The Cottages on Silver Beach

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Luke, she reminded herself. She would do this for her brother’s sake. If Elliot could prove Luke’s innocence and clear his name once and for all—and possibly find answers to the mystery that had haunted her family for so many years—any inconvenience on her part would be well worth it.

  “We’re both ready,” she answered.

  He opened the passenger door, set his laptop bag on the floor, then slid his lean frame inside.

  She filled her lungs with one more deep, pine-scented, Elliot-free breath, then climbed in beside him.

  Her roomy midsize SUV seemed to have shrunk to the size of a cereal box, and the scent of his soap, woodsy and masculine, filled the interior.

  “I’m surprised,” she admitted after she started the engine. “I had a bet with myself that you would offer to drive before we even headed out.”

  “That seems a strange bet. Why would you assume I would do that?”

  She shrugged. “Most men of my acquaintance tend to get antsy with a woman behind the wheel. I’m not sure if they like to be in control, if they’re misogynists or if it’s plain old arrogance, the certainty that they can do it better.”

  He held up his bag. “I figured I would work while I have the chance, if it’s all the same to you. To be honest, I’m hoping to make serious progress on my manuscript today and maybe wrap it up if I can. Whenever you need a break, though, let me know. I’m happy to drive.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  He was full of surprises. Something told her this wouldn’t be the only way Elliot Bailey would leave her discombobulated over the next few days.

  She put her SUV in gear, backed out of her parking stall and headed for the highway, hoping this wasn’t a huge mistake.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WHY HAD HE ever imagined this might be a good idea?

  As Megan drove away from the inn, Elliot settled into the passenger seat, wondering if he’d suffered some kind of previously undiagnosed brain injury during the shoot-out, one that was only now making itself manifest.

  What was he doing here? And how would he make it through two days of being in her company without doing something crazy—oh, like, say, stealing a kiss in the moonlight, simply because he couldn’t help himself.

  He sighed, the memory of that kiss taunting him. He could still taste her, heady and delicious.

  It was going to be a long two days.

  He couldn’t back out now. He would simply have to keep his mind on the goal—interviewing a potential witness to Elizabeth’s disappearance and possibly moving one step closer to finding out what happened to her.

  If he could help Megan out with the driving and perhaps provide a little muscle once they reached the gallery, he would count that as a bonus.

  He only had to control this unruly attraction to her for forty-eight hours. No problem.

  “I love road trips,” she said after a few moments, “especially that first hour or two, when the whole road lies ahead of you and you haven’t had time for boredom to set in yet.”

  The morning was lovely, he had to admit, as the pines along the road dripped condensation and sunlight streamed through the treetops. This wasn’t a bad way to spend the morning, riding next to a lovely woman as they made their way toward the freeway.

  Elliot had never been very good at small talk, the little polite, socially lubricating conversations that eased the way at gatherings and around the watercooler at work. He preferred to listen, to absorb, to process information.

  A loud mind is greater than a loud mouth, his father used to say, and from the time he was young, Elliot had taken those words to heart.

  He never had much patience for talking about inconsequential things and invariably ended up asking questions that were too deep and probing for casual conversations.

  But he wanted to hear everything Megan had to say. The woman intrigued him on so many levels.

  Yes, he was physically attracted to her. It was much more than that, though. He liked being with her. He couldn’t remember the last time he could say that about a woman.

  “Did your family go on many vacations when you were younger?”

  He regretted the question when her smile dimmed slightly and she kept her gaze fixed on the road stretching out ahead of them.

  “Not really. We went to Yellowstone once before my mom died. I remember we stayed in a tent and saw Old Faithful and roasted hot dogs around the fire.”

  With a start, Elliot realized that while he knew the basics, he didn’t know much else about her past. He knew her mother had died when she was in elementary school and her dad had been in and out of the picture. Her maternal grandmother had basically raised her and Luke in her home on the grounds of the inn, despite the fact that Luke had been a product of their father’s first marriage and wasn’t even her biological grandson.

  When they were kids, Luke had always been pretty closemouthed about his family life. Elliot had never probed, though he’d somehow gained the impression it hadn’t been ideal.

  “What about you?” she asked in return. “Did the Bailey clan ever hit the open road?”

  “Dad took us on fishing trips and the occasional campout but he didn’t like to be away from Haven Point that much.”

  John Bailey had seen his position as chief of police in Haven Point more as a calling than a job. They used to tease him that he thought the whole town would descend into anarchy if he wasn’t there to keep the peace. Trips to Disneyland couldn’t compete with that sort of obligation.

  Charlene had done her best to give them those experiences, though. “Mom would take us a few times a year to visit her family in Wyoming and once she loaded us all up in her minivan and drove alone to the Oregon Coast. She said she was tired of waiting for Dad to carve out a week. It was breathtaking.”

  “You’re very lucky,” she said softly.

