trip—Boston to Santa Barbara—because the old man won’t fly. The daughter—the grandson’s mother—is working on having the old man deemed nuts, and put in a nursing home. He ain’t going without a fight.”
“I don’t like her.”
“She’s a former flower child who’s converted to suburban matron. She believes she’s doing the sensible thing. It’s a romp, so far. Well done.”
She tapped her finger at him. “I hear you, Sullivan. You’re going to make sure it’s green-lit.”
“I may twist an arm or two. But I’ll finish it first.”
He turned his head, grinned when a couple of happy barks hit the air.
“When did you get a dog?” Cate asked.
“Not yet, but I’m thinking about it.” He clapped his hands, gave a whistle from between his teeth. A pair of black-and-white dogs, with a few spots of brown for good measure, raced straight to Hugh, wiggled until he rubbed both of them.
“They—they can’t be Dillon’s dogs.”
“They are. Not Gambit and Jubilee. They slipped away last fall. Meet Stark and Natasha.”
They shifted attention to Cate, sniffing, rubbing, staring at her with soul-filled eyes. “Iron Man and Black Widow?” Laughing, she rubbed. “Sticking with the Marvel Universe.”
“What can I say?” Dillon walked up the stone path. “I’m a fan. I brought you a basket of those fingerlings you like, Hugh.”
“Hot dog—and I don’t mean you two. Sit down, boy. I’ll call in for coffee.”
“Wish I could, but I’m on my way to the co-op with produce.” But he pulled off his sunglasses, smiled at Cate. “I heard you were back. It’s good to see you.”
“You, too. You really can’t stay for a few minutes?”
“With Hugh, I sit down for a minute and the next thing I know it’s been an hour. Next time.”
As he snapped his fingers for the dogs, Cate rose. “I promise I won’t keep you an hour if you’d walk back down with me. I have something for you—your mom and grandmother.”
“Sure. You’re in the guesthouse, right? Well, I guess it’s Cate’s house now. I’ll take that hour, Hugh, first chance.”
“See you do.”
“I guess you know,” Dillon said as he walked with Cate, “you made Hugh and Lily about the happiest people on the planet when you said you were coming back to stay.”
“It turns out it’s making me pretty happy, too.”
“Don’t miss New York?”
“It’s there whenever I need an East Coast fix. It was good for me. Now this is good for me. Tell your mom, and Gram, I’m going to come see them. I wanted to keep a close eye on Grandpa for the first few days.”
“He needs one.”
“I got that.” She opened the door. The dogs rushed in, began their obligatory sniffing.
He walked around, looked around. “It looks good. I saw a couple of stages when they were changing it up. It really looks good.”
So did he, she thought.
Obviously he didn’t always wear a hat in the sun—wide-brimmed or otherwise—as that sun had spent plenty of time streaking through his dense brown hair and gifting it with a million highlights. It spilled around his face somewhere between a curl and a wave—an interesting medium she suspected would take her hours to perfect on her own rain-straight hair.
He’d fined down, too, looked honed, she decided, so his face was all planes, angles, shadows with an outdoorsman tan that added even more depth and color to his green eyes.
He had a body that seemed to have been made for jeans, work boots, work shirts. Tough and lean.
He moved, as he wandered her space, with the rangy kind of ease of a man who strode around fields and pastures.
She let out a half laugh. “It’s central casting.”
“What’s that?”
He glanced back, and well, Jesus, the sun slanted over him like a damn key light.
She pointed at him. “Rancher. You nail the look.”
He grinned, and of course, it was lightning quick and just the right amount of crooked. “I am what I am. And you’re a—Hugh calls it—voice actor.”
“That’s right. They built me a studio in here.”
“Yeah, they talked about it.”
She gestured for him to follow her, led the way.
He stopped at the doorway, hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. “Well, wow, that’s a lot of equipment. How’d you learn how to work it all?”
“Trial and error—a lot of both. It’s not really as complicated as it looks. I worked out of my bedroom closet when I first started. This is a big step up.”
“I’ll say. I saw—heard—you in Secret Identity. You looked good as a superhero, and as her alter ego, the quiet,