His eyes jerked open. “What in the hell am I thinking?”
All of a sudden, he realized, he was only wearing his boxers. Had Kate undressed him? As he gradually became more alert, he began to search the room. Discovering his clothing neatly folded on top of a trunk resting at the foot of the bed, he shook his head at himself irritably.
Once he was dressed, he gave his body a few more minutes to settle down.
God, he felt like shit. Inhaling a shaky breath, he opened the door. He staggered slowly from the bedroom and into the hallway, making his way towards the kitchen.
Still wearing the robe, Kate appeared to be gathering the ingredients for breakfast. Peeking out from behind the door of the fridge, she grinned.
Murphy was sheepish as he motioned with his hand towards the lake. “Sorry for...”
“Oh. That’s alright.” she said dryly. “Turnaround’s fair play, after all.” She deliberately winked.
Murphy started to laugh, but the sound quickly morphed into a groan. Holding up a hand to his head, he spoke quietly to himself. “Please, Murph, not so loud.”
Kate chuckled. She pulled out a carton of eggs from the fridge. “How’re you feeling?” she asked, cheerfully.
Murphy snorted. “Can’t you guess?” Shuffling through the kitchen, he pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, and dropped into it. “Absolutely awful,” he added.
“Hopefully, you’ll be feeling better once you eat.”
He grunted. “Anything I can do to help?”
Kate turned around and studied him. “Why don’t you just relax? Would you like some coffee?”
“Please.”
But when Kate bent forward to set his coffee cup on the kitchen table, he felt his body beginning to stir once again. The outline of her breasts stood out from the silky fabric of her robe. And when she walked through the kitchen, he could make out the light shadow of...
“Damn.” He had a bad case of sex on the brain this morning. Yeah, right. He’d never had this kind of a reaction to Sara.
Kate eyed him oddly as she turned away from the stove. “What?”
Murphy cleared his throat. “Nothing.” But, inwardly, he was scolding himself. “I’m just mad at myself for acting the way I did last night.”
But, exactly, how had he acted?
“Ah.” She smiled. “You weren’t so bad, according to Dan. You just kept falling down a lot.”
“Is that what happened to my face?” He grinned wryly. “I can’t really remember. I feel like I’ve been tackled one too many times.”
“Well, apparently, you tackled yourself.”
“What?” He lifted a brow and Kate hesitated.
“Are you sure you really wanna know?”
He nodded.
“Supposedly, you caught your feet under a barstool and fell flat onto the floor.”
Murphy groaned.
“And then you fell onto the gravel in the parking lot when Dan was trying to load you up in his truck.”
He groaned again.
“And Dan kept calling you loverboy after he brought you back here last night.”
What? Had he made a pass at some other woman? Come to think of it, he vaguely recalled a lovely brunette seated next to him at the bar. He was pretty sure he’d had Kate on the brain the entire night, though. He’d been so damn jealous after she’d left for that date with Brian Lancaster.
Jealous? Crap, crap, crap – what was he thinking? He stared at Kate as she emptied scrambled eggs from the pan onto a plate. What right did he have to be jealous?
“Would you like some orange juice, too? All we’ve got to eat are eggs and toast.”
Still distracted, he cleared his throat. “Sure.”
She brought the plate full of scrambled eggs to the table before returning to the fridge to pull out the orange juice. She grabbed the two glasses from the counter and settled onto a chair opposite Murphy at the table after handing him over his orange juice.
Murphy tried hard not to stare at Kate’s breasts. But the robe she was wearing sure was revealing. He frantically attempted to turn his thoughts elsewhere. “Nice place you’ve got here,” he said, glancing through the window towards the lake.
“Thanks. I really like it.” Kate smiled. “You wouldn’t recognize it, if you’d seen it three months ago.”
“It needed a lot of work?”
“Yeah. But it sure was worth it. I just love this location. Since Lucy and Gabe live in a huge home right on the lake, my family never use this place anymore. I’m hoping that, eventually, Dad will let me build my dream house here.”
