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“That’s what I think, too. Come on. I have a car. I’ll give you a ride home. You can leave your truck here tonight and figure out what to do in the morning.”
“You haven’t had too much wine?”
He seemed amused. “No, ma’am. I haven’t had a drop of wine yet.”
“Sorry. It was rude of me to ask.” Why couldn’t she control her mouth around him? “I only had a few sips because I knew I had to drive. If you’re a federal agent on duty day and night, you have to watch yourself, right? You can’t be getting drunk.”
“Again this habit of saying whatever is on your mind. You can walk with me to get my car or wait here.”
“I’ll go with you. I don’t want to stand still in this cold.” She shut her truck door. “Thank you.”
“Not a problem.”
He set off down the driveway toward the guesthouse, setting a brisk pace as Heather caught up with him.
“I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be working for Sloan & Sons,” he said. “It got its name before you were born, didn’t it?”
Heather nodded. “My parents had given up on having a girl and figured one or more of the boys would end up working in the family business. No harm done if they didn’t.”
“Do all your brothers work there?”
“Three of them. Justin, Brandon and Adam. Eric’s a police officer, and Christopher’s a firefighter. Justin’s a volunteer firefighter, too.” Heather shoved her hands into her coat pockets. She was already cold from her failed attempts to start her truck. “Do you remember the order? Eric, Justin, Brandon, Adam, Christopher, me.”
“Big family,” Brody said, his tone neutral. “No guy in your life?”
“You know, you have no room to talk when it comes to saying whatever’s on one’s mind.”
“So that means no guy. Having five older brothers—particularly your five older brothers—must make having a relationship a challenge.”
“You mean do my brothers vet potential guys in my life? It doesn’t work like that, but I can hold my own with them. I’m good at taking care of myself—as you saw earlier today, I might remind you.”
“Here we go again. You did great except for falling in the brook and getting hypothermia.”
“I accomplished my mission while minimizing the risks. I did fine without you.”
“You did better with me.”
Heather rolled her eyes. “Not funny, Agent Hancock.”
He shrugged. “True, though.”
They came to his car, which she hadn’t noticed earlier. It wasn’t a rental. It was an old BMW two-door with New York plates. “You’re from New York?”
“It’s where the car’s registered.”
“That’s not what I asked, is it?”
He didn’t respond. He wasn’t pretending he hadn’t heard her, she decided. He was flat-out ignoring her. She wondered if it was a polite way of getting across that he was a federal agent who had no intention of telling her much about himself. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe his background was secret.
It wasn’t a thought she liked having running around in her mind as she got into the BMW next to him.
“Are you armed?”
“Armed?”
“You know. With a gun.”
He started the car. “Heather, I’m just a guy visiting an old friend. Where in town do you live?”
“Thistle Lane. Do you remember it?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“It’s in the village, off the common. The town library is on the corner.”
“Quaint little Knights Bridge.”
“Phoebe O’Dunn owns the house. You remember her, don’t you?”
“The eldest of the O’Dunn sisters. They were our closest neighbors when we lived out on the lake.”
“Everyone in town expects Phoebe and Noah will be announcing their engagement soon. I think they’ll keep the house even after they’re married. It’s in good shape. I’m drawing up plans for a new kitchen and bathroom.” Heather wasn’t sure why she was telling Brody all this, but he didn’t seem uninterested. “It’s fun. I’ve discovered I have a passion for interior design.”
“Often helps to know your passions,” he said.
She wasn’t sure what he meant but decided not to pursue the subject since it involved the word passion. She’d blundered on that score enough for one day.
As they reached the end of Vic’s driveway and turned onto the winding road into the village, she noticed that the winter conditions and the absence of streetlights didn’t seem to bother Brody in the least. He drove with a confidence that Heather realized she should have expected.
“Phoebe’s house is the last one on the right,” she said when she pointed out Thistle Lane. “It was also built in 1912. It must have been a good year in Knights Bridge, don’t you think?”
“I didn’t know Knights Bridge had any good years.”
“That, Agent Hancock, is a negative attitude.”
He smiled at her. “Practical.” He pulled in front of the little house. “If you need a ride up to Vic’s in the morning, give me a buzz, and I’ll come fetch you.”
“I don’t have your number.”
“Yes, you do. I got yours from Vic and texted you.”
“Efficient.”
He sat back. “Don’t forget to bring jumper cables.”
“I won’t.” She started to open her door but angled him a look. “What did you do to annoy my brothers?”
“There’s what I did and there’s what they thought I did.”
“Bet the two overlap.”
“It’s all in the past.”
“Bigger fish to fry now, huh? Nothing’s wrong, is there?”
“Wrong as in what? An abandoned golden retriever running off into the woods?”
“Wrong as in a federal agent turning up in Knights Bridge.”
“Good night, Heather.”
“Wrong as in Brody Hancock turning up in Knights Bridge after all this time.”
“Do you ever quit?”
“Can you arrest me for asking questions?”
“Thinking about that.”
“You’d tell me if I was in any danger, wouldn’t you?”
“I told you today, and you told me to go to hell.” He leaned closer to her. “Go, Heather. Have a nice dinner and relax.”
“You didn’t answer my question, you know.”
“Good night, Heather.”
That was two good-nights. Time to be on her way. She got out of the car and made her way up the walk, which she’d shoveled herself after the last storm. Her brother Adam had plowed the driveway. She’d thrown fresh sand on the walk and the driveway before leaving that morning, never imagining she would rescue a puppy, slip into a brook and run into Brody Hancock, formerly of Knights Bridge, Massachusetts.
He waited until she was on the small porch and had the front door open before he turned around and headed back down Thistle Lane. Heather didn’t know why the prospect of him watching her made her feel so self-conscious, but it did.
Probably shouldn’t have mentioned the ice-skating bruises on her butt.
She ran inside and turned up the thermostat in the short hall between the front room and kitchen. No point keeping the place toasty warm when she wasn’t there. Not that she kept it toasty warm when she was there. Most evenings she watched television under a quilt and then went to bed.
Alone.
She’d hoped moving into town from the apartment above the Sloan & Sons offices in her parents’ converted barn would help her social life. Specifically, her romantic life. It wasn’t just being on top of her parents and her brothers all the time that discouraged “suitors,” as her grandmother called them. It was also that with such a big family, she had a built-in social network. They all lived in Knights Bridge. One of them was bound to be available to hang out. She had friends, too, but she decided to stay in for the evening.
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 (#ulink_3820e616-e2c4-586b-b427-32768cb4b0a2)
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.
