Inca had stopped listening, but she caught Nancy’s tone and grinned at her. “You hate them already.”
Nancy shrugged. “Poor little rich boys. Strange that two thirty-five-year-olds still live together.”
“Twins,” Scarlett shrugged, by way of explanation. “They are gorgeous though. Look, Inca, look at those eyes, those bodies … God.”
Inca grinned. “Drooling at work is most unseemly, Scarlett.”
“But look …” She shoved the iPad back at Inca who, sighing, took it. Scarlett wasn’t wrong. Tommaso and Raffaelo Winter were heartbreakingly handsome; they had that brooding, sexy thing going on. Inca studied them, trying to pick out the differences. Raffaelo’s eyes were wary, his curls slightly longer and wilder, but that was it. They looked like movie stars. Inca handed the iPad back.
“You know what they look like? Trouble.”
Scarlett grinned. “Yeah … fantastic.”
Inca opened her apartment door, rolling her eyes and giving him a disapproving look. “It’s eleven p.m.”
Olly shrugged.
“Come on in.” Inca stood back to let him pass and squinted at him. “Nancy told you, right?”
“Question is,” Olly said, “why didn’t you?”
She fixed him some tea, and Olly thanked her as she passed him the cup. Inca sank into the sofa, pulling her legs up under herm and studied her friend with a critical eye. Olly, at thirty-three, was five years her senior. His light brown hair was cut short, his hazel eyes crinkled at the edges. Clean-cut, all-American, Olly Rosenbaum was the epitome of trustworthy and noble.
“You’re not my bodyguard, Olly.” She softened her words with a smile. “It was really nothing. I handled it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Olly raised his eyebrows at her. Inca rolled her eyes.
“Because you have enough to do, and what could you have done anyway? Nothing. It was over in less than two minutes and I’m fine. Like I said, you’re not my bodyguard.”
Olly sipped his tea. “Are you pissed with me or something?”
“No, sweetie, just tired. How’re things with you?”
Olly nodded. “Good. Good. Listen, Inks, um …”
Inca suppressed a smile. “What’s her name?”
Olly laughed, his expression sheepish. “Molly. She’s a criminologist, working out of the city.”
Inca felt a pang in her chest but smiled at him. “Nice. How long have you been seeing her?”
“A week or two. Look, I wanted to tell you because I’m thinking of taking her to Levi and Jim’s and I didn’t want to just tip up there and—”
“I get it,” Inca interrupted. “Look, Olly, we’re adults and friends. It’s okay, really. I look forward to meeting her. We both need to move on.”
Later, after Olly left, Inca went into the bathroom to shower and get ready for bed. She stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her long dark hair and grabbed her moisturizer. Gazing in the mirror, she looked at herself critically. She had café-au-lait skin courtesy of her Indian birth mother and almond-shaped green eyes from her Japanese-American father. She knew people considered her beautiful, but Inca could never see what the fuss was about. She had to be honest; the attention she got wasn’t always welcome. Catcalls, lascivious and repellent remarks, even grabbing hands, had all been part of her life since she was a teenager. Her curvy body drew men to her constantly. It was the reason why she had taken self-defense classes.
Inca couldn’t remember when her dislike of the attention had started. Nancy and Tyler had adopted her from a very young age and she couldn’t remember her life before that. She’d asked Nancy once, and Nancy, her face pale, had merely told her. “Be thankful you can’t remember.”
Inca had been satisfied with that for a while. But lately, she had been having vicious nightmares about violence and a woman screaming. She had woken up shivering and gasping for air.
Even with Olly, it had taken her a few weeks of dating before she trusted him enough to sleep with him. Inca laughed softly to herself now, wondering how many other twenty-eight year olds could boast of only ever having one lover. She clicked off the bathroom light and got into bed, thinking about what Olly had told her. Inca wondered if she herself would ever find anyone else and realized that if she didn’t, it wouldn’t bother her. She was happy enough alone.
