Echo Lake

She was happy as a clam these days in Orlando, where she’d moved his senior year in high school. His father had been right behind her, beelining to South Florida twenty-four hours after Brody had turned eighteen, two weeks after his graduation.

He smiled, thinking of his parents. A couple of flakes. He wondered if they’d have stayed together if they’d moved to Florida instead of to Knights Bridge. He needed to go see them while he was on home leave.

He felt the heat of the woodstove. He was surprised at how tight his throat was, but he knew it wasn’t just being here. Being back “home.” That was an aggravating factor, but it was also the weight of the past few months, the tension and the uncertainties of what came next for him.

The fire popped and hissed, the sounds launching him back to a mission in November to secure a small consulate that had been shut down the year before. He remembered the heat, the dust, the eerie stillness. He and Greg Rawlings had looked at each other, sensing—knowing—something was off. They hadn’t exchanged a word. They’d had a split second to react before gunfire erupted, but it was that split second that had saved their lives.

Brody had emerged uninjured. Greg hadn’t been so lucky. He had taken a bullet to his shoulder that he and Brody both had believed would end Greg’s seventeen-year career as a DSS agent. Blood seeping through his fingers as he applied pressure to his own wound, Greg had looked at Brody with pain-racked eyes. “Now what, Brody? Hell. I don’t have a life to go back to.”

“You do, Greg,” Brody had said. “Think of those kids of yours.”

“I’ve never been there for them. What, start now?”

Before Brody could respond, Greg had drifted into semiconsciousness. Two months later, he was making a full recovery. He could go back to work if he wanted to. His call. He didn’t have to take on another dangerous assignment. He had married young and had a couple of teenagers, if also a wife who didn’t want to “indulge” him anymore. Laura Rawlings didn’t care if he was good at his job, if it made him happy—she was done. Even before he was shot, Greg had expressed his doubts that a nonhazardous post where she could join him wouldn’t make any difference.

But as in need of TLC as Greg’s home life was, at least he had one to come back to. Brody didn’t. He didn’t have a family, a pet or even an apartment.

The wind howled out in the dark January night then settled down again. It had been a long time since he’d experienced such quiet. He turned from the stove and sat on the sectional sofa. He’d slept here last night. He’d grabbed a pillow and a blanket from one of the bedrooms. The front room was warmer with the woodstove, and it had a view of the lake. He’d wanted to wake up to the sunrise over Echo Lake. He didn’t know why.

Maybe he didn’t want to know why.

He leaned back and stared up at the ceiling, listening to the crackle of the fire and trying not to think, not to remember and especially not to feel now that he was back in Knights Bridge.

Four (#ulink_29e6dfbd-f137-53b6-a06d-d6f54dae3e1d)

Heather woke up to no truck and no food in the house—not so much as a slice of bread for toast or a drop of milk for coffee. Fortunately, Smith’s, the only restaurant in the village center, was open and within easy walking distance, one of the perks of living on Thistle Lane. Smith’s was popular with loads of people she knew, including her brothers. Someone would be willing to loan her a set of jumper cables and give her a ride up to Vic’s.

Phoebe’s sole bathroom had its original claw-foot tub, with a brand-new shower curtain she’d added when Heather moved in. She’d found a kids’ one decorated with little hammers, saws and wrenches. “I thought that would be fun for you,” she’d told Heather. “Make you smile when you jump in the shower. I was tempted by the one with puppies, but I went with the tools.”

It probably hadn’t occurred to Phoebe that Heather could have a guy over and the shower curtain might not convey the sexiest image of her.

Then again, it was just a shower curtain, and it was clean and did the job. Heather was nothing if not practical.

And it did make her smile.

She took the time—for a change—to blow-dry her hair since she didn’t want to go out into the cold morning with it partially wet. It’d turn into icicles. She dressed in warm layers and added a hat, proper gloves and her L.L. Bean boots. If Rohan escaped today, she’d be ready to chase him across Echo Lake if need be.

The sting of the early-morning cold chased away any lingering fuzziness from her late-night delving into the United States Foreign Service and its elite corps of security personnel, the Diplomatic Security Service. She hadn’t been overstating yesterday when she’d concluded Brody was extremely fit. He had to be, given the work he did. Ten to one he took on the most dangerous posts.

He wasn’t the Brody Hancock she had known as a teenager.

Heather walked the short distance up Thistle Lane to South Main Street. The town library was on the east corner, a quirky nineteenth-century brick-and-stone building that occupied a large lot dotted with old shade trees and evergreens.

Had Brody ever so much as stepped foot in his town library?

Heather shook off the question. Why even think about such things?

She crossed South Main to the town common. The air was still and very cold as the gray early morning gave way to a lavender sunrise, glowing on the snow and the classic houses that surrounded the large, oval-shaped common. The seasonal skating rink on the eastern end of the common was quiet now, but it was a favorite gathering place during these short winter days.

