Echo Lake

Heather left her truck to run for a few minutes and went inside, trying to focus on her to-do list for the day. She found Brody at the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee. “Where’s Rohan?” she asked.

“Wandering.”

“I can’t imagine you expected to be on puppy duty when you got here. Bored yet?”

“I’m never bored in Knights Bridge.”

She noticed the slightest smile as he drank some of his coffee. She pulled off her hat and gloves and set them on the table. Rohan galloped into the kitchen from the adjoining dining room, his furry softness and endless cuteness in sharp contrast to Brody’s broad shoulders, muscles and general seriousness.

Heather unzipped her vest. “It’s hard to believe you’d come back here in the dead of winter just to see Vic’s renovations. Is Vic in some kind of trouble?”

“Maybe I’m the one in trouble, and I want to talk to Vic.”

“That’s not an answer.” She shrugged off her vest and hung it on the back of a chair at the table. “You’re the one who’s supposed to prevent trouble. This is your first visit back home, isn’t it?”

“My first visit back to Knights Bridge. It was never home. It’s where I lived until I turned eighteen.” There was no trace of bitterness in his tone. “Vic’s a friend.”

“Your only friend in town?”

Brody didn’t hesitate. “That’s right. My mother and father went their separate ways when I was fourteen, but they both managed to end up in Florida. Different parts of the state.” He set his mug on the counter. “We were never like the Sloans.”

“And the Sloans would be—what?”

“Tight-knit, stubborn, fixtures in a little town that time forgot a hundred years ago.”

Heather grinned. “That sounds about right.”

She untucked stray hair from inside her sweatshirt, which she decided to leave on. She noticed Brody watching her but warned herself not to read anything into it. In his work, he probably watched people as a matter of course.

“Might as well take a look at my land while I’m here.” Brody set his mug on the counter. He seemed casual, at ease with himself and his surroundings. “I figure I’ll walk over there later on.”

“Today? In this cold?”

“I thought a tough Sloan like you would relish the cold weather. You did look a little frozen yesterday when you rescued Rohan, but I assumed it was because you weren’t in your kick-ass carpenter clothes.” He nodded to her. “I see you are today.”

Now she felt sexy. “The road’s plowed out to your old place. That’ll help. You know, Justin and Adam will be out here soon to look over some of the renovation plans.”

“Warning me?” He seemed amused by the idea.

“What happened between you and my brothers?”

“Ask them.” He started for the mudroom. “I’ll shut off your truck and leave your key on the seat.”

“Thank you.”

He paused and smiled at her. A deliberate, sexy smile. “Anytime.”

He was outside before Heather could get a decent breath.

Definitely couldn’t chalk up yesterday’s reaction to adrenaline. The man had her senses on overdrive. Other people, she thought, might be intimidated by him, but she wasn’t. She was even more determined to find out what he was up to in Knights Bridge.

She reminded herself she was here to work and continued on to the front room, where Vic was settled into a big chair by the fire, playing a game of Scrabble on his iPad. “The bastard cheats,” he said without looking up. “I know it does.”

“How badly are you losing?”

“A hundred points. Could be worse, since the SOB has access to the Scrabble Dictionary, and I only have access to my poor brain.” Finally, he looked up, squinting at her. “Did you get your truck started?”

Heather nodded. “Eric gave me a jump start. Brody was outside with Rohan when we arrived.”

“Ah. Brody and a Sloan brother meet again. They behaved?”

“They were civil. Vic...” Heather debated but decided she couldn’t resist. “What happened between them?”

He waved a hand. “I told you. Some feud involving pumpkins.”

“You know more than that.”

He raised his gray eyes to her, studied her in a way that reminded her of his long career as a diplomat. “You don’t remember?”

“I don’t know. Maybe vaguely. I tried to stay out of my brothers’ fights. I don’t remember anything about pumpkins, but there was a vandalized job site, as I recall. Was that Brody?”

“Talk to him. Talk to your brothers. I wasn’t involved.”

“Were you here at the time it happened?”

Vic shook his head without hesitation. “No.”

“I guess in your world a fight between a bunch of Knights Bridge teenagers wasn’t a big deal.”

He winked at her. “Especially when it involved pumpkins.”

Heather smiled. Whatever had happened between Brody and her brothers, Vic’s reaction suggested he wasn’t troubled by it, and probably hadn’t been at the time. “I should get busy. Do you know where Adrienne is? I have a few more questions about what she has in mind for your wine cellar if she’s around.”

“I haven’t seen her yet this morning, but I’ll send her to you when she surfaces.”

“I’ll be in the cellar. If I need to find you for anything?”

“I’ll be here by the fire. I won’t be playing Scrabble the entire morning, though, I assure you. I’ll bring Rohan in here with me. He’ll need another walk before lunch. That can be my adventure for the morning. When I decided to look after him, I wasn’t thinking he needed to go out. I hope he wasn’t abandoned because some idiot didn’t want to walk him on a cold night.”

“I can’t imagine such a thing,” Heather said.

“That’s good, Heather. I’m glad you can’t. Adrienne says she’ll see what the town library has for puppy training books.”

“Then you think you’ll keep him?”

“I didn’t say that. DSS agents can often have dogs. Maybe I can convince Brody to take him.”

Heather doubted Vic was serious. He resumed his Scrabble game, and she returned to the kitchen. She ducked into the mudroom and opened the door to the cellar. Heather Sloan on the job, she thought with a smile. She tried to picture Brody in the field as a DSS agent but got nowhere, and she knew it wasn’t something that would take her anywhere she needed to be.