“No, I mean ... this.” She gestured. “How can you breathe when I’m on top of you?”
“I think it’s because I can no longer breathe without you.”
“Oh, that is ... just so corny.”
“I was going for romantic.”
“That, too.”
He gave her another kiss. “It’s fine. I like you on top of me. That way I know where you are, and that you’re safe.” He brushed her wild hair back from her face. “Did you sleep well for the rest of the night?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t dream after you pulled me out of the first one.”
“Are you still determined to figure out what’s going on?”
“More than ever.”
“Good. Me, too.” Another kiss had him shifting with ideas. “We have forty-five minutes before breakfast. I figure I can wow you with honeymoon goodness and we can still make it on time to the meal if we shower together.”
She laughed, which was Jack’s absolutely favorite sound. “What sort of honeymoon goodness did you have in mind?”
He rolled them both so their positions were reversed. “It will lose something in the telling. It’s best if I show you.”
“Good plan.”
THEY WERE PACKED AND READY WITH two minutes to spare but were still the last to land at the breakfast table. Jack found he didn’t care that all eyes were on them as they settled at the far end of the table. All he wanted was coffee and to hear his wife laugh for the rest of the day. He didn’t think it was too tall of an order to fill.
“You guys look happy,” Carter noted as he studied them. “Are you enjoying your honeymoon?” It was obvious he knew what they’d been doing – the flirty glances were hardly subtle – and was tickled over their flushed features and glowing demeanors.
“We are,” Jack confirmed, refusing to feel embarrassed for loving his wife.
“Are you having fun?” Vanessa asked as she glanced between them. “You guys have been arguing quite a bit. I assumed you weren’t having a good time.”
“I always have fun with my wife,” Jack replied easily.
“And we found out yesterday that the fighting is like foreplay to them,” Carter volunteered. “They’re not really fighting. They’re just talking with a lot of emotion because it gets them going.”
Ivy wanted to argue with the sentiment, but he wasn’t exactly wrong. “We are kind of weirdos, huh?” Ivy noted as she accepted the cup of hot tea Jack had poured for her.
“I happen to think we’re perfect.” He kissed the tip of her nose before focusing his full attention on the table, taking the time to count heads. Everybody was present and accounted for. “I take it nobody found any blood to scream about this morning,” he said.
Vanessa was sheepish. “I still feel goofy about that, and to think, it was just coffee someone had poured out. I’m sorry to have frightened you the way I did.”
“It wasn’t coffee,” Jack countered. “It was blood.” At some point — and he still wasn’t certain when it happened — he had decided to press the issue in front of an audience. He wanted to see how all those assembled reacted. It was likely they would think he was an idiot drumming up drama, but he didn’t care. They would never see these people again, and in a few days, this trip would be nothing but a memory as he and his wife moved on to a tropical location. In the here and now, though, he didn’t care what the others thought about him. He merely wanted to see their reactions.
“Blood?” Eleanor looked positively horrified at the prospect. “Nobody told me that blood was found.”
“That’s because there’s no proof that it was blood,” Tyson countered, his gaze heavy when it fell on Jack. “We talked about this yesterday. It wasn’t blood.”
Jack flashed a smile that he didn’t feel. “I’m a police detective. I know what blood is. That was blood. Now, I’m not saying it was human blood, but it was most definitely blood. I can see why Vanessa reacted so strongly to the sight.”
“It was blood?” Vanessa’s eyes went wide. “I thought it was coffee. If I’d known it was blood ... .” She chewed on her bottom lip and turned her eyes to Nate. “I told you I should’ve filmed it. Blood is a better story. My viewers would’ve eaten it up.”
Jack didn’t bother to hide his eye roll. The influencer thing — which he still didn’t fully understand — bothered him on multiple levels. “It was definitely blood.” Jack flicked his eyes to Tyson. “I want to know about the prints we found next to the blood.”
