Page 19 of Defending Casey

Chapter 4

Casey foundherself humming as she finished her shower and hastily dried off before Nora came home from school. Mrs. Klein was set to drop Nora off at the house and Casey knew they’d have to have a pretty serious conversation, but Casey was actually looking forward to it.

When she’d first heard that Hale had come back to Fool’s Gold, Casey let herself imagine a thousand different things that could happen when she finally met up with Hale.

Then as time went by and Hale hadn’t come to see her, she wondered if it was well and truly over between them.

And even though they’d spent most of the day together, driving to and from Colorado Springs and shopping for things that Hale would need to be involved in Nora’s life, they hadn’t really gotten to the meat of the issues between them.

Somehow, they’d managed to do a lot of talking, but none of it seemed to get to the heart of the problem. Their separation and how it had all happened over a decade ago. They’d start heading toward those topics and then they’d get waylaid with either a question about Nora from Hale or some funny story that came up in her memories about their little girl.

Casey knew why she was only too eager to take those tangents off of the main path.

They were getting along.

They were talking and laughing together.

And the more time they spent together the more she’d realized how much she’d missed Hale. Missed the way that they could just talk for hours and hours and enjoy just being with each other.

Would that still be the case when he found out that she’d lied to him in the first place?

Would he be angry or relieved when he found out that she’d actually worked with his father to push him away?

Would any of those facts be the door that he might secretly want to give him an exit out of her life?

Goodness.

Her good mood flagging, Casey startled when she heard tires driving over the gravel near the front of the house.

“Oh shoot!”

Wrapped up in her thoughts, she’d forgotten to check the time.

Mrs. Klein was a sweet woman and happy to share carpool with her two days a week after school, so the last thing Casey wanted to do was inconvenience the other woman.

Reaching into her top drawer she pulled out a worn t-shirt and a pair of running shorts that had never seen any running and pulled them on.

She didn’t even bother to pull her hair back from her face as she raced through the tiny house and toward the front door. “Hey, sorry I was- Brian!”

He opened the screen door and Nora ran inside.

“Hey, Mom!” She wrapped her arms around Casey’s legs for a quick hug before heading to her room. “Homework!”

“Uh, okay. I’ll come in and check on you in a bit!”

“Okay, Mom.”

Shaking off the feeling that her daughter sounded a bit more like an adult than she was comfortable with, Casey turned back to Brian.

“Hey, I’m sorry. Did I get my days wrong? I thought Missus Klein was going to drop Nora off.”

Brian waved away her concern. “No, you had the days right. I just bumped into her when I dropped Nora off at the school. I told her I’d drop Nora off at home today.”

There was something in the words he said, or maybe it was his tone, that had Casey struggling to place the odd feeling they stirred up inside of her.

“Are you okay?” She said the words before she could think better of them, but she meant them all the same.

Brian seemed to think her question was as odd as she did.

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