Not that she noticed, but come on. The body and that face. The pronounced nose and deep-set eyes. He could cut glass with that chiseled chin.
“Do you have news . . .” The man’s gaze bounced to hers and those dark eyes widened. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you.”
Ben snagged her coat and hung it up with his before heading for his desk. “Connor Rye, this is Maddie Rhine. I just noticed your names sound alike.”
She glared at Ben for that.
“Hi.” Connor smiled at her as he held out a hand in greeting.
She hadn’t figured out how to make any of her muscles move again. Lost in the buzz humming in her brain, she stared at Connor’s long fingers. Since when were a guy’s hands hot?
“Uh, okay.” His eyebrow lifted as he started to drop his arm. “Not the handshake type?”
“Sorry.” She grabbed for his hand and pretended not to notice the smile that came and went on his lips as she squashed his fingers in a death grip.
“No problem.”
So much for playing it cool. “You look like Hansen.”
She just blurted that out. Still held his hand in a clench that made him wince and came out with a brilliant gem like that. She finally let go of his fingers and stepped back. Rammed her butt right into the doorknob and gasped.
This was turning into a hell of a day.
Connor looked from her to Ben. “Just so I’m forewarned here. Are there any other Korean, or Asian people at all, on Whitaker or am I it?” When neither of them answered, the hottie nodded and started talking again. “I’m just trying to figure out if everyone is going to assume that I’m related to the last Asian guy who lived here because of some weird stereotype or for some other reason.”
And now he thought she was an ass. Possibly a racist one. Maddie silently congratulated herself. This was going really well.
“First, you’re one of three, though I’m not sure how good our residents are at telling Korean from Japanese or any other group because, you’re right, they seem to think all local Asians are related.” Ben slid into his leather chair and nodded for Connor to retake his seat.
Connor sighed. “That’s bullshit.”
Ben nodded. “Agreed. And, second, you actually are related to Hansen. I knew that when we met last night because you said it. Also, because your brother sent me a photo of you so that I could welcome you when you arrived on Whitaker. You are one of the few people on Earth who actually looks like their photo, by the way.”
“Fair enough.” Connor glanced over his shoulder at her. “And you?”
Lines of babble filled her brain. She had to wade through all the words and ridiculous verbal wrong turns to find something to say. “Ben told me you were here and had some trouble last night. I made the connection from there.”
“Maddie answers phones for the police department and a bunch of businesses in town.” Ben looked at her then stared at the empty chair next to Connor. Ben didn’t say another word until she sat down in it. Then he glanced at Connor again. “The longer you stick around the island, the more likely you’ll hear her voice on the other end of the line.”
“Okay.” Connor didn’t sound angry or confused or . . . anything really. His deep voice rolled out of him with ease, all confident and sure.
That made her twitchy.
She shot up and out of her seat again. “I should get back to work.”
Ben cleared his throat. “Maddie.”
She got to the door in two steps. Nearly ran into it before turning around to face Ben again. “Hmm?”
“Is there anything you want to say to Connor?”
She glanced at Connor and the confused expression on his pretty face. She feared that every time she saw him from now on or heard his name the phrase Connor McHottiePants would run through her head.
Yeah, no. “Nope, I’m good.”
“Maddie.” Ben’s voice sounded louder and more firm this time.
Her shoulders fell and she stopped fumbling with the doorknob that refused to turn. “Stop saying my name.”
“I have all the fibers and prints. Sooner or later I’ll—”
“No!” Not this way. She wanted to slide into it. Let some of Connor’s anger burn off first.
Connor’s frown took on a need-to-run tinge. She recognized the expression because she saw it in the mirror most mornings.
“Should I come back?” Connor started to stand up. Got halfway there. “This feels like a personal thing.”
Wait, no. Not personal. She had an explanation. It was . . . a mistake. Being neighborly and she misfired. Very simple. “It’s not.”
Ben sighed. “It’s about you.”
Connor sat back down hard enough in the chair to make the wood creak and groan under what she was guessing was a pretty impressive butt.
His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. “What’s going on?”
She thought about counting to ten or inhaling really deep to find some well of hidden courage inside her. She didn’t have time for either because Ben opened his mouth, and she knew whatever tumbled out would not be good for her. She held up a hand to him. “Stop.”
Ben sighed again. “Let’s get to it.”
She shifted a bit so she stood just off to the side of Connor’s chair. “It was me.”
Connor stared at her. “What was?”
“What happened. It was me.” There, she said it. Now he could—
The staring gave way to a frown. “I’m lost.”
This was Ben’s fault. She glared at him. “I told you this was the wrong time.”
“You never said that and you would be incorrect if you had.” Ben tapped his pen against his desk blotter. “Do it now while you can still fix this, or I take over.”
Connor cleared his throat. “Could someone—”
Maddie dove in, cutting Connor off midsentence. “I was walking by and thought someone was breaking into the cabin. You could have been dangerous, so I got out of there fast.”
