Slowly, she became aware of the fog settling in over the marsh. The tiny house, the low, slanted ceilings, the isolation of their little spit of land. They might as well have been alone in the universe.
Stretched out beside her, Clate touched her hair. "You're wondering if your aunt's not a witch after all."
"Does it matter?"
He smiled. "Not to me."
"This wasn't—I didn't—" She grimaced, unable to find the right words.
From her hair, his fingers moved down her cheek, touched her mouth lightly. "It's okay, sweetheart. We don't have to talk now. You don't have to think."
"Whatever I feel for you, / feel. It's not Hannah's doing. It's my own." She grinned suddenly, skimmed a knuckle across the scar on his jaw. "I won't have her taking the blame for you."
"Piper, whatever happens between us, happens. No one gets the credit or takes the blame."
"You don't know my brothers," she said dryly, only half seriously.
He laughed. "Maybe it's a good thing I live a thousand miles away."
"And have a house with a high fence and big dogs."
"Not that you've ever let your brothers intimidate you."
"Never. But they've totally intimidated most of the men on Cape Cod."
He grinned, kissed her softly, and whispered, "Then I say good for your brothers."
* * *
Chapter 12
While Piper showered and drank a fresh cup of tea Clate had brought her, he ventured out into her herb garden. Fog had descended over the bay and was fast encroaching on the marsh, distorting sounds, heightening the senses. Everything seemed closer, saltier, cooler, damper. He noted purple and yellow blossoms among Piper's herbs, recognized chives, parsley, maybe basil, not much else.
He sipped on his mug of tea. He didn't want it, but he'd poured it anyway. Gave him something to do. Helped stop him from charging upstairs and into the shower with Piper, soaping her up, making love to her again. But her life was already in enough of a turmoil without adding him to the boiling cauldron.
He could still feel her body against his, his body inside her. The soft, smooth skin, the firm muscles, the fragrant hair.
A sip of tea. Helped unclench the jaw, it did.
"Hell," he muttered.
He needed to be straightforward with her. That was a point of honor with him. He did not delude women in order to keep them in his bed. He never made promises he had no intention of keeping.
But Piper had asked no promises of him, and he'd made none. If he tried to be straightforward with her now, he didn't know what the hell he'd say because he didn't know what the hell he wanted.
As satisfying as the prospect of more good, rousing sex with her was, it left him feeling limited, even diminished. What Piper wanted from him, what she gave to him, was up to her. That wasn't what was eating at him. It was that he didn't know what he wanted from himself.
She joined him in the garden, inhaling deeply. "I can smell the mint. Can you?"
He smiled. The woman had seeped into his soul. That was the problem. An affair never touched him. "Mint and everything else."
She'd changed into jeans and an ivory cotton sweater, the fog having dragged down the temperature. She had her mug of tea. She looked steady, unrepentant about what had happened upstairs, even well pleased with herself. Clate stifled a stab of lust at the memory of how she'd moaned his name, dug her fingers into his upper arms as she'd climaxed.
He jerked himself up straight. "There's something I need to show you in my yard. Got a minute?"
She shrugged, but he could see the spark of suspicion. He remained unpredictable to her, which, he supposed, was just as well. "Sure."
They left their mugs on the picnic table and started down the path along the hedgerow. To avoid prejudicing her, Clate refused to explain what he wanted to show her until they reached Hannah's herb garden and he pointed out the scalped area. "Tuck spotted it first."
"He didn't do it?"
"He says he didn't."
"Well, I didn't. The only use I have for foxglove is as a flower, and monkshood I don't have any use for. Its flower is pretty enough, but it's nasty stuff. I think it's only use is as a cleaning agent. Hannah planted it before she really knew what she was doing. I hope whoever did this used gloves."
Clate eyed her, noted the slight loss of color in her cheeks. Lovemaking had temporarily put thoughts of her aunt's troubles out of her mind. With a sudden jolt, he realized he didn't want their lovemaking to be a mere diversion, not a way out of the moment but into it.
"What about Hannah?" he asked.
She gave a tight shake of the head. "That's not the way she harvests herbs. It's too radical. After she's done, you can hardly tell she's touched anything. And why would she do all this work when she could just get me to do it for her?" A small, uneasy smile. "Besides, one of us would have spotted that raspberry car of hers."
"You're sure?"
Her shoulders slumped. "No, I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything right now."
Including him, he realized. Maybe especially him.
"I'll go see her." She squinted at him through the glare of the fog and her own confusion. "We mapped out a whole plan of where to look next for the treasure, you know."