* * *
TYLER GLANCED AT SARAH, wondering if she’d set up the meeting with her cousin, trying to get him a local commission.
He put the business card in his wallet, taking note of the company name and realizing he’d heard of Luke Forrester. His first wife had been killed by sniper fire in the Middle East. The story had been carried by every news outlet on the planet—partly because she’d been a female soldier and partly because her husband was one of the wealthiest men in the United States.
Working with him would be a prime contract at any time, but right now, it would bring a particular satisfaction. Still, Tyler didn’t want to have discussions with the Forresters only to have them back out because of the business in Illinois.
In the meantime...
He looked at Sarah, who was talking to the twins and felt a stab of longing. Her face glowed. She’d said she wanted children and would obviously be an amazing mother. It made the contrast between them even sharper.
After a moment Sarah met his gaze, and he lifted his eyebrows. “Maybe we should leave,” he said, keeping his face neutral. “I should get back and see what’s going on with Nathan and my mother.” It was just an excuse—what he really wanted was a chance to speak to her privately.
“All right.” She got to her feet. “Carlie, I’ll get the containers and stuff from you guys on Sunday.”
“I’ll make sure to bring them or drop everything by the shop. Thanks for the food.”
The two little girls promptly hugged Sarah goodbye.
Tyler didn’t say anything until they’d reached a paved road again. “The children seem fond of you.”
“I think the size of the Fullerton clan was overwhelming to them at the beginning, but Luke’s sister moved here at the same time he did, which helped. I’m especially recognizable because I’m the cookie lady. That’s what they called me at first.”
“Why cookie lady?”
“They were here for the Christmas season last year, and my shop provides cookies and other treats for Poppy Gold activities. That’s when Luke and Carlie met.”
“They didn’t seem overwhelmed to me—I couldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise if I’d wanted to.”
Sarah chuckled. “I know. They’re competitive, though Beth is much more gung ho than her sister. I usually wait for the first rush of energy to ease off, then it’s easier. Say, do you want to see the property that Luke and Carlie have purchased for the hospital? It’s on the edge of Glimmer Creek and really nice.”
The question was a reminder of what was bothering him...whether Sarah had told her cousin about him.
“Not right now.”
* * *
SARAH WAS FOCUSED on the road ahead, but from the corner of her eye she could see Tyler’s mouth had flattened into a straight line.
She parked in front of her house and handed him the keys to his rental car, but he got out when she did and headed up the walkway with her.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“I want to look around and be sure everything is okay.”
“It’s broad daylight.”
“I’ll still come in. We need to talk.”
Sarah pursed her lips, fairly certain he wasn’t playing the protective-man role. Instead she was going to hear what was upsetting him.
She unlocked the door, and they went inside. “What bee do you have in your bonnet now?”
Tyler scowled. “I don’t have a bee in my bonnet. I want to know if you recommended me to Luke Forrester and his wife, and if it was some sort of repayment for consulting on the remodeling.”
She put out her jaw, getting annoyed, as well. “No and no. I forgot they were looking for an architect until they were talking to you. But why would it be so awful if I had made a recommendation? Do you think I’d recommend someone I don’t trust?”
“I guess not.” Tyler sank down on the couch. “It’s just awkward until everything is cleared up in Illinois.”
“I realize that.” Sarah sat next to him, wishing she knew what to say. “What’s the latest news from your lawyer?”
“Corbin seems to have been stunned into silence by the slander lawsuit. He’s cancelled all interviews and hasn’t gone near a microphone. That part is good. His attorney has suggested that he’ll withdraw his lawsuit if I withdraw mine. My lawyer says to hold firm, that it’s just part of the legal maneuvering.”
Sarah made a face. “So it’s still a waiting game.”
“Afraid so.”
“Why can’t you sit on the commission’s doorstep and insist they bring in experts to evaluate your original plan? Surely they can rule out your involvement without compromising the rest of the investigation. And it’s only fair. If Corbin was smart, he’d want it, too. The longer this goes, the more he’ll have to pay you.”
“I’ll talk to my lawyer, but I’m reluctant to leave Glimmer Creek right now.”
“You aren’t indispensable here,” Sarah said bluntly. “Your mom or my dad can take Nathan to his appointments.”
A curious expression filled Tyler’s eyes. “I’ll think about it. But off the subject, I’ve been wondering something about Poppy Gold.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Well, it’s obviously a hugely popular resort, fully booked, but somehow my mom and brother got a four-bedroom suite on short notice. How is that possible?”
“It isn’t generally known, but the John Muir Cottage is special,” she said slowly. “Poppy Gold keeps it for service members or their families who need a place to rest and recuperate, which means it isn’t on the regular reservation schedule. You get in through referrals from specific commanding officers. In Nathan’s case, it would have been General Pierson. Is that important?”
