She didn’t move. “I should resist.”
Like she was Scarlett O’Hara. “Why?”
“Because you’re dangerous and you’re irritating.”
“Jesus, you sound like my father. Look, you have to drive me back, anyway. We came in your truck, if you recall.”
She licked her lips. He wondered if she could taste him. “All right. I’d probably just open a can of soup if I stayed here. You can douse the fire and cover the sap—if you don’t mind. I’ll bring it in after it’s cooled.”
He did as she asked. It only took a few seconds, and even from her driveway, he could hear her shower running. He couldn’t resist. There was no point in wasting time trying to resist. He slipped inside, surveyed the kitchen and living area with a more clinical, neutral eye than he had last night. It was a curious mix of an old-fashioned, rustic lake camp and a young woman’s home. Most disconcerting was the musty moose head on the barn board wall. A leftover, Wyatt suspected.
He moved quickly, silently, with very little premeditation to her study. Fluorescent lights glowed over a trestle table of sprouting plants, all neatly marked with Popsicle sticks. Foxglove, delphinium, petunias, marigolds, Canterbury bells, coleus, pansies. She had a small yard, but he could imagine her filling her deck with pots of flowers and greenery—and giving away the excess.
But he hadn’t ventured in here to check out her plants. He turned his attention to another, larger trestle table desk with its jumble of computer, printer, fax, telephone, jars of pens and pencils, file folders, notebooks. A prosaic metal shelving unit overflowed with books, scrapbooks, photo albums. One shelf was devoted to flying, planes, helicopters, flying in wartime, flying in peacetime, everything from technical to coffee-table picture books. Another offered books on New England, history books, guides to its trails, flora and fauna, birds, inns, mountains, coastlines, waterways, cities and attractions.
On the bottom shelf were two loose-leaf notebooks marked Colt and Frannie and a box of cassette tapes, each neatly hand-labeled. Penelope’s research. Obviously this was a more consuming hobby than she was willing to admit to him. But Wyatt didn’t risk a closer look, although he could still hear the shower running. He tried not to imagine Penelope under its steaming spray.
On the wall were two framed prints, one of a golden, romantic Piper Cub J-3 against a clear blue sky, the other a page of the local paper announcing the disappearance of Frannie Beaudine. There was a big picture of her, smiling, young and so beautiful. There was no picture of Colt. Even Wyatt had seen few pictures of his uncle, remembering him vaguely as a dark and handsome man—and young. He and Frannie had both been so damned young.
He pulled himself away from the study and took a quick peek into Penelope’s bedroom, in case she’d squirreled away an obvious clue to why she was lying. He surveyed the small, cozy room from the doorway. Double bed with a billowing down comforter, lots of colorful pillows, white curtains, a small television, an antique oak bureau. Her sap-boiling clothes hung over a wooden chair painted a bright yellow.
“Just who’s dangerous here,” he whispered, his mouth dry, his throat tight, and headed stiffly outside.
A few minutes later, Penelope emerged in an ankle-length black knit dress and black boots. She’d put on makeup, pinned up her hair, her blond curls damp from her shower. “I put on lip gloss,” she said, smacking her raspberry-colored lips together. “I’ve never met a man who likes to kiss a woman with goop on her lips.”
Wyatt said nothing. If only she knew.
She grinned at him, her green eyes sparkling. “That ought to keep even a fearless Sinclair at bay.”
While she waited for Wyatt to dress for dinner, Penelope had a glass of chardonnay in the kitchen with Harriet, who was arranging dinner salads at the other end of the butcher-block table. Her mother, thank God, was at the sugar house. It was a slow night at the inn. Penelope tried not to gulp her wine. “I think the bastard searched my place while I was in the shower.”
Harriet almost dropped a handful of sliced radishes. “That’s appalling! How could you even think such a thing?”
“That’s how guys like Sinclair operate.”
“Did he have good reason?”
“Harriet.”
Her cousin slipped the radishes onto the perfect shreds of lettuce and started on pitted black olives. “Well, you haven’t been yourself lately—”
“That’s because I’m grounded. I always get antsy when I can’t fly.”
