“Yeah, I didn’t totally think that part through. But we’re married—she won’t leave me. Or castrate me. I’m pretty sure about that.”
Lovell glared at his brother as he slammed the door. “You’re right, she probably won’t do either of those, but I hope she makes your life miserable, and if Daphne kills me, I hope you get blamed for it.”
Philly grinned, then slung an arm around his shoulder. “Ah, I love the brotherly love.”
The “brotherly love” he felt for Philly increased with each mile he and Daphne traveled. Granted, he’d agreed to the plan. He couldn’t put the blame entirely on his brother. But it was a hell of a lot easier to think about ways of making Philly pay than it was to guess what thoughts percolated in Daphne’s mind. Because she gave him nothing to go on.
He shifted in his seat so that he could watch her without obviously staring. Her gaze stayed fixed on the road as they headed down the eastern side of the lake. She didn’t huff at him or glare or even give any indication she had a passenger. It was as if he were a nonentity in her world.
As the tires rotated against the sanded asphalt, he considered breaking the silence, then opted to keep his mouth shut. This eerie sort of invisibility was better, at least more predictable, than what she might let loose if he started speaking. A whole devil-you-know kind of thing. He’d withstood torture for four days after being captured once in South America; he could handle a twenty-minute car ride in silence.
Switching his attention to the window, he watched the snow-covered forests pass in the light and shadows of the headlights. He very rarely came to the eastern side of the lake, and as the houses grew farther apart and a comfortable darkness blanketed the landscape, he started wondering why. The town and the main highway were on the western side, and the Warwicks’ lodge sat at the northern tip of the lake. But the east side wasn’tthatfar from town. And it was a hell of a lot quieter. Maybe the real estate prices were better? He owned his apartment, but with a few of the other guys buying homes, he’d been considering the idea, too. Not something he’d ever thought he’d have a chance to do.
“Why do you think Weeks killed Beeks?” Daphne asked.
He’d gone down a real estate rabbit hole, and it took him a few seconds to register the question. “Who knows. No honoramong thieves and all that?” He had a few thoughts, but given her silence to date, he kept his response brief.
“That saying started appearing in the US in the 1800s,” she said, although he wasn’t certain she was talking to him. “It’s a bastardization of the idea that there was ‘honor among thieves.’ A concept first recorded in ancient Rome, then repeated in various works of literature.”
“It seems like the Romans should have known better,” he said. “Their empire experienced enough treachery that attributing a code of honor to people who essentially live without any doesn’t make a lot of sense. At least not when applied to those who chose that lifestyle rather than those forced into it.”
Daphne tipped her head. “I’ve always thought that, too. I don’t live well with other people.”
He paused. “That was a change of topic,” he said after absorbing her words.
“It’s something you should know. I live alone and have my way of doing things. I’m not inconsiderate, but I have things I need to do in the morning before meeting Callie each afternoon. I’ll write, eat, stretch, maybe go for a walk.” She slowed the car and put her blinker on before turning onto a narrow, plowed driveway.
“Got it. No cooking together or chatting over a cup of coffee,” he said.
“I hope that won’t be a problem?” They approached a gate and she pulled to a stop.
“You’re working, Daphne,” he said. “You don’t have a nine-to-five desk job or meetings to schedule or whatever else might pass as a ‘normal’ job, but your writing is work. I can, I do, respect that.”
She turned, her gray-brown eyes studying him, as if looking for any falsehoods in his statement. Apparently satisfied, she nodded. “Thank you.” She rolled her window down and a burstof freezing air filled the car. Leaning over, she typed a code into the keypad, then set her palm on the reader. A beep followed, then the gate started swinging open.
“You should also know, though, that there really is only one bedroom and one bathroom. I’ll keep to myself, but it’s going to be cozy,” she said.
“Again, not a problem. It has a roof and heat; it will be better than a lot of places I’ve stayed,” he replied. Of course, none of those places had Daphne. None of those places had a smart, fierce, loyal, stunning woman that he wanted, even if he shouldn’t.
He exhaled. Four days. He’d survived four days of torture. He could handle a few days in close quarters with Daphne Parks.
He just needed to keep reminding himself of that.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Having backed her car into the garage the night before when she and Lovell first arrived, she pulled straight out onto the heated driveway, a handy perk Harper installed a few years earlier so the plows only needed to reach her gate. Daphne had never been to the cabin before, but touches of her friend were everywhere: the butter-soft sheets on the bed, the perfectly positioned desk in front of a picture window that looked out on the lake, the sweary coffee mugs in the cabinet. Lovell had chuckled when he’d pulled one out, drawing her attention. She’d laughed with him after reading it, then they’d had to see what the rest said so had looked at all forty-three. Who knew coffee mug makers were so hilariously foulmouthed?
Other than that moment, though, Lovell had been true to his word and left her to do her thing. He’d set up his air mattress to the side of the fireplace, as out of the way as he could in the small cabin, plugged in his phone, and lay down on his sleeping bag. At some point after she went to sleep, he changed and used the bathroom; he’d been in a pair of sweats and a sweatshirt in the morning and his Dopp kit sat beside the sink.
She’d gone back to her room after pouring herself a morning cup of coffee and put in four hours of writing from the comfort ofher bed rather than the desk in the living room. Lovell had given her no reason to think he was annoyed at not being the center of her attention, but she hadn’t wanted to test that boundary. Too many men had passed through her life who assumed she’d drop everything and spend time with them if they were around—or worse, make her justify why she couldn’t or wouldn’t. She didn’t want to paint Lovell with that same brush, but it seemed easier to stay in different orbits—her in her room and him in the living room.
Now, though, they were headed into the police station for a quick meeting with Ryan before she and Callie met for lunch and window shopping. She’d poked around town a little but had wanted her sister by her side the first time she really explored it. Gabe and Lovell planned to tag along, but both men promised to be unobtrusive. Or as unobtrusive as they could be. Gabe was a good-looking guy, but Lovell, a six-foot-four wall of muscle with intense green eyes and smooth dark skin, was striking.
Even sitting beside her in the passenger seat, his dark blue Henley draped perfectly over the planes of his chest. And his jeans hugged his ass and thighs just enough to catch a woman’s eye but still look comfortable. He’d trimmed his goatee that morning, and whatever scent he wore, as light as it was, did something to her hormones she didn’t want to acknowledge.
Or maybe it was him. Or a combination of him and his cologne. Either way, she wasn’t going to think about it. It had been awkward enough lying in her super comfortable king-size bed knowing he slept on an air mattress two inches too short for him on the other side of the wall. She didn’t need to think about burying her nose in the crook of his neck and inhaling the scent of him.
“Do you have any work you need to do? Am I keeping you from anything?” she asked as she turned onto the highway leading into town.