Tyler sighed. “Maybe not. I’d postponed my business trip to Italy a couple of times, then had to go or be in breach of contract. Things had settled down with Mom and Nathan, so it seemed all right. It was only for a few weeks, and I could call them every day and fly home if needed.”
“But you still felt guilty for going,” Sarah guessed.
He shot a glance at her. “Yeah. And now I’m wondering if they planned the trip to California even before I left. But maybe it plays out the same—they just couldn’t tell me. I think that’s partly why I was so upset when I got here, I couldn’t believe they would do something like that and keep it a secret.”
Sarah’s heart ached for him. “Rosemary mentioned that your father used to decide everything for her. Maybe coming here has less to do with you and more with her need to make a decision.”
“Dad was a control freak. There was only one area he didn’t...” Tyler’s voice trailed off.
“Um, yes?”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter if you know. My father enjoyed risky investments. Emerald and diamond mines, deep-sea mining, sci-fi technology. That kind of thing.”
Sarah was relieved; she’d been afraid of hearing that Richard Prentiss had cheated on his wife. High-risk investments were nothing compared to infidelity.
“Maybe he needed it for the adrenaline rush.” She paused, then straightened. “Tell me more about Illinois. You’ve told me some of the facts and I know you hate that those workers got hurt, but I’m getting the idea more is going on behind your stone face than you’ve said.”
Tyler narrowed his eyes. “Stone face? You just said that to get me to talk.”
“Did it work?” she asked hopefully.
“I suppose. The thing is, I should have done a better job of convincing Corbin that the modifications he wanted were unsafe, or worked on a modified plan that might have satisfied him. Instead I got angry and opted out of the contract. Now one of those construction workers may spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.”
Sarah swallowed. Beneath Tyler’s stern exter
ior was a man with intense emotions. People could find all sorts of reasons to feel guilty. In the past year, he’d lost his father, and his brother had been injured... Maybe his grief and regrets over those traumas were adding to his guilt about the building collapse.
“The owner is responsible for what happened, not you. He’s the one who chose to go forward with a design you told him wasn’t safe.”
* * *
“YOU MUST THINK I’m stupid to be bothered by it,” Tyler muttered.
“It’s human nature to question,” Sarah said. “Decent people look at their behavior and wonder if they could have done something different. I respect that, but you have to stop tearing yourself up. You told the owner that the design changes were dangerous and then risked your own life to help when you were proven right. That’s more than a lot of people would have done.”
He pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and showed it to Sarah. “There’s more. I got a fax this morning from my lawyer. It’s the report from the lab about the sample of concrete I snagged after that wall collapsed. The mix was way off. But I don’t think it was a mistake; I think it was a cost-cutting measure. Who knows how many other shortcuts were taken? I should have been there, ensuring this kind of thing didn’t happen.”
Sarah crossed her arms and fixed him with a stern gaze. “Seriously? You can’t be at every building site on the planet, looking over every builder’s shoulder. Stop searching for reasons to feel responsible. I bet you even wonder if you’d gotten your law degree, you might have been able to convince your father to slow down. Now it’s all gotten mixed up with your feelings about the building in Illinois.”
Tyler sucked in a breath. How could Sarah do that? She seemed able to look into the darkest part of him and know things he’d only acknowledged to himself.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” he asked. “Dad might have retired earlier if I’d been there. He could have been alive and playing golf right now.”
Sarah made an exasperated sound. “In the first place, the East Coast is in a different time zone—nobody is playing golf there, it’s dark. In the second, you didn’t owe him your entire life. And from what your mom has said, nothing could have made him slow down. Ultimately he might have seen you as competition, maybe even resented having you there.”
That was true, too.
Tyler knew he was a rational, logical person trying to resolve impossible “what ifs.” If he was more like Sarah, who acted from the heart, it might be easier to wade through the emotional quagmire.
“The more I learn about my father, the more he confuses me,” Tyler admitted.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said simply, her eyes filled with the warmth Tyler had grown accustomed to seeing there. He rarely had to question what she was feeling, and it was making him understand how difficult his own reserve must be for others to handle.
Blast.
Sarah was undermining all his resolve, all the decisions he’d made about what he wanted in his life. The problems in Illinois notwithstanding, he was fine. His career would recover. His life would be successful. He didn’t need her to rescue him.
Or did he?
* * *
SARAH WASN’T SURPRISED when Tyler got up, making an excuse about checking on his mother and Nathan. She opened the door, only to freeze at the sight of another gift bag sitting on the steps of the porch.
“Gee, look at that. Another present from my secret admirer,” she said, unable to keep the tension from her voice.
The bag was unexpectedly heavy, and glass tinkled inside when she lifted it. There were cartoon elephants dancing on the front and layers of pink tissue paper sticking artfully from the top, but Tyler caught her hand when she started to reach inside.
“Careful,” he warned. “You don’t know what’s in there. Maybe you should call Zach and let him take a look first.”
