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The Cottages On Silver Beach
RaeAnne Thayne
Years after betraying her, he’s back in Haven Point…and ready to learn the truthMegan Hamilton never really liked Elliot Bailey. He turned his back on her family when they needed him the most and it almost tore them all apart. So she’s shocked when Elliot arrives at her family’s inn, needing a place to stay and asking questions that dredge up the past. Megan will rent him a cottage, but that’s where it ends—no matter how gorgeous Elliot has become.Coming back home to Haven Point was the last thing bestselling writer Elliot Bailey thought he’d ever do. But the book he’s writing now is his most personal one yet and it’s drawn him back to the woman he can’t get out of his mind. Seeing Megan again is harder than he expected and it brings up feelings he’d thought were long buried. Could this be his chance to win over his first love?


Years after betraying her, he’s back in Haven Point...and ready to learn the truth
Megan Hamilton never really liked Elliot Bailey. He turned his back on her family when they needed him the most and it almost tore them all apart. So she’s shocked when Elliot arrives at her family’s inn, needing a place to stay and asking questions that dredge up the past. Megan will rent him a cottage, but that’s where it ends—no matter how gorgeous Elliot has become.
Coming back home to Haven Point was the last thing bestselling writer Elliot Bailey thought he’d ever do. But the book he’s writing now is his most personal one yet and it’s drawn him back to the woman he can’t get out of his mind. Seeing Megan again is harder than he expected and it brings up feelings he’d thought were long buried. Could this be his chance to win over his first love?
Also By RaeAnne Thayne (#u238e85bb-32b3-5a93-83cf-5d2b9ae2dbc3)
Haven Point
Snow Angel Cove
Redemption Bay
Evergreen Springs
Riverbend Road
Snowfall on Haven Point
Serenity Harbor
Sugar Pine Trail
The Cottages on Silver Beach
Hope’s Crossing
Wild Iris Ridge
Christmas in Snowflake Canyon
Willowleaf Lane
Currant Creek Valley
Sweet Laurel Falls
Woodrose Mountain
Blackberry Summer
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
The Cottages on Silver Beach
RaeAnne Thayne


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08347-8
THE COTTAGES ON SILVER BEACH
© 2018 RaeAnne Thayne
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Praise for New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne
“[Thayne] engages the reader’s heart and emotions, inspiring hope and the belief that miracles are possible.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
“Entertaining, heart-wrenching, and totally involving, this multithreaded story overflows with characters readers will adore.”
—Library Journal on Evergreen Springs (starred review)
“RaeAnne Thayne is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.... Once you start reading, you aren’t going to be able to stop.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Thayne’s realistic characterization grounds the hope of falling in love with the trials and tribulations that so often come with it.”
—BookPage on Serenity Harbor
“RaeAnne has a knack for capturing those emotions that come from the heart.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Her engaging storytelling...will draw readers in from the very first page.”
—RT Book Reviews on Riverbend Road
“Tiny Haven Point springs to vivid life in Thayne’s capable hands as she spins another sweet, heartfelt story.”
—Library Journal on Redemption Bay
Whenever I try to write the acknowledgments for any of my books, I am overwhelmed, thinking of all the people who help bring my stories to life. As always, I am deeply indebted to my editor, the wonderful Gail Chasan (and her assistant Megan Broderick); to my agent, the indomitable Karen Solem; to Sarah Burningham and her hardworking team at Little Bird Publicity, for tirelessly helping spread the word about my books; and to everyone at Harlequin—from the art department for their stunning covers to the marketing team to everyone in editorial and sales (and anyone else I have neglected to mention!). My two assistants, Judie Bouldry and Carrie Stevenson, make everything in my world so much easier and I would be completely lost without my dear friend Jill Shalvis, who sends me encouragement and virtual cookies when the words seem clogged.
Finally, I must thank my hero of a husband and our three children, who have somehow managed to put up with my deadline brain nearly sixty times now. I love you dearly.
Contents
Cover (#u9378ed61-953a-5780-b932-a345b1b31b14)
Back Cover Text (#ud69c457e-8641-589a-9e11-658b5600d7fe)
Booklist (#u525566cb-2e9f-53d8-9e4d-8419d7e3acf9)
Title Page (#u20ea4bde-59a7-5cc2-9b0c-1d8bf49b681e)
Copyright (#uf078aa89-db37-598d-896c-cdad7dddaac5)
Praise (#u0957e385-7843-5b78-9df5-22a5f1e2d8a4)
Acknowledgments (#ubbd4de57-f59e-53c3-8cb7-583a58dc3d20)
CHAPTER ONE (#u95802b99-a9fe-52a8-8522-606679f2197a)
CHAPTER TWO (#u06919603-0406-54f0-81c1-3512efa8e7e5)
CHAPTER THREE (#uf3d0a0c3-e38b-5506-b34b-3fddb0e1f6f0)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u5b4917c2-9285-5300-829c-96581025d1f2)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u4ebd3235-63fc-5428-9b0e-79f0fc5a6276)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u238e85bb-32b3-5a93-83cf-5d2b9ae2dbc3)
SOMEONE WAS TRYING to bust into the cottage next door.
Only minutes earlier, Megan Hamilton had been minding her own business, sitting on her front porch, gazing out at the stars and enjoying the peculiar quiet sweetness of a late-May evening on Lake Haven. She had earned this moment of peace after working all day at the inn’s front desk then spending the last four hours at her computer, editing photographs from Joe and Lucy White’s fiftieth anniversary party the weekend before.
Her neck was sore, her shoulders tight, and she simply wanted to savor the purity of the evening with her dog at her feet.
Unfortunately, her moment of Zen had lasted only sixty seconds before her little ancient pug, Cyrus, sat up, gazed out into the darkness and gave one small harrumphing noise before settling back down again to watch as a vehicle pulled up to the cottage next door.
Cyrus had become used to the comings and goings of their guests in the two years since he and Megan moved into the cottage after the inn’s renovations were finished. She would venture to say her pudgy little dog seemed to actually enjoy the parade of strangers who invariably stopped to greet him.
The man next door wasn’t aware of her presence, though, or that of her little pug. He was too busy trying to work the finicky lock—not an easy feat as the task typically took two hands and one of his appeared to be attached to an arm tucked into a sling.
She should probably go help him. He was obviously struggling one-handed, unable to turn the key and twist the knob at the same time.
Beyond common courtesy, there was another compelling reason she should probably get off her porch swing and assist him. He was a guest of the inn, which meant he was yet one more responsibility on her shoulders. She knew the foibles of that door handle well, since she owned the door, the porch, the house and the land that it sat on, here at Silver Beach on Lake Haven, part of the extensive grounds of the Inn at Haven Point.
She didn’t want to help him. She wanted to stay right here hidden in shadows, trying to pretend he wasn’t there. Maybe this was all a bad dream and she wouldn’t be stuck with him for the next three weeks.
Megan closed her eyes, wishing she could open them again and find the whole thing was a figment of her imagination.
Unfortunately, it was all entirely too real. Elliot Bailey. Living next door.
She didn’t want him here. Stupid online bookings. If he had called in person about renting the cottage next to hers—one of five small, charming two-bedroom vacation rentals along the lakeshore—she might have been able to concoct some excuse.
With her imagination, surely she could have come up with something good. All the cottages were being painted. A plumbing issue meant none of them had water. The entire place had to be fumigated for tarantulas.
If she had spoken with him in person, she may have been able to concoct some excuse that would keep Elliot Bailey away. But he had used the inn’s online reservation system and paid in full before she even realized who was moving in next door. Now she was stuck with him for three entire weeks.
She would have to make the best of it.
As he tried the door again, guilt poked at her. Even if she didn’t want him here, she couldn’t sit here when one of her guests needed help. It was rude, selfish and irresponsible. “Stay,” she murmured to Cyrus, then stood up and made her way down the porch steps of Primrose Cottage and back up those of Cedarwood.
“May I help?”
At her words, Elliot whirled around, the fingers of his right hand flexing inside his sling as if reaching for a weapon. She could only hope he didn’t have one. Maybe she should have thought of that before sneaking up on him.
Elliot was a decorated FBI agent and always exuded an air of cold danger, as if ready to strike at any moment. It was as much a part of him as his blue eyes.
His brother had shared the same eyes, but the similarities between them ended there. Wyatt’s blue eyes had been warm, alive, brimming with personality. Elliot’s were serious and solemn and always seemed to look at her as if she were some kind of alien life form that had landed in his world.
Her heart gave a familiar pinch at the thought of Wyatt and the fledgling dreams that had been taken away from her on a snowy road so long ago.
“Megan,” he said, his voice as stiff and formal as if he were greeting J. Edgar Hoover himself. “I didn’t see you.”
“It’s a dark evening and I’m easy to miss. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
In the yellow glow of the porch light, his features appeared lean and alert, like a hungry mountain lion. She could feel her muscles tense in response, a helpless doe caught unawares in an alpine meadow.
She adored the rest of the Bailey family. All of them, even linebacker-big Marshall. Why was Elliot the only one who made her so blasted nervous?
“May I help you?” she asked again. “This lock can be sticky. Usually it takes two hands, one to twist the key and the other to pull the door toward you.”
“That could be an issue for the next three weeks.” His voice seemed flat and she had the vague, somewhat disconcerting impression that he was tired. Elliot always seemed so invincible but now lines bracketed his mouth and his hair was uncharacteristically rumpled. It seemed so odd to see him as anything other than perfectly controlled.
Of course he was tired. The man had just driven in from Denver. Anybody would be exhausted after an eight-hour drive—especially when he was healing from an obvious injury and probably in pain.
What happened to his arm? She wanted to ask, but couldn’t quite find the courage. It wasn’t her business anyway. Elliot was a guest of her inn and deserved all the hospitality she offered to any guest—including whatever privacy he needed and help accessing the cottage he had paid in advance to rent.
“There is a trick,” she told him. “If you pull the door slightly toward you first, then turn the key, you should be able to manage with one hand. If you have trouble again, you can find me or one of the staff to help you. I live next door.”
The sound he made might have been a laugh or a scoff. She couldn’t tell.
“Of course you live next door. I should have known.”
She frowned. What did that mean? With all the renovations to the inn after a devastating fire, she couldn’t afford to pay for an overnight manager. It had seemed easier to move into one of the cottages so she could be close enough to step in if the front desk clerks had a problem in the middle of the night.
That was the only reason she was here. Elliot didn’t need to respond to that information as if she was some loser who hadn’t been able to fly far from the nest.
“We need someone on-site full-time to handle emergencies,” she said stiffly. “Such as guests who can’t open their doors by themselves.”
“I am certainly not about to bother you or your staff every time I need to go in and out of my own rental unit. I’ll figure something out.”
His voice sounded tight, annoyed, and she tried to attribute it to travel weariness instead of that subtle disapproval she always seemed to feel emanating from him.
“I can help you this time at least.” She inserted his key, exerted only a slight amount of pull on the door and heard the lock disengage. She pushed the door open and flipped on a light inside the cheery little two-bedroom cottage, with its small combined living-dining room and kitchen table set in front of the big windows overlooking the lake.
“Thank you for your help,” he said, sounding a little less censorious.
“Anytime.” She smiled, her well-practiced, smooth innkeeper smile. After a decade of running the twenty-room Inn at Haven Point on her own, she had become quite adept at exuding hospitality she was far from feeling.
“May I help you with your bags?”
He gave her a long, steady look that conveyed clearly what he thought of that offer. “I’m good. Thank you.”
What else could she do but shrug? Stubborn man. Let him struggle. “Good night, then. If you need anything, you know where to find me.”
“Yes. I do. Next door, apparently.”
