“Yes. But I’ve been able to get more done in the last week than I have for months. I’m almost there. I can spare a few days on this case.”
With all his experience reading body language and facial expressions, he didn’t miss the way she pursed her lips while she considered the idea and drummed her fingers on the arm of the swing.
Did she feel any of this attraction tugging between them? That he couldn’t read.
After a moment, she released a heavy breath. “I don’t see how I can say no. I want you to find the truth about Elizabeth. If there’s any chance this witness might have evidence that would clear my brother, I want you to find it.”
“I don’t know what she might have seen that night,” he warned. “It might implicate him more.”
“Never,” she said firmly, with a faith he found both sweet and troublesome. He didn’t want to be the one to break her heart.
“I wouldn’t mind a copilot anyway. I’m leaving at seven a.m. Pack light, since I don’t have much room, at least until I unload the prints. Oh, and Cyrus is coming along, too. Is that a problem?”
He liked her dog. Who wouldn’t, with his easygoing, affectionate manner? “Not with me. He can be our bodyguard.”
“Also, I should warn you that I like to listen to loud music when I drive. Cyrus likes it, too. Country, hip-hop, Broadway musicals. His tastes are eclectic.”
“Good to know. I’ll be sure to take along my noise-canceling headphones so I don’t get in the way of Cyrus’s jam.”
She smiled a little. “Smart.”
He rose from the swing to the jangle of the chains. “I guess I’d better go find them and pack the rest of my stuff, then.”
She rose as well. “See you in the morning. Thanks for helping me carry my gear home.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Oh, and Elliot?”
He turned back to her, struck by how the moonlight played over her features, making her look almost otherworldly. Some kind of soft, fey creature who had materialized out of his own fantasies to taunt and tempt him.
“I still think you’re a hero for what you did. Risking your career and possibly your life to help those girls.”
Her words touched him to the core. He found enormous comfort in them, in knowing she came down so firmly on his side. She was the first one outside the Bureau who knew the story. She didn’t condemn him; she saw straight to the principle of what he had done. Sometimes the nuances of a situation belied the customary rules and regulations.
“Thank you.”
“For what? Anyone hearing the story should feel the same way. You rescued the helpless, protected the defenseless. Your dad would have been proud of you.”
A lump rose in his throat, making it difficult to swallow. Her words were exactly the ones he hadn’t realized he needed to hear. “I hope so.”
She was remarkable, this woman who had suffered through sadness and loss herself. He wanted to tell her so, but couldn’t quite find the words. Instead, he stepped forward, intending to give her only a small kiss on the cheek and wish her good-night, but the moment his mouth brushed her skin, he knew he was fooling himself.
This wasn’t a kiss of gratitude or some polite, friendly farewell at the end of the day. He kissed her because he wanted to. He had craved the taste of her for what seemed like forever.
“Oh.” Her voice was a soft, silky whisper in the night. It slid around him, binding him to her. When was the last time he had ached like this for a woman? He couldn’t remember.
He wasn’t sure he ever had.
Her green eyes were wide and startled and...aware.
He didn’t miss the way her breath caught or her lips parted. She swallowed, her mouth trembling a little, but she didn’t push him away. Instead, her gaze landed on his mouth, sending heat unfurling through him.
Helpless, enthralled, he lowered his mouth again. Some corner of his brain knew kissing her wasn’t a good idea. All the reasons against it clustered around him, but for once he decided not to listen to common sense.
Her mouth was soft and sweet and tasted like strawberries and champagne from the party earlier. Tantalizing. Seductive. Irresistible.
Only for a moment, he told himself. Until she pushed him away and asked what he was doing. But she didn’t do anything of the sort. She kissed him back, tentatively at first, then with more enthusiasm.
He forgot all the reasons he shouldn’t be doing this, about Wyatt and about the case against Luke and about the fact that he was a battered, cynical FBI agent and she was soft and sweet and wonderful.
It was a magical, star-kissed night here beside the lake he loved and he could only focus on the woman in his arms and how very long he had ached for her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NEVER, IN HER wildest dreams, had Megan imagined that Elliot Bailey would kiss like this.
She thought of all the times she and his sisters teased him about being so serious, so focused on work. Mr. Roboto, the stiff, humorless FBI agent who only cared about the job.
How could she possibly have guessed that he would kiss a woman like this, with a single-minded intensity that left her shivery and weak. His mouth was hard, firm, and tasted minty. She was careful of his arm, still in the sling, and didn’t press her curves against him like she would have wanted. Only their mouths touched, which somehow made the kiss more erotic.
She should stop things.
The warning played through her head but she ignored it. She didn’t want this sultry dream to end. A few moments longer, she told herself, and surrendered to the delicious play of his mouth over hers.
After a few moments, Cyrus made the decision for her. At some point he must have wandered over to investigate what they were doing because he barked once from right at their feet, jolting her out of the soft, hazy wonder back into hard reality.
