Forgotten Honeymoon

Kristina couldn’t help wondering just how much of her aunt’s response was due to her writer’s instincts and how much of it was due to pure denial. It was a given that none of the family were really willing to admit that a force as powerful as Kate Fortune could actually be snuffed out so quickly, without preamble.

Still, she hated to see her aunt torture herself this way. Her grandmother had been piloting the plane herself at the time of the crash. Kristina knew that Rebecca’s hopes were tied to the fact that the body found at the site of the wreck had been burned beyond recognition. But who else’s could it have been? There’d been no one else on the flight. And after all this time there was no other possibility.

“Rebecca…” Kristina began, her voice filled with affection.

“I know, I know. You’re going to tell me to accept it, but I can’t.” There was neither apology nor defensiveness in Rebecca’s voice. She was stating a simple fact. “I want proof, Kristina. Something to absolutely close the book for me. Right now, I feel that it’s just a serial. Like in the Saturday matinees in the forties and fifties. ‘To be continued.’”

Kristina knew there was no arguing with Rebecca. In her own fashion, Rebecca was as tenacious as Kate had been. It was something Kristina had in common with them. “Well, has that detective you and Father hired found anything?”

“Gabriel Devereax is doing his best, but it’s just not enough. He’s also been involved in a lot of the other investigations, including looking for proof of Jake’s innocence. I know he didn’t kill Monica Malone, and soon we’re going to prove it. And then we’ll get back to Mother’s death. I’m not giving up yet.” The change in topic was abrupt. It was a signal that Rebecca didn’t want to discuss Gabriel or her mother any further. “You certainly sound like you’ve got your hands full.” She paused, obviously thinking. “Mother never really talked about the inn.”

Kristina looked down at the quilt beneath her. While still attractive, it had definitely seen better days. A lot of better days. Like the inn, it was worn in places.

“I don’t wonder.” Kristina laughed. “If I owned something like this, I wouldn’t exactly broadcast it, either.”

“But you’re going to change all that,” Rebecca said knowingly.

Kristina sat up a little straighter, as if bracing herself for the battles she knew lay ahead. She thought of Max and immediately frowned. “As fast as I can, provided Cowboy Max cooperates.”

“And that would be—?”

Kristina realized that she had skipped over that small detail when she told Rebecca about the inn. “The other owner.”

“Wait a minute, I thought it belonged to a couple named Murphy.”

“It did.” The phone slipped, and Kristina grabbed it, tucking it back. “But they retired, handing their interest over to their foster son.” She fairly snorted. “I guess they didn’t care what happened to it.”

What was left unsaid spoke volumes. “Sounds like you and he aren’t getting along.”

Kristina caught herself grinning. She could have said the same thing about Rebecca and the detective she’d hired. “There’s that witty understatement at work again.” She thought of their first encounter. “We’re more like a couple of junkyard dogs fighting over a bone.”

“That doesn’t sound too good. Make sure you take care of yourself,” Rebecca cautioned.

Kristina dismissed Rebecca’s concern. “Not to worry, this junkyard dog’s got clout.”

And Kristina meant to use every bit of her pull. She could get the advertising department to mount a campaign for the inn once she had it fixed up the way she wanted. The way it should be. She’d already drawn up a tentative schedule for the renovations. If things got rolling immediately, they would be concluded in six to seven months—just in time for the middle of summer.

“All Cowboy Max has is a sexy smile and cotton for brains. I can certainly handle that,” she said with confidence.

The telephone slipped again when she heard the knock on her door. Kristina glanced at it impatiently.

“I’ve got to go, Rebecca. There’s someone at the door. I’m going to be very busy, so I probably won’t call often. Let the family know I’ll be in touch, okay?”

“Sure, but I’ve got a little snooping of my own to tend to. We’ve got to get Jake free.”

“Yes.” And she didn’t believe, for one minute, that her uncle had killed that dreadful woman. Uncle Jake, austere, reserved, was a rock. He would never be capable of killing anyone.

“Well, things are going to be rather hectic around here for a while. We’re all doing what we can to get to the bottom of this. Everyone knows that Jake wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Kristina heard the knock again, and her impatience mounted at the interruption. “Everyone but the law. Do they have a trial date set yet?”

“Beginning of March.”

That would cut her time here short, but she knew the importance of a show of unity. She was just going to have to speed things up, that was all.

“I’ll be back by then,” she promised. “Good luck, Rebecca. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

A third knock echoed, this time more insistent. Probably that big oaf. It sounded like his knuckles banging on the door. She had no doubts that they had gotten large and callused, dragging around the ground like that.

Hanging up the telephone, she leaned over to the nightstand and replaced it beside the lamp. A hurricane lamp should be there, she thought.

Kristina gathered together the notes and sketches she’d spread out on her bed and deposited them beside the phone. “Come in.”

Curbing his annoyance, Max turned the knob and walked in. He’d caught a piece of Kristina’s conversation before he knocked. Cotton for brains, was it? He was going to enjoy showing her just how worthy an adversary cotton actually was.

As soon as Max entered, Kristina felt a wave of discomfort enter with him. There was something about his presence in her room that made her feel uneasy.

Swinging her legs off the bed, Kristina stood up. Without her heels on, the top of her head barely came up to Max’s shoulder. It gave him an unfair advantage. Nudging her shoes upright with her toe, she quickly slipped them on.

What was he doing here, anyway? She hadn’t sent for him. Though she tried, she couldn’t read anything in his expression.

She hazarded a guess. “Afraid I’d get started without you?”

Max hooked his thumbs on the loops of his jeans and gave her a long, studying look. Patience around this woman seemed to be in short supply, but for everyone’s sake, he tried to exercise it.

“The thought did cross my mind.” Cottony though it is.

There was something unfathomable in his eyes that contributed to the uneasy feeling wafting through her. The same kind of feeling she would have experienced by sticking her hand into a hole in the ground, not knowing if she was going to be bitten, or just find the hole empty.

“So why are you here?”

June’s words of caution rang in his ears. He chose his words carefully. “I thought maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”

Was he trying to apologize? Was that what she saw in his eyes? Discomfort? It didn’t look like discomfort.

“Wrong foot? That’s putting it rather mildly.” Kristina waited for him to continue, anticipating an apology. It made sparring with him earlier almost worth it.

She had an irritating air about her. Max had come up to her room hoping to start over, to get her to understand how he felt about the inn. Strangling her wasn’t part of the plan, though it would have been a definite bonus. He could always claim she had bitten herself and died of poisoning instantly.

Max forced a smile to his lips. “I’d like to ask you to dinner.”

Well, he had certainly done an about-face. She eyed him warily. “Where?”

The woman looked as if she expected him to jump her bones. “Here.”

“All right. I was planning on sampling the food anyway.” Kristina decided to make the best of a bad situation. “We might as well discuss business while I do it.”

The idea was to get her to relax a bit, to mellow out. If all they did was talk business, he could see another argument erupting. That wouldn’t help to smooth anything over or generate the right atmosphere.