“That’s right. Good night,” she said again, then returned to her front porch, where she and Cyrus settled in to watch him pull a few things out of his vehicle and carry them inside.
She could have saved him a few trips up and down those steps by lending a hand, but clearly he wanted to cling to his own stubbornness instead.
As usual, it was obvious he wanted nothing to do with her. Elliot tended to treat her as if she were a riddle he had no desire to solve.
Over the years, she had developed pretty good strategies for avoiding him at social gatherings, though it was a struggle. She had once been almost engaged to his younger brother. That alone would tend to link her to the Bailey family, but it wasn’t the only tie between them. She counted his sisters, Wynona Bailey Emmett and Katrina Bailey Callahan, among her closest friends.
In fact, because of her connection to his sisters, she knew he was likely in town at least in part to attend a big after-the-fact reception to celebrate Katrina’s wedding to Bowie Callahan, which had been a small destination event in Colombia several months earlier.
Megan had known Elliot for years. Though only five or six years older, somehow he had always seemed ancient to her, even when she was a girl—as if he belonged to some earlier generation. He seemed so serious all the time, like some sort of stuffy uncle who couldn’t be bothered with youthful shenanigans.
Hey, you kids. Get off my lawn.
He had probably never actually said those words, but she could clearly imagine them coming out of that incongruously sexy mouth.
He did love his family. She couldn’t argue that. He watched out for his sisters and was close to his brother Marshall, the sheriff of Lake Haven County. He cherished his mother and made the long trip from Denver to Haven Point for every important Bailey event, several times a year.
Which also begged the question: Why had he chosen to rent a cottage on the inn property instead of staying with one of his family members?
His mother and stepfather lived not far away and so did Marshall, Wynona and Katrina with their respective spouses. While Marshall’s house was filled to the brim with kids, Cade and Wyn had plenty of room and Bowie and Katrina had a vast house at Serenity Harbor that would fit the entire Haven Point High School football team, with room left over for the coaching staff and a few cheerleaders.
Instead, Elliot had chosen to book this small, solitary rental unit at the inn for three entire weeks.
Did his reasons have anything to do with that sling he was sporting? How had he been hurt? Did it have anything to do with his work for the FBI?
The answers to those questions were none of her business, Megan reminded herself. He was a guest at her inn, which meant she had an obligation to respect his privacy.
Elliot came back to the vehicle for one more bag, something that looked the size of a laptop, which gave her something else to consider. He had booked the cottage for three weeks. Maybe he had taken a leave of absence from his job at the FBI to work on another book.
She pulled Cyrus onto her lap and rubbed behind his ears as she considered the cottage next door and the enigmatic man currently inhabiting it. That was another component to the mystery of Elliot Bailey. Whoever would have guessed that the stiff, humorless, focused FBI agent could pen gripping true-crime books in his spare time? She would never admit it to Elliot, but she found it utterly fascinating how his writing managed to convey pathos and drama and even some lighter moments.
True crime was definitely not her groove at all but she had read his last bestseller in five hours, without so much as stopping to take a bathroom break—and had slept with her closet light on for weeks.
That still didn’t mean she wanted him living next door. At this point, she couldn’t do anything to change that. The only thing she could do was treat him with the same courtesy and respect she would any other guest at the inn.
No matter how difficult that might prove.
* * *
WHAT THE HELL was he doing here?
Elliot dragged his duffel to the larger of the cottage’s two bedrooms, where a folding wood-framed luggage stand had been set out, ready for guests.
The cottage was tastefully decorated in what he termed Western chic—bold mission furniture, wood plank ceiling, colorful rugs on the floor. A river rock fireplace dominated the living room, probably perfect for those chilly evenings along the lakeshore.
Cedarwood Cottage seemed comfortable and welcoming, a good place for him to huddle over his laptop and pound out the last few chapters of the book that was overdue to his editor.
Even so, he could already tell this was a mistake.
Why the hell hadn’t he simply told his mother and Katrina he wouldn’t be able to make it to the reception? He had flown to Cartagena for the wedding three months earlier, after all. Surely that showed enough personal commitment on his part to his baby sister’s nuptials.
They would have protested a bit but would have understood—and in the end, it wouldn’t have much mattered whether he made it home for the event or not. The reception wasn’t about him; it was about Bowie and Katrina and the life they were building with Bowie’s younger brother Milo and Kat’s adopted daughter, Gabriella.
For his part, Elliot was quite sure he would have been better off if he had stayed holed up in his condo in Denver to finish the book, no matter how awkward things had become for him there. If he closed the blinds, ignored the doorbell and just hunkered down, he could have typed one-handed or even dictated the changes he needed to make. The whole thing would have been done in a week.
The manuscript wasn’t the problem.
Elliot frowned, his head pounding in rhythm to each throbbing ache of his shoulder.
He was the problem—and he couldn’t escape the mess he had created, no matter how far away from Denver he drove.
He struggled to unzip the duffel one-handed, then finally gave up and stuck his right arm out of the sling to help. His shoulder ached even more in response, not happy with being subjected to eight hours of driving only days post-surgery.
How was he going to explain the shoulder injury to his mother? He couldn’t tell her he was recovering from a gunshot wound, not given his family’s history.
Charlene had lost a son and husband in the line of duty and had seen both a daughter and her other son injured on the job.
Nor could he tell his brother Marshall or his brother-in-law Cade about all the trouble he found himself in. He was the model FBI agent, with the unblemished record.
Until now.
Moving into the cottage was an easy job that took him all of five minutes, transferring the packing cubes from his duffel into drawers, setting his toiletries in the bathroom, hanging the few dress shirts he had brought along. When he was done, he wandered back into the combined living room/kitchen.
The front wall was made almost entirely of windows, perfect for looking out and enjoying the spectacular view of Lake Haven during one of its most beautiful seasons, late spring, before the tourist horde descended.
On impulse, Elliot opened the door and walked out onto the wide front porch. The night was chilly but the mingled scents of pine and cedar and lake intoxicated him. He drew fresh mountain air deep into his lungs.
This.
If he needed to look for a reason why he had been compelled to come home during his suspension and the investigation into his actions, he only had to think about what this view would look like in the morning, with the sun creeping over the mountains.
Lake Haven called to him like nowhere else on earth—not only the stunning blue waters or the mountains that jutted out of them in jagged peaks, but the calm, rhythmic lapping of the water against the shore, the ever-changing sky, the cry of wood ducks pedaling in for a landing.
He had spent his entire professional life digging into the worst aspects of the human condition, investigating cruelty and injustice and people with no moral conscience whatsoever. No matter what sort of muck he waded through, he had figured out early in his career at the FBI that he could keep that ugliness from touching the core of him with thoughts of Haven Point and the people he loved who called this place home.
He didn’t visit as often as he would like. Between his job at the Denver field office and the six true-crime books he had written, he didn’t have much free time.
That all might be about to change. He might have more free time than he knew what to do with.
His shoulder throbbed again and he adjusted the sling, gazing out at the stars that had begun to sparkle above the lake.
After hitting rock bottom professionally, with his entire future at the FBI in doubt, where else would he come but home?
He sighed and turned to go back inside. As he did, he spotted the lights still gleaming at the cottage next door, with its blue trim and the porch swing facing the water.
The swing was empty now. She wasn’t there.
Megan Hamilton. Auburn hair, green eyes, a smile that always seemed soft and genuine to everyone else but him.
He drew in a breath, aware of a sharp little twinge of hunger deep in his gut.
When he booked the cottage, he hadn’t really thought things through. He should have remembered that Megan and the Inn at Haven Point were a package deal. She owned the inn along with these picturesque little guest cottages on Silver Beach.
In his defense, he had no idea she actually lived in one herself, though. If he had ever heard that little fact, he had forgotten it. Should he have remembered, he would have looked a little harder for a short-term rental property, rather than picking the most convenient lakeshore unit he had found in his web search.
Usually, Elliot did his best to avoid her. Megan always left him...unsettled. It had been that way for ages, since long before he learned she and his younger brother had started dating.
He could still remember his shock when he came home for some event or other and saw her and Wyatt together. As in, together, together. Holding hands, sneaking the occasional kiss, giving each other secret smiles. Elliot had felt as if Wyatt had peppered him with buckshot.
He had tried to be happy for his younger brother, one of the most generous, helpful, loving people he’d ever known. Wyatt had been a genuinely good person and deserved to be happy with someone special.
Elliot had felt small and selfish for wishing that someone hadn’t been Megan Hamilton.
Watching their glowing happiness together had been tough. He mostly had managed to stay away for the four or five months they had been dating, though he tried to convince himself it hadn’t been on purpose. Work had been demanding and he had been busy carving out his place in the Bureau. He had also started the research that would become his first book, looking into a long-forgotten Montana case from a century earlier where a man had wooed, then married, then killed three spinster schoolteachers from New England for their life insurance money before finally being apprehended by a savvy local sheriff and the sister of one of the dead women.
The few times Elliot returned home during the time Megan had been dating his brother, he had been forced to endure family gatherings knowing she would be there, upsetting his equilibrium and stealing any peace he usually found here.
He couldn’t let her do it to him this time.
Her porch light switched off a moment later and Elliot finally breathed a sigh of relief.
He would only be here three weeks. Twenty-one days. Despite the proximity of his cabin to hers, he likely wouldn’t even see her much, other than at Katrina’s reception.
She would be busy with the inn, with her photography, with her wide circle of friends, while he should be focused on finishing his manuscript and allowing his shoulder to heal—not to mention figuring out whether he would still have a career at the end of that time.
CHAPTER TWO (#u238e85bb-32b3-5a93-83cf-5d2b9ae2dbc3)
LATE-SPRING MORNINGS on Lake Haven were the very definition of heaven on earth.
Megan stood outside the three-story inn inhaling the most perfect combination of scents she could imagine. Freshly turned earth, lilac shrubs and silver-green lavender plants, still several weeks away from blooming but still sending out their luscious aroma from the greenery alone.
If she could bottle that scent, she would make a fortune.
Late spring or not, the early hours before the sun climbed the top of the mountains were still cool. She wore her favorite sweatshirt as she worked on the flower beds around the entrance to the inn. Even in July and August, visitors invariably needed sweaters and jackets in the mornings and evenings, especially at this altitude. Still, the possibility of warmer days was just around the corner.
She had about a million and one things to do this morning but couldn’t resist standing here a little longer so she could embrace this particular moment that would never come again.
Lately, Megan had tried to make a conscious effort to focus on living in the moment, savoring the joy of the now instead of worrying about that to-do list or about the latest crisis among her staff or guests or about the photography exhibit that consumed every waking moment.
To that end, she lifted her face to the sunshine, trying to focus on the warmth on her skin, the music of birds greeting the day in the treetops around the inn, the fragile perfection of a May morning on the shores of a stunning mountain lake.
“You look like you’re either trying to pass a kidney stone or solve the world’s problems. Which is it?”
Megan tried not to sigh as the familiar voice intruded into her moment.
“Good morning, Verla,” she greeted the longtime head housekeeper at the inn, who had been with them for years.
Verla McCracken was in her early seventies but refused to retire. During the year the inn shut its doors to rebuild after a disastrous fire, Verla had busied herself traveling the region and visiting with her grandchildren, but had begged for her job back the moment the inn was ready to reopen.
She was thin and wiry and could probably bench-press a camel.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Megan said conversationally, turning back to the weeding.
“Sure is. The kind of day that makes me want to jump into the lake in my skivvies.”
She did not need that image in her head. Before she could scrub it clean, Verla went on.
“I saw a car parked at Cedarwood Cottage. Our favorite author must have turned up in the night. Should I add the cottage to the cleaning schedule?” Verla asked eagerly.