“I told you I don’t know what they are,” Tyson said. “I’m not a print expert. I think they could’ve been bird feet for all I know. I mean ... when a bird of prey gets that low to the ground their wings often disturb the earth.”
“Really?” Honestly, Jack was hopeful that all they were dealing with was a hungry hawk. Ivy’s dreams — which he obviously couldn’t mention — seemed to suggest otherwise. “Just out of curiosity, all of your workers are accounted for, right?”
Tyson’s eyes went wide. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m a police detective,” Jack replied calmly. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m … merely covering all my bases. I am concerned enough that I would like confirmation.”
“All our workers are accounted for,” Tyson shot back quickly. “There’s nothing to worry about. Our people know what they’re doing.” He flicked his eyes to Ivy. “I’m assuming you’re the one who got him all riled up. I saw the way you were with Bart yesterday.”
“Yes, she was absolutely deranged,” Bart agreed, even though nobody had asked for his opinion.
Tyson pretended he hadn’t heard the man speak. “I get that you guys are used to a certain element of excitement in your lives that most other people don’t deal with but there’s not a murderer around every corner.”
Unfortunately for Ivy and Jack, reality had proven Tyson’s words wrong on more than one occasion.
“What level of excitement are you talking about?” Vanessa asked curiously. “Our lives are exciting, too. I have almost a million followers on my channel now. We’re going to throw an online party when I cross that number.”
Tyson blinked several times and then shook his head. “I’m talking about the fact that Jack is a police detective. We run the backgrounds of all our guests to head off any trouble. We don’t want criminals out here — although Mrs. Harker’s recent arrest was cause for concern — and Jack has a very impressive arrest record.”
Ivy’s mouth dropped open as Jack stiffened beside her.
“You were arrested?” Vanessa asked, her eyes incredulous as they landed on Ivy. “Is that how you guys met?”
“No, it’s not,” Jack answered before Ivy could. “As for her arrest, she didn’t do anything wrong. She stumbled across a woman being held captive in a house, and to keep the arrest intact, she had to face charges because she technically trespassed. She saved a woman’s life and helped bring down a killer. She’s not a criminal.”
“Really?” Tyson almost looked disappointed at the declaration. “I thought you guys hooked up because she was a criminal, too. That’s a bit disappointing. I thought it sounded like a movie.”
“I hate to disappoint you,” Jack shot back. “Don’t give my wife grief about that arrest. She did the right thing and had to pay a steep price for it.”
Tyson held up his hands in surrender. “There were no details in the file. It was actually sealed. I didn’t mean any offense.”
“It’s sealed because she didn’t do anything wrong and the judge knew it,” Jack said. “As for my record, I don’t think it matters in this particular case. All I want is a safe trip for my wife.”
“Why would you think this isn’t a safe trip?” Bart challenged. “I mean ... what exactly has happened to make you think anybody is in danger? You found what you think is blood on the ground and weird prints behind a tent. There’s no body. Nobody is missing. What’s the problem here?”
Jack fought the urge to
yell back “you” and barely managed to keep it together. “I’m not saying there is a problem. I just asked Vanessa if she found anything else of note. If you think I’m nuts for wanting to keep my wife safe — and it’s likely you do because you treat yours like a piece of old chewing gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe — then that’s your prerogative. I prefer being aware of my surroundings.”
Bart’s eyes flashed with fire as he regarded Jack. “You don’t have to worry about how I treat my wife.”
“Oh, no?” Jack couldn’t force himself to back down. “Everyone here has been talking about how you treat your wife. My first thought when Vanessa found the blood was that you’d done something to her. I don’t think I’m the only one who would assume that if she went missing.”
“Definitely not,” Carter agreed, jutting out his chin.
“Stay out of my marriage,” Bart warned Jack. “It’s none of your concern.”
“Then don’t even look sideways at my wife,” Jack suggested. “Don’t say anything about or to her.”
