Admit One (39 page)

He stared at her a moment. Then he reached up a hand, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Because I couldn’t stop thinking of you. And I knew I couldn’t do anything about it until I… it sounds utterly naff when I say it aloud, but I needed to figure out who I was. And if that man was worthy of you.”

Allie was utterly at a loss as to what to say.

“I’m not entirely sure of either of those things, but I’m doing something about it anyway. Because I love you.”

Allie was thankful that she was still sitting. Her mouth opened. Closed. She felt like a hooked fish that had been yanked out of the water and was trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

Mason’s gaze turned rueful. “Don’t tell me I’ve blown my most important line.”

“What?”

He tilted his head to indicate their surroundings. “Not the most romantic of settings.” Then he glanced meaningfully at their state of partial undress. “And I believe there’s some sort of common wisdom about never declaring yourself immediately following sex.”

Allie blinked. Her heart was so full she wasn’t sure if she could speak, but she managed to pull herself together. “Mason,” she said, cupping his face in her hands this time. “We could be on top of the Eiffel Tower or in a gondola in Venice or watching the sun set on a beach in St. Lucia, and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. It’s not the where or the how that matters. It’s the who. The line was delivered perfectly because
you
said it. And just for the record, I think I know who you are. And that man is more than worthy.”

His gaze softened on hers. “I do hope this isn’t a monologue, however.”

“What? Oh.” Allie smiled and shook her head. “Are you kidding me? I love you. Of course I love you.” How could she not?

His kiss this time was all tenderness and promise. Then he simply held her for the longest while.

When they broke apart, he helped her off the counter. “I will apologize for your shirt.”

Allie glanced down at the tattered remnants. “I guess you’ll have to make it up to me. This time I can be the captain and you can be my cabin boy.”

“Sounds kinky.”

“I hope so.”

Mason’s grin was pure delight. “Allow me to just secure the door, madam, so as to avoid untimely interruptions.” He moved to flip the lock.

“Shoot,” Allie said, the mention of securing doors having reminded her. “I left my purse on the porch.”

“I’ll go get it,” Mason said. “Considering your current state of dishabille.”

Allie considered the whipped cream she’d left in the refrigerator. “Actually, there’s something I need to, um, check on in the store. If you can lend me a shirt, I’ll go.”

He cocked that damn eyebrow again. “Why do I have the feeling you’re up to something?”

“Because I am.”

“Is this something to do with my… duties as cabin boy?”

“Absolutely.”

Lips twitching, Mason strolled over to the small closet next to the bathroom and withdrew a crisp white dress shirt. “At your service, madam.”

“Oh, you will be,” she promised, buttoning up the shirt.

Feeling saucy and satisfied and slightly lightheaded, Allie practically floated along the path that wound through the garden toward the Dust Jacket’s back porch. In fact, she was so lightheaded that she had to pause by a clump of hydrangeas. Allie drew in a deep breath, filled with the mingled scents of barbeque, flowers and the crisp, clean scent of Mason’s shirt. Beneath it all, she smelled the muskiness of their recent lovemaking.

He loved her. Allie closed her eyes as she absorbed that reality. She felt like Dorothy, having dropped from a black and white world into a wonderland bursting with color. The fact that he’d done so much soul searching over the past year because he wanted to make sure he was worthy
of
her
love was almost impossible to believe. Beautiful, sexy, talented, witty Mason Armitage was in love with her.

And God help her, but she was in love with him.

Allie hugged herself right there amidst the hydrangeas.

Practically skipping the rest of the way, Allie climbed the back porch steps, incredibly relieved to see that her purse was right where she’d dropped it. Crime wasn’t exactly rampant in Sweetwater, but between Sarah’s thwarted abduction last year and her own brush with violent theft, Allie was – understandably, she thought – wary. Leaving her purse and its contents on the porch hadn’t exactly been the brightest thing she’d ever done.

Although admittedly, she’d been rather distracted at the time.

Thinking of that distraction – which was currently waiting back at the cottage to distract her again – Allie scooped up the lipstick which had rolled out of her purse when she’d dropped it, retrieved her keys and let herself into the kitchen.

The tub of whipped cream beckoned her when she opened the refrigerator. “Why yes, I am about to use you for completely nefarious purposes,” she told it. Allie considered the fact that she was addressing an inanimate object. “At least you’re not a candlestick or a teapot.” Because the plans she had for this evening were decidedly un-Disney.

Snagging the plastic tub, Allie tucked it under her arm and locked up again, carefully tucking her keys into the outer pocket of her purse.  

As she did so, Alan’s caution regarding the unknown location of her original set of keys and the crazy things that people sometimes do intruded upon her mental happy place.

As did thinking of Alan. She hoped that his interest in her wasn’t going to cause a problem. She felt very awkward about it, given the fact that he worked with Will. She didn’t want to inadvertently create an uncomfortable professional environment for either of them.

He’d taken her rejection well enough, though. And he’d been nothing but considerate of her since the time she bumped into him in the alley. He’d been there with Mason and Bran when they’d found her in the cemetery, he’d visited her in the ER and again at home while she was recuperating from her concussion. He’d been very thorough in leading the investigation into her assault. And he’d seemed genuinely upset tonight when she’d sort of frozen up upon seeing the daisy. It had indeed brought back bad memories, both of receiving the bouquet and of being trapped in that mausoleum.

Allie shuddered. At least, as he said, it hadn’t been baby’s breath. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to look at the stuff again without a negative connotation.

