"The forecast still can be tricky. Cold Ridge has its own mini-weather system. It can be warm and sunny in the valley, and snowing on the ridge." He smiled at her suddenly. "I didn't mean to go on like that. I can picture you eking information out of the Poe sisters, getting them to tell you all their stories, all their secrets."

She tried to return his smile. "We're good at stories and secrets here in Night's Landing."

But her lightness didn't quite work, and Nate changed the subject. "I should have taken you out for a candlelight dinner before hitting on you in the kitchen."

That at least brought some color to her cheeks. "We can pretend we stuck candles in the prune cake."

"We got the cart before the horse." But he decided to abandon that subject, too. "More tea, or would you just like another cinnamon stick to break apart?"

Her smile was underlined with tension, fear, and Nate knew she had to be questioning whether the man she'd spotted in Central Park had something to do with her missing parents. She didn't want to believe it was the same man who'd approached her at the museum in Amsterdam, but he'd watched the doubt creep in.

Nate put up his feet and tried to concentrate on some bird chirping in the rosebushes. But he kept seeing Rob grinning over the d.a.m.n tulips in Central Park, then jerking with the impact of the bullet and grabbing his upper abdomen as blood seeped between his fingers. The blood got worse. The pain. The fear. The certainty he would die. Nate had seen it in Rob's gray eyes, the same as his sister's gray eyes.

"Nate?"

With a deliberate effort, he pulled himself out of the image before it could repeat itself again. It would wake him up in the night. At least he'd had the sense not to try to spend the night with Sarah. He was attracted to her. No question. But he couldn't say for sure whether or not their lovemaking in the kitchen hadn't just been to keep the images at bay. His, hers.

He inhaled through his nose, focusing on his breathing. "Sorry. My mind was wandering."

Sarah nodded. "I understand. You have a lot to think about."

"We both do. You okay?"

But the phone rang before she could answer. She started to pounce on the extension on the porch, but Nate got there first in case it was bad news and he needed to serve as a filter. "Dunnemore residence."

"You must be Deputy Winter." The voice was soft and female with a pleasant southern accent. "h.e.l.lo, I'm Betsy Dunnemore. Is my daughter there?"

"Right here, Mrs. Dunnemore."

Sarah gasped in relief, and Nate handed over the phone. He wanted to stay-he was tempted to listen in on an extension in the house-but he made himself get to his feet and walk down to the river, letting mother and daughter talk.

Twenty-Five.

S arah couldn't remember ever hearing her mother sound so close to losing all control. She was hanging by threads, but, of course, she wouldn't admit it. "We're all right," she said. "We had an unexpected delay-we couldn't get hold of anyone. I was afraid you'd all be frantic. I'm so sorry."

"What happened?" Sarah asked.

"I ran into someone I know. It's a long story. I'll explain when we get to New York. We're scheduled for an early-morning flight. Right now, I just want to go to bed. Your dad's exhausted, too."

"I understand, but-"

"I tried to call Rob," her mother cut in, obviously reluctant to go into more detail. "He was asleep. I'll try again in a minute, but if I don't reach him, will you call him later on and let him know we talked?"

"Of course." Sarah hesitated, glancing at Nate down on the dock. Not one inch of him looked relaxed. "But there's something I need to ask you. It can't wait."

Her mother inhaled. "All right."

"When we were all at the Rijksmuseum together in April, a man spoke to me. Dark hair, angular features. He had just a slight accent. French, I think. He approached me while you were at The Night Watch. Did you happen to see him?"

"No. No, I didn't."

Sarah sighed. "I thought not. You were talking with another man. I thought they might be together. The man you were with had silver hair-"

"I know. He's-" Her mother broke off, sounding ragged, even afraid. "He's someone I used to know in college. It's a long story. What about this man you were with? Why are you asking about him now?"

"I might have seen him in Central Park the other day. I'm not sure."

Her mother didn't respond.

"The FBI and the marshals are looking into it," Sarah added.

"Dear G.o.d." Her mother seemed ready to crack with tension. "The marshal who was shot with Rob-Nate Winter. He's staying in Night's Landing with you?"

"Yes, but-"

"Then you're out of harm's way. Whatever's going on, you and Rob are safe." She gave a fake little laugh. "All this drama. We're all tired and freaked out by this senseless shooting. Let's just stay cool. We'll get everything sorted out when we get to New York tomorrow."

"Mother, was the silver-haired man with the guy who approached me?"

"I don't know. Sarah, please. I'm exhausted. Stay safe, okay? I love you very much."

She said good-night and hung up.

Sarah cradled the phone and got to her feet, feeling unsteady, shaken.

Nate appeared on the porch steps. He glanced up at her, his expression more law enforcement officer than friend or lover. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"The kitchen. I think there's another ca.s.serole in the freezer. Whatever it is, we can have it for dinner."

But he mounted the steps and caught her by the elbow, turning her to him, not ungently. She felt how rigid she was, not awkward so much as incredibly aware that her mother hadn't wanted to talk about the silver-haired man-that she was hiding something and intended to for as long as she could.

And that Nate wanted whoever had shot him and Rob more than anything else.

It was why he was in Night's Landing. That they'd made love last night was an accident of timing and a product of chemistry. Even if he was genuinely attracted to her, it didn't mean he'd let his feelings interfere with his duties as a marshal and his determination to find out what had happened in Central Park.