Harriet pursed her lips, her critical, knowing gaze falling on her cousin. “You were already antsy, Penelope. That’s why you were grounded.”
“Then it’s because it’s March.” She sipped her wine, noticing something different about Harriet. Makeup? Her freckles were gone. “I need leaves on the trees.”
“Winter’s never bothered you before.” A half-dozen salads set, Harriet moved to the dessert tray. Maple cheesecake, apple crisp, Indian pudding. Penelope’s mouth watered. After hours and hours with Wyatt Sinclair at her elbow, waiting for her to crack, she was starving. Harriet worked quickly, not looking tempted by her array of sweets. She said, “Robby and I have always thought flying keeps you from getting cabin fever. You’re restless enough as it is.”
Penelope stared at her cousin. After years of practice, she could fill in the blanks between what was being said and what was deliberately not being said. “You don’t believe me, either!”
“About what?”
“Mistaking a dump for Frannie and Colt’s plane.”
Harriet dusted off her fingers. She had broad hands with blunt, clean nails, but her movements were gentle, deliberate, always patient. “I’ve seen old dumps, Penelope. I’ve seen planes. How anyone, especially someone with your expertise, could mistake the two—”
“Well, I did.”
Harriet didn’t respond. That was her modus operandi when she disagreed with someone. To avoid confrontation, she clammed up. It was a handy trait as an innkeeper—she didn’t yell at her guests—but it could be frustrating for her family and friends, who sometimes never knew when Harriet was carrying a grudge.
Robby Chestnut breezed into the kitchen, humming happily. “Keep your fingers crossed—I think we’re in for one of our better sugaring seasons. Not too cold, not too hot.” She smiled. “Like Goldilocks’s porridge. And how are you, Penelope?”
“Just fine. I survived day one of my grounding.”
“So far,” her mother amended.
True. She had dinner with Wyatt yet to go. But like everyone else in town, Penelope had learned to spare her mother the worst of her excesses. She had no intention of mentioning Jack Dunning, tramping through the woods with Sinclair, boiling sap with him, kissing him—and suspecting him of searching her place while she was in the shower.
It wasn’t that her mother wouldn’t care. She would, and did. She just didn’t necessarily want to know details. Her laissez-faire approach to child rearing had left Penelope to do as she pleased, which had its advantages. On the downside, she couldn’t count on her mother putting her neck on the block to spare her daughter. Of course, Penelope was, after all, thirty years old. If she wanted to hang out with a Sinclair, especially one who damned well knew she was lying, that was her call. Her mother wasn’t about to interfere. She was a kind, generous, talented woman, but she let Penelope fight her own battles—and Penelope suspected she had a major one ahead of her.
She filled her wineglass and slipped to the front lobby. Wyatt was coming down the stairs. He had changed into a dark sweater, and he looked as rakish and devil-may-care as any of his lion-hunting forebears. It was a good reminder that she was dealing with dangerous genetic material. He smiled at her. “You look as if you could run right across Lake Winnipesaukee.”
“I feel that way, too. I’m about ready to jump out of my skin. You were right. No one believes my story. Even Harriet doesn’t.”
“Even your father doesn’t.”
“It’s a damned conspiracy. Nobody believed a thi
ng I’ve said since I was a little kid.” She started down the hall in a huff, stopped, glanced sideways at Wyatt. “How do you know what my father believes?”
“He told me as much yesterday after you dropped me off at the airport.”
“Just like that?”
“No, not exactly. I got the impression he didn’t like telling me anything.”
“He’s not your basic blabbermouth,” Penelope said, resuming her course to the Octagon Room. With Wyatt looking so damned devastating, it was just as well she’d seen the salads and dessert tray and knew that grilled rainbow trout was on the menu. Otherwise she’d have been totally insane to stay for dinner. This way, she had an excuse.
“You could tell the truth,” Wyatt pointed out, his tone neutral.
“I could move to California. I left once, you know. After college. I moved to North Carolina for eight months and worked at the Charlotte airport.”
“What brought you back?”
