by Leslie Kelly
They talked about a little of everything. They had more in common than he’d suspected, beyond their mutual dislike of mystery meat—scrapple or meat loaf, it didn’t much matter. Like him, Sophie was a hockey fan. Though he teased her about being disloyal to her geography, he let her get away with saying she preferred the Flyers to the Redwings.
She talked about her family, filling him in on the Winchesters. Her grandfather sounded like a real character. According to Sophie, he was conducting a scandalous affair with Hildy Compton, the 85-year-old co-owner of a local B&B.
Finally, when she prodded him, he admitted a little about himself. When he told her he hadn’t spoken to his parents in a few years, not by design, but due to their disinterest, she looked almost teary eyed. “Have you tried keeping in touch?”
He shrugged. “We do the Christmas card bit.”
“Do they even know you’ve moved?”
Come to think of it, he hadn’t sent them a change of address card. “I’ll let them know.”
“Sad. I can’t imagine not having a family support network. Being alone, disconnected.”
“You can’t, huh? None of that appeals to you? To the Sophie who nobody really knows, really sees?”
She thought about it, then nodded. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. It would be easier being myself if I was completely on my own. No more of this sweet Sophie nonsense.”
She didn’t have to tell him why. Living a double life had to have been damned hard for her. Never having been close to his parents and having no other close relatives, Daniel had never felt tied down to the expectations of family. But he could see what Sophie had gone through. Her brother, Mick, was the town bad boy. The rumor mill said he’d gotten into lots of trouble, usually involving a female, from the time he was a kid.
So Sophie had stepped into the role of the good girl, the golden child. It had probably been expected of her from the time she was a baby. What choice did she have but to conform? The only way out would have been to leave Derryville. And in spite of her sometimes sarcastic wit about her hometown, he sensed she truly loved it and didn’t want to leave.
“You really like living in Derryville, don’t you?”
She nodded. “Believe it or not, I do. It’s home.”
Home. He’d never felt that way about a place. Not a building, not a house, not any address. Certainly not a town.
“How about you? Getting used to the small-town life?”
Because he seemed to have broken through Sophie’s shell, the one that protected her true self, he wasn’t ready to admit the truth. The last thing she needed to hear from someone she’d finally opened up to was that he didn’t know if he’d ever find what she’d so easily taken for granted. That feeling of hearth, home, security and warmth, all associated with a place.
The move to Derryville was supposed to be the start of that. So far it hadn’t happened. But he still held out hope.
“Oh, yes,” he replied. “It’s amazing. Big change from the city. No red-light district. No drug dealers outside the school yard.” He shook his head. “No sickos thinking up twisted, unusual ways to hurt other people.”
That, of course, reminded them both of one thing. The notebook. The issue she wasn’t ready to talk about. And the one issue he wasn’t ready to let go of.
He assumed that was why Sophie suddenly fell quiet. Because she pulled away, almost imperceptibly, until her right side hugged the door of the car. Whatever intimate connection had lasted throughout most of the day was gone now.
He told himself he should be glad, that it was for the best since she was a potential victim and he responsible for her safety. It didn’t work. Convincing himself of that was tougher than when he’d tried to make himself believe, at age seven, that there was no Santa Claus, as his dad had informed him.
When they got back to Derryville, he took her downtown, to her parked car. There had been one more moment of awkwardness, which probably wouldn’t have occurred if he’d driven her straight to her house. If he had driven her home he suspected she just might have let go of the self-protective aura and invited him in. And who knows how their day might have ended.
As it was, they stood outside on a downtown street, with prying eyes probably peering between the dusty blinds covering the windows of every storefront. They’d said goodbye, exchanging only one long look that hinted at the heat-and-emotion-filled day they’d shared. Not as heated as he’d have liked it. But, he had to admit it, emotionally something was happening between him and Sophie Winchester.
Something he’d never figured would happen to him.
As hard as it seemed to believe, Daniel was falling in love.
SOPHIE REPLAYED DANIEL’S words about big city crime versus small-town values throughout the night. He disliked imaginative sickos who thought up new ways to hurt people.
Uh…that pretty much described her, didn’t it? No, she didn’t actually go out and act on those sick scenarios, but she sure did profit from them.
“More proof he should be off-limits,” she told herself Sunday morning as she headed for church. She’d have rather slept in, considering her string of sleepless nights lately. But she knew Miss Hester. The woman would be merciless Monday morning if Sophie hadn’t spent a penitent Sunday.
Besides, Sophie usually spent the church service doing some serious people watching. It was amazing how much was revealed by body language and whispered conversations during a church service.
The Millers were having marital troubles. He owned the bakery. Judging by the way Mrs. Miller pulled her hand away every time he tried to hold it, he’d been letting his bread rise in the wrong oven.
The Flanagan kids were menaces who shot spitballs out of their rolled-up church bulletins. Mr. Henry, who used to sell Sophie’s father his cars before the used car lot closed up, had a disgusting habit of picking his nose. Sophie made sure never to sit in a pew he’d occupied the previous week.
