Val just prayed the place would actuallybesafe.
Dirk’s ranch-style home sat on a road in an area south of Bellevue off Lakehurst Lane. Ethan glanced at Val, who sat next to him in the passenger seat as they drove through the heavily treed area toward their destination. The rain continued, pounding against the hood as the Jeep rolled along.
“So will Dirk be home while we’re there?”
Val hadn’t said much since they’d left his office. The pain pill was making her sleepy. Ethan figured the ache in her injured arm was probably coming back—if it had ever actually gone away—and a trickle of guilt slid through him. He was supposed to protect her. But damn, this whole thing made absolutely no sense.
Or, more likely, it made complete sense and he just hadn’t figured it out yet.
“Dirk left town for a couple of days. I think he needed a break.” He turned down a narrow lane, into a neighborhood of homes on large, tree-covered lots, the properties so overgrown he could barely see the houses through the dense, leafy foliage.
“Doesn’t look like Dirk’s kind of neighborhood,” Val said, surveying the nondescript family homes in the area.
“For years in his spare time, Dirk’s been buying foreclosures and turning them for a profit. He got this house in an estate sale about a year ago; an old woman who died without any kids. It came with all her furniture and it’s only a few blocks from the lake. Dirk’s got a boat, so he decided to keep it, at least for a while. He’s got a one-bedroom apartment in Bellevue. He stays there most of the time. It’s closer to the action.”
“Dirk seems like a restless kind of guy, someone who’d get bored fairly quickly. I think that’s one of the things Meg was worried about.”
Ethan’s gaze swung to hers. “Meg thought Dirk would get bored with her?”
She shrugged. “She says he’s a chick magnet—that’s what she called him. She doesn’t think a guy like Dirk could be faithful to one woman. I have to say, he seems like kind of a tumbleweed.”
He scoffed. “My brother, Luke, now he’s a tumbleweed. Dirk, not so much. Like I said, besides doing his job, he buys and sells property. It takes hard work and brains to make money at that, and it doesn’t happen overnight.”
She looked up, clearly reconsidering her original impression. “He never said anything.”
“It isn’t his way.”
Val fell silent as Ethan turned into the gravel driveway, pulled up, and got out to retrieve the spare garage door opener Dirk kept in the mailbox along one wall. He climbed back in, opened the double car garage, and drove the Jeep inside. A dirt bike sat in the second car parking space.
“I thought he rode a Harley.”
“He does. His Viper’s in the shop, and he’s off on the Harley.” Ethan grinned. “The dirt bike’s mine.”
She studied the knobby tires and racy design. “I guess Dirk’s not the only one who likes his toys.”
Ethan chuckled. “It’s an off-road machine. It isn’t meant to be ridden on the freeway. It’s more about getting out of the city and into the woods.”
Val smiled. “I used to like camping. I used to go on the weekends with Mom and Pops. We’d pitch a tent and Pops would fish. Mom and I would hike or sunbathe or just loaf around in the forest all day.”
“You like to fish?” Ethan asked, trying to imagine her in rubber waders instead of a skimpy bikini. Good luck with that.
“I used to fish with Pops. I haven’t done it since I got out of high school.”
“Maybe we could go out on Dirk’s boat sometime.” At the same instant, both of them realized how unlikely that sounded.
“Maybe” was all she said.
Dirk’s batten-board house was built in the seventies, a single-story structure that faced backward, out toward the lake. With an eye to making a profit, he had slowly been improving the place. New roof. The exterior dark wood recently stained. He’d pruned the overgrown landscape, though he liked his privacy, so he hadn’t trimmed too much.
When Ethan opened the door leading in from the garage and they stepped into the kitchen, the interior smelled of lemon oil. The appliances were old, but everything was neat and clean. Dirk was ex-military. The lessons had stayed with him.
Ethan cracked the window over the sink to let in some air while Val went to open a window in the living room. When she pulled the drapes, there was a partial view of the lake down through the trees and rooftops of houses on the lanes below. A newly stained wooden deck opened off sliding glass doors.
Val ran a hand over the old-fashioned burgundy velvet sofa next to a matching chair. “I can feel her in here—the lady who owned the house. I bet she loved this place. It’s not exactly Dirk’s style, but it’s quaint and very charming.”
“Dirk said it reminded him of his grandmother.”
“Maybe that’s why he kept it.”