Her arms were tangled in his hair, her body pressed against him. He was watching her out of those intense eyes, his features focused and intent and gorgeous. What was she doing? Kissing Elliot Bailey as if she couldn’t get enough!
He certainly wasn’t behaving as if he disliked her now or thought she was silly or foolish. On the contrary. He kissed her with a heat and hunger that completely stole her breath.
She eased away.
In the dim moonlight, his features were in shadow, dangerous and mysterious.
She didn’t quite know how to play this. What did one say when the world had just shifted?
She decided a light tone was the only way to go. He couldn’t know how that kiss and the emotions bubbling up out of nowhere had shaken her to the core.
“That may not have been the smartest idea ever,” she finally said.
He didn’t answer, only gazed down at her out of those unreadable blue eyes.
“I mean, we’ve got an eight-hour car ride tomorrow and now we have all this...weirdness between us.”
“Weirdness?”
“Things are bound to be awkward now. I mean, how am I supposed to keep my attention on the road now with you sitting beside me, all sexy and brooding? All I’m going to be thinking about is the mind-blowing information that Elliot Bailey sure knows how to kiss.”
He looked startled for a moment, then gave a short laugh. “Is that a compliment?” he asked, throwing her own words back at her.
“I guess you could call it that, but it’s information I really didn’t need to know.”
How could she possibly travel to Colorado with him, remembering the solid strength of him against her, the rasp of his stubble on her skin? She would drive them both off the road.
“Would you feel better if I didn’t come with you tomorrow? I don’t have to go. The last thing I want is for things to be weird between us.”
That would be the easy way out. She could tell him she needed to concentrate on her upcoming show, not on
the very real distraction of this inconvenient and unwanted attraction.
Yet if she did that—chickened out, gave in to her fear and told him she would rather he didn’t come along the next day—what might she be giving up? What if this witness held the key to unlocking the entire mystery of Elizabeth’s disappearance and clearing her brother’s name and reputation? Could she risk letting that chance slip away, simply because she had discovered how much she liked kissing Elliot Bailey?
No. She had been hoping and praying for any opportunity to help Luke put the past behind him. This might be the break they had been looking for. She decided she had no choice but to treat the kiss as nothing more than a casual moment between friends, one that shouldn’t have happened.
“Let’s see. I once dated your brother, you’re investigating my brother and you’re a guest at my hotel. I would say things between us have been weird since day one. What’s one more eight-hour car ride?”
She almost thought he would smile again. His mouth lifted slightly on one side but he smoothed out his expression before he could reveal more of himself.
“I guess you’re right. Great. I’ll see you first thing in the morning, then. I’ll bring my noise-reducing headphones and my laptop and you won’t even know I’m there.”
She barely managed to hold back a rude snort. Sure. That was likely, that any woman could overlook someone like him. Even before he had kissed her, Megan had always found Elliot Bailey impossible to ignore.
She certainly couldn’t reveal that to him. “Perfect. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”
And probably dream about him all night long.
She sighed and let herself into the house. Cyrus waddled to his water bowl as she sank down onto the sofa, and she tried not to feel abandoned. She could have used a little moral support here, but she supposed it wasn’t her dog’s job to talk his human through her latest stupid decision.
She shouldn’t have let Elliot kiss her. She should have pushed him right off the porch swing and hurried into the house fifteen minutes earlier. If she had, she wouldn’t be battling a strange combination of regret and longing.
It had been far too long since she had been kissed so thoroughly, since she had felt cherished and feminine and desired.
She dated. It wasn’t as if she had put her whole life on hold after Wyatt died. A few years earlier, she had even been involved for several months with a new orthodontist who moved to Shelter Springs. Jon had been funny and kind and tender. Most important, he had been understanding about the chaos of her life, between the inn, her photography and her obligation to help Luke with the children.
She had wanted so badly to fall in love with him but had gradually realized her feelings weren’t growing. She liked him and enjoyed his company, but it seemed unfair to keep him on a string simply because she was tired of going places alone.
She had known he deserved better, someone whose heart didn’t have these huge jagged cracks in it. He had found love just a few months later when he met a sweet dental hygienist at a conference in Boise. They’d been married six months now. She had seen them at a home-improvement box store in Shelter Springs and they seemed deliriously happy together.
In the last few years, nearly every one of her closest friends had become engaged or married. It was almost an epidemic in Haven Point, really. She would have liked to find someone who filled her world with the same kind of joy her friends had found.
That wasn’t going to happen for her. She had figured that out after Wyatt died. She had cared about him, yes. Maybe she had even loved him a little, but not with the grand passion she saw in her friends’ relationships.
Maybe something inside her was broken.
Maybe she wasn’t worthy of love. Her father had certainly tried to drill that message into her head.
Scrawny. Ugly. Worthless.
She pushed away Paul’s voice. The man had been gone for decades. When would she finally stop listening to those echoes in her head?
