across her legs.“Working?”

“Yes,” she said.“Just doing some final sketches on a house I’m redesigning in Texas.”She tilted the pages toward him.“Do you think you’d like a refrigerator with antlers on it?”

Harrison almost burst out laughing.By some miracle, he didn’t.“I don’t rightly know,” he said.“Feels…Texan?”

Their eyes met again, and Cass’s smile brightened the whole back seat.“It does feel Texan.And this family owns a cattle ranch.I think it fits.”

“Then it probably fits.”Harrison hadn’t brought work or anything else to do.“Will you move your design business here?”

“Maybe,” she said, glancing toward the front seat.“Depends on how bored I get, I suppose.”She flashed him a smile that Harrison felt dive right into his heart.

He nodded and looked out his window.“Looks like a pretty day.”He didn’t have much else to say, and no one else seemed to either.

They stopped for gas and snacks, and Harrison found himself in the convenience store alone with Cass.She picked up a bag of peach-o’s, and he said, “Oh, my brother loves those.”

Cass looked at the bag for a moment longer.“We used to always get these for the kids on road trips.”She seemed so sad.It poured off of her for a moment.Then she blinked, and it boxed right up and went away.She smiled.“I’ll get some and text them.”

“How many kids do you have?”he asked as she reached for another bag of candy.

“Three,” she said.“Twin girls, Sariah and Jane.Sariah is married, and she and her husband moved to Taiwan for the summer.”

“Taiwan, wow.”He followed her like a puppy dog, but at least Grant and Bea weren’t around to see.

“Jane’s…somewhere.I think this morning she was arriving in Montana.”

“You don’t know where she is?”

“She’s traveling right now,” Cass said, her voice a tad cooler than it had been before.“And Conrad is at Baylor.”She gave him a tight smile.“You don’t have kids, right?”

“No,” he said.

Cass ducked her head and then reached for a bag of chips.“Did you ever want any?”

“Uh, I don’t know?”he guessed.“I suppose I would’ve been happy if we’d had kids, but I was okay without them too.”

“Your wife didn’t want any?”

“She did,” he said, his throat turning narrow.“The timing never felt right, and she really wanted to be the best veterinarian in the world, and…yeah.Then I was growing my construction business, and I think time just slipped away like smoke.”

Cass nodded, her eyes filled with compassion.“It has a way of doing that.”

“Yeah.”He picked up some honey-barbecue chips.“Have you ever had these?”

She wrinkled her nose.“No, thank you.”

“Oh, come on,” he said with a laugh.“If you haven’t had them, how do you know you don’t like them?”

She eyed the bag like it might strike.“I just know.”

They moved to check out, and when they went outside, Bea and Grant had moved the truck away from the gas pump.“Boiled peanuts,” Bea announced as they arrived at the truck.