Staying on a shoveled, sanded walk, Heather walked past the Civil War and World War monuments, bare-limbed oaks and sugar maples and empty benches. She scooted across Main Street and ducked down the side street where Smith’s was located in a converted house with white clapboards and black shutters. In warm-weather months, the porch would be decorated with hanging flower baskets and white-painted wicker furniture. Now the furniture was in storage, replaced by a stack of wood, a bucket of sand and a shovel. A grapevine wreath decorated for Valentine’s Day—still a couple weeks off—was hung on the glossy green-painted door.

When she went inside, Heather wasn’t surprised to see her brothers Eric and Justin at a square table near the front. Both were dressed for work, Eric in his police uniform, Justin in canvas pants and a dark, heavy sweatshirt and down vest similar to hers. They had fresh coffee, their breakfast orders obviously on the way.

Justin tapped the table next to him. “Have a seat,” he said.

He was a skilled carpenter who specialized in older buildings, and, more and more, he was taking over the day-to-day operations of Sloan & Sons. He’d been reluctant to let Heather oversee the renovations on Vic Scarlatti’s house, but he’d acquiesced in the end—with reservations. “Just do your job,” he’d told her. “Stay out of Vic’s dramas.”

Good advice, Heather thought as she unzipped her vest and sat down, aware of her brothers eyeing her. It was as if they knew all wasn’t normal in her world. She wondered if they’d heard about her puppy rescue yesterday and if it that qualified as one of Vic’s dramas. What about Brody Hancock’s return to Knights Bridge? Vic had invited him. He was a DSS agent. Would that raise her brothers’ eyebrows?

Heather ordered coffee, eggs, sausage and toast and decided not to speculate—or at least try not to. On his sporadic visits to Knights Bridge, Vic had managed to gain a reputation, at least with her brothers, for things happening when he was in town. He managed his property himself but was clueless about minor issues that could wait versus major ones that couldn’t wait. Every leak was about to cause catastrophic damage. Every branch lost in a storm meant the tree was about to fall on his house. In working with him, Heather had discovered it wasn’t that he was dramatic, and certainly not that he was demanding, so much as he simply didn’t know. He lacked experience and erred on the side of caution.

When the waitress, one of Heather’s classmates from high school, withdrew, Justin picked up his coffee mug and leaned back in his chair. “How’s work at Vic’s place going?”

“Great.” An honest answer, she thought, grateful when her own coffee arrived. “He wants to see loads of lumber and guys with saws and hammers, but we’re not there yet. He’s decided to add a wine cellar. I’ve been working on that. Adrienne Portale is advising me. She’s toured some of the best wine cellars in the world. Have you met her?”

“Not yet,” Justin said.

Eric shook his head. “Me, either. You’ve been spending a lot of time up there, haven’t you?”

Heather shrugged. “I guess. It’s a complicated job.”

“We have nothing against Vic, but I wouldn’t describe us as fans, either,” Justin said. “He might have been a stellar diplomat, but he’s also an old womanizer with no family to speak of.”

“What’s that got to do with me?” She dumped cream into her coffee. “Trust me, Vic has no designs on me. He’s lived in a different world from us but not that different.”

“I was thinking more on the lines he could have regrets,” Eric said.

Her brothers’ breakfasts arrived. Justin picked up a triangle of buttered whole-grain toast. “Vic won’t take to retirement easily. He’s not the type. He’s used to a lot of adventure, adrenaline and attention. When he was working, Knights Bridge was a break from that.”

“Maybe it’s all he wants now,” Heather said.

“Peace and quiet and a nice house in the country?” Eric shook his head. “I doubt it.”

Justin added fresh-ground pepper to his eggs. “People often take some time when they retire to look back at their lives. Vic’s never married. He’s never had kids. He’s never cultivated friendships in Knights Bridge, which he now wants to call home after living all over the world. Is he keeping his apartment in New York?”

“I don’t think he’s decided yet,” Heather said.

“He’s in transition.” Justin handed her the pepper grinder, but there was nothing casual about him this morning. “Your work up there puts you in the middle of that transition.”

“He says he’s committed to the renovations. I’ve no reason to doubt him.” Heather’s own breakfast arrived, and she grabbed her fork and stabbed a bit of onion in the home fries. “Vic doesn’t strike me as a man with many regrets.”

“You never know,” Eric said. “You get older and start thinking about what you missed, what you gave up for reasons good and bad—what you screwed up. He’s had an all-consuming career, and he’s calling it quits on the young side for a diplomat. What’s he going to do with himself?”

“I don’t know. Read books and drink wine. He’ll figure it out.” Heather drank some of her coffee, aware of her brothers’ scrutiny. Nothing new, but best to resist any hint of defensiveness. “Anyway, I’m overseeing renovations. I’m not his retirement consultant.”

Eric studied her in that big-brother way she sometimes found reassuring and other times found annoying. He wasn’t a police officer for no reason. “Heather,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”

“I’m hungry. I woke up forgetting I don’t have any food in the house.”