by Julie Miller
Atticus scooted off the bench seat after his mother and rose to kiss Melissa’s cheek. “I’m glad you and Pearl got the diner open again so quickly.” He was even more glad she’d survived the explosion that her late ex-husband had set in his obsessive need to either own her or destroy her. “Pearl was smart to make you a co-owner. The food’s still just as good, but I like the changes I’m seeing.”
Melissa nodded her thanks. “There are still a few repairs to be made. But it’s mostly exterior work now—finishing the brickwork, painting the sign on the new window. Our regular customers were starting to line up at the door in the mornings, so we had to open up.”
Atticus was marginally aware of Brooke remaining in her seat. But she gave Sawyer a hug, and exchanged words with everyone, so she wasn’t completely left out.
“Don’t be a stranger.” Susan Kincaid squeezed her hand and Brooke smiled.
“I won’t.”
“All right, let’s get this show on the road.” Susan directed her sons and extended family toward the front door with the authority of a traffic cop. “Atticus and Brooke came here for a business meeting, and we’ve gotten them completely off schedule.”
Sawyer and Mel went on out to their truck to load Ben into his car seat. While Bill and Holden argued over who was paying the bill, Atticus willingly followed when his mother pulled him aside. She loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, worried, as usual, that he was working too much. “Is anything wrong with Brooke? I thought she looked a bit pale when we came in.”
Atticus grinned. “You don’t think the shock of seeing all of you walk through the door together could turn anyone into a ghost?”
But his mother was too intuitive about such things to laugh. “You’re unusually quiet yourself tonight. Now you are certainly not the most rambunctious of my sons, but when I can hear you thinking over in the corner instead of trading zingers with your brothers, I worry.”
“I’m okay, Mom.”
“And Brooke?”
He wasn’t about to lie to his mother, but he wasn’t ready to share details about Brooke’s unwanted fan or that out-of-place attraction he was feeling for her, either. And he definitely didn’t want to get his mother’s hopes up about Brooke’s journal and the messages John Kincaid had hidden there.
He opted for a vague version of the truth. “There was an incident on her way home from work, and Brooke was a little rattled by it.”
“An incident, hmm?” Susan’s warm brown eyes narrowed, telling him she knew there was more to that answer. But she didn’t push. Instead, she stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him and hug him tight around the neck. “When you’ve got it all sorted out in your head, call me, okay? All I want to do is listen. In the meantime, you look out for her. Brooke means too much to this family to allow her to be hurt.”
“I’m looking out for her, Mom. And I’ll call soon, I promise.”
Susan smiled and cupped his cheek. “Look out for yourself, too.”
“Su, are you ready?” Bill Caldwell walked up behind Susan. He extended his hand to Atticus. “Good to see you again, A.”
“You, too,” Atticus replied, shaking hands.
“Making any progress?”
Susan gave him a reproving look. “Bill, you promised we wouldn’t talk about John’s murder. We’re celebrating Sawyer and Melissa’s news tonight.”
Caldwell’s eyes crinkled in a wry frown beside the silver streaks at his temples. “I’m sorry, Su. I don’t mean to spoil the evening.” He draped his arm around her shoulders and gave her an apologetic squeeze. His arm settled comfortably in place and remained there. “But a man starts to get a little paranoid when not one, but two of his friends are murdered. James McBride served with John and me in the army before he came to work for me at Caldwell Technologies. I keep going over names of anyone the two of them would be connected to, including me. There were other men from that same unit whom I’ve hired over the years, either full-time or as consultants. Do I tell them they may be on some hit list, too?”
The hackles at the back of Atticus’s neck went up when he saw the stricken look on his mother’s face. “Drop it, Bill.”
“I’m ashamed to admit that I’m a little afraid myself.” It seemed to require a monumental amount of will for Caldwell to first make the admission, and then set it aside. A man who ran a multimillion-dollar technology development corporation probably wasn’t used to being unable to control of every facet of his life. “My offer to post a reward for information still stands. Any amount, you name it. Or I can hire a team of private investigators if that will help.”