Though Megan didn’t think she and the other woman had all that many things in common, they both, oddly, found Elliot’s books fascinating. Unlike Megan, Verla had been thrilled that Elliot had decided to make the Silver Beach cottage his temporary home for a few weeks.
Almost against her will, Megan looked past the line of pine and spruce toward Elliot’s place. He wasn’t anywhere in sight, and she couldn’t immediately ascertain whether that feeling in her chest was relief or disappointment.
“I don’t know. His rental contract only calls for twice-weekly housekeeping service, but I can ask if he would like that expanded to daily service.”
“Have you talked to him yet?”
Megan tried not to think about that strange, awkward interaction in the moonlight—or about the bizarre, heated dreams that had kept her tossing and turning all night.
She needed a social life.
“Briefly. He came in last night just before I went to bed.”
“He still as hot as ever?”
Ew. Verla was old enough to be Elliot’s grandmother.
“I can’t say I really noticed,” she lied. “He’s a guest here. That’s all that matters.”
Verla snorted, clearly not impressed by Megan’s somewhat pious response.
As if on cue, Elliot chose that particular moment to come jogging into view along the pathway around the lake. He wore shorts and an FBI T-shirt that clearly showed the man had serious muscles and was, indeed, as hot as ever. He ran with an odd, stiff sort of gait and it took her a moment to realize the cause was likely because his shoulder was still in a sling and he was bracing it somewhat as he moved.
What had he done to hurt himself? She found it surprising that neither of his normally chatty sisters had mentioned anything about an injury. They usually delighted in telling the group about whatever Elliot was doing—his latest book award or FBI commendation. None of the Baileys had said anything about an injury.
She had to wonder again why he had chosen to pay the rental fee to stay here rather than with his mother or one of his siblings.
“Hey, Elliot.” Verla waved at him eagerly. He paused, turning toward them. Then he trotted in their direction.
“That is one fine-looking man,” Verla murmured as he approached them.
On closer inspection, Megan could see pain lines bracketing his mouth, and his right hand below the sling was clenched into a fist. None of that took away from the impact of him, lean and hard and dangerous.
“Nice morning for a run,” she said, though she wouldn’t know. She hated running. She didn’t mind walking or hiking or riding her bike but would rather scrub all the inn’s toilets than throw on running shoes.
Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration. Anything was better than scrubbing the hotel toilets.
“It’s beautiful,” Elliot agreed, though he said this with all the enthusiasm of a man selecting among brands of dental floss. “I’m having a little trouble with the desk lamp in the second bedroom. I tried swapping out light bulbs with the bedside lamp and that didn’t do the trick. The cord appeared a little frayed, which leads me to the assumption that the malfunction is somehow related to that.”
Why couldn’t he just say the lamp had a bad cord? “Right. I forgot about that. A previous guest brought it to my attention and I meant to switch it out before renting the cottage again but the matter completely slipped my mind. I’ll be sure to send another one over today.” She would take the one off her own desk if she had to, but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
“Thank you,” he said, as formally as if they were discussing international trade treaties among countries. “At your earliest convenience would be fine. I’m not in a big rush, though I do see myself working there when possible. I just wanted you to know. Any frayed cord could pose a fire hazard.”
Thank you, Safety Patrol Leader.
She forced a smile, trying not to be snarky. “I appreciate the notice and will take care of it this morning.”
He nodded and turned toward the direction of Cedarwood Cottage but Verla waylaid him.
“Hey, Elliot. You might not remember me. Verla McCracken. You played baseball with my son Cort.”
He shifted and gazed down at her diminutive form, then offered Verla a smile much warmer than anything he had yet to bestow on Megan.
“Oh, yes. I remember. You always brought the best treats after games for Cort to share with the rest of us. My favorites were your sweet rolls with the maple frosting. I’ve had dreams about your sweet rolls.”
She laughed, looking pleased and completely charmed. “I’ll be sure to make you some while you’re back in town.”
“I would never refuse your sweet rolls, Ms. McCracken. How is Cort these days?”
“Good. He works for the car dealership in Shelter Springs. You need a new Toyota, he can hook you up.”
His teeth gleamed in the sunlight as he smiled again. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“He’s got the three cutest kids in the world. A boy and two girls. Oldest is six and the youngest is only a few months. Want to see a picture?”
Before he could answer, Verla whipped out her phone and scrolled through until she found a picture Megan had taken of her grandchildren, all sitting together on a bench with the oldest girl holding the youngest girl and a little towheaded, grinning boy in the middle.
Megan had to admit, they were pretty darn cute.
“Beautiful,” Elliot replied dutifully.
“I’m sure he’d love to see you while you’re in town. His wife is a big fan of your books. Megan and me are, too.”
His gaze shifted to Megan, brows lifted slightly. “Is that right?”
“Oh, yes. She got me hooked on them and I passed them along to Marie. That’s my daughter-in-law. You’ve got a way of telling a story that just hooks a person in.”
“Uh, thanks,” he said.
Verla launched into a review of his latest book. Elliot listened, nodding in all the right places, though he looked uncomfortable, and Megan had the distinct impression his attention wasn’t wholly focused on the other woman’s words.
She was trying to figure out a way to step in and distract Verla when a familiar pickup turned in to the parking lot and pulled up next to them.
Megan swore under her breath, wanting to kick herself. She’d never told her brother Elliot was renting a cottage at the inn. She had meant to the moment she realized who had made the reservation, but somehow she could never quite bring herself to raise the subject, knowing it would lead to an uncomfortable discussion.
She should have. She should have called him right away. If she had, she might have avoided what was bound to be an awkward confrontation now.
Elliot spotted the pickup truck almost as soon as she did. He tensed slightly, a reaction she had a feeling he would have had regardless of who was driving, until he could establish there was no threat.
He didn’t know her brother was driving. He couldn’t, she realized, her mind quickly racing for the best way to avert a scene between two men who had become outright hostile to each other after Elizabeth disappeared.
The moment Luke parked the pickup, Cassie jumped out and rushed over to her, full of energy and excitement and life.
“Aunt Meg, guess who gets to be the starting pitcher at tonight’s game?”
As always, her heart overflowed with love for this girl. She couldn’t imagine ever loving a child of her own womb as much as she did her niece and nephew.
“Um, Miranda.”
“As if! She’s too busy making sure she doesn’t break a nail. No! It’s me. Last night at practice, Coach Hunter says I did such a good job as the relief pitcher that she’s willing to take a chance. Are you coming to watch?”
“Of course. You know I wouldn’t miss it.”
She loved small-town ball games. It was one of her favorite aspects of living in Haven Point.
“What about you, Bridger?” she asked her nephew as he and Luke approached them. “Are you playing tonight, too?”
“Sore subject,” Luke said, with a warning look.
Because of the angle of the shrubs, he couldn’t see Elliot yet, she realized. If only she could keep the two men apart.
“It’s not fair.” Her nephew pouted. “I’m ready. My arm doesn’t even hurt much anymore. The cast has been off for two weeks.”
Bridger had broken his arm a few months earlier in a bad tumble while spring skiing at the end of the season. He wasn’t handling being benched very well.
“Coach said you can play in two more weeks.”
“By then, it will be too late. We’re losing every game and won’t have any chance of playing in the league championship.”
“But if you let your arm finish healing all the way, the doctor said you won’t need surgery on it,” she reminded him.
“I guess.”
“Thanks for letting them hang out here this morning, especially on such short notice,” Luke said. “I know it’s Saturday and you have plenty of things to do for your photography exhibit.”
He appeared distracted—nothing new for him—and still hadn’t yet noticed Elliot. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he didn’t even see the other man and simply climbed back into his pickup and drove away?
“No problem. I’ll put them to work.” Through her nerves, she managed to muster an evil grin. “We’ve got weeds to pull.”
“Sorry. I wish I could help,” her nephew said, putting on an apologetic expression that didn’t fool her for a minute. “If I can’t play baseball, I guess the doctor wouldn’t like me pulling weeds either.”
“Does that mean I have to do all of it by myself?” Cassie’s eyes widened and her shoulders slumped dramatically.
Megan patted her niece’s shoulder. “We’ll work together. Don’t worry.”
“Guess I’d better get going. Those rooms won’t clean themselves,” Verla finally said. Luke glanced in her direction and she knew the moment he spotted Elliot. Shock flickered in his eyes, replaced by an angry hardness that he quickly concealed.
“Elliot. I hadn’t heard you were in town.”
“I only checked in last night.”
There it was. Meg closed her eyes briefly then opened them to find her brother gazing between the two of them in shock.
“You’re staying here? At the inn?”
“Yes. In one of the cottages. Right next door to Megan, actually.”
Luke’s expression darkened further and tension seemed to broil off the two men, thick and heavy like the August sky above the lake just before a thunderstorm.
“Hi. I’m Cassie Hamilton and this is my brother, Bridger. I’m nine and he’s seven and a half. He always gets mad if I forget the half.”
To her surprise, Elliot’s features softened a little as he looked at the girl. “Hi. I’m Elliot. And the half is very important.”
“That’s what Bridger says. He says we’re only eighteen months apart, not two years, and I don’t have to be so bossy all the time.”
“That’s probably true. But sometimes you have to take charge, when it’s the right thing to do.”
“That’s what I always say. Like if he was just about to sit on a big spider, I would have to be bossy and tell him not to.”
“Somebody has to make the hard decisions and say what needs to be said. But it doesn’t always make you the most popular person, I’m afraid,” Elliot said.
“Hey, I hurt my arm, too. I was skiing and I fell. What did you do?” Bridger asked.
Elliot glanced down at his sling as if he’d forgotten all about it. “Long story. It was a work thing. Nothing as fun as skiing. But it’s fine, really. Sorry about your baseball game. You’ll be playing again before you know it.”
Bridger seemed to take comfort in that and Elliot gave a general wave to the group. “I should go. Bridger, Cassie, it was nice to meet you.”
A moment later, he took off in the direction of Cedarwood Cottage, leaving a tense awkwardness behind him.
The children didn’t seem to notice anything. “Can we go make waffles in the breakfast room before we start weeding?” Bridger asked his father.
“If it’s okay with Megan.”
“Please, Aunt Meg? Can we? We only had cereal at home,” the boy said, looking disgusted at the apparent dearth of culinary options available to him that morning.
“It’s fine,” she said. “We’re only half-full, so there should be plenty of breakfast left.”
“I’m heading that way,” Verla said. “Here. You can help me push the cart.”
The kids jumped in willingly and headed for the door, chattering to the housekeeper about school getting out in only a few more weeks and what they planned to do with their summer vacation.
The moment they were out of earshot, she braced herself as Luke turned on her, his features tight. “Elliot Bailey? Seriously, Meggie?”
“What should I have done? He booked online before I knew what was happening. Even if I had known, I couldn’t legally refuse to rent to him simply because I don’t like the man.”
“This isn’t about whether Elliot could win a popularity contest with the Haven Point Helping Hands.” Luke glowered and Megan could feel her tension level ratchet up. When he was angry, Luke looked entirely too much like their father. Which made her tend to slip back into old childhood patterns and fight the urge to run and hide from what used to be hard fists and cruel words.
Luke wasn’t their father, she reminded herself. He might look like Paul Hamilton on the outside, but he was a very different man. No matter how angry he was, Luke never lost control of his emotions.
“It’s done now and I can’t cancel his reservation without reason. It’s only a few weeks. I don’t see the harm in allowing him to rent the cottage for a few weeks.”
“I can give you one really big one. The man would like to see me in prison...or worse.”
Would this nightmare ever end for their family? She cursed her selfish sister-in-law, who had left behind so much devastation.
“He’s here to see his family, I’m sure. Katrina’s reception is next week and that’s probably what brought him home. He’s not going to go digging up the past.”
