“Thanks for your generous offer, but I’ll pass.”
“If you change your mind, you know where I live.”
She couldn’t keep from laughing, and Tate smiled. She knew he’d been teasing her on purpose and it had worked to bring her back to the present. “Thanks.” She lowered her voice. “If I’d had time to think, I’m sure I would have been too scared to do anything. But it all happened so fast. But then, Gizzy was the real hero.”
“No,” Tate said. “She loved it. There wasn’t any real fear in her. When you’re afraid but do it anyway, that’s courage.” He could see that Casey was getting serious again. “Like me. At the auditions, all those women were looking at me like I was supposed to fulfill their every dream. But I got up there and performed anyway. Now, that is courage.”
Casey was smiling again. “Until I got on the stage.”
“Do you think I’m shorter today? I could swear that your delivery of Ms. Austen’s lines cut me down by at least four inches.”
“You? It was all new to me. You’re used to it.”
“Ha! You turned down my best invitation. You so wounded my pride that I may never be able to get another woman in bed with me. I think you are the only one who can heal me. How about eight tonight?”
“You are incorrigible.” Casey was laughing so much that she didn’t realize the truck had stopped.
Jack and Gizzy had turned around and were staring at them.
“I hate to interrupt your rom-com banter,” Jack said, “but we have reached our destination. Last one out has to carry the metal cooler.” He and Gizzy got out of the truck.
Casey looked across Tate at the door, but he didn’t open it.
“I’m serious,” he said. “If you have any aftermath from today, let me know. If it’s in the middle of the night, I’ll come. I’ve had my share of trauma in my life and I know how to handle it. And I’ll keep my hands to myself. Okay?”
“Yes.” She gazed into his eyes. “I think I’m all right. If there hadn’t been a happy ending I would be a mess, but I feel good about it all.”
“If you wake up screaming from a nightmare that I dropped you, call me. Give me your cell.”
She handed him her phone, he typed in his number, then he opened the door and helped her out.
Casey and Tate were sitting on an old quilt by a pretty rushing stream. Huge rocks glistened and the sun sparkled on the water. Over them was a dense canopy of trees. On the quilt was a feast of Casey’s cooking: jicama and citrus salad, olive tapenade, three kinds of bread, and a selection of cheeses.
Their backs against a wide boulder, they were munching on coconut-lime cookies and watching Jack and Gizzy argue. Casey and Tate were too far away to hear what was being said, but they could see them clearly.
“What’s that about?” Casey asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing. But my guess is disillusionment. You fall for a delicate flower, then she does what?”
“Beats him on a motorcycle,” Casey said. “Jumps out of a plane. Whatever. Men can’t take it.”
“Jack can. I have confidence in him.”
“Bet you another berry custard pie that he’ll leave her.”
“If by some freak chance you win, what do you get?”
She started to say, “Another shower show,” but didn’t. “The satisfaction of having won.”
Tate groaned. “What a cop-out. There must be something you want. Your own restaurant? Boyfriend back?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Not about the boyfriend but about my future. What about you? Anything you want that you don’t have?”
He stretched out on the quilt, his hands behind his head, all six feet plus of him lying beside her. “I want to be in a comedy or a mystery or a horror movie. I’ll take anything besides brooding hero.”
“But you’re so good at it,” Casey said. “Just today when you glowered at me, I felt like a princess in a tower.”
“Yeah?” When he looked at her, he saw she was teasing. “I’m going to get you for that. I—” His cellphone rang. “It’s probably my agent telling me I’m going to be in the next Wolverine movie….Nope. Better. It’s Emmie.” He touched the phone on. “Hi, sweetheart. Are you still making your mother crazy?”