Not completely honest. “Then, why didn’t you?”
“I was afraid it would change the way you looked at me. I mean, you told me you literally moved to the other side of the country to get away from all that.”
“Why would you care what I thought?” she pressed. “Because you didn’t want it to affect how I wrote the article?”
“At first, yes. My personal background has no bearing whatsoever on what we’re doing here, and I didn’t want it coloring your perception, especially when it hit so close to home for you.”
“You said, at first.”
“After spending the day and night with you, I got selfish. It wasn’t about the article anymore; it was about me. I knew our time together was limited, and I didn’t want to waste a moment talking about that. Plus, when you thought back on things, I didn’t want you to think about them when you thought about me. Does that make sense?”
He wasn’t the smoothest or sweetest talker, but his earnest words wrapped around her heart and squeezed.
“Yes, it does. And for what it’s worth, that’s not what I think about when I think about you.”
Silence, and then he asked softly, “What do you think about when you think of me, Bree?”
So many things. His shy smile. The way his eyes lit up when he talked about meteors and tech gadgets. How his ass looked in a pair of jeans while straddling a horse and his broad shoulders bared in the moonlight. Earth-rocking orgasms and the scents of evergreen and sandalwood.
Aloud, she said, “Mountain pies and hammocks.”
“That’s all?”
“Yep. Why? Did something else happen that I’ve forgotten?”
He made the same low, growly, humming sound she’d heard once before—when they were in the tree stand and he focused all of his skill and attention on her—and just like then, the noise resonated through her girliest of bits.
Bree pressed her thighs together and clamped her lips shut, deciding it was time to change the subject before the conversation devolved into phone sex—or worse, she admitted to him she was only an hour away, drove up there, and demanded a repeat performance. “So, why were you so tired this morning?”
Just that quickly, his tone went from growly and sexy to guarded and wary. “Something came up last night that I had to deal with.”
“More trespassers?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
She hadn’t expected him to answer so truthfully. “You didn’t put anyone else in the hospital, did you?”
A pause. “You’ve been talking to some of Sumneyville’s finest, I see.”
“I like to be thorough. And that’s not a denial.”
“No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “Obviously, I don’t know what you were told, but I doubt it was accurate.”
“So, tell me what really happened.”
More silence and then, “It’s all there in the arrest records and court transcripts.”
Arrest records? Court transcripts?
“If you haven’t read those yet, I suggest you do. In the interest of thoroughness,” he said, his voice noticeably cooler than it had been. What bothered her more than the chill was the disappointment now lacing it.
“Nick ...”
“I have to go. Have a safe rest of the trip, okay?”
Bree took the hint. He didn’t want to talk to her anymore.
She couldn’t blame him. First, she’d acted like a jealous girlfriend with the field-trip comment, and then she’d followed up with uncorroborated hearsay from an unreliable source.
There were so many better ways in which she could have broached the subject. On the plus side—if it could be seen as a plus—Nick hadn’t tried to talk his way out of it or make excuses. He’d simply told her to read the facts—something she should have done before she accused him of anything.
Her phone dinged with yet another alert from the airline, reminding her that her flight had been rescheduled. If she wanted to make it, she needed to hit the road. Still, she hesitated. There was so much left unresolved. She couldn’t in good conscience return to California, not yet, not without answers.
Decision made, Bree canceled her flight, notified the front desk she wouldn’t be checking out as originally planned, and got to work. Thanks to her earlier nap, a sense of renewed determination, and lousy but effective free in-room coffee, she was primed and ready.
The first thing she did was reach for her notebook, but a quick and somewhat frantic search for it came up empty. She hoped she hadn’t left it back at the B & B. Sure, she often wrote in shorthand in case her notebook accidentally fell into the wrong hands, but unlike the rest of the world, it was highly likely some of the women in the Ladies Auxiliary were proficient in shorthand.
Think. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, thinking back to that morning. She clearly remembered stuffing the journal into the front pocket of her carry-on, which meant it must have fallen out after. Chances were, it was sitting in the rental; she had grabbed her bag in a hurry.
Since she was in her pajamas and it was still raining buckets, she decided she could do without it. Thankfully, she’d typed up her notes after talking to Lenny, so she hadn’t really lost anything, but her notebooks were important to her. She had an entire collection she’d built up over the years, each one holding memories of her trips and the people she’d met along the way.
“Thank God for the internet,” she muttered as she began searching police records in and around Sumneyville, starting with the last twelve months. It was a tedious task, especially since she didn’t have a name to go on, but she finally found what she had been looking for.
According to the reports, Dwayne Freed, son of Sumneyville Police Chief Daryl Freed, had broken into a private residence on Sanctuary property and threatened one of the residents, Cassandra Summers.
Lenny’s friend Sandy?
Not only had Freed threatened Miss Summers, but he’d been in violation of his parole terms by carrying a firearm. Miss Summers had fended off the attack with
