“Aren’t you ready to call it a day, Holt?”
“I’m sticking around to help.” As if to emphasize the point, he just picked up the roller and began to apply the next coat.
Flustered, Cayla scrambled. “Oh, you don’t have to do that. We’re so much further along than I thought we’d be.”
He just leveled those implacable blue eyes on her. “I am not leaving you here alone at night. You stay, I stay.”
Her mouth fell open, but nothing came out. What the hell could she say to that?
Donna had no trouble stepping in. “Oh, I have to tell you that puts my mind at ease. I know things have been quiet since the—” She glanced down at Maddie. “—trouble across the street, but a mother worries.”
Trouble. That was one word for the showdown a few months back when some nut job nearly killed Mia during the renovation of the bakery building. Thank God Brax had showed up in time to stop him.
“I’ll see her home safe, ma’am.”
Her mom beamed a considerably warmer smile in his direction. “Thank you, Holt. And you should come by for Sunday dinner some weekend.”
Cayla fought not to drop her face into her hands again. Now her mom was playing matchmaker? Or was she just lining him up for an inquisition to determine if he was worth matchmaking?
“That’d be nice. You just let me know when, and I’ll bring dessert.”
Don’t I get a say in all this?
Evidently deciding that Cayla’s opinion wasn’t needed, her mother just rolled on. “Excellent. I’m sure we’ll been in touch.” Taking Maddie’s hand, she started for the door. “We’re gonna go on, so y’all can get back to work.” The eyebrow waggle she aimed in Holt’s direction suggested she thought Cayla should do something else that had nothing to do with work.
Ignoring that, Cayla picked up another roller herself. “Thanks, Mama.”
“Mimi! Can we read Ice Cream Soup before bed tonight?”
“We can probably make that happen.” Donna shut the door behind them, cutting off the fresh ramble Maddie started about her day.
Cayla let out a slow breath and with it some of the fierce hold she had on the mask she wore, pretending she had everything together. It had been a long ass day, and she was so damned tired. She’d be tireder yet before it was through. Par for the course. But maybe they’d at least get done with this main room.
Nerves trickled in again as the silence settled. Without the buffer of other people, they were harder to ignore, so she focused on the painting, starting on the wall opposite him. She didn’t know what they were doing here. Why was he helping? Why was he entertaining her daughter? Because he wanted to be friends? She’d certainly never had a friend like him. Friends didn’t make her belly swoop and her skin heat with a look. Maybe she was just viewing this through the lens of her undeniable attraction, wishing and hoping against her better judgment for something that wasn’t even there. Holt Steele was a good man. She’d known a few in her life, but none had been interested in her. Why should that change now?
Despite the attraction, the silence between them was easy. He wasn’t hard to just be with. There was no implicit demand in his presence, no role he seemed to expect her to play. So she painted, soaking in the quiet that was rare as hen’s teeth in life with a five-year-old. By the time they reached the end of their respective walls and turned onto the one between them, some of the sharp edges from this morning had smoothed out a little.
“I appreciate you sticking around.”
“No problem.”
A little of the disquiet returned. “Is there reason to worry that someone is lurking around?” God knew, she worried about that enough on her own for reasons that had nothing to do with her business neighbors.
“No. I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m just being cautious.” His gaze settled on her face for a long moment before he moved away to refill the paint tray. “You can tell me no, and I’ll leave it alone, but just in case you didn’t want to mention it in front of everyone else, I’ll ask again… what’s wrong?”
Her heart thudded. “Why do you think something’s wrong?”
“You’re a lousy liar.” The statement was made without malice or accusation. “Something’s upset you. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I’m not big on talking either. But in case you do, I’ve got a good ear.”
She dipped her roller and applied it to the wall in front of her, finding that she wanted to tell someone. “I got a letter from my ex-husband yesterday.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Unfortunately, no. He can’t get to me any other way from prison, so he sends letters.”
“Prison?” With that one word, she heard him snap to attention, the protector instantly assessing a threat.
She blinked, belly swooping with dread this time. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud. Nobody here knows. Please don’t tell anyone.”
“Of course not.” His ready assurance of discretion eased the tension.
Cayla could feel him waiting, but despite his obvious, vibrating need to know, he didn’t pressure her. She debated with herself. No one here knew but her mother, and even she wasn’t aware of the letters. Maybe it would be good to tell someone the story. Holt claimed to want to be friends. If he could hear this ugliness and still wanted that, it would be a blessing to have him in her corner. And if he didn’t, well, she was pretty sure he’d still keep his mouth shut if for no other reason than he wasn’t a gossip.
“I met Arthur when I was a senior in college.”
“Arthur?” Holt didn’t quite manage to hide the sneer in his tone.
Cayla’s lips twitched. “Arthur Bronson Raynor, III.”
“Sounds like a pretentious Upper East Side accountant.”
