Kiss the Moon

by Carla Neggers

  She winced at her unfortunate analogy and started for her wallet, ready to get herself home before his strategy worked. He shook his head. “Let me pay for dinner. It was my idea. Otherwise you’d be having soup in front of the wood stove with Willard the moose.”

  “Willard never accused me of lying.” She smiled. “Thanks for dinner. I’ve almost made it through the first day of my grounding.”

  “Glad I could help.”

  She ignored his amused undertone. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

  The dark eyes sparked. “You won’t be cleaning my room in the morning?”

  “Very funny. If you decide to check out—”

  “I won’t.”

  “Then I won’t see you until you and Mr. Dunning show up to look at my materials on Colt and Frannie. Unless I change my mind.” She started across the dining room. “Don’t forget the doughnuts.”

  She left him to pay and slipped down the hall, stopping in her tracks when she saw Harriet tucked in a candlelit booth in the bar with Jack Dunning. Her heart sank at her cousin’s smitten look. There was no other word for it. Harriet was smiling dopily, her eyes doe-like, and Penelope wanted to march in there and shake her.

  Of course, who’d been kissing a Sinclair out by the maple-sugaring fire?

  She bit her tongue and continued on her way, trying to shake off the rush of doubts and questions and possible courses of action for herself. All she had to do was tell Wyatt and Dunning about the plane. They’d go off and find it, do whatever they needed to do and quit pestering her about lying. But they couldn’t control the media, the attention that would focus on Bubba and Harriet. And what about the subtly threatening message on her computer?

  Besides which, she didn’t like the two New Yorkers’ tactics. Jack Dunning was deliberately charming Harriet to get information out of her. If she felt comfortable, safe, understood, Harriet would tell him her theory about her birth parents. He might already know—he might not. But if he could use the information, or anything else she told him, to put the screws to Penelope, he would. She hated being so cynical, but she knew she was right.

  She groaned. “Oh, Harriet. Why couldn’t you fall for someone like Andy McNally?”

  Because Harriet wanted her Scarlet Pimpernel, her Scaramouche, her D’Artagnan, her Spiderman. She didn’t want a scarred widower with two daughters, a small-town guy she’d known all her life, any more than she wanted to be the child abandoned by some unknown teenager. She wanted to be Colt Sinclair and Frannie Beaudine’s daughter.

  Penelope gave herself a mental shake. Who was she to criticize Harriet?

  As if to prove her point, Wyatt caught up with her outside. The light from the back door glowed softly, making his eyes seem blacker, but also less menacing, less as if he were a man who’d do anything to get his way. “I just wanted to make sure you know you can call me if your hermit shows up tonight.”

  “Bubba doesn’t scare me.”

  “Okay. But you know where to find me.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  He adjusted her scarf, letting one knuckle curve along her jaw, featherlight. “I’m not imagining things. I know something’s not right with this whole plane story.” She started to answer, but he touched her lips. “No, I’m not trying to put you on the spot. I just want you to trust me if you get to the point of feeling you’re in over your head.”

  “I’m not—”

  He smiled, cutting her off. “I know you’re not. You’re in command of the situation.”

  “I don’t know about that. You’re here. Jack Dunning’s in there wooing Harriet. I’m not in command of much. But I’m not worried about spending the night alone in my cabin.”

  “Not even a little?”

  “Nope. Frankly, I’d be a lot more worried about sleeping here.”

  He laughed, and when she laughed, too, his mouth found hers. She shut her eyes, soaking up the feel of his lips, the heat of a quick taste of tongue. She wondered if she should be less worried about Bubba and Harriet and threatening messages and more worried about her attraction to this man, this Sinclair, with all his complexities and layers and built-in determination. All she wanted, right now, for the rest of the night, was his hands on her body, the chance to explore and taste and—

  And you’re crazy!

  “I’ve got to go,” she whispered. “Harriet, my mother—if they see us, ten to one I’ll end up grounded from flying for a million years. Pop won’t think I have a lick of sense left.”

