Carla Neggers - Echo Lake

“I’m hungry. I woke up forgetting I don’t have any food in the house.”

Eric shook his head. “That’s not it.”

“Come on,” Justin said. “Out with it.”

She reached for the little dish of homemade strawberry jam. “I had to walk over here. My truck wouldn’t start last night, and I ended up leaving it at Vic’s. Dead battery.”

“How did you get home?” Justin asked.

“I got a ride.”

“Vic? This house sitter, Adrienne Portale?”

“No.” Heather set the dish in front of her. “Not Vic or Adrienne.”

Justin sighed. “Then who?”

She spread jam on a triangle of her toast.

Eric snatched up his coffee. “Hell, Heather, why are you stonewalling? If you’ve got some secret boyfriend, just tell us to mind our own damn business—”

“Brody Hancock gave me a ride home.”

“Brody Hancock? Are you serious?” Justin groaned, looking as if he were about to jump up out of his chair. “Damn, Heather. You could have called me for a ride. You didn’t have to rely on Brody. What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know. He says Vic invited him. I had no idea until I ran into him yesterday. He got in late the night before. He’s a Diplomatic Security Service agent now.”

She deliberately left out finding Rohan in the brook and her reaction to Brody. She didn’t need to get into those particular details. There were some things her brothers didn’t need to know, and she had a good feel for what they were. In any case, she’d chalked up her intense, immediate physical attraction to him to the adrenaline of her puppy rescue. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to being around buff guys.

Eric held on to his coffee mug without picking it up. “Brody’s a DSS agent now? You’re sure nothing is going on out there?”

“Vic took in a golden retriever puppy who’s causing him fits. Other than that, no, nothing.” Heather ignored both brothers’ scrutiny and tried her toast. “Strawberry jam reminds me of summer. Look, if you guys have any questions about what’s going on, ask Vic. Ask Brody.”

“You’re just minding your own business,” Justin said.

“Do I hear a trace of sarcasm, Justin? Yes, as a matter of fact, I am minding my own business. I didn’t even recognize Brody at first.”

Eric pushed his mug away from him. “He drove you home last night.”

“Why wouldn’t he?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “He didn’t interrogate me about anything, if that’s what you’re wondering. It’s not like there are any secrets in Knights Bridge, anyway.”

“There are a million secrets in Knights Bridge,” Eric said.

“And not one of them is mine. My life is under constant scrutiny.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “Relax. We haven’t searched Phoebe’s house yet now that you’re staying there.”

“I know. I can tell. I leave a thread in a door to detect intruders.”

It wasn’t true, and she was only half-serious, but bringing up her position in their family had become her refrain whenever she was feeling the heat. Sometimes it even worked. But she didn’t know why Eric and Justin’s questions about Brody were getting to her.

Eric rubbed the back of his neck. He’d always been more patient than Justin, if only marginally so. “Look, Heather, we know you can handle yourself. That’s not the issue. Brody didn’t leave town on good terms and vowed never to return.”

“Things change,” she said.

“So they do. I’m surprised he’s a federal agent now. Good for him.”

Heather picked up her coffee mug. “But?”

Eric’s gaze leveled on her. He had the Sloan deep blue eyes. “But my one piece of unsolicited advice is to spend as little extra time there as possible.”

“I agree,” Justin said. “Do what you need to do. Go home. Stay out of any dramas out there.”

“The puppy is the biggest drama I’ve noticed. Do you know of anyone who’s missing a twelve-week-old golden retriever? He doesn’t have any tags. We figure he was abandoned out at the lake.”

Justin made a face. “We?”

“I did have an opinion, yes. Come on. Ease up.” When neither brother responded, Heather stared at them. “You two are worried about me? Seriously?”

Eric held up a hand. “Hold on. Don’t get wound up. Vic’s never let anyone from town into his life. He’s kept his distance because that’s who he is and what he wants.”

“You don’t want me getting ahead of myself, thinking he’s—what? A friend?”

“Let’s just say Vic isn’t looking for us to invite him over for potluck night,” Justin said.

“Maybe he will now that he’s retired, but that’s up to him.”

Heather tackled her eggs, wishing now she’d waited for the country store to open and grabbed something there. She was bound to have run into someone she knew who would have driven her up to Vic’s. Justin smiled suddenly—not, she realized, because of her or her situation. Samantha Bennett, his fiancée, had just entered the restaurant. She wasn’t wearing a hat over her short golden-brown curls, but she had her winter coat buttoned up to her chin.

Heather grinned at her second-born brother. “You just got giddy.”

“Giddy, Heather?”

“Happy? Excited? Pleased? I admit I didn’t think you and Samantha would last past Thanksgiving, but here you are, a couple of lovebirds.”

Justin looked past her to Eric. “Can I throw our little sister off the front porch? Would you arrest me?”

“No point arresting you,” Eric said. “There isn’t a jury that would convict you.”

“Funny, you two,” Heather said. “Very funny.”

Justin grinned. “Eric and I need to mark the calendar. You just admitted you were wrong.”

Heather grinned back at him. “I’m seldom wrong only because I have the guidance of my five wise older brothers.”

Eric and Justin laughed in disbelief as Samantha breezed over to their table. She sat across from Justin and rubbed her hands together. She was very fit, energetic and new to Knights Bridge. She’d arrived in October looking for eighteenth-century pirate treasure and instead had found Justin, a carpenter and volunteer firefighter.

“Cold, Sam?” he asked.

“It’s nine degrees out there. I don’t know how you people can be laughing.”

“Laughter warms you up,” Eric said with a wink.

“So does coffee.” Samantha unbuttoned her coat but left it on as she reached for Justin’s mug. “I could be in South Florida with my parents. They’re working on salvage plans for their sunken World War II submarines. They’ll go back to Scotland in April. The forecast high today in Key West is eighty. The forecast high here is twenty.”

“And it’ll last for five minutes at two o’clock,” Heather added.

The widespread skepticism in town about Justin Sloan and Samantha Bennett as a couple was giving way to optimism. They were just so different. Justin was the second of six siblings and had lived in Knights Bridge his entire life. Samantha was an only child, an adventurer from a family of prominent adventurers, and a woman who’d never lived in one place for long. She was staying at the Sloan family cabin, supposedly doing research on Captain Benjamin Farraday, her mysterious eighteenth-century pirate. Heather suspected Samantha was at least as interested in being close to Justin.

Samantha put her hands around the mug with a sigh. “Warmth. It feels so good. I keep forgetting to wear gloves. Does the cold ever get to you, Heather?”

“Sometimes, especially when I’m not prepared.”

As was the case yesterday, she thought. She didn’t so much as glance at her two brothers at the table in case her expression gave her away and they realized she hadn’t told them everything about her first encounter with Brody.