The Cottages on Silver Beach

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Someday he would like to kiss her when the moment was exactly right. But he didn’t really need perfection. He would kiss her in a hurricane if it meant he could taste her again.

  After a moment, she slid away from him. Her lips were trembling, as they had the night before, and looked swollen and delicious.

  “What was that all about?” she asked, sounding vaguely disgruntled.

  “A demonstration that I don’t always do what people expect. Once in a while I can be spontaneous. Carpe diem and all that.”

  “I really didn’t need an object lesson.”

  She sounded so put out, he had to smile. “And if you want the whole truth, I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you—because I’ve wanted to kiss you again since last night.”

  She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again. Cyrus made a snorting noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. She glared at him, too, then turned and started marching back along the trail to the gas station.

  “Why don’t I drive now?” he said when they reached her SUV. “I’ve been sleeping on the job, when I was supposed to be relieving you.”

  She looked undecided for a moment, then shrugged. “As long as you tell me the moment your shoulder starts bothering you.”

  “Sure,” he lied. “You’ll be the first to know.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  Because she understood him better than he wanted to admit?

  “I can’t answer that. Maybe because you’re a suspicious, cynical woman.”

  “Or because you’re a stubborn, hardheaded man who would rather pull out his fingernails himself than admit he’s in pain?”

  “I guess we’ll never know the real reason. I would still like to take a turn at the wheel.”

  She shrugged and gestured to the driver’s seat before she let her dog into his crate.

  As was his routine, apparently, Cyrus clicked his nails on the plastic of his crate a few times, turned around in a circle then plopped onto his stomach, looking content. When Megan seemed sure he was comfortable, she opened the passenger door and leaned inside.

  “Do you want to grab something to eat before we head out?” he asked.

  Her forehead wrinkled as she considered. “I’m okay snacking for now and don’t need anything big. Don’t let that stop you, though. Looks like there are plenty of places to eat at this exit.”

  “I’m good.”

  She nodded. “Let’s make progress while we can, then. I’ll bring up some of the snacks from the back, and maybe next time we stop for gas, we can grab a sandwich. Does that work?”

  “Fine with me.”

  She spent a few moments raiding the cooler, finally settling on crackers, sliced cheese and grapes, which she brought up along with chilled water bottles. Once she was settled in the passenger seat, Elliot adjusted the driver’s seat and the mirrors for his longer length, then headed for the on-ramp.

  “Driver gets choice of music,” she told him.

  “I’m going to cede that to you. It’s your vehicle, and you know your presets.”

  “What kind of music do you usually listen to?”

  “I don’t know. It varies, depending on my mood. Mostly classical and some jazz.”

  She made a face. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “Because you know I’m a boring stick-in-the-mud?”

  She gave him a sidelong look. “There is a chance—a small one, mind you—that you might not be quite as robotic as I have always believed.”

  He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to think about that—he did know her words made him happier than was probably good for him.

  She tried a few stations on her satellite radio and finally landed on a mellow classic rock station that he actually had as one of the presets in his own vehicle.

  “I’m afraid jazz or classical might put us both to sleep,” she said. “Will this do?”

  “Perfectly.”

  She shifted around in her seat trying to find a comfortable position. “So. What do you do for fun in Colorado, when you’re not stopping crime or writing about it?”

  Sleep. And sometimes eat. That was about the sum of it.

  He really had to make more of an effort to get out more and savor the world around him.

  She was a great example of that. With Megan, every moment seemed like an adventure, whether that was watching her niece play softball or chasing after a would-be thief in a convenience-store parking lot.

  “I read a great deal, mostly other true-crime books and manuals on law-enforcement techniques.”

  “I may reconsider. Maybe you’re stuffy after all.”

  While he tended to agree with her for the most part, he did his best to defend himself. “I also run and hike and kayak. In the winter, I ski—cross-country and downhill.”

  “And women? Where do they fit in?”

  “I date occasionally. Usually others in law enforcement.”

  “So you intend to create your own Bailey crime-fighting dynasty. Like father, like son.”

  “Something like that.”

  To his relief, she let the subject drop and was quiet for a few miles. “Tell me about this person you’re going to see outside Hope’s Crossing,” she finally said. “What’s the connection to Elizabeth’s case?”

  His fingers drummed on the steering wheel in time to the song on the radio as he tried to decide how much to tell her. He didn’t want to reveal anything. Usually he preferred keeping information close to the vest, but that seemed impossible when she was so closely tied to the investigation—and when they were sharing a tight space, together on the open road.

  “It may be nothing,” he warned.

  “We have spent seven years of nothings,” she said quietly. “What’s one more?”

  Missing-persons cases could be hell on families. The uncertainty and the fear and the possibility, however remote, that their missing loved one might come back could play hell with any family dynamics.

