He didn’t believe a word she’d said. And he meant her to know it. “Mr. Sinclair, I get the distinct impression you don’t believe me.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t come here to put you on the defensive. I just want to know the truth. You tried to follow your footsteps to the site this morning but they’d been covered with snow?”
“That’s right.”
“Where’s the snow now?”
“There was more in the higher elevations. Four inches in some spots. We hardly got any along the lake. Microclimates.”
“There was enough snow to obliterate your tracks?”
“My tracks were hard enough to follow yesterday with all the melting and refreezing this time of year. And I wasn’t really paying attention to landmarks. It was lousy light, and I was focused on my tracks. I suppose I might be able to find my way back, given enough time, but I don’t see the point. It wasn’t Frannie and Colt’s plane I found, it was a dump.”
The dark gaze stayed on her. “That’s your story?”
Penelope popped the last of her scone into her mouth. “That’s what happened.”
“The press buying it?”
“Sure. They’re not going to traipse through the wilds of New Hampshire in March and risk finding out I’m not lying after all. They’d look like idiots. Besides, they won’t find it—it was a miracle I found it myself.”
Wyatt said nothing.
“I’m sorry you wasted your trip north,” Penelope said.
He leaned forward, gave a roguish wink that called up all her images of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Sinclairs—the adventurers, the privateers, the reckless men who’d lived hard and too often died young. “Your story’s bullshit, Penelope. I doubt anyone believes it. I sure as hell don’t.”
In hindsight, she should have said she’d hallucinated the Piper Cub. She could have blamed stress, the trouble she was having concentrating in recent weeks, cabin fever, her general restlessness and malaise. Her father would have believed her. He’d have immediately grounded her, of course, but he’d ended up grounding her, anyway.
The dump story hadn’t worked. Now it was too late. She had no rewind button, no chance to revise it and start over.
And damned if she’d give the skeptical man across the table from her the satisfaction of witnessing her admit her folly. If he was naturally arrogant, she was naturally defiant and stubborn—faults, at times, to be sure, but occasionally, too, virtues.
“Well,” she said, “there’s nothing I can do to make you believe me. That’s your problem.”
“At the moment, yes. In a day or two, if I’ve found anything that casts doubt on your story—then we’ll have to have tea again.” He grabbed the check. “Allow me.”
Damned right she’d allow him. He’d ruined her tea, he could pay for it. He slid to his feet, calm, knowing just how much he’d rattled her. “This looks like a decent inn. I expect they’re not booked solid this time of year.”
“You’re going to stay here? Why? There are hotels in Laconia—”
“I prefer to stay in Cold Spring.”
Penelope nearly choked. Harriet, her mother and Wyatt Sinclair. No…
He paid Terry and walked to the front desk, leaving Penelope to sputter, recover her senses and follow. How could she explain her cousin to him? The dump in the woods was enough to swallow.
Harriet was at the front desk. Tall, plain, blue-eyed, sensitive Harriet. Penelope felt a rush of emotion. Although her cousin was fifteen years her senior, Penelope was the one who was protective, who did what she could to allow Harriet her illusions of gentility and refinement. When she was small, Harriet would read her L. M. Montgomery, Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott, and she let Penelope thumb through her scrapbook of pretty houses and gardens she clipped from magazines. They’d had tea parties, trimming the crusts from their sandwiches, and they’d played dress-up with clothes from the church attic, Edwardian dresses, feathered hats, impossible shoes. With unwavering patience, Harriet had tried to teach Penelope crewel embroidery and needlepoint, but their lessons usually ended with blood all over everything. Penelope had found ways to prick her fingers—and often Harriet’s—with even the bluntest of needles.
Sunrise Inn was perfect for Harriet. It took all her yearnings and all her skills and put them together in a profitable business. She had a suite of rooms on the third floor, as precious and perfect as she could ever want. If she longed for marriage and children, she never said. Certainly no one in Cold Spring expected her to take a husband—who would it be?
She wasn’t naive, innocent or stupid. There was a core niceness to her that people tended to respect, and perhaps, as a result, she brought out the best in them. That was what Penelope found herself wanting to protect. Harriet wasn’t cynical or bitter about anything, including the guests who stayed at her inn. She wouldn’t become one of those businesspeople who griped about the tourists.
But the thing was, Harriet was also just a little odd.
“Penelope, I don’t believe you. I just got off the phone with your father. He said he’s grounded you. All I can say is it’s about time. A wonder you haven’t given that man a heart attack.”
“Harriet, Pop’s going to live to be a hundred. Look, I’ve got to run—”
But Harriet’s brows drew together, and clear, blue eyes—easily her best feature—focused on the tall, dark man next to her cousin. She expected an introduction. Penelope knew she expected an introduction, and she silently cursed her father for not mentioning there was a Sinclair in town. It was the coward’s way out. He knew damned well she’d find out.
Before Penelope could sort through this latest dilemma, Wyatt stepped forward, playing the gentleman. “You have a lovely inn, Miss Chestnut. I was wondering if you might have a room available for tonight. My name’s Wyatt Sinclair. I drove up from New York this morning.”
Penelope groaned inwardly.
Harriet gawked, turning pale. She fumbled around on her antique desk, trying to find something to do with her hands, her fingers finally closing on a pen. Penelope felt for her. This was the day Harriet had waited for her entire life, when she would stand face-to-face with a Sinclair. “Um—are you related to the Sinclairs—the Sinclairs who own the land up above the lake—Colt—”
“Brandon Sinclair is my father. Colt was my uncle. I never knew him. He disappeared before I was born.”
“Oh.” She breathed out, her lower lip trembling. “Oh, dear.”
Wyatt glanced at Penelope, who was making a show of pretending she wasn’t listening. Damn him for being so smooth. She snatched up a jar of maple syrup from a display of goods the inn had for sale and held it to the light. “Harriet, I wouldn’t call this Grade A. I think it’s Fancy.”
Sinclair wasn’t giving an inch. Instinctively suspicious, he was probably wondering why she didn’t want him staying at the inn. “Do you have a room?” he asked Harriet gently.
She nodded, clutching her shirt. She favored cotton button-down shirts and skirts or jumpers, sensible shoes. She didn’t dye her graying, mousy brown hair, just kept it parted in the middle and pulled back, occasionally pinned up. “Yes, yes, of course. I’ll freshen it up myself. We’ve had reporters here the past two nights…” She took a breath, steadying herself. “But they’ve all left now that Penelope changed her story.”
“Well,” Wyatt said, “I won’t be leaving for a while.”
Penelope thumped down the jar. “What do you mean, a while? A while could be a week. There’s no reason—”
“I came all this way, I might as well check out the land my family