“Do they ever?”

“Nope.” Rina laughed. “Red convertibles are always a gimme when I need to fill my ticket quota. Not that I have a quota, mind you. Buy you a cup of coffee or are you just leaving?”

Gard wasn’t sure if she was coming or going. She was still trying to figure out the disjointed conversation with Jenna.

“Coffee sounds good.”

They walked in together and scored a booth. After the waitress poured coffee and disappeared, Gard said, “Thanks again for having your deputy check on Madison’s car.”

“Not a problem.” Rina turned the heavy white ceramic mug in a slow circle on the scarred wooden tabletop. “Did you take her back out to Dover this morning?”

“No. She was going to get someone in the dorm where she’s staying to give her a lift. I have calls and none of them are in that direction.” Gard paused, wondering about Rina’s cautious tone. “Are you trying to ask me if I spent the night with her?”

Rina raised her eyes. “None of my business.”

Gard waited.

“But, yes. I guess I am.” Rina glanced around the diner and lowered her voice. “Quite a few people are curious about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how it is around here. Not much to talk about except your neighbor’s business. Jerry Bensen was coming in to Ramiro’s when you were leaving last night. Saw you pull out with her in the truck and was naturally curious. Then he told someone else, who told someone else, who told Shirley Palmer when she served early breakfast this morning.”

Gard groaned. “I guess I didn’t drive far enough for that beer after all.”

Rina laughed. “You’re a good-looking single woman and you don’t make any secret of the kind of company you like. You don’t think everyone around here is curious about who you’re seeing and what you’re doing with her? You’d have to go to another state, and I’m not even sure that would be enough.”

“I’m not running,” Gard bit out. She’d run enough.

Rina’s eyes widened. “Whoa, I’m just giving you a hard time. All the gossip was good-natured and most of it was pretty vague. You’ve got every right to see whoever you want and nobody ever said otherwise.”

“Sorry.” She was being way too sensitive. She knew the score, had known it when she’d moved here. She had opted to trade the false anonymity of elite society for the open scrutiny of a small, close-knit community. Despite the generally good-natured gossip, most people around here really did live and let live. “For what it’s worth, I dropped her off about two and went home to bed. Alone.”

“Well, that certainly isn’t what I’d call juicy gossip.”

Gard laughed. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I didn’t say I was disappointed.”

Gard thought back to the encounter with Jenna in the parking lot. If Jenna’d heard the same rumors that Rina had, her cold shoulder made sense. Jenna probably thought she had gone directly from groping her to sleeping with someone else. Jenna was almost right too. She’d still been so wound up from being with Jenna, that when Madison had slid across the front seat while she was driving and started playing with the hair at the back of her neck, she’d gotten hot again even though she hadn’t wanted to. She’d tried to hide it but Madison must have noticed, because when she pulled into the parking lot where Madison directed her to stop, Madison had kissed her and she’d kissed her back. She was horny and Madison promised to douse the flames that simmered deep down inside her. She’d let the kiss go on for almost a minute before she’d picked up on the change in Madison’s breathing. When she registered the urgent way Madison moved against her, she called a halt before things really went too far. She wasn’t about to say no twice in one night to a woman she’d led on.

“Nothing happened,” Gard said.

“You don’t sound all that happy about it.”

“No. I’m perfectly happy with it. I’m not looking for any kind of entanglement. Even casual.”

“That’s nice—that you’re not looking for anything, I mean.” Rina sipped her coffee. “But you know, sometimes life comes calling all the same.”

Chapter Sixteen

Jenna didn’t want to think about Gard, and she knew exactly how to put the irritating vet out of her mind. The same way she had always handled disappointment, anger, or fear. She’d settle into her Cassandra-mindset and work. When she was writing, she disengaged her conscious mind from all the stress and obligations of her daily life, and she lost herself—no, that wasn’t quite right—she immersed herself in the lives of her characters. She couldn’t write her best while straddling two worlds. She needed to be in one or the other, and for most of her life, the world she preferred was the one she created. The joy, the heartache, the passion were just as real as any emotion she had ever experienced. Growing up, when her life had been drab and bleak and dangerous, she’d always found refuge in other worlds, other lives. Becoming Cassandra had taken hard work and a lot of luck, but she could count on the life she’d made not to let her down. Once she got lost in the new book, Gard would cease to haunt her thoughts.

