“It is. That’s a very cute place. You’re right on the ocean there.”
“Good.” Sully nodded at Val. “Bikini.”
“I know!” Val rolled her eyes. “I already told you I brought two.”
Megan winced. “You do know how cold the ocean is here, right?”
“Don’t care,” Sully muttered. “Promises were made. Promises will be kept.”
Megan hooked her arm with Val’s as they walked to her car. “Did you find him at a charm competition?”
Val snickered. “Yeah. He was working security at the door, and I never made it past him.”
Megan stood in the doorway with Sully as Val walked step by step through the greenhouse, carefully running her fingers over every surface she could find. She worked methodically, stopping occasionally to write in a small notebook before she continued.
Megan spoke quietly to Sully. “How often does she do this?”
“It depends,” he replied in a murmur. “People kind of know around the lake now. Especially after she and Robin and Monica helped during the fires. But people keep it quiet, you know? So it’s usually little things. A missing sentimental item or photograph. She helps out, but mostly people she knows. Robin is probably the most active of the three of them.”
“Being a medium?”
“It’s not something she can turn off or cover up like Val can with her gloves. She handles it pretty well, but I know Mark says there are times she has to hide in the house to escape it.”
“That’s rough. Makes me feel grateful that my stuff is so controllable. Well, now anyway.”
“You’re a telekinetic?”
“Yep. Good for big stuff, kind of useless for things like this. Toni’s the investigative genius in this neighborhood, but she’s super pregnant right now.”
“She’s the empath?”
“Yeah. Like a human lie detector. Once we have a suspect, she could make them spill their guts. But first…”
Sully nodded. “You gotta narrow it down a little.”
“Exactly.”
Val had worked her way around the greenhouse, focusing on the areas where the vines had been cared for, then the area near the door where the break-in had happened. By the time she finished, she’d taken quite a few notes.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and slid her gloves on. “Where does a girl get a drink around here?”
Sully was watching her with wary eyes. “Headache?”
“Not too bad.” She slid her hand in his and squeezed. “I need some water though.”
“Come with me.” Megan waved them toward the main office and tasting room, which was still fairly casual. “I’ll get you some water, and then how about a bottle of chilled white and some snacks?”
Sully nodded. “Snacks are good. She needs a shot of protein in her system. Some cheese or lunch meat or anything like that will work. Sushi’s the best.”
“Really?” Megan had never even thought about that. “My ability doesn’t take anything out of me. I feel lucky now.”
“You should. Robin’s is the worst,” Sully said. “If she talks with a spirit for too long, she can be out of it for hours.”
Megan led Sully and Val toward the main office and into the conference room by Nico’s office. She poked her head in as they passed and waved at him. He was on the phone, but he gave her a nod.
“Nico will come in to say hi when he’s off the phone.” Megan situated Val in a padded office chair and handed her a bottle of water. “Do you want to wait to go over your notes until he gets here?”
“Unless you think there might be something that would be better for you to kind of preview,” Val said. “Any touchy subjects there?”
Megan thought about Nico’s reaction to hearing her question his family members. “On second thought, why don’t you just give me a rundown? Let me see if Toni is around first.” She got on her phone and texted Toni, who texted back immediately that she’d have Henry drive her up to the farm.
Within ten minutes, Val had better color in her face and Toni was waddling into the office.
“Wow!” Val said. “So you’re super preggo.”
“You did this twice?” Toni lowered herself into a chair.
“Yeah, but not with forty-year-old knees. I do not envy you.”
“Never again.” She looked at Sully. “You’re the boyfriend, right?”
Sully frowned. “Yeah.”
“You got your own kids?”
“No. Hers are enough for me.”
Toni pointed at him. “I like him. That’s a good answer.”
Sully cracked a smile. “So your husband is the winery guy?”
“I don’t have a husband, so you’re gonna need to specify.” She adjusted her legs and reached for the bottle of water Megan handed her. “My cousin grows the grapes. My significant other turns them into wine.”
Val nodded. “Kind of like Jesus.”
Toni blinked. “Well, I hadn’t thought of it that way, but he is a very nice person, so yes. Like Jesus. Just please don’t let my very Catholic mother hear you say that; she’d be horrified.”
“As long as you don’t tell my own very Catholic mother I said it, we’re good.”
Toni pointed at Sully. “We haven’t been officially introduced.”
“I’m not Jesus and I don’t grow grapes,” Sully said. “I’m the sheriff in Glimmer Lake. And I’m attached to this one here.” He patted Val’s knee. “The other one who has issues with marriage.”
Val glared at him. “Can we not do this here?”
Toni and Megan exchanged a glance.
“Oh yes,” Megan said. “Please do this here; I love the drama. Anything you want to tell us, Val?”
“I don’t know, Toni. Anything you and your baby daddy want to tell us?”
“Oh, it’s widely known that I’m skittish about walking down the aisle. My mother has given up.” Toni was nearly laughing. “I’m all ears about you though.”
Within minutes, the mood in the room had shifted from serious to ridiculous, and Megan realized just how tense she’d let herself get. She needed this. Needed to tease her friends and laugh a little. She drew in a deep breath and let it out again.