“Not until I see what it is. I won’t disturb any fingerprints.” She found a large plastic container and carefully tipped the contents out...a shower of broken glass.
Tyler swore. He grabbed a pen from a holder by the phone and poked through the pieces.
“Those two look like they used to be champagne flutes,” Sarah said, trying to keep her voice steady as she pointed at a couple of more intact pieces.
“But what are these?” There were a number of heavy chunks that seemed to have come from something else.
She looked closer and used the pen to nudge the largest pieces closer together. “The shapes look vaguely familiar. Maybe it was some type of art glass.”
Tyler was standing nearby, and Sarah longed to lean into his warmth.
“I’ve noticed you have a number of paperweights,” he murmured. “Are any of them missing?”
Sarah’s pulse jumped as she recalled telling her dad that no one would be interested in her glass paperweight collection. “I don’t think so, but I’ll check.”
She and Tyler did a quick circuit of the house. It seemed unlikely that someone could have broken in, swiped one of her paperweights and left no other trace. But she’d learned anything was possible when Douglas had been trying to terrorize her.
“Nothing seems disturbed,” she said finally.
They went back downstairs, and Sarah didn’t need any urging to phone Zach.
“Hey, it’s Sarah,” she said when he answered. “I’m sorry to call when you’re off duty.”
“I told you to. What happened?”
She explained, and he said he’d be right over.
“He’s on the way. You don’t have to stay if your mother’s waiting,” she told Tyler when she hung up the phone.
He gave her an incredulous look. “You think I’d leave after you found something like that? I may have my faults, but I’m not going to run off when a friend is in trouble.”
“Friend?”
“Yes, friend,” Tyler said firmly. “And I’m short on those, so don’t argue with me.”
Sarah blinked, trying not to cry. “Okay.”
Friendship was more than she’d expected, though her heart longed for more. When it came down to it, hearts weren’t reasonable. They made their own choices, ignoring logic and good sense and the very real likelihood of getting broken.
Zach’s knock jerked her out of the painful thought, and she hurried to the door. Her cousin was in civvies but had attached his badge to his belt, so this was clearly an official visit.
“Let’s see it,” he said briskly.
“It’s in the kitchen. By the way, I also got some packages in the mail you might want to check. There’s no return address on them, and the postmarks are from valley towns.”
Zach and Tyler both glared at her.
“You got anonymous mail and didn’t tell me?” her cousin demanded. “Are you trying to make my job harder?”
“It isn’t as bad as it sounds. They didn’t fit through my mail slot, so the postman has been leaving package slips. I didn’t think much about it, but I caught him this afternoon when he was in the neighborhood.”
Zach growled something under his breath. “First I want to see the broken glass.” He put on gloves and silently examined the contents of the plastic box. “I wish I’d seen the bag before it was disturbed. I’m concerned whether the glass was arranged with the intent of slicing your hand when you reached inside.”
Sarah’s skin went cold, and her fingers curled. In her mind, she saw the jagged tips of the broken champagne flutes rising up, hidden by layers of pink tissue paper.
“Hey, I think Sarah is scared enough,” Tyler declared. He didn’t look pleased.
Zach appeared equally annoyed at the challenge. Obviously, he and Tyler weren’t crazy about each other.
“If you don’t object, I’m going to take the packages with me,” Zach said finally. “They should be opened under controlled cir
cumstances.”
“Absolutely no objections.” She pulled the box from under the table, glad to see it go.
Zach took everything out to his vehicle and returned. “Sarah, I’m going to run extra patrols down your street. I don’t know what’s going on yet, but please be careful.”
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
The door closed behind him, and she looked at Tyler again. “Well, this has been interesting.”
“I’m spending the night on your couch.”
It was nice that he hadn’t assumed he’d share her bed, but she wasn’t budging.
“No, you’re going back to Poppy Gold to reassure Rosemary that everything is fine.”
Over his continued objections, she pushed him out the door. There was too much chance that if he stayed, she’d weaken and invite him upstairs.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ROSEMARY HAD BEEN EDGY all day about the vandalism and went for a walk to calm her nerves. Tyler was wrong, she could handle the stress of working, but the vandalism was a worry and she was concerned about her sons.
There wasn’t a quick cure for PTSD, but at least Nathan seemed to be getting better. Still, she’d seen how a terrible experience could change someone. Her husband had become a different person after their daughter died. It was entirely possible that Nathan might never be the same.
As for Tyler?
The weeks at Poppy Gold Inns were the most time she’d spent with him since he’d left for college, but despite that, she didn’t feel much closer to him. And now she’d learned he was keeping the problem in Illinois from her...? She needed to ask about it but knew she’d feel like a fraud since she’d been keeping an even bigger secret.
On the way back to Poppy Gold, she was stopped by a woman going into the Argonaut Market.
“You’re Rosemary, right? We met at the baked potato feed.”
“Yes, and you’re Leah Benton.”
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