“My father decided to let me fly for him, after all. Before that, he’d hire any scumbag with a pilot’s license before he’d hire me. We’ve started talking about a partnership.”
“That would be after your three-week grounding’s up,” Wyatt said.
She smiled, refusing to let him get to her. “Pop’s a little ticked at me these days. He blames me for every gray hair on his head.”
They came to the Octagon Room, and Terry showed them to the same table they’d had at tea yesterday. A white votive candle flickered in a brass holder, the flame reflecting in Wyatt’s dark eyes. Penelope took a big sip of wine and sat down. Wyatt requested a beer from a local brewer.
“Did you miss Cold Spring while you were in North Carolina?” he asked.
“I missed the lake—and a proper winter. I have the soul of a New Englander, I guess. I’ve tried to beat it out of me, but it’s just there. I need cold winters and fog on the lake in the summer.”
“And mud season?”
She grinned. “I love mud season. One year, I got so stuck on my road I thought I’d have to get a wrecker to pull my car out. That’s when I bought my truck. Most people hate late winter and early spring in northern New England. They’d spend March and most of April in the Bahamas. Not me. I like all the subtle changes that say spring is upon us. The sap running, the tiny buds on the trees, the change in the snow, the longer days—the mud.”
Wyatt’s beer arrived, and he poured it into the frosted glass. Penelope watched his movements, noticed his long fingers, the muscles in his wrists.
“You did seem to be in your element today,” he remarked.
“Yes, all in all it was a good day—since I couldn’t fly. Of course, I’m not counting that kiss by the fire. I’m chalking that up to your Sinclair genes. A woman’s a woman, and there I was. It’s an impulse, a natural reaction to stimuli. Like a frog on a lily pad when a mosquito buzzes by. You just couldn’t help yourself.”
He smiled, tasted his beer. “And I suppose you just couldn’t help yourself when you kissed me back.”
“Anymore than the mosquito could when the frog swallowed him.”
“Penelope…”
A change in subject was necessary. “So, tell me about snooping in my house while I was in the shower. Did you find anything that confirms I’m lying about not finding Frannie and Colt’s plane?”
He leaned over the table and narrowed his black eyes. “If I had, I’d have presented it to you in the shower.”
She refused to picture that particular scenario. “You have no shame, Sinclair. One minute I think we’re building a little trust between us, next minute you’re pawing through my stuff.”
“I didn’t have enough time to do much pawing.” He settled in his chair, smug and amused with himself. “I like the moose head.”
“That’s Willard.”
“My grandfather was named Willard. I presume there’s a connection?”
“He and my grandfather, who built my cabin, used to hunt and fish together. Your grandfather shot the moose and had him mounted—this was many years ago, before I was born. He presented him to my grandfather as a gift. When I inherited the cabin, I got the moose head. I was going to put him in a yard sale, but I kept him.”
“And named him,” Wyatt said.
“I had a nightmare one night shortly after I’d moved in, and when I stumbled bleary-eyed into the living room, here’s this moose glaring at me from the wall. I almost dropped dead of a heart attack. I’d forgotten all about him. So I named him Willard. It seems to fit.”
They ordered their dinners, grilled rainbow trout for both, and had warm dill bread while they waited. Jack Dunning entered the dining room. He didn’t look as out of place as Penelope would have expected, with his close-cropped, graying sandy hair, his jutting jaw, his precise, military bearing—not to mention his cowboy boots on the polished wood floors.
“Aren’t you two worried about stepping on each other’s toes?” Penelope dabbed butter on her warm bread, aware of Wyatt’s gaze on her. “I mean, you’re both here for the same thing, namely figuring out whether or not I’m a liar.”
Wyatt shrugged, shifting his gaze to the investigator across the room. “Liar’s fairly harsh. You could have changed your story for a lot of different reasons. I just want to make sure you didn’t find my uncle’s plane, after all. I assume Jack does, too.”
“Does your father approve of you both being here?”
“I didn’t ask. Jack’s here because my father sent him. I’m here because I decided to check out your story myself. If my father doesn’t approve, that’s his problem.”