Okay, none of that was true. She’d gone to check out the cabin as a potential hiding place, in case she needed one in the future. With Hansen she’d watched the house for more than a week. Lately there was some activity when one of the town’s two cleaning services stopped by.
It only took twenty dollars slipped to the cleaners’ receptionist to find out the person who hired the service wasn’t Hansen. That got her thinking. Notes. Someone possibly hiding on the island and watching her . . . and the idea for a cabin search took hold.
“I don’t . . .” The sort-of smile vanished from Connor’s face. “Wait . . .”
She really didn’t want to. She wrapped her fingers around the doorknob instead. Pressed until her palm ached from all the clenching. “So, we good here?”
“No,” Ben said.
Connor turned in his chair and faced her. “What are you telling me?”
She tightened her grip on the knob. “Nothing.”
“I’m going to say your name again,” Ben warned.
As if she needed two angry men staring at her right now. “This is why I don’t like coming into the office.”
Ben snorted. “Is it?”
“Hold up.” Connor raised one finger. That was it. Just one. “Could we get back to the part where you admitted to breaking into my cabin?”
Just her luck that he was the type to have no problem keeping up with a purposely disjointed conversation. “I saw movement and wanted to scare off whoever was inside your cabin, the same cabin I thought was empty and not really yours.”
The words landed and sat there. No one said anything. Both men continued staring at her in silence. She had to fight to keep from shifting her weight around. Or bolting from the room.
“So, yeah. That happened.” She cut off the words there, figuring less was better in this instance.
Connor leaned forward in his chair. “You were playing the role of informal neighborhood watch?”
“Sure. That sounds reasonable, right?” After years of pretending
to be someone else she should be better at lying. She vowed to work on that skill to prevent scenes like this in the future.
Connor didn’t blink. “You’re the one who hit me?”
“I was trying to help.” That wasn’t even a little bit true. With the notes, she was on edge but he still deserved an explanation. Shame she didn’t have a good one. Except panic. She lived in that state now.
No one had stepped off the ferry and stayed on Whitaker in more than a month. After all the press died down about the killings that happened here over the summer and the unexpected visit from a US Senator, gawkers came. She hid from all of them, not wanting her location to be exposed in the rush of interest about the people on Whitaker, who they were, and why they came here. She ignored every reporter and refused to read any of the special interest stories or the news about what happened.
Then he came—McHottiePants—right as she’d started to relax, and she hadn’t been ready.
Connor hadn’t stopped watching her since she made the semihonest, half-rambling admission of sorts. He leaned forward and balanced his elbows on his thighs. “I was napping on the couch.”
And that was a good point. One she couldn’t really get around without accidentally tripping up and spilling far too much about her past. “Yeah, well. Criminals are weird. We’ve all heard stories about them robbing banks and dropping their driver’s licenses.”
Connor looked at Ben. “Does that sort of thing happen a lot on Whitaker?”
He shook his head. “Never, actually.”
She fiddled with the knob, turning it and ignoring the clicking sound it made. “I thought I was helping.”
“By hitting me with . . .” Connor’s eyebrow rose. “What was it?”
“A piece of firewood.” From his yard, but she left that part out because they had enough facts floating around without adding more.
“Jesus,” Ben whispered under his breath.
“Not a hard hit.” She felt like that qualification should be out there.
“Lucky me.” Connor didn’t show any emotion. “And once I was on the floor you jumped on my back.”
Ben whistled that time. “This story keeps getting better and better.”
She tried not to be distracted. Breaking eye contact with Connor didn’t prove to be that easy anyway. Something about McHottiePants held her spellbound. “Self-defense classes.”
“More like a wrestling class.”
“As I said. It was an honest mistake.” Time to go. She got the door halfway open. “Back to work.”
“Wait a second.” Connor’s voice sounded flat but it still came with a punch of power behind it.
She sighed at him. All she wanted was to get out of there before guilt pushed her into babbling about her entire life story. Something she never did and didn’t want to start now. “Any chance we could chalk this up to a terrible mistake and move on?”
His eyes widened. “I have four stitches.”
That explained the bandage. The guilt thumped and kicked at her. It bubbled up inside her and had her looking at Ben. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“This is my fault now?” he asked.
Okay, no. But . . . She gnawed on her lip as she returned her attention to Connor. To that bandage. To the cute way his hair stuck up a bit around the edges. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
She really thought she’d grazed his shoulder. The room was dark and her nerves had been bouncing around and all that tension had her patience pulled tight and . . . man, she really did hurt him. The thought of that made her feel sick.
“The goal was to stun you so I could run out.” Not that the explanation made his pain any better, but it was the truth.
“Well, that worked.” He sat back in his chair again, not breaking his focus. “Did you come in when I was sleeping?”
That sounded better than the truth about her being there, lying in wait and searching the place for both hiding place potential and for answers on who paid the cleaning people. “Sure.”
“Then how did you get in the door?”
Well, damn. She was hoping he’d skip over that part. “Hmm?”
“The cabin, Maddie.” The calm returned to his voice.