“KCPD will find Dad’s killer,” Atticus insisted. When they lost one of their own, they took care of it. That was probably why he was willing to risk his career by poking through Brooke’s journal before letting Detective Grove decide whether or not there was any useful information in it.
He’d lost one of his own.
Caldwell nodded. “Of course. I have every faith that you and your brothers will get the job done. Look at the man who raised you.”
“Aww, Bill.” Susan reached up to pat Bill’s hand where it still rested on her shoulder. And if those were tears that suddenly glistened in her eyes, she quickly wiped them away. “My sons are the best legacy John could have possibly left behind.”
“All right, already. So I’m a god. All this mushiness has to stop.” Sometime during the conversation, Holden had joined their circle. His tongue-in-cheek humor was just the ticket to elicit a laugh from Susan, which eased Atticus’s concern as well. With the mood of the group officially lifted, Holden leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll drive you home, Mom.”
Bill Caldwell waved the offer aside. “I brought your mom. I can take her home.”
Susan Kincaid wrapped her arm around the waist of her youngest son and tilted her head back to see his face. “Thanks, hon. But your apartment’s in a different direction and I know you’ve come off your two-day shift and need some sleep. I’ll just ride with Bill.”
“I don’t mind.”
She pulled him down to her level for a hug and kissed him. “Go home.”
She tapped Atticus in the middle of the chest and slyly pointed toward the booth where he’d left Brooke sitting by herself. “Go back before she thinks you’ve abandoned her.”
He nodded.
“And Atticus?” He watched her expression change from teasing to solemn. “Brooke always took such good care of your father. You take good care of her.”
“I will.”
Atticus held the door open for his mother and Bill, but Holden stayed put, waiting until the glass door swung shut again before speaking.
He nodded toward Caldwell and their mother as the older gentleman helped her into his Mercedes. “You okay with that?”
“I trust Bill to drive her home.”
Holden’s blue eyes reflected his concern. “Don’t be so dense, smart guy. I mean the fact that he’s hittin’ on Mom. Hell, it’s only been three months since we buried Dad.”
“Bill? He was Dad’s best friend. One of Mom’s, too. They’re leaning on each other for support right now because they’re both still in mourning.”
“If you say so. They’ve been spending a lot of time together lately. And he keeps finding reasons to touch her.”
Old friends becoming lovers? Maybe the idea of such a change was a little unsettling. But Atticus wasn’t sure he was thinking of his mother and Bill Caldwell.
No. Finding his father’s killer came first. Doing his job came first. Preserving a perfectly good relationship as it was would be the smart thing to do. “I wouldn’t worry too much. Mom isn’t ready to start seeing anyone yet.”
“Maybe. But does he know that?” They stood and watched until Bill Caldwell and their mother drove away. But instead of heading out the door himself, Holden hooked his thumbs into the back pockets of his jeans and made himself at home in Atticus’s business. “And what’s the deal with you and Brooke? You’ve been sneaki
n’ looks at her all night long.”
Atticus let his gaze slide over to the table. Brooke didn’t even seem to notice that she was alone. She’d already opened up the journal and was poring over it, nearly nose to page, as she read through it without her glasses. Wearing them perched on top of her head, there was something adorably earnest yet vulnerable about the utter concentration lining her eyes.
“Yeah, A. Sneakin’ looks just like that one.” Man, that was a wicked grin.
“There is no deal.” He thumped Holden on the shoulder, telling him he was making more out of a couple of glances and attentive old friends than he needed to. “What Mom said. Go home.”
Ignoring the teasing overtones of Holden’s laugh, Atticus pushed him out the door and returned to his ice-cold dinner. “Hey. You want to try again? We can order something hot to eat.”