After breakfast, she checked out of the motel, and she and Alice drove to Birch Hill. They started upstairs and spent the morning carefully packing away Elizabeth’s keepsakes. Jenna wasn’t certain what she was going to do with them, but at least in the short term she would store them. They put fresh linens, pillowcases, and covers on the beds in two of the bedrooms, emptied drawers, folded away clothes—working in silence, reverently, careful with what Elizabeth had left to Jenna. When they stopped for lunch, Alice wanted to look through the studio while Jenna put sandwiches together. When Alice came down to the kitchen, she pulled out a chair at the table, her expression pensive.

“I know a gallery owner in Manhattan,” Alice said. “I think we should have her come up here and look at those paintings.” She drummed her fingers on the table, the clear polish flashing in the sunlight. “What do you think about some kind of event playing off the family art connection? An Elizabeth Hardy and Cassandra Hart joint show—we could display her art in combination with you doing a reading. There are dozens of independent bookstores in this state alone, and I bet we could get a lot of them interested in this.”

Jenna picked up the paring knife she’d used to peel cucumbers and wiped the blade with a wet cloth. “You want me to do a book event up here? Why? You’ve always wanted me to stick to the big cities before.”

“I know, because that’s where the sales are concentrated. But,” Alice held up a finger and waved it back and forth in the air, “with the new direction you’re taking for this series, and this new development in your life, it’s a perfect opportunity to pull in a different kind of reader. The grassroots, lifelong romance reader. You know we have them—being gay doesn’t change the profile. And it’s good promotion to show we’re interested in the small bookstores too.”

“Since when? You’re always harping at me to conserve my energy for the big—”

“You won’t have to travel—that’s my whole point. I’m not talking about the gay bookstores. Just about every town has an indie bookstore.” Alice made a face. “Well, any town that’s bigger than a blink, which lets out Little Falls.”

“I’m more than happy to do any book event, you know that,” Jenna said. “If you want to set something up, go ahead. And as far as the gallery owner goes—if you trust her judgment, that’s enough for me. It’s one less thing I have to worry about.”

“Perfect. I’ll make some calls.” Alice stood up and rubbed her hands together, never happier than when she was planning and promoting.

“I’m going to spend the rest of the day in my office.” Jenna really liked the sound of that, even though at the moment her office was actually a sitting room off the parlor. She thought the room that jutted out from the house, giving it three walls of windows, was meant to be a sewing room, but it was perfect for her to write in. Situated at the back of the house, the view was of the barns and the fields and the mountains beyond. Whenever she looked up, she’d be surrounded by nothing but nature. She knew some of her colleagues liked to work in rooms without windows because they were never distracted, but she found changing her focus actually helped her sometimes, especially when she wasn’t quite sure where the next scene was going. “Will you be able to entertain yourself?”

“I’ve got plenty to do,” Alice said. “And I really am planning to do some sightseeing. I haven’t had a vacation in…since before you became a star.”

“Good,” Jenna said absently, her mind already on the next scene she intended to write. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Does that mean Oscar’s again?” Alice put on a brave face.

“Why don’t we live a little and explore the countryside. Maybe find an inn with a restaurant.”

“It’s a date.”

A date. Could it be? Jenna watched Alice as she gathered her keys and briefcase from the sideboard in the kitchen. She’d changed into khaki shorts and a sleeveless white blouse, and she looked fresh and toned and quite beautiful. Jenna had always found Alice attractive in an objective kind of way. They’d been friends for a long time. She trusted Alice in a way that she didn’t trust anyone else. And spending time with her up here, relaxed and companionable, was easy. Comfortable. Maybe that was enough to build a relationship on.

Alice turned as if to say something and stopped with a quizzical expression on her face. “What?”

Jenna shook her head, feeling the color rise to her cheeks. “Nothing. I was…nothing.”

Alice raised her brows, a playful expression in her eyes. “You were cruising me.”

“Oh God,” Jenna said. “I’m sorry.”