The Inn at Bluebird Hill, a stone manor house tucked among rolling hills and trees kissed with spring color, is a romantic ivy-draped dream.
I hate it so fucking much.
In addition to our murder-thwarting plan, I have developed one of my own: to resist the romance at every turn. I’m not falling for Anna’s tricks. Even if I have to play along for the sake of crime-fighting, I’ll keep my emotions out of it. I have to.
We check in under our assigned identities: Rebecca Vaughn and Nathan Baker, an event planner and a doctor vacationing from their busy New York life. The names were assigned, anyway. I invented the rest to distract myself from carsickness on the two-hour wrong-side-of-the-road drive here. Whether it failed or I’m nauseous for other reasons, I couldn’t say.
“All right, then! You’ll be in the Bumblebee Room,” says Wendy, one of the inn’s cheerful owners, handing over our keys at the reception desk. She recently opened the place with her husband, Paul, and cannot stop gushing about the inn and how much we’re going to love it. “Last one reserved for this weekend, but one of the best, if I may say so!”
“And we’re sure there’s only one bed?” I ask. Grant clears his throat pointedly at me.
“Indeed! A beautiful antique queen bed. Quite cozy.” She winks. If one more person does that to me, I’m going to poke them in the eye and really give them something to wink about.
I smile instead. “It’s just that … as much as wetotallylove each other, we actually prefer to sleep separately. You know,absence makes the heart grow fonderand all that. Is there maybe a sofa in the room, or a cot we could bring in for him?”
“Or for her?” Grant says, patting my shoulder a little harder than strictly necessary.
Wendy is still sunny as a summer morning, if slightly taken aback. “How modern! No sofa, but actually, in preparation for our upcoming Family Reunion Weekend, we’ve ordered loads of cots.”
I relax a little. Maybe I’m overreacting.
“They’re not here yet, though.”
Never mind.
Grant assures Wendy that we’ll be fine and thanks her, then reaches for my hand as we walk away. I stick it in my pocket.
“Roxie,” he warns under his breath.
“Rebecca,” I hiss back.
“You have to play the part.”
I grudgingly pull my hand out and try to hold his lightly, but his grip is warm and solid. He hasverygood hands—dignified yet strong, with fingers that would look right at home waltzing over piano keys or ink-smudged and grasping a pen. They also look dangerously comfortable wrapped around mine.
Our room is, unsurprisingly, bumblebee-themed.Verybumblebee-themed. It’s tasteful and charming, of course, but I don’t think there’s a single piece of decor that doesn’t have bumblebees engraved, painted, cross-stitched, carved, or otherwiseaffixed to it. The only variation is the bed, whose wooden headboard is etched with not only bees but also birds. Subtle.
We dump our bags and review our strategy, which is basically just a list of irritating coupley things. Pet names, feeding each other, overusing the wordwe… I recount them as I pace around the room. “Anything else? What’sreallyannoying?”
“Other than trying to have a conversation with someone who’s bopping around like a human pinball?”
I stop and glare at him.
“When in doubt, I guess we can just try to one-up everyone else,” he says, then pauses. “Where do we stand on kissing?”
“No. What?” My ears are ringing and I feel like I’ve swallowed a softball. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
Grant narrows his eyes. “Why are you being weird?”
“I’m not being weird.” I’m being so weird.
“Yes, you are. Look, I can’t believe I’m the one saying this, but you need to get it together. If we don’t sell the happy-couple thing, this guy’s going to kill someone else. So whatever your deal is, get over it, okay?”
I’m taken aback, even a little irked. Which might work in my favor here; things can’t get too romantic if I focus on being irritable.
“Fine,” I say.
He nods sharply. “Fine.”