“I have no interest in your pink-haired wife.”
“Keep it that way.” Jack flicked a smile toward an incoming Sandy as she delivered what looked to be a huge skillet of food to the spot in front of him. “Stay away from the thing I love most in this world and we won’t have a problem. Keep running your mouth and we most definitely will.”
Ivy waited until her skillet had been delivered before catching Jack’s eye. “I thought we were going to be low key and calm about this.”
He smirked. “I can’t help it. That guy drives me insane.”
“Me, too, but I wanted to be mean to him. You totally stole my thunder.”
“Next time.”
“Do you think there will be a next time?”
“You’ve met him. What do you think?”
Ivy didn’t have to dwell on the possibility for very long. There would definitely be a next time.
12
Twelve
Jack didn’t offer up a word of complaint when Ivy immediately headed toward the back of the kayak. He held her bag until she was settled and the proceeded to pack it for her. The smile she shot him when she realized she’d forgotten to do it herself was rueful.
“Whoops.”
He grinned. “That’s what husbands are for.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I thought breakfast was fun, huh?”
He almost looked nervous to see if she would jump all over him now that they didn’t have an audience, Ivy noted. She found the development amusing. “I thought you were stupid to do it,” she admitted as he stowed his own pack. “Then I realized you wanted the others to think we were suspicious of them so we could monitor the way they acted for the rest of the trip.”
“It’s good to have a woman who knows me so well as a wife.”
“Is that your favorite thing about me?”
“I’m also a big fan of how you drool in your sleep.”
Her lips curved down. “I don’t drool.”
He arched a challenging eyebrow but remained silent.
“I don’t,” Ivy insisted. “I just wet my lips.”
That had his grin widening. “Do you wet them with a bucket?”
“Ha, ha, ha.” Her expression was dark as she regarded him. “You’re kind of a butthead when you want to be.”
“Yes, but I’m your butthead.” He climbed into the front of the kayak with ease this time. There was no leaning to the left or right to maintain the balance of the craft. “I’m getting better at this, huh?” He shot her a cheeky grin.
“You are,” she agreed, not skipping a beat. Then she turned serious. “What’s the plan here? Technically we have no crime.”
“No, and I’ve been thinking about it,” he admitted, sobering. “It feels like a gaslighting.”
Ivy pursed her lips. “I never would’ve used that word to describe it, but you’re right. I mean ... we’re the only ones here who think anything weird is happening and everybody else is acting as if we’re crazy when we know we’re not.”
“That could simply be because we’re us.”
“You mean that we’re both suspicious by nature.”
“And we’ve seen more than our fair share of murderous drama over the course of our time together. I’m naturally predisposed to think murder when I see blood. It’s not something I can escape. I think the same goes for you now, although that makes me feel a little sad.”
“Why?” Ivy used her paddle to push away from the shore. They were at the back of the group again — something that seemed to be an unspoken agreement so they could watch what was happening in front of them — and she was completely focused on him.
“Because I would prefer it if you lived in a world where you didn’t have to constantly worry about someone trying to kill you.”
“To be fair, nobody has targeted us for a change.”
He smirked. “That does feel like a honeymoon miracle, doesn’t it?”
Her chuckle was low and light. Jack appreciated the fact that she could always find a giggle in the middle of potential mayhem.
“Unfortunately, I might’ve made us targets thanks to what I said over breakfast,” Jack added, his smile slipping. “I need you to stick close to me for the duration of the trip.”
Ivy found the request funny on the face of it. “I’m pretty sure we’ve been glued to one another since the wedding. That’s the way honeymoons are supposed to be.”
“It is but ... just don’t wander off.” He didn’t want to frighten her but figured it was important she be prepared. “Bart already doesn’t like you.”
“Bart is an asshat.”
“He’s a total asshat. If he is planning something — which we have no proof of — I just blew his plan out of the water by telling him that everybody assumes he’s the sort of guy who would hurt his wife.”
