“There,” she said.
“Why did you do that?”
“Those people,” the woman explained, wagging her pointer finger over the page, “useless to try and hunt them up. They won’t be helping you. They’re gone, one way or another. As for the rest? You pound on the wrong doors, you’re going to find trouble. People around here, they don’t like strangers.”
“Yes,” said Paige, “I’m getting that impression.”
Holding Paige’s gaze while she gave a short, sharp nod, the woman backed away and spun on her heel. Paige scanned the lined page again. Her information pool had been reduced by more than half.
* * * *
Sweat stinging the sunburn on her nape and shoulder, Paige returned to the cottage discouraged. Not one of the residents on the remaining list had been home. Paige parked her car in the graveled spot that served as a driveway and climbed out to hammering coming from next door. If she hadn’t totally alienated the man, Liam Gray might be of some help. After sweating all day, she lifted an arm for a quick sniff to make certain she didn’t smell like a cow’s backside before heading over to the house where she had spent her earliest years.
The first thing she saw as she rounded the beach-facing porch was sawhorses laden with packs of cedar shakes. On top of the nearest pack, a faded blue shirt fluttered in the breeze. Paige’s gaze shot to the top of a ladder to the porch roof where Liam, shirtless, muscular, and lightly browned, straddled a pile of cedar with his back to her, hammering replacement shakes into place. Paige bit her lip.
“I’ll be right down,” he said without turning.
Paige pivoted away, heat flaming her cheeks with more ferocity than the sunburn at her neck. Naturally, he would be able to see the whole beach reflected in the second floor windows, including her upturned face gawking at him.
The ladder rattled with his descent. She waited until he had slipped back into his shirt before looking at him. He hadn’t buttoned the garment. The soft fabric hung over his torso, negligently revealing more than it covered.
“What can I do for you today, Ms. Waters? Was there something you needed?”
Annoyed with herself for her distraction and him for his sarcasm, Paige shifted her gaze away from Liam’s naked chest. “For starters, you can call me Paige.”
“Paige,” he said. “Better? Did you need something from me?” His tone had become guarded. As it should be, she supposed. She hadn’t been very friendly when they’d met before. If nothing else, the hour hadn’t been conducive to the usual niceties. As for needing something from him, well, she didn’t want to think about the way he looked in his open shirt. Because there was that need. Her mind had gone there straightaway, to that simple, dangerous, heated need. One foisted on her by solitude and loneliness and a desire to be held, to melt away until, for a while, nothing of herself remained. He stared down at her, waiting.
“I thought I might ask you about my father.”
He appeared mystified. “Your father?”
“Yes. Did you not hear me this morning when I said I was Edwin Waters’ daughter?”
“I heard you.”
Something in his manner snapped her drifting focus back to his face again. His black lashes had lowered, partially concealing his eyes.
“Did you know him?” she asked. “My father?”
“Why would you think I knew him?”
“But you knew of him,” she persisted. “You made mention about him dying shortly after you bought the house.”
“Yes, I did. But it doesn’t mean I knew him or anything about him.”
Paige sighed. “Somebody has to.”
Liam’s lashes lifted. The thought process behind his dark eyes remained unreadable.
“I don’t even know exactly how he died except the rather useless ‘his ship went down.’” Embarrassed by her voice’s beseeching tenor, she inhaled to steady herself. “Can you at least tell me that?”
He started moving toward the ladder, impatient, no doubt, to be back at his work. “I’m sure there are other people in this town better able to answer your questions.”
“Maybe there are, but none of them were available today.” Perhaps she was paranoid, but it was as if they’d gotten wind of her intentions and vanished, decided to take a holiday rather than talk to a stranger. Paige took a step after Liam and stopped, her head jerking up to view the second floor window. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had someone helping you. I shouldn’t have interrupted.”
Pausing, Liam followed her gaze. “What are you talking about?”
“Up there,” she said, “in the window.”
He took a few steps back from the ladder in order to gain a better view of the upper storey. “I don’t have anyone helping me, Paige. And there’s no one up there.”
“But—”
Coming to stand beside her, he crouched until his head was level with hers. She could smell his body’s musk, the evidence of salt air and labor in the sun. She held her breath.
“It’s just a reflection of the clouds. See?” He straightened. His warm, hard forearm grazed her shoulder. “I’ve got to get back to work. Tomorrow you ask around again, and if you get nowhere, I’ll see what I can do. Not everyone in this town is willing to open up to an outsider.”
“At one time, I wasn’t an outsider,” she wanted to say. Instead, she strode away from him, heading for the beach. She remembered to call over her shoulder as she stepped down into the sand, “Permission to walk?”
“Permission granted,” he said without a touch of humor.
Chapter 3
The light cast by the single bulb in the bedside lamp was insufficient for the task at hand. Apparently, people who rented the tiny cottage did not read. They slept, or engaged in activities that did not require illumination. Paige possessed no chance of either.
Sleeping from sunrise until noon probably didn’t help her insomnia, nor did her frustrating afternoon. The recollection of Liam Gray shirtless in the late-day sun was the biggest obstacle to slumber.
Now there would be a complication she did not want. A man like him would already have a woman in his life anyway—a gorgeous woman without baggage and who didn’t require a stepstool to kiss his mouth. Paige considered the many other ways of reaching that part of his body but dismissed them, tossing the paperback onto the nightstand. Overthrown, the novel skittered off the wooden surface to the floor with a loud slap. Something slammed against the bed’s undercarriage and then darted out, dark and low, across the room.
Scrambling onto her knees on the narrow mattress, Paige bit back a shriek. Was that a freaking rat? Grabbing the lamp, she angled it down to illuminate the painted floor. Various hiding places existed: under the dresser, behind the small stove and refrigerator in the kitchenette, back under the bed, the bathroom. Paige chewed her lower lip as she considered the animal’s likely route. She had no choice but to go looking for it.
And when she found the darned thing? Paige leapt off the mattress in the door’s direction. Landing at a run, she flew toward the handle and yanked the door open. With any luck, she could chase the animal out.
Paige pawed through her purse for the small LED flashlight she kept. Once found, she clicked on a focused beam and began a cautious search in all the places she’d envisioned a rat hiding. Finding no success in the main room, she walked