The most interesting people watching this particular Sunday morning was seeing the interested looks on the faces of the single woman all around her. She didn’t even have to turn around to know why. The whispers, the smiles, the women who sat up, sucked in, and stuck out told her everything she needed to know.
The new chief had mended his heathen ways and come to Sunday service.
“Room for me?”
The pew was half-empty. Pastor Bob’s 8:00 a.m. services were too fire-and-brimstone for most people. Most parishioners preferred to wait until 11:00 when he was tired and hungry and ready to rush through the sermon to get to the coffee and donuts outside.
“Sure.”
She scooted over, certain every pair of eyes in the place was glued to the back of her head. She couldn’t help wondering whether their brown hair—his dark, hers lighter—combined to make a nice picture. Then she pinched herself for caring.
“You’re up early,” he whispered.
She nodded, barely glancing over as the music started.
“I never slept,” he admitted, not looking at her, but facing directly forward as if focused on the service. “I was thinking about you. What happened. All of it. All night long.”
His husky voice, so full of want and sweet seduction, made her almost melt into a puddle of molten Sophie right there on the floor of the church. Two problems with that. First, she didn’t want Mr. Henry flicking any of his nose-gold on her. And second, the janitor was a sweet old guy and had enough to do without cleaning up melted Sophie guts.
“Well?”
“Shh,” she whispered.
“Come somewhere with me after church.”
She shook her head, noticing a few people looking at them.
He raised his voice. “Please.”
Seeing more people including her own grandfather and some of her other relatives looking over, she shot him a glare.
“I’ll say it louder,” he threatened.
“Oh, all right,” she snapped, just wanting to shut him up.
She couldn’t say she
was entirely displeased, particularly when she learned where he wanted her to go. He wanted her opinion on the house he was considering buying. No, it wasn’t exactly a quick dash to the nearest hotel for a Sunday afternoon sexual smorgasbord. Somehow, though, this seemed more intimate.
Helping a man pick out his house. That was something Sophie had never been asked to do.
“SO YOU’RE SURE YOU like it?” he asked after they walked out onto the back porch again.
“I do. It’s not only bigger than mine, but it has a better yard and one thing my in-town place lacks.”
He nodded. “Privacy.”
“So, you want to make an offer?” Mick asked. “I think we could really do some dealing on this property since it’s been available a while.”
Daniel nodded, but also said he wanted to check out a few more things first. That left Sophie alone with her brother for the first time since they’d arrived.
Mick hadn’t seemed surprised to see her with the chief. He’d given her one quick grin, then accepted her presence without a word. Typical Mick. Because he had a revolving door love life, he figured other people did, too. Somehow, he’d apparently never noticed that Sophie’s door had gotten stuck in the closed position somewhere back in the nineties.
Maybe that could change….
No, she reminded herself. She and Daniel were friendly and cordial. She was helping a newcomer just as she might help anybody else who’d recently moved to Derryville. Just because they’d shared some hot kisses and he’d sucked on her nipples until she’d forgotten what planet she lived on didn’t mean they were involved.
Yeah. Right.
But, she had to admit, the hardest part about seeing the house with Daniel was the way she kept picturing things she’d change, as if she someday might be living in it. Ridiculous. She had her own little house, and she and Mugs would probably live happily there for a very long time. Long after Daniel Fletcher met and married some sweet young Derryville girl who truly was the friendly, uncomplicated, home-and-hearth little darling she appeared to be. Not the blood-thirsty murder-mongerer. Not the kind of twisted person he so seemed to loathe.
“You’re quiet today,” Mick said as the two of them waited on the porch while Daniel checked the condition of the AC unit.
“Haven’t you heard? I’m always quiet.”
Her brother obviously heard the note of resignation she couldn’t keep out of her voice. “Says who?”
“Everyone who knows me.”
“Nobody knows you,” he said. “You shoulda been an actress.”
“Boring.”
“A secret agent. You’re awfully good at blending into your environment and can keep a secret better than anyone I know.”
They shared a look and both burst into laughter. “I think we’ll leave that job to Jared.”
“He sucked at it.”
They chuckled again, remembering the way their cousin, Jared, had spent his Halloween weekend—with amnesia, thinking he was a secret agent on a dangerous mission.
Jared. He’d understand. Sophie realized there was someone else she could talk to. Her brilliant cousin. She’d grown used to him being gone, traveling the world, researching his next true crime novel. So she sometimes almost forgot he’d recently moved right back here, to Derryville. He was planning to marry Gwen Compton, Sophie’s friend, who ran a local bed-and-breakfast.
Gwen and Jared had met during his Halloween adventure and had apparently fallen in love at first sight. The fact that Jared was a writer, not the next James Bond, hadn’t changed Gwen’s feelings for him. In fact, they both shared such fond memories of the way they’d met, they were busy getting their inn, the Little Bohemie, ready for in-character weekend adventures.
Jared was one person who would understand and have some advice on how to balance the line between an unusual career and a normal life. Not that life in the Little Bohemie Inn was truly normal, considering it was haunted. But close enough!
“Can you drop me off at Gwen’s?” she asked her brother, knowing she needed to talk to someone now, before the urge to confess everything to Daniel became too strong to resist.