Olly Rosenbaum made his way to the small town’s police department. His nightshift was just starting and he flicked through a couple of messages, before settling down to some paperwork. It was a half-hour before one of his deputies, Fred, stuck his head in the door.
“Boss? We just got a call. A body’s been found, down near the reservoir. Looks like a homicide.”
Everyone was talking in hushed tones as Inca arrived at work the next morning, clumping down the stairs, still half-asleep. She definitely wasn’t a morning person.
“Hey y’all,” she said sleepily to Scarlett and Tish, the other teenager she employed. Tish had bright red hair and wore full make-up even at this time of morning. They grunted in greeting, then went back to their conversation. Inca switched the coffee machine on and went to open the front door. “You two thinking of doing any work today?” she said pointedly.
Scarlett, her usual grin missing, turned to her. “Have you heard?”
“About what?”
“There was a body found up near the reservoir last night. A young woman. She was stabbed to death.”
Inca felt sick. “God, that’s horrific. How did you hear?”
“On the news; national as well as local. Really brutal, too.”
“Poor woman.”
As if on cue, Olly pushed into the teahouse, followed by a small, dark woman. He greeted them and introduced her. “This is Molly Welsh; she’s been collecting evidence at the scene.” He gave Inca a meaningful look and she realized this was his new girlfriend, Molly.
She smiled at the newcomer, noticing how different she and Molly were. Molly was even tinier than Inca, and effortlessly chic, almost French in her way of dress. She had short cropped dark hair, huge brown eyes, and a cute face. She smiled back at Inca with genuine friendliness.
Inca got them both coffee and sat down with them. Olly shook his head. “It’s bad, Inks. Poor kid was only young, late teens, early twenties. Stabbed repeatedly in the stomach, almost gutted.”
Inca grimaced. “Who would do that? I can’t remember the last time we had a murder around here.”
“1976,” Olly said. “Before either of us was born. That’s how rare it is.”
“Any leads?”
“None.”
Inca smiled at Molly and changed the subject. “So, I hear you’re going to be wined and dined at Levi and Jim’s?”
Molly nodded. “I’ve heard great things.”
“You heard right. Levi is a genius chef and what Jim doesn’t know about wine isn’t worth knowing.”
“They’re a couple, right?”
“Right. Although don’t be surprised when you see them; you would never know they were a couple unless you knew them. Always busting each other’s balls like they’re brothers rather than lovers.”
“That’s what best friends are for,” Olly said, winking at Inca. Inca rolled her eyes and got up.
“I’ll leave you two alone. Gotta get back to it. It was really good to meet you, Molly.”
“You too.”
It was only later, when Inca skipped out to go to the Farmer’s Market, that a sense of loneliness crept over her. She might be having trouble getting over the breakup of the relationship, but she knew Olly had been right to end it. Still, she wondered if her heart would ever ‘unfreeze’; the idea of that shocked her. Had she even given her all to Olly? Was that the reason why he had ended it? She couldn’t tell.
Loading her groceries into her car, she was startled by the squeal of tires as a Porsche screeched into the parking spot beside her. The driver got out; he was tall, with wild dark curls, and when he turned towards her, she could see his
intense green eyes. He stopped when he saw her and Inca flushed at his scrutiny. His eyes seemed to bore right into hers, searching, questioning.
Inca got flustered and one of her bags slipped out of her hands, spilling fruit across the parking lot. She scrambled to retrieve it and she sensed him walking towards her. He crouched down and helped her, without saying a word. As he handed her an orange, his fingers brushed hers and she felt a jolt of electricity. She looked up to see him staring at her. A furious pulse began to beat between her legs and she couldn’t look away. He was unsmiling, but his face wasn’t unfriendly, just entirely focused on her.
Inca managed to find her voice. “Thank you.”
They both stood at the same time. He dwarfed her petite frame and Inca suddenly felt both utterly vulnerable and supremely turned on. He gave a curt nod then, in a motion so quick she hardly registered it, brushed the back of his finger down her cheek. It left her skin burning, but he turned away and stalked off, leaving Inca open-mouthed behind him.
