Sweetest Mistake (Nolan Brothers #2) (11 page)

“That may be true,” he said easily. “But where are we going to live?”

“I thought we could live in the carriage house until the renovations are done.” Her large eyes shimmered. “You’re happy there, aren’t you?”

Noah softened. “I’m happy anywhere you are.” He reached for her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. “But can’t you just take in stray kittens or something?”

Luke’s soft chuckle sloped through Emily, and Mina’s soft smile when she leaned into Noah warmed the room. They sat snuggled on the couch and the conversation turned to other topics.

Noah and Luke talked about their niece and nephews, and schemed a way to force Shea, their eldest brother, to talk to his wife, a woman named Isobel whom Emily didn’t know.

Emily found herself waiting for Luke to speak, curious what he might say. Curious about him and his life. When Mina and Noah talked about their time spent in Ireland, Emily wondered why Noah had a distinct Irish accent, but Luke, at best, had a faint lilt.

Their conversation took twists and turns, and by the time Emily finished her second glass of wine, she’d answered a few questions about Arizona and about her guest upstairs. She was shocked to realize she’d never experienced anything like it before: visiting with friends, in no hurry to get away from each other and in fact finding inconsequential things to say and ask for seemingly no other reason than to extend their time together.

How it hurt to realize what a sad, lonely life she’d lived. The closest she’d ever come was with her roommate in college, Haven. An outgoing, friendly girl, she’d had a knack for bringing Emily out of her shell.

When Noah and Mina retreated to the carriage house sometime later, the setting sun tilted soft light across the room.

From across the table, Luke watched her with hooded eyes.

She sat forward in the armchair. “I… uh…” Not knowing what to say, she trailed off.

She couldn’t shake the feeling something had changed between them, something more than the kiss, or even the fact he’d seen her naked, but was unable to pinpoint when or what had caused the change exactly.

She made a motion with her hand to include the front window. “Thank you.”

A smile pulled up one corner of his mouth. She braced herself for a flippant reply.

“You’re welcome,” he said softly, his eyes glittering in the dim light.

He stood, and so did she, prepared to walk him to the door. Except he didn’t go to the door.

He sat on the sofa, flicked open a notepad, and tossed it onto the coffee table in front of him.

His cop face slammed into place. “Have a minute?”

Gooseflesh chased up her arms. “A minute for what?”

“If you don’t want me asking questions around town, maybe I can ask you a few?”

“W
h-what kind of questions?”

Luke shifted to the edge of the sofa and propped his elbows on his knees. “We need a list.”

“A list of wh-what?”

“Suspects.”

“Suspects?”

“People or persons who might wish you unwell. Nemeses, rivals, foes. Enemies.”

“Enemies?”

A beat of silence followed while he blinked at her. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Repeating everything I say.”

Her throat tightened and she swallowed with difficulty. “I don’t think I’ll be m-much help to you.”

“Shall we find out?”

“Wh-what do you want to know?”

“Any husbands, current or former?”

She shook her head.

“Boyfriends?”

He’d poked a sore spot. Insecurity over her lack of sophistication, or of any lasting meaningful sexual relationship, chafed like a shoe on a fresh blister.

She tossed up a flimsy smile. “So we’re officially abandoning the misguided ten-year-old theory?”

“Best to be thorough, don’t you think?”

She toyed with the end of her ponytail.

“So, about those ex-boyfriends…?”

“There are too many to detail, b-but none that are carrying a grudge.”

His professional mask suffered a crack and she glimpsed a light spark in his eyes. “How about a flame?”

She’d met Joshua her junior year in college. For once, her crippling shyness didn’t prove too large an obstacle to overcome and they’d begun dating. They’d even had sex a few times before Emily left school, but the fragile newness of their relationship combined with Emily’s phobia of the phone and Audrey’s illness conspired against them.

Five years after she’d dropped out of college, she’d run into Joshua at the hospital where Audrey had just been admitted and where Joshua worked. He was with a woman, whom he introduced to Emily as Becca, his fiancée.

Emily hadn’t been aware they’d broken up. So caught up in the hell of death, she was shocked to realize years had passed, and that Joshua had moved on.

Without her.

Green eyes watched her intently.

She sighed dramatically. “I leave m-my lovers w-w-well pleased, but under no illusions.”

His heated gaze landed on her mouth. “Is that so?”

She sipped from her wineglass so as not to give away her lie.

“How about a current boyfriend?”

With a flick of her ponytail, she snorted. “If I had a boyfriend, I w-wouldn’t need BOB, would I?”

“Who the hell is Bob?”

Heat rushed into her face. “The vibrator.”

One dark eyebrow inched upward. “You named him Bob?”

“I didn’t name him. He’s my Battery Operated Boyfriend.” Eager for a change of topic, she tipped her chin toward the table. “Who’s made your list?”

He drove a hand through his hair. “Nothing earth-shattering. Just a couple of delinquents and a competing business owner.”

“Wh-what business owner? The motel downtown?”

“Hal doesn’t pull in a lot of business. He’s a known hothead, and from what I can tell, a slacker. I doubt he’s ambitious enough to drive out here and terrorize you.” His voice lowered. “Which leads me back to you, and any enemies that may have followed you to the island.”

“I don’t have any enemies. Sorry to disappoint.” Growing more unsettled by the minute, she took another long drink of her wine. There was no one in her life, enemies or otherwise, worth mentioning.

