The house phone rang and Adrian jumped. As she leapt up to grab the cordless phone on the counter, she became aware that the thumps overhead had morphed into banging. Rooke must be nailing down the tarp she’d spoken of the night before.

“Winchester residence. May I help you?” Adrian answered, automatically repeating the message she had been taught as a child.

“Hello, darling,” her grandmother said breezily. “So you made it all right? I’ve been watching that nasty storm on television. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be down here in Fort Lauderdale. It was eighty-two when I woke up this morning.”

“That’s really very cruel of you, Grandmother.” Adrian paused as her grandmother laughed. “I do have a bit of bad news. I’m afraid one of the big trees came down in the wind and damaged the roof and the chimney.”

“Oh dear. Is it bad?”

“I don’t think so, but it’s definitely going to require repair. The fireplace too.”

“Did you call your father?”

Adrian took a deep breath. She didn’t need to be reminded how the family hierarchy worked. The men made the decisions and handled the problems. Even though her mother and sister, a VP in the family business just as her brother was, were both intelligent, capable women, they seemed content to take a backseat and deferred to the men in most matters. Growing up, Adrian had always run afoul of the subtle but clear lines between what was appropriate and what wasn’t for her to say or do or think. She’d always been at odds with her family because of that, and when she came out to them, the distance had grown.

But she knew she wasn’t going to change her grandmother’s worldview at this point.

“No,” Adrian said as calmly as she could. “There’s really nothing he could do from the city, and I’m right here. I have someone looking at the roof right now, as a matter of fact. I was going to call you after I had some idea of the extent of the damage.”

“Well, that was certainly fast. I’m surprised you could get anyone on a Saturday. And in that weather too.”

Adrian thought better of telling her grandmother that she had

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actually gotten someone at two a.m. Somehow, Rooke’s showing up in the middle of the night made perfect sense to her—she appreciated Rooke’s stubborn, single-minded focus. They were alike that way. Her grandmother, though, like the rest of the family, was big on doing things in the “proper fashion.”

“They’ve been really terrific. Some contractors who manage the work at the cemetery in—”

“Ronald Tyler?” her grandmother asked sharply.

“Yes. Well, he’s not actually here,” Adrian said, surprised by her grandmother’s tone. “His granddaughter and another man are looking at the damage.”

“The girl is there?”

Adrian’s defenses immediately shot up at her grandmother’s dismissive manner. If she’d been feline, her fur would have been standing on end and her claws would have been out and ready for battle. “Yes, Rooke Tyler. But she’s hardly a girl. She must be in her mid-twenties at least.”

“I’m surprised Ronald has her doing that kind of work. She’s not…” Her grandmother’s voice dropped. “She’s not quite right, you know.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Adrian said stiffly.

She’d spent quite a bit of time with Rooke the night before, and despite the fact that they tended to rub each other the wrong way, Rooke had been nothing but scrupulously polite and responsible. If anything, Adrian had been the one verging on rude. “She seems very knowledgeable.”

“I’m sure she’s capable of whatever job her grandfather has her doing at the cemetery, but I do think you should get another estimate just to be sure.”

“Ronald Tyler came highly recommended.” Adrian didn’t add the recommendation came from a cab driver whose name she didn’t even know. She had the strongest urge to protect Rooke from her grandmother’s criticisms, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. She didn’t know her, after all.

“I know it’s all the rage to homeschool children today, but that wasn’t the case twenty years ago. Ronald kept her home because she was…well, the kindest word for it would be ‘slow.’ Everyone in town knows it.”

Adrian laughed, recalling the verbal battles she and Rooke had

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waged the night before. “You have been misinformed. Believe me, she is not slow.”

“I suppose you are a better judge than I,” her grandmother said, though her tone implied otherwise.

“Grandmother,” Adrian said, trying desperately to hold on to her temper. “I can handle this. If I have any concerns about the estimate, I’ll get a second opinion. And I promise to keep a close eye on the repairs.

You don’t need to worry.”

“You will call your father if you have any doubts.”

“I promise,” Adrian said with a sigh.

“All right then. Is everything else all right?”