She got into the car and sat, blinking. “What the hell was that?” She glanced at her burning face in the mirror, half expecting there to be a scorch mark where he had touched her. There wasn’t, of course, but her entire face was bright red. She sucked in a deep breath. Jesus.
On her drive back to the teahouse, she suddenly remembered where she had seen him. He was one of the Winter twins. She suddenly wished she’d paid more attention to the article Scarlett had pointed out. So, they must have completed on the Fletcher mansion and moved in … there hadn’t been as much fanfare as she would have expected, given Scarlett’s excitement. But maybe they were just a private family.
She got her answer when she returned to the Sakura. Gasping from the cold air that whipped around her, she stumbled into the backroom of the teahouse and dumped the bags of groceries on the floor. Tugging her coat off, she could hear Scarlett’s infectious laugh, Nancy’s soft chuckle, and another voice, masculine, deeper, accented. Inca felt a thrill go through her as she walked into the teahouse’s main room and saw him there. Dark curls, now brushed into a neat style, intense green eyes but now he wore a friendly smile. He looked up as Inca came into the room and his smile widened. She felt her face burn.
“Hello again,” she said, but his eyebrows shot up.
“I’m sorry?”
God, that voice. Deep, mellifluous, sexy as all hell. Inca blinked. “We just met? At the Farmer’s Market?”
He smiled. “I very much wish we had, but I think that may have been my brother.”
Now that she saw him, yeah, he was wearing entirely different clothes and, instead of being combed neatly, she realized this man’s hair was shorter. Apart from that, there was absolutely no telling them apart. She smiled.
“I’m sorry, my mistake.”
He stuck his hand out. “Tommaso Winter.”
“Inca Sardee.”
His green eyes sparkled. “Unusual name.”
She grinned. “Indian. My birth mother was Indian.” She had no idea why she was telling him that and gave an embarrassed cough. Scarlett and Nancy were watching the interaction, Scarlett grinning openly. Inca surreptitiously kicked her friend. “Well, I hope my mom and this reprobate were making you feel at home. I understand you’ve bought the Fletcher mansion?”
Now she sounded like she was interviewing him.
God, woman, are you really going to fall apart at the sight of a handsome face?
But ‘handsome’ didn’t really cover it with the Winter twins, she decided. They were glorious. Tommaso Winter smiled at her, and she noticed how his eyes crinkled at the corners, his cheeks lifted, his beautifully-shaped mouth curved.
God, what is wrong with you?
First his brother and now him. Inca was sure her face was burning.
“We have. My brother and I decided we needed to be in the States for the time being.”
“I would have thought high flyers like the Winters would be more New York-based.” This was Nancy, who was peering over her glasses at Tommaso. Inca groaned internally. Was Nancy about to go into one of her rants about the uber-rich?
Tommaso grinned at her. “Neither Raff nor myself are New York people. And besides, Seattle is at the forefront of business— Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Boing? It made sense.”
Nancy seemed satisfied with this. She gave Inca a slight nod—this one’s okay. Inca suppressed a smile. “Mr. Winter—”
“Tommaso, please.”
“Tommaso.” The name felt like a caress in her mouth. “Have you had time to get to know the town?”
He shook his head. “I was hoping to find a guide.” His eyes twinkled at her and Inca felt her stomach flutter.
Desire. God.
Scarlett nudged her.
“Inca’s an excellent tour guide,” she said brightly. “And she’s a total geek. She’ll tell you all about the lovely-but-dull-as-fuck little town we call Willowbrook.”
Tommaso snorted with laughter. “Well, in that case, if you’re offering, I’d like that.” His eyes settled on Inca’s in a way which made her feel like the only woman in the world.
“Of course,” she said, swallowing her shyness. “Just let me know when you have some free time.”
Tommaso considered. “Is tomorrow too soon?”
Inca didn’t look at Nancy or Scarlett. “Not at all; it’s my day off. Say ten a.m.?”
