“It’s one of our finest historic buildings,” she had enthused.
Cait remembered it, but she had never been inside. Her parents wouldn’t have been able to afford to dine there. In fact, her family had hardly ever eaten out at all, which was probably why she remembered those lunches Jerry Hegland had bought for her and her mother so well. A burger and fries at the Icicle Drive-Thru had been a huge treat in her eyes.
“You just want to come so you can assess your competition,” she accused Noah as he parked.
“I don’t consider the inn a competitor. We’re in different weight classes.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I go for a younger crowd. This is where the matrons lunch.” He shrugged. “Sure, some of the tourists try it because of the historic designation, but the next night they want something more casual.” A smile lurked in his eyes as he took the keys from the ignition. “The food’s better at my place, too.”
He was right. It was. More imaginative, too. This menu ran to steaks, a few chicken dishes, a nod to vegetarians and a variety of salads. Cait went with one of them and found the dressing to be bland and the romaine damp.
Noah sawed unenthusiastically at his filet mignon. Michael Kalitovic was too busy expounding on his passion to seem to notice what he was putting in his mouth, and Beverly seemed to be occupied trying to figure out why Noah had accompanied Cait. She did wax rhapsodic to the idea of a bypass route into town. Next thing they knew, she’d whipped out her smartphone and pulled up a local map, which to her frustration repeatedly whisked out of sight as she tried to draw new lines.
“I do believe in affordable housing,” Cait kept having to say to Michael. “But you’ll have to interest a developer in a project.”
By the time Noah announced brusquely that he and Cait had to leave, she was so grateful she didn’t object to his high-handedness.
“You weren’t kidding about his hobbyhorse,” she muttered as they cut through the dark parking lot.
She loved his low, rough laugh. “No, I wasn’t. I’ve been known to hide in a janitor’s closet when I see him coming.”
Cait giggled. “Beverly is almost as bad. Nice, but I’m kind of sorry I threw out the bypass idea. I may have created a monster.”
He unlocked his SUV. “Yeah, until now Beverly was thinking in terms of a ten-foot-high hedge of yew to hide Target and Home Depot from passing traffic.”
The image of the highway into town tunneling through high walls of greenery made her laugh again. “Well, making the approach slightly more appealing is still an alternative, and a less costly one.”
Noah’s craggy face was a lot more attractive when he was smiling, like now. “Too late to suggest it without crushing Beverly.”
Back at city hall, he pulled in right behind her small car, set the brake and got out with her. Somehow she wasn’t at all surprised when he circled to examine her little Mazda, even ducking down once to peer beneath.
She crossed her arms and watched. “Looking for a bomb?”
He didn’t appear amused. “I’ll follow you home.”
“You really don’t have to.”
“It’s not far out of my way.”
That got her wondering where he did live and what his home was like. Was he a condo kind of guy? She tried to picture him mowing a lawn on Saturday morning, but that seemed too domestic. Not that he was the slick kind—it wasn’t hard to imagine him, say, building a house single-handedly. He could be sweaty and physical.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh, and got into her car.
His headlights stayed in her rearview mirror the entire way; he went so far as to pull into the driveway behind her, reversing to leave only when he saw that Colin had stepped out onto the porch to see her safely into the house.
“Chandler?” her brother asked with a scowl.
“Yes.”
“I thought you were having dinner with that Buhl woman.”
“I was.” She watched as he locked the door once they were inside. “Her and a Michael Kalitovic—do you know him?—and Noah.”
“I know Kalitovic. He has a teenage son who is a little wild.”