As she did, the table in front of them shuddered.
Everyone froze.
Toni looked at her. “Was that you?”
Megan cocked her head and looked at the table. “I think I’ve been a little tense.”
“Really?” Toni said. “I never would have guessed. If you’re looking for suggestions on how to relax, may I offer—”
“Okay, I’m off my call.” Nico picked that exact moment to poke his head in the conference room. “No one told me there was a party.”
Toni still had her hand out, so she just pointed at her cousin. “I’m just saying, he’s right there.”
Megan looked at Nico, then back to Toni. “That doesn’t feel weird to you? Just… offering your cousin? For that?”
Nico frowned. “What?”
Val appeared to be dying from silent laughter, listening to Megan and Toni talk.
“No.” Toni ignored Nico’s question. “If it was my brother? Yeah. But there have been so many women over the years that offered way more information than I ever wanted to know, so really—”
“What are you guys talking about?” Nico asked.
“Nothing,” Toni and Megan said in unison.
Nico looked at Sully, but the man slowly shook his head.
“Man, don’t ask me to get involved in any of this shit. I’m just here to find some grapevines for a winery guy.”
Nico said, “That’s literally the only thing anyone has said so far that makes sense.” He stuck his hand out. “Nico Dusi. I’m the winery guy. The farmer anyway. I’m the one who grows the grapes.”
Sully shook his hand, then pointed to Val. “I’m Sully and this is Val. She’s gonna help you find your fancy vines.”
“Good.” He sat next to Megan and reached for a bottle of water. �
�That sounds good to me.”
Chapter 16
“Okay, so around the entrance I got very little. They were using their hands and wearing gloves for sure. For safety or for fingerprints, I cannot tell you. But farther into the greenhouse, I started to get a few brushes.”
“Brushes?” Nico asked.
“For me to feel anything off someone else, I usually have to have skin contact. So at the door, where they wore gloves, I got hardly anything. Once we got into the plants though, it was impossible to hide. Even without skin contact.”
Nico frowned. “Because of the plants?”
Val took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s hard to explain, but living plants do have a level of awareness. It’s not as clear as something off a natural surface or something with a lot of sentiment attached, but I can feel their impressions. In this case, there were two.”
“Two individuals?” Megan was taking notes.
“Two individuals, but there’s an awareness of a third. Maybe someone outside?”
“Possibly someone waiting in the truck,” Nico said. “Waiting to load the vines.”
“How many were there all together?”
“Thirty-seven. Henry kept a running count.”
“And were all of them in good condition?”
“No. That’s part of what’s confusing,” Nico said. “There were at least two that were on their last legs. The cutting hadn’t taken well, and the roots were going dormant. Why would they want those plants too?”
“The impressions I picked up from the other plants in the greenhouse were of someone very focused and very methodical. The individual who did this didn’t want to leave a single thing for you to pick up your research, not even half-dead cuttings.”
“I see.” Nico turned when Henry entered the room, but no one interrupted Val.
Henry walked to Toni’s side and sat beside her.
Megan asked, “Male or female?”
“It’s oddly hard to tell,” Val said. “I usually pick that up right away. And one signature was definitely male. But the other? I could not tell. Could they be gender fluid?”
“Possible,” Toni said. “But not likely. I suspect that we’re simply dealing with a brilliant and brilliantly organized person. That’s the dominant impression, not male or female.”
“How does that help us find her? Or him?”
“It doesn’t, but I think we can probably eliminate anyone with a hot temper or who’s known for being a bully.” Val took a long drink. “I got a flash of someone with long fingers in black gloves taking each branch or stick that fell to the ground and putting them in a sandwich bag.”
“Leaving no trace,” Henry said. “I wonder if I should tell my grandmother and father to be on alert. The original Poulsard vines are in their winery.”
“I’d suggest that unless you know you can solve this in the next week or so.”
Megan tried to imagine anyone she knew in Moonstone Cove doing anything so precise, bench by bench picking up each and every piece of leaf, stick, or root so someone else couldn’t even try to propagate them.
No one sprang to mind.
Moonstone Cove was a small year-round community of artists and chefs and academics and winemakers. They raised cattle and grapes. They taught students.
The university…
Megan said, “Katherine would probably tell us that there are plenty of methodical, precise people at the university. Biologists are precise and might not be okay with unorthodox vine experiments.”
Henry said, “That’s a reach though. I cannot imagine an academic being that upset about a noncertified vine. It’s not exactly an invasive species that could spread. Without the exact right conditions, it’ll flop and die off.”
Nico was focused on Val. “What other impressions did you get?”
“Three people. Two present and one more distant. One man for certain. Then the methodical one that felt ambiguous. I didn’t get much of an impression from the one outside, but let’s assume they’re male too.”
“I think that’s a safe assumption,” Henry said.
“They came in, and they knew exactly what they wanted. They had to look though.”
Nico leaned forward. “Why do you say that?”
“They backtracked several times. The manner of entry was very clean, and they were in and out quickly, but the greenhouse is a bit of a maze. They left a lot of emotional footprints.”
