lemonade and then nodded. “Haddie. She’s seven going on seventy-seven.” She breathed out a smile.
He glanced at her and then down at the hand sitting on the wood-chipped Gazebo bench. “You’re divorced? From her father?” He appeared almost confused for a moment and then grimaced. “Shit. I mean, darn it. I’m sorry, that’s none of my business.”
A feeling not unlike affection twisted through her. He was handsome, yes, but he was not one of the smooth charmers she was used to. She’d thought him surly and rude the day before, but today, now that he’d let his guard down, she was getting this sense of . . . awkwardness, as though his social skills were unpolished. Not because he was impolite but because he didn’t have much practice using them. He was . . . unexpected.
His uncertainty confounded her, especially considering his good looks. She figured good-looking men had plenty of opportunity to hone their charm. It was just a fact of life. Why hadn’t he? She glanced at his ring finger, noting he was unmarried.
“It’s okay,” she murmured. “I don’t mind the question. Haddie’s father and I were never married. He’s not in the picture.”
He studied her for a moment and then his gaze moved back to Haddie, an expression she didn’t know him well enough to read crossing his features and then disappearing. He held up the chocolate chip cookie. “These are really good.”
“Thanks. They’re Haddie’s favorite.”
For a moment they were both silent as he finished the cookie and took a long sip of lemonade, and she stared off in the distance, watching him from her peripheral vision. He was so close and she was so keenly aware of his presence. It made her feel twitchy, exposed somehow. She hadn’t found herself attracted to a man in a very long time. “So um, can I ask you something, Deputy?” She turned to face him.
“Sure,” he said, setting his glass down and leaning over to pluck a long blade of grass growing through the slats in the gazebo floor. “But call me Camden.”
Camden. “Okay. As long as you call me Scarlett.” She paused. “You said kids use the house for entertainment. What exactly did you mean by that?”
The deputy—Camden—glanced at the house and then away. He used both hands to fiddle with the blade of grass in his fingers, pausing for longer than felt comfortable as though he was taking the time to choose his words carefully. Was he worried about scaring her? Making her feel unsettled in her new home? He’d already done that by showing up and installing security . . . “There are stories about the house. You might already know some of them given that you can find them online.”
“Yeah,” she confirmed. “I looked up the house’s history. Spooky stuff.”
“The kids think so too. They set up dares . . . you know, ‘spend the night in the scary house and I’ll pay you a hundred bucks,’ that kind of thing.”
“Ah. The old sleep in the abandoned haunted mansion dare. A classic.”
His lip quirked. “I guess it’s a classic for a reason.”
“True.” She paused. “I read up on the Bancroft family. Tragic ending to that story.”
“Tragic beginning too, depending on whose point of view you’re telling it from.”
Tragic beginning? She hadn’t read about that. “What do you mean? I thought Hubert Bancroft made a fortune in fur trading and built this grand house.”
He shook his head, appearing suddenly regretful that he’d brought it up. “I’m not much of a storyteller,” he said haltingly, bending and twisting that blade of grass. “There’s probably . . . something online.” He slid his eyes away and his cheekbones tinged pink like a child who was telling a falsehood. But why would he?
She cocked her head. “If there is, I didn’t come across it. I read about his son and the loss of the family fortune that his great-grandfather made from the fur trade.”
He looked down at the blade of grass again, now looped and twisted into some sort of shape. He was quiet for several awkward beats. “He wasn’t only a fur trader, he was also an evangelist.”
“Oh,” Scarlett said. “I didn’t read about that.”
Camden’s brows knit as he stared off behind her. “His mission was to convert all the savages who lived in these parts to Christianity.”
“The . . . savages?” She frowned. “You mean the Native Americans who lived here?”
Camden nodded. “The Serralinos. They were considered heathens, evil-doers, and Hubert Bancroft thought it his Godly duty