“Unlike me, you’re not your father’s employee as well as his offspring. That gets complicated, and I suspect being Brandon Sinclair’s son is quite complicated enough. Whoops. Here comes our Jack Dunning now.”
Wyatt turned, and Penelope smiled as the investigator came to their table. They greeted each other politely before Dunning got to the point. “I stopped by your house again about one-thirty, two. I saw an old man sneaking around—the hermit, Bubba Johns.”
So he already knew about Bubba. “Wyatt and I saw him, too. I expect he wanted to barter some maple sap. He does that sometimes.”
“He comes to your house often?”
“Well, no, usually he does his bartering in town. With all the hoopla this week, maybe he wanted to avoid town.” It was certainly possible, but not likely. Bubba’s trips to town were well-planned, thorough and infrequent. He wouldn’t just pop over to her house instead.
“You should lock your doors,” Dunning said, “just in case.”
She gave him a sharp look. “How do you know my doors weren’t locked?”
“I tried them. The side door and the sliding-glass doors on the deck. I didn’t go inside.”
“I’d have caught you if you had.”
His back remained ramrod straight, his gaze unflinching. “I expect I’d have scared you more than you’d have scared me. If it’s convenient, I’d like to come by in the morning and have a look at your research into the Sinclair-Beaudine matter. Ten o’clock okay?”
Penelope glanced at Wyatt, but he was letting her handle his father’s private detective by herself. She doubted Dunning would answer to his boss’s son. She smiled. “Ten’s fine. I hope you’re not expecting professional research. I’m strictly an amateur.”
“I’d like to see whatever you have.” He smiled, but his eyes had gone cool, making his smile seem forced, even unpleasant. “Consider this my call in advance, Miss Chestnut.”
She remembered their earlier conversation, but refused to let him intimidate her. “I’ll have the coffee on.”
Wyatt casually reached for the breadbasket. “I’ll stop by, too. I’d like to have a look at Penelope’s research myself.” He glanced at Dunning, and Penelope sensed he was being deliberately irritating. “I’ll bring the doughnuts.”
The detective’s eyes cooled even more. “You do that.”
Penelope expected him to retreat to a table, but instead
he left the Octagon Room. She tried to contain her relief. “Well, he’s a barrel of laughs.”
Wyatt spread a thin layer of butter on his bread. “Jack’s a serious man, and he’s being paid well for his efforts.”
“Does that make him more determined than you or less?”
“His motives aren’t mine. Neither are his methods. But I wouldn’t underestimate his determination.”
“Or yours?”
He smiled. “Never underestimate me, period. Penelope—if you want to tell me about Bubba and Harriet and what you found on Sunday, now’s a good time. Jack doesn’t believe your story any more than anyone else around here.”
“I’ve told you everything,” she said quickly, before she could change her mind. Acting on impulse with Wyatt Sinclair wasn’t a smart idea. She’d decided on her story, and she’d stick to it until she’d examined all her options.
“You’ve told me everything you want to tell me. You haven’t told me everything.” His smile vanished, and his dark gaze was probing, searching. “Something has you scared.”
“Scared? I don’t think so. Stir-crazy because I can’t fly, yes. Unnerved because I’ve got a Sinclair and a New York private investigator on my case, yes. Agitated because nobody believes me—sure. But I’m not scared.” She sat back, almost believing herself. “Right now, I’m just hungry.”
He sighed. “I wish I could wave a magic wand and make you trust me.”
“Well, I wish I could wave a magic wand and make you go back to New York.”
He laughed, and in spite of the tight spot she was in, Penelope laughed, too. Their dinners arrived, the trout fresh that day and beautifully prepared, and she and Wyatt ate and talked of other things. The work required to restore the inn, the plants she’d started for the inn and her deck overlooking the lake, the passion she had for flying. She tried to draw him out, but beyond agreeing he was lucky he had the kind of life that allowed him to take a few days off to skulk about the New Hampshire woods, he told her nothing about himself she hadn’t already read in the papers or heard in local gossip. The man was on a mission, and everything he did and said was in service to that mission. Including kissing her. Including asking her to dinner. Soften up the prey. Then pounce.
Kiss the Moon Page 12
