Carla Neggers - Echo Lake

She heated up a can of black bean soup and took it into the front room with her. It was a quiet, dark night, and very cold. Even indoors, she was aware of the dropping temperature. She glanced around the attractive room, feeling oddly out of place. Phoebe and Noah had met at a costume ball in Boston, a charity fund-raiser. Phoebe had been dressed as an Edwardian princess, Noah as a swashbuckler. He’d had no idea she was a small-town librarian. She’d had no idea he was a billionaire.

So romantic.

Heather wasn’t sure she’d know a swashbuckler if she saw one. Sometimes she wondered if she had a romantic bone in her body.

She reached for her laptop. What would happen if she did an internet search for Diplomatic Security Service agent Brody Hancock?

Would she learn anything interesting?

Would he find out?

She smiled but felt a quiver of uneasiness, too. She put aside her laptop and investigated the shelves of books. She chose a worn copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel and took it to bed with her, but abandoned it after seven pages and went back downstairs for her laptop. She brought it upstairs with her and, with a deep breath, did an internet search to see what she could find out about the Diplomatic Security Service.

She eyed the list of results, suspecting it would be best if she returned to her swashbuckler tale and put aside her questions about Brody Hancock and his return to their little hometown.

Three

Brody opened a beer and sat at Vic’s kitchen table. Rohan was racing back and forth between the refrigerator and the back door with a chew toy that Heather had brought for him, at least according to Vic. Brody wasn’t confident his old friend was paying close attention to the puppy goings-on in his Knights Bridge home.

He had helped himself to a plate of hors d’oeuvres, but he’d never been a big wine drinker. He’d only taken a few sips of Adrienne Portale’s selections for the evening. She hadn’t seemed to mind. Brody couldn’t remember Vic ever mentioning Adrienne or her parents, Sophia Portale, a marketing whiz with her own firm based in San Francisco, and her ex-husband, Richard Portale, a corporate lawyer also in San Francisco. Adrienne’s house-sitting arrangement with Vic didn’t strike Brody as anything out of the ordinary.

Just as well nothing was jumping out at him to cause alarm since he doubted Heather Sloan would give up on trying to find out why he was in her little town. She was a Sloan. Every last one of them was stubborn. He doubted that had changed in his absence.

Heather wasn’t what he’d expected. Pretty, sexy, curvy...

He didn’t need that kind of distraction right now. An attractive woman—one from the hometown he’d sworn he would never step foot in again.

Also one with five older brothers. Bad enough if he stopped right there, but he couldn’t. He’d left Knights Bridge while Heather’s brothers were heating up the tar and gathering the feathers.

His negative history with the Sloans aside, Brody didn’t need them or anyone else in town meddling in whatever was going on with Vic. If Vic was being paranoid, no one else needed to know. Knights Bridge was his home now. That kind of gossip wouldn’t help him.

“What a day,” Vic said, yawning as he entered the kitchen. He put his full wineglass on the table, pulled out a chair and flopped down. “Adrienne’s reading by the fire. I think she’s disappointed we didn’t drink all the wine, but one more sip and I’ll pass out on the floor.”

“The leftover wine will keep. She’s got some gadget that helps.” Brody took a swallow of his beer. “You weren’t close to passing out, though.”

“I was. I don’t hold my alcohol like I used to.”

“Another of the myths you live by these days.”

Vic quirked an eyebrow. “Another?”

“You’re an optimist and a romantic at heart, Vic. Maybe that’s why you lasted as a career diplomat for as long as you did.”

“Forty years. Damn, that makes me feel old.”

Brody grinned. “You are old.”

“Hell, no. Sixty is the new forty.” Vic watched Rohan tear across the kitchen. “The little fella’s no worse for the wear, anyway. Heather didn’t recognize you right away. That surprise you?”

“Not really. She wasn’t pretending. She’s not one to hold back what’s on her mind. I didn’t ring a bell at all.” Brody set his bottle on the table. He’d spent far too much time thinking about Heather Sloan ice-skating. “Why didn’t you tell me a Sloan was working on this place?”

Vic shrugged. “I didn’t think of it. Nobody remembers your fallout with the Sloans. You haven’t been back here since then, so it’s on your mind. That’s understandable. Anyway, they didn’t run you out. You left of your own accord. You’re a federal law-enforcement officer now. A respected agent with the Diplomatic Security Service. You’re as big a hard-ass as any Sloan.”

“Not Heather. She could kick my butt.”

“Ha. I have no doubt.” Vic lowered a hand at his side and snapped his fingers to get Rohan’s attention. The puppy bounded to him. “His fur’s so soft. He wore himself out on his romp in the woods, but he’s got his energy back now. What would have happened if Heather hadn’t found him when she did?”

“I’d have found him,” Brody said.

“You’re just saying that so I don’t feel like an incompetent fool for having lost him in the first place. I’d have had to sell the house if I’d let the poor little fellow freeze to death in that brook. More to the point,” he said, sitting up straight as Rohan ran off again, “I’d have felt terrible.”

“You’re new to puppy care.”

“Trial by fire.”

The puppy careened into the mudroom and climbed into his bed with his chew toy. Watching him helped Brody anchor his thinking. Too many memories in this town. There were some good ones, but the bad ones were clawing at him now. Heather Sloan wasn’t a kid anymore. That didn’t help. He hadn’t considered her—that she would be overseeing Vic’s house renovations—when he’d agreed to return. He’d expected to have a chat with Vic, talk some sense into him and leave after a couple of nights.

Brody took his beer bottle, still half-full, to the sink. It was pitch-dark outside, and dead quiet. Vic’s was the only house on this part of the lake. “You’re not used to the quiet and isolation out here, Vic. It’s worse now with the cold weather.”

Vic pushed his wineglass aside. “It’s been a while since either of us has been in a cold climate during winter.”

“Yes, it has.” Brody hadn’t expected to appreciate the bracing temperature and stark-white landscape—the quiet. Only the puppy’s playful growling disturbed the silence. He turned to Vic. “How are the renovations? Are you decisive, or do you dither?”

“We’re still pulling everything together and making decisions, but I wouldn’t say dither. I deliberate.”

Brody grinned. “Sounds like dithering to me.”

“I haven’t driven Heather crazy yet. I think the architect is about to bail on the project. Heather says not to worry, that’s just how he is. Mark Flanagan. You know him?”

“I did. He used to sleep in the back of class. Now he’s an architect?”

“A damn good one, too. He left town and came back again. He married a local woman in September. Jessica Frost.”

“I remember her. She’s younger—more like Heather’s age, as I recall. I didn’t have much to do with either one of them.”

Vic stretched, looking stiff and tired. “The Frosts still have their sawmill. They’re doing the custom woodwork on this place. Jessica’s sister, Olivia, married Noah Kendrick’s business partner on Christmas Eve.”

“Dylan McCaffrey.”