  “Caught kissing a Sinclair in the parking lot. You’d have to be out of control.” He eased one hand into her hair, kissed her again, hard, deep, fast. Then he stood back, winked with a mix of amusement and sexiness that would haunt her all night. “Question is, do you want to be out of control?”

  “Wyatt—”

  He shook his head, his gaze suddenly serious. “Just say good-night and thanks for dinner.”

  She nodded, her body quivering with a desire that rocked her to her core. “Good night. Thanks for dinner.”

  Her truck was cold, dark, so damned quiet. She flipped on the radio and headed out the winding main road, making the turns that took her to her dirt road, its squishy mud already hardening in the falling temperature. When she came to her house, she locked her truck and ran up the steps, imagining Bubba Johns lurking in the darkness, wondering if her judgment about him was wrong.

  She locked her door behind her, made sure the sliding glass doors to the deck were locked. She ran around the house and flipped on all the lights, every one, even the one on the stove. She breathed, trying to relax. It was that kiss, of course. She was out of control.

  Her tiny house was bright. Quiet. Light gleamed in Willard’s glass eyes. She could never shoot a moose. Never. But here was a moose head mounted on her living room wall. Next she’d sprout bushy eyebrows and turn into her grandfather, an old curmudgeon who’d never discussed his relationship with the Sinclairs. He’d known Colt, he’d known Frannie Beaudine. He had steadfastly refused to expound on what he might know or surmise about their love affair, their personalities, their hopes and dreams. He’d say to people, “I don’t know how that’s going to help find their plane.”

  Whatever Sam Chestnut knew about Colt and Frannie went to the grave with him. His younger brother, the Reverend Mr. George Chestnut, had come out of his retirement in Florida to bury him. George’s idea of recreation in the lakes region was more in tune with Penelope’s—canoeing, kayaking, hiking, occasionally fishing. If her great-uncle had asked for the moose head, she would have given it to him.

  She sighed heavily, still feeling restless, agitated. She unlocked the sliding glass doors and slipped onto the deck. The clouds were gathering over the still, snow-covered lake. She leaned over the rail, the cold seeping into her and the sounds of the night calming her. Yet she could feel, in a way she seldom let herself feel, how isolated and alone she was. She’d moved out here more or less on an impulse, another example of Penelope Chestnut operating on instinct, everyone in town thinking—telling her—she was crazy.

  “And now,” she whispered, “here you are.”

  An engine started. Up the road, down the road—she couldn’t tell. She stood up straight, listening. Not in her driveway. Not that close. She went still, wondering if whoever was out there knew she was outside.

  The engine didn’t rev. It was as if the vehicle—car, truck, SUV—was trying to slip off quietly into the night without her noticing.

  A spy?

  She was getting paranoid.

  But she shot inside without making a sound, locked the door behind her. She didn’t have bars or bolts or fancy locks, nothing that would stop anyone determined to get in. She ran to the study, ducking low as she approached the window, then creeping up, peering into the night.

  Half expecting someone in the window, she almost screamed at her own reflection. Running out of gas at five thousand feet she could handle. Things that go bump in the night, forget it.

  She c
ouldn’t see the vehicle. She could hear it rolling down her dirt road, without lights, not fast, coasting.

  Why? Why not turn on the lights and lay on the gas?

  Was the driver deliberately trying to scare her? Trying to avoid being seen? Or just having car trouble?

  What if he stopped past her house and snuck up for a peek in her windows?

  “What ifs will drive you nuts,” she warned herself.

  For the first time in her memory, Penelope found herself wishing simultaneously for good locks, a gun and maybe even a man she trusted. For all she knew, that could be Wyatt on her road. But she didn’t think it was.

  She gave herself fifteen minutes to calm down. This was no time to go crying wolf. When the fifteen minutes passed and her heart was still pounding, her hands still shaking and clammy, she dialed Andy McNally at home. It was the most sensible course of action. They’d had their disagreements in the past, but he knew his daughters looked up to her—and he had a soft spot for Harriet. Plus, he was a responsible chief of police.

