“Really?”
“Yes. I love nature. I love relaxing. My dad used to say I would be the first to retire in the family.” His chest bounces with a quiet laugh. “And believe me, I’m hoping he’s right. But I also love my work. I’ve made a career out of catching the bad guys. There’s something very fulfilling in that.” He tucks his head in close, his eyes never leaving mine. “And I can understand why you want to help with the case.”
Those hypnotic eyes—the hypnotic, intoxicating scent of his spiced cologne. I’m not sure how much more of him I can handle—at least not in this close proximity. Restraining myself is asking far too much from my hormones.
I clear my throat as I come to. “Ah, so we finally made it to the case. We’ve come full circle. I suppose you want to know what Cameron Weiss had to say.”
“I know he probably deflected. Who did he implicate?”
“Chris Davidson.” I shrug because he’s right. “Cameron said Kaitlynn and Chris were on the rocks. That the day before the murder she stopped by Cameron’s place and told him she was breaking it off with Chris. Cameron is sure it’s Chris who killed her, but he said he didn’t tell you because he’s afraid of retribution from the Davidson family. He said he has full faith that you would piece it together.”
Jasper’s gray eyes shoot a quick glance to the sea. “You’re right. He didn’t tell me. I’ll make a note of it.” He nods. “Look, Bizzy, I get it. Narrowing down suspects can be satisfying. The adrenaline rush can be addictive. And”—a breath expires from him—“it can be dangerous. So far, I think you’ve experienced the first two. Bizzy, I don’t want you to get to three. I’m armed. I’m guessing you’re not.”
“I have a can of mace on my keychain, thank you very much.”
“I can kill someone who is trying to kill me. At best you can momentarily blind them. And if they come after you with a gun or a knife like they did Kaitlynn”—he shakes his head as if he were searching for words—“I don’t want to think what could happen to you.”
“I think you just painted a picture. I guess I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Think about it. You’re a smart woman. You run the inn like a well-oiled machine. You have everything going for you. I’d hate to see you put yourself in danger for no reason.”
“No reason? Are you calling Kaitlynn no reason?”
“I don’t mean to sound callous when I say this, but she’s not coming back. You’re still here. Believe me when I say mingling with potential suspects greatly decreases your odds of remaining on the right side of the soil. Bizzy, I want you to surrender the desire to seek out more suspects.” His cheek flinches. “I’m not supposed to do this, but since you were friends with the deceased, and since you’ve already charged in headfirst into this investigation, I’ll keep you updated. If you want, you can throw out theories, tell me anything you know, all of your thoughts. I’ll allow you to remain on the fringe. I won’t hide things from you.” He bears into me with his heavy gaze. “I promise.”
A wave crests the top of the embankment and the sea spray baptizes us with its salty brine.
“We should get back,” I say and we start down the dirt trail as the daylight quickly dims. We make our way up the beach, and soon enough we’re back to the rows of cottages behind the inn. I’ve always appreciated the walk, but with the thick silence swimming between us, it feels far too long.
Jasper walks me to my door and pauses. His lips twist in a knot.
What am I going to do with her?
There’s a softness to him that I haven’t seen before, and each time his eyes connect with mine, a bite of heat explodes in my stomach.
“I’d invite you in, but Fish seems to think your hair doubles as catnip.” It’s both thick and glossy, and my fingers have been trembling to run through it ever since he landed horizontal over me hours ago.
“She’s not the only girl who thinks that.” Wrong move. She’s going to think I’m all ego and a fervent womanizer. I might have been at one point, but that’s not who I am anymore.
“I’m positive she’s not.” I lift my fingers to his hair and quickly slick it back the way I’ve been craving all night.
Jasper leans in and caresses my cheek with his thumb, one quick heated stroke, but I can still feel him there like a line of fire.
I wonder what she’d do if I kissed her? Probably test out the mace.
A tiny laugh brews in my chest, and his eyes widen with wonder as to what I’m finding so funny.
