Piper could hear the hopefulness in her voice.

  “What are you, the unofficial town matchmaker? Because I think you need a license to do it professionally.” Piper’s face was warm again. The mere mention of Cal’s name affected her. Thankfully, Meghan couldn’t see her or there’d be more to this conversation.

  “I’m the official friend.”

  “Well, what do you want at this hour of the morning, official friend?”

  “Just to make sure you got home safely and that Cal didn’t make any moves on you.”

  “And what if he had?” Piper asked.

  “What!” Meghan all but shouted.

  Piper held the cell away from her ear.

  “Did he?”

  “Not exactly,” she hedged.

  “What does that mean?”

  “All right, if you must know, he kissed me.” Or I kissed him, Piper thought. She wasn’t sure. They had both leaned in together. Still, she didn’t know why she had done it. She could make up reasons, but none of them fit and none were the truth.

  “Did you kiss him back?” Meghan broke into her thoughts.

  “It was too brief an encounter to say.”

  Meghan whooped and shouted on the other end of the line. Piper moved the phone farther away from her ear until the happiness stopped.

  “But we may as well stop, whatever it is,” Piper said. “Cal has already mentioned he’s leaving the Valley. Job offers are already coming in. So there’s no need for me to start a relationship with someone who won’t be around. And I won’t be around, either, if you recall.”

  “Piper, you need to get past what happened with Xavier.”

  “I am past him,” Piper said.

  “All right.” Meghan backed off. “But if Cal kisses you again, be sure to kiss him back. Now, gotta go. See ya!”

  Meghan hung up then, not giving Piper time for a reply and leaving her with the image of being in Cal’s arms, his mouth pressing deliciously on hers.

  * * *

  THE DOORBELL RANG before Piper was ready. Jumping out of bed, she ran one way and then the other, not able to decide what to do first. It was Cal at the door. It was time for them to begin work.

  She could hear him calling to her but only heard the word cake. The rest of his message was muffled.

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” she shouted, unsure if he could hear her. Dressing as fast as she could, she pulled a shirt and jeans on. Then running down the stairs, she yanked the door open.

  Cal stood with his back to her.

  “Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I overslept.” She pushed a hand through her unkempt hair. “I would say help yourself to coffee, but I didn’t make any. So, take a seat. I’ll be right back.”

  She ran up the stairs, quickly rushing through her morning routine. Seven minutes later when she returned to the living room, Cal wasn’t there. She found him in the kitchen standing before the wall of windows drinking a cup of coffee.

  “I made it,” he said. “Yours is there.”

  He pointed toward the counter and Piper followed his gaze. Lifting the cup, she took a sip. It was perfect.

  “Meghan called and kept me on the phone.” It was the total truth, but she wasn’t going into the fact that she’d relived their kiss until it was almost morning.

  “Did she want to know if I kissed you good-night?”

  Piper practically dropped her cup. She set it on the counter with a thud. “How did you know?”

  Cal laughed and faced her. “Don’t you think I can spot matchmaking when I see it?”

  “As a matter of fact, no.”

  He shook his head as if wiping the comment aside.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “The truth.”

  “The truth has many versions,” Cal said. “Did you tell her the whole and unvarnished truth?”

  Piper shook her head. “Only we should know that.”

  “We’re not going to let it interfere with our project, right?”

  “There’s no reason we should,” Piper said. “However, I want to apologize...”

  “Don’t.” Cal gestured and she stopped talking. “Let’s just leave it,” he said.

  “Leave it?”

  “We have different lives and different goals. You want to return to California and who knows where my job will take me.”

  “It’s better if we just forget it ever happened.”

  “I think that’s the best option.”

  Piper nodded. She should say something, but there were no words. They should go to work, get on with his lesson, but she had no heart for it. She needed time to think, to process what had just gone on in this kitchen.

  She needed to decide what she thought about that kiss. It didn’t bind them to each other. Yet it was something. And she wanted Cal to say it meant something to him.

  But he wanted to just leave it. That was for the best, she told herself. They both had agreed on that. And they knew that a relationship was out of the question. Piper would do better with one of the single men who lived in the Valley and had no wish to leave it. Cal had no wish to stay. Neither did she. Not under the circumstances.

  If he could just leave it, so could she. She repeated this silently over and over. But somehow she didn’t believe it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TAMARA ST. JOHN was not well-known outside of a Hollywood film set. She was a pretty face, a beautiful face, and talented in many ways. Working in an industry that valued these traits, she stood out, and that was saying something. In street clothes, with little makeup on and her hair fluttering around her shoulders, she was simply Piper’s friend. And Piper was expecting a delivery from her.

  Riding Silver, Piper galloped to the mailbox on top of a short post at the edge of the ranch. The envelope was there. Not waiting to return to the house, she slid it open and pulled out the photos.

  She smiled a silent thank-you to her absent friend. The stills were from The Diamond Affair, the movie where Piper’s stunt went wrong.

  * * *

  CAL WAS IN his office as soon as his boots hit the hardwood floor in the house. He dropped two bags of groceries on the kitchen counter and continued straight to his computer, not even saying a word to Naomi. He wheeled his office chair closer to the machine.

