She closed the refrigerator and set a dish of butter on the counter. “So?”
His usually reliable brain seemed to have locked up like a computer that had been hit by a stealthy cyberattack. It took him a second to realize that he was actually feeling a condition that could be classified as confusion. He never got confused. He tried raising his talent a few notches to see if he could achieve a clearer view of the situation, but it didn’t help. If anything he was more confounded than ever.
“It doesn’t worry you that everyone will know I slept here?” he asked.
“Of course not.” She dropped two slices of bread into the old-fashioned chrome toaster. “It was a rough day at the office. We had a couple of drinks and a meal to unwind and you fell asleep on my sofa. It happens.”
“It’s never happened to me. Not like that. And we didn’t just have a meal and a few drinks, damn it. We had sex.”
She raised her brows. “You’re worried about your reputation?”
“The problem,” he said, groping for the right words, “is that after today the entire population of the Cove will know that we had sex.”
“Who cares?”
He drank some more coffee, hoping the hit of caffeine would help him untangle the strange bewilderment that was fogging up his senses. Isabella did not seem to mind the possibility that people would know that they had spent the night together. Why was he worrying about it? Enlightenment did not come.
“It’s my reputation you’re worrying about, isn’t it?” Isabella said. “It is very sweet of you to be so concerned. It’s not necessary, but it is sweet.”
“Yeah, that’s me,” he said into his mug. “Sweet.”
“There are so few true gentlemen left in the world.”
“Uh-huh.” He sensed that things were going downhill fast, but he could not think of a way to stop the runaway train.
A rush of tiny springs followed by small popping sounds interrupted his fugue state. In the kitchenette, two slices of toast leaped high into the air.
“The toast,” Isabella yelped.
She managed to snag one slice out of midair, but the other landed on the counter.
“Oh, good,” she said. She smiled her brilliant smile. “They didn’t fall on the floor this time. Of course, those of us with a strong background in the food-and-beverage business do have this two-second rule that is generally applied in such situations. But I hate to apply it in front of guests.”
“Who gave you the toaster?” he asked.
“Henry and Vera. They said they found it in one of the cabins at the old Sea Breeze Motor Lodge.”
The Sea Breeze had been abandoned for decades. A few years back, using a somewhat dubious legal claim of squatter’s rights, Henry and Vera Emerson had moved in and proceeded to make it their home. To date no one had challenged them. Given the very large dogs they kept on the premises, it was unlikely that anyone in his right mind would try to evict Henry and Vera without the backing of a small army. Thus far no one with an army had shown up.
“You know,” Fallon said, “now that you’ve got a steady job, you could probably afford a new toaster.”
“Probably.” She slathered butter on the toast. “But I like this one. It has a cool vintage look, don’t you think?”
“Probably because it is vintage. Must be more than fifty years old. Amazing that it still works.”
“It needed a little tuning up, but Henry got it running again.”
“I can see that. Not every toaster can put a couple of slices into orbit.”
“Nope.” She looked pleased. “Mine is one of a kind.”
It occurred to him that he had not given her a housewarming gift.
He sat down at the wooden table and examined the two neatly arranged place settings. The knife, fork and spoon were in proper order. The napkin was neatly folded. There was a tiny flower in a miniature bud vase positioned between the two place mats. He felt as if he had stepped into another dimension.
“So,” he said. “When are you going to tell me how you wound up in Scargill Cove?”
“Later,” she said. “At the office. Breakfast first. It’s the most important meal of the day.”
SHE FED HIM a heaping plate of eggs scrambled with ricotta cheese, a pile of toast and a fresh, juicy pear, hoping that the old adage was true and that the way to a man’s heart really was through his stomach. A large man like Fallon Jones needed his food.
He left after his third mug of coffee, taking the clock with him. She stood at her window and watched him walk through the fog—the damp kind off the ocean—to the office of Jones & Jones.
She had seen him kill. He was certainly not the first extremely dangerous man she had known. But he was different. Fallon Jones was that rarity in the modern world, a man who lived by a code, a man who cared about old- fashioned things like honor and a woman’s reputation.
The Sunshine Cafe was open. She knew that the regulars would be at the counter, eating Marge’s delicious homemade muffins and drinking coffee. They would see Fallon come down the street and go into his office. By noon everyone in town would know that he had spent the night with her.
She smiled to herself. “Fine by me.”
9
Mr. J-Jones?”
Fallon paused at the top of the stairs, the key in the lock of the office door, and looked down at Walker.
Walker rarely entered any building except his own cabin.
“What can I do for you, Walker?” Fallon asked.
If Walker had a last name, no one in town was aware of it. He was the closest thing that Scargill Cove had to a homeless man but he was not, strictly speaking, homeless. He had a cabin out on the bluffs where he took short naps during the day. All the evidence indicated that Walker did not need a lot of sleep. He was a man with a job to do. Patrolling Scargill Cove was his calling, and he was faithful to the task.
He bathed in the hot springs out at the Point. He wore his clothes until they became tattered and frayed. When he needed new garments, someone in town would leave whatever was necessary on top of a garbage can. Walker would only take items that he found in the trash. He refused flat-out gifts of any kind.
He got plenty to eat. Marge at the Sunshine always left an evening meal out for him at night and fresh muffins and coffee in the mornings. In between times Walker foraged in the trash behind Stokes’s Grocery. Although he seemed physically healthy, he never gained any weight. Fallon figured that was because Walker was nearly always in motion. He walked the streets of Scargill Cove all night long, regardless of the weather.
“Got to t-talk to you, Mr. Jones.”
Walker hardly ever spoke. When he did, it was always in very short sentences. Most people in the Cove assumed that Walker had done some hard drugs when he was a young man. They said he had gone out on a very bad trip and never found his way back home. Fallon wasn’t so sure of that diagnosis. He sensed that Walker was some kind of talent. Something had happened here in the Cove decades ago that had launched him on his relentless patrols.
Fallon turned the key in the lock and opened the door. “Come on inside. I’ll make some coffee.”
Walker said nothing but he climbed the stairs and entered the office. He stood in the doorway for a minute, looking around uncertainly.
Fallon set the blanket-covered clock on a table and shrugged out of his jacket.
“Have a seat, Walker,” he said, indicating Isabella’s chair. It was the only chair in the room other than his own. There had never been much need for a client chair. J&J got very little in the way of walk-in business. Mostly the firm was a single-client agency and that client was the Arcane Society. The services of J&J were
