Carla Neggers - Kiss the Moon

“Harriet’s upstairs, and I think Robby’s at the sugar house.”

Penelope couldn’t hide her relief. She was pretty sure Sinclair noticed. He was in observational mode, keying in on every nuance. Best to remain on guard, no matter how good the scones, how tired she was after her long day.

“Do you want me to tell Harriet you’re here?”

“No—that’s okay. We’re just having tea and scones.”

“Of course. Any table’s fine. We were crowded yesterday and this morning, but I think all the reporters have checked out by now.”

Terry was clearly curious about the man at Penelope’s side, but Penelope had no intention of introducing him. She wanted to convince Wyatt of her sincerity and honesty and hurry him back to New York. She chose a table in front of a window with the best view of the lake and a blue pottery dish brimming with daffodils.

“My mother does sugaring in the spring—the sap’s running like crazy,” she explained to Wyatt, just to say something. She wanted to distract him from coming to judgments she couldn’t control, like the certainty that her turn-of-the-century dump was made-up. “She and Harriet use the syrup at the inn and sell the surplus to guests.”

He settled into a chair opposite her. Even in black leather, he didn’t look out of place. He had an obvious ability to make wherever he was his space. The New York financial district, the Tasmanian wilderness, a charming New England inn. “Is Harriet your cousin on your mother’s side?” he asked.

Already they were on dangerous ground. Penelope shook her head. “No, Harriet and my father are first cousins. She’s between my mother and me in age—they’ve just always gotten along.” And that was all he needed to know about Harriet Chestnut.

“Are you related to everyone in town?”

“Not quite.”

Terry brought two individual pots of tea, two small plates of warm currant scones and two little crockeries, one of soft butter, one of raspberry preserves. Penelope smiled and thanked her, then said to Wyatt, “After nearly dying today, I’m putting jam and butter on my scones.”

“I didn’t realize it was that close a call.”

“It wasn’t, but anything to justify butter and jam.” She split open a scone, spread a generous amount of butter and checked her tea. “Another minute.” She settled in her chair, trying to ignore a flutter in the pit of her stomach. Lying to the national media was one thing, to a Sinclair another. “I’m sorry I got your family all stirred up about your uncle’s plane.”

Wyatt broke off a piece of his scone, smeared on a bit of butter. “I’d like to hear your story from start to finish, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

He smiled. “Is that the truth?”

She smiled back, her stomach twisting—damned if she’d let him ruin her afternoon tea. “Okay, so it’s awkward and I’d rather not. But I’ll oblige you. How’s that?”

“Better.”

“Are you going to pick apart every sentence?”

He shrugged. “Only if I sense you’re…dissembling.”

“Dissembling’s just another word for lying. It’s that Dartmouth education showing, huh? Well, sense away, Mr. Sinclair.”

“Wyatt,” he said smoothly.

She poured her tea, relieved her hand didn’t shake. “Wyatt Sinclair,” she said. “The only son of Brandon Sinclair, who was just eleven years old when his older brother and Frannie Beaudine slipped out during the reception honoring the donation of the Sinclair Collection to the Met.” She sipped her tea. “Rumor has it Colt stopped to say goodbye to his little brother before heading to the reception.”

“You’ve done your research.”

She waved a hand. She wanted to establish a measure of control over their conversation but saw no need to get into what she knew about Frannie and Colt—and him. “That much everyone around here knows. It’s printed on diner place mats. Frannie Beaudine’s sort of a local heroine.”

“And the people of Cold Spring blame Colt for sweeping her off her feet and to her doom?”

“Pretty much.”

Wyatt poured his tea, adding a bit of lemon, no sugar or cream. “It’s been forty-five years—”

“Around here, forty-five years is the blink of an eye. I mean, it’s not like we’re in England or Greece, but still. My father remembers both your uncle and Frannie—and your grandfather, too.”

“He told me.”

“He was fifteen when they disappeared. He helped search for their plane. It’s not so long ago.”

“I suppose.” Sinclair leaned back, watching Penelope as she ate her scone, which was feathery light and just perfect, but she resisted the temptation to wolf it down. “So, tell me how you mistook a dump for plane wreckage.”

She’d been explaining that point since morning. On her trip to Plattsburgh, New York, and back, she’d worked out the kinks in her story. “Well, I did and I didn’t. I just thought it was plane wreckage—I realized I wouldn’t know for sure until I went back. Because of the conditions, I only saw it from a distance. It was on a steep, icy, rocky hillside, and I didn’t want to risk climbing over to get a closer look. It was late, and I was out in the woods alone.”

The dark, almost black eyes settled on her. “And you were lost.”

She gave him a self-deprecating smile. “I wasn’t lost-lost. Lost-lost is when the search party has to find you. I made my way back while they were still arguing over who got to ride the snowmobiles.”

The eyes didn’t move from her. Wyatt Sinclair wasn’t going to be easy to roll. He had more at stake. It was his uncle—his flesh and blood—in that plane. Feeling a twinge of guilt, Penelope poured her tea. “Anyway,” she went on, welcoming the steam and the smoky smell of Earl Grey, “I said I thought I might have found Colt and Frannie’s plane, and next thing it’s all over the news that I did find it. So before things got too far out of hand, I slipped off on my own late yesterday to check out what I’d found for myself.”

“What time did you leave?”

“I don’t know, about four, four-thirty.”

“And when did you get back?”

She slathered jam and butter onto another piece of scone. “What’re you going to do, get out your compass and map and calculate my coordinates?”

His gaze darkened enough to remind her that she was dealing with a man who hadn’t exactly driven six hours for tea and scones. “Maybe I’m just pinning you down.”

He said pinning in such a way that her stomach rolled over and a prickly, all-over awareness settled in. “Pin away,” she said lightly, making it a challenge. “I got home after dark. I didn’t look at the clock.”

His gaze remained steady, probing, all the more disconcerting because she had the distinct feeling he knew he’d gotten to her with that last remark. No doubt it had been deliberate. Part of his strategy. Make the woman quiver with thoughts of your hard body and dark eyes and then pounce—prove her a bald-faced liar.

“You must have some idea,” he said mildly.

She had no idea because she’d never made the trip. She’d tramped to the edge of her property, tossed snowballs against trees for a while and tramped back by a different route, careful not to let any enterprising reporter spot her. “I guess it must have been around seven. I took a shower, ate dinner, checked my e-mail and went to bed.”

“All right. And you say what you found this time was a dump.”

“What I found last time was a dump, too. I just didn’t know it.”

“Isn’t it unusual to find a dump, even an old one, that far out in the woods?”

“Unusual but not impossible. Most of New Hampshire was denuded by logging and farming a hundred years ago. A lot of reforestation has occurred over the century. The woods—even the Sinclair woods—are crisscrossed with stone walls, old logging trails, cellar holes, wells. Dumps. We see trees and like to think we’re stepping on virgin ground. But we’re not.” She sipped her tea, feeling calmer. “You went to school up here. You must know this stuff.”