Cradling his chin in his palm, he tapped the pen against the notepad. “Have you pissed anyone off since you arrived?”

“You mean other than the Thief Island Police Department?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Yes, other than them.”

“No one that I’m aware of, no.”

His brows knitted together. “I imagine you haven’t had a lot of interaction yet. Maybe someone thinks you’re stuck-up.”

A soft gasp slipped through her lips at the accusation, one she’d heard a number of times in her life. “Or maybe one of your groupies saw you kissing me in a bar parking lot and is mad.”

“I did more than kiss you.” A conspiratorial husk came into his voice.

Her breathing hitched higher. So he did remember. Remembered, and was unaffected by it.

“I trust you can add the pertinent names to the list.”

He shoved the notepad away. “So to recap, you’ve never maimed, harmed, or in any way neglected, insulted, or offended a single creature on the planet. That you are aware of.”

“Is that sarcasm, Officer Nolan?”

“Not at all. I was just hoping you had a mortal enemy from childhood who I could charge with vandalism and wrap this case up tonight.”

The clock on the mantel chimed nine o’clock. Rather than give up, Luke propped his feet on the coffee table and crossed his legs at the ankles.

Agitated and weary from the poking at her sad, lonely life, she scrambled to come up with a way to get rid of him.

“If I give you a name, will you go away?”

“Depends on the name, I suppose.” His quick smile coaxed the dimples into his cheeks.

Her heart stuttered, but she held out against it. “There might be someone with reason to resent me.”

His smug smile vanished.

“But it isn’t likely,” she rushed to add.

“I’ll take anything you’ve got.”

She let out a slow, shaky breath. “Wh-when my dad died, a large part of his estate was willed to my mom.”

“Your dad? What was his name?”

“Harrison Cole.”

He scribbled down the name in his notepad.

“His wife fought the will, claiming he meant to change it before he died, but the court ruled in my mom’s favor.”

His head remained bent while his hand moved across the paper.

“But by the time the ruling came down, my m-m-mom had died, too.”

“Your mom died last year?”

“In September.” She took a sip of wine to dislodge the lump that formed in her throat.

“And your dad? When did he pass?”

“In the spring of that year.”

His head came up. “You’ve had a rough go of it lately.”

The gentleness in his voice surprised her, but she didn’t want his misplaced pity. “Harrison wasn’t a nice man.”

The gentle tone evaporated. “Care to explain that?”

She lifted one shoulder. “There’s nothing to explain. He was a corporate businessman and he didn’t tolerate imperfection.”

The pen poised between his fingertips as if he might break it in half. “Imperfection?”

She gave him a look.

His expression cleared. “You mean your stutter?”

“Not just the way I talk, but all of it.”

“All of what?”

With his scrutiny, fierce heat rushed into her cheeks.

He sighed and looked down at the notepad. “When did Harrison remarry?”

“When I was nine, or maybe ten.”

“So your parents divorced?”

She nodded. “When I was seven.”

“Any idea what went wrong?”

“I assume there were a lot of things.” Her fingers toyed with the stem of her wineglass. “Harrison was twenty-three years older than my mom, and he worked and traveled a lot.”

He sat in silence, waiting.

Memories crowded forward. Of the time Emily ran home from school, tears streaming down her face after Angie Lawson humiliated her in front of the entire class again. She’d flung herself into Audrey’s lap and soaked up her mom’s comforting words and caresses.

“You coddle her,” Harrison had said. “Why don’t you ever give me that kind of attention?”

“She’s a child.” The bite in Audrey’s tone had troubled Emily. “Not a grown man who should know how to take care of himself.”

Harrison glowered down at them. “She’s a dolt.”

Emily hadn’t known what that word meant. Not then, but she’d figured it out soon enough.

She shook off the memories. “I’ve always wondered if I was the cause of their strife. They disagreed on how to handle me.”

The pen landed on the table with a clatter. “What does that mean? Handle you?”

“My dad thought I needed to be p-pushed. That I could correct my speech and become more outgoing if I only tried harder. He was w-w-wrong.”

The room grew dark as night set in. She struggled to read his expression.

“What about the will?” he asked. “Do you think he meant to leave your mom in it?”

She stared into her empty wineglass, pondering his question. “It’s possible. He would’ve heard about m-m-my mom’s illness, and he probably knew we were drowning in bills. Maybe he meant the money to be used for her care. But I think his wife was right that he wouldn’t have w-wanted it to come to me.”

“How much money are we talking?”

“A million.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

It was a lot of money, and Emily hated every stupid penny for the stress it’d caused her mom and for the constant, daily reminder that her mom was dead. Emily would happily give the money away for just one more day with her mom. So far, she’d spent well over half of it buying Mina’s house and donating to research the disease that’d killed her mom.

“So it’s possible your stepmom has motive enough to make you uneasy?” The low timbre of Luke’s voice eased over her.

Emily shrugged. “It’s possible. Or her kids might.”

“You have siblings?”

“Two.” The callused-over notch on her heart gave a little wrench. “I’ve never met them. It’s possible they don’t even know I exist. Or didn’t, until Harrison’s will was read.”

“You’ve never met your siblings?” An edge crept into his tone.

“Once, in high school, I got the silly idea to contact them, but Harrison put a stop it before I met either of them.”

“Any idea where they are now?”

“One goes to school in California. UCLA, I think. The other is married and lives in Denver.”

“What are their names?” he asked, and wrote down the names she gave him.