“Furious.” But he’s smiling. “Also impressed. Also terrified. Also in love with a woman who can’t stay out of trouble.”
He kisses my forehead and I lean into him, breathing in ocean air and his cologne and the faint smell of gunpowder still lingering in the air.
“In my defense,” I say, “trouble finds me.”
He tips his head like he’s considering it. “You run toward it.”
“Details.”
He laughs and holds me tighter. “You know what the worst part is?”
“What?”
“We gave her a fifty-thousand-dollar check.”
I groan. “Don’t remind me.”
“I’ll swing by the station and pick it up from her belongings in the morning.”
“Have I mentioned I love you?”
“Once or twice.”
We stand there watching the ocean, the summer night perfect despite everything—despite the murders and the chaos and the near-death experience and the ruined plans to build a sunroom.
“Think we can have a quiet rest of the week?” Jasper asks. “The fireworks are over. The killer has been caught.”
I shrug. “I think we’re good.”
“Famous last words.”
“Shh,” I say with a wink. “Let me have this moment.”
Jasper’s lips find mine and we share a dreamy, steamy kiss that has the power to wipe the last seven days right out of my mind—and I’m more than thankful for it and him.
Standing here with Jasper, the beach empty, the stars out, everyone safe and accounted for—Ella sleeping peacefully at home with Gwyneth and Dad, the killer in custody, the check hopefully stopped, summer winding down toward fall—I’m thinking about how my life would be different if I couldn’t read minds.
Quieter, probably. However, safer is debatable.
But I wouldn’t have been able to solve this case. I wouldn’t have cleared Mackenzie’s name. And I wouldn’t have stopped Sloane before she killed again.
The gift is a curse and a gift. Story of my life.
Standing here with Jasper under the stars while Cider Cove sleeps off its patriotic sugar high, I realize something—I’d rather survive a killer than surviveSloane’s sunroom renovation.
And I’ve now survived both, so I’d know.
Pumpkin spice season will be here soon enough, which means Cider Cove will soon smell like cinnamon, nutmeg, and suspicious circumstances.
And somewhere in the depths of their Gothic lairs, the Scream Queens are packing their vintage gowns and sharpening their perfectly manicured claws for Halloween week.
You know what they say—the only thing more inevitable than fall in New England is murder in Cider Cove.