As far as she knew, anyway.
“If he’s so keen on seeing his family, why isn’t he staying with one of them?”
She would like to hear the answer to that herself. “I don’t know. You could ask him.”
Luke made a face at that suggestion and she knew he wouldn’t do any such thing. He and Elliot hadn’t had a civil conversation in seven years.
“It’s only a few weeks,” she said again. “He’ll be gone before we all know it and then life can get back to normal. You’ll see.”
Luke didn’t look convinced and she couldn’t blame him. For her brother, life hadn’t been normal in seven years. He had lived under a dark cloud of suspicion and doubt.
He looked through the gap in the trees, where the roof of Cedarwood Cottage was only just visible. “I don’t like him being here at all, Meg, and especially not next door to you. I don’t like it one bit. If he gives you any trouble, you let me know.”
She forced a smile. What would Luke do? Take him on? If he thought she was in any sort of danger, he wouldn’t hesitate. But while that might make her brother feel better, he would end up in jail for assaulting an FBI agent.
No, she would just have to make sure the two men didn’t come into contact much during Elliot’s stay at the inn. Considering that Luke was a silent partner at the inn—and hadn’t wanted even the 25 percent share her grandmother insisted on leaving her step-grandson—that shouldn’t be impossible. The only time he came around was to drop off the kids or do some handyman job for her.
“He’s not going to give me any trouble. This is Elliot Bailey you’re talking about. What’s he going to do? Bore me to death reciting all the recent FBI policy directives?”
Luke didn’t look convinced. He gazed over at the cottages again, shook his head as if to clear away a headache, then climbed into his pickup truck.
“I should be done at the job site before lunchtime. I’ll get the kids then. Thanks again.”
“You’re welcome,” Megan said.
Luke looked like he wanted to say something else, but he finally waved, put the pickup in gear and drove away.
She watched after him for a moment, until his taillights turned onto the main road, trying to push away the sense of impending disaster.
CHAPTER THREE (#u238e85bb-32b3-5a93-83cf-5d2b9ae2dbc3)
“THAT’S IT, CASSIE. You’re doing great. Focus on your sweet spot.”
Megan grinned through the chain-link fence at her niece on the pitcher’s mound, and Cassie shifted her steely-eyed attention from the pigtailed batter at the plate to send Megan a quick flash of smile. The slanted lavender light from the dying sun hit the girl perfectly, turning her face golden in the reflection. Almost without thinking, Megan lifted her camera between links of the fence, focused and clicked away.
The evening somehow managed to improve on the perfection of the morning. The air was soft and warm and lovely with the scents of freshly cut grass, popcorn and cotton candy from the Lions’ Club booth a few hundred yards away.
Behind Megan, families of the girls cheered them on with enthusiasm.
She snapped several more of Cassie then turned her 70-200 zoom lens to the batter for the opposing team, Rosie Sparks, whose parents went to school with Megan. She was a power hitter—if such a thing could exist in a softball league of nine-and ten-year-old girls—and she stared down Cassie, her face screwed up with concentration as the count rose to two strikes and one ball.
“One more, baby,” Luke called from the bleachers. “You got this. Just bring it home now.”
Megan shifted her lens to her brother, unable to resist. His features were intense and focused, without the shadows that usually haunted him, and she snapped away to capture Luke in a rare, unguarded moment.
Her brother rarely showed emotion. Some of that control had been ingrained in them from childhood but much came out of the past difficult seven years.
She photographed him for a few more moments, then amused herself by taking candids of some of the others in the stand, though she purposely avoided capturing the image of at least one person in the crowd—the man sitting on the top row of the bleachers, wearing a white dress shirt and jeans so precisely creased they might as well have been ironed.
Trust Elliot Bailey to harsh the mellow of a beautiful spring evening.
She knew why he was here. His brother’s stepdaughter was on Cassie’s team and all the Baileys were there in force. Charlene and Mike sat just below him, along with the rest of the Bailey clan.
It warmed her, the way they stepped up to support each other. There wasn’t a softball game, dance recital, soccer match or spelling bee the family would consider missing.
She wouldn’t have expected Elliot to join them all, but here he sat, part of his family, yet somehow always remote in his own way.
She shifted back to the action in time to see Cassie deliver a perfect pitch, right in the strike zone. Behind the plate, the ump thumbed over his shoulder to indicate Rosie was out, and the crowd erupted in cheers.
The Baileys and the rest of the crowd leaped to their feet, cheering wildly—okay, maybe a little more enthusiastically than a softball game between preteen girls really warranted, but Megan wasn’t about to argue.
“Good game,” Luke called to Cassie. “Way to go, Pitch.”
“Yay Cass!” Bridger called out, and his sister turned to both of them and beamed.
“Hamilton has a good arm, and she’s fast.”
Behind her, Bobby Sparks spoke loud enough to be heard by many of the people in the stands. It was his daughter Rosie who had just struck out. “She must get that from her dad. He was always fast. Look at how he’s been running from a murder charge for all these years—and getting away with it, too.”
The reference quieted the crowd around them with an almost collective hush and she caught several furtive looks at Luke, whose features looked etched in granite. She gave a hurried glance toward Bridger and saw with relief he wasn’t paying any attention to the adult conversation but was busy chattering with Elliot’s nephew by marriage, Marshall’s stepson Will.
“Cut it out, Bobby.” Wyn Emmett glared at the man, who flushed.
This was the sort of thing her brother lived with all the time, finding himself the center of whispers and veiled—and not-so-veiled—accusations. It broke her heart every single time. Since the day Elizabeth disappeared seven years ago, Luke had faced this. Despite the fact that no charges had ever been filed against him, Luke had been tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.
Not everyone in Haven Point felt that way. Many, like Wyn, had been supportive. But enough small-minded people remained in the area, especially in the other towns that surrounded Lake Haven, to make things harder than they had to be for Luke and the children.
Paul Hamilton cast a long shadow on this community. Sometimes she didn’t know if Luke was being punished for his own perceived sins or because he looked like their bully of a father.
Megan couldn’t understand why her brother didn’t simply pick up and move away from the rumors and innuendo. His life would be so much easier. His construction business had struggled the last few years. Funny, but people could be a bit wary about employing a suspected murderer to build their homes.
Every time she asked him why he stayed, Luke only said this was his home and his children’s home and he wouldn’t let small-minded people push him out of it.
Because he stayed, she stayed. As simple as that. He needed her help with Cassie and Bridger and she didn’t know how she could walk away either.
“You’re coming to help us with the project tomorrow, aren’t you?” Katrina Callahan asked as everyone began gathering up their belongings and started clearing out the bleachers to make room for the next game. Kat held hands with a little girl who had the distinctive features of someone with Down syndrome—her daughter, Gabriella, who grinned at Megan.
“Oh, I forgot about the project,” she exclaimed. “What time?”
“We’re hoping to finish scraping the paint in the morning so we can start priming the place in the afternoon.”
Since the previous Christmas, the service organization they both belonged to had taken on the cause of an older woman in the nearby town of Shelter Springs, helping spruce up her house and yard. Before Christmas, Janet Wells had taken custody of her three grandchildren after their mother had been arrested on drug-related charges. The cobbled-together family was struggling with even the most basic care.
Megan had helped do a few other things at the house and greatly respected the woman for what she was doing. It was, unfortunately, a too-common situation, grandparents raising grandchildren.
Or in her own case, aunts helping to raise nieces and nephews.
“I would love to help but I’ll have to see how the day goes,” she said to Kat.
“I hope you can make it.”
“I can’t make any promises. I’ve got a million things to do tomorrow, between the inn and the art exhibit in a few weeks.”
Wynona Emmett, wife of the Haven Point police chief, joined them in time to hear that. “I can’t believe your gallery exhibit is all the way in Colorado! We have galleries here. Why couldn’t you have it somewhere closer to home?”
Maybe because nobody here had invited her to do a showing.
“It’s crazy that you have to leave the state entirely to exhibit a photography collection that focuses on Haven Point,” Katrina added.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter where it is,” Wyn went on. “I’m just so excited someone besides us is finally recognizing how amazing you are.”
“Thank you,” Megan said, warmth seeping through her at her friends’ confidence, which she was far from sharing.
What would she do without the Haven Point Helping Hands? They had carried her through some dark and difficult times.
“Don’t worry about tomorrow at Janet’s place,” Wyn insisted. “We should have plenty of volunteers. You should focus on the preparation you need to do for your gallery showing, doing whatever it takes to knock their socks off.”
“I’ll see how things go. I might be able to make it over in the afternoon to work on the painting,” she said, just as the girls finished giving their cheer and headed out into the bleachers to greet their families.
Cassie came straight toward her, beaming a thousand-watt smile. “Did you see me, Auntie Meg?”
“I watched the whole thing. Great game, kiddo.”
“Coach said I can pitch again next week.”
She set her camera aside to hug her. “Perfect! I can’t wait.”
“Did you get any pictures of me?”
“You know it, honey. We can look through them later while we’re having pizza.”
“Yay! Pizza!” Bridger exclaimed as he and Luke walked down the steps of the bleachers toward them.
“Are you sure you have time?” her brother asked. “I heard you tell Wyn and Kat how busy you are.”
“Don’t worry. I always have time for pizza.”
“We’ll meet you at Serranos, then. I’m not crazy about the crowd here.” Luke didn’t look in the direction of Elliot but she knew exactly what he meant.
The two men once had been close friends, but all that changed after Elizabeth vanished, when Elliot came down firmly on the side of those who thought Luke had been involved.
Elliot wasn’t the only friend Luke had lost following his wife’s disappearance, but it was probably the relationship he missed most. Not that her brother would talk about things like relationships or hurt feelings, but she could tell.
Having Elliot here had to be painful for Luke. Oh, she wished the man had never come home.
* * *
“GREAT TO HAVE you join us for dinner, though I’m a little surprised.”
At his brother’s words, Elliot raised an eyebrow. “What’s so surprising about gathering with my family to celebrate a mighty victory?”
Chloe, seated across the long expanse of table from him, preened at his words, and he gave her a little smile. She was a cute kid, he had to admit. So was her brother Will. The two of them had enriched all their lives.
Two years ago, he hadn’t had any nieces or nephews. Now he counted five. Milo, Gabriella, Christopher, Will and Chloe. Three-year-old Gabi, the child Katrina had adopted from Colombia earlier that year, was the youngest.
All of the children had been absorbed into the Bailey clan through rather unorthodox ways, but now he couldn’t imagine their family without them.
“Nothing, really,” Marshall said. “Only that you seemed in a big hurry to leave after the softball game, for a moment there. I’m glad you changed your mind, especially since I’m sure you’ve got work to do on your book.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he claimed. It wasn’t precisely the truth, but close enough.
“Whatever your reason, I’m so glad you’re here.” Marshall’s wife, Andie, beamed at Elliot. “My children don’t see enough of their favorite uncle.”
“Hey, what about me?” Cade Emmett protested.
“Or me,” Bowie Callahan said with a mock glower.
Andie smiled diplomatically at Wyn’s and Katrina’s respective husbands. “Their other favorite uncle.”
Over the past eighteen months, he had come to care deeply for Andie. She had been wonderful for Marshall, had softened his hard edges and brought laughter and joy into his world.
“My point is, I’m glad you could join us,” Andie said.
“So am I.”
“How long are you staying?” Katrina asked from her spot at the other end of the table.
“I’ve got the rental cottage for three weeks. Long enough for your wedding reception and a couple extra weeks to finish my manuscript.”
After that, he had no idea what he might be doing. That was nothing he was ready to share with his family yet. Nobody here in Haven Point knew about the shooting and he intended to keep it that way.