She wouldn't expect him to.

"What all happened in the Rijksmuseum?" he asked.

"I thought you weren't listening in."

"I didn't hear everything. You looked like you were going to pa.s.s out. I was coming to your rescue."

"Ah. More projection. You were on the verge of pa.s.sing out."

"I've never pa.s.sed out."

"Nothing happened at the Rijksmuseum. My mother didn't see the man who approached me. She was still at The Night Watch. She's something of an art historian-she takes forever to wander through a museum."

"Where were she and your father today?" Nate didn't let up on his intensity, didn't release his hold on her. "Why did they miss their flight?"

"She ran into someone she knew. She didn't get into details." Sarah fought to control her emotions. Was her mother hiding something? Why? Nerves, fear, drama? "She's the mother of a deputy marshal who's got a long recovery ahead of him. We're all crazed right now. This is why I didn't want to mention the guy in the park-I knew you'd all seize on it, when I'm sure I was mistaken."

"Do your parents often miss planes?"

She jerked back out of his grip, angrily, then saw his face pale, the pain register at the edges of his mouth. "Your arm-oh, my G.o.d, I'm so sorry."

He waved her off, visibly absorbing the pain.

"What can I do? Tylenol? A fresh bandage? Should I call an ambulance?"

He managed a thin smile. "A shot of some kind of Tennessee bourbon would be nice."

"That I can manage."

She ran into the front room and found a dusty bottle, a gla.s.s that she held up to the light and decided definitely needed rinsing. She brought both into the kitchen, swirled water into the gla.s.s, added ice and splashed in the bourbon. Her emotions were all over the place. How could she have forgotten about his arm even for a split second? What was wrong with her?

She returned to the living room with the gla.s.s.

He didn't gulp. She had a feeling Nate Winter didn't do much that didn't show total control. Even last night making love to her. As wild as it had been, he'd known precisely, exactly what he was doing. "Go ahead." He waved the gla.s.s at her. "Call your brother and tell him you've heard from your mother."

"I'm really sorry."

"I deserved it."

She dialed her brother's room at the hospital, but Joe Collins picked up. "Is that you, Dr. Dunnemore? Your parents are safe."

"You talked to my mother? She just called here, too."

"I didn't talk to her. Juliet Longstreet answered Rob's phone." His tone was difficult to read. "Your brother's knocked out. I'm waiting for him to wake up. Nurse said it probably won't be long. He was in a lot of pain this afternoon. They're working him pretty hard."

"I should be there."

"You should be where you are. Nothing more out of your letter writer?"

"No, sir."

"Quiet day?"

"We had a cottonmouth in the house, but other than that-"

"A snake? h.e.l.l, I hate snakes. What'd you do with it?"

"I caught him and released him back in the river."

Collins chuckled, surprising her. "I don't know why your brother worries about you. We'll stay in touch, right, Dr. Dunnemore?"

She nodded at the phone. "Yes. Yes, of course."

Whatever he knew-whatever her mother might have told Juliet that she hadn't told her daughter-Joe Collins was keeping it all to himself. He hung up, and Sarah almost poured herself a gla.s.s of bourbon. "Sometimes I wonder why Rob couldn't have become a house painter." She sank onto the couch, aware of Nate standing in the shadows in front of the stone fireplace. "He used to paint houses in college. It was a good job. You might fall off a ladder, but usually people don't shoot house painters."

Nate set his gla.s.s down. "You asked your mother if a silver-haired man was with the man who'd approached you at the museum. Why? Who is he?"

"You're relentless, aren't you, Deputy Winter?"

He didn't answer.

"I don't know who he is. My mother said he was someone she knows."

"Then you didn't recognize him?"

"My parents know a lot of people I wouldn't recognize." Sarah angled a look at him. "Do you want to strap me down and shoot me up with truth serum?"

Not even a flicker of a smile.

She tried to smile, just to ease some of her own tension. "I wouldn't want to be someone you're interrogating."

"That's right. You wouldn't."

She quashed a flare of irritation. "You're known for being the hard-a.s.s of hard-a.s.ses, aren't you? Rob didn't tell me that. Neither did Juliet. But it's obvious from the way people treat you. They say it's because you're the best at what you do, but I think they know you're harder sometimes than you need to be."

"Figured that out all by yourself?"

"Don't patronize me."

He drank more of his bourbon. "You don't like it when the shoe's on the other foot, do you?"

"I wasn't patronizing you. I was just-"

She didn't know what she was doing. Picking a fight so she didn't have to confront her own fears and worries about her parents? What the h.e.l.l was going on in Amsterdam? How could anything her parents were involved with possibly have spilled out into New York and d.a.m.n near gotten her brother killed? More Dunnemore drama, embellishment, exaggeration. It had to be. But she blinked back tears and jumped to her feet, heading for the kitchen.

Do nothing. Tell no one.

Had whoever sent her that hideous letter realized she'd talked and gone after her parents? Was that why her mother was so tense?

Sarah shook off that train of thought before it could get started.

"I just had this upsetting conversation with my mother," she shot back at Nate, "and you can't give me five d.a.m.n minutes to pull myself together."

"Take ten. Then tell me what happened in Amsterdam."

"Nothing happened!"