  “Penelope? What’s up? I was just heading over to the inn for a drink.”

  “I’m a little spooked, Andy.” A lot spooked, but she was trying not to overdramatize. Andy had been saying for years that one of these days her zest for drama, in his words, was going to bite her in the ass. “Someone drove down my road without lights about fifteen minutes ago. I’m still spooked about it, even though I know it’s probably kids or some straggling reporter—”

  “I’ll drive up there myself and have a look. Penelope—hell, this must be a first, but you even sound upset. You telling me everything?”

  She didn’t know if she should mention the weird e-mail message. It wasn’t overtly threatening. It might not even be a police matter. She’d have Jack Dunning and Wyatt Sinclair down her throat about what she really found on Sunday. Not that she didn’t already, but they didn’t need more ammunition. And what if the message was their doing, to try to scare her? “Just drive by. If you see anything suspicious, let me know.”

  “Damned right I’ll let you know. I’ll be knocking on your door.” He paused, going cop on her. “You sure there’s nothing else?”

  “Andy, if it was bad guys on my road, they could be doubling back here now with shotguns and knives—”

  “Nah. They’d have already napalmed your place by now. Next time don’t wait fifteen minutes before you call.”

  He hung up, and Penelope paced until, ten minutes later, he drove past her house and up the road, turned and drove back, tooting his horn.

  The all clear.

  Relieved, she went into the study and turned on her computer to check her e-mail. She noticed a paper in her fax machine, and as she pulled it out, she automatically looked for the ID line at the top. There was none. That was illegal, though perhaps an oversight if one of her friends had just bought a fax machine, an unlikely event.

  The message was one line, in a large, easy-to-read font.

  Don’t show anyone what you really found in the woods.

  Her hands shook. Her stomach lurched. She crumpled the fax and threw it against the wall and dialed the inn’s number. Harriet picked up. Penelope fought an urge to jump up and tear out of her house. “Harriet? It’s me. Tell me—where are Jack Dunning and Wyatt Sinclair right now?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t keep tabs on my guests.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re not keeping tabs on these particular guests. Please, Harriet. I need to know.”

  “You sound awful. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I just—I just have the feeling things are spinning out of control. Are they there?”

  “No,” Harriet said. “They went out after dinner. Separately. Jack first, then Wyatt. Jack said he was going to the airport to check on his plane. I don’t know where Wyatt was going.”

  Penelope bent and picked up the crumpled fax. Neither Wyatt Sinclair nor Jack Dunning had made any pretense they believed she was lying about Colt and Frannie’s plane. How low would they stoop to get her to change her story? Like the instant message, the fax wasn’t overtly threatening. Probably Andy McNally would blame the national media coverage and tell her to forget it, let the dust settle. Without an actual threat, there was probably little he could do.

  “Penelope?”

  She could hear the concern in her cousin’s voice. “Thanks, Harriet. I’m just tired. It’s been a long day. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Call me if you need me.”

  Penelope smiled. She could always count on Harriet. After they’d hung up, she folded the fax into a tiny square and stuck it in her lingerie drawer. Was Bubba Johns capable of sending a fax? She shook off the question, shook off all her questions and fixed herself a cup of lemon chamomile tea. She drank it sprawled on the couch with a fleece blanket pulled to her chin and Willard, silent and composed, on the wall, as she had countless times as a kid on a rainy day with her grandfather puttering around his small cabin. The wind had picked up, and she listened to the trees creak and groan. She thought about a Sinclair and a Sinclair investigator on the loose in her dark, quiet little town, and she wondered if she could trust both of them, one or neither.

  “Neither, if you’re smart,” she said.

  And she thought it was a hell of a life she lived, in an old man’s lakeside cabin with no one to talk to but a dead moose.

  Nine

  W et, fat snowflakes covered the roads and fields and clung to power lines and tree branches. Penelope’s windshield wipers turned the snow to ice as she drove out her dirt road, wishing whoever had spied on her last night had gotten stuck in the deep ruts. She almost did, even with four-wheel drive. She stopped at the airport en route to town and found her father up to his elbows in engine parts.

