Day of Reckoning

“I’m staying in the guest house. What other way should I be coming from for dinner?” he whispered back.

“You’re staying in the guest house?”

“Emily was kind enough to offer it.”

“Emily is so thoughtful.” Roz couldn’t believe her stepmother would let a perfect stranger stay in the guest house. But this man wasn’t a perfect stranger—not to her father and maybe not to Emily.

She could not believe her father would befriend such an obnoxious man. “So when was the last time you saw Liam?” she asked.

“It’s been a while. Any chance we could discuss this after dinner? I’m hungry.”

“Rozalyn!” Emily called again. “Is that you out there?” She sounded as if she were straining to see into the trees and darkness.

“Answer her,” he whispered. “I would, but then she’d think I was the one who was screaming.”

“Rozalyn?” Emily’s tone had an almost hysterical edge to it.

He gave Roz a pleading look.

She groaned. “Yes, it’s me,” she called back through the trees and the distance between her and the house.

“Well, why in heaven’s name were you screaming?” Emily yelled.

Roz sighed. “There was a big disgusting rat by the stone arch.”

“Cute,” he whispered.

“Ohhhhhhhh,” Emily cried. “Rats? Oh! Please come in. Our guest will be arriving any moment now for dinner. I don’t want you scaring him out of his wits.”

“Too late for that,” he muttered under his breath and narrowed his gaze at her. “You’re having dinner, too, I take it?” He didn’t sound any happier about that than she was. “So, this must be the family you said you had here.”

“This is not my family,” she snapped.

“Whatever.” He glanced toward the house. “But don’t you think we should go in to dinner? Emily is going to wonder what’s keeping me if not you.”

Let her wonder, Roz thought. “Why didn’t you say something to let me know you were by the arch?” What had he overheard? She hated to think.

“I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation you were having with yourself. I thought you might lose your train of thought.”

Funny.

“Rozalyn, who are you talking to out there?” Emily called.

“And the kiss?” Roz whispered, ignoring Emily. “What was that about?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I just wanted to shut you up before you got the whole household out here.”

Flatterer. She fought the urge to kick him again.

“Are you finished interrogating me?” he asked quietly. “I’m going in even if you aren’t.” He stepped past her.

She let him lead the way to the house, not trusting him behind her anyway. While she could think of nothing she wanted to do less than to have dinner with this man, she didn’t feel like hiding in the garden all night. And now she was curious as to how Emily knew this man well enough to invite him to stay in the guest house. Especially with her husband gone. Especially since this man was closer to Emily’s age than Liam was. Especially since Emily would find him attractive, Roz would just bet on that.

If he was telling the truth and he really was a friend of her father’s, she was dying to know how they’d met and what they could possibly have in common.

As she followed him along the winding path through the thick vegetation, she realized she didn’t even know his name. Not that she really cared. She’d already found out one important thing about the man: he lied. The kiss was hardly nothing.

If he’d lie about a kiss… Who knew what else he’d lied about? And how much of a coincidence was it that the two of them had met at Lost Creek Falls earlier tonight under very strange circumstances only to have him turn up here?

FORD COULDN’T BELIEVE his bad luck. Running into the woman not once tonight but twice. Worse, it seemed Emily had invited her to dinner. He swore under his breath as he neared the house. Why hadn’t this Rozalyn gone to her own family for dinner? Whoever she was, she was obviously nuts even if she really hadn’t been trying to leap off the waterfall earlier.

She was a looker, too. That wild head of strawberry-blond curls, those big brown eyes and that obviously nicely put together body. Why were the great-looking ones the most cuckoo? And this one was unpredictable to boot.

A deadly combination.

He shook his head at his misfortune. But he could get through one dinner with this bunch. After all, he didn’t have much choice if he hoped to accomplish what he’d come here for.

“Rozalyn?” Emily called again.

“We were just coming in,” she answered behind him, adding an irritated sigh.

“We?” Emily inquired as he and Rozalyn came into view. “Oh. I see you’ve met.”

“We were just getting acquainted,” he said.

“You look like you’ve been wrestling in the weeds,” Emily said, eyeing them both.

Rozalyn plucked a leaf from his hair and smiled at him with a devilish gleam in her eyes. She was actually enjoying ticking off her host.

“Let’s go right on into the dining room. The rest are already seated,” Emily said, clearly annoyed.

“I hope I didn’t hold up dinner,” he said. Rozalyn, he noticed, hung back as he mounted the steps of the back porch to Emily.

“Oh, no, you’re right on time,” Emily said, gracing him with a smile as she took his arm and led him toward the back door. “We’re just delighted that you could join us.”

“As am I,” he said, the tension between the two women like sloughing through neck-deep mud, as Rozalyn followed them inside.

Emily still had hold of his arm as they stepped through a set of French doors into a large dining room.

He thought for a moment that Rozalyn had changed her mind about joining them for dinner, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that she’d stopped in the wide French doorway and was now watching him with obvious suspicion.

“I just realized—”

“I hope you’re hungry,” Emily said as if Rozalyn hadn’t spoken.

“—that I didn’t catch your—”

“Starved,” he said.