A laugh. Is that a good sign? Does she want a kiss? Or maybe she thinks I’m a joke. One thing is for sure. I cannot read this one.
“I think you’re pretty easy to read.” I shrug and his eyes widen just a notch. Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t do that with Jasper. It’s fun to tug with other people’s sanity, but I think I’m trying his enough already. “Um”—I clear my throat—“I bought your coffee and showed you my secret hideout.” I bat my lashes up at him, hoping he’ll take the hint. God knows I’ve never asked for a kiss in my life, and I’m not about to start now.
“You comped my coffee.” His lips twitch at the tips, but he’s too stubborn to smile. “And you showed me Georgie’s beautiful artwork.”
“Boy—you really are difficult, you know that?”
“Only on days that end in Y.”
And not surprisingly, my blood begins to boil.
“Well then, I hope you enjoyed your coffee and your official tour of the grounds, Detective Wilder.”
She’s back to formal monikers. I’ve ticked her off good. He frowns at the discovery, as he should.
“Bizzy”—he leans in impossibly close—“I think I’m going to kiss you goodnight.”
“Do you always announce your next move?”
“Only when I’m checking for clearance.”
“If the runway gets any clearer, this traffic controller just might fall asleep,” I tease.
He winces. “Then I’d better not bore you.”
Jasper leans in and my eyes close as a mild jolt jumps from his mouth to mine, and he lingers over me in this sweet way.
He pulls back, and I catch the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple.
“Goodnight, Bizzy. Thank you for the coffee and the tour. I thoroughly enjoyed both.”
I nod, still blissfully dazed from having his mouth over mine.
It happened. That vampire that’s been stalking me—oh heck, that I’ve been thinking about nonstop, effortlessly just walked us over to first base. And I’ll be the last to complain.
A small, cynical part of me wonders if that was all a ploy to keep me off his case. If it was, his brilliance far outshines the sun.
I head inside with a goofy grin plastered to my face.
Jasper Wilder just kissed me senseless, and yet I still very much plan on tracking down my next suspect.
He was right. It’s addictive. And now I can add Jasper’s kisses to my growing list of addictions.
But nothing he said tonight is about to detour me from doing what I have to.
Sammy Walton, I’m coming for you.
Chapter 13
“A chaste kiss?” Macy looks as if the thought alone has the power to make her sick.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means it was polite,” I say, snuggling into my sweater at the memory. “It was nice.”
“Bleh.” Macy pretends to gag. “Let’s hope his next move is a lot less polite and far more naughty.”
It’s the morning after, and both Macy and Georgie yanked a confession out of me as to how my date with Jasper ended last night. Just to be clear—I called it a business meeting and they referred to it as a date.
The three of us stand at the counter of the Cottage Café, and the morning rush just cleared up long enough for me to take a breather.
My gaze shifts outside where I can see from the window that the ocean is restless, dark and stormy, the whitewash slapping against the shore ever so violently. A few tourists enjoy a stroll in the san
d, and the cobbled path just above that has a smattering of dog walkers.
Fish sits curled up in a ball on the brick perch that divides the café from the grassy strip to the left just before you get to the woods. God bless, Fish. That creature can sleep through anything.
“So where did you go?” Macy scoffs as she struggles to hook my attention with the wave of her hand. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a whippet of a ponytail and she’s dressed in a long cable knit sweater, the color of burnt red autumn leaves. “You said Sherlock and Fish destroyed your place and then what?”
“You know what.” Georgie smacks her on the arm. A silly grin rides on her face as if she knows—and what she knows looks pretty salacious. Her gray hair is styled and curled around her shoulders and she’s wearing her work clothes, which for Georgie consists of heavily stained and paint-splattered overalls. “You were doing it on the sofa, weren’t you? You never made it to the bedroom.” She wags her finger at me. “You are a wily girl, Bizzy Baker. I have always suspected this about you.”
“Georgie.” I close my eyes. “Yes, we were doing it. We were walking.” I take a moment to blink a quick smile at the two of them. “I took him to my secret place out at the edge of the embankment.” I look to Georgie. “To that bench you gave me a few years back.”