  “Your mother wants me to keep you busy,” he said. “She thinks you’ll get into less trouble here than at home. It’s the lesser of two evils.”

  “Does that mean I can fly?”

  “It means you don’t have to cool your heels at home, you can come in and sweep, wash planes, help your aunt in the office—”

  “I can’t this morning,” she said, as if she were her own boss. “Wyatt Sinclair and this Dunning character are coming to my place at ten to check out my research into Colt and Frannie. If I’m not around, I have a feeling they’ll help themselves.”

  Her father nodded, climbing heavily to his feet. “You probably have a point there. It won’t be any comfort to your mother.” Little was, and they both knew it. “I won’t mention this meeting to her. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking you can handle those two.”

  By “handle” Penelope suspected he meant “lie to.” She adjusted the sleeve of her anorak. She’d pulled it on over a fleece shirt, along with jeans and her day hikers. It was March, and she refused to wear a hat and gloves if she was driving around town. She told her father, “It’s not as if Colt and Frannie disappeared yesterday. They’ve been gone for forty-five years. Wyatt wasn’t even born yet, and Jack Dunning—why would he care?”

  “It’s his job to care. And Wyatt—”

  “I know, I know. He’s a Sinclair, and that explains it all.”

  Her father grabbed an old rag and wiped his greasy hands, studying his only child in a manner that made her think he really could read her mind. “I know all the media attention caught you by surprise—I know you worry about Harriet. You wouldn’t want her ending up in the tabloids, a laughingstock.” When she started to protest, he held up a hand. “Harriet’s stronger than you think. She can take care of herself. You just do the right thing.”

  “I’m trying to do the right thing, Pop. What about Bubba Johns? Is it right his life should be turned upside down and inside out? Reporters were already tramping around on my land. It was only a matter of time before they found him.”

  “Reporters aren’t your worst problem—or Bubba’s. Wyatt Sinclair and Jack Dunning are, and they aren’t going anywhere until they’re satisfied you’re telling the truth.” He tosse
d the rag onto the floor. “You might think about that.”

  She’d thought of little else all night. She shoved her hands in her pockets. It was chilly in the hangar, and the snow hadn’t let up. Grounded or not grounded, she wouldn’t be flying today. “Pop, if you were me and you had found Colt and Frannie’s plane, would you come clean?”

  He shrugged. “I’d do what I thought was right. I wouldn’t let Sinclair and Dunning intimidate me—but I wouldn’t let fretting about Harriet and that old hermit influence me, either.”

  “Then on what grounds do you decide what’s right?”

  “Your own grounds,” her father said simply.

  Penelope nodded. “Of course, this is all theoretical.”

  “Right. You didn’t find the plane.”

  On her way out, she stopped at the office to say hello to her aunt, who was griping about the weather as if it never snowed in March. The office was small, cluttered and purely functional. Her aunt didn’t even keep a picture of her family or a vase of flowers on her desk.

  Penelope asked her about Jack Dunning’s plane, and that perked her up. “It’s his personal plane,” Mary said. “It doesn’t belong to the Sinclairs. What a beauty it is, too. You should peek inside—it’s a custom interior.”

  “I might just do that. Aunt Mary, what’re you doing?”

  “Oh—I’m programming my fax machine. It was a mess this morning. Must have had a power surge or something, I don’t know. I’ve had to input our identification. It’s a pain. I’m almost done.”

  Penelope twisted her hands together and stifled an urge to pounce on her aunt’s fax machine, trying instead to stay calm and not jump to conclusions. “Did anyone break in last night? Did you let someone use the fax machine yesterday? Jack Dunning came by after dinner to check on his plane. I’ll bet he’s good with locks. He could have broken in and—”

  She stopped abruptly, but her aunt prodded her. “And what? Penelope, people don’t break into offices to use a fax machine. That’s insane.”