She nodded. “Thank you.”
Their drinks and salads arrived. She took a long sip of iced tea, as if it were something alcoholic and might give her warmth and false strength.
He leaned toward her. “Kelsey, I didn’t want to tell you on the phone, but now I think you need to know. The reason I’m worried about you out there is because I think that Cutter… Well, I think that he was scared to death.”
“Liam, I’m not leaving the house.”
“Do you know anything about the book or the casket?” he asked her.
At last, she set her fork down and looked in the bag. She frowned. “I…think he had both for a very long time,” she said. “I remember that he used to keep the casket on his desk, and I know that the book was on one of the bookshelves.”
He nodded. “Would you mind if I took the casket back and asked Ted and Jaden to take a look at it and see if they can find out anything about it in their reference materials?”
“No. I don’t mind at all,” she said.
He sat back. She smiled at him. “Liam, the more I’m in it, the more I love the house.”
He nodded uneasily. “It’s a great house,” he said flatly.
She seemed more at ease. “So, why don’t we talk about you for a while? It’s not a surprise that you’re a cop, you know. You always wanted to solve every riddle. So…what have you been doing all these years? Did you graduate, go right into the police force?”
He shook his head, wishing that his tension would ease. “I went to the U of M. I went into criminal studies, spent some time in Miami, took special classes that were offered up in Quantico, thought about the FBI and came back to Key West. I loved Washington, D.C. It was a great place to live, but I missed the water. Yes, it’s on the Potomac. I miss the kind of water you can go in every day.”
She laughed. “That was an easy roundup of a lot of years!” she told him.
Their main courses arrived. She talked about her drawing, and about her partner, Avery. He was a whiz with animation, and they worked well together. She loved being her own boss. “Which, of course, is why I’m able to spend time down here now,” she said. “But you’re kind of the boss now, aren’t you? I heard about the shake-up in the police department—and about David coming home to vindicate himself from any suspicion,” she said.
“The chief is a great guy. I’m under him,” Liam said. “But since I’m known to work all hours and all days, I can take time when I need it, which I did recently, when I went off with David, Katie, Sean, Vanessa and others on the film shoot, trailing the recent massacre on Haunt Island.”
She set a hand on his. “That’s the problem, Liam. You’ve been so busy with really horrific events. Please—you’re worrying about me too much. I’m fine.”
When she touched him, he felt as if time and place whirled around them. Her fingertips created an instant tension in his muscles, ignited a fire in his blood and caused dangerous things to happen to his state of arousal.
He drew his hand back. “I just want you to be careful, Kelsey, that’s all.”
She seemed troubled that he had drawn away. He didn’t want to explain.
Soon after, they finished and walked out on the docks. They could almost see the Merlin house from the pier; some of the high-growing pines obscured it, but she had left on lights in the front and back of the house, so a glow could be seen.
“It’s pretty, huh?” Kelsey asked.
“Um…”
“Let’s go back and sit on the beach?” she suggested.
They drove back to the house. When she unlocked the front door, he was tense again. He didn’t know what he expected. That something might have changed?
But nothing appeared to be any different.
Kelsey seemed happy. She suggested they bring drinks and cookies out to the sand, since they had passed on dessert. He agreed. They went out through the family room and down to the small beach area. The wash of the waves against the shore was a pleasant sound. Light glowed from the house and from an almost full moon above. Light clouds could be seen drifting over the water.
“It is really beautiful, isn’t it?” Kelsey asked.
“Just like Eden,” he said dryly.
She smacked his shoulder. “Liam.”
It was arousing to just touch his shoulder!
“Hey! It’s beautiful,” he agreed. He was quiet a minute. “You own an amazing piece of property, with the best view around. It still worries me. I still wish you’d stay with me. Or Katie and David, or Sean and Vanessa, or—”
“I’m not staying with any set of lovers, thank you very much.”
“Jonas runs a B and B,” Liam reminded her.
“That would be silly.”
“He wouldn’t charge you.”
“Then I wouldn’t stay there. And it actually isn’t money. Cutter was solvent, and I’m already on his banking accounts, and, thank you, but my career is actually lucrative!”
“I assumed it was. You said that it would be silly.”
“It would be silly.”