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“Hot tub?”
“Don’t they have those in England?”
“Yes, but . . .”
He stopped the car and got out. She followed.
The garage had a few boxes stacked at one end, along with what seemed to be a free-standing wine cellar. Through the glass doors, she saw that it was well-stocked.
He headed toward the door that led into the house. She stopped him. “Mr. Traveler?”
He turned.
“My suitcases?”
He gave a weary, put-upon sigh, then moved to the trunk, unlocked it, and looked inside. “You know, hauling around stuff like this isn’t good for a person with back trouble.”
“Do you have back trouble?”
“Not now, I don’t, which is exactly my point.”
She suppressed a smile. He was infuriating, but amusing. To teach him a lesson, she marched toward the trunk and pulled out the heavy suitcases herself. “I’ll carry them.”
Instead of being shamed, he seemed pleased. “I’ll get the door.”
With a sigh of exasperation, she lugged the suitcases inside. They stepped into a small kitchen with a limestone floor, granite counters, and cupboards with etched glass fronts. The late afternoon sun coming in through a skylight revealed an assortment of high-tech appliances.
“This is lovely.” She set her suitcases down and moved through the kitchen into a living room decorated in white, blue, and various shades of green. Several leafy plants grew near a pair of glass doors that opened onto a small, secluded patio surrounded by a vine-covered wooden privacy fence. A spacious, octagonal-shaped hot tub sat at one end.
He tossed his Stetson on the back of a chair, dropped his keys on a bronze and glass console, then pushed a button on a sleek answering machine. A woman’s Texas drawl filled the room.
“Kinny, it’s Torie. Call me back right this minute, you sonovabitch, or I swear to God I’ll phone the Antichrist and tell him you bee
n stalkin’ little Catholic schoolgirls. And, in case you forgot, there’s a set of your Pings locked away in the trunk of my Beemer, right along with that Big Bertha you won the Colonial with. I mean it, Kinny, I’m gonna break every one of them if you’re not on this phone by three o’clock this afternoon.”
He yawned. Emma glanced at an elegant clock on the console. It was four o’clock.
“She sounds quite cross.”
“Torie? That’s just the way she talks.”
Emma couldn’t help probing. “She’s your wife, is she?”
“I’ve never been married.”
“Ah.” She waited.
He collapsed on the couch as if he’d just run a marathon.
“Your fiancée, perhaps? Or a girlfriend?”
“Torie’s my sister. Unfortunately.”
Despite herself, she was growing increasingly curious about this gorgeous, lazy Texan. “I didn’t quite understand some of her references. Big Bertha? Pinks?”
“Pings. Golf clubs.”
“Ah, so you’re a golfer. That explains your connection with Francesca. Several members of my faculty play golf.”