“Really?” Pausing from munching on his eggs, Murphy took a sip of his coffee before turning his gaze back towards Kate. “What kind of home have you got in mind?”
For the next few minutes, Kate described, in detail, the multi-storied contemporary home she hoped to build one day to replace the cabin.
Murphy nodded and asked the questions that only someone with a background in architecture would have the wherewithal to ask. After a couple more cups of coffee, a glass of juice, and some intelligent conversation with Kate, he felt a heck of a lot better.
“Wasn’t Dan actually here with us, last night?” Come to think of it, he remembered Dan helping him find the bathroom before he must’ve finally passed out.
She nodded. “He left early to meet Lucy and Gabe at the Riverbend Lodge.” Kate grinned. “They’re making the final arrangements for our trip down the river.” In a sing song voice, she continued, “Don’t forget – we’re going canoeing today.”
Murphy groaned. Momentarily forgetting his headache, he slapped his forehead with his palm. “Ouch,” he yelped, dropping his fork. It hit his plate with a resounding ring.
Kate smirked, taking a bite of her toast.
“That canoeing trip is today? I completely forgot. Dan and I haven’t even talked about it, since last week. I probably would’ve thought twice about how much I was drinking last night if he would’ve just reminded me.”
“Ahh.” Kate chuckled. “Fresh air, a couple of beers – and you’ll feel fine.”
“Beer?” Murphy groaned. “Oh, God, no. I don’t think so. I’d never recover in time for work tomorrow.”
Kate sipped her coffee. After wiping her hands with a napkin, she crumpled it, dropping it onto her plate. Tenting her fingers, she rested her elbows on the table and stared thoughtfully at Murphy. “So. You wanna tell me what you and Dad have going on at the campgrounds? I’ve realized you weren’t quite as incompetent as you’ve pretended to be – during these past couple of weeks – since you began working for me.”
Murphy sighed in resignation.
She held his gaze. “He told you about the robberies – right?”
Reluctantly, Murphy nodded. “Yeah. He wanted someone on site. But, unfortunately, I haven’t had much of an opportunity to discover anything.”
“It probably didn’t help when I transferred you over to my crew for these past couple of weeks.”
“I wasn’t getting anywhere, anyway, Kate.”
But Murphy hesitated. He wasn’t sure, at all, that what he’d noticed was important.
“What?”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I’ve been away from the campgrounds. There was one thing I saw that did seem kind of odd to me. But maybe not. You or Cal might need to go over there and take a look.”
“How about now?”
Murphy started.
“Since you haven’t been in town that long, you probably haven’t got your bearings yet. This used to be the caretaker’s cabin for the campgrounds.” Staring through the window at the lake, Kate motioned with her hand. “We’re right next door. Let me go take a shower and get dressed.
CHAPTER
NINE
There’d been tension in the air from the moment Murphy straggled into the kitchen this morning looking pale and disheveled. She’d immediately wanted to run her fingers through the thickness of his ash-brown hair to straighten i
ts disarray. It’d required a conscious effort on Kate’s behalf to hold herself back.
His beautiful green eyes had appeared just as intense as they’d been the night before.
Now, as they strode over the path leading directly to the cabins, Kate surreptitiously studied Murphy. At least the color had returned to his face. For one crazy moment, she’d even thought, he’d meant to reach for her hand.
Inhaling an invigorating breath of the crisp morning air, Kate lifted her face into the breeze. It’d be a beautiful day for canoeing on the river today. The sun shone down brightly in the clear blue sky.
As they made their way through the woods, their feet stirred up the ground of the overgrown path. Pine and musky moss scented the air as they strode through heavy shade before reaching the first of two isolated cabins.
Kate twisted the knob of the front door. “That’s odd.” She frowned, moving over to the window and peeking inside. “There aren’t even any materials stacked inside yet. I wonder why it’s locked?”