Yes, that was right. He had lied to his family.
He had told them he had bone spurs removed, though technically that wasn’t completely a lie since the surgeon had reported he had decided to take out a couple of small ones he’d seen while he was in there.
Elliot just hadn’t mentioned the bullet the guy had also removed—nor did he plan to.
“We’re so glad you can spend some time with us, darling.” Charlene smiled at him, but it didn’t quite push away the worry in her eyes. She had a fairly well-developed lie detector, especially after raising five children. Despite what he told her, he had a feeling his mother sensed something else was going on.
She wouldn’t hear it from him, though.
“You know I wouldn’t miss Kat’s big party,” he said.
His youngest sister looked up from helping Milo and Gabi color on the white paper tablecloth with the crayons Barbara Serrano had provided before they sat down. “Excuse me—did I imagine a phone conversation a month ago where you specifically apologized and told me you wouldn’t be able to make it?”
“Things change.” He shifted. “I’m here, right?”
“And we’re all so glad,” his mother soothed. “I’m not glad you needed surgery on your shoulder but it was so nice of the FBI to give you time off for your sister’s reception.”
“Wasn’t it?” he murmured. Nice hadn’t been part of that conversation. He had been ordered off the job while his shoulder healed and his actions were reviewed.
“We should order before Elliot changes his mind and decides he’s had enough of us all,” Katrina said, and he reminded himself to hug her later.
They were debating how many pies and what toppings when Wynona suddenly looked up.
“Oh, there’s Megan and her niece and nephew.” Wynona beamed and waved vigorously. “Hey, Hamilton family!”
His heart gave a ridiculous sharp kick and he couldn’t resist looking up. Megan was walking with Luke and his children. He knew he shouldn’t notice how bright and lovely she looked, with her auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail and her cheeks a little flushed from the cool of the evening.
She smiled at the Baileys, though it became more like a grimace when her gaze landed on him before she quickly pasted her features back into a smile.
Had anyone else noticed? he wondered.
“Hey, everyone,” she said. “Great game, Miss Chloe. You rocked shortstop this week.”
His step-niece grinned. “Thanks! Cassie was the star of the game, though.”
“Great pitching, Cassie,” Elliot’s mother agreed.
“You should join us for the celebratory pizza!” Katrina gestured to a table next to theirs. “We can pull up some chairs.”
He could see instantly that idea didn’t appeal much to Luke. The other man gave the table a curt nod. “We wouldn’t want to intrude. Matter of fact, kids, maybe we should order our pizza to go. It’s been a busy day and I know we’re all beat.”
The kids looked as if they wanted to protest but finally nodded.
“You can at least wait here and visit while she brings it out to you, then,” Elliot’s mother insisted.
Luke clearly didn’t like that idea but he was apparently just as helpless against Charlene’s sheer force of will as the rest of them.
“I’ll go talk to Barbara,” he said to Megan and the children. “Go ahead and sit if you want.”
“There’s room here by Chloe and Will,” Andie said.
The children sat down and were soon talking to their friends, and Megan sat down and did the same with Elliot’s sisters. He knew he didn’t imagine the way she carefully avoided looking in his direction.
As for Luke, he stood near the hostess table talking to Barbara Serrano and didn’t even come back after making their to-go pizza order.
The man wanted nothing to do with him. Elliot sipped at his beer, trying not to look at either Hamilton sibling while he pretended to be engrossed in the conversation Marshall and Cade were having about a local auto burglary investigation.
After fifteen minutes or so, a server came out from the kitchen with a large pizza box and a bag that probably contained side items like garlic bread and salad. She carried them over to Luke, who thanked her, still unsmiling, then carried the order over to their table.
“Kids, here’s our food. Let’s go.”
Cassie and Bridger grumbled a little but slid their chairs back from the table obediently.
Luke turned to his sister. “You’re welcome to stay. I can leave you a few slices of our pizza or you can get something else.”
She hesitated for only a moment, glancing around the table until her gaze landed on Elliot.
“No. I have plenty of things to do at home tonight. I’d better run. Good night, everyone.”
“Yeah. Night,” Luke echoed.
The family left with Megan leading the way out of the restaurant, holding hands with her niece on one side and her nephew on the other.
The moment the door closed behind them, Elliot finally felt as if his lungs could expand again.
Charlene heaved a big sigh, watching after the Hamiltons. “Those poor children. My heart aches for them, growing up without a mother.”
“They seem fairly well-adjusted,” Andie said. “They have lovely manners and seem to be doing well in school and have many friends.”
“I think they’re doing great,” Katrina agreed. “I’m just sad for Luke, always living under the cloud of suspicion.”
“Maybe there’s a reason for those suspicions,” Marsh said solemnly.
“Oh, come now,” Charlene said. “Surely you don’t think he had anything to do with Elizabeth’s disappearance.”
When Marsh didn’t answer, their mother turned on Elliot. “Tell him, Elliot. Lucas was one of your best friends. I can’t even begin to count the number of times he stayed at our house. You know he couldn’t have hurt his wife.”
Elliot’s mother had been the wife of the Haven Point police chief for decades. She had to know the world was not always a safe and beautiful place. Husbands beat their wives, mothers hurt their children, strangers attacked strangers.
Sure, compared to most places, Haven Point was a fairly safe community, but it wasn’t perfect.
“It’s been quite a few years since I had a sleepover in the backyard with Luke Hamilton,” Elliot said quietly.
“But you know who he is inside.”
He didn’t. Not anymore. His friend had become a stranger since Elliot left town after high school. Most of that was Elliot’s fault. He hadn’t kept up with old friendships as well as he should have, too busy building his career and carving out his new life. But when he had come home and contacted Luke to grab a beer or something, the other man inevitably seemed to have other plans.
People drifted apart. It wasn’t uncommon, especially when geography and time intervened.
Elizabeth had been his friend, too. They had even been partners on the debate team the year he had been a senior and she had been a junior. They had both been officers in Honors Club and she had been funny and smart, the female lead in almost all the school plays and one of the prettiest girls in town.
“You heard what Bobby Sparks said after the game. That’s a tough cloud for a man to live under, all these years later,” Charlene said. “It must be so hard, not knowing what happened to her. There’s nothing worse for a family. I wish one of the departments that have handled the case could have been able to discover something—anything—that might have helped find her.”
“I can’t even begin to tell you the hours that have been devoted to the case, both by the police department and now the sheriff’s department. It’s still very much an open investigation,” Marshall said.
“With little progress, apparently,” Charlene said tartly.
“You know as well as anyone that there can be a lot going on behind the scenes that the public never knows about,” Marshall said.
“Meanwhile, Luke Hamilton has to live his life under a cloud of suspicion,” Charlene said.
The server brought their pizza just then, which effectively ended the conversation. Marshall should consider himself lucky Charlene was distracted by the children, Elliot thought. Their mother could be relentless.
Later, while the women were busy talking about details for Katrina’s upcoming reception, Elliot turned to his brother.
“What is the status of the investigation into Elizabeth’s disappearance?” he asked.
Marsh looked down the table at the women, busy chattering away with each other, before answering. “Cold as that lake out there in January,” he admitted, frustration shading his voice. “Not much has happened for years. Every six months or so I’ll send my investigators through the files to do a fresh read, but all we have are dead ends. We get a few leads here and there, a tip called in that goes nowhere and the occasional crank call, but that’s about it.”
“You must have a theory.”
Marshall’s mouth tightened. “Depends on the day. I’ve gone back and forth. We have no eyewitnesses who saw or heard from Elizabeth Sinclair Hamilton past about eight p.m. the night she vanished. According to Luke, she went to bed early. He took a phone call from a subcontractor—we have the phone records that place him at home—close to ten, then says he fell asleep on the sofa before the evening news. When he woke up, it was five a.m., the baby was crying, and his wife was gone. Her car was still there, so if she left on her own, she walked—something she apparently liked to do. They had been fighting the night before, so he says he thought she went somewhere to cool down or maybe teach him a lesson about how hard it was to be home with a couple of little kids all day.”
“Seriously?” Elliot couldn’t dispute that the burden of caring for a couple of tiny children might be tough on a relationship, but he had a hard time picturing Elizabeth being so petty.
Marshall shrugged. “Doesn’t make much sense to me either. But that’s Lucas’s explanation for why he didn’t call police until almost dark. The thing is, his alibi is solid all day, between the nanny who showed early and the crew and subcontractors who were with him all day.”
His brother paused. “There were rumors about trouble in the marriage before she disappeared but no actual facts to back that up.”
“Any domestic disturbance calls?”
“One,” Marshall acknowledged. “About a week before she disappeared, the neighbors went overseas for a month and had a couple of college students house-sitting for them. The house sitters called 911, said they heard shouting and crying coming from Luke and Elizabeth’s place and a woman in distress. Dad went to the house to check things out, talk to both of them, but didn’t end up making any arrests. He reported it as a misunderstanding.”
Elliot didn’t want to think his father might have downplayed an actual domestic disturbance report simply because Lucas had been a friend of the Bailey family. He couldn’t be completely sure, though, especially in his father’s last few years on the job.
“There were others who came forward after she disappeared and reported she seemed increasingly unhappy in the previous days,” Marshall went on. “There are also...certain indications she might have wanted to hurt herself. That’s one theory, anyway. Apparently she was suffering severe postpartum depression and was being medicated.”
He had heard those rumors, too, but couldn’t easily credit it. The girl he had known in high school had been mercurial, certainly, but he wouldn’t have ever thought her capable of self-harm. It was entirely possible he didn’t have the whole picture, however.
“Would you mind if I look over the files while I’m in town? Not that I don’t think your detectives are competent but maybe some fresh eyes could offer a new perspective.”
Marshall gave him a closer look and Elliot tried to keep his features expressionless. “Why would you want to do that? Don’t you have enough on your plate, trying to finish a book?”
More than enough, he had to admit. He would be working late every night to finish the revisions of his manuscript. But Elizabeth’s disappearance had haunted him for years and he hated unanswered questions.
“She was a friend. I’d like to find out what happened to her. More than likely, I won’t see anything your people haven’t already considered, but it wouldn’t hurt to look.”
“Sure. Why would I mind if the Bulldog takes a look?”
He frowned at the nickname his siblings still sometimes called him. At least that one was better than the other one he knew Megan and some of her friends had called him. He’d overheard them talking at Marshall’s wedding.
Mr. Roboto.
Yeah, he knew exactly what she thought of him.
“You’re welcome to take a look,” Marsh said. “Come over to the office tomorrow and you can see everything we have.”
“Thanks.”
He didn’t know if he would discover anything new, but the prospect of digging into an investigation filled him with anticipation. He would much rather focus on an intriguing case that had bothered him for years than the woman who lived next door to him, the woman he could never have—or the mess he had left behind in Denver.
* * *
“YOU NEED TO go home. Right now.”
Megan took in the pinched features of her head housekeeper. Verla looked as if she would fall over at any moment. The only spots of color on her otherwise pale features were the bright blue of her eye shadow and a bright splotch of rouge on each cheek.
“I’m okay.” Verla mustered a smile. “I’m almost done.”
“No. You’re done now. The last thing I need is for you to end up in the hospital. Go home, climb into bed, turn on some trash TV and stay there until you feel better.”
She didn’t miss the relief on the other woman’s features, though Verla did try to hide it. “We’re shorthanded,” the housekeeper protested. “Everybody else has left for the day and I don’t have anyone to clean the cabins, which are due for housekeeping services today. Cedarwood is actually overdue since Elliot put up a do-not-disturb sign all week.”
“I’ll take care of it. Only two of them are occupied right now, so it shouldn’t take me more than an hour.”
She didn’t want to think about who was staying in one of those cabins.