She snorted. “Oh, he’d hate that description. Despite the name, he didn’t come off as pretentious. He was… magnetic. Older than me by almost a decade. I was flattered by his interest and primed to be swept off my feet. I was such a cliche. My dad died when I was little, so I guess I was always looking for that strong male influence. We were married in six months, and I ended up not graduating. What did it matter if I got my degree? He could afford to support us both, and he wanted to shower me with this lavish lifestyle. It felt like I’d found my very own prince charming.”
“You’re divorced, so I’m guessing it didn’t stay that way.”
“No. I was so bespelled at the beginning, I didn’t realize how he was slowly, systematically cutting me off from home. From my family and friends. Our life was in San Francisco. It was a long way from Tennessee, and I had obligations and duties as his wife. I wanted to please him. So I stopped coming home. Stopped returning calls and emails. I told myself I’d catch up later. After he’d impressed this client or achieved that goal. But later never came.”
From six feet away, she could feel Holt’s coiled tension. “Did he hurt you?” The question came out deadly calm, almost conversational, but Cayla sensed the potential for violence beneath. Here was a man who protected women and children—the innocent—because it was the right thing to do.
“Not physically. It was all about control. Psychological manipulation. I’m not sure if it would have escalated if I’d stayed.”
“What made you leave?”
“I found out I was pregnant. And I could just see how he was going to make excuses and say we didn’t need my mother’s help or whatever. How he’d cut me off further. I didn’t tell him about the baby. I’d already made up my mind to go when I found out about the identity theft.”
“Identity theft? Yours?”
“No. He had a home office. It wasn’t where he did most of his work, but everything was kept on cloud drives, and he was more careless with his passwords than he should’ve been. I hadn’t set out to snoop. My laptop got the blue screen of death, so I went in to use the computer in his office, and I found out that he’d committed mass scale identity theft. Some for himself. A lot more for some really powerful people. The lavish lifestyle we led had been built largely off ruining the lives of children and the elderly.” Even now, it disgusted her how blind she’d been. Shoving away the sense of failure, she continued, “So I gathered everything I could find, and I took it to the FBI. He was arrested, convicted of I don’t know how many counts of fraud, and sent to prison.”
“Shit. That’s incredibly brave.”
“It didn’t feel brave. It felt… necessary. And not anywhere near enough for all the lives he destroyed.” She shrugged, as if the twitch of her shoulders would dislodge the weight that had settled there. “I came home after that. Didn’t tell a soul the truth other than my mother, and I started over. I divorced him after he was incarcerated. That took forever.”
“Does he know about Maddie?”
“I’d have kept her existence from him entirely if I could, but it had to be disclosed as part of the divorce proceedings. He’s never met her. Never even seen a photo. She’s not his in any way. If he ever got his hands on her, he’d break everything bright and beautiful about her. I will do anything to stop that from happening.”
“You keeping tabs on him?”
“Yeah. I check in every couple of months. And he sends letters about as often.” Just enough to remind her that he remembered. That he was waiting.
“Threatening?”
“Not overtly. Xander’s got copies of all of them, just in case.” Though the sheriff had been clear that there wasn’t much that could be done based on vague allusion. As long as Arthur stayed in prison, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t do anything from where he was.
“Good.”
They lapsed back into silence.
Feeling exposed and more than a little uncomfortable with her admissions, she flashed a self-deprecatory smile. “Anyway, that is the sad and tragic tale of my complete crap taste in men, and the reason I’ve been single ever since.”
“Not entirely sad and tragic. You got Maddie. She’s amazing.”
Cayla stared at him. He got it. He so clearly understood that her daughter was her greatest joy. “Yeah, she is. There’s none of her father in her.”
“Being a sperm donor doesn’t make someone a father.”
This guy was just racking up the points left and right.
“True enough. You’re really great with her.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. She backpedalled, trying to mitigate the damage. “I don’t say that because I’m auditioning replacements. It’s just an observation.”
One corner of that usually serious mouth quirked up. “I like kids.”
“How is it you’re so good with them? I wouldn’t have thought a life in the Army would’ve predisposed you to be.”
“I raised my baby sister.”
She waited for him to elaborate, but he just turned back to the wall. Accepting that maybe that topic was off-limits, she did the same and changed the subject. “How are the plans for the opening going?”
“We’re still deciding on a date for the grand opening. But we’re gonna do a limited-hour soft opening to test recipes out starting next week.”
“That’s awesome! I have to confess, I’m surprised y’all are actually going with Bad Boy Bakers for the name. I was half joking when I suggested it.”
He jerked those big shoulders. “You weren’t wrong. It’s hooky. And we need whatever help we can get to get the place off the ground. If that means we get a chunk of traffic that wants to check us out like slabs of beef while we get baked goods in their hands, so be it. We’re cheap advertising. After that, the food will speak for itself.”
“You know, I know a little bit about bootstrapping marketing. I’m happy to help with that in exchange for the free labor y’all have been kind enough to offer.”
“We’re friends. Friends help each other without expectation of repayment. That said, we know we can’t just rely on ‘If we bake it, they will come.’ So we’ll take whatever marketing help we can get.”
Relieved to have something to offer, Cayla smiled. “Then consider it a deal. Friend.”