“You’re not leaving with Daniel?”
The deceptively uninterested way he asked put her on guard.
“There’s nothing going on with us.”
“Sure there’s not.”
She shot him a glare, then realized something. If Mick thought she and Daniel were a romantic item, that meant he probably hadn’t heard the rumors circulating about the big murder plot. “Have you…heard anything about us?”
“You know I don’t listen to rumors.”
She arched a brow and gave him a sympathetic look. “And I know why, too.”
“Why?”
“Because ninety-five percent of the time the gossip includes you.”
His boyish laugh said he wasn’t too surprised by her claim. “Not exactly ninety-five percent. And most of it’s bullshit.”
She quickly calculated. “So, if it’s only seventy-five percent about you, and most of that’s bull, that still leaves, oh, about twenty percent of the true gossip, in a town of five thousand people, focused on one man.”
“Sometimes, I wish you’d never stopped playing with Barbie dolls and decided to admit you had brains.”
She rolled her eyes. “I never played with Barbies.”
“Sure you did. You just usually had them tied to the tracks of my train set. Or else you’d shaved their hair, then put their little plastic heads on sticks so you could use them as shrunken head bookmarks.”
“One man…out of five thousand,” she taunted, knowing he was trying to distract her.
He continued to shake his head. “Shoulda never let you do my algebra homework for me when I was in high school. You’re too good at math.”
“That’s pretty pathetic, considering I was ten.”
“Exactly. So when is the rest of the world going to find out how damn smart you are inside that pretty head of yours?” He looked serious now. They’d had this conversation a few times over the years. But since Mick did his own fair share of hiding the real man behind the public persona, he’d never pushed her to be more true to herself.
She shrugged. “Stop trying to change the subject. You just don’t want to admit I was better than you at math by the time I was in preschool and figured out two nickels was not more than one quarter.”
“Sucker.”
“Louse.”
“Ahh, the sounds of siblings bickering on a Sunday morning. What could be more homey than that?”
Daniel hadn’t heard what Sophie and her brother were sniping about, but he did notice the sparkle in her eyes and the grin on her lips. Sophie liked arguing. She probably didn’t get the chance to do it very much.
Damn, he loved a woman who could hold her own in a blowup, then who’d want to make up in the most passionate way possible afterward.
She didn’t look pleased at having been caught behaving in a manner not suited to sweet Sophie. “My brother is a know-it-all.”
“And my sister is a fraud.”
“Bossy man.”
“Controlling woman.”
“Cad.”
“Smart-ass.”
Daniel held up his hands, breaking up their lighthearted argument. God, he liked the way they talked. It made him wonder, not for the first time, what it might have been like to have siblings. To have a brother or sister who knew him so well they always understood his moods, his thoughts. His wishes.
He envied them. As strange as it seemed, considering he’d always considered himself happy with his life, he found himself envying them for their sibling relationship, something he’d never had, but which they took for granted.
“Okay, I think I’m ready to make an offer on this place,” he admitted to Mick, suddenly uncomfortable with the direction his own thoughts had taken. Now wasn’t the time to reevaluate his life, his relationship with his family—particularly with the parents he’d long assumed hadn’t been ar
ound because they hadn’t cared to. “You want to go back to your office and talk about it?”
“Yep,” Mick said. “But can you give me an hour or two?” He raised a brow and quirked a grin that Daniel supposed women would find irresistibly charming. Hell, Mick had the kind of open personality that said he could be a good guy friend, too.
“Sure,” Daniel agreed, glad to have more time with Sophie. They had never talked about the notebook the day before during their ride back to town. And as much as he’d liked putting it aside for a while, he could not longer afford to.
“Good. Meet me at my office at noon.”
“Done.”
“In the meantime,” Mick continued, with a mischievous look at his sister, “I think Sophie wanted to take you out to our cousin’s place, to show you the town’s famous haunted inn.”
Surprised, he looked at Sophie and saw a flush on her cheeks. She obviously hadn’t wanted Daniel to take her; she’d likely asked her brother. Too bad. Because Daniel was more than ready to step in as the man in Sophie Winchester’s life.
He just had to make her want him there, too.
9
“OH, MY GOD, Sophie, you’re telling me you are R. F. Colt? You’re the one who came up with Detective Mike Michaels? Your brain came up with the story about the psycho who killed brides and grooms at their own wedding receptions?”
Sophie nodded, wishing Gwen, her friend and her cousin Jared’s fiancée, hadn’t spoken so loudly. Almost as if she hadn’t been able to control her own tongue, Sophie had spilled her story to Gwen once she’d learned Jared was out of town for the weekend.
Daniel was somewhere in the house, being given a grand tour by Gwen’s grandmother, Hildy Compton. Sophie and Gwen were sitting in the quiet kitchen of the inn, sharing a pot of tea…and sharing secrets.
“I loved that book! I told you months ago it was my favorite Colt book and you made some comment about it being weak.”
“It is,” Sophie replied, ever critical of her own work. “My worst. The climax was flat and the villain’s goals and motivation weren’t laid out well enough.”