Nico brushed a thumb over his chin, staring at the far wall. “Megan, remind me to get a list of employees who’ve worked here for the past… twenty years or so.” He looked at Megan. “Katherine saw a face?”
“Yes.” Megan took a copy of the picture out of her purse. “It’s not great, but it does give you a bit of an idea. She said he was pretty average-looking.”
“That’ll make it harder to find him.” Nico looked at the sketch. “We usually take a copy of an employee driver’s license, green card, whatever they have for ID. I’m going to look through them to see if anyone looks familiar, but so far, this face isn’t ringing any bells.”
“Good to double-check though, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Val said, “Any other ideas while I’m here?”
Nico narrowed his eyes. “You know, I don’t think there’s anything else here right now, but if Toni’s up to it…”
Toni patted her belly and tried to rise. “I’m good to go! Had a nap this morning and everything.”
Nico nodded. “Then I think it’d be very hospitable to take our visiting friends to Coral Canyon to meet our dear cousin Kellan.”
Toni and Henry took Henry’s truck to Coral Canyon with Val and Sully in the second-row seat, leaving Nico and Megan to drive the fifteen miles into the hills with no one else in Nico’s truck.
It was the first time they’d been alone and away from the winery since Sunday dinner, which wasn’t really alone, which meant it was the first time they’d been truly alone since he’d kissed her the first time. The tension in the truck was palpable.
“So,” Nico began, “are we going to just pretend this is all friendly?”
“We’re not friendly?”
“We’re a little more than friendly, don’t you think?”
Megan shrugged. “I mean, I guess it depends on your definition of friendly.”
“Really?” He pulled the truck over on the side of the road, slid the stack of papers on the center console to the floor, and hooked an arm around Megan’s neck, pulling her mouth within inches of his. “I’ve been thinking of kissing you again for days.”
Okay, that was more than friendly. “Really?”
“Your mouth tastes like honey. What the hell is that? Your toothpaste? Who has honey toothpaste?”
“It’s my lip balm.” Kiss himmmmmm.
Sugar was shaking her hips and boogying down.
“Yeah, lip balm makes a lot more sense than toothpaste.”
Megan was losing patience. “Are you going to kiss me or just talk about it?”
Nico lowered his mouth to hers, pressed their lips together, and made himself comfortable. He explored her mouth, tasting each lip, dancing his tongue against hers, and stroking his thumb against the rapid pulse in her neck.
His warm hand threaded through the hair along her nape and pressed her mouth closer as his other hand ran down her side, cupping her butt and hooking her leg up.
“Center…” Kiss. Lick. “…console,” she muttered.
“Mm-hmm.” Nico slid his hands down and, in one breath-stealing move, took her hips between his palms and swung her over the center console of the truck and into his lap so she straddled his hips before their lips met again.
Holy shit. Sugar was in heaven because she was a definite sucker for casual displays of strength like that. Megan pressed her palms against Nico’s chest, loving the juxtaposition of hard muscle beneath soft flannel. She traced a single finger up behind one ear to tease a curl of his hair and felt the satisfying rumble of a groan und
erneath her body.
Nico’s thumbs ran tantalizing tracks from the sides of her breasts, down to the dip at her waist, and over her hips to the small of her back where he settled his callused hands, one palm on each cheek, pressing her into the hard ridge of denim below his waistband.
Megan gasped and lifted her mouth, only to have Nico attach his lips to her throat and nibble at her jawline.
“Lord have mercy, I am not having sex with you in this pickup truck.”
“I wasn’t planning on that.” His tongue made a strategic line from her cleavage, up her neck, and trailing to the edge of her mouth, which he captured again. “We both have houses.”
“With teenagers in them.”
“Our kids aren’t home all the time.”
Well, that was true. Heck, when was the last time all three of her kids had been in the same place at the same time? She couldn’t think.
Probably because she was straddling Nico Dusi and he was doing sinful things to her collarbone.
“Okay.” She tried to organize her thoughts. “I don’t know when, but this definitely needs to happen.”
“Fuck yes, it needs to happen.” His hips arched up. “Do you feel that?”
“Yes.” She groaned.
“Want to feel more?”
“Nico!” She pulled away and pressed a hand to the center of his chest. “We are not. Having sex. In your truck.”
He looked around. “I’m just saying, if we pulled another half a mile off this road, no one but wild turkeys would be watching us.”
Do eeeeeet.
Shut up, Sugar!
Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were swollen. “We’re investigating a theft and possible murder, remember?”
He nodded. “I just feel like this tension” —he waved a hand between her breasts and his chest— “might be distracting us from seeing… stuff.”
“Stuff?” The corner of her mouth turned up.
“Things.” He peppered her neck with kisses. “Clues and… stuff.”
“Right.” She ran her fingers through the curls at his neck. “So really, us having sex would be…”
“Good.” His teeth scraped against her collarbone. “Just, I mean, good for our concentration.”
Fate Interrupted: A Paranormal Women's Fiction Novel (Moonstone Cove Book 3) Page 13