Are we on a first-name basis? She guessed she couldn’t really bark at him about that under the circumstances.
Her mind raced to fill in the blanks and make sense of her previous really bad choice. But that was the point. She’d messed up. Fear and panic fueled her actions and he’d paid the price. That sucked and her chest ached at the thought of hurting him.
There wasn’t a reasonable way to explain the unreasonable. So she fell back on semitruths again. “I walked through the front door. Like people do.”
“It was locked.”
She thought she saw a flicker of a smile cross his face before he shot back that answer, but that couldn’t be right . . . could it? “Are you sure?”
“I live in Washington, D.C. I lock my door like people who live in cities do.”
Okay, yeah. She was out of her league. He didn’t let things go. She needed to get out of the room now, think, and come up with . . . something. “That’s very smart. Good for you.”
Then she did what any woman in her place would do. She ran out of there, leaving her coat and most of her dignity behind.
Connor stared at Maddie’s back as she raced out of the office, letting the door bounce against the far wall, and bolted through the reception area to the outside. As far as exits went, it was impressive.
A lot about the scene he just survived struck him as impressive. Like her. She was about five-foot-seven of pure fire. The dirty-blond hair, wavy and long, framing her face like a halo. Those big green eyes. That not-to-be-ignored ass.
And she had a swing that nearly knocked him out, which brought his mind back to his main concern. “She just walked out of here.”
Ben made a humming sound as if he were trying to figure out what he just witnessed. “Yep.”
“In the middle of the conversation.” That was the part that had Connor stumped. Did she really think she could run and he would let this drop?
Ben nodded. “That did happen, yes.”
“She didn’t even apologize.”
“It kind of sounded like she expected you to thank her for watching after the cabin, but I agree that part was fuzzy.”
Right then Connor decided he liked Ben. He didn’t play games or throw his weight around. He looked and sounded as stumped as Connor was. But none of that explained Maddie’s actions. “What the hell is going on with her?”
“Admittedly, even for Whitaker that conversation was weird.” Ben shuffled the folders around on his desk and took out some papers. “Look, you can press charges and—”
“I’m not doing that.” Connor knew panic when he saw it. He’d failed his sister but he’d learned to look for the signs now. He had no plans on being the world’s savior, but he had made a personal vow to step in when and if he could. There had been enough death on his watch.
“Because?”
“There’s obviously something strange happening with her. Around her. I’m not sure.” He sensed whatever drove her to attack him was bigger than what they could cover in a few minutes during this conversation. “And, not to be an asshole here, but I don’t exactly trust the police.”
“Subtle.”
Connor shrugged. “It’s a learned response.”
He’d spent so much time after his sister’s death trying to get someone, anyone, to believe she had been killed. Hansen had gone to extremes and gotten himself in trouble. Connor had tried to follow the rules. Back then he’d marched up the chain of command and told his story. Doing the right thing in the right way earned him nothing. Not a damn thing.
“I get you have a past, but I think you’ll find I’m not a total dick,” Ben said.
Connor guessed that was true but he wasn’t ready to admit that yet. “Maybe.”
“But about the charges. You have every right.
Upset or not, what she did was not okay.”
Connor waved the words off. There was no way he was putting a tough woman who was trying not to be scared in a jail cell. He refused to be that guy. “I just want to know why she went wild.” A thought hit him and he froze. “Wait, did she and Hansen have some sort of problem?”
“I doubt they ever met.”
That made absolutely no sense. “He lived here for a year. I’ve been here for about a day and have had two run-ins with her.”
“She’s . . . reclusive. People tend to say they just saw her but can’t describe what she was wearing or what she was doing. She has a unique ability to blend in.” Ben looked like he wanted to tell Connor more, as if he were waging some internal battle, but then shook his head.
“You know that’s unusual, right? I mean, I get that Whitaker works differently from other places, but her level of self-protection and wariness is a bit much.”
“There are things in her past, things that are none of our business, that make her very careful of people and promises. She’s not the type to let people in.”
Just as Connor suspected. “Join the club.”
Ben nodded. “Then you get it.”
“Her antipeople stance is fine with me so long as she doesn’t come into my house and attack me with a stick again.”
Some of the seriousness strangling the room eased away as Ben laughed. “Not an unreasonable requirement. But at least we know there’s not some angry person out there, trying to hurt you.”
“I should be able to sleep in the cabin tonight without a knife under my pillow.”
Ben’s smile grew. “Aren’t you the risk taker?”
“One question.”
Ben braced his hands on the armrests of his chair. “Shoot.”
“Any other women on the island in the habit of breaking into a random stranger’s house and attacking him?” Because even Connor had his limits.
“Excellent question. We’ll see, won’t we?”
Chapter 5
Connor liked Sylvia Sussex the second he met her. She owned Berman’s Lodge, the combination historic hotel and favorite eating establishment in the middle of Whitaker’s downtown. She was also the head of something called the Whitaker Board, but when he asked for details, she just rolled her eyes. And that made him like her even more.
The Secret She Keeps EPB Page 3