“Claude swore she did a number on him. You saw how he was Friday night at the campfire. But that could have been an act for us so we weren’t surprised when he left.” Casey thought back to that summer. “Megan and Claude were hot and heavy until Megan broke up with him. He didn’t take it well.”
“Maybe Megan found out why he’d really come to the Crenshaw.”
She tried to imagine Claude as a killer and realized it wasn’t such a stretch. There was something cold and clinical about him. “You really think he was the one who murdered her?”
“I don’t know, but he knew who she was and what she’d done when he came here ten years ago. I doubt she knew that he had a connection to one of her friends she’d almost killed and had injured badly enough that she was in a wheelchair.”
“What if we’re right and Claude never really left because Megan isn’t the only score he wants to settle?”
“So where does Devlin fit in, if he does?” Finn said.
Their burgers came and they spent the rest of lunch talking about anything but the Crenshaw, the staff and Megan. Finn opened up to her, telling her more about himself, his life, his dreams. She shared, too. He was easy to talk to because he listened with an intensity that she appreciated. He admitted that most women he’d dated had only been interested in his money and what it could buy, even before he’d sold his business for a small fortune.
“I love what I do,” Casey said. “But, truthfully, I’m ready for a new adventure. I might take some time off when I get back and do some traveling.”
“Where do you want to go?” he asked, leaning toward her, anxious to hear.
“Italy, Spain, Greece.” She laughed, and he joined her. It was a warm, happy sound that filled her with joy.
“I’d love to take you to all of those places and more.”
She told herself it was just an offhand comment a man made to a woman. She wasn’t going to take it seriously. “I haven’t really been anywhere, but I’ve been happiest on the beach in California.”
He smiled across the table at her. She felt it to her core. “Sounds like it’s high time you did whatever you want. You’ll definitely be able to afford to with the profits from the hotel and land.”
As the waitress cleared away their dishes, Finn drew out an envelope. She didn’t have to ask what was in it. “You want to do this here?”
“As good a place as any,” she said, her voice cracking a little.
If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. The waitress produced a pen as she wiped down their table.
“Did you have your lawyer look them over?”
“I trust you. But I also emailed the preliminary forms you gave me earlier to the family lawyer. He didn’t have a problem.” She turned to the pages she needed to address and hesitated only for an instant before she began to sign. When she reached the last page, she signed with a flourish and slid the papers back across the table to him.
“I’ll text my bank and have the money transferred to your account right now.” He pulled out his phone. A moment later her own phone dinged to let her know the money was now there.
It was done. Casey waited to see how she felt. Relieved? Sad? Instead, it felt anticlimactic. She was now basically rich. Her plan had been to invest the money wisely. And she would—at least, most of it. But she would quit her job. She would travel. She would go on that adventure. So why did she feel like crying?
They wandered back to the hotel. She could feel time slipping away.
He stopped just outside the hotel garden-room door and turned to her. “Just the thought of you leaving... I was thinking that maybe tonight—” His cell phone rang. He swore under his breath as he looked at the screen. “This is another reason I dropped out of sight. I have to take this. Unfortunately, I am no longer missing, and this one is important.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “I need to pack, anyway.”
“Tonight, then.” His phone rang again. Swearing under his breath once more, he moved away to take the call.
CASEY FELT HER eyes burn with tears as she said to his retreating back, “Tonight.” She’d seen the promise in his deep blue gaze and felt her own promising one. Tonight. This was one promise she planned to keep no matter what.
Back upstairs, she began to pack, but her heart wasn’t in it. So much had changed since she’d come back here. She looked around the room, suddenly filled with an overwhelming sadness. When she’d arrived, she’d thought saying goodbye would be hard, but not this hard. This hotel was the last of her grandmother. Once it was gone...
She reminded herself that it was gone and wiped her tears. It was time for a change—just as she’d told Finn. She needed to do something else after all these years of being involved in hotel management. She could blame her grandmother’s death for this. Or selling the hotel. But in reality, it was all Finn. Meeting him had made her yearn for more than she’d let herself accept over the past ten years.
She knew she needed time to sort it all out. Nothing had gone as she’d expected when returning to Buckhorn, but in some ways it had turned out so much better. She had sold the hotel, gotten more money than she’d expected and felt good about whom she’d sold it to—even though she had no idea what he would do with the hotel and the land.
It didn’t matter. Not anymore. Telling Finn about the diary had been a weight off her shoulders—just like selling the hotel. If Finn thought it would help, she’d tell the marshal. The diary was gone, either way. They would never know what Megan had written.
She told herself she’d
