Friday morning was a glorious day in Austin, with clear skies and with temperatures expected to be in the eighties. Dressed appropriately in shorts and sandals, Cass pulled to a stop in front of her house at exactly ten o’clock. Greg’s big pickup was already there, and he was sitting on the front steps, waiting. Did his eyes linger a bit too long on her legs? If so, she didn’t mind. In fact, she felt a little smug about still having good legs. She reminded herself it was past time to get back into her jogging routine. Monday for sure.

Hurrying up the broken concrete walk, she waved. “Am I late?”

“Nope. You’re exactly on time.” Clipboard in hand, he smiled and stood. “I’m a little early. Ready to measure?”

“I am.” She held up her retractable tape. “Let me unlock the door. Karen isn’t here today. We’re hoping to find someone to move the office furniture today.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about the office.” He motioned toward the sign beside the front door. “Exactly what is POAC?”

“POAC stands for Preserve Old Austin’s Charm. It’s a nonprofit organization that supports what its name implies. I’m the president.” She told him a little bit about projects the group had been involved in.

“Cool,” Greg said. “It breaks my heart when I see some of the landmarks torn down and paved over. I don’t want Austin to become a city with a bunch of skyscrapers dominating the landscape.”

Cass chuckled. “You sound like me. We’d love to have you as a member.”

“Where do I sign up?”

She took a form from the filing cabinet. “Fill this out and send it in if you’re truly interested.”

“I am.” He slipped the form into the papers on his clipboard. “Where is POAC moving?”

“To the building of one of our members, a couple of blocks over—if I can locate some muscle and a truck pretty soon.”

“I’ve got some muscle and a truck. Is this all you have to move?” He motioned to the desk, folding chairs, a folding table and a file cabinet.

Cass looked around at the motley assortment of equipment and furniture and grinned. “This is it. Did I mention we keep the overhead low? Everything we have is either donated or bought from the Salvation Army store. We pay our secretary barely enough to keep her in gas money to work a few hours a week.”

“I’ll call two of my guys to come over, and by the time we’re finished measuring, they’ll have everything loaded up and ready to go.”

“Oh, Greg, I hate for you to do that. I don’t want to impose on your workers’ time.”

“Not a problem.” Greg phone Chick, whoever he was, and told him to bring a couple of helpers to this address.

“That’s very sweet of you, Greg.”

He grinned. “I’m a sweet kind of guy. Let’s use my tape.” He unclipped an enormous tape measure from his belt and whipped it the length of the living room. “Sixteen.” He moved and whipped it again. “Thirteen.”

Cass hurriedly wrote down the numbers as he moved from room to room and called them out.

“Golly,” she said when they were finished. “That took a whole five minutes. You’re speedy.”

He chuckled. “The other house had the exact same floor plan, so these same measurements should do for them. Let’s talk about the fireplace. I assume you’d want it in the living room.”

“Sure. I suppose another option would be between the living room and dining room.” They walked back in that direction.

“It’s a possibility, but it would cost considerably more. I recommend you put it right here between these two windows.” He showed her several styles to choose from, then gave her a price for each.

“I love this one,” Cass said, pointing out a contemporary one, faced with slate. “Let’s do it.”

“Good choice,” he said. “A lot of people are putting their flat screen TVs over the fireplace. Want me to wire yours for a TV?”

“Great idea. How much will it cost?”

She was surprised at how little he quoted, and she scribbled the figure in her notebook a second before the helpers knocked on the front door. Greg instructed the two men on what to load in his truck, and while they were doing so, Cass called the owner of the new office space and told her they were on the way.

Greg drove the men and the furniture to the new site, and Cass followed behind. The furniture was moved and the office set up in less than an hour.

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this, Greg,” she told him warmly.

“Consider it my donation to POAC. Want to grab a bite of lunch at the place across the street?”

Cass hesitated. She rarely ate lunch so early.

“I wanted to go over some particulars about trim work and paint.”

“Sure,” she said. “I’m always up for Chinese. What about your men?”

“Chick will pick them up. He’s on his way.”

She and Greg walked across the street and went inside. It felt a little strange to be with another man and have him opening the door and touching her back to steer her to a table. Was she picking up some subtle signals or was he just another friendly guy?

After they ordered, he did indeed go over some ideas he had for the crown molding in both houses, as well as railings for the porches to make them look different from one another. He also suggested using reclaimed lumber. They decided on granite countertops for her house and concrete ones for the rental, and discussed interior molding colors.

When their food came, they put aside their respective notes and ate.

“Tell me,” he said, “what have you been doing since high school?”

Cass briefly told him about college and law school and her stint as a lawyer in New York. “I stood it as long as I could, and then I headed back to Texas last year. I didn’t like being a lawyer, and I missed home and my sister. What about you? As I recall, you had a football scholarship somewhere.”

