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“Hi,” he said stiffly.
“Hi.” She smiled at him. He didn’t smile back. “Thank you for the flowers. You didn’t need to.”
Delilah had wandered over to Lucy. The two of them started talking rapidly about some TV show they both liked. Grace and Gemma were chatting, and Andrew was standing by his mom’s side, looking shy.
Presley shrugged. “No problem.”
She took a deep breath, because it had been playing on her mind all week. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did,” she told him. “I’m sorry.”
He blinked, and she noticed how thick his eyelashes were. Most women would kill for natural lashes like that. Or at least pay a lot of money for them.
“It’s fine.” His words sounded like a period. No more conversation needed.
And yeah, she wasn’t stupid enough to tell him how sorry she was about his wife. But she felt it. Yes, she’d hurt her ankle, but he’d lost his everything. It wasn’t comparable, and she felt bad for the way she’d talked to him.
“Delilah, we gotta go,” he called out.
“Can’t we stay?”
“We have to get ready for Chairs.”
“Oh yay!” The little girl clapped her hands together, the diner clearly forgotten. “What are we waiting here for? Let’s go.”
He gave Cassie a nod and she nodded back. Okay, so he still disliked her, she could live with that.
She didn’t have to be friends with everybody. She’d learned that at an early age. But she was a friendly person at heart and hated that she’d gotten off to a poor start with him.
“Bye Miss Cassie!” Delilah waved and ran to the door, Grace and Presley following behind her.
She’d forgotten about Grace. Was she his girlfriend? She was pretty enough. A good match for the stupidly attractive Presley Hartson.
Not that it mattered. It wasn’t as though she was interested, anyway. She liked her men to smile now and then.
And not hate her.
“Come on, let’s sit down and order,” Gemma said, hustling Andrew onto the bench next to Lucy. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving.”
An hour later she and Gemma were laughing about the Trifecta of Performing that was hammered into them at stage school, while the server cleared their plates. They’d spent most of dinner talking about old friends and what they were doing now. Lucy and Andrew were coloring a sheet they’d been given, waiting patiently for the ice cream Gemma had promised them if they behaved well at the table.
“Can I ask you something?” Cassie asked.
“Sure.” Gemma smiled.
“Does Presley Hartson’s girlfriend dance? She looks like a dancer.”
Gemma blinked. “He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
Cassie’s heart did a weird clench. Ugh. “Who was he with tonight then?”
“Grace?” Gemma asked. “She’s his cousin. Her mom and his dad are siblings.” Gemma shrugged. “There are a lot of Hartson’s in this town. Hence the name.”
Cassie blinked, feeling stupid. It was Hartson’s Creek. She hadn’t put the two together. She had now though. “So the Hartsons are like royalty around here then?”
Gemma shrugged. “Something like that. Maybe they should bring some thrones to Chairs,” she chuckled.
Cassie remembered Gemma had mentioned Chairs before, and never expanded on it. “What is Chairs anyway?” she asked, curious.
Gemma grinned. “Oh I really need to write you that Hartson’s Creek manual.” She took a sip of her coffee the server had just topped up. “Chairs is when the town gets together on Friday nights. If the weather is good, we all carry our chairs down to a field by the creek and the kids play flag football or hang around and the adults drink lemonade and gossip.”
