Kiss the Moon (13 page)

It wasn’t that her mother wouldn’t care. She would, and did. She just didn’t necessarily want to know details. Her laissez-faire approach to child rearing had left Penelope to do as she pleased, which had its advantages. On the downside, she couldn’t count on her mother putting her neck on the block to spare her daughter. Of course, Penelope was, after all, thirty years old. If she wanted to hang out with a Sinclair, especially one who damned well knew she was lying, that was her call. Her mother wasn’t about to interfere. She was a kind, generous, talented woman, but she let Penelope fight her own battles—and Penelope suspected she had a major one ahead of her.

She filled her wineglass and slipped to the front lobby. Wyatt was coming down the stairs. He had changed into a dark sweater, and he looked as rakish and devil-may-care as any of his lion-hunting forebears. It was a good reminder that she was dealing with dangerous genetic material. He smiled at her. “You look as if you could run right across Lake Winnipesaukee.”

“I feel that way, too. I’m about ready to jump out of my skin. You were right.
No one
believes my story. Even Harriet doesn’t.”

“Even your father doesn’t.”

“It’s a damned conspiracy. Nobody believed a thing I’ve said since I was a little kid.” She started down the hall in a huff, stopped, glanced sideways at Wyatt. “How do you know what my father believes?”

“He told me as much yesterday after you dropped me off at the airport.”

“Just like that?”

“No, not exactly. I got the impression he didn’t like telling me anything.”

“He’s not your basic blabbermouth,” Penelope said, resuming her course to the Octagon Room. With Wyatt looking so damned devastating, it was just as well she’d seen the salads and dessert tray and knew that grilled rainbow trout was on the menu. Otherwise she’d have been totally insane to stay for dinner. This way, she had an excuse.

“You could tell the truth,” Wyatt pointed out, his tone neutral.

“I could move to California. I left once, you know. After college. I moved to North Carolina for eight months and worked at the Charlotte airport.”

“What brought you back?”

“My father decided to let me fly for him, after all. Before that, he’d hire any scumbag with a pilot’s license before he’d hire me. We’ve started talking about a partnership.”

“That would be after your three-week grounding’s up,” Wyatt said.

She smiled, refusing to let him get to her. “Pop’s a little ticked at me these days. He blames me for every gray hair on his head.”

They came to the Octagon Room, and Terry showed them to the same table they’d had at tea yesterday. A white votive candle flickered in a brass holder, the flame reflecting in Wyatt’s dark eyes. Penelope took a big sip of wine and sat down. Wyatt requested a beer from a local brewer.

“Did you miss Cold Spring while you were in North Carolina?” he asked.

“I missed the lake—and a proper winter. I have the soul of a New Englander, I guess. I’ve tried to beat it out of me, but it’s just there. I need cold winters and fog on the lake in the summer.”

“And mud season?”

She grinned. “I love mud season. One year, I got so stuck on my road I thought I’d have to get a wrecker to pull my car out. That’s when I bought my truck. Most people hate late winter and early spring in northern New England. They’d spend March and most of April in the Bahamas. Not me. I like all the subtle changes that say spring is upon us. The sap running, the tiny buds on the trees, the change in the snow, the longer days—the mud.”

Wyatt’s beer arrived, and he poured it into the frosted glass. Penelope watched his movements, noticed his long fingers, the muscles in his wrists.

“You did seem to be in your element today,” he remarked.

“Yes, all in all it was a good day—since I couldn’t fly. Of course, I’m not counting that kiss by the fire. I’m chalking that up to your Sinclair genes. A woman’s a woman, and there I was. It’s an impulse, a natural reaction to stimuli. Like a frog on a lily pad when a mosquito buzzes by. You just couldn’t help yourself.”

He smiled, tasted his beer. “And I suppose you just couldn’t help yourself when you kissed me back.”

“Anymore than the mosquito could when the frog swallowed him.”

“Penelope…”

A change in subject was necessary. “So, tell me about snooping in my house while I was in the shower. Did you find anything that confirms I’m lying about not finding Frannie and Colt’s plane?”

He leaned over the table and narrowed his black eyes. “If I had, I’d have presented it to you in the shower.”

She refused to picture
that
particular scenario. “You have no shame, Sinclair. One minute I think we’re building a little trust between us, next minute you’re pawing through my stuff.”

