Scene of the Crime: Bachelor Moon

It was just after nine when he made his way down to the dining room. He knew he was too late for breakfast but was hoping to find some coffee.

The house was silent and the dining room empty, with no coffee urn set up. He followed the sound of clinking dishes into the kitchen, where he found Daniella standing with her back to him at the sink.

She was clad in a pair of denim shorts that cupped her sexy butt and showcased her shapely legs. Her pink tank top accentuated her light tan, and the burst of adrenaline he was determined not to feel surged up inside of him.

“Am I too late for coffee?” he asked, irritated at his immediate response to her.

She whirled around to face him, her cheeks instantly filling with color. “Oh, you startled me.” She grabbed a towel from the counter and quickly dried her hands. “Have a seat and I’ll pour you a cup.” She pointed to the kitchen table, and as he slid into a chair she got a mug from the cabinet.

“It’s quiet around here this morning,” he said, once she’d poured his coffee.

“Matt is out, and Frank just left to take Macy on a play date with her best friend. Would you like some breakfast? I’d be happy to whip you up some eggs or something.”

He shook his head and wrapped his fingers around the warm coffee mug. “No thanks, I’ll just wait until lunch.” What he wanted to do was take his coffee and leave the kitchen, escape from the warmth of her eyes when she gazed at him, from the scent of her that lingered in the air.

But before he could escape she poured herself a cup of coffee and joined him at the table. “I want to thank you again for last night.” She reached up and tucked a strand of her shining blond hair behind a dainty ear. “Not only for supporting me when I talked to Jim, but also for listening to me ramble about Johnny and my past. I promise you I don’t usually burden my guests like that.”

“It wasn’t a burden, and I know that nothing about last night was business as usual.” He took a sip of his coffee and tried not to notice how soft, how silky, her hair looked, tried to ignore the impulse to reach out and tangle his fingers in the strands.

“You have a wife, Sam? Somebody significant in your life?”

Her question came out of left field and surprised him. “No, no wife, no girlfriend, no interest in having either,” he replied. “I like being unattached. What about you? You have a boyfriend? In the market for another marriage?” He wasn’t sure why he asked; it wasn’t like he cared.

“No boyfriend,” she replied. “As far as getting married again, I think you need a boyfriend to even think about it.”

“You and Jeff seem fairly close. Any romantic sparks there?”

She laughed, and the delightful sound of her laughter wrapped around the heart he professed he didn’t own. “Jeff was best man at my wedding, and at that time he promised Johnny that if anything happened to him he’d be there for me. He’s stayed true to his word. He’s like a big brother to me, but there certainly isn’t anything romantic between us.”

Sam would have bet his badge that Jeff felt far more for Daniella than brotherly feelings. The night before at dinner, he’d seen it in the man’s eyes each time Jeff had looked at Daniella.

“I’m not sure how I’d have kept it all together after Johnny disappeared if it wasn’t for Jeff and Frank,” she continued.

He knew he should get out of the kitchen, get away from her, but his body didn’t seem to be listening to his head. “How did Frank come to work for you?”

“Frank worked with Johnny at a factory in town, and they were friends. The plant closed about the same time we bought this place. Frank knew there was a small caretaker cabin on the other side of the pond, and Johnny agreed to hire him as a handyman and let Frank live there. He’s been with me ever since.”

A knock on the door interrupted the conversation, and Sam breathed a sigh of relief as she got up from the table to answer it.

What in the hell was he doing sitting at the table chatting with her? Why did he find the shine of the sun on her hair so enchanting? The curve of her lips such a damned temptation?

Apparently he needed not only a vacation but a brain adjustment, as well. He definitely needed to get some distance from Daniella Butler, who made him think of rumpled bedsheets and sweet feminine curves and mindless, soul-searing sex.

He quickly drained his coffee mug and got up to carry it to the sink. He should be catching fish instead of fishing for information about a woman who he would never allow to matter to him.

He turned away from the sink and saw Daniella reentering the room, followed closely by a grim-looking Sheriff Jim Thompson.

“Jim has some more questions for me,” she said to Sam. The sparkle that had lit her eyes earlier was gone, replaced by dark worry. She sank down in a chair at the table, but both men remained standing.

“Several things have come up between last night and this morning that I find troubling,” Jim said. He directed a harsh gaze at Daniella. “I think maybe you haven’t been completely honest with me.”

“About what?” Daniella looked shocked.

Jim waved a hand toward Sam, as if to dismiss him. “I don’t think we need you here, Mr. Connelly.”

Sam didn’t like the way the sheriff stood too close to her chair, as if in an effort to intimidate her. He didn’t know what exactly was going on, but he wasn’t going to leave Daniella alone with the man.

“Consider my interest a professional one,” he said. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket, opened it and laid it in the center of the table, his FBI identity card exposed.

He was aware of Daniella’s look of surprise, but Jim looked none too happy at this new information. “This isn’t an FBI matter,” he said stiffly. “It’s a local one and we handle our own.”

“I understand that,” Sam said smoothly. “But Daniella wants me here while you speak to her, and so I have no intention of leaving at the moment.”

“The way I see it she doesn’t need an FBI man, although before this is all over she might need a good defense attorney,” Jim replied.

Daniella gasped. “Jim, dear God, what are you talking about?”

“I found out last night about Samantha’s plans…plans that would have put her in direct competition with you,” he said.

“What plans?” Daniella’s face had gone pale, and Sam fought the impulse to step closer to her, to touch her shoulder or pull her into his arms for support.

He’d known her for only twenty-four hours, but his gut instinct told him there was no way in hell she had anything to do with the murder of Samantha Walker, and his gut was rarely wrong.

“Samantha was planning on opening her own bed-and-breakfast. For the last couple of weeks she’s been going around town telling everyone the town wasn’t big enough for two of you and she intended to be top dog.”

Sam knew the shock on Daniella’s face was genuine. “I…I didn’t know,” she finally managed to say. “I hadn’t heard about her plans to open a bed-and-breakfast.”

“She would have been a tough competitor. She had plenty of money, and I figure it wouldn’t have been long before she put you right out of business,” Jim replied.

“Surely you don’t think I had anything to do with her murder?” Daniella jumped up out of her chair and faced the sheriff. “This is crazy. I had nothing to do with it. How could you even think such a thing?” She trembled with the force of her emotions, and her face paled even more.

“I’m sure the sheriff has other suspects,” Sam said, as he stepped closer to her.

“There have to be other suspects,” Daniella exclaimed. “Because I had nothing to do with this.”

“I’m just at the beginning of this investigation,” Jim said. “I just wanted to talk to you about this whole competing bed-and-breakfast thing.”

“You’d better be talking to somebody else because you’re wasting time talking to me,” Daniella replied. “I didn’t know about any plans Samantha had, and even if I did I wouldn’t have killed her.”

“I’ll see myself out,” Jim said. “I guess I don’t have to tell you not to leave town.” He didn’t wait for a reply but left the kitchen, and a moment later the front door slammed shut.

Daniella looked at Sam, her beautiful eyes filled with tears. She looked fragile, like she might fly into a million pieces, and before Sam recognized his intent he stepped forward and drew her into his arms.

She leaned into him, a trembling mass of tantalizing curves. Her hair smelled like a floral-scented summer breeze and he instantly realized his mistake in holding her so close.

She buried her face in the front of his T-shirt and released a deep, tremulous sigh as he patted her back awkwardly and tried to pretend he wasn’t aroused by her very nearness.

Finally she raised her head and looked up at him, her eyes dark with emotion. “I had nothing to do with this,” she said, her voice a half whisper.