  “Apparently a trucker called in a tip about a month after Elizabeth disappeared. I found it buried in the files. I haven’t been able to reach her in person or even find a number, only an address, but according to the tip report and my dad’s notes, she said she may have given a ride to a woman who roughly matched the description. There were a few discrepancies. Enough, anyway, that Dad discounted it.”

  “But you’re intrigued enough to follow up.”

  “I have no idea what I’ll find. Maybe one more nothing. It might be a complete dead end, but I can’t help feeling it’s worth making contact to follow up.”

  “Why did your father discount the lead?”

  Elliot’s jaw worked. “I’m not completely sure. Like I said, it might be a dead end. He had pretty good instincts about most things. Not everything.”

  “He was a good man, your dad,” she said. “I have often wondered if his investigation was too sharply focused on Luke from the beginning. If he had widened his search for other suspects, maybe something would have come up before now.”

  Elliot bristled at her criticism of his father, though it wasn’t completely unfair. In the last few years of his time on the job, John Bailey had begun to make more and more mistakes in judgment.

  He could only hope this hadn’t been one more.

  Apparently done asking him questions for the moment, she picked up her book and began to read. Elliot focused on the drive.

  After a few more miles, he became aware of the same strange feeling that had washed over him at random intervals throughout this journey.

  Contentment.

  When was the last time he had known it? Between the pressures of the job and the stress of book deadlines, it wasn’t a feeling he found familiar.

  Yes, he knew his world was still in chaos. He didn’t know if he would return to a job or learn after his d
isciplinary hearing in a few weeks that he had ruined his entire career.

  At the moment, none of those things mattered. At this particular moment, with Megan next to him, everything in his world seemed right.

  Apparently she was no less susceptible than he had been to the steady, calming rhythm of the vehicle tires on pavement. After about fifteen minutes of reading, her eyes began to flutter, opening and closing several times before finally settling on closed.

  The book slipped onto her lap and she pressed her cheek against the seat, facing him, and nestled back against the door.

  Only when he was certain she was really asleep did he allow himself to shift his gaze from the road at random intervals to sneak the occasional glance at her.

  Megan Hamilton was the sort of woman a man would never tire of looking at. It wasn’t simply her physical appearance, though he found her beautiful, with her delicate features, high cheekbones and long, sooty lashes.

  There was more to it than that. She was a strong, courageous woman with a deep capacity to love.

  His chest ached with a soft, fragile tenderness. He had always had a thing for her, whether he had admitted it to himself or not, but over the last few weeks, that attraction had begun to deepen into something more.

  He was falling for her.

  He frowned at the pavement stretching out ahead, not sure what the hell he was supposed to do about it.

  He had never been in love before. Had always figured it wasn’t for guys like him. He had the job he loved at the FBI and then the writing that started on a whim but had provided far more satisfaction than he ever imagined.

  It had always seemed like enough.

  In sleep, she made a soft little sound and wriggled, perhaps trying to find a comfortable position. As she tucked her hand beneath her cheek, he was overwhelmed with the crazy urge to pull over to the side of the road, tug her against him and hold her while she slept.

  Elliot forced his attention back to the road. He wouldn’t fall in love with her. The very idea was ridiculous. Yes, he had a little thing for her. That couldn’t be love. He had spent thirty-six years without a woman touching his heart. What made him think he was ready to start now, with Megan?

  Of all the women to tangle him up!

  What would she do if this lead went nowhere—or worse, led him to the inevitable conclusion that Luke indeed had something to do with Elizabeth’s disappearance?

  What other possibility was there? He remembered Marshall telling him Elizabeth had suffered from postpartum depression and some people wondered if she had killed herself. Wouldn’t some trace of her have surfaced by now?

  The mountains around Haven Point were vast, yes, with plenty of unexplored terrain. There was always a chance she could have walked into Lake Haven with a backpack full of stones. Either way, eventually some article of clothing or a bone or something would have surfaced.

  The alternative was equally untenable. He couldn’t believe Elizabeth was living somewhere, had chosen to walk away from her husband and her children and the life she had in Haven Point, completely without warning.

  Megan had faith in her brother. He accepted that and understood it—even admired her loyalty, to some degree. But the facts were the facts. Luke and Elizabeth had a stormy marriage. The police had been called during a domestic disturbance just days before her disappearance.

  The couple had financial difficulties and she had been deeply unhappy.

  Elliot was almost positive Luke had lost his temper and something terrible had happened, either intentionally or accidentally, leading him to dispose of her somewhere in the vast mountains around the lake—or perhaps in the deep lake itself.

  What would happen when he proved his suspicions?

  Yes, justice would finally prevail after all these years. Luke would be arrested and go on trial for his wife’s disappearance and suspected homicide.

  And Megan would despise him for any small part he might have played.

  All the more reason he needed to put aside any foolish idea that he might be harboring feelings for her. They wouldn’t do him any good. He was a sworn officer of the law to the bone, even if his future at the FBI hovered on a knife’s edge. He had a job to do and he couldn’t let things like emotions or affection cloud his judgment.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ELLIOT BAILEY SURE knew how to kiss a woman.

