Kiss the Moon (15 page)

“The instant message came first?” When she nodded, he said, “Tell me about it.”

His tone was encouraging and even tender, not the least bit dictatorial. But his eyes—those black, incisive Sinclair eyes—gave him away. Inside, she knew, he was pulsating with the urge to take her by the shoulders and shake the information out of her, syllable by syllable if necessary. It was just the warning she needed. Wanting to slip inside this man’s soul for a look around was crazy and dangerous—like doing a preflight check, discovering mechanical problems and going up anyway, even when she knew the plane wasn’t airworthy. Some things you just didn’t do.

But she told him about the instant message, the fax, the car. She focused on the facts and didn’t mention flipping on lights and ducking under windows and sleeping on the couch. Fear had always been a private issue for her. When search parties had found her, when Andy McNally had pulled her out of the lake, she’d never admitted her terror.

When she finished, Wyatt set the spoon down and returned to the table. The snow was piling up outside her cabin. March snows were often wet and deep, but not long-lasting. Penelope imagined her deck brimming with summer pots of flowers, herbs, tomatoes. Everything changed. Nothing lasted forever.

She said, “You should know I’m not operating under the assumption that you’re not responsible. I don’t think either you or Jack Dunning has an ironclad alibi, should I report these incidents to the police. You both have motives for wanting to spook me into showing you the dump—or the plane, seeing how you both think I lied.”

His jaw was set tight, controlled. “Fair enough. But we’re hardly alone in thinking you changed your story.”

“Who else cares about finding the plane? You care because Colt’s your uncle. Jack cares because it’s his job.”

“Frannie’s from Cold Spring, and she and Colt most likely went down in this vicinity. There could be parties unknown with motives unknown who want to manipulate you. The fax said
not
to show anyone what you found in the woods.”

“That could be reverse psychology.”

“It could be a lot of things. You still have it?”

She nodded. “I’ll get it.”

With sudden energy, she shot up from the table, but stopped halfway to her bedroom. She turned, saw he was watching her. She forced herself to concentrate. “Aunt Mary’s fax machine was messed up this morning.”

The black eyes showed no emotion. “And you think it was our mad faxer?”

“Why not? He could have snuck in last night and popped off the fax to me. There was no sign of a break-in, but he could have had a key, stolen a key, picked the lock, snuck in when Pop and Aunt Mary weren’t looking. The airport office isn’t exactly Fort Knox.”

“He—or she—could have seized the moment.”

“Right. I know it’s hard to swallow, but so’s a threat by fax. I suppose whoever sent it could have used his own machine and messed up Aunt Mary’s just so I’d think it came from hers. But that’s getting labyrinthine.”

Wyatt thought a moment. “It’s always possible your aunt messed up her fax machine without any help.”

“I guess. A few years ago, you could count the number of fax machines in town on one hand. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bubba Johns had one.” Before Wyatt could jump in, she added, “And no, I don’t suspect him.”

She darted into her bedroom, located the fax, returned to the kitchen, and handed it to Wyatt. While she paced, he unfolded it, read it, and pinned his gaze on her.

“You should have Jack take a look at this. He’s an experienced investigator. My father wouldn’t have him on retainer if he weren’t discreet.”

Penelope shook her head. “I think this is a case of the more you stir it, the more it stinks. There’s no overt threat. It could be a reporter trying to goad me into changing my story—it could be Jack Dunning for all I know, or you, or some idiot relative of mine having a laugh at my expense. Look, I’ve already had a search party formed to come after me, turned an old dump into a plane wreck and got myself grounded. This time I’m looking before I leap.”

Wyatt smiled. “You do have a reputation for putting people around here through their paces. But what do you believe right now? What do your instincts tell you?”

Her instincts had already told her not to get into an alliance with this man, and a fat lot of good that had done her. “My instincts told me to get out Granddad’s Winchester and buy bullets. Just in case.”

“You could move in with your folks for a few days,” Wyatt suggested, “or take a room at the inn with your cousin.”

“Are you kidding? I’d never live it down. You just said you know my reputation. Something happens in Cold Spring, New Hampshire, people look around to see where I am. They’re still ticked about the search party the other night.”