Elliot had been there for a week, and though she had seen him coming and going, she had somehow managed to avoid being face-to-face with him since the night of the girls’ softball game.
“I’m so sorry.” If anything, Verla’s voice sounded weaker than it had at the front end of their conversation.
She pushed away thoughts of her unwanted guest. “You have nothing to apologize for, honey. You didn’t ask to get the flu. Now, go home and rest and don’t worry about anything for the next several days. I can organize the housekeeping crew and make sure they step up to take care of the workload. I prescribe sleep, chicken noodle soup and daytime television. In that order.”
“Yes, Dr. Hamilton.”
“Do you think you’re okay to drive home? I can have someone on the staff take you.”
Verla rolled her eyes. “It’s three blocks. I think I’ll be fine.”
Megan didn’t doubt it. Verla was agile and strong as a mountain goat, tough enough that even with the flu, she could probably parkour all the way home.
“Take as long as you need. I’m not heading to Colorado for another week, and even if you’re still sick when it’s time for me to go, the rest of the staff can fill in.”
“I hate to leave you in the lurch, but I don’t think I’d be much good to anyone until I kick this.”
Megan ushered her out the door with all the assurances she could muster. As soon as she closed the office door behind Verla, her smile slipped away. Drat. She didn’t want to do this. Why did Verla’s remaining workload have to include the cottages?
One would be relatively easy. The occupants of Hummingbird Cottage were a couple in their sixties, both retired schoolteachers, who were spending the week bird-watching and hiking around the area. They were quiet and pleasant, both tidy as could be.
The other one, however, was the cottage next to hers, Cedarwood Cottage. Elliot Bailey’s temporary home.
She could probably skip it for another day or two but that seemed cowardly, especially considering he had been there a week and the cottage hadn’t been cleaned by her staff in that time.
He seemed to be keeping busy, doing his level best to avoid everyone. He went jogging around the lake every morning and sometimes again at night, his arm still in a sling and held tight to his body. She had also seen the occasional take-out delivery and he had come back once with a few bags of groceries.
Not that she was watching him or anything.
At night while she was glued to her computer, editing photos, she would look over and see lights still on at the cottage next door. Sometimes the curtains moved when she looked over, as if she had just missed him standing there, looking in this direction.
In a way, she found it rather comforting to know that she was not alone in her after-midnight creative endeavors. It formed an odd connection between them. She and Elliot were both makers, toiling away in the dark hours when most others were sleeping.
She rolled her eyes at herself. Her attraction to him made no sense whatsoever. Except for their apparent shared affinity for working after hours, the two of them were complete opposites. She considered herself creative, impulsive, drawn to color and light and energy.
He was a tight-assed stick-in-the-mud.
Mr. Roboto. That was the nickname she and her friends used to call him.
It wasn’t kind and it probably wasn’t a fair assessment. While he might seem serious and focused on the outside, the books he wrote offered a different perspective. They were full of insight into the human character, deft turns of phrase, even clever humor that always took her by surprise.
She wasn’t going to think about him anymore, she told herself. He had already occupied entirely too much of her time on a day she had so much to do. She loaded up the inn’s golf cart with cleaning supplies and clean linens, then headed for the rental cottages.
The schoolteachers were gone for the day. At the inn’s complimentary breakfast—which Elliot had yet to enjoy—they told her they were driving to Stanley for the day in search of red-naped sapsuckers. Whatever the heck those were.
As Hummingbird Cottage was currently vacant, she decided to start there. It made sense, she told herself. She wasn’t simply delaying an unpleasant task.
This would be her workout for the day. She always worked up a sweat scrubbing floors, changing sheets, wiping out bathtubs. It wasn’t the most exciting job in the world, but she loved making the rooms and cottages of the Inn at Haven Point sparkle for their guests.
She didn’t mind the physical labor. As long as she had headphones and a good audiobook to hold her attention, she could clean for hours. She turned on the latest thriller by one of her favorite authors, grabbed her cleaning tools and headed into the cottage.
Unfortunately, she was a little too efficient. She was still listening to the first chapter by the time she finished straightening up after the orderly bird-watchers.
One down, one to go.
She walked out of their cottage, leaving behind the lemony smell of the cleaning spray they used.
Elliot’s vehicle was there, parked behind the cottage. Seeing it made her insides tremble with nerves. She didn’t want to face the man but had no idea how to get out of the task now.
With luck, maybe he would refuse housekeeping services. Sometimes when people rented the cottages for longer than a few days, they preferred not to be bothered and wanted to clean up after themselves.
As much as she dreaded talking to him again, she had to ask.
She walked up the porch, inhaling the sweet blooms of the lilac trees along the porch as she went. This was secretly her favorite of the five cottages. The view was the same as the others, but the flower boxes seemed to bloom more vibrantly and she loved the little pine tree cutouts on the shutters.
She gripped her supplies tightly with one hand and knocked on the door with her other fist.
Only the lap of the water against the shore at Silver Beach and the twittering of the Steller’s jays that nested in the big pine tree next to the cottage answered her. After a long moment, she knocked again. “Elliot? It’s Megan. I’m here to clean your place.”
She still heard no response and stood there, torn by indecision for several moments. She wanted to trot down those porch stairs and head back to the main building, leaving him to deal with his own mess.
She couldn’t do that. Verla said he had been there a week without housekeeping services. That may be the way he preferred it, but she needed to hear it from him.
The inn had a reputation for immaculately cleaned rental properties, one she and Verla protected with vigor. She wasn’t about to let him give them a less-than-perfect review in that department.
She tried one more time then convinced herself that he must be taking a run or perhaps he had walked up to one of the restaurants in town for brunch with someone in his family. After knocking hard a third time with no answer, she finally used her passkey to open the door.
She hadn’t been in the cottage since Elliot took up his temporary residence a week earlier. It shouldn’t have surprised her how quickly he seemed to have made it his own. A jacket had been draped over the back of the sofa, a tin of cashews sat next to the sofa and a pair of binoculars rested on the window seat overlooking the lake. Maybe Elliot had more in common with the bird-watching schoolteachers than she might have guessed.
Beyond that, the entire surface of the kitchen table was covered in papers, along with a sleek dark gray laptop.
What fascinating case was he writing about this time? She had a wild temptation to leaf through the papers but quickly turned her attention to cleaning the place, not comfortable invading his space more than she already was.
The cottage really didn’t need much beyond what the housekeeping staff liked to call a spit and polish.
She quickly straightened up the bathroom, hung fresh towels, remade his bed and ran the vacuum around, muscles tensed as she waited for him to show up.
After she had wiped the last countertop and dumped the last wastebasket, she finally couldn’t help herself. She eased over to the table and glanced down at the manila folder on top of the stack of papers. Just a peek, she told herself. She was dying to know what his next book would be about so she could tell Verla.
With the sound of her heartbeat loud in her ears, she glanced toward the door one last time, then casually opened the folder halfway for a little peek. She caught the words Haven Point Police Department along the top and realized these were copies of an official police file.
Was he working on a local case? Her gaze sharpened and she opened the folder all the way. It only took an instant to pick up one clear name.
Elizabeth Sinclair Hamilton.
Her sister-in-law.
CHAPTER FOUR (#u238e85bb-32b3-5a93-83cf-5d2b9ae2dbc3)
WHAT WAS HE doing with the case files for what was still an open investigation? She dropped the cleaning wipe on the table and leafed through the folders, growing more sick to her stomach with every passing second.
File after file, all marked with the same case number as the cover page. These were all part of the investigation into that terrible time that had changed everything for her family.
Her breathing came fast and hard, and she tasted bitter bile in her throat. The usually pleasing lemony scent of the cleaning supplies suddenly seemed to choke her.
Her instincts were to pick up everything, even his laptop, and throw it all into the lake.
The thought only had a few seconds to register when she suddenly heard the click of a key in the lock. Before she could make her frozen limbs cooperate to drop the files, the door swung open and Elliot stood in the doorway.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice as sharp as a new chain saw.
She had been working at the Inn on Haven Point for years, since her grandmother took her in after her mother died. She knew this was an egregious invasion of a guest’s privacy. If she had found one of her housekeeping staff snooping through a guest’s files, that person would have been fired on the spot.
She knew she was horribly in the wrong but she couldn’t focus on that right now. All she could think about was the scope of his betrayal.
Elliot stepped into the room. “Put that down. I had things in a particular order. I hope you haven’t rearranged anything.”
She stared at him. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
He didn’t look at her. “It might seem like a jumble of files to you, but I have a system.”
“You son of a bitch.”
It was the least offensive of the names she wanted to call him but everything else seemed to clog in her throat. She couldn’t seem to think straight, her thoughts a wild snarl of anger.
“I don’t believe my mother would appreciate you calling her names,” he said stiffly.
Now she wanted to throw him in the lake, along with all his files.
“How dare you?” Her hands were shaking and the sick feeling in her stomach seemed to be spreading through the rest of her.
He gave her a cool stare. “I’ll remind you that I’m not the one who broke into your place and started digging through your belongings.”
In another moment, smoke would be coming out of her ears, she was sure of it. “I was cleaning the cottage! Making your bed, changing your toilet paper, dumping your trash. Twice-weekly housekeeping service is provided to the cottages. It was listed in your rental agreement.”
“It’s not necessary. I don’t like my things bothered.”
“Again, are you freaking kidding me? This isn’t about me reordering a few pieces of paper. This is about you dragging my family through hell again! You’re writing a book about Elizabeth’s case, aren’t you?”
He met her gaze with an impassive look of his own. The man never gave anything away. Did they teach FBI agents how to go all stone-faced at Quantico? He must have aced that class, as he’d been practicing since elementary school.
“No,” he finally answered.
She narrowed her gaze. His hair was wet and it took her a moment to realize it was drenched with sweat. He had been running again. He wore long shorts and a Denver Rockies T-shirt that clung to the muscles of his chest. His right arm was still in a sling and she couldn’t imagine all that bouncing around could be particularly healing.
He had no right to look so good, damn him. Not when he was a sneaky, underhanded snake.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not,” he answered firmly. “The book I’m writing concerns a serial killer in Montana who preyed on hitchhikers in the seventies and early eighties.”
She frowned. “Then why do you have all of Elizabeth’s files? What does a serial killer in Montana have to do with a missing mother in Idaho? Do you think they’re connected?”
A little bubble of hope rose in her chest. How terrible, that she could actually want to cling to any possibility that someone else might have been involved in Elizabeth’s disappearance, even a serial killer.
She didn’t want Elizabeth to be dead. She just wanted to prove Luke had nothing to do with her disappearance.
Elliot quickly squashed that half-formed possibility.
“No,” he said bluntly. “James LeRoy Barker was killed in a shoot-out with local police three years before Elizabeth disappeared. He was dead and buried in an unmarked grave outside Great Falls before she ever vanished.”
Megan despised herself for the little niggle of disappointment. She truly didn’t wish harm on Elizabeth. She, like everyone else in town, only wanted answers.
“If this isn’t part of the book you’re writing, why do you have these files?” she asked again.
For a long moment, she wasn’t certain he was going to answer her. He shifted position almost imperceptibly then finally spoke. “The Lake Haven County Sheriff’s Department took over the investigation after my father was shot. The case has been cold for some time, though the investigation is still active. I asked Marsh if I could take a look at the files while I’m in town.”
“Can he do that? Just loan out police files willy-nilly?”
“There was nothing willy-nilly about it. I’m a sworn officer of the law, Megan.”
His words chilled her. “What are you saying? Is this an official FBI investigation now?”