  “Because I’ve been to Oregon? What I didn’t tell you was how exhausting it could be to travel with five kids. I was the oldest, so before we left, Dad told me I had to help Mom with the others. Marsh was okay but Wyatt and Wynona fought the whole way and Katrina turned into a pouty brat the minute we passed the city limit sign.”

  He felt ridiculously pleased when she smiled at that.

  “I love your family. All of them. It was one of the things...” Her voice trailed off.

  “One of what things?” he asked when the silence became heavy and awkward.

  “One of the things I liked most about dating Wyatt.”

  Elliot’s insides clenched at this reminder that she had once been in love with his brother.

  “You dated Wyatt for his family?”

  “Not only that. He was... Well, you know. He was laughter and practical jokes and silly faces. He loved to have a good time and he wanted everyone else to as well. He truly cared about everyone.”

  “And in the end, it killed him.”

  Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and Elliot wanted to kick himself. He could be such an ass sometimes. A total failure at social conversation 101.

  Yes, Wyatt had died while helping someone else. It had been tragic and heartbreaking. He had been off duty from his job as a highway patrol officer when a fierce and sudden blizzard struck the area of the state where he had been working.

  On the job or not, Wyatt hadn’t shirked from his desire to help. He stopped to dig out a stranded motorist. He was outside of his own truck trying to push the vehicle out of a snowbank when another vehicle spun out on the same patch of ice and hit both Wyatt and the other motorist.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I loved my brother. If you want the truth, I envied him.”

  “You did?”

  He sifted through his words, not wanting to reveal too much to her. He could still remember his shock at learning from Charlene in one of their regular Sunday phone calls that Wyatt and Mega
n Hamilton had begun dating, and how pleased they all were about it.

  “Maybe she’ll settle that rascal brother of yours down a little,” his mother had said.

  Elliot remembered ending the call and just sitting in the dark of his apartment in Denver, wondering what the hell he would do if she and Wyatt actually wound up together.

  He had ended up going out to a bar and getting drunk, for one of the few times in his life.

  He certainly couldn’t tell her that, though.

  “This may come as a shock to you, but I tend to be a little serious,” he said instead.

  “You?” She raised an eyebrow and he didn’t miss the dry note in her voice.

  “I always have been. I take after my dad, I guess.”

  She smiled. “You and Marshall seem to have that in common, at least until he and Andie found each other.”

  “Neither of us talked a lot. We used to be able to play Legos for hours without once fighting about which of us needed a particular brick. And then came Wyn and Wyatt. Two little rascals, into everything and never stopping their chatter long enough to even take a breath. Wyn was the sweetest thing and Wyatt was a born stand-up comedian. When he was in a room, everyone else there couldn’t help but smile. Even me.”

  “And me,” she said.

  Megan was the same way, he realized. She had a unique way of looking at the world that invariably made him smile—on the inside, anyway.

  “Do you miss him terribly? Is that why you haven’t found someone else in all these years?”

  So much for small talk. As soon as he asked the question, Elliot wanted to kick himself. Did he really want to hear the answer to that?

  She was quiet for a long moment and he almost told her to forget he’d said anything. The only sound was the whirring of the tires on the pavement and her dog’s snuffling snores from behind them.

  Finally she spoke. “That’s hard to answer. I miss the future we might have had but I don’t know if we would have ended up together anyway. Neither of us was ready back then. I wanted to get out of small-town Idaho, just take my camera and go, while he loved it here and couldn’t imagine settling anywhere else.”

  She wanted to leave? He hadn’t known that. He’d always assumed she’d created her life at the inn because that was what she wanted.

  “I suppose a corner of my heart will always belong to Wyatt,” she went on, “but I haven’t spent the last six years in mourning, I promise you that. Mostly, I’ve been too busy helping raise my niece and nephew to go on many dates.”

  “Are they the reason you didn’t leave after Wyatt died?”

  “Luke and the kids needed me. He had been there for me after my mother died. I couldn’t abandon him, too.”

  She had put her own dreams on hold and stayed in Haven Point. He wondered if that was one of the reasons she stubbornly clung to the misguided conviction that Luke had nothing to do with Elizabeth’s disappearance. She probably wanted to believe she had sacrificed all of her plans for an innocent man, not one whose children lost their mother because of him.

  He again had that uneasy feeling that maybe he ought to leave the whole mess alone, just let Marsh and his department continue to investigate. Megan would be devastated if his suspicions turned out to be true.

  “They seem like sweet kids,” he said gruffly. Children who deserved to know the truth.

  “They’re pretty amazing,” she agreed. She sent him a sidelong look. “What about you? Why haven’t you married? You’re, what, thirty-six now? Heading into confirmed bachelor territory, aren’t you?”

  “Something like that.”

  “So why isn’t there a Mrs. Elliot Bailey by now? You’re not only an FBI agent but a bestselling crime writer. You’ve got that sexy, dangerous vibe down. I would think you’d have women knocking down your doors.”