Not everyone was destined for a happy ending with someone else. Sometimes love could be a disaster, all the way around. Hadn’t she seen that in many of the relationships around her? Her mother certainly had not chosen wisely. Neither had Luke. Both had suffered terribly because they had given their hearts to the wrong person.
Who could blame her for guarding hers so carefully? The one time she had started to push away the barricades and allow Wyatt inside, he had died.
After that, she built them bigger and higher than ever, determined to make her own happy ending.
This gallery opening was her chance to begin the process of achieving her own dreams. She wasn’t about to complicate that by letting herself fall for someone so completely wrong for her like Elliot Bailey.
* * *
EMBARKING ON AN eight-hour drive after a night of little sleep was probably not the best idea she’d ever had.
Oh, she had tried to sleep, but as she had predicted to herself, her mind had raced all night with thoughts of that shocking kiss.
What had Elliot been thinking to kiss her? What had she been thinking to let him?
She had no idea how to answer either of those questions.
He’d never given her any hint, in all the years she’d known him, that he might be attracted to her. If anyone had asked her to name fifty men of her acquaintance she thought would ever be interested in her, Elliot wouldn’t have even made the list.
They hadn’t had a great deal to do with each other, with him in Colorado and her stuck here in Haven Point, but she was close friends with his sisters, which made it inevitable that their paths would cross occasionally. Weddings, major birthday parties, that sort of thing.
He always seemed to treat her with not precisely condescension, just...formal politeness bordering on coolness. Never any hint that heat might lurk beneath the surface.
Why had he kissed her?
The question had raced around her thoughts all night, until she’d finally given up answering the impossible. The only theory that held any weight was that perhaps the moonlight and their dance and the confidences they had shared had temporarily made him lose his head, maybe helped along by the two drinks he’d said he had at the party, along with any lingering impact from the last time he took pain medication.
Whatever the reason, she only knew the kiss was something that never should have happened.
The horse was already out of that particular barn, though. There was nothing she could do now but try to catch it and rein it back in.
She carried her small tote bag and Cyrus’s supplies out to her SUV. She had removed the back row of seats for more room and the entire cargo area was filled with photographs of differing sizes stacked on their edges—thirty of them, all printed on fine photographic paper and sandwiched between sheets of acrylic to bring out the details and make the colors pop.
At the sight of them, Megan had to fight down panic. This was her best work; she couldn’t dispute that. She had carefully selected each photograph to tell a story. Together, she hoped they painted a vivid picture of small-town community life in a sleepy little town on the shores of a beautiful crystal-blue lake.
What if people hated them? Thought them trite, sophomoric? Or worse, had no reaction at all?
No. She caught the negative direction of her thoughts and frowned. She couldn’t go there. This was her best work and she knew it had impact. She simply needed to have faith in her abilities and shove Paul Hamilton’s voice out of her head again.
“You ready to go, buddy?”
At her feet, Cyrus wagged his stubby little tail.
“I guess that means yes.”
He loved car rides, even those rare afternoons when she just took a few hours off from the hotel to drive around the beautiful countryside and take pictures.
Now he just gazed at her with his head tilted and his flat pug face scrunched up.
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Cyrus had been injured sometime in his life, before she had adopted him from the animal shelter. The vet at the shelter suspected he’d maybe been run over by a bike or even hit by a car. As a result, his head was always tilted a little to one side, as if giving her a quizzical look. It made for some interesting conversation between them.
Now she opened the second-row door and found room next to the large-frame prints for the dog’s crate, then lifted him into it.
Cyrus circled a few times, sniffing the corners in case any other dogs might have trespassed since the last time they used it, then settled in for the ride.
“Looks like there’s almost room for me in here.”
Her heartbeat accelerated at the deep voice coming from behind her. She drew in a deep breath and uttered an internal prayer that she could survive the next two days without making a complete idiot of herself, then turned to face him.
Elliot stood in the predawn darkness holding a cup of coffee, a small duffel and what looked like a battered leather laptop bag.
He wore khakis, loafers and what probably passed for casual traveling clothes for him: a button-down light blue shirt and a navy blazer.
How would she make it through the next eight hours with him—and then turn around and do it all over again the next day?
She wouldn’t worry about that now. When faced with other daunting tasks in her life, she tried to focus only on what was right in front of her, not the huge, overwhelming picture.
Right now, that was settling everybody into her SUV and hitting the road so she could meet up with Mary Ella Lange at her gallery by the end of the day.
“There is plenty of room, actually. You can set your bags on the seat there next to Cyrus.”
Elliot found a place for his duffel but kept the messenger bag with him, then leaned in to greet the dog. “Good morning. You ready for an adventure?”
Cyrus gave a snort in greeting but barely opened his eyes.
Was that how Elliot saw this? An adventure? She was tied up in knots about both the gallery show and about having him along on the journey. Megan wondered all over again why she had ever agreed to let him join her.
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