Again he paused, obviously weighing his words carefully before he would respond. “No. I’m looking out of my own curiosity. This was the one case that haunted my father—and still haunts Marsh and Cade. A young mother of two small children, someone we all knew, disappears without a trace in the dead of night. The investigation is at a standstill. Everyone is frustrated by the lack of progress. Marshall and I decided a pair of fresh eyes looking at the files could only help the investigation.”
She drew in a shaky breath. “That’s where you’re wrong. It would hurt very much.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Of course you don’t! You have no idea what things are like here for Luke.”
His lips pursed. “He’s not in prison, so things can’t be that bad.”
“He might as well be! Imagine how you would like being tried and convicted without ever being charged with a single crime. As far as some people around Lake Haven believe, Luke killed his wife and got away with it. He and the children can’t go to the grocery store in Shelter Springs without whispers and rumors trailing after them like cats after dead trout. That’s Luke Hamilton, the man who killed his wife. I heard he killed her, chopped her into pieces and threw what was left into the middle of the lake.”
That was the least offensive of the things she knew Luke and the children had overheard at various times.
“Gossip can be vicious.”
“You have no idea. And it’s not even behind his back sometimes. People come right up to him and tell him he should be in prison.”
To her endless frustration, Luke never hit back. Whenever she was tempted to stand up for him, he would simply shake his head, place a steadying hand on her arm and say the same words.
Let it go. It doesn’t matter. We know the truth. I didn’t hurt Elizabeth. The answer to where she went has to be out there. Someday we’ll find out the truth.
She wasn’t as sanguine as he was, facing down the haters with her brother’s typical quiet patience. The reminder of all those slings and accusations made her fists clench again.
“Luke is just starting to put his life back together again. His business has picked up and Cassie and Bridger are doing better. The other kids at school no longer bring it up every day. Sometimes two or three days can go by without someone mentioning her. They’re moving on, Elliot. The last thing any of us needs is for some hotshot big-city FBI agent to waltz in and start stirring up the past again.”
“I’m only looking over old reports. That’s all.”
That wasn’t all and both of them knew it. If people found out someone like Elliot—considered a hometown hero by many, the very antithesis of Luke—was combing through Elizabeth’s case file, the sludge would come bubbling up to the surface again. All the old accusations and false claims. She couldn’t bear it.
“You can do it somewhere else.” She faced him down, willing her lips to stop quivering. “Gather your things and get out of my cottage.”
He looked startled. “What? Are you serious?”
“Do I look like I’m joking? I take threats to my family very seriously indeed. Get out.”
“I paid in advance for two more weeks.”
“So I’ll refund the balance. Do you honestly think any amount of money you could pay me would be worth letting you put my family through hell again? There are other rental properties in town. Find one of those.”
“I don’t want another one. I like this one. The bed is comfortable, it has a great view and it’s quiet. No one bothers me here.”
“Too bad for you. What you like or want stopped being important to me the moment I saw you were digging into Elizabeth’s case again.”
He leaned a shoulder against the door frame and studied her with an intensity that left her feeling exposed and disquieted. “I must admit, I find your reaction interesting. What are you so afraid I’ll find in those files?”
She glared. “Nothing! I just don’t want you dragging up the past.”
“I would think any loving family who lost someone important to them would want to know the truth about what happened to her.”
“Of course I want to know. But I would prefer an unbiased investigator, not someone who already has an ax to grind against my brother.”
“I am an unbiased investigator,” he said, sounding stung.
“You haven’t been unbiased in seven years! Admit it! Luke used to be a friend, but from the moment Elizabeth disappeared, you’ve been clear about what you think. You made up your mind he was guilty from the very beginning, didn’t you?”
“I’m only interested in the facts. There was blood found in their home. Elizabeth’s blood.”
“That could have been left there days or weeks before she went missing!”
“Or it could have been left by her that night when her husband killed her.”
“Except he didn’t! I know he didn’t and some part of you knows that as well.”
“I can’t be certain of anything.”
Though she knew where he stood from his actions and his attitude since Elizabeth’s disappearance, hearing his blunt words still cut through her. “How can you say that? He was your friend. You know him. You know he is not capable of hurting a woman, especially not someone he loved as much as he loved Elizabeth.”
“I have a police report here that would say otherwise.” He picked up one of the files from the bottom.
Megan knew what it was, what it had to be, and suddenly she wanted to cry. The tears welled up in her throat and she had a hard time swallowing past them.
This was why Luke was the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance. One moment—and one sad, troubled woman.
“Yes, you can see the police were called by the neighbors who reported a domestic disturbance. But as you read the report, you can see no charges were ever filed against my brother. The report was of shouting and crying coming from the house. Not of anyone actually witnessing abuse. Your father wrote on the file misunderstanding.”
She had seen the report. And more than that, she knew Elizabeth’s fragile emotional state leading up to it.
“Women are often afraid to file charges,” Elliot said. “The law requires that one of the parties should be removed from the home temporarily during the investigation. Clearly, that didn’t happen on the night in question. I’m not sure why, but that’s not the point. The disturbance was reported to police, which indicates something happened that night.”
“It indicates nothing, only that Elizabeth was mentally unstable before she disappeared. You’ve got that in your reports, too, don’t you? She was on medication for postpartum depression. She wasn’t acting like herself. Luke was afraid to leave her alone with the kids, for crying out loud. He paid a babysitter to care for them in the day, worked a full-time job, then came home to take care of them all night.”
He continued gazing at her in that stony, emotionless way that made her want to scream, as irrational as Elizabeth in those last months.
She sighed. “I don’t know why I’m wasting my breath. Your mind is made up. Nothing I say will convince you that Luke is a victim here, just like his children. He lost his wife, they lost their mother, but Luke hasn’t been allowed even a moment to grieve for Elizabeth. The people around Lake Haven are too busy whispering about him and throwing around baseless accusations.”
“Not completely baseless.”
“Fine. Then wholly circumstantial. If the Haven Point Police Department or the sheriff’s office had anything more concrete against him, they would have filed charges years ago. Instead, he’s been hung out to dry to face the whispers.”
Despite her best efforts to hold them in, a hot tear escaped and slipped down the side of her nose. She swiped at it angrily even as his gaze seemed to sharpen. She wasn’t upset that she cried, only that he saw her at it.
“I want to know the truth,” Elliot said quietly. “Yes, Luke was my friend. So was Elizabeth. If she’s out there somewhere, I want to find her.”
“While staying at my inn, eating my breakfast, walking my stretch of beach. And I’m just supposed to stand by and give you a place to sleep while you ruin my brother’s life? What kind of woman do you think I am?”
CHAPTER FIVE (#u238e85bb-32b3-5a93-83cf-5d2b9ae2dbc3)
THAT WAS A question with no easy answer. He had always been fascinated by Megan Hamilton. With each passing day he spent living next to her, he was finding her more irresistible.
There was something so enticing about her, something fresh and bright and genuine. In the mornings when he was running along the lakeshore, he would see her from a distance as she greeted some of the inn guests or walked her grumpy-looking dog and he had the weirdest feeling, warm and soft like he was being bathed with sunshine.
At night, he would look over while he was working and see her lights on next door and he would remember what Verla McCracken had said, that she was a fan of his work. The idea of her reading the words he had written somehow inspired him to work harder.
He had heard other writers talk about their primary reader, the person they pictured while they wrote and imagined reading their words. Now that person in his head was Megan.
This fascination with her had to stop. It was completely ridiculous. He had been telling himself that for years. She was not his type at all. He preferred professional, composed, intellectual women whose agendas closely matched his own. Not sweet-faced photographers who had once been in love with his brother.
It didn’t matter that he was drawn to her. The feeling was definitely not mutual. She made no secret of her dislike for him. She thought he was uptight, rigid, unfeeling. Mr. Roboto.
If she only knew.
Added to that, now she was furious with him for digging into Elizabeth’s disappearance. He supposed he couldn’t really blame her.
She was waiting for a response, he realized, and it took him a moment to remember the question.
“You asked me what kind of woman I think you are. I think you’re a caring, compassionate woman who loves her brother and is loyal to him. I respect that, Megan. Believe me.”
In his line of work, he often saw the opposite, people willing to stab their best friends in the back if it would protect themselves and their own interests.
“You would do the same, if one of your family members had to face what Lucas has over the last seven years.”
“That’s probably true,” he acknowledged. He would go to the wall for any one of his siblings. “I understand your anger and your urge to defend your brother. I’ll leave the cottage if you insist, but I would rather not. I like it here. I’m not sure why, but I’ve been able to get more done on my manuscript in the last week than I have in months.”
It was true. Even before the stupid choices he had made leading up to his injury, his life had felt on hold, somehow. He had been going through the motions at the FBI, doing his job without the passion he had once brought to the work and treating his side hobby of writing the same way.
In the week since he’d come to Haven Point, Elliot felt as if he had returned to center somehow. He had managed to regain a little equilibrium, to find the peace that had been missing in Denver, probably because he had been wearing himself so thin trying to do everything.
“Why should I let you stay?”
“Because you signed a rental agreement? And because I haven’t done anything that would provide you grounds to break that agreement?”
She shrugged. “Sue me if you want to. You think I care?”
Come at me, bro. She didn’t say the words, but she might as well have.
“If I let you stay, would you promise to leave Elizabeth’s case alone? Let Marshall’s department handle it?”
He thought of the last few fevered nights of writing and the stacks of finished pages that had come out of them. He needed more of those nights and that same productivity and wanted nothing more than to agree to her demand.
His innate sense of justice and the desire to find the truth wouldn’t allow it, however. The community deserved answers. For that matter, so did Elizabeth’s children.
“No,” he said, with blunt honesty. “I can’t promise you anything of the sort.”
She made a face. “You’re so predictable. That’s exactly what I knew you would say.”
“Why did you bother to ask the question, then?”
“Idle curiosity, to see if I was right.”
She studied him for a long time and he waited, quite certain she was going to show him to the door, literally and figuratively. After a long moment, she sighed. “I can’t kick you out. You paid for two more weeks and the paperwork to issue a refund would be a nightmare. Not to mention—you being predictable and all—I could see you being the kind of person who would follow through and take me to court.”
He wouldn’t, but he let her keep her illusions. “It’s a distinct possibility.”
“Beyond that, your sisters would probably have something to say about it. It’s not worth the trouble.”
He doubted Katrina or Wyn would take his side. The women of Haven Point tended to stick together, even against family at times. Cade and Marshall could attest to that.
He wasn’t about to argue, though, especially if it meant he could stay at the cottage. “You’re probably right.”
“About many things,” she retorted. “First and foremost, I need to say this one more time. Luke did not harm his wife. She was a troubled woman, Elliot. Ask anyone. She was suffering postpartum depression. She struggled with it when she had Cassie and it never really went away when she had Bridger only eighteen months later. She was angry and moody and not the woman we all knew and cared about. None of that was Luke’s fault and it’s completely unfair that he has had to shoulder suspicion all these years.”
Her words rang with a sincerity he couldn’t avoid, but he had been an investigator too long, had seen too much, to share the same kind of faith in her brother. While he still found it surprising, he had read in the file numerous reports about how depressed and angry Elizabeth had been before she disappeared.
That didn’t clear Luke, not by a long shot. If anything, he might have even more motivation to lose his temper with an unhappy wife, then somehow tried to cover it up.
“If he had nothing to do with her disappearance, wouldn’t it be in your family’s best interest if I could find some kind of evidence that might prove it?”
“Keep an open mind. That’s all I ask. Will you tell me if you find out anything new?”
She deserved nothing less. “Yes,” he answered.
By the careful way she studied him, then finally nodded, he assumed she took him at his word. “Thank you. And you promise you’re not writing a book about the case?”
“I swear.”
She bit her lip and he could tell she was already regretting her decision to allow him to stay.
