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She nodded. “I know, I’m glad, too. I just wish I’d stopped to think for a minute about this particular book I’m promoting.”
“Why?”
She nibbled the corner of her lip. “Well, Miss Hester does make an appearance. And it’s a particularly gruesome one.”
He barked a laugh, well used to her habit of writing fictional death scenes for people who really bugged her. She’d once written a fictional character based on Mrs. Newman—who always had dozens of items in the ten-item-only lane at the grocery store—and had her die by choking on a ham sandwich.
“Do you think anyone will realize it’s her?” she asked, hearing the note of dread in her own voice.
“I’m sure they won’t.”
He was an angel for saying so. But she had the feeling he was wrong.
Which meant Derryville was about to find out Sophie had fantasized about shooting Miss Hester and leaving her bloated corpse stuck in a too-small bathtub.
Gee. It looked like her Sweet Sophie days were really about to come to an end.
CHAPTER SIX
CARO STAYED. MICK couldn’t believe it, but Caroline stayed. In his guest suite. In his house. In his thoughts, his brain, his guts, his life.
Damn.
The one thing he’d thought for sure she wouldn’t do was exactly what she’d done. Probably his own fault for letting her curl up with him and watch his pride and joy that first night. He’d set himself up for it by making the prize all the sweeter to a woman as determined and hardheaded as he knew Caroline to be.
So far, the first few days of her residency had been pure hell. Oh, not because they couldn’t get along. Truth be told, they barely saw each other. They hadn’t agreed to stay apart, but that’s what had happened. Waking up together in his lounge chair the morning after her arrival had shocked them both. They’d become uneasy, uncomfortable with one another, each recognizing some unseen boundary they’d accidentally crossed. And they had both apparently decided never to cross it again.
He stayed busy with work, trying to broker a deal with a Chicago development company to bring a large shopping complex to the Derryville area. And Caroline spent fourteen-hour days on the set at the Little Bohemie Inn. She apparently ate her meals there, slipping into the house and straight up into her room at night, so there were days when they never even saw each other.
But he heard her. Oh, yes, indeed, he heard her very well.
Their rooms butted up to one another upstairs, and he could sometimes hear her moving around. He heard her phone alarm go off in the morning, heard her muttering because she’d apparently never lost her dislike of waking up early. He heard the click of her lamp going on, her hiss when she got out from under the covers in the cool September morning air, her footsteps on the wood floor. Heard her breaths. Heard her thoughts. Heard her heart beating.
Okay, maybe he didn’t really hear all that. But his brain thought he did. He’d had several long, sleepless nights this week while he’d lain, breathless in his bed, listening for her slightest movement, wondering where she was, what she wore, how she looked. Wondering if he’d hear her creep down the stairs for yet another irresistible late-night TV binge.
She never did. If she had, he wouldn’t have gone downstairs, wouldn’t have risked another intimate night like the first one. Mick wasn’t that strong a guy. And revisiting that particular period of his life was a bad idea. A really bad idea.
That didn’t mean he didn’t fantasize it. Every single night. It was pure sensual torture as only Caroline Lamb had ever been able to dish out.
“This is fucking ridiculous.”
“What is?”
He hadn’t even realized his cousin had entered his office until he heard him speak. Looking up, he saw Jared leaning indolently against his desk, his arms crossed, a look of amusement on his face.
“The way you dress,” Mick replied with a forced smirk. “Still haven’t gotten out of your undertaker phase, I see.”
Jared liked to wear black. Always had. Mick used to think it was because his cousin liked looking spooky and mysterious, since he’d once been an FBI agent and now wrote gory true-crime novels. Now he just knew it was because Jared couldn’t be bothered matching up anything with color. The man was always too intent on his latest project or deadline to think of clothes.
“Everything goes with black,” Jared said with a shrug. The twinkle in his eye and the grin on his mouth were evidence that he was not at all fooled by Mick’s flip response.
“Yeah. Casket. Hearse. Corpse.”
Jared took a seat at the chair across from his desk, moving nearly silently, as always, as smooth as a cat. “I hear you’re living with our intrepid TV producer.”
Mick grew wary. “Ourproducer?”
Jared nodded. “Ms. Caroline Lamb. And why do I suspect she’s the one who has you looking all tied up in knots?”