  “You okay?” Naomi asked from the doorway.

  Cal didn’t look up. He watched the screen flicker through the self-check process.

  “I just got an idea I need to act on,” he told her.

  He could hear that Naomi had not moved.

  “I’m all right,” he told her, looking up for the first time.

  Naomi stopped drying her hands on the towel she held and gave him her signature look, at least that was what Cal thought of it as. Short of putting her hands on her hips, she lowered her chin and stared at him as if she could read his mind. A second later, probably deciding he was telling the truth, Naomi slung the towel over her shoulder and, with a concerning glance, returned to the kitchen.

  Typing in his password, Cal searched for Piper Logan on one of the movie databases. It had a bio and all the credits for films she’d been part of. None that he checked had her as the stunt coordinator. He assumed the film where the accident occurred was either not completed or never released.

  Checking further, he found a newspaper article about the accident. The film was The Diamond Affair. When he opened the link and read he found that the stunt coordinator was Xavier Fabriano. Irrationally, Cal disliked the man.

  He went on reading and searching, spending his time trying to piece together the accident and learning what he could about his beautiful neighbor. He spent an hour combing through the logistics of the stunt, every detail he could find. At the end he still had a gut feeling that Piper hadn’t done anything wrong. Her crusading spirit told him she was convinced that she was missing something to explain the accident. And he was sure she’d spend her life trying to find it.

  Switching computer programs, Cal took the information Piper had given him and began doing more calculations. He didn’t think of the time. He hardly noticed Naomi popping in and out with food and drink. He was totally absorbed in his task.

  “You better take a real break,” Naomi said the last time she put a tray next to him. “Or your legs will go to sleep and you won’t be able to walk—or ride.”

  “Ride!”

  Her last two words held special emphasis and a double meaning. Still, Cal knew she was right. He needed to stand up and do something physical. He could always return later on. Cal had already had his riding lesson. Going to exercise his horses would just bring him in contact with Piper. Cal smiled at the thought of that. He wasn’t a jogger, and while there was no swimming pool on the grounds, he did like to swim. There was a fitness center in town, but it had no pool. Maybe he’d see if the hotel had a program that would give him access to their pool.

  Cal stretched, feeling his muscles protest from sitting in the same position too long. He did need to exercise. Half an hour later, he was in the hotel pool. Thirty minutes after that, he’d completed fifty laps. The water felt good and Cal was invigorated as he pulled his long body out of the pool. Grabbing his towel, he dried enough of the dripping water to return to the locker room, where he showered and dressed.

  “How was it?” Meghan asked as he emerged into the hotel lobby. Cal met her near one of the oversize wing-backed chairs that were large enough for two people to sit comfortably in.

  “It was worth the drive,” he said.

  “Well, you’re welcome to use it anytime. Although, when there’s a rodeo nearby, the spillover usually fills this place up and the kids love the pool.”

  “I’ll make a note of that.”

  “How’s the stunt riding lessons going?” Meghan asked. Obviously, Piper had related that information to her.

  “Piper is an exceptional teacher.”

  “True, we learned to ride together.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Cal said. “Do you do stunts, too?”

  Meghan shook her head. “That’s strictly Piper. She’s the adventurous one.”

  “I guess so,” Cal said. “Considering the profession she chose.”

  Meghan laughed. “I never thought of it like that. She’s so conscious of safety.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Cal told her.

  Meghan’s attention moved from him to something over his shoulder. Cal started to turn.

  “Well, speaking of,” she said.

  Piper was walking toward Meghan, but seeing him, she stopped, her expression perplexed.

  “Cal, I didn’t expect to see you,” she said when her feet finally moved and she came within speaking distance.

  “Thought I’d go for a swim and Meghan kindly allowed me to use the hotel pool.”

  “What are you doing here, Piper?” Meghan asked. “Is anything wrong?”

  “Nothing like that. One of my students needed a ride home and I agreed to drop her off. While here, I thought I’d come say hello.”

  Cal thought it was more than that. She probably wanted to speak to her friend without others around, without him around.

  “I’ll leave you two to your conversation,” he said. “Thanks again, Meghan. For the use of the pool,” he added.

  He was two steps away when he heard Meghan. “Don’t leave,” she said.

  Cal stopped and looked over his shoulder.

  “I have something to get done. It can’t wait. Why don’t you and Piper have some coffee and I’ll join you as soon as I finish?”

  Cal didn’t see Piper move. The fact that she didn’t turn to look at him told him she was glaring at her friend.

  “Piper, is that all right with you?” He couldn’t help teasing her. From the beginning, he’d shown up in places that seemed to thwart her. “Maybe we could have cake with the coffee.”

  At that, she turned to him. “Cake,” she said. “Of course, what is coffee without cake?”

  He didn’t think Meghan knew anything about the private joke between Piper and himself. But she knew about his stunt riding lessons. So maybe the cake was also something Piper had shared.

  “I’ll meet you in the coffee shop in half an hour,” Meghan said. Taking a couple of steps back, she gave them both a look and moved on toward her office.

  “You really don’t have to have coffee with me,” Cal told Piper. “I recognize Meghan’s setup and I understand that you came here to talk to her, not me.”

  When she didn’t respond, he continued. “I’m flexible. I can spare a few minutes,” Cal said. “Is something wrong?”

  “You were in the pool,” she stated, seeming to change the subject.

  “Naomi said I needed some exercise. I’d been at my computer too long.”

  She gave a curt nod but didn’t say anything more. When she began to walk, he walked with her.

  “Oh, before I forget, I e-mailed you most of the information you asked me for.”

  “Thanks.”

  In the coffee shop, they found seats. Cal ordered coffee and cake from the counter and brought it over.

  “I got chocolate for us because I’ve only ever met one person in the world who didn’t like chocolate.”

  “That wouldn’t be me,” she said, accepting the cup and the hunk of cake.

  “And one other person who doesn’t eat carbs,” he teased, looking at the cake.

  “So how was your swim?” she asked, ignoring him.

  “It did the trick. I feel a lot better now. For a hotel pool, it’s a good size.”

  “For a long while, it was the only one in the area and it was small. That one is inside. The large one is outside. I assume that’s the one you used.”

  Nodding, he said, “It’s great for swimming laps.”

  “Is that something you did while on engineering sites?” She took a bite of her cake.

  “Every chance I got. Often, not always, it was in a lake or a river. What about you? Along with horseback riding and gymnastics, is swimming also one of your skills?”

  “On a set, I’ve been known to swim. For me, it was often the ocean.”

  “What about pleasure? Don’t you do anything just for you?”

  It was a question she couldn’t remember ever being asked. “As you know, I love what I do...did,” she corrected. “For pleasure, I’d read, play tennis, ride horses.”

  “Tennis is technically work if you ever played it in a movie. Plus, it’s also conditioning for the stunts you have to be strong enough to do.”

  “You could say that of everything under the sun, even reading.”

  Cal agreed with her. “How about skydiving, windsurfing, zip lining?”

  “Done them all.”

  “Wow, you’d be a hard date,” Cal said.

  “Date?” She picked up on the word.

  “It would be hard to decide where to take you. You’ve done everything and probably have to be very good at them all.”

  “Not that I’m dating,” Piper emphasized. “But I’ve never built a road or bridge or pipeline.”

  Cal smiled. “Those aren’t exactly recreational activities.”

  “There’s always dinner and a movie, or don’t people do that anymore?” she asked.

  “Seems very normal.”

  Piper smiled. She held back the laugh that bubbled up inside her. “What? You were thinking of something abnormal?” she teased.

  “Outside the box,” Cal said. “I figured you wouldn’t want to do the normal thing.”

  “Why not?” She feigned hurt. “Do I appear to be someone who needs to be wonderfully surprised on a date?”

  “Exactly,” he said.

  “Date? Did I hear that you two are planning a date?” Meghan slipped into the chair next to Piper.

  “No,” they both said in unison.

  *

  DID HE REALLY want to date her? Cal asked himself that question several times on the drive back to the ranch. The idea wasn’t totally foreign to him. He must have thought about it subconsciously. Piper was an amazing woman and he hadn’t dated anyone seriously in a long time. Not that he was looking for a serious relationship. She was his neighbor, his trainer, an interesting person and someone with serious goals of her own.

  Meanwhile, he’d be off on another job soon. He’d already had offers, two of which he’d agreed to discuss the requirements for. One was in Central America and the other in Africa. Cal should be preparing for those conversations, but Piper was on his mind. He couldn’t seem to relegate her to a safe place in his thoughts.

  At some point, Cal decided to see one of the films she was in. He’d only watched a few minutes of the one playing in the diner. Signing on to a streaming service, he brought up a list of movies where Piper was a stuntwoman. As the sun set, he sat comfortably in the house’s media room and started the first one he’d chosen. Seeing her doing the stunts had him on edge even more than the nature of the story. It didn’t matter that he knew she was safe at her ranch a few miles away or with Meghan in town. That knowledge didn’t keep him from being on the edge of his seat.

  Dropping his shoulders as the movie ended, Cal was unaware how tight his body had become as he viewed the big screen. Automatically, the second movie started. It opened with an action scene that immediately grabbed his attention, and he watched half of it before pausing the film and getting something cold to drink. Not a usual beer drinker, he still kept a bottle or two in the refrigerator. Taking one, he returned to the media room and resumed watching.

  The sun had tinged the sky when he finally pushed himself up off the sofa. The credits were rolling for the last movie he’d been watching. Squeezing the bridge of his nose, he yawned loudly and stretched. Cal didn’t know how many hours he’d been staring at the screen in front of him, but his body was tired.

  Taking wobbly steps, he headed for his bedroom. The stunts, which he’d vaguely thought about in the past, awed him now. He understood Piper’s reason for returning to the ranch after the investigation. She was the prime suspect. The investigation went on for months, and when there was finally a conclusion that found her not responsible for the accident, she disappeared. Cal knew where she’d gone. She’d been truly wrung out by the pressure of the ordeal. He was surprised a film hadn’t been made of her experience.