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Once again, Fiona felt the heat rising in her cheeks. He had that effect on her. As they drove back to Angel’s Rise, she told him about her childhood, about her mother dying when she was young and her father moving them to South Carolina, remarrying, and having another family.
“South Carolina, huh?”
“Yeah, Charleston. Do you know the area?”
He nodded. “There’s a club there that I like. It’s called the Carriage House.”
Fiona looked at him, grinning wickedly. “I’ve heard of it. Never been, always wanted to go.”
“Have you now?” Slade chuckled. “Well, maybe we’ll have to go sometime. Tell me about moving down there—Angel’s Rise to Charleston is a big leap.”
“To be honest, I didn’t like it. I always just felt out of place—like I was an interloper. Don’t get me wrong, my stepmother is a lovely person and really makes my dad happy. I have two younger brothers and they couldn’t be nicer, but I just never felt like I fit in. So, I came back to Maine. After my divorce, I bought the bookstore, and eventually went back to writing.”
“There was a break where you weren’t writing.”
“Yes. I got married, and he thought writing was a waste of time, even though I was making money—enough so that he didn’t have to work, and didn’t. The marriage didn’t last. We got divorced, I lost traction on my writing career, but decided it was what I wanted to do. I met Jessica, Christie, and Lori last year, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
“You know the four of you give Thorn heart palpitations? A bunch of amateur sleuths normally only make things difficult for us professionals.”
“And yet we’ve already solved one cold case and brought a killer to justice, solved the murder at the reader event, found a statue that’s been missing for almost a century, and Thorn readily agrees that Jess was a huge help in solving that murder last year. For a bunch of amateurs, I think we’re doing pretty damn good.”
“Point taken,” chuckled Slade. “Just promise me you won’t get up to anything dangerous without telling me first.”
“I can’t just make an open-ended promise like that. What about when we go back to our separate lives?”
“What makes you think they’ll be separate? I thought we kind of settled that or at least settled that we’d both like to explore that back at the hotel.”
“You mean that silly kiss that made rational thought impossible? That silly kiss that made me mad at you for leaving me alone? Or maybe it was when you scooped me up in your arms and didn’t fall to your knees that made me almost swoon with lust? Yeah. I might need a little more persuading.”
That made him laugh out loud. “We are so going to the Carriage House where that snarky wit and sassy mouth will get you into all the most delicious kinds of trouble with me.”
Instead of feeling embarrassed or like she wanted to run and hide, Fiona had never felt more free or powerful in her life. She knew exactly what kind of club Carriage House was. It was an exclusive gentlemen’s club for those who lived a certain lifestyle, and by exclusive, it meant monied. It was said you had to be a millionaire to belong.
“So have you just visited on a guest pass?” she asked.
He looked at her and grinned. “No. I may not live there, but I am a regular member with all the pertinent rights of a Dom. You could have just asked me if I had that kind of money.”
“Yes, but that would have been gauche.”
“Sneaky. I’ll have to remember that. My mom might not have approved of my choices, but she respected them and knew I’d never get rich as a SEAL. She left me most of the money that was separate from the Rafferty money. I took that and all my disposable income as a SEAL and invested it.”
“I wasn’t really asking, Slade,” she said, not wanting him to think his money was what drew her to him.
He took her hand and squeezed it. “I know that. I was just trying to be open and transparent, and just so you know, I would never think of your writing as a ‘waste of time.’”
“Thank you. My goal is to make enough so that I can hire someone to work at the bookstore part time.”
“Not full time?”
“Not unless it suddenly gets a lot more successful. I like owning a brick-and-mortar bookstore. I like the feeling and smell not only of new books, but old ones, as well.”
“I noticed you had a section for first editions. I was surprised not to see any Agatha Christie.”
“Then you haven’t spent enough time in my loft… the first editions of Agatha Christie, Patricia Cornwell, and Sue Grafton are upstairs in my personal collection.”
“No male authors?”
“Oh, I have a couple Dashiell Hammetts, includingThe Maltese Falcon, which I paid way too much for, and several Sir Arthur Conan Doyles.”