“I didn’t have enough time to do much pawing.” He settled in his chair, smug and amused with himself. “I like the moose head.”

“That’s Willard.”

“My grandfather was named Willard. I presume there’s a connection?”

“He and my grandfather, who built my cabin, used to hunt and fish together. Your grandfather shot the moose and had him mounted—this was many years ago, before I was born. He presented him to my grandfather as a gift. When I inherited the cabin, I got the moose head. I was going to put him in a yard sale, but I kept him.”

“And named him,” Wyatt said.

“I had a nightmare one night shortly after I’d moved in, and when I stumbled bleary-eyed into the living room, here’s this moose glaring at me from the wall. I almost dropped dead of a heart attack. I’d forgotten all about him. So I named him Willard. It seems to fit.”

They ordered their dinners, grilled rainbow trout for both, and had warm dill bread while they waited. Jack Dunning entered the dining room. He didn’t look as out of place as Penelope would have expected, with his close-cropped, graying sandy hair, his jutting jaw, his precise, military bearing—not to mention his cowboy boots on the polished wood floors.

“Aren’t you two worried about stepping on each other’s toes?” Penelope dabbed butter on her warm bread, aware of Wyatt’s gaze on her. “I mean, you’re both here for the same thing, namely figuring out whether or not I’m a liar.”

Wyatt shrugged, shifting his gaze to the investigator across the room. “Liar’s fairly harsh. You could have changed your story for a lot of different reasons. I just want to make sure you didn’t find my uncle’s plane, after all. I assume Jack does, too.”

“Does your father approve of you both being here?”

“I didn’t ask. Jack’s here because my father sent him. I’m here because I decided to check out your story myself. If my father doesn’t approve, that’s his problem.”

“Unlike me, you’re not your father’s employee as well as his offspring. That gets complicated, and I suspect being Brandon Sinclair’s son is quite complicated enough. Whoops. Here comes our Jack Dunning now.”

Wyatt turned, and Penelope smiled as the investigator came to their table. They greeted each other politely before Dunning got to the point. “I stopped by your house again about one-thirty, two. I saw an old man sneaking around—the hermit, Bubba Johns.”

So he already knew about Bubba. “Wyatt and I saw him, too. I expect he wanted to barter some maple sap. He does that sometimes.”

“He comes to your house often?”

“Well, no, usually he does his bartering in town. With all the hoopla this week, maybe he wanted to avoid town.” It was certainly possible, but not likely. Bubba’s trips to town were well-planned, thorough and infrequent. He wouldn’t just pop over to her house instead.

“You should lock your doors,” Dunning said, “just in case.”

She gave him a sharp look. “How do you know my doors weren’t locked?”

“I tried them. The side door and the sliding-glass doors on the deck. I didn’t go inside.”

“I’d have caught you if you had.”

His back remained ramrod straight, his gaze unflinching. “I expect I’d have scared you more than you’d have scared me. If it’s convenient, I’d like to come by in the morning and have a look at your research into the Sinclair-Beaudine matter. Ten o’clock okay?”

Penelope glanced at Wyatt, but he was letting her handle his father’s private detective by herself. She doubted Dunning would answer to his boss’s son. She smiled. “Ten’s fine. I hope you’re not expecting professional research. I’m strictly an amateur.”

“I’d like to see whatever you have.” He smiled, but his eyes had gone cool, making his smile seem forced, even unpleasant. “Consider this my call in advance, Miss Chestnut.”

She remembered their earlier conversation, but refused to let him intimidate her. “I’ll have the coffee on.”

Wyatt casually reached for the breadbasket. “I’ll stop by, too. I’d like to have a look at Penelope’s research myself.” He glanced at Dunning, and Penelope sensed he was being deliberately irritating. “I’ll bring the doughnuts.”

The detective’s eyes cooled even more. “You do that.”

Penelope expected him to retreat to a table, but instead he left the Octagon Room. She tried to contain her relief. “Well, he’s a barrel of laughs.”

Wyatt spread a thin layer of butter on his bread. “Jack’s a serious man, and he’s being paid well for his efforts.”

“Does that make him more determined than you or less?”

“His motives aren’t mine. Neither are his methods. But I wouldn’t underestimate his determination.”

