I harrumphed.
Theo gestured toward the hills behind us where my bungalow stood. “How about I write the screenplay while you work on the next book? At the end of each day, you can look over what I’ve written and provide thoughts. We’ll discuss any changes you want to make together.”
“So, you’ll stay with me?” At my cottage. Writing together.
“Why not?” He exhaled heavily. “This is a good place to write. And there’s another desk in the guest room that I can put beside yours in the living room. You’re not hogging that view to yourself.”
Shaking my head at the continued weirdness of my current situation, I looked away from his handsome face. Stuck in my cottage for a prolonged time with Theo Cavendish. I didn’t know whether to run from or rejoice at his proposition.
“Is that a no?” he drawled.
“I’m just … life is strange. Don’t you think?” I looked back up at him.
He studied me thoughtfully. “Life isn’t strange, little mouse. People are.”
“Nothing stranger than folks,” I murmured. It was something my grandpa used to say.
“So … do we have a deal?”
My stomach flipped wildly, but I tried not to let it show as I replied, “It seems we do.”
Eight
THEO
Two days later, Sarah was well enough to start work. Although the contract hadn’t been drawn up yet and it would take more time than I’d like, we decided to start work on the screenplay. It gave me an excuse to stay away from Ardnoch, and to stay hidden from my brother who had apparently run out of numbers to call me from because I hadn’t heard from him in days. North had contacted me while Sarah was still ill and, for some reason, I’d lied and told him I was traveling, trying to find something to unplug the cork stuck up the arsehole of my creativity. I wasn’t quite ready for anyone to know where I was.
Now that the little mouse was well again, she was up at the crack of dawn, and I made breakfast because when I was at home, I liked to cook. We took turns showering because there was only one. Being a gentleman, I let her go first.
Clean, fed, and ready to work, I strode out of the guest room and into the living room to find her perched on the couch watching something on her phone on low volume.
“Switch it off,” I demanded. “Time to get to work.”
Sarah shot me an impatient glance. “I think Britain might have its newest serial killer.”
“Is that the tagline for the series? Hmm, I don’t know. A little cliché.”
“No.” She shoved her phone in my face. “A third girl has been murdered down south. That’s three in a year. The police said there is a pattern to the murders and are warning young women not to walk alone at night. All three victims are blond, between the ages of twenty-three and twenty-eight.Ipicked up on that. The police haven’t highlighted that in their statement yet.”
Morbid curiosity filled me as I read the article under the news video. Something familiar scraped across my brain at the pattern Sarah noted. I wondered if similar murders had happened in the past and if this was a copycat killer. Unsurprisingly, I read a lot of true crime, so it was quite possible it was stuck in my memory bank somewhere.
“Always the detective, little mouse. Now come. We have our own serial killer to get to grips with.”
She nodded and slipped off the couch’s arm, her silken hair, the color of wheat, falling over her face. I’d never seen or felt softer hair. I studied her as she walked past me and slipped gracefully into her desk chair. Her cardigan fell off her shoulder, revealing an expanse of creamy pale skin. Golden freckles sprinkled her petite shoulder, which told me she’d walked in the sun a lot during the summer. Everything about Sarah was soft, silky, and graceful. I hadn’t lied to her when I’d told her she was rather beautiful. It just continually surprised me because … well, how had I missed how attractive she was?
Strolling past her, I took a seat at the narrow desk I’d moved from the guest room. To take advantage of the view from the front window, I’d abutted the second desk against Sarah’s, which meant we were sitting quite intimately.
She wrinkled her nose adorably as she glanced between my desk and hers.
My lips twitched at her obvious perturbance. “What?”
“Nothing.” She pulled out her laptop and opened it.
“Am I too close to you, darling? Invading your personal space?”
Sarah shook her head a little too vehemently. “No, it’s fine.”
“I can move,” I pushed, enjoying her discomfort more than I should.