“No, thanks.” Her lip disappeared as her gaze darted to the window. But she never looked at him.
Sliding back into the seat across from Brooke, Atticus briefly wondered if there was any merit to what Holden had said. Could Bill be developing more than a friendly interest in Susan Kincaid? Was there a parallelism to his own observations of Brooke?
And what the heck was she up to now?
Climbing up on her knees in the vinyl seat, she pulled her glasses back into place and peered out the diner’s front window to the sidewalk below. She glanced down at the journal, then back to the sidewalk. Curious.
“Brooke?”
“It’s a brick!”
“Excuse me?”
She pointed out the window. “The pallets out there gave me the idea. Well, it’s a rock. I don’t actually have bricks. But I had talked about changing the interior with your father at one time. In the end, Peggy and Lou and I decided to stick with the limestone to be consistent with—”
He tried to slow her down. “What are you talking about?”
“The map in the journal.” She cleared a spot on the table and spun the book around, pointing to the markings on the picture. “B6N. Brick 6 North. NR. New Row.” Before he could focus in, she closed the book and stuffed it into her purse, uncurling her legs and moving out of the booth all at the same time. “When Mr. McCarthy and his men installed the double door leading to the sun porch, they had to add an extra row of new limestone blocks because the original 1896 archway was too high to fit modern standard door measurements. John was there the day they were refitting the archway. He’s talking about the bricks.” Her fingers skittered in the air as she tried to halt her own rapid gunfire ramblings. “I mean the blocks.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She was on her feet now, pulling her skirt back down around her calves and slinging her purse up over her shoulder. “But I intend to locate B6N and find out.”
“Whoa, whoa.” He grabbed her arm as she scooted past. “Where are you going?”
“Home.” She tugged against his grip, inviting him to join her, not pulling away. “Are you coming with me?”
Oh, yeah. Her brain was cookin’. Her excitement was contagious. He tossed a couple of bills onto the table, and hurried to join her on her way out the door.
Chapter Eight
“The scenes with all the snow should cool you off just fine.”
Brooke set the note on the granite counter and smiled. Normally, she would have loved to check out a classic movie like Dr. Zhivago with her aunts. But tonight she was a woman on a mission. It was about to get noisy and dusty in here, and it would probably send Louise into some kind of conniption to see any of the carefully reconstructed church being torn apart again. Tonight, she was glad to have the house to herself.
Well, mostly to herself.
“The note from Aunt Peggy says they decided to drive over to Glenwood to see Dr. Zhivago at the Retro. After working outside for most of the day, they thought an air-conditioned theater was the best way to beat the summer heat.” She spread her arms in a wide gesture and apologized for the house’s muggy atmosphere. “As you can tell, we don’t have the central air running yet.”
“Not a problem.”
Not for her, at any rate. Atticus Kincaid was dangerous sophistication in his suit and tie. But tonight he’d shed the jacket and rolled up his sleeves to set up two ladders and scaffolding in front of the locked double doors leading to her unfinished sunporch. The air of danger still clung to him as she watched him work. She supposed the holster he wore and his get-the-job-done focus added that. But there was something more earthy, more intimate about exposing the tanned column of his throat and the dusting of dark hair along his forearms as his muscles flexed with the task and glistened in response to the heat of the summer night.
The heavy toolbox she’d carried out to the kitchen from her bedroom rattled like Jacob Marley’s chains when she picked it up and hauled it over to the sunporch doors. “I’ll go ahead and open some windows. If there’s any breeze at all, we’ll get a decent crosscurrent.”
“Here.” He hopped down from the three-foot platform he’d built and took the toolbox from her grip. What she’d toted with two hands, he picked up in a smooth one-handed swing and set it on the scaffolding. “We’ll need a hammer and chisel to break up that mortar, and then a pry bar to move those rocks.”