“I’m sorry I snooped in your papers. I shouldn’t have spied on a guest like that. I was hoping to steal a sneak peek at your new book, but that’s still no excuse for invading your privacy. It won’t happen again.”
His face felt suddenly warm but he ignored it, touched that she would apologize despite her anger at what she had found. She was remarkable.
“The book is still in revisions, too rough for anyone else to see. You wouldn’t enjoy it at this point. A few more weeks and you can read it.”
“Really?”
“Sure. If you want to.”
“Thanks.” She glanced at her watch. “I should go.”
Do you have to?
The question welled up inside him but he sternly shoved it back before he could do something stupid like actually say it.
He reached to pick up the handle of her plastic tote of supplies and she reached down at the same time. His forehead brushed against hers and the tiny, fleeting contact burst through him like rockets exploding in the sky during Lake Haven Days.
For an instant, they gazed at each other and he could almost swear he saw awareness bloom there.
Something clutched at his insides, a fierce, long-buried longing.
No. Impossible. This was Megan. The woman who had once loved his younger brother and still grieved for Wyatt.
“Careful,” he said, his voice more abrupt than he intended. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Thanks,” she murmured, her expression now impassive.
He felt awkward and stupid, suddenly aware he was still sweaty from his run and his arm hurt like a mother.
He gestured to the bucket. “For the record, I won’t require housekeeping services for the remainder of my stay.”
“It’s included in the price of the rental. Twice-weekly. You’ve already paid for the service. You might as well take advantage of it.”
“Just leave towels and fresh sheets a few times a week. I can make the bed myself and take care of the rest.”
She looked as if she wanted to argue, but finally shrugged. “Your choice. I’ll instruct my staff. I certainly can’t force you to accept housekeeping services, especially when we’re shorthanded.”
She left before he could answer, leaving him to watch her walk down the steps of the porch into the afternoon sunlight.
* * *
SHE SHOULD HAVE thrown him out.
As she returned the cleaning supplies to the housekeeping cart and started pushing it back to the main inn, Megan wanted to kick herself.
She couldn’t shake the sense of impending disaster. She didn’t want Elliot anywhere near the case file on Elizabeth’s disappearance. He was a single-focused investigator, from everything she knew about the man. His siblings called him the Bulldog, for heaven’s sake. Something told her Elliot wouldn’t rest until he found answers—or twisted the facts to suit his version of the story, anyway.
No, she caught herself. That wasn’t fair. Elliot was a man of integrity and honor. He was a decorated FBI agent. He would work tirelessly until he found out what truly happened to Elizabeth. That could only be good for Luke, surely, to finally know the truth.
Still, that apprehension niggled at her. Innocent people went to prison all the time. She watched plenty of television, had seen the documentaries. A mistaken eyewitness here, a botched forensics collection there. It happened. She couldn’t let Luke be one more of those wrongly convicted.
Her phone rang just as she pushed the cart into the supply room for the staff to refill the next morning before their rounds.
She glanced at the incoming caller ID. Speak of the devil.
“Hi, Luke,” she answered. “I was just talking about you.”
A long silence met her thoughtless words. “Oh?”
She should never have brought it up. She certainly couldn’t tell him she had been conversing with a certain FBI agent about him—or that Elliot was digging into Elizabeth’s disappearance while he was in town.
“It doesn’t matter. What’s going on?”
Luke hesitated before continuing. “We’re trying to finish the trim on this house and I need a few more hours. I hate to leave the job site, especially when we’re so close to finishing, but the kids’ babysitter can’t stay late tonight. Any chance I could have her drop them off at the inn for a couple of hours?”
She thought of all she still had to do before she could head back to her cottage and work on photos again late into the night. That didn’t matter. The kids came first. “Of course. I love having them here.”
“Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.”
“I try,” she joked.
He took her words seriously. “I don’t know what I would have done without you the last seven years,” he said quietly.
“I love them. You know I do.”
“They’re lucky to have you. So am I,” he said gruffly.
“Go Team Hamilton,” she said.
He gave a short laugh, just about all she could ever get out of him these days. “Thanks again. I owe you. I should be done about nine.”
“Perfect. Just enough time for me to fill them with sugar and get them all jacked up for you so they’re awake all night.”
“I can always count on you to have my back.”
She smiled, said goodbye, then returned her phone to her pocket. He meant his words in jest but both of them knew they were true. She would protect her family no matter what.
Even if the threat happened to come from the entirely too attractive Elliot Bailey.
* * *
SHE MANAGED TO avoid Elliot for several more days, until circumstances and the intertwined nature of their lives made that impossible.
“Isn’t this a stunning reception?” Charlene Bailey gave a happy sigh Saturday evening. “Probably the most beautiful you’ve ever photographed, wouldn’t you say?”
Megan couldn’t help but smile. “Simply breathtaking,” she answered. “Katrina makes a lovely bride.”
Charlene preened. “I always knew she would be. She was a pretty girl who grew into a beautiful young woman.”
It was true. The couple was perfect together. Bowie Callahan was lean and sexy, with longish dark hair and sculpted features, while Katrina had always turned heads. As perfect as they seemed together, the most adorable part of this particular wedding reception was the two children they were raising as their own—Bowie’s young half brother Milo and the young girl Katrina had recently adopted in Colombia.
“I wish you could have been at their wedding. Everything was perfect,” Charlene said.
“That’s what I understand. I’m so sorry I missed it.”
The pair had chosen to be married in a last-minute ceremony at a small destination wedding a few months earlier on a private island off Cartagena.
Megan would have moved heaven and earth to be there and had been planning on shooting it for Katrina, but Luke ended up needing an emergency appendectomy the day before she was supposed to leave and she couldn’t leave when he needed her.
“The backup photographer you helped us find did a wonderful job of capturing the day.”
“Is there anything else in particular you want me to shoot at the reception today? I want to be sure I don’t miss anything on your list.”
In the last five years of photographing wedding celebrations, she had learned to always ask that question of the mother of the bride. It could save a great deal of heartache later.
“I can’t think of anything, except maybe a few more shots of her brothers together over there.”
Megan tensed. She didn’t even want to talk to Elliot Bailey, let alone photograph the man. “Sure,” she answered, with what she hoped was a pleasant smile that hid any sign of nervousness.
Photographing this reception was Megan’s gift to Katrina and Bowie. What she might prefer personally in this situation didn’t matter. If Katrina or Charlene wanted her to climb to the top of the tallest pine tree and shoot the wedding from above, she would do her best. Instead, the mother of the bride was only asking for some pictures of her handsome sons.
“Any particular pose?”
“No. Just them interacting would be fine. It does a mother’s heart proud that her children enjoy each other’s company. I love seeing them together, even if they’re only comparing notes on cases.”
Was Elliot talking to Marshall about Elizabeth? Probably not. She could imagine they had scores of cases they could discuss. Their conversation didn’t necessarily need to involve her sister-in-law.
Still, nerves crackled through her stomach. Why did he have to come home and stir everything up again?
“Sure. I’ll just shoot the two of them being mad, bad and dangerous to know.”
“Exactly.” Charlene smiled. “Thank you, my dear.” With a vague air-kiss, his mother fluttered away to speak with McKenzie Kilpatrick.
Megan squared her shoulders and picked up her camera bag. She had worked hard to avoid Elliot throughout the wedding celebration but apparently that state of affairs couldn’t continue.
Sunlight glinted in the brothers’ dark hair as she walked across the impeccably manicured lawn of Bowie Callahan’s home on Serenity Harbor.
The two Bailey boys really were good-looking. Seeing them together, she couldn’t help thinking about the brother who was missing. Wyatt should have been here.
In the past year, three of the four surviving Bailey children had married. First Wyn, then Marshall, now Katrina. At each ceremony, Megan knew she wasn’t the only one who keenly felt Wyatt’s absence.
She shifted her camera bag higher on her shoulder, annoyed with herself for letting those sad feelings intrude on what was an otherwise lovely day.
Wyatt was gone. She couldn’t change that. She had grieved for him and the dreams they had only been in the beginning stages of building together and it was way past time she moved forward with her life.
She pushed away the little pang in her heart as she approached Wyatt’s brothers.
Marsh was the larger of the two—broad shoulders, square jaw, solid strength. That didn’t make Elliot appear any less predatory next to him. He was leaner, yes, but every bit as dangerous—the contrast between a shotgun blast or a precisely timed knife thrust.
Was it her imagination or did Elliot tense when she approached? She could read nothing in his gaze but she could swear his shoulders tightened and his head came up as if sniffing for trouble.
“Hello,” she said, trying for a casual tone.
“Hey, Meg.” Marshall smiled and she thought how much more mellow and friendly he seemed since he had married her friend Andie Montgomery. He had never been precisely unfriendly, simply too focused on work to pay much mind to her.
Elliot, she noticed, said nothing. He only watched her out of those dark blue eyes that reflected none of his thoughts.
“How’s it going?” Marsh asked. “Are you finding the photos you need?”
“Good. It’s a beautiful day and Katrina and Bowie seem so happy together. Milo and Gabi just make their happiness sweeter. Chloe and Will are taking good care of them.”
“They’re great kids,” he said, smiling fondly at his stepchildren.
“Agreed. You hit the jackpot there.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
They lapsed into a rather awkward silence and she picked up her camera and aimed it at the two of them. “Your mom sent me over here with orders to shoot a few pictures of you guys together.”
“Do you have to?” These were the first words Elliot had spoken to her that day.
She raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to be the one to tell your mother why I was unable to fulfill her simple request?”
Marshall chuckled. “Sure, Elliot. That can be your job.”
“It will only take a moment, I promise,” she said.
“Says every photographer, always.”
She had to smile. Elliot had a point. She wasn’t necessarily a perfectionist, but her photo shoots always took longer than she expected.
“You don’t even need to do anything. Just keep talking. She wanted me to photograph candid shots of the two of you together. The Bailey brothers in all their glory.”
Marshall rolled his eyes while Elliot gave her a look she couldn’t interpret.
He was frustrating that way. Spending so much time behind the camera lens reading and recording people’s facial expressions usually gave her some insight into their thoughts. Not Elliot’s. That whole stone-faced FBI agent thing again.
“What do you want us to talk about?” Marshall asked, clearly uncomfortable at having her lens trained on him.
“Doesn’t matter. Whatever you were talking about before I came over.”
The two men exchanged glances and the currents zinging between them made her even more suspicious about the topic of their previous conversation.
“Anything. Baseball. The weather. You can talk about the lovely dress that Samantha Fremont created for Katrina.”
The idea of these two masculine law-enforcement officers discussing their sister’s wedding dress almost made her smile.
Marshall played along. “There you go. Hey, Elliot, did you notice what Kat was wearing?”
“I think it was a dress or something. It was white or maybe yellow. Did it have lace?”
She sniffed at their teasing, though she still clicked away at her shutter. Charlene would probably love this tongue-in-cheek side of them.
“For your information,” she answered, “the gown is gorgeous, an original creation by up-and-coming local designer Samantha Fremont. It was tailor-made for Kat, specifically designed to highlight her shoulders and make her neck look longer and more graceful. Your sister is simply stunning in it.”
Both men gave her matching looks of incomprehension and she snapped away. “Sorry,” Elliot said, “but to us, Kat will always be the little pigtailed tattletale who hated being left out of anything.”
“Good thing she grew out of that,” Bowie Callahan drawled as he approached their group. “Though she still doesn’t like to be left out of things, particularly her brothers sharing such charming opinions of her. Hey, Megan.” He greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. Since he had moved to Haven Point, Bowie had become one of her favorite people. Not only was he gorgeous, rich, successful and talented, Bowie was always so kind to her and all the rest of the Haven Point Helping Hands.

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