“Are you always this rude?”

Rooke stiffened. “Not usually.” She didn’t add, I make it a habit to avoid annoying, judgmental people, even though she thought it.

“Where are you going?” Adrian asked.

Rooke pulled open the door.

“Somewhere warmer.”

Adrian took a deep breath, wondering how her entire night had gone to hell while she wasn’t paying attention. “Wait. Please. It really is too bad out there for you to travel.”

“I’ll be fine.” Without turning around, Rooke said, “Did you check to make sure you’ve got enough oil and firewood? This storm isn’t going to blow out for a couple more days. It’s going to get a lot colder.”

“I can’t use the fireplace,” Adrian said to Rooke’s back. “Would you close the door? What little heat I have is on its way out.”

Rooke came back into the foyer, closing the door behind her. “No firewood?”

• 33 •

RADcLY fFe

“No chimney.” Adrian sighed. “That’s one of the reasons I called Mr. Tyler. Ronald Tyler?”

“My grandfather.” Rooke removed her cap and brushed a hand through her hair, sprinkling water in a halo around her head.

“Ah.” For a second, Adrian was at a loss for what else to say.

For most of their conversation she’d been looking at Rooke through the window, or the blur of snow, or while she had her back turned.

Now that Rooke was standing still with her face exposed, Adrian saw the faint but obvious scar that ran from her right temple across her forehead into her hairline. The thin line was pale, so the injury had been a long time ago, but it bothered Adrian nevertheless to think about how serious the damage must have been. The scar didn’t detract in the least from her initial impression. Rooke was indeed handsome, with eyes so deep brown they were almost black and carelessly cut midnight hair. The thick, shaggy hair framing her square-jawed, strong countenance made her appear charmingly roguish. Or she would have appeared charming, if her eyes weren’t so still and cool. Adrian sensed the kind of wary appraisal in Rooke’s unwavering gaze that she’d often seen in caged animals, or prisoners. This was not a woman who trusted others easily.

“Maybe we should start over,” Adrian said.

“I think maybe you should start over with my grandfather on Monday.” Rooke resettled her cap. “I’ll wait while you check your oil supply. If it’s low, I’ll drive you to the hotel in town. You should probably stay there anyhow.”

Adrian’s temper flared. What was it about her that made people think they knew what was best for her? “Excuse me. I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

“You can’t stay here without heat.”

Adrian resisted the urge to tell Rooke to mind her own business.

Rationally, she knew Rooke was just trying to be helpful, but she’d just spent weeks with her family listening to first her mother and then her siblings tell her exactly how she should rearrange her life. It was enough to make her get on a plane to anywhere. Immediately. “I have heat and if I have any problem at all, I have transportation.”

“I wouldn’t trust that Jeep to make it a mile on these roads,” Rooke said.

Adrian jammed her hands back on her hips. “How do you know…

• 34 •

SecretS in the Stone

Oh, never mind. I forgot that everyone in a town this size knows everything about everyone.”

“Not everyone. Not everything,” Rooke muttered. “I’ve seen that Jeep. It’s a good twenty years old and I’ll bet the battery’s dead even if the tires aren’t flat. Look, let me just get the firewood. The rest is up to you.”

“Well, thank you very much.” Adrian stepped forward quickly and grasped Rooke’s arm. “And you’re not going out there in this snow.

You wouldn’t be able to see anything anyhow. I’m freezing, and you’re soaking wet. Come in the kitchen. I’ll make us something warm to drink.”

Rooke hesitated, torn between wanting out of the uncomfortable situation and a reluctant concern for Adrian. She longed to be back in her quiet, private space where no one bothered her, no one judged her, and no one assumed to know her. Unfortunately, she could tell just from the brief walk back to the truck that the storm was escalating.

She wasn’t worried about driving, but she was worried about leaving Adrian Oakes here alone. If she lost power or heat and the Jeep didn’t start, she could be in trouble. What she needed to do was take a look around and make sure Adrian would be okay for the weekend. Then she’d get the hell out of there and leave her to her own devices, which was apparently exactly the way Adrian Oakes wanted it.

“What’s wrong with your fireplace?” Rooke asked, bending over to unlace her workboots. Adrian had probably just forgotten to open the flue, but she wasn’t going to say so and invite another barrage of ill temper.

“You can leave those on.”

“I’ll track water all over the floor.”

“Your feet will freeze. Where are your socks?”

Rooke didn’t bother to explain she’d been on her way to bed when she’d listened to the message and gotten the harebrained idea to rush over here. She just jammed her foot back in her boot. When she glanced at Adrian, she realized for the first time that Adrian had ventured out into the snow without boots. Her shoes had to be soaked. “You need to get warmed up yourself. Go stand in front of the fireplace. I’ll get it started.”

“I’d love that, but the chimney is lying in the driveway by the side of the house.”

• 35 •

RADcLY fFe

Frowning, Rooke straightened. “What?”

“The tree out front,” Adrian said with a sigh. “The one that’s blocking your truck. It knocked the chimney down. That’s what put the hole in the roof too.”

“Well, that’s a problem.”

“Yes, I thought so too.” Adrian pulled her wet shoes off and placed them on the tray next to the coat closet tucked under the stairs. Her thick wool socks were damp, but her feet were fairly dry. “Take your jacket off. It’s warmer in the kitchen.”

“I’d better have a look at the chimney.” Rooke removed her jacket but kept it in her hand. She might need to go outside again soon to assess the damage.

“Are you a carpenter as well as a roofer?”

Rooke frowned. “I’m not either one.”

“Then I’m confused. What are you doing here?”

“You called us, remember?” Rooke repeated.

“About the roof.”

“That’s why I came out. I’ll take a look up in the attic and see what kind of leak problem there is.”

Adrian led the way down the central hall that led to the kitchen that spanned the entire rear of the house. A library and parlor opened off one side of the hall and the dining room off the other. “And then what?”

“We’ll get a tarp up there until the weather lets up.”

“If you’re not a carpenter…” Adrian switched on the kitchen light.

Her grandmother had kept the country kitchen decor, replacing worn-out appliances with modern versions of classic styles. A huge oak table took up the center of the room, its surface scarred from the preparation of countless meals. “Have a seat.”

“Thanks.” Rooke pulled out a wooden chair at one end of the table, set her cap and jacket on a nearby chair, and watched Adrian move with swift economy around the kitchen. When she stretched to reach for teabags in a cabinet above the sink, her T-shirt pulled up, revealing an expanse of her lower back and the soft swell of the top of her buttocks.

Rooke stared unintentionally, then looked away.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Adrian said, turning around with the teabags in her hand. She caught a flicker of uncertainty on Rooke’s face. “Something wrong?”

• 36 •

SecretS in the Stone

“No. Nothing.” Rooke shifted in her chair. “I’m a stonemason.”

“Really? That’s got to be tough work.”

“No more than any other.”

Adrian remembered how Melinda had deduced a person’s occupation from the appearance of her hands, and she looked at Rooke’s pressed flat on the table. Her hands were broad, her fingers long and sturdy. Even from a few feet away Adrian could see a few abrasions on her knuckles and a half-moon-shaped scar on the outer edge of her right hand. She had the hands of someone who did hard work, and although she didn’t appear all that muscular, her body seemed tight and fit. She was a few inches taller than her own 5′7″, and a little broader in the shoulders and narrower in the hips. From the way her T-shirt molded to her chest, her breasts were probably a bit smaller too.

Adrian flushed, realizing she was close to blatantly cruising a stranger sitting at her kitchen table in the middle of the night. What was wrong with her?

“A stonemason,” she said, busying herself with the tea. “What do you do exactly? Build patios and sidewalks and things like that?”

“No,” Rooke said slowly. “I carve gravestones.”

Adrian spun around, her mouth curved into a faint smile. “And just when I thought the day couldn’t get any more interesting.”

“I don’t know about that.” Rooke shrugged self-consciously. She wasn’t used to discussing anything about herself. “Most people don’t find it very interesting.”

“You’re going to discover I’m not most people,” Adrian said softly.

• 37 •

• 38 •

SecretS in the Stone

ChapTER fOuR

Edgy and aggravated, Melinda paced in the parlor adjoining the hotel bar. She sipped her Remy Martin and took perfunctory stock of her surroundings. The room, while not showy, was opulently appointed. The rug was definitely Persian, and in very good condition.

An original oil painting by one of the Hudson Valley’s more notable painters hung above the fireplace. The polished wainscoting, staircases, and floors were all original and scrupulously maintained. If the hotel was any indication of the village, there was money here. Melinda sighed. What there wasn’t, at the moment, was a woman.