“I don’t know.” Piper shook her head. “Have you ever considered the possibility that she might want the opposite lifestyle? She’s new here. Maybe she’s shy. It’s really hard on teenagers moving to a new place and school.”
“She’s been here two years. Even the biggest wallflower in the world would have made a friend or two after all that time. Remember, she liked to party. No one does that alone.”
Since she hadn’t actually met his niece, Piper figured he’d be more equipped to know. “Okay. Did you talk to her school? The teachers, her guidance counselor, anyone like that?”
“Yes.” Cord’s expression might have been carved from stone. “Most of them barely remembered her. Except the art teacher. That woman couldn’t stop talking about how talented Renee is.”
“Art?” Now they were getting somewhere. Most likely, Renee had used her art to help her cope with her loneliness, the same way Piper did with her refinishing old furniture. “What kind of art? Does she paint or sculpt or...?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. But the art teacher seemed surprised to hear she’d run away. She said before graduation, she and Renee had been looking at art schools so Renee could apply.”
“Did she? Apply to any schools?” Though Piper had often been accused of wearing rose-colored glasses, she felt a strange sort of kinship with this girl, despite never meeting her.
“Again, I don’t know.” A slight edge had crept into his voice, as if he realized this was the sort of information he should have been privy to.
She didn’t know him well enough to take him to task for his lack of knowledge about someone he’d shared his home with for twenty-four months.
* * *
Cord knew what Piper thought. Truth be told, he couldn’t actually blame her. He’d done a crappy job of trying to raise Renee for the past two years. Part of that was due to his complete and utter unpreparedness and lack of experience.
The other part, the one he had trouble admitting even to himself, was from the instant he’d met the troubled sixteen-year-old, she’d reminded him of his sister, Denice. If Renee went down the same path as Denice had, Cord knew it would kill him.
He’d tried. By all that was holy, he’d tried. Every mistake he’d made—and there’d been plenty—he’d tried to rectify.
While he knew Piper wasn’t judging him, hearing his own answers to her innocuous questions had made him inwardly cringe.
“Let’s focus on you now,” he said, aware changing the subject wouldn’t make his errors go away. “You say you were framed?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have many enemies?”
Startled, she considered. “I never thought about that before. It’s possible. I do tend to be outspoken about what I feel is right. Not everyone agrees with me.”
“Let’s narrow that down. Anyone get angry with you recently?”
“Fowler and Marceline, but that’s nothing unusual, I can barely breathe without annoying one or the other, Marceline especially. She likes to harp on the fact that I’m not a real Colton.” She spoke matter-of-factly, simply because that’s the way it had always been for as long as she could remember.
“I remember,” he said, his expression inscrutable. “She did that even when we were all kids. What I never could figure out is why. It’s not like she was born a Colton, either.”
Secretly pleased, Piper looked down at her hands to hide her smile. “Yeah, the logic she used never failed to amaze me.”
“Anyone else?” he pressed. “Figuring out who tried to frame you would be a step in making sure you’re acquitted.”
“I’ll think about it and make you a list.” Though she’d only been half-serious, he nodded.
“You do that. Knowing who to investigate will put us that much closer to finding out who’s trying to frame you.”
The simple statement, made in such a matter-of-fact tone, floored her. Probably because after Fowler and Marceline’s accusations, the idea that this man, whom she barely knew, actually believed her, made her feel weepy and joyful all at once.
“Thank you,” she told him. “I’ll get busy on that right away.”
“Here.” Handing her a pad of paper and a pen, he smiled. The masculine sensuality of that smile made her heart skip. “While you do that, I’ve got some chores to complete.”
“It shouldn’t take too long. I don’t think I have too many enemies.”
He laughed. “Once you get to thinking about it, it might surprise you.”
And he left. Leaving her staring at a blank piece of paper trying to figure out who might hate her enough to frame her.
* * *
Piper Colton had no idea of the power of her own beauty, Cord thought as he trudged out to the barn. He’d known other beautiful women before and without exception, every move, every smile or glance, had been carefully and artfully calculated to show their attributes off