Macy’s mouth falls open. “To the bench she gave you in hopes you’d be swept to sea?”
A deep groan works its way up my throat. “Macy—Georgie would never want me to be swept out to sea.”
Georgie hitches her head to the side. “I might want that—a little bit, sometimes.”
“All right, you clowns. That was all that happened. You can resume as normal once again. What’s going on with your lives, anyway?”
Macy grunts, “I’ve got a wall of inventory I need to miraculously make disappear. And you know what? Shockingly, the stuff is selling like organic hot cakes. I mean, at first I was blowing it out just so I could make my way around the shop but, yesterday, I hiked the prices up and it’s still selling like organic hot cakes.”
Georgie moans with a smile, her shoulders rising to her ears. “Mmm, hot cakes. I’ll take that for breakfast. Throw in one of those apple cinnamon walnut thingies. I’m feeling fearless today. I have a lot of work to do if I plan on having an entire table to myself at the Harvest by the Cove Festival.”
Macy makes a face. “That goes double for me. Who thought this shindig was a good idea again?”
“Mayor Woods,” I say her name low in the event it works as an incantation and I accidentally conjure up the witch.
“Mack?” Macy rolls her eyes. “Please don’t give her the honor of calling her Mayor Woods. The girl is despicable. We’re supposed to hate her, remember?”
Georgie sucks in a quick breath. “Why are we supposed to hate her? I can hate with the best of them, missy.”
“We don’t need to hate her,” I’m quick to correct, lest the hating commence Georgie style and we end up with another body on our hands.
Macy shakes her head at Georgie. “Mack is a mean girl Bizzy went to school with. She stole every boy this girl showed an ounce of interest in and never has a nice thing to say about anyone. The only reason she got elected is because nepotism is alive and well.”
“Not true,” I say. “She got elected because when her father retired, people had a familiarity about her. Think about it. Her father and her grandfather were mayor before her. I can’t think of a time Cider Cove didn’t have a Mayor Woods at the helm.”
Macy tosses up a hand. “Maybe so, but this one is going to sink the ship.”
“Oh.” Georgie shoves an elbow into my sister’s ribs. “Cider Cove is unsinkable. Just like the Titanic.” She gives a little wink. “Now get those hot cakes a cookin’, young lady. Those hot cakes give me inspiration like nothing else, and I’ve got a million bottles to break before I get cooking on those mosaics. Keep an eye out when you’re walking by the trash. You just wouldn’t believe the treasures some people throw away.” She heads off toward a table near the window.
Macy glances back. “I always think of you when I see trash, Georgie!” she calls out, and Georgie tosses a hand up at her. Macy and Georgie love to dish it out to one another, but it’s all in fun. I think.
Macy leans in. Her glowing blue eyes are highlighted by perhaps a smidge too much mascara, but Macy is beautiful any way you slice her.
“All right, the gray witch is gone.” Her lips turn at the tips. “You did it on the couch, didn’t you?”
I avert my eyes. “I’m not going to bother with an answer.”
“Okay, so how’s the case going, Detective Baker?”
“It’s going.”
I quickly put in an order of hot cakes for Georgie before grabbing a cinnamon roll out of the bakery shelf.
Macy pulls my ooey gooey apple walnut wonder to herself, so I pluck another one out for Georgie.
“It’s hard,” I say. “I mean, there’s a lot of finger-pointing, most of which is in the fiancé’s direction. But there’s still one woman I met at the beach that night I’m hoping to speak with. A woman by the name of Sammy Walton. I have no clue how to find her. And believe me, I’ve tried my hand at cyberstalking. Any ideas of how to track her down?”
“Sammy Walton?” She shakes her head while fiddling with her phone. “It says here she and Kaitlynn were sorority sisters.” She shoves the phone my way, and there’s a picture of the two of them in front of a white colonial mansion.
“How did you find that?” I take the phone from her to better examine it.
“I looked up their names together, and that’s the first thing that popped up.”
