Protecting Peggy

Throughout his entire thirty-five years, he had called nowhere home, yet Rory didn’t see the need to point that out. He was more interested in analyzing what it was about him that made her edgy.

“What about you?” he asked. “Are you a native of Prosperino?”

“Actually, I was born in Ireland.”

He angled his chin. She had the dark hair, green eyes and pure creamy skin of her birthplace. “You don’t sound like Ireland.”

“I didn’t live there long.” Leaving the card on the counter, she retrieved the key. “I’ll show you to your room now.”

“Fine.” He felt her gaze on him, measuring and assessing, while he retrieved his gear.

“Your room is on the third floor. Do you need help carrying your things upstairs?”

“I pack light.” Rory knew the statement summed up his life. The bureau’s go-where-you’re-sent discipline fitted his lifestyle to a T. He’d never kept—or wanted—anything he couldn’t fit in a bag and take along with him.

“I serve breakfast between seven and ten.” She moved from behind the counter and started, brisk and businesslike, toward the staircase. “As an amenity to my guests, I provide wine and cheese in the library during the early evenings. If you’re interested, I can recommend several restaurants in Prosperino that serve an excellent lunch and dinner.”

“I’ll get those from you tomorrow. How many guest rooms do you have?”

“Five.” She paused, one foot on the bottom step, her hand on the carved newel post. “January is usually my slow month, except for the winter arts festival. That takes place this week. Two of the judges of the art competition are staying here. There’s also a couple spending a few days of their honeymoon with us. You and Mr. O’Connell have the other two rooms.”

As she moved up the gleaming oak staircase in front of him, Rory watched the subtle, elegant sway of her hips beneath her black skirt. Peggy Honeywell had one hell of a walk, he decided.

Tightening his grip on his field kit, he told himself to keep his mind on business. “Speaking of O’Connell, I hope I can persuade him to compare notes on what he’s found so far on the contaminated water. Are our rooms on the same floor?”

“No, in fact, that’s his there,” she said as they stepped onto the second-floor landing.

Rory’s gaze followed hers to a closed door with a brass 2 affixed to its center. Rory knew Blake well enough to give credence to his suspicions about O’Connell. Still, mere suspicions didn’t prove the EPA inspector was up to something nefarious. Also, O’Connell’s failure to identify the contaminant in Hopechest’s water could be due to its degree of rarity. Rarer substances took longer to isolate. Processes of elimination used in the lab could take weeks to make an ID.

Rory followed Peggy up another flight of stairs. Setting a quick pace, she led him down a hallway painted a soft yellow, its wood floor dark with age and polish. As they walked, they passed an antique credenza holding a pewter bowl from which a spiky-leaved plant sprouted.

When they reached the door at the end of the hall, she slid a key into the lock, then swung open the door. “I hope the room is to your liking.”

“It’ll be fine.” He gave the quilt-covered brass bed, prints of wildflowers on the walls and braided rug on the wood floor a cursory look. His surroundings usually suited him, from the lab in D.C. to his rented Virginia apartment to crime scenes all over the world. This room was no different from the hundreds of others he’d stayed in, then left behind.

It was his landlady who drew his attention as she moved toward a closed door, fingering the room key she’d yet to give him.

“The bathroom is through here,” she said, opening the door. “I usually change the linen and towels in the morning. That might not be a good time if you’re planning on working here.”

“Mornings are fine.”

Nodding, she slicked her palms down her thighs. “The closet is over there.”

Eyeing her steadily, Rory settled his gear on the bed. He couldn’t shake the feeling that his presence made her jumpy. “Do I make you feel uneasy, Mrs. Honeywell?”

“Of course not,” she countered, then paused while a faint flush crept up her throat. “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression, Mr. Sinclair. I’m a little distracted, is all.”

“Mind if I ask by what?”

“I promised myself I would work on my income taxes this evening. Just the thought of tackling all those forms makes me jittery.”

He gave her a smooth smile. He didn’t believe her for one minute. “That’s understandable.”

“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I have to set up for breakfast before I tackle the paperwork.” She glanced around the room, then walked toward him. “Your key also fits the lock on the front door. You’ll need it to get into the inn after nine at night. I hope you enjoy your stay. Let me know if there’s anything you need.”

“I will.” Deliberately, he let his fingertips glide against hers when he accepted the key. As a scientist, it was his nature to try to logic out the intangible. As a man, he was becoming increasingly intrigued by her reaction to him.

“Good night, Mr. Sinclair.”

“Please call me Rory. Good night.”