“I did. UCLA. I was studying architecture there, but I blew out my knee in my junior year. Surgery fixed me up to do everything except play football, and I dropped out of school. For a few years I knocked around California learning the building trades. Like you, I started missing Texas and my family, so I headed home a couple of years ago.”

“Married? Children?”

He shook his head. “Nope. How about you?”

Cass had a feeling she needed to discourage any ideas of a personal relationship between them. “Nope. Me neither, but I’ve been seeing a very special guy. This may be the one.”

“Then it wouldn’t do me any good to ask you out on date?”

She smiled. “Sorry. I’m pretty sure my guy wouldn’t approve.”

“Well, damn. A day late and a dollar short. You know, I used to have a crush on you when you were a cute little sophomore cheerleader.”

Cass laughed. “On Sunny or me?”

“Both of you, to tell the truth. I couldn’t tell one from the other. But you seemed too young for me at the time.”

“How funny. I figured you didn’t know we were alive. So you never went back to get your architecture degree?”

He shook his head. “I kept putting it off for one reason or another, and now I’m too old.”

“I don’t think you’re ever too old to go back to school.”

“Maybe you’re right, but I have people dependent on me now. My mom isn’t in the best of health, and I support her and my special-needs sister.”

While they finished lunch, Cass told him briefly about Sunny’s life, as well. Greg was easy to talk to, and she really liked him, but the zing she felt with Griff simply wasn’t there. She didn’t have the slightest urge to jump across the table and nibble his ear or kiss him senseless.

Sorry, Mom.

SHE MISSED GRIFF dreadfully. Even though he called every day, it wasn’t enough. Her days were busy and full, but still they seemed to drag by. When Sunny picked her up on Sunday morning to drive to Dripping Springs for their meeting with Carrie Outlaw, Cass welcomed the distraction of both having time alone with her sister and seeing Carrie.

Sunny drove like an old lady, but Cass didn’t say a word about it as they tooled down the highway. This last time she’d come this way, Griff had been with her and nervous as a hooker in church about her heavy foot. She smiled, remembering.

“What?” Sunny said. “Why are you grinning like a possum in a persimmon tree?”

“I was thinking about something.”

“Something or someone?” When she didn’t answer, Sunny said, “Griff Mitchell, I’ll bet. Are you getting serious about him, Cass?”

She sighed. “I think so, and it may be a problem. Mom and Aunt Min don’t like him, and they can’t explain why. How do you feel about him, sis?”

“He’s good-looking for sure. And charming and thoughtful. But…I don’t know, somehow I’m uneasy around him. Maybe it’s the cop in me. Ben and Sam feel the same way. I’m not sure how Belle and her other brothers feel, but I know Sam ran a check on him.”

Cass bolted straight up, and only her seat belt restrained her from shooting to her feet. Fury zipped through her like an express train. “Dammit! I can’t believe he did that. Just because Griff doesn’t have a Texas drawl doesn’t mean he’s a sleaze. Wait till I get my hands on Sam Bass Outlaw.”

“Calm down, Cass. You’re overreacting. Sam only did it because he cares about you. Don’t you want to know what he found out?”

She crossed her arms and stared straight ahead. “No! I wouldn’t sink so low as to ask.”

After a mile or two of silence, she relented. “Okay, what did Sam find out?”

“Griff was born on Long Island, went to Harvard, was the president of his class, also went to Harvard Law and graduated at the top of his class. He’s licensed to practice law in New York, and his record is clean as a whistle except for a couple of speeding tickets and a disturbing the peace citation when he was in college.”

“I could have told Sam all that and saved him a world of time and trouble. I can’t believe he checked Griff out.”

“Don’t be angry, Cass. Maybe it’s because none of us are used to being around rich folks from New Yawk, as you call it. You probably rubbed elbows with people like that when you lived there. We didn’t. Sometimes you distrust what’s not familiar. Maybe that’s what we’re feeling.”

“Ben, too?”

Sunny nodded. “Sorry. And maybe J.J.,” she added quietly.

“Has the entire family been discussing Griff and his ‘slick’ ways?”

“We aren’t trying to be nosy. We care about you.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” Cass said. “I saw the Senator again. Saw him, hell. We had a conversation.”

Sunny glanced over at her with a surprised look. “You did?”

“I kid you not.”

“What did you talk about?”

“He told me to listen to the quiet voice inside me and follow my heart.”

“Then I’d pay attention to his advice if I were you,” Sunny said. “He’s never steered me wrong.”

“Maybe so, but his flitting in and out like he does makes me nervous. And speaking of nervous,” Cass said, thrumming her fingers against her thigh, “I’m itching to know what Carrie wants to talk with us about. Have you come up with any ideas?”

“Not a one. I suppose we’re going to have to wait another few minutes to find out. Seems strange it’s Carrie, of all people, who wants to talk with us. And privately.”

“Well, she’s a lawyer. But so’s Frank. And Belle, too, for that matter.”

“Here we are,” Sunny said, turning in at their meeting place. “We’ll soon find out.”