“Maybe because most of the floor’s been ripped out?”
Kate’s head jerked around. “What?” She met Murphy’s gaze.
He pointed out the three-bedroom cabin further down along the path. “Some of the floor’s been ripped out in that cabin too.”
“As far as I know, from our original evaluation, the floors in these two cabins were in decent shape, and were supposed to remain intact. No rotting – no insect damage – they only needed refinishing. Let’s go see if the other cabin’s unlocked.”
They quickly made their way down the path to the other cabin.
Kate attempted to turn the knob and frowned.
“Locked, too?” Murphy questioned.
She nodded. “I’ll have to go up to the trailer and get the keys.”
But then she hesitated.
“What?”
“Luke’s probably already there. He likes to come in on Sundays and catch up with his paperwork. Before he and his wife were divorced, they used to spend a lot of time out here with their daughter. Luke was in charge of building the school a few years back.”
“So he was the crew boss back then, too?”
“Yeah.” Kate frowned. “But none of our materials went missing – at least from this site – when we were building the school. Dad’s more suspicious of Luke than I am. I think his divorce is just messing with his head.”
Murphy nodded. “He really does seem to know what he’s doing.”
“He hates the paperwork, though – almost more than anyone else who’s ever been in charge.”
“Want me to wait down here?”
“Yeah. Luke will wonder why you’re with me.” She grimaced. “Right now, I’m trying to think of a good enough excuse for demanding the keys.” Thoughtfully, she studied the lake. “Duh. I know – I’ll just ask for the keys for all the cabins.” She began climbing the path. “Be right back.”
Luke’s truck was in the parking lot, she noticed, coming up to the trailer. But at least no one else appeared to be around. She rapped sharply on the door before entering.
Luke’s head jerked up from his paperwork. Man. He really appeared to be having a lot of trouble, she realized, noticing an air of desperation about him.
“Kate.”
“Hey, Luke. How are things going?”
“Alright, I guess. God, I really hate paperwork,” he muttered. “You just missed Brian. He left about ten minutes ago.”
Inwardly, she sighed with relief. He was the last person she wanted to see right now. “Yeah? He and I went out for dinner last night.”
Luke nodded agreeably. “What can I do for you?”
“All I need are the keys for the cabins. Ahh – one of my dad’s suppliers is gonna be late with tileboard and lumber. I just wanted to make sure you have enough materials on site to get by for another week.”
“Sure, Kate.” He hesitated. “Did you need me to come along with you to check?”
“That’s alright, Luke. You can keep working on your paperwork. It won’t take me long.”
Luke sighed with relief. “Thanks, Kate.”
Murphy was waiting out of sight at the base of the path when she approached the cabin with the keys. “That was quick.”
“Yeah. I just can’t believe that Luke could be involved with what’s been going on. He handed the keys right over.”
Kate soon had the door to the cabin unlocked, and she and Murphy were slipping inside.
Kate gaped, observing the interior of the cabin. Entire planks of flooring had been removed as well as the wooden joists supporting them. “What in the hell is going on in here?” She frowned. “Unless...”
She stepped over into the kitchen where the planks had yet to be removed. And then she noticed that the condition of the lumber in the kitchen was in much worse shape than the condition of the planks remaining in the living room.
Kate suddenly came to a realization. Spitting into her hand, she knelt onto the floor and rubbed her fingers along the edge of the flooring.
“Wow,” Murphy said, bending over. “Is that...?”
With wide eyes, she nodded and muttered, “Tiger’s eye maple.” She studied the joists. “And walnut. My, God. I think that these cabins were built back in the 1920’s. But why would anyone use such high quality materials to build a seasonal cabin?”
She stood up, continuing to examine the interior of the cabin. “This place is a goldmine of valuable lumber. And someone is ripping it off from the site and selling it,” she added grimly. “We’d better talk this over with Dad this afternoon.”