Perhaps succumbing a bit to the heat herself, Brooke unhooked the top two buttons of her blouse as she watched him sort through the tools and pull on a pair of canvas work gloves. His back and shoulders flexed with each precise movement and she wondered how shameless it would seem if she kept right on unhooking buttons.
The windows. Open the windows and cool off before you embarrass yourself. Not that she was any kind of expert in the art of catching a man’s eye, but she had a feeling that drooling would not be the most attractive thing she could do. “I’ll just get the windows,” she said out loud, needing the extra impetus to move away from him.
Atticus was diving into this treasure hunt with as much enthusiasm as she. He trusted that her idea was the right one—at least it was good enough for him to take a chance on. She didn’t know which it was that made her nerves dance and her skin flush with anticipation—working beside the sexy detective or basking in his unqualified support of her crazy idea.
Staying true to its architectural design, they’d left the shape of the original church windows intact—tall and narrow, running from thigh height to near the line of the ceiling. And though each window came to a point with stained-glass inserts at the top, the bottom of each window had been fitted with modern insulated frames with shades installed between the glass.
“You lock those at night, right?” Atticus queried. “At that height, especially, I can’t tell you how easy it’d be to cut the screen and climb in if someone wanted to.”
She pushed the first window open, deciding this wasn’t the time to admit that she and her aunts did sleep with their bedroom windows open at night. It was just too darn hot not to. “We plan to have a security system installed before the construction is completed.”
Meaning it wasn’t there now. Meaning she didn’t have to admit anything—Atticus already knew. She felt his heat behind her a split second before he reached around to inspect the window’s new locks for himself. “Lock them when it’s just you or your aunts here,” he ordered. “It’s better to sweat than to scream. Remember how you felt in that parking garage this afternoon?”
Helpless. Terrified.
She shivered at the ominous words of wisdom. A second later, his gloved hands were on her shoulders, kneading away the fear, kindling a whole new different kind of tension.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he whispered against her ear. His breath danced along her neck. His touch warmed her deep inside. Atticus’s massage felt completely different from Mirza’s awkward grope. This touch felt seductive. Intimate. Right. “I just want you to be smart. And safe.”
Brooke nodded. “I will.”
Before she succumbed to the urge to lean into his sheltering body once more, he pulled away and returned t
o work. “So all that lumber stacked outside is to finish the second floor and sundeck?”
“That’s right.”
“And the flagstones?”
She opened another window and followed him back to the scaffolding. “Paving the sunporch.”
He set the toolbox on the floor and climbed to the three-foot platform. “It looks like McCarthy has more supplies and equipment outside than you have room for in here.”
“We gutted everything from floor to ceiling, so there’s been plenty to rebuild inside.”
“Plenty of places out there for a man to hide if he wanted to.”
Brooke looked up at his stern countenance, towering above her. A shadow of evening beard stubble only seemed to darken his expression. “You know, as far as giving reassuring pep talks go, you suck.”
His chest-deep laugh took years off his tight-lipped expression and dissipated the dire mood his matter-of-fact warnings had created. “If you want warm fuzzies, talk to Sawyer. If you want the facts, I’m your man.” With a mockingly gallant bow, he held out his hand to help her climb up. “May I?”
Kicking off the beat-up heels she still wore, Brooke wrapped her fingers around the worn canvas glove and strong hand underneath. Warm fuzzies were fine for a big brother. Atticus’s unvarnished facts and abundant skills and strengths made her feel safe, yet off-kilter in a way that was as unfamiliar as it was exciting.
Once she stood beside him, he picked up the hammer and chisel. “So where do I start?”
The new row of stones and mortar above the door frame was obvious. Brooke studied the puzzle. “I don’t know if your dad meant to count six blocks to the north, or to count from the north end.”
Atticus handed her a pair of safety goggles like the ones he’d put on, and counted off the limestone blocks with the chisel. “Looks like the second one from either end. Where do you want me to do the damage?”
Brooke reviewed the design of John’s sketch in her mind and decided. “This one.”