He smiled and took her hand, kissing the back of it. “Perfect. I’ll see you then. Thank you, ladies, for your warm welcome. I have a feeling this place will be something of a haunt for me.”
When he’d gone, Inca looked almost open-mouthed at her friends. “What the hell just happened?”
Scarlett and Nancy were both giggling like schoolgirls. “I think you have yourself a date.” Nancy looked beside herself with glee.
“With a billionaire …” Scarlett goggled at her and Inca rolled her eyes.
“It’s not a date; I’m being a good neighbor.”
“Good naked neighbor.”
“Scarlett?”
“Yes?”
“Get back to work before I fire your sorry ass.”
Knox Westerwick walked the half mile or so from the harbor to the police department. The station was as quiet as he’d found it yesterday. A couple of faxes sat on the machine and he glanced at them. Warnings about Lyme Disease and a flyer for a town committee meeting. He checked the answering machine. No blinking red light. Knox wandered around the building. The police department took up no more than four rooms in the big stone-built structure—a glance at the bell pad indicated the other offices were let to a surveyor and an insurance company. He wandered to the big window overlooking the back of the office to see the back of a firehouse to one side, and apartments to the other. He could see down to the water in the distance, glittering green against an azure sky.
Knox had to be honest with himself. He was bored. Bone-crushingly bored. Even scraping around, offering to speak to school kids about road safety or whatever small town cops talked to kids about these days, was a no-go. Olly had done all that recently, so Knox had accepted the grateful apologies of the principal and given up.
Knox glanced at the clock and wondered when Olly would make an appearance. He went over to the filing cabinet, searching for any old case he could follow up on. Nothing. He slipped the files back into the cabinet and sat back in his chair, toying with the idea of sneaking over to the teahouse to flirt with Inca and Scarlett. Instead, he picked up the phone to check in with Olly.
“Hey, boss. Missing me already?”
“Hey, Knox. Man … can you get whoever you can together and come out to the reservoir?”
There was the briefest pause and in that moment, Knox knew something was terribly wrong. “What is it?”
Olly’s voice was defeated and tired. “We found another one.”
Inca glanced over to the man in the passenger seat. As they had driven from Main Street, Inca had kept up a commentary, a practiced overview of the town’s ‘McNugget
s’—the twin harbor lighthouses; Geyer Lake and its adjoining golf resort; the west coast road with its views of the Cascades. Tommaso Winter was good company. He was funny and erudite. But he made her nervous. He would listen to her talk intently, his gaze occasionally dropping to her mouth, which made her feel both sexy and vulnerable. Every inch of her skin was tingling from his presence.
He looked out of the window, seeing now the dense greenery, Douglas Firs, and trails leading off into the forest. “Where are we now?”
Inca grinned. “The cunningly titled Forest Road. Top of the town. Around this bend …” He swung the car around a sharp bend, the right side of the road dropping down a steep cliff to the sea. A huge, stately building came into view. “Is the main source of income for our little place. Hunter’s Ridge Private School. Massive fees, bored rich kids.”
“Hey, that’s beautiful.” He pointed out of the window. They were travelling back down the town now, along the coast road. Tommaso was looking at an outcrop of rocks just off the coast, rising out of the dark water.
“Desolation Rocks. Just off Desolation Point, close to the Desolation Point Lighthouse, just in case you didn’t get the name the first time.”
“So … Desolation, was it?” And they both laughed.
“You got it. Look, I’m going to find somewhere to park and we can hike into the forest if you’re interested?”
Tommaso smiled that devastating smile at her. “Love to.”
Inca and Tommaso trekked the trail that lead through the center of the town. She took him to the town’s unusual Stave church. He seemed interested when she told him about the church’s history—how a Scandinavian immigrant had built it because he missed his homeland so badly he wanted something uniquely Norwegian in this little piece of America. Inca pointed out how the structure’s strange, quirky architecture was locked together by careful dovetailing wedges and post and lintel construction.
Dr. Orgasm (A Holiday Romance Collection Book 2) Page 14