He considered her question a long moment and then shrugged. “You saw me ban the girls for fighting. Being tough in enforcing our rules earns the kids’ respect, but no one thinks I’m a mean, manipulative bastard.”
She took exception to his tone. “I didn’t use such derogatory terms.”
“My mistake. We still on for tomorrow night?”
He was pretending to sort the papers on his desk. Catherine saw through his feigned nonchalance, but she remained hopelessly confused about his motives. He struck her as a man of principle, but how he put those principles into practice was something else entirely.
“Yes,” she assured him. “Why don’t you come to my house for dinner? We can go to the movies later, if you like.” She pocketed the credit card as she straightened.
“I don’t want you to go to a lot of work,” Luke protested.
“It’s not much fun cooking for one, and I’d enjoy it.” Before he could argue, she crossed to the door. “How’s six o’clock?”
“Fine, I’ll be there.”
He didn’t look real pleased about it, but Catherine was still glad she’d confronted him about Rafael. Luke provided such a perplexing mixture of stubborn masculine pride and what she hoped was sincere concern that she made no effort to predict what his mood would be on Saturday night. All she could do was bake one of her favorite recipes and hope the gesture touched his heart.
Joyce had been watching for Catherine’s arrival, and when she saw her Volvo pull into the driveway, she sprinted down the street and beat her to the front door. “Please, I already know I’m an idiot, but today was such a disaster that if I don’t tell someone about it, I swear my head will explode.”
Joyce was dressed in a baggy pair of faded jeans. The buttons on her lavender shirt were misaligned, and there was a hole in the toe of her left tennis shoe. Catherine needed only a single glance to understand something alarming must have happened to her usually impeccably dressed friend.
“Come on in,” she invited. “It’s still warm. Let’s go on out to the deck.”
Joyce followed right behind her. “I went up to Shane’s nursery today, and I swear every word of this story is true, although I’m embarrassed to admit that even a minute of it happened.”
Catherine carried a pitcher of iced tea out to the patio, while Joyce brought the ice-filled glasses. She sat, propped her feet on the adjacent chair, and after a long sip of tea, encouraged Joyce to continue. “Why don’t you begin at the beginning?”
“Yeah, right, as if I could think straight.” She held her icy glass to her cheek and struggled to compose herself.
“Shane called me last night, and when we discovered neither of us had any appointments for today, it seemed like a good day to visit Oxnard. I must have changed my clothes half a dozen times before I decided to wear my pink linen sheath. It’s business-like and yet feminine.”
Catherine had had a rather trying day herself, but just coming home relaxed her enough to attend to Joyce’s rambling tale. “I’ve always liked that dress.”
“Thank you, but I was going to Oxnard after all, so I wore pink flats rather than heels. I took the notebook I use on all my jobs, and thinking we’d be outdoors, I brought along a straw hat.
“Shane’s directions were superb, and his nursery is just beautiful with a huge variety of plants all arranged in orderly rows. He has several employees who maintain the place and take care of walk-in customers while he handles big jobs and deliveries.
“We actually talked about plants, but there was a teasing sparkle in his eye the whole time.”
“And probably one in yours as well,” Catherine suggested.
“Please, I was doing my best to appear attentive and take notes, but I doubt they’ll make any sense. Anyway, the morning went really well. Then Shane invited me to lunch and said on the way, we’d stop by his mother’s hair salon so I could meet her.”
“She owns a hair salon?”
“Well, that’s what he called it, but it’s a small-town beauty parlor just like the ones that always turn up in movies. Apparently it’s been called the Curlicue since the fifties, and when Shane’s mother bought the place ten years ago, she kept the name. It was really cute and quaint, and his mother was exactly what you’d expect: a bleached blonde with a generous bosom.”
“I get the picture. Did you two hit it off?”
Joyce almost moaned. “Not really. Her name’s Marion, and she was giving a sweet little old lady a perm when we came in. When she barely glanced our way, it made me think Shane must bring in a new girlfriend every other day.”
“You don’t know that,” Catherine cautioned. “Perhaps she was preoccupied by something that had happened earlier in the day.”
“Maybe, but after being so worried about meeting her, it was insulting. After that awkward minute at the Curlicue, we went on down the street to this really nice Mexican restaurant. Then things really started going downhill.”
“What could go wrong at a Mexican restaurant? Was the salsa too spicy?”
“I didn’t have a chance to taste it. Shane was being his usual charming self, but after a couple of sips of lemonade, I excused myself to use the restroom. We were in the central patio, and Shane pointed me toward the rear of the place. When I got to the kitchen, I thought I must have taken a wrong turn, but a waitress waved me on. There was a door just past several racks of dishes, and I thought the restrooms must be through it. Anyone would have assumed so.”