Caught in the Act (The Davenports) by Kim Law Page B

head toward his mother, “I’d like you to meet Ms. Catherine Davenport Carlton.”
    Cat beamed and squeezed his mother’s arm tighter. She really seemed to be having a great time tonight. “Please,” she said. “Call me Cat. I only get called Catherine when I’m in trouble with my mother or when the media wants to make me out to be more important than I am.”
    His mother’s eyes widened slightly. “Cat it is, then. And aren’t you just the cutest?”
    “ Mom. ” Good grief. “Please.”
    His mother made a face. “Women love compliments, Brody. Even if it is by an old woman instead of a young man.”
    She shot him a look he found hard to interpret. If he wasn’t mistaken, he would swear she was giving him the go-ahead with Cat. As if he needed her permission. Yet it had been only two days ago that she’d been warning him off.
    Cat’s power to turn a person’s head apparently wasn’t restricted to boys and men. She could also wind mothers around her little finger.
    “Cat stole a bloom out of my yard the other night,” he told his mother, at a loss for what else to say, but finding himself shocked at “tattling” on his neighbor. But she knocked him off balance. “One of the ones you’re named after.”
    At the mention of the hydrangea, Cat’s relaxed expression tightened and she put a couple of inches between her and his mother. It was barely noticeable, yet he seemed to be unable not to notice everything about her.
    “Is that right?” his mother asked. “They do look great in a vase, don’t they? I have several bushes of them at my house, too. I cut them and bring them in all the time.”
    Cat didn’t say anything. Likely because she hadn’t cut the bloom to put in a vase. But he wasn’t about to tell his mother it was now christening the exact location where their teenage selves had once thought they’d found forever.
    The look on Cat’s face made it clear she wouldn’t be admitting that, either.
    “Come on, Mom.” Brody reached out an arm to her, slipping her hand over his elbow. “Go with me to give the other roses to Kristi.” Kristi was the lead in the play. “This is her only night to perform.”
    “What?” Cat lifted her gaze from where it had fallen to the second bundle of roses he held. “Why? She’s perfect for the part.”
    “An emergency.” And yes, she was perfect for the part. But then . . . it wasn’t as if he could get an interested party anywhere within three hundred miles of the place, anyway. “We’ve had to cancel the show for the next two nights, hoping to get someone else up to speed to replace her. But I’ve stressed over this all afternoon; no more about it tonight. Right now I’m taking you both over to talk to Kristi,” he said, then pointed a finger at Cat, “and then I’m going to show you what my ‘red car’ can do.”

CHAPTER SIX

    C AT LAUGHED OUT loud, her face lifted toward the clear night sky, as she and Brody drove down the highway in his pride and joy. His car purred and vibrated beneath her, adding to the excitement of the ride. When they’d walked out of the playhouse earlier, amid claps on the back and congratulatory handshakes on another play well written, he’d stopped before opening the car door and looked her up and down with a deadpan expression. She’d accused him of wanting her to take her shoes off before letting her inside. He’d shut her up by picking her up and plunking her down in her seat.
    “I can always vacuum the floor mats tomorrow,” he’d teased, leaning into the car with her.
    She’d grinned up at him, letting him buckle her in, while feeling like a teenager going out on her first date. Thankfully, no one was at home waiting for her return.
    She’d been afraid he’d simply take her home. Or give her a quick pass through town and then take her home. But instead he’d snaked through back roads for a while before heading out to Highway 1, where he’d been pushing the speed limit ever since.
    She had