  They were on a brightly colored quilt next to a gurgling creek with a soft breeze teasing them, sweet with the scent of wildflowers and sagebrush. He didn’t have a sling on now and he was using both hands to pull her close, molding her to his muscles while his mouth played against hers, teasing and tantalizing, drawing out all her secret desires.

  She didn’t want it to end. She wanted to stay right here in this delicious fog and kiss him all afternoon, until the sun slipped behind the mountains and the stars began to pop out, one by one.

  “Somebody’s stealing your laptop,” she mumbled against his mouth.

  “Who cares?” he answered back, kissing her more firmly. The scent of leather filled her senses, though she wasn’t sure exactly why. When she blinked at him again, somehow he now wore a leather biker jacket instead of his blazer and button-down shirt. It was black and worn, and made him look dangerous, disreputable.

  Delicious.

  Oh, the girls at the book club would love to see him like this. Roxy Nash would have a conniption! None of them ever would believe stuffy Elliot Bailey could be so...so bad.

  She wrapped her arms more tightly around him and nuzzled her face into his neck. “Mmmm.”

  “Megan. Wake up.”

  “Don’t want to,” she murmured. Her muscles felt languid, soft, and every part of her hummed with anticipation and aching hunger.

  “Megan?”

  The voice intruded again, a little more firmly. “I’m sorry. I wish I could let you sleep but we’re almost to Hope’s Crossing and I don’t know where to go once we hit the city limits.”

  The creek and the quilt and the leather jacket all disappeared like smoke and Megan fluttered her eyes open. Elliot was still here, watching her with a casual expression, not at all the passionate lover.

  She blinked. How did he turn it on and off like that? she wondered, disgruntled.

  “We just crossed the Hope’s Crossing city limits. I don’t know where to go,” he said.

  The import of his words finally shoved its way through her consciousness and she opened her eyes more fully. They weren’t on a blanket and hadn’t been except for her overheated imagination. There had been no kiss, other than that abbreviated version on the trail earlier. “We can’t be here already.”

  “See for yourself.”

  When she looked out the window, the first thing she noticed was a large, charming wood-painted sign that read Welcome to Hope’s Crossing.

  The Colorado resort town was nestled in a pretty valley with steep, forbidding, still-snowcapped mountains in all directions. She could see historic streetlamps, hanging baskets overflowing with colorful flowers and a dynamic, bustling downtown.

  None of it made sense, though.

  She sat up, scrubbing at her eyes. “How can we be here? We were supposed to grab something to eat.”

  “We had enough gas to keep going and Cyrus seemed fine, so I didn’t bother to stop. You were pretty out of it.”

  He had driven for at least three hours, without a break. Had she really slept that long? She couldn’t quite believe it. On the other hand, she had been living on about four hours of sleep a night for weeks as she tried to get ready for the show, manage the inn and still keep up with her photography bookings. It really wasn’t any wonder she had collapsed at the first chance.

  “Poor Cyrus. I probably need to let him out.”

  “Let’s head to the gallery first. Then I’ll do it. Do you have an address?”

  �
�Yes. It’s the Lange Gallery on Main Street. I can look up directions on my phone.”

  He shook his head. “No need. I know where it is.”

  She sat up, wondering what kind of snarled mess her hair was in. “Really? You’re that familiar with the town. I had the impression you had only been here briefly.”

  He had told her earlier that he had been there but hadn’t given details.

  “A few years ago, I had an assignment here for about a week. We were interviewing friends and associates of a man accused of serial murder and multistate insurance fraud. He had lived here briefly during his crime spree.”

  She shivered, struck by the realization that Elliot spent most of his life surrounded by the ugliest aspects of human nature. How hard that must be for him, focusing on the dark side of people.

  Was that one reason he was so quick to believe the worst of Luke, when he had known the man since they were boys?

  “What happened? To the suspect, I mean.”

  “He was convicted on all counts and is currently in the state prison, serving multiple consecutive life sentences.”

  She did not miss the hard note of satisfaction in his voice.

  “You love what you do, don’t you?”

  Like the rest of his family, Elliot saw his career in law enforcement as more than just a job. It was part of him.

  He shrugged. “What’s not to love? I get bad guys off the streets and behind bars, where they belong.”

  That was how he saw her brother. A bad guy who belonged behind bars. The thought left a sour taste in her mouth and she picked up her water bottle from the drink holder and took a long, cleansing sip as he drove to the gallery.

  “That’s it right there, isn’t it? The building with all the flowers?”

  As he pulled into a convenient parking space in front, she gazed at a stately redbrick building with flower boxes in front of the windows and a basket of blooms hanging from an awning.

  A metal sign above the door read Lange Gallery.

  Nerves fluttered through her like monarch butterflies returning north after migration. “I... Yes. This is the building.”