“Yeah, but where is she today? Sammy might be the missing piece to the puzzle.”
“She’s probably local. Hey? I bet she told Jasper where he can find her. He’s the homicide detective, right? So, just ask your boyfriend.” She gives a smug grin.
“Funny.” I think on it a moment. “I can’t ask Jasper because it might tip him off that I’m still investigating, but maybe I can ask Jeannie? I’ll just head over and let her know I sold out of most of the Natural Beauty products. I bet she’ll have the answer for me.”
“Text her right now.”
I pull out my phone and do just that, and she quickly lets me know she’s out of supplies but will let me know when I can get more.
“Dead end.” I flash my phone at my sister.
Jasper strides in with Sherlock Bones by his side, and Macy feigns a sigh.
“Enter Prince Charming.” She gives me a firm shove in his direction. “Just ask, Bizzy.”
“No,” I hiss as he comes in close.
Jasper nods our way. His hair is still damp from the shower. The prickly stubble on his cheeks highlights those searing gray eyes, and my stomach explodes with heat just being near him like this—especially after that kiss.
“Macy, Bizzy”—his lips stretch into an all too brief smile when he nods my way—“good morning, ladies.”
Macy hitches her thumb at me. “Bizzy wants to investigate a woman by the name of—Sammy Wilson?” She squints my way, and I close my eyes and groan. “Anyway, she’s hit a dead end. Maybe you can help her with that.” She snatches the cinnamon roll from the counter and slinks off before I can poison her food.
Jasper sheds a wide grin as those shining eyes of his pierce through mine. “Sammy Walton,” he kindly corrects.
“I knew that.” I shrug up at him.
He purses his lips a moment. And I wonder what else she knows.
He flexes a short-lived smile my way. “Are you busy later this afternoon?”
“I’m always busy. That’s my name, remember?” A flirtatious smile graces my lips as Sherlock bounces up on his hind legs.
Good one, Bizzy! Sherlock bounds from side to side. Treat, please! Treat! Treat!
Jasper pulls at Sherlock’s leash until he sits at attention. “If you’re free, I’m heading over to see her. I’ll gladly give you a lift.”
A lift to see Sammy Walton?
“Yes, I’m free.” I blink at him, wide-eyed. “Why the sudden reversal? Don’t tell me my lips are that powerful because that would just be cheesy.”
And quite possibly true. He sighs and I can’t help but smile. Great. Now she thinks I’m gunning for second base. He glances to my lips. Although, I wouldn’t mind checking out first again.
“It’s not a reversal,” he insists. “We’ll be in a very public setting. No interrogating on your part. Deal?”
“Deal.” I may or may not be telling the truth, but that’s not the point.
I take his order, add in a piece of bacon for Sherlock, and deliver Georgie the hot cakes set to inspire her already wild imagination.
“Hey?” She pulls me back by the sleeve. “Did you score date number two?”
I glance to Jasper as he heads to the beach with Sherlock, scone and coffee in hand.
“I did,” I whisper it low like a secret, and she claps her hands and hoots.
“I knew it! Don’t you worry, Bizzy. He’ll land you horizontal on the sofa before you know it.”
My stomach cinches with heat at the thought. That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
He’s hand-feeding me Sammy Walton.
But why?
Chapter 14
At exactly four o’clock, Detective Jasper Wilder picks me up looking rather, well, very un-detective like. He’s donned jeans and a flannel with red and black checkers, and it only seems to make his eyes shine like sirens all the more.
We make small talk as he drives us up the road to the orchard that butts up against the Cottage Inn’s property line. The acreage of orchards spans out seemingly to the four corners of the earth, and there’s an oversized barn just beyond the parking lot with a general store and the weigh and pay station for the apple pickers.
I sigh, filled with nostalgia as we come upon the large wooden sign.
“Cider Cove Orchards,” I say. “I must have visited this place almost every fall when I was growing up. I was friends with Valerie Montgomery. Her parents own this place.”
“I’ve been up a few times myself. My parents took my siblings and me.”
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