“Everything is fine,” Adrian replied automatically, giving the response she had learned to give whenever any member of her family expressed concern about her. Because if she didn’t, she would quickly find someone else taking charge. “Now, go enjoy that wonderful weather. That’s what you’re down there for.”

“I’m having lunch with Ida and Annette. I’ll send them your regards.”

“Please do.” Adrian hadn’t seen her grandmother’s two best friends for several years, but remembered them very well from her visits over the years. Ida and Annette wintered in Florida in the same condominium complex as her grandmother. The three women, all widowed, were all members of Ford’s Crossing’s upper echelons.

“I’ll talk to you soon, darling.”

“Good-bye, grandmother.”

Adrian finished the call and put the phone back on the counter. The pounding overhead had stopped. She started the automatic coffeepot, assuming that Rooke and Dominic would be coming down soon. She kept thinking about her grandmother pronouncing Rooke “slow,” and couldn’t imagine what had led to that rumor. When she and Rooke had talked, she’d found Rooke to be serious and intent, but also subtly humorous and pleasantly direct—anything but slow. More importantly, when they had touched, she’d sensed barriers and reserve, yes, but also strength and honor. Rooke was a complex woman, and if she’d allowed a whole town to think she was not, there must be a very good reason.

• 71 •

• 72 •

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ChapTER EighT

When the doorbell rang, Adrian quickly set the mug she was holding down on the counter and spun toward the front door with a surge of excitement. Just as quickly, she mentally admonished herself for the reaction. She was letting her inexplicably volatile emotions run away with her these days. Taking a slow breath, she walked down the hall and opened the door. Dominic stood just in front of it with Rooke behind him. They were almost the same height.

Dominic’s eyes were alight with good humor and confidence.

“Rooke here said something about coffee. I sure hope you weren’t teasing.”

“Not at all.” Adrian returned his smile absently as her gaze swept past him to Rooke, who regarded her with dark-eyed intensity. Rooke and Dominic were like night and day—she was the dark to his light, the gravity to his bright joy. Adrian hadn’t thought herself drawn to the darkness until that moment, when she suddenly pictured herself walking in the moonlight, her hand clasped in that of a figure whose face was cloaked in shadows. In the fleeting vision, the moonlight, and not the sun, illuminated her world with stunning clarity, as if all the answers to her questions lay just ahead on that silvery path. With a start, she realized she was blocking the door.

“Come in,” Adrian said, turning to lead them down the hall to the kitchen. “How were things up there?”

“Tarzan did most of the reconnaissance,” Dominic said.

Adrian looked back in time to see Dominic grin and shoulder-butt Rooke.

“Tarzan?” Adrian asked, smothering a smile when Rooke blushed

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and shot Dominic a glare. The two of them acted like siblings, although Rooke clearly didn’t like being teased and Adrian didn’t want to embarrass her.

“She can climb anything, although she doesn’t swing from branches much anymore.”

“Dom,” Rooke growled.

Adrian laughed and gestured to the table. “Sit down.”

“Most of the damage to the roof is surface stuff.” Rooke pulled out a chair and Dominic followed suit. “Some slate will need to be replaced and a section of sheathing and slats is torn up.”

“How big a job are we talking about?” Adrian poured coffee into the mugs she’d lined up on the counter. Her hands shook. She was nervous, which was absurd. She hadn’t been nervous facing down a lion that had wandered into camp in Kenya, where she’d been doing a story on Doctors Without Borders. Or when she’d informed her entire family over dessert on her eighteenth birthday that she was a lesbian. Talking to two perfectly pleasant people in the comfort of her grandmother’s kitchen was hardly threatening. Tired. She was just tired. Too much traveling, too little time to de-stress.

“To do the work—a couple of weeks if the weather clears and the materials come in pretty fast,” Rooke said. “Getting the slate might take some time. Not that much call for slate roofs any longer.”

Adrian handed Dominic a cup of coffee and placed another mug in front of Rooke. She noticed Rooke’s fingers were red, windburned, and quickly looked away when she had the sudden impulse to take Rooke’s hands in hers to warm them. Her gaze landed on Dominic. His cheeks were flushed as well. To cover her disquiet, she resorted to inane small talk. “You two look frozen. I’m sorry there’s no fire. This house just doesn’t heat right without one going.”