Three Little Words

He had a fighting spirit, she’d decided. Sonny sought out kindred souls, and very few passed muster. Tess wasn’t sure she qualified, having grown up with the example of a mother who had no fight in her at all, and leading the uneventful life that she did.

Connor set aside the menu. “He let you stay, right?”

“Yes…”

“And he didn’t object when you mentioned visiting again in a few days.”

“No…”

“So you got further with him than anyone else has. Sonny’s always been cantankerous. Even antisocial.”

“I can’t imagine what he’s going to say when I announce that I’m there to teach him to read.”

Connor made a face. “Uh, about that…”

“You’ve changed your mind?”

He grinned at her hopefulness. “Not so fast. It’s just that I want you to go slowly with the reading lessons. Ease into it. Because I haven’t exactly told him—”

“Terrific, Connor!” She tossed her menu on top of his. “I don’t see how I’m supposed to teach him to read without his knowing that’s what I’m there for.”

A waitress arrived with their drinks. Tess took a sip of her white wine while Connor ordered the whitefish for both of them. When they’d emerged from Three Pines to a dusky sky, he’d told her to be the leader. In their separate vehicles, he’d followed her to a restaurant in downtown Marquette, a cozy place in one of the historic sandstone-and-brick buildings that overlooked the Lake Superior harbor. The view was of the marina, a redbrick bell tower and a slope of lawn that led to the harbor park, nearly empty at this hour. A rusty ore dock loomed to one side, long abandoned. They faced east, so the sky was leached of light, layered in cobalt and indigo over the lake.

“I realize the subject will have to come up.” Connor’s voice was deep and soft, but slightly rough. Mesmerizing, especially when she shut out the sounds around them and focused only on him. “Let’s just take it slowly….”

Mmm, she thought, going soft herself before she realized what was happening. She sat up straighter, blinking her eyes back to alert.

He continued. “After Sonny has accepted you, I’ll explain to him exactly why you’re visiting.”

“I think he already knows.”

“Ah. Yes, perhaps. But he won’t admit it out loud.”

“Pride?”

“And independence. He doesn’t like to ask for help, even now.”

“Runs in the family,” she said.

Connor was looking out the tall arched window to the lake. “Why would you say that? You don’t know me—except what you’ve read in newspapers and magazines.”

She chuckled. “I can draw my own conclusions, thank you.”

He turned his intense gaze on her. It was a physical thing. She felt it on her skin, in her stomach, even deep in her bones.

Oh, but she was out of practice. There’d been no provocative strangers in her life for years, aside from the ones she invented. And it wasn’t easy turning a middle-aged library guest wearing flip-flops into an international man of mystery. Most of the time, it wasn’t even worth the attempt.

“Which conclusions?” Connor’s gaze held steady and she couldn’t tell if he was teasing. “That I’m a smuggler?”

Heat shot into her face. Her cheeks must be glowing like a neon bulb. “Pardon?” she croaked, not sure that she wanted the answer. There was no way Connor should know of her nutty mental meanderings. “How…?”

“I didn’t read your mind,” he said. “You muttered it as I was leaving.”

“Ohhh.”

He studied her face, awaiting an explanation. There was a glint in his eye. So he was teasing…but she was still on the spot.

“You have to admit you looked scruffy and suspect.” She shrugged. “I didn’t really believe you were a smuggler. That was just my…” She slid a finger along the stem of the wineglass. Might as well admit it. “My crazy imagination.”

“I guess you weren’t completely wrong. According to some, I am disreputable. But not a lawbreaker, I assure you.”

“Don’t mind me. I make up these stories in my head—” She tilted it. “Nothing to do with you.”

His lips compressed on a smile. “Stories?”

“Fancies. Pure silliness. It’s nothing.”

“And I starred as a smuggler?”

“It was the lighthouse books,” she explained, amazed she was doing so, but that was the effect he had on her. Her usual caution had come unhinged. “I made up a scenario where you were a bear-organ smuggler looking for a drop point.” She skipped the part about him also being a libidinous ex-professor. “You were meeting a Chinese man at midnight to transfer the illegal cargo.”

Connor laughed in disbelief. “Tess, you’ve been stuck in that library too long. The fiction has gone to your head.”

“I know. But it’s a chicken-or-the-egg question. I’ve been exercising a wild imagination for as long as I can remember. So did I immerse myself in books because they fed it or because they created it? You see?” She lifted a shoulder. “It’s a small town. Books and fantasy were always my outlet.”

He leaned forward. “An outlet would be having your own adventures, wouldn’t it?”

She threw up a hand. “Oh, no. Don’t give me that load of baloney. Just because I read doesn’t mean I don’t live. I have a full and satisfying life. I am not a pathetic weenie waiting for her real life to begin—”

“Okay, okay,” Connor said, chuckling.

She took a breath. “Sorry. I got a little heated.”

“I understand. I’m a writer—I’ve been treated to the same comments.”

Then he knew that there was some truth to them, she thought. Not that she didn’t live as thoroughly as the next person—which wasn’t saying much, as the average Alouettian was as content as a cow—but occasionally there was a sense of being an observer more than a doer. She wasn’t dissatisfied, exactly. Maybe expectant. And restless…especially today.

She looked at Connor as he lifted a pilsner glass of a golden brown ale that matched his eyes. Honestly, he was the most exciting person to walk into her life since the Alouette theater group had hired Geordie Graves to put on The Music Man and the ex-soap opera amnesiac had chosen her to play a lead role.

Oh, dear. She was a pathetic weenie.

Connor swallowed as he put down the glass. Around them, the crowded restaurant buzzed with conversation and laughter. To keep from staring at Connor, whose face fascinated her with its secrets and shadows, she let her gaze wander over other tables, the brick walls crowded with historic photos, a waitress passing by with an overflowing tray, hazel eyes with thick black lashes, the rows of liquor bottles behind the bar, a mouth that she wanted to kiss.

No, what she really wanted to do was ask Connor about his profession and how he had become involved in the Roderick Strange murder case. But he’d already exhibited reluctance, and she didn’t want him to think she was judging him. Even though a part of her was, despite her best intentions.

She sighed, wishing to be a better person.

“We’ve established that imagination was my escape,” she said. “What about you?”