Shaking off her maudlin thoughts, Allie slung the purse over her shoulder and headed toward the cottage. Music drifted from the bar down the street, suggesting that one of their love bands had taken advantage of the beautiful evening and set up on the patio. She walked in time with the beat at first, but something in the back of her mind caused her steps to slow.

How, she wondered, did Alan know about the baby’s breath? She’d taken it out of the bouquet and thrown it away before taking the flowers to the cemetery, because the symbolism had been such a deliberate and painful slap in the face.

He knew that she’d delivered flowers to Eugene’s grave, and obviously, being in charge of the investigation, he’d seen the daisies and therefore would understand why they would bring back bad memories.

From her assault, anyway.

But unless Will told him about the rest of it, he wouldn’t have known about the baby’s breath. Or the reason that the baby’s breath had been especially hurtful.

Her brows drew together.

She’d have to talk to Will. She understood that all sorts of private things often came to light when you were the subject of a police investigation, but it seemed especially uncomfortable that he’d revealed that sort of information to Alan. In fact, knowing her brother, she was surprised he hadn’t turned that aspect of the investigation over to a female officer – or at least to one who wasn’t interested in Allie on a personal level. Or, for that matter, simply handled it himself. She was sure he had a good reason, but…

But it still seemed strange.

The more she thought about it, the more unsettled she felt. Maybe she would –

Hearing a noise behind her, Allie whirled around.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

WILL
leaned back in his desk chair, absently twirling a pencil through his fingers. Victoria, as he well knew, was a skilled liar. But he thought that she’d told the truth – or mostly the truth, anyway – during their interview. She hadn’t hesitated to tell him all about her affair with Tobias Abernathy. Had offered a forthright and believable excuse for how she’d known about Allie’s miscarriage. Knew she was busted for, if nothing else, driving while intoxicated.

But she hadn’t had any idea what he’d been talking about when he asked her about the credit card and the flowers.  

If
she hadn’t been blowing smoke – and his gut told him that she hadn’t – that brought him back around to his original problem.

In this day and age of sophisticated identity theft, gaining access to credit card numbers and bank accounts was child’s play for a certain criminal element. They certainly didn’t need access to physical cards. But the flowers
had
been ordered using an actual credit card that had been stolen, and that was Brian Owen’s MO. Not highly sophisticated, the man – along with his cousin – had gone for good old-fashioned physical theft.  

If Brian Owen was indeed responsible for harassing Allie, in part as a way of getting back at him, then it was conceivable the man had sent the flowers as a sort of… psychological warfare, he guessed.

But it still didn’t answer how the man had known about the miscarriage.

Except… Victoria knew. And Victoria had been having an affair with Tobias Abernathy. Pillow talk, especially since Torie essentially hated Allie, could explain Abernathy having the knowledge. And if indeed the Owen cousins had been procuring Civil War artifacts that they’d sold to Abernathy – who either paid them to do so, or looked the other way about the artifacts’ origins…

It still seemed odd that Abernathy would have chosen to reveal that detail. The Owens were basically hired thugs, while Abernathy – by all accounts – was a man of some intelligence. Getting involved in Owen’s personal vendetta seemed a stupid thing to do. Unless the man had been blackmailing him, or threatening him in some way.

Will tossed the pencil onto the desk and pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt like there was something he was missing, some link between Abernathy and the Owen cousins and their targeting of Allie that he’d overlooked.

He guessed it shouldn’t matter now, since the three principals were dead – or presumed dead – but something nagged at him. It all boiled down to what they’d hoped to gain. After killing his cousin, be it intentionally or by accident, Brian Owen had stolen Allie’s car, her purse – a monetary incentive for him, with a bonus of causing Will a great deal of stress.

But the flowers – what did Owen stand to actually
gain
by that little stunt?

Nothing that Will could see. Not immediately, anyway.

Because he knew he was missing something, Will looked over the reports he’d gotten from the county sheriff detailing the circumstances surrounding each of the thefts that occurred in his jurisdiction. Then he pulled up the reports of the thefts that had occurred in his own jurisdiction, of which there were only three.

He didn’t know what he hoped to find, looking through reports of purse snatchings and B&Es, but…

Will paused, looking at the dates. Then he flipped through the reports again, carefully combing details before leaning back in his seat.

The pencil – which he didn’t even realize he’d been holding – snapped in his hand.   

“ALAN,”
Allie said, heart leaping into her throat. “You startled me.” Again.

He stood near the gardenia hedge that separated the Dust Jacket’s garden from Tucker and Sarah’s property. Only a few weak rays of the dying day filtered through the trees so that his face was mostly in shadow.

But she could see, even in the gathering dusk, that he looked… resigned.

“I’m sorry, Allie. I want you to know that.”

Allie wasn’t entirely sure why he was telling her this, but his tone coupled with his expression caused warning bells to start clanging in her head.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

He tilted his head, studied her face. “Don’t you?”

“No.”

“Ah, but I think you do. You’re a smart woman. Something that runs in the family. I thought I was smarter, but… I’m aware I screwed up. And I know you’re aware of it, too.”

The pounding of her pulse added a percussion beat to the warning bells. The baby’s breath. He had to be talking about the flowers.

“Alan,” she said slowly, trying to buy herself some time while she considered the best approach. Try to play it off like she really was clueless? She was a terrible actress, and he was a cop. He’d see right through that.

So she was left with honesty. Of the partial variety, anyway.

“I can only assume you’re talking about the flowers. And I’m also assuming that you sent them.” As a way of… what? Driving some sort of new wedge between her and Wesley? Of making her feel even more vulnerable than she already did so that he could be her knight in shining armor? So that he could offer her a shoulder on which to lean?