When she turned away, a faint trace of her subtle flowery scent slid into his lungs.

He watched her go, continued staring at the door after it clicked shut behind her. He’d been wrong, he thought. This room was different from the hundreds he’d stayed in over the years. For the first time in his memory, a room he’d checked into smelled as softly sweet and alluring as a woman.

The thought triggered a quick, inner defense signal in Rory’s brain. He hadn’t checked into Honeywell House to sniff at the landlady, he reminded himself as he went through the automatic routine of unpacking his leather duffel. Granted, he would have to be in a coma not to appreciate Peggy Honeywell’s slim figure, emerald-colored eyes and lustrous dark hair that framed her gorgeous face. And, as a man who spent his life solving puzzles, her reaction to him made him curious. Damn curious.

All normal responses to a beautiful, intriguing woman, he assured himself. Still, just because the demands of his job had prevented him from being with a woman at all for some time, that didn’t mean he was going to allow himself to start thinking about the landlady with the mind-set of a randy teenager. He intended to keep his thoughts on the sole reason he had checked into Honeywell House.

Charlie O’Connell.

Rory furrowed his brow as he began setting up his computer and preliminary testing instruments on the small writing desk that sat opposite the bed. It had been evident the EPA inspector wasn’t happy that Hopechest had hired a private chemist to test the ranch’s water. Could be, O’Connell simply resented the fact that the EPA’s failure to ID the contaminant had prodded Blake Fallon to take action. Then again, if O’Connell had something to hide, Rory knew his presence would have sounded an alarm in the inspector’s head to which O’Connell would react.

That, Rory thought, was a reaction he planned to watch for closely. And, while he was watching O’Connell, he would keep his eyes and his thoughts off Peggy Honeywell.

Good Lord, Peggy thought as she leaned against the wall just outside the door to Rory Sinclair’s room. Weren’t scientists supposed to be harmless-looking people who wore thick glasses, used pocket protectors in their white coats and had pale skin from being shut up in sterile labs?

That description didn’t come close to the man she’d just snapped the door shut on! Rory Sinclair was tall and lanky, with jet-black hair, a tanned, narrow face hardened by prominent cheekbones and killer blue eyes. His looks—combined with the fact that he’d been dressed all in black—had made her think of a highwayman who’d checked into her inn to take a break for the night from pillaging the countryside.

And the women who lived there.

Peggy closed her eyes. She pictured his hands, those long elegant fingers as he’d signed his name and address across the registration card. Somehow, someway, she had known, just by looking at his hands, how they might feel if he touched her.

“Get a grip, Honeywell,” she muttered.

Shaking her head, she pushed away from the wall and set off down the hallway. What was wrong with her? Just because a man’s hard features and dark clothes made him look absurdly dangerous didn’t mean he was. Rory Sinclair was Blake Fallon’s friend, a scientist who had come to Prosperino on legitimate business—which in no way encompassed him putting his hands on her.

She blew out a breath, having no idea where that crazy thought had come from. No doubt, the man had a wife and a couple of kids back in D.C., she reminded herself. Since it was getting late, she needed to rein in her imaginings and direct her attention to her own business, which included setting up for breakfast.

Her newest guest had caught her off-guard was all, Peggy reasoned as she reached the top of the staircase. When she’d first glimpsed Sinclair standing in the foyer, she had thought for the space of a heartbeat that he might be a ghost. After all, she hadn’t heard him open the inn’s front door. Hadn’t been aware of his footsteps as he crossed the foyer’s wooden floor. Yet, there he’d stood, watching in silence while she dealt with lecherous Charlie O’Connell. However mild Sinclair’s expression, she had seen in his eyes a quick and thorough measuring of the situation he’d walked in on.

How many times had she looked up and found Jay standing only inches away from her when she hadn’t even heard him walk into the room? How often had she seen her husband conduct the same instinctive evaluation of his surroundings as had Rory Sinclair?

Although she had used her skittishness over tackling her taxes as an excuse for her unease around Sinclair, she admitted to herself that her instinctive comparison of him to her late husband had knocked her off-balance.

Starting down the stairs, she pushed away the dull pang of the memory. Jay had been dead nearly five years; even after so long she sometimes wondered if the scars of grief she carried in her heart would ever completely heal.

She had healed, Peggy reminded herself as she shoved her hair behind her shoulders. She had carved out a new life for herself and Samantha. Her business was thriving—if she kept an eagle eye on the budget she would have two guest rooms added on to the inn before the end of the year. In her mind, expansion marked success.