It looked like the guy playing Wickham had just walked off. Casey, exhausted from the long day, had fallen asleep, and he must have grabbed a glass and the wine and left her there. He hadn’t so much as blown out the candles.
“Hello.”
She looked up to see Tate standing outside the screen door.
“I don’t mean to bother anyone, but Jack left my truck here when he gave Casey a ride home. The keys aren’t in it, so they must be inside, and I need to go get some food.” His voice was tentative, sounding apologetic.
Olivia opened the door to him, but he didn’t step inside.
“I just need the keys.”
“I don’t know where they are. Casey is upstairs, but she’ll be a while. Come in and I’ll make you some breakfast.”
“Would you?” There was gratitude in his voice.
His exaggerated meekness annoyed her. “Yes, and if Casey starts to come downstairs I’ll help you escape out the window. I think she’s after you with a crossbow.”
Tate groaned. “Has she heard that I’m staying for the whole summer?” He sat down on a stool.
“Yes, she has.”
“And?”
“She says she will not play Elizabeth and I think she’s going to move out and get a job at Pizza Hut.” Olivia was cracking eggs into a hot skillet while bacon fried in another one.
Tate hung his head and let out a sigh. “Sounds like she’s been listening to my ex-brother-in-law. No matter what I do, I cannot rise above his accusations of me. But then, my honor won’t allow me to disparage the father of my beloved niece.”
“Hmmmm,” Olivia said as she dropped bread into the toaster. “?‘Disparage’ is too much and definitely don’t use the word ‘honor.’ Too old-fashioned. And tilt your head a little less to the side. You’re much too pretty to pull off such deep despair.”
When Tate laughed, his voice changed completely. The misery was gone. “Oh, no! Not another actor. I thought I’d be able to escape the breed here in Small Town, Virginia.”
“No, we’re here.” She put a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast in front of him. “Now go choose a jam and tell me the truth of what’s going on.”
Tate got up and went to the rows of pretty jars of jam, but he hesitated. “If I take one of these she’ll accuse me of stealing.”
Olivia went around the island, grabbed a jar, and put it by his plate. “Wimpy men never win the girl.”
Tate sat back down and picked up the jar. “Nectarine with lemon verbena. My favorite. I have it every morning. What makes you think I’m trying to win her?”
“Puh-lease. Yesterday you fooled everyone else, but I was on Broadway before you were born. You acted by rote. Half the time you didn’t even look at whichever girl was drooling over you. Instead, you kept stealing glances at Casey and me. Since I don’t think I was the one you were getting into a slow boil over, it must be Casey. So what’s going on with you and the ex-brother-in-law?”
“If I tell you, you won’t rat on me, will you?” He sounded serious.
“This will be between us.”
Tate took a bite, nodded, and lowered his voice. “Devlin Haines is a bastard. I assume he’s here to try to get more money from me. Emmie, my niece and his daughter, probably told him she and her mom were going to be here this summer. No doubt Haines decided to come here to sweet-talk my sister into finagling extra money out of me. It’s worked in the past, so why not try it again?”
Tate lowered his voice even further. “I’m a little concerned that he also saw me, uh, looking at Casey, and that’s why he’s going after her.”
“To get back at you?”
“That’s my guess. But I could be wrong. Maybe he’s developed a genuine liking for her. I know they had dinner together last night, so maybe—” His head came up, alarm on his face. “Is he upstairs? Did they spend the night together?”
Olivia smiled, glad to see a real emotion. No acting but a genuine look of…what? Horror? Fear? She couldn’t tell if he was on the verge of slamming out the door in a rage or running up the stairs and throwing his ex-brother-in-law out the window. “No, he’s not upstairs. In fact, it seems that Casey fell asleep during the dinner and your sister’s ex left her there. Her head in the soup, so to speak. In my day—”
“The man would have carried her up the stairs. I would have.”
“That’s nice to hear. So what are you going to do to get her to forgive whatev