“Here I am.” He grinned at her with absolutely no reservations about the ribbing he’d get later from the guys about the goofiness quotient. “Were you looking for me?”
She nodded without an ounce of guile. “I brought you your first volunteer. This is Cassidy. She’s working with Tallhorse at the schoolhouse, but she’s ready and willing to be dedicated to organizing it into something state approved.”
Which wasn’t even close to what he’d hoped she’d sought him out for. But it was a start.
Isaiah jumped up immediately. “We’ve met.”
He took Cassidy’s hand and made sure she heard everyone’s names again, asked after her mother as apparently they’d had at least one conversation about that subject. Caleb let him do the niceties. He loved that kind of stuff. Caleb only had eyes for Havana. When he’d left her earlier, she’d been quiet and he really hadn’t expected to see her again today.
There wasn’t really a good way to extract himself from the increasingly large crowd of people, all of whom were in the way of what he really wanted to be doing—spending time with Havana. But he had a job to do, and she’d been holding him at arm’s length for a reason. Maybe he should let it be for now.
Caleb invited Cassidy to sit down so they could talk through her ideas. Hudson pulled over another chair for Havana, and they all listened intently as Cassidy outlined some of the programs she’d hoped to start. Some of the kids in the area were being homeschooled, and she thought a few of the moms might be willing to teach a bigger group if they could find a building that would hold so many. Cassidy had done research into creating a charter school, which she thought would be easier than creating a whole school district but would still allow the institution to receive state funds for operational costs.
For the first time, this build-a-town idea had something concrete they could hang their hats on. The big knot that had formed in Caleb’s throat eased off a little. It could work. The whole plan could work. And then he’d be free of the demons that were howling for restitution.
Maybe then he could figure out how to move from casual to special with Havana.
“You’re hired,” Caleb said instantly when she’d finished talking. “Do you have any friends who are as articulate and motivated as you? Send them my way.”
Cassidy smiled as Aria drifted over once she arrived at the diner to start her shift.
“Anyone hungry?” Aria asked dutifully, her puppy dog eyes for Tristan in place. She was totally unashamed to wear them for the length of her entire shift and not at all concerned that everyone knew she had a huge crush on the man.
“Always,” Tristan told her with a wink, which might explain why she had a crush on him. He flirted with her shamelessly, no matter how many times Caleb warned him that Havana’s sister had no barriers against a player who had blown through half the women in San Diego before their first deployment.
The guys ordered burgers, and Isaiah asked Cassidy if she wanted anything, insisting that he was buying. Caleb rolled his eyes. Apparently he was in the middle of a giant group date. But since the focus of the conversation had fallen away from desperately needed city services, he let them have their fun. This was part of finding a place in Superstition Springs, and he couldn’t be the only one who got lonely late at night.
But if they weren’t going to talk shop, then he had better things to do. It was probably fine to let his pleas marinate for a while anyway. Everyone was eating and laughing at T
ristan’s jokes, clearly not concerned with the heavy subject of building a town from almost nothing.
“Let me out?” he murmured to Rowe, who obediently moved, allowing Caleb to slide out of the booth. He snagged Havana by the elbow, smoothly extracting her from the group.
Anyone wanted to make a federal case out of him spending time with Havana, they could come talk to the mayor on Monday morning at… wherever his office ended up being.
“Take a stroll with me,” he implored Havana as she eyed him curiously.
Apparently she’d picked up on the urgency of the request because all she said was, “Sure.”
There wasn’t much room to stroll in Superstition Springs. They wound up on his balcony because he couldn’t think of another place to have a private conversation. She needed to hear some hard truths about Caleb Hardy before this went any further.
“I figured out the answer,” he told her as they leaned on the railing together and watched the dust settle in the road below. “To what I have to work out before I can do any of this.”
“I wasn’t holding my breath,” she said wryly. “But okay. What is it?”
“I have to figure out how to be okay with the fact that seventy-five people died because of me.”
Sixteen
Havana’s insides turned to ice, but she somehow kept the reaction off her face. “Tell me more.”
This wasn’t what she’d expected to be doing when Caleb had dragged her away from Ruby’s, but clearly he needed to talk. How could she refuse to listen, even though his leading sentence had made it sound like he’d butchered human beings in cold blood?
She’d never believe that was the case no matter what he said next.
He rubbed the back of his neck, a habit he fell into when he was considering what to say.
“In Syria. There was a mix-up. My fault,” he croaked and cleared his throat. “We went in hot and didn’t bother to ask questions, assuming the intel was right. It was a bad scene. Lots of women and children, but it was too late. The explosives had already been detonated. Rowe tried to go back, desperate to save even one small child…”