“Or yours?”

He smiled. “Never underestimate me, period. Penelope—if you want to tell me about Bubba and Harriet and what you found on Sunday, now’s a good time. Jack doesn’t believe your story any more than anyone else around here.”

“I’ve told you everything,” she said quickly, before she could change her mind. Acting on impulse with Wyatt Sinclair wasn’t a smart idea. She’d decided on her story, and she’d stick to it until she’d examined all her options.

“You’ve told me everything you want to tell me. You haven’t told me everything.” His smile vanished, and his dark gaze was probing, searching. “Something has you scared.”

“Scared? I don’t think so. Stir-crazy because I can’t fly, yes. Unnerved because I’ve got a Sinclair and a New York private investigator on my case, yes. Agitated because nobody believes me—sure. But I’m not scared.” She sat back, almost believing herself. “Right now, I’m just hungry.”

He sighed. “I wish I could wave a magic wand and make you trust me.”

“Well, I wish I could wave a magic wand and make you go back to New York.”

He laughed, and in spite of the tight spot she was in, Penelope laughed, too. Their dinners arrived, the trout fresh that day and beautifully prepared, and she and Wyatt ate and talked of other things. The work required to restore the inn, the plants she’d started for the inn and her deck overlooking the lake, the passion she had for flying. She tried to draw him out, but beyond agreeing he was lucky he had the kind of life that allowed him to take a few days off to skulk about the New Hampshire woods, he told her nothing about himself she hadn’t already read in the papers or heard in local gossip. The man was on a mission, and everything he did and said was in service to that mission. Including kissing her. Including asking her to dinner. Soften up the prey. Then pounce.

She winced at her unfortunate analogy and started for her wallet, ready to get herself home before his strategy worked. He shook his head. “Let me pay for dinner. It was my idea. Otherwise you’d be having soup in front of the wood stove with Willard the moose.”

“Willard never accused me of lying.” She smiled. “Thanks for dinner. I’ve almost made it through the first day of my grounding.”

“Glad I could help.”

She ignored his amused undertone. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

The dark eyes sparked. “You won’t be cleaning my room in the morning?”

“Very funny. If you decide to check out—”

“I won’t.”

“Then I won’t see you until you and Mr. Dunning show up to look at my materials on Colt and Frannie. Unless I change my mind.” She started across the dining room. “Don’t forget the doughnuts.”

She left him to pay and slipped down the hall, stopping in her tracks when she saw Harriet tucked in a candlelit booth in the bar with Jack Dunning. Her heart sank at her cousin’s smitten look. There was no other word for it. Harriet was smiling dopily, her eyes doe-like, and Penelope wanted to march in there and shake her.

Of course, who’d been kissing a Sinclair out by the maple-sugaring fire?

She bit her tongue and continued on her way, trying to shake off the rush of doubts and questions and possible courses of action for herself. All she had to do was tell Wyatt and Dunning about the plane. They’d go off and find it, do whatever they needed to do and quit pestering her about lying. But they couldn’t control the media, the attention that would focus on Bubba and Harriet. And what about the subtly threatening message on her computer?

Besides which, she didn’t like the two New Yorkers’ tactics. Jack Dunning was deliberately charming Harriet to get information out of her. If she felt comfortable, safe,
understood,
Harriet would tell him her theory about her birth parents. He might already know—he might not. But if he could use the information, or anything else she told him, to put the screws to Penelope, he would. She hated being so cynical, but she knew she was right.

She groaned. “Oh, Harriet. Why couldn’t you fall for someone like Andy McNally?”

Because Harriet wanted her Scarlet Pimpernel, her Scaramouche, her D’Artagnan, her Spiderman. She didn’t want a scarred widower with two daughters, a small-town guy she’d known all her life, any more than she wanted to be the child abandoned by some unknown teenager. She wanted to be Colt Sinclair and Frannie Beaudine’s daughter.

Penelope gave herself a mental shake. Who was she to criticize Harriet?

As if to prove her point, Wyatt caught up with her outside. The light from the back door glowed softly, making his eyes seem blacker, but also less menacing, less as if he were a man who’d do anything to get his way. “I just wanted to make sure you know you can call me if your hermit shows up tonight.”

“Bubba doesn’t scare me.”

“Okay. But you know where to find me.”