“Is that what we call a blue-sky thinker?”
“Or the sunrise thinker, maybe.”
He looked out his window. “I didn’t see the sunrise. I don’t sleep much on planes, but I was reading. Julius Hartley gave me a copy of The Three Musketeers. He said I would understand Knights Bridge better if I read it.”
“One for all and all for one, or a lot of sword fights?”
“I was hoping for a scantily clad damsel in distress.”
Kylie laughed as she turned into the Moss Hill parking lot. “No luck there. Still too cold. Your Hawaiian shirt with the palm trees suggests you like your warm weather.”
“As I said, my brother gave me the shirt. He binge-watched Magnum, PI over the winter.”
“He lives in Los Angeles?”
“He does.”
“Does he know Daphne Stewart?”
“They’re friends. I met Daphne and Julius through Marty. That’s how I ended up at Sawyer & Sawyer.”
Without trying, Kylie thought of a dozen questions she wanted to ask him about his life in California, his work, his past, his brother—where they’d grown up, what he’d done in the navy, why he’d become an investigator, what Daphne Stewart was like. But she didn’t ask any of them and instead turned off the engine and got out of the car.
Russ met her on the breezeway, stretching his lower back. “Thanks for the ride into town.”
“You’re welcome. Thanks for lunch. There’s a parking garage under the residential building, in case no one mentioned it. If you need anything while you’re here, feel free to knock on my door again.”
“I won’t disturb you?”
She smiled. “Oh, you’ll disturb me, but I won’t mind.”
“I’m going to take a look around the place.”
“I won’t call 911 if I see you, then. If you see anything suspicious, by the way, there’s decent cell service here. You should be able to call 911.”
He stared at her a moment, then broke into a slow, thoroughly sexy grin. “I’ll keep that in mind, Kylie. Working the rest of the day? Should I worry if I see the lights on at 3:00 a.m.?”
“If you do, it’ll be because I got up early, not because I stayed up late.”
His gaze held her for longer than she found comfortable. “I might take a walk later, or settle in and have a beer on the balcony—assuming it’s warm enough.”
“Evenings still can get cool this time of year, but that can be nice, too. I had wine on my balcony during a snowstorm after I first moved in here in March. It was magical.”
Russ raised his eyebrows. “We need to work on your idea of magical.”
Kylie felt heat rise in her face. “Well, enjoy the rest of the day.”
“I will, thanks. Knock on my door if you think of anything else that could help unravel what’s going on with these rumors.” He reached into his jacket and withdrew a card, handing it to her. “Or call or text.”
“Sure thing.”
Kylie took the card and slipped it into her pocket, eager to get back to her worktable.
Time to disappear.
She waited for Russ to go into the main building before she headed inside, her pace picking up the closer she got to her apartment and a locked door between her and her temporary neighbor. She wasn’t afraid of him. She just didn’t want him prying into her life.
And it was tough to be neutral about him. He was physical, intelligent and always on alert. No question about that.
Also, sexy.
No question about that, either.
Kylie dove into her apartment, breathing deeply as the door shut behind her. Her reaction to him wasn’t going to get her anywhere but into deep trouble.
Time to calm down and get to work.
* * *
She made tea. She sharpened pencils. She cleaned erasers. She sorted crayons, dusted her scanner, changed the batteries in her wireless keyboard and checked three times to see if the ducks had returned to the river, but they hadn’t.
Finally, Kylie approached her worktable as if it held classified information.
Imagine the field day Russ Colton would have if he knew about Morwenna Mills.
She frowned at Sherlock Badger. “Where were you today at lunch when I needed you?”
A little stuffed badger wouldn’t have helped her case with a real investigator.
She didn’t sit. She stared out at the river, concentrating on the shadows and the green of the fields rising up across from Moss Hill. But her mind didn’t clear. It was cluttered with images of lunch, Ruby’s fears, Mark’s firm denials of problems at Moss Hill, Jess’s quiet concern and Russ—questioning, suspicious and thoroughly confident.
And so damn sexy. The dark blue eyes, the tawny hair, the broad shoulders, the easy smile.
None of that was helping, either.
Kylie had to adjust her thinking, since she’d expected Julius Hartley, the investigator who’d escorted Daphne Stewart to Knights Bridge last summer. He was a good-looking man, but in his fifties and clearly out of his element in the small, rural town. Russ was closer to her age and struck her as a man who made a point of not being out of his element anywhere.
She picked a random blue crayon out of a basket on her worktable. Some days she thought she should have a studio separate from her home. She could go to work like “normal people,” as her sister would say, then insist she’d been joking. But ever since Kylie had entered art school, friends, family, professors and strangers had cautioned her about the chronic uncertainties of being a freelance illustrator, especially of children’s books. Even working illustrators with longtime careers had cautioned her.
By and large, people meant well. They didn’t want to see her broke or hurt by rejection and the unpredictable nature of her chosen profession.
That was fine. She didn’t want to see herself broke or hurt either.
From the time she was a little girl scribbling on her bedroom walls, she’d envisioned herself taking a pseudonym, but she’d started her career working under her own name. Now Morwenna Mills was her public face—the author and illustrator who had created the Badger family, newcomers to a little town not unlike Knights Bridge.
Kylie had never written her own children’s book. She’d recognized that being both writer and illustrator might not work out and hadn’t shown her project to anyone until it was finished. It could have gone right into the trash heap, but it hadn’t. Her agent had loved the writing and the illustrations, and so had publishers.
Taking a pseudonym hadn’t been required, but it had made sense. At first, she’d continued to take on work as Kylie Shaw. Now she only worked as Morwenna.
For better or worse, she thought, picturing the California investigator across the hall. Had he already guessed she was hiding something?
She could swear him to secrecy and tell him about Morwenna.
But why tell him if she hadn’t told her parents and sister and her closest friends? Why open that can of worms? Why take the chance? She was deep into her series of fairy tales. It didn’t have the same pressures as her recent Badger deadlines, but she was absorbed in the work.
Always her excuses for keeping Morwenna to herself.
She didn’t intend to keep her secret forever, but right now Ava and Ruby O’Dunn, two popular young local women, were excited