“You’ll notice he didn’t really argue with that assessment,” Ivy pointed out. “He wasn’t like ‘oh, my god, I would never’ as much as ‘how dare you speak to me that way, you insolent peasant’.”
Jack chuckled at her attempt to mimic Bart’s voice. She was honestly fairly close in her assessment. “He doesn’t like being questioned. Now, if Lily does go missing, everybody in the group will be suspicious of him.”
“Which means he can’t do anything to her.”
“I would like to stress that we have no proof that he was going to do anything to her in the first place.”
“No, but ... he’s totally the type.”
“Actually, I’m not sure he is.” Jack shot a sheepish smile at her over his shoulder. “I don’t think he loves her — I would never say otherwise — but he’s not an idiot. He wouldn’t kill his wife on a trip that has been designed to save their marriage. I mean ... people have heard him and Lily talking about why they’re on this trip. Tyson mentioned it, too. If Lily were to die under strange circumstances or go missing, then everybody would point at Bart. He’s not going to do anything simply because of that.”
“Oh, see, I’ve been thinking about this a little more than you, I think.” Ivy said. “Bart isn’t the sort of man to get his hands dirty. He’s not going to do anything to Lily himself regardless. He is the sort of person to hire it done, though.”
“True, but if he hired it to be done on this trip, he’ll still be the prime suspect.”
“Unless weird stuff was already happening that people were questioning,” Ivy countered. “Like, I don’t know, blood and weird footprints being found.”
Jack opened his mouth to start poking holes in her theory and then snapped it shut. “Hmm.”
“We’re both bothered by the fact that something feels off,” Ivy offered. “We’re intuitive people, Jack. There’s a reason we feel this way. It’s because something is off.”
“You’re more intuitive than me.”
She shook her head. “No, you’re extremely intuitive. That’s one of the first things I noticed about you. You read me right from the start and th
at’s why I was so uncomfortable. Well, that and your really handsome face and bulging muscles. You made my belly squirm from the get-go for multiple reasons, though.”
A shot of warmth rushed through him. “You made my belly squirm, too. I liked the feeling ... even as I told myself it was a mistake to fall in love with you. I wasn’t looking for forever in Shadow Lake.”
“And yet you found it.”
“And I’m not sorry.” He sent her a wink over his shoulder. “I get what you’re saying with the blood and the footprints. It goes back to me feeling as if we’re being gaslighted. The thing is — and I know you don’t want to hear it — we have no proof of anything. Bart could just be a guy who is mean to his wife.”
“I agree with you there,” Ivy admitted. “I don’t want to focus on Bart to the point where we ignore the others. I feel as if the dreams are warning me of something. They might not be warning me about Bart, though. There are other people on this trip with us.”
“Who else do you think could be trouble?” Jack was honestly curious to hear her take on it.
“I don’t know. I figured we would use today to get to know the other couples. Bart isn’t going to talk with us — and we have nothing to say to him anyway — so I figured we would break it down and spend some time with the other couples really looking at them.”
Jack nodded in agreement. “Who do you want to hit first?”
“Whoever is ahead of us. We’re going to need to increase our pace.”
“Then let’s do it. Just for the record, honey, you are my favorite investigative partner ever.”
“I guess that’s good since you’re stuck with me, huh?”
“Forever and always.”
DAMIEN AND CARTER WERE FIRST. Even though Ivy was determined to look at everybody with preconceived notions, all she saw when she looked at the two men was light. They were happy, in love, and built to last. There was nothing hidden under the surface with them. They were open and loving, and she couldn’t look at them as suspects.
Up next were Vanessa and Nate. While Jack was completely fixated on the fact that Vanessa didn’t have a real job — Ivy didn’t quite understand it either — the couple seemed to be all surface and little substance. To Ivy, that sent up warning flags.
Wicked Honeymoon (An Ivy Morgan Mystery Book 19) Page 12