Admit One (16 page)

He kissed her thoroughly, but without the almost frantic demand she’d come to expect from him. This kiss soothed as much as it excited, and somehow, was exactly what she needed.

“That was… really nice,” she said when he finally pulled back.

“Well, it’s about time I did something other than fumble about like a randy teen. Do you remember the first time I kissed you?”

“You mean when you pushed me into the theater closet?”

“And caused kitchen towels to rain down on your head.”

Allie’s smile was wry. “And then I threw a roll at
your
head when my brother revealed your true identity.”

Mason ran his thumb over the sensitive flesh of her wrist. “Are you ever going to allow us to move past that?”

Allie considered, and was surprised that the answer was so easy. “Yes,” she said. But she slapped her other hand against his chest when he made a move toward her. “Not that I’m sure about this
us
stuff, mind you. But I definitely think it’s time to leave the old baggage behind. Ouch,” she said, looking at the palm she’d pushed him back with. She thought she’d gotten them cleaned up, but apparently there was still some sidewalk grit caught in the scrape.

“What happened?” Mason took her palm and examined it in the light from the spotlight over the back entrance.

“I fell,” she said, leaving out a few embarrassing details. Which reminded her that she seemed to have lost her pepper spray. Which was attached to her keys. She was going to have to go back and look for them.

The chill on her neck came back, and she shivered.

“Cold?” Mason asked. “I guess the night has cooled considerably, although I have to admit that I far prefer it to the blasted heat. Let me get you a jacket or something from wardrobe and we can doctor your palm while we’re about it.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” she said. “Alan gave me an antiseptic wipe.”

“Alan.” Mason looked as if he had tasted something unpleasant. “I presume that’s the bloke who was just ogling you as if you were a particularly tasty morsel.”

“So it wasn’t just my imagination.”

“Not unless we were sharing the same hallucination, no. Who is he?”

The irritation in Mason’s voice made her blink. “He works with my brother. Will, I mean. The, uh, ogling thing is new.” And unless she was mistaken, that was three men who’d hit on her, or come close to hitting on her, in the past week. One of them being her ex-fiancé. The other a man who’d known her for years and never batted an eyelash in her direction.

And then, of course, there was Mason.

“Am I putting out pheromones or something?”

“I certainly hope not, lest I be forced to fight for you, like a stag.” Then his sour expression softened. “You’re a lovely woman, Allison. You’re also clever, and possess an inner strength that’s only enhanced by your sweet nature. It shouldn’t be surprising that the men around you have noticed. It’s only surprising to me that it seems to have taken them so long.”

Allie opened her mouth. Closed it.

“Since I appear to have rendered you temporarily speechless, this is probably a good time to go inside and have another look at your palm.”

“What?” Allie shook herself out of her stupor. “Oh. No. It’s alright, really. I… what are you doing out here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be on stage?”

“Ah, just getting some air. Tommy felt himself sufficiently recovered to resume his role this evening. I’ve been helping out backstage.”

“Oh.” Although his expression was perfectly neutral, Allie thought she detected a hint of disappointment in his tone. “You wish you were still up there, don’t you?”

“I… well, to be perfectly honest, yes. Theater, particularly small, local theaters, has a sense of camaraderie, of engaging in a sort of costumed lark with one’s mates, that… isn’t always that easy to recapture in larger productions.” He smiled, and it was rueful. “Filling in for Tommy made me remember why I fell in love with acting in the first place.”

“How did you get started? Were you very young?”

Mason studied her for a moment. “That is a tale I would love to tell you. Over dinner tomorrow.”

“Is that a bribe?”

“I prefer to think of it as a… bridge to another scene.”

“Just to be clear,” she used his expression. “You’re asking me out on a date.”

“I believe that’s still the custom.”

Allie shook her head. She would probably live to regret this, but what the hell. Even when you played it safe, life had a way of dragging you down bumpy roads. Maybe it was better to walk right onto them with your own two feet. “Okay. I’ll have dinner with you. But only because you’ve made me curious.”

She reached up to adjust the strap on her purse, catching her scraped palm in the process. Which caused her to recall the fact that she’d dropped her keys when she’d fallen. “Shoot. I have to go.”

“And we haven’t even gotten to the appetizer course.”

“No, smartass, I dropped my keys. When I fell. I’m going to borrow Bran’s car so that I can go back and look for them.”

“Something wrong with your car? Obviously there must be, since Officer Ogler dropped you off.”

“That’s Lieutenant Ogler,” Allie said, her tone dry.

“My apologies. I have temporary possession of Tucker’s truck. How about I give you a lift back to the Dust Jacket, and I’ll have a look at the battery while you search for your keys. I do know my way around that make of car, if you’ll recall.”

“No. I mean yes, I remember that you’re familiar with Jags.” He’d helped her out with another problem last summer. “But that’s not where I dropped the keys.” It would be much easier to simply borrow Bran’s car and look for the keys herself than to explain everything to Mason. Except…

Paranoid though she might be, she didn’t relish the idea of going back over there alone. And, as Mason had recently reminded her, being independent didn’t mean she had to be stupid about accepting help when it was offered.

“We’ll have to make another stop first.”

“That, my dear, is not a problem. Just give me a moment to tell Branson I’m leaving.”

“MAYBE
Alan picked them up,” Allie said.

Mason shone the heavy-duty flashlight he’d borrowed from Tucker’s truck, along the ground. Aside from some leaves, a bottle cap and a gum wrapper, there was nothing except asphalt and concrete.

“Why wouldn’t he have given them to you?”

“I don’t know.” She sounded despondent.

“Perhaps we should retrace your steps. Maybe you dropped them before you fell. What is it?” he said when he noted the expression on her face.

“Nothing,” she said, far too quickly. “I just know that I had them in my hand as I was… walking. So I couldn’t have dropped them. Until I tripped, I mean. And fell.”

“Allison,” he said as he studied her. “What is it that you’re not telling me?”

“What makes you think that I’m not telling you something?”

“Let’s just say that the acting gene was not evenly divided between you and your twin.”

She huffed a breath, ruffling a lock of inky hair, and her tone when she responded was faintly mutinous. “I got spooked, okay? I had the pepper spray in my hand – it’s attached to my key ring – and I
know
I had it because I was making sure not to drop it as I ran. It was after I… bumped into Alan, here at the intersection, and stumbled, that I must have let go of it.”

Mason stared at her for a long moment. “Just so we’re clear, you were walking down the darkened street – alone – and something frightened you enough that you not only pulled out your pepper spray, but you almost ran in front of a car.”

Allie drew herself up to her full height. Which, to be honest, wasn’t quite as impressive a display as she might have hoped. “You and your condescension can go on back to the theater now. Or England. You can always go back to England. They have flights real regular-like.”

“What scared you?” Mason asked, ignoring her suggestion.

Some of the sass went out of her tone as she looked back down the street. “It was nothing. I thought someone was following me, but I’m sure it was just my imagination. I’ve been edgy since… since you found that arm. I guess it’s been bothering me more than I thought. Not knowing whether it was deliberate.”

“Whether the man was murdered, you mean.”

Her gaze cut back toward his. “Yes. It’s just so creepy. And I’m sorry. I know that can’t be a pleasant memory for you.”

“No. But sometimes what we imagine is often worse than the reality, and it begins to play tricks in our head. It’s understandable that you’d be unsettled, Allison.”

She sighed. “Thanks. Thank you for not making me feel more ridiculous than I do already.” She glanced around the empty intersection. “Well, I guess there’s no point in hanging around here any longer. I’m pretty sure the keys are gone.”

They headed toward Tucker’s truck, which Mason had parked in the lot of the little museum next door.

“Did you have any sort of identification on your key ring?”

“No.” Allie shook her head. “And I have copies of the keys to the house, the store and my car. I had a spare key to your cottage on there, though.” She gave him a rueful look. “If all of your stuff is gone when you get back, you’ll know who to blame.”

“I’d say your car is probably more interesting to potential thieves than my toothbrush. And without identification, it’s a pretty remote possibility that whoever found your keys would know where to use them.”

“Unless…”

“Unless?” Mason prompted as he opened her door.

“Nothing.” She shook her head, and climbed into the seat.

“Allison.” He put his hand on her thigh, his grip firm enough to indicate he failed to find that answer satisfactory.

“Getting a little high-handed again, aren’t you? Oh, alright,” she said when she judged by his expression that he was prepared to stand there all night. “Unless it wasn’t my imagination, and someone
was
following me. And if they overheard me talking to Alan, it wouldn’t be that difficult to figure out who I am. He – or she – could have hidden nearby and picked up the keys after we drove off.”

“And that potentially puts your business and your home at risk from intruders or thieves.” He tilted his head. “Why were you hesitant to mention it?”

She sighed. “Because my colleagues and my family might wonder why I suddenly got a wild hair about changing all the locks, which means I’d have to explain the circumstances under which I lost my keys, which in turn will make people worry. And like I told you yesterday, I’m tired of being the center of that kind of attention. I just want to be
normal
for a change.”

Mason understood that sentiment far more than he would have thought possible.

“Do you think this… Alan will say anything to your brother?”

“I don’t know him well enough to say for sure, but I think he’ll respect my wishes. Unless he feels there’s a good reason not to.”

“And both your home and your business have alarm systems, am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then it seems to me that you can mention that you appear to have lost your keys – without going into specifics – and are worried about them falling into the wrong hands. It wouldn’t be out of the question if you suggested changing the locks, or at the very least if you reminded everyone to be vigilant about the alarm systems unless and until your keys turn up.”

Allie considered. “That could work. Especially since I
don’t
know that they might not turn up. Because I don’t know that I was being followed, or that some Good Samaritan didn’t find the keys and will turn them in to the Museum, since it’s right next door, tomorrow.”

“There you go. Checking in with the Museum seems like a brilliant idea.”

“And it’s an off chance, but I can call Alan in the morning and ask if he has them. Maybe they’re even in his truck.”

This time Mason murmured something noncommittal. He didn’t want to encourage any more interaction between Allison and the cop than he absolutely had to.

“Well,” he said, climbing into the driver’s seat and stowing the flashlight behind him. “Since you don’t have your spare car key with you, how about I give you a lift home and then I can have a look at your battery in the morning.”

“Provided my car is still there.”

“It will be,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on it, since it’s parked practically right outside my window.”

“Mason.” Allie touched his arm before he could turn the key in the engine. “Thank you. You made me feel… steadier.” 

“That,” he told her with a small, very pleased smile “might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“OH.
My. God.” Rainey fanned herself as she came out of the Dust Jacket’s kitchen. Her wide brown eyes were glassy when she carried the tray of fresh apricot scones to where Allie was stocking the day’s baked goods. “Can you maybe have car trouble more often? Because the sight of a good-looking man in jeans bent over a car engine is one thing, but when the man has an ass like
that,
it becomes a religious experience.”