  He snorted. “Oh, yes. I can barely walk outside without stepping on all the broken hearts I’ve left there.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “I go out. Just never anything serious.”

  “Why not?”

  “You said it yourself. I have an intense, demanding job and another one on the side. There’s not a lot of wiggle room in my calendar for grabbing drinks or going to the movies.”

  “When something’s important enough, you make time.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Now you sound like my mother.”

  “Well, look at it this way. If things go south with your disciplinary hearing, at least you’ll have more time for a social life.”

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Sure, my career has imploded, my reputation is in tatters and everything I’ve worked for over the last thirteen years may be chugging down the drain. But at least I can sign up for a couple of dating services now and finally get my mom off my back.”

  “There you go. There’s always a bright side. Sometimes you just have to look for it.”

  How did she do it? After everything she had been through—losing her parents, her grandmother, Wyatt—how could she still have such an optimistic view of life?

  He didn’t know. He only knew he found her delightful. She was like Wyatt, he thought again, someone who brought joy and sunshine wherever she went.

  Resisting her would be one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

  * * *

  WHO WOULD HAVE guessed Elliot Bailey could be a pleasant traveling companion?

  By the time she was ready to take a break and let poor Cyrus stretch his stubby little legs, Megan had decided that even though she didn’t mind driving, the trip wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable on her own.

  They hadn’t spoken much since that surprising conversation after they first set out, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. She quite enjoyed glancing over every once in a while to see him working away on his laptop, noise-reducing headphones on and his features intense as he touch-typed far more quickly than she might have expected.

  Every once in a while, he would make an exclamation or mutter to himself. She had a feeling he wasn’t even aware of it. Every time, it made her smile. She did the same thing when she was in the groove, editing and organizing photos on-screen.

  She had listened to a photography podcast she liked for the last few hours and the miles had passed quickly. She would have driven another hour before stopping, but she didn’t think Cyrus could wait that long.

  “Do you need gas?” he asked, removing his headphones when she slowed down to take the next exit.

  “I’ve still got half a tank but figured I would top it off. Mostly I need to let Cyrus out,” she explained.

  She pulled into a gas station close to the exit, and Elliot opened his door as soon as she turned off the engine.

  “I’ll take care of the gas,” he said. “You deal with our furry friend.”

  She headed around the SUV to let Cyrus out. The moment she lowered him to the ground, he went to the nearest tire and lifted his leg.

  “Looks like you stopped just in time.” Elliot gave her an amused look over the SUV’s roof.

  “I had a feeling. He has this little grunt he does when he’s desperate.”

  “Reminds me of a couple guys I work with,” he said.

  Had Elliot Bailey just made a joke? Who would have believed it? The man was full of surprises.

  “I’m not sure he’s done. I’m just going to take him over to the grassy spot over there and let him run around a little.”

  “Do you want anything inside? A drink or something?”

  “I forgot to tell you I have snacks and some water bottles in a cooler in the back, but I wouldn’t mind a cup of ice.”

  “You got it.”

  “Oh, and maybe something chocolaty and bad for me.”

  He gave that delicious half smile. Something else that was bad for her. “I’ll see what I can find.”

/>   While the gas was still pumping, he headed inside. She grabbed Cyrus’s water bowl and one of the water bottles and walked with him to the little patch of grass. She filled the bowl up for him and did a few yoga stretches to work out the kinks in her back from huddling over the steering wheel in one position as he lapped at the bowl eagerly.

  More water in his system would mean another stop, sooner rather than later, but she didn’t mind.

  When he was done drinking, the dog wandered around the small patch of grass with his nose to the ground. After only two or three moments, he plopped onto his stomach and gazed at her with an expectant what-now? look.

  Megan rolled her eyes. “Seriously? That’s all the exercise you want? Five minutes of getting a drink, answering the call of nature and rolling around in the grass?”

  He gave her his cocked-head, scowly look that always made her laugh.

  “Okay. Your choice. But it will be a few hours before we stop again.”

  She hooked his leash back on, picked up his water bowl and headed back to her SUV to return him to the crate.

  She could use a quick restroom stop, too, she decided. She was still fifteen feet from her car when she saw a figure sidle up to her passenger seat, give a careful look around, then reach into the open window. When he pulled his hand out, Elliot’s laptop bag was dangling from it.

  “Hey!” she shouted.

  Startled eyes turned in her direction, belonging to a kid who couldn’t be more than eleven or twelve.

  He stared, frozen, for just a moment, then took off running with the bag. Megan started after him. She had always been fast but quickly realized she wouldn’t gain on the thief while hampered by a peripatetic dog with stubby little legs.

  She scooped Cyrus up, deposited him inside the open window of her vehicle, then took off after the thief.

  She reached him before he could turn the corner of the convenience store. With a mighty burst of energy, she grabbed the hood of his sweatshirt, yanking him back and stopping his progress.

  “Give me that,” she snapped, adrenaline pumping through her.