"I think I have to prove to Hannah it's not."
Clate moved toward her, his muscles still loose from his long walk on the beach. "And yourself?"
She met his gaze. "And myself."
"I have a shovel in the shed. I'll help."
Her shoulders slumped. He could see the relief wash over her. She almost smiled. "We're crazy, you know."
"Ah-huh," he said, and fetched his shovel.
After two hours, they had nothing to show for their efforts but a handful of old nails, rusted tin cans, and something Piper claimed was a Wampanoag arrowhead. They'd dug under the honeysuckle and all around the wisteria, still Hannah's best bet for where she'd seen the shadowy figure digging eighty years ago.
Clate was sweating, feeling strangely exhilarated as he leaned against his shovel, which looked old enough to have been the one Hannah's murdering thief had used. "Worked off your caffeine and sugar yet?"
"About an hour ago, I think." Piper was breathing hard, apparently undeterred by their lack of success. "You know, you could be right. Someone else could have known about the treasure eighty years ago and it's long gone."
"Or there was no treasure."
"Hannah saw what she saw that night. It just has to be explained to her satisfaction." With noticeable effort, she slung her shovel back over her shoulder. Even in the dark, Clate could see the sheen of perspiration on her arms and neck. There was none of the pale, drawn look of earlier. "I need to be up early to pick her up at the hospital. She won't want to stay a minute longer than necessary."
"Where were you earlier?"
His question had come out of nowhere, something he'd been saving up, and she responded with a jolt of surprise. "I was talking to my father and brothers."
"Afterwards. You didn't have your car. One of them must have driven you home."
"My father did. So?"
"So your car was gone when I got back from the hospital."
She gave him a deer-in-the-headlights look, then scowled. "I can't do anything in this town without someone breathing down my neck."
"Don't keep dragging that one out, Piper. It won't work. People have damned good reason to keep an eye on you and you know it." He gave her a long, probing look. "You're hiding something."
"Oh, all right. Geez, if I'm going to face the damned inquisition. I went by Hannah's, okay? I got her fresh clothes for tomorrow. A nice, comfortable calico dress and kerchief."
Clate didn't back off. "And what else?"
She pursed her lips. "Underwear."
"Piper, what did Hannah tell you when you were alone in her hospital room together?"
Her mouth snapped shut.
"You know," he said easily, slinging his shovel onto one shoulder, not feeling the fatigue of two hours of fruitless digging, "if I were one of your brothers, I'd have drowned you years ago."
She sniffed, about-faced, and marched down his sloping lawn. Clate felt a rush at the sight of her backside, her lean, trim legs moving fast.
So what had Hannah told her? Hannah, who, he reminded himself, hadn't told even Piper everything she knew.
"Bet you didn't tell your brothers either," Clate called to her.
She didn't even break stride.
"You're a devious woman, Piper Macintosh." Her gait faltered, but she still didn't turn around. The cool breeze felt good on his overheated body and was probably all that kept him from charging after her. "But I will allow that you lead a complicated life. I don't have to answer to anyone but myself. You've got your aunt, your father, your brothers, half the damned town."
She stopped, looked around at him. "I don't envy you, you know."
"No reason you should."
He saw her hesitating, that sharp Yankee mind debating, plotting, sorting through the complications and exasperations of her life. "I broke a lot of promises I made to Hannah tonight."
"By talking to your father and brothers?"
She nodded. "It felt necessary at the time. Right now, I'm not so sure. I need—" She glanced up at the sky, the stars just coming out, then back at him. "I need to keep this one promise. For now."
He left his shovel on a pile of dirt and started down the yard toward her. Now a good ache had started in his shoulders and arms. "Does this promise include spending the night alone?"
She smiled as he came up beside her, and a glimmer of real certainty sparked in her eyes. "No, as a matter of fact it doesn't."
Piper made coffee in her cozy kitchen and popped an English muffin into the toaster. She could hear the shower running upstairs. Not since moving into her crumbling little house three years ago had she had a man spend the night. The occasional friend from Boston would drive down for a weekend, but never anyone in whom she had a romantic interest.