“Still following all the rules,” he muttered.
The drive from the gym to her small, earth-toned bungalow in Hyde Park, a central Austin neighborhood, took minutes. Built in the twenties, Hyde Park was now home to mostly university professors, students and professionals.
As she pulled in the driveway he noted her yard had been neatly landscaped at one time, but like everyone else who’d endured the Texas drought for the last few years, she’d had to let her lawn go when the water restrictions had been implemented. Still, even grassless, she managed to keep the place looking tidy.
Because the Rangers had transferred him several times over the last three years, he’d lived a gypsy’s life, settling for short-term leases in nondescript apartments. He’d always figured by this age he’d have been in a home with wife and kids. But work, and maybe his own faults, had kept him single.
Out of her car, she grabbed mail from a white mailbox with carefully lined numbers on the side and motioned for him to follow. “Might as well come inside. It’s gonna take me about a half hour.”
He’d have been fine staying in the car, but now was not the time to put up any kind of fuss. She was doing him a favor when she could have easily told him to fuck off.
“Sure.” He shut off the engine and followed her up the sidewalk, cracked in spots by last summer’s heat.
He studied the empty window boxes freshly painted turquoise and the front door also newly painted in black. Precise. Orderly. By the front porch a one-hundred-year-old pecan tree had grown so large, its leaves hung over the porch and its roots ate into the porch foundation.
As if reading his thoughts, Jo said, “I’m redoing the porch this summer. Last couple of years I focused on the inside of the house.”
“Considering the drought, a good choice.”
Jo had always had her shit together. Back in the day, without trying, she had made him feel like a clod. He’d resented her in those days. Maturity had taught him that he, not her, had been the root of his problems.
She opened her storm door and he caught it, holding it open for her as she fumbled with her keys.
“I’ve three cats,” she said. “They won’t bother you, but don’t be put off when you see them. They’re former strays and look a little rough.”
“I can handle three cats.”
“Great.” She opened the door, flipped on the light and set her purse and keys by the front door as she likely did every day she’d lived here. The living room was warm and cozy, an overstuffed chair in front of a fireplace reserved for cold Austin nights. The floors were a yellow pine and the ceiling high and vaulted. A long farmhouse table filled a dining room that led into a kitchen.
“Have a seat on the couch. There are bottled waters in the fridge. Even a soda or two. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
“I could use a soda,” he said. “I came straight from work.”
“There’s luncheon meat and bread in there if you’re hungry. Help yourself.” Her smile fell short of warm.
She vanished into the bedroom, and he made his way past several black-and-white photo images hanging on the dining room wall. It didn’t take a practiced eye to know they were worth money. The kitchen, glittering stainless steel and granite, looked as if it had just been cleaned. Hell, if a surprise visitor showed up at his apartment . . . well, it sure as hell wouldn’t be this nice. He grabbed a cola from the fridge and popped the top. As the cool liquid rolled down his parched throat, he wondered how the hell he’d landed in his ex’s house.
Jo turned on the shower, kicked off her shoes and socks, and then leaned on the sink, staring into the fogging mirror. She was grateful her expression looked calm and her cheeks had not flushed with shock. Brody Winchester. She’d heard he’d moved back to town but had hoped Austin was big enough for her to avoid him.
For several seconds she stared until the steam misted over all traces of her.
“Holy shit,” she whispered as she turned and pulled off her hoodie, workout top and pants.
She stepped into the shower and ducked her head under the hot spray, barely noticing as it streamed over her body and rinsed the salty sweat from her skin.
Brody f-ing Winchester was in her house. Getting a soda out of her fridge. Brody f-ing Winchester was sitting on her sofa like it was old home week.
Brody f-ing Winchester.
Her ex-husband.
It had been fourteen years since they’d last seen each other. For several years after their divorce she’d dreamed of facing him again and demanding an apology. She’d imagined him seeing the error of his ways and offering sincere regret. The dream had sustained her for a time but after several years, she’d simply grown tired of being angry. And so she’d let Winchester go, truly believing he was out of her system.
And then she’d seen him standing in the gym, staring at her as if she were an odd curiosity. She’d been taken aback, lost her hold, and practiced speeches recited too many times after the divorce were forgotten.
She groaned. She’d invited him into her home. Offered him a soda. And a sandwich. You were always a pushover around him.
She willed the water to wash away her thoughts and disappointments. Let go. Let go. The familiar mantra lapped over her, taking with it some of the emotion.
Brody’s arrival wasn’t personal. It was business. And he was acting like an adult, a professional. He wasn’t the newly enlisted twenty-two-year-old Marine who had all the answers, and he wasn’t looking at her as if she owed him. Nor was she an awkward eighteen-year-old, grateful for any kind of love and attention. She didn’t need him, not as she thought she had all those years ago.
The hot water beaded on her forehead. She was thirty-two. He was thirty-six. If they couldn’t act like grown-ups now, when would they ever? The past was the past. Let it go and move on.
This time tomorrow her interview with Harvey Lee Smith would be over and Brody would be out of her life again. Case, hopefully, closed.
She shut off the water, toweled off, dried her hair quickly and dressed in a dark pencil skirt, white blouse and matching jacket. She put on her pearl necklace and earrings and, as she promised, was ready to leave within thirty minutes.
When she emerged from her bedroom, her cats had surrounded Brody. Atticus, a sixteen-pound orange cat, sat at the end of the sofa staring at Brody as if he wanted to attack. Shakespeare, a wiry black cat with a snub nose tail, sat on the floor out of his reach, and Mrs. Ramsey, a small gray tabby, sat in his lap, purring as he rubbed her between the ears.
God, what he must think of her. All these years and she was still not only the nerdy smart girl, but also the single lady with the house full of cats.
She snatched up her purse and snapped it open. “Ready?”
He finished off his soda and gently nudged Mrs. Ramsey back onto the couch. As he rose, his gaze lingered on her a half a beat before he held up the can. “Yep. Where’s your recycling?”
Her first instinct was to take the can and throw it out for him. She’d have done it for anyone but him. “Under the sink in the kitchen.”
As he disposed of the can, she checked her wallet to make sure she had enough cash as well as her ID. She tucked in a notebook, extra pens as well as a point-and-shoot camera. “I’ll follow you to the airport.”
He moved toward her, hat balanced in his hand, each step measured.
When had she forgotten he was so tall and broad-shouldered? He’d been like that in college, possessing a room simply by entering. Age had certainly not whittled away his muscle tone. He was broader in the shoulders and his legs and his forearms had grown thicker.
He’d never been classically or pretty-boy handsome. “Very male” had been the best way to describe him. Age had not only wiped away the traces of youth, but had left his face with a raw-boned leanness that bordered on menacing.
“It could be a late night,” he said. “Better not to leave an extra car at the airport.”
No doubt his frame all but filled the front seat o
f that Bronco. “I don’t mind.”
“It’ll be easier if I drive.”
A rebuttal danced on the tip of her tongue and then she swallowed it. The more she protested, the bigger deal she made out of the whole situation. And this was not a big deal. It was business.
“Fine.” Atticus meowed, jumped off the back of a chair. “Let me feed the cats.”
He held out his hat, indicating the way to the kitchen. “You’ve wrangled yourself a real herd here.”
“They kinda found me.”
“You’re a soft touch.”
“Maybe.” She opened the kitchen pantry, scooped out a mound of dried food and dropped it into three different bowls scattered around the kitchen and den. Atticus took the bowl by the bin. Shakespeare moved to his bowl under the kitchen table and Mrs. Ramsey ate behind the chair.
“That big red one runs the roost,” Brody said.
She filled a water bowl and set it beside Atticus. “I’ve had him a year. But as soon as he arrived he took over.”
“Is he growling?”