Karen handed Will my purse, and he guided me as I hobbled back into Seed-n-Bead. Mama dropped the broom she’d been using when she saw us. “What happened?”
I waved her away with my free hand. “I just tripped. It’s n-nothing.”
“Josie said there’s first-aid stuff in the bathroom. I got it,” he said over his shoulder.
I heard Mama pick up the broom and start sweeping again, but louder than that was the heat of her gaze on my back and the pressure of Will’s hand on my side, both of which seemed to say, You’re in over your head, Harlow Jane.
I wondered if she was right.
Chapter 43
Fifteen years of being a single dad to Gracie had given Will an unexpected bedside manner. He ran the water until it was warm, squeezed a dollop of amber liquid soap on a paper towel, and gently cleansed my wounds. “You did a pretty good number on this shin,” he commented.
“When I do something, I do it all the way.”
His lips quirked into a smile, little crinkles appearing around his eyes. “Is that right?”
I could feel the heat of embarrassment creep up my neck. I didn’t dare look in the mirror to see how rosy my cheeks were. “Which is why,” I continued boldly, “I’m trying to figure out who killed Nell. I promised Josie—”
“Josie shouldn’t have asked you to get involved, Harlow.”
My breath hiccuped. He hadn’t used my first name very often and it sounded foreign coming from his lips.
“But she did,” I said.
He was broodingly silent for a long minute. Finally he said, “Nell was murdered. This isn’t a game.”
He didn’t have to remind me of that.
After another minute of him dabbing and me wincing, he rooted through the one cupboard in the small bathroom until he found a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
“Here.” I grabbed a cocktail napkin from a little pile on the counter and held it out to him, but he waved it away, his hand emerging from the cupboard with an old plastic bag filled with white fluff.
He doused a cluster of cottonballs with the liquid, pausing before he touched it to my skin. “This might sting a little.”
“No more than it already does.” I was all talk. The second the medicine hit my raw skin, I yelped, grabbing his shoulder, crumpling the napkin in my hand, keeping it at the ready in case I burst out in tears.
He grimaced as he pried my fingers loose. “Maybe just a little more.”
“Maybe,” I admitted.
He blew on it, cooling the pain, then crisscrossed five bandages from a small box he found, strategically placing them to keep as much of the abrasions covered as possible. “We should change these to some gauze squares when you get home.”
He rolled up the bag of cottonballs and tucked it back into the cupboard. After another weighty pause, he broke the silence. “You didn’t just trip out there. What spooked you?”
Taking off my glasses, I cleaned the lenses, then tossed the napkin in the trash. Peering up at him through my lashes, I said softly, “My past.”
His eyes narrowed, but he seemed to understand that it was better left alone.
“How do I know if I can trust you?” I asked.
He cupped his chin, rubbing his fingers over the goatee trimmed close to his jawline. “How do you know you can’t?” he asked, looking back at me.
“Because I don’t really know you.”
“I trust you with my daughter.” He looked dead serious.
“And I trust you with Meemaw’s old furniture and pipes.”
He gave a dismissive, one-note laugh. “Not quite the same thing, Cassidy.”
I gave a relieved sigh. He was back to calling me Cassidy. “No, I guess it isn’t,” I conceded.
A flurry of thoughts cascaded through my mind. I had no reason not to trust Will Flores. I definitely felt a kindred spirit in Gracie, and I was back in Bliss to stay, so I might as well start trying to connect with people.
This wasn’t Lower Manhattan where people looked straight ahead as they plowed through the crowded city, avoiding contact with strangers. This was small-town Texas where men tipped their cowboy hats, said, “Howdy do,” and met at Johnny Joe’s for coffee and doughnuts every Wednesday. Women moved in groups, spending mornings at their kids’ schools adorned in their sequined spirit wear, hightailing it to a Carol Anderson by Invitation fashion show at a local coffeehouse, then heading off to Bible study. I was straddling a line between two worlds, but I needed to edge my way back over to the Bliss side.
Meemaw’s voice sounded loud and clear in my head. I wouldn’t mislead you, Harlow. Leap fearlessly.
Leap fearlessly. It was one of her favorite sayings. “If you don’t take a risk, you’ll never realize the potential reward,” she explained when I was little. I’d used the same line on her when she questioned why I was leaving Bliss.
“You’re not leaping,” she said. “You’re running.” I still didn’t understand how she knew the difference when I couldn’t even comprehend it myself.
“Harlow?” He crouched down in front of me and took my fisted hands in his. “Are you okay?”
His dark eyes weren’t quite as dark close up, or maybe he’d just let his guard down for a moment and let the light shine through. They glowed with little flecks of amber like they were lit from behind. The eyes are the window to the soul, Meemaw always said. Looking at Will, I knew it was true. My great-grandmother had already discovered what I was just now seeing—he was a man so locked up and protective of himself and his daughter that he didn’t let anyone inside. But there were cracks in the surface if only someone could work her way into them.
I had a sudden vision of myself hunched over my sewing machine, working on some mysterious garment. I couldn’t see what it was, but I knew it was for Will and that making it for him would somehow allow him to let me in.
“Harlow.” He snapped his fingers in front of my face.
I blinked, jerking out of my thoughts. “Sorry.”
“Where were you?”
“Do you wear plaid?” I asked in response, though I had no idea where the question came from.
“Do I wear plaid?” he repeated, like he had to really think about it.
“Because I think you’d look good in plaid.” Actually I knew he would.
He shook his head, looking baffled. “Hmm. I’ll give that some thought.” He held my wrist, running his thumb over the bump in the velvet bag in my hand. “You’re walking around with a diamond that’s probably worth more than Keith’s Lincoln. That’s not a particularly good decision.”
“Yeah, I figured that out, but I didn’t want to leave it alone.”
He nodded like maybe he understood my thinking. “What’s going on? Spill it, Cassidy.”
Leap fearlessly. And so I did.
Chapter 44
Will leaned against the bathroom wall, never taking his eyes off me. “So you really think Nate Kincaid might have killed her?”
I couldn’t answer that directly. With a mobster lawyer in the mix, I wondered if Nate would get his hands dirty, or if he’d have someone else do his dirty work. “What if she stole something of his—could he have, you know, taken care of it? Of her?”
He nodded toward the bag in my hand. “You’re talking about the ring?”
“Like you said, it’s worth a lot of money. Did you see the size of that diamond?”