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Kate strode down the path from the trailer after returning the keys to Luke. She and Murphy were ready to return to her cabin when a commanding voice suddenly demanded their attention.
“Kate. What are you doing out here today?” Fish and game warden, Jim Dupree, appeared to be surveying the area. Grim and austere at six-foot five, Jim had been a voice of authority in the town of Crystal Rock for nearly twenty years.
Murphy turned to her, giving her a look heavily laden with silent meaning.
Kate frowned, nodding imperceptibly. They definitely didn’t want the authorities involved – at least, not until they had a clue as to who was responsible for the thefts.
“Hey, Jim. I’m just checking out the progress on the cabins for Dad and counting out inventory, too. I’m living at our cabin for the summer, you know.”
Strangely, Jim Dupree scowled, glaring suddenly at Murphy.
“This is Michael Murphy. He’s my parents’ godson.”
Without extending his hand, Jim Dupree nodded. “I’ve just been keeping a closer eye on the activity around the lake. Remember those robberies we had at the vacation homes a few years back? Anytime I see any suspicious activity, I try to check it out personally. Be careful when you’re here on the weekends, Kate. I’d hate to mistake you for a trespasser.”
Nodding a stiff farewell, Jim Dupree strode away. Apparently, his inboard was tied at the pier alongside the campground’s beach.
Kate and Murphy stood together gazing out towards the lake until Jim was nearly out of sight.
“Nice guy,” Murphy observed, dryly.
Kate snorted. “I was scared to death of him as a kid. He’s always been kind of snooty – and a little weird, too. But he’s been the senior game warden around here for years.”
“What do you mean by weird?”
Kate hesitated. “I don’t know. It’s probably just my imagination. I always seem to run into him at the strangest times. This is the third time I’ve seen him this week. It used to even happen a lot when I was a kid.” But then she shrugged it off. “Since he is the area game warden, and his job is to patrol the lake, that’s not so odd, I guess. Dan pointed out to me – when I mentioned it to him once – that I’ve spent every free moment that I’ve ever had either on the beach or in a boat.” With a frown still on her face Kate continued to stare out towards the lake.
“We
ll.” Murphy grinned wryly at Kate. “I guess I’m ready to go canoeing.”
“I’ll take you back to my parents’ house first, so you can change into a T-shirt and your swimming trunks.”
Murphy nodded towards the narrow path. “Lead on.”
Within fifteen minutes of returning to her cabin, Kate had gathered up bottled water, snacks, and sunscreen. Murphy sat waiting for her on the couch in the living room. “This is the coolest coffee table I’ve ever seen,” Murphy said, studying the design. Shards of mosaic tiles in bright spring colors had been shaped into flowers to form a circular design along the edge of the table, while square sea-green tiles provided a level surface in its center.
Kate glanced up from shuffling through her bag. “Thanks.” For a moment, her expression softened, before she added, “My best friend helped me design it.
“You actually made this?”
She snorted. “When I was about twelve.”
“Wow. My mom would love this.” Straightening up from the couch, he turned and studied the end table. “Make that one too?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re probably not interested in selling them – are you? I’m not sure if you know this, but my mom has this really successful eclectic shop in Chicago.”
“I think that my parents might’ve mentioned something about it to me.” She grimaced. “I used to sell a lot of these tables – when I first began making them. Truthfully, I haven’t really thought about it for a while. I actually still design a few things, here and there, when I have the time.” Kate pulled the laden bag over her shoulder.
“My mom’s always looking for something unique in accent furniture. She can’t keep up with the demand in Chicago. I’d be more than willing to talk to her,” Murphy said, scooping up Kate’s cooler from the floor.
As she and Murphy approached the back door, Kate hesitated and met his gaze. “Sure. Why not? I actually do have quite a few pieces still in storage. Not just tables – but a mantelpiece, some artwork – stuff like that.” She chuckled. “My mom would probably love to have everything out of the attic.”
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