“That shouldn’t matter—”

“It
does
matter.”

“You don’t strike me as the type to worry about what other people think.”

“I have to live in this town. I don’t get to go back to a life of anonymity in New York.” She snatched up her wooden spoon and stirred the syrup, smelling the maple, feeling the steam on her face. It was almost time to pour it into a smaller pot. “This is my house, and I’m staying here.”

“At least get a friend to stay with you.”

His tone was neutral, but he joined her at the stove, standing close, and she could feel the fear welling up, her uneasiness about him, her attraction to him. A swirl of conflicting questions and emotions had her head spinning. Outside, the wind was gusting off the frozen lake, whipping icy snow against her cabin windows.

She kept stirring the syrup. It still had a ways to go. If she cooked it too much, it would crystallize. “I’m just trying to make the best decisions I can and not give in.”

“Not give in to what?”

“I’ve always been restless, I’ve always needed a lot going on in my life—the adrenaline, the excitement. I do impulsive things. I get distracted and forget what I’m doing and—and…”

“And pretty soon you’re lost in the woods or plunging through thin ice.”

“But I’m
capable,
” she said. “I know what I’m doing. I don’t need to be hovered over and protected. I’m not an idiot, and I’m not reckless. And damn it, it’s not that I’m looking for drama, that I need that kind of rush.”

He smiled, and this time it reached his eyes. “You sound like a Sinclair.”

She grinned. “Horrors. But Sinclairs aren’t hovered over and protected and told they should just sit home. Not the men, at least.”

“No, we die prematurely instead. Or others die in our place.”

She remembered his friend, the awful circumstances of his death. A fall, bad weather, no help. Accomplished hikers, he and Wyatt had underestimated the Tasmanian mountains, the potential for extreme changes in climate, and their hubris had cost Hal his life. Penelope could only speculate about the effects of Wyatt’s ordeal—his guilt—on him. His experience could have colored his move to New York, his decision to come to New Hampshire, his reaction to her messages and the idea of someone spying on her. It could even muddy how he saw her. If he saw in her the same qualities that in him had led to tragedy, he could go all self-controlled and distant and fight any attraction to her—or he could want her all the more. Either way, he was looking at her through a clouded lens, not seeing her for who she was.

Of course, she was doing the same to him. He was a Sinclair, and she knew Sinclairs. She sighed, wishing she could stop trying to sort everything out. “I suppose I should keep in mind that you Sinclairs are human beings, not just the sum of my prejudices. We have ideas about you here because of the past. In any case, I’ve hardly had the kind of adventures you’ve had—I’ve just had to be pulled out of the lake a few times too many.”

“You get in over your head.”

“At times. We all do. I’m not now,” she added quickly, and if he’d asked, she couldn’t have told him if she meant in over her head with him or with the story she’d told about Frannie Beaudine and Colt Sinclair. But he didn’t ask, and his mouth found hers as he brushed the tips of his fingers along her jaw and into her hair until she thought she’d melt right into the sap pot.

She moaned softly, their kiss deepening, his arms around her, drawing her against him. He was all hard muscles and warm, soft fabric, and when his hands slipped under her shirt, she could have crawled right inside him.

But he drew back, said, “We all get in over our heads from time to time. The trick is to know when we need help and when we’re just having fun, pushing the envelope but still in control.”

She didn’t feel in control at all. Her nerve endings were on fire, and she had no clear notion of whether the kiss was to prove a point or—or just a kiss. With a quick tug on her shirt, she got the spaghetti pot from a low cupboard. “I think I should strain the syrup once more when I switch pots.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

She glanced at him. “What’re you going to do?”

“Poke around, talk to Jack.”

“You won’t tell him about the messages—”

He shook his head. “Not my place. But I think you should at least tell your parents, your aunt Mary—someone besides me. I’m an outsider, an automatic suspect.” He walked to the table, and if he was experiencing any residual effects of their kiss, they weren’t apparent. He pulled his leather jacket off the back of the chair. “If this thing escalates, you’ll want someone on your side you can trust and who trusts you without question.”

She smiled through her sudden uneasiness. “That wouldn’t be you, huh?”

“Honey, we both know I don’t trust you.” He opened the side door. The wind was howling, but the snow was subsiding. “However, you can trust me.”

“I don’t know that.”

He grinned. “But I do. That syrup will be ready later? I’ll come back. I make great pancakes, you know.”

“I can see how you ended up scaling tall mountains. You just don’t give up.”

“Something to remember while the snow flies and the sap boils.”

Harriet was surprised anyone showed up at the inn on such a miserable day, much less Andy McNally. He brought Rebecca and Jane for afternoon tea—an hour early. They’d been let out of school because of the storm, and Andy had a meeting at three. “You can heat up yesterday’s scones if you don’t have any fresh.”

“I just pulled apricot scones from the oven.”

He grinned at his daughters. “Didn’t I tell you we could count on Harriet?”

They ordered scones and individual pots of English Breakfast tea, and the girls asked Harriet to join them. She did, gladly. Andy wasn’t fond of tea, and scones he could take or leave. The girls, who both favored their mother, loved the elegance and indulgence of afternoon tea and would often stop by on their own when they didn’t have after-school activities or some adventure scheduled with Penelope.

“Anything from your cousin today?” Andy asked.

“No, I haven’t seen her.”

He’d told Harriet about the false alarm last night. She reminded him that he should be relieved, not annoyed. One, because he found nothing. Two, because Penelope had had the sense to call him instead of charging out into the night herself.

Rebecca, a junior in high school, said, “The sap won’t be running today. It’s too cold.”

Her father grunted. “Just what we need, Penelope with too much time on her hands.”

“Lyman’s not going to rescind her three-week grounding—”

“No. God forbid. The only thing worse than Penelope with time on her hands is Penelope distracted in an airplane.”

Jane, a freshman, giggled. “Oh, Daddy, you’re so hard on her!”

“She’s hard on us. Now drink your tea and let me talk.”

“We’re right here. It’s not as if we can turn our ears off—”

Andy silenced her with a quick look, then turned to Harriet. “Smart alecks, both of them. It’s Penelope’s influence. But—they can hold their own and think for themselves. I guess she’s been a help there, too. Look, I’ll be straight with you, Harriet. I’m worried about her.”

Harriet nodded, pouring tea, which she liked dark and strong with just a drop of cream. “I know. We all are.”

“Why doesn’t she just say she found that goddamned plane and be done with it?”

“Because she’s stubborn and because she can’t control the consequences.”

“What consequences? It wasn’t any of her relatives in that plane. Besides, the thing’s been missing for forty-five years. Except for the Sinclair family, who cares? Frannie Beaudine doesn’t even have any family left.”

“There might be other, less direct, unintended consequences.”

Andy frowned. He was a concrete man with a good, incisive mind, but he lacked imagination and had a cop’s reluctance to charge too far ahead of the facts. “Such as?”

“Well…the reporters. Many of them checked in here at the inn, and it wouldn’t have been long before they heard about Bubba Johns and—and me.”

“You? What the hell—oh.” His mouth snapped shut, and he quickly buttered a scone. “You mean your notion—your claim—”

“It’s neither a notion nor a claim, Andy. It’s a hypothesis.”

Harriet sipped her tea, welcoming the heat. She was sounding so much more controlled and sensible than she felt. Most people in Cold Spring, she knew, considered her hypothesis kooky. She couldn’t blame them. She felt kooky. Her. Sensible, plain Harriet Chestnut. She’d applied makeup twice already today, scrubbing it off each time, feeling ridiculous. Jack Dunning had left early and hadn’t returned. Silly to think she could interest such a man. She felt like Rebecca and Jane with their high-school crushes.

“And Bubba,” Andy said, awkwardly changing the subject. “What’s he got to do with anything?”

“Oh, you know Penelope. She’d hate to see an old hermit’s life disrupted because of something she did.”

“She didn’t do anything. She found a missing plane. Now
her
life’s being disrupted—she’s got Wyatt Sinclair and a PI on her case.” He bit off a hunk of scone, and out of the corner of one eye, Harriet saw Rebecca wince at her father’s lack of delicacy. He might have been eating a pastrami sandwich. “If those two do anything against the law to get her to talk, I’m nailing their hides to the wall.”