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“Good, good.” Folding her arms across her chest, Bliss asked, “Okay, so now that I know Josh will survive and the car won’t, why don’t you tell me what you think you were doing poking around Isaac Wells’s place? I thought it was off-limits to everybody but the police.”
Katie lifted a shoulder. “I know, but I was hoping to find something—some sort of clue, I guess, to what happened to him.”
“I thought that was the sheriff’s department’s job.”
“Yeah, but I was…well, hoping to look at it with different eyes—a woman’s eyes, a reporter’s eyes—that I might see something everyone else had missed.” She was excited now, talking rapidly, and it gave Luke some insight into how much she loved her job. Katie Kinkaid, ace reporter.
“Isaac’s been gone for months,” Bliss reminded.
“I know, I know, but—” Katie hesitated, then looked as if she’d decided that confiding in her sister and Luke would be all right. Her cheeks flushed, and a smile pulled at the corners of her full mouth. “I want the story. Period. I’m tired of writing about bridge-club meetings and covering the school-board agenda.”
“You want something with some mystery to it. Some adventure.” Bliss nodded, as if she’d heard it all before.
“At least.” Katie looked away, and Luke noticed the column of her throat, the way it disappeared into the tangle of bones between her shoulders. She was sexy as hell and didn’t seem to know it.
He wondered about the men in her life, then quickly shoved that wayward thought aside. What did it matter whom she dated, whom she kissed, who had experienced the rush of making love to her? His jaw tightened, and he fought a ridiculous envy of those unnamed men. All that he cared about was whether or not Dave Sorenson had fathered her child over a decade ago.
“Well, I’d better be shovin’ off,” he said. “You’ll bill me, right?”
“You can count on it.”
“Bliss did some work for you?” Katie asked, as if eager to know what he was doing in her half sister’s office. Luke noticed her eyelids crinkle at the corners as if she was trying to put two and two together.
No way out of it now. “Bliss drew up some plans for me for the ranch house. I’m going to expand it.”
“Oh.”
“So you already know that he owns the Sorenson place,” Bliss added, and Katie again felt that dull ache in her heart, the one that reminded her Dave was dead.
“I heard.”
“And I heard that you might be moving into Tiffany’s place,” Bliss said.
Luke froze. Katie was going to live next door to him?
“I’m thinking about it.”
“That’s what Tiffany said when I bumped into her this morning.”
“I’ve already talked to Josh, and he’s game, so I guess I’ll rent my place and move in whenever Tiffany and J.D. settle into the farm that they’re turning into a winery. I was on my way next door to the insurance office to give Tiffany the news, but I wanted to stop by here and see how the wedding plans are going.”
“Hectic,” Bliss replied. “This is my last day of work—” she pointed a long finger at Luke’s blueprints and skewered him with her blue gaze “—so if you want any changes, they’ll have to wait for a couple of weeks until I get back.”
“They’re fine,” he assured her and reached for the handle of the door. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Before he could yank the door open, Bliss added, “I was just trying to talk Luke into attending the wedding and reception.”
“Oh, you should come.” Katie turned and gave him her thousand-watt smile. “It’s going to be the event of the summer.”
“I’m not usually one for ‘events.’”
“Well, think about it. Just drop by the reception, if you’d like,” Bliss invited, and he inclined his head.
“I just might.” He left feeling that he’d somehow been manipulated by the two sisters, but he didn’t much care. He wouldn’t attend the wedding, but, hell, he might as well check out the reception.
But it had nothing to do with the fact that Katie Kinkaid would be there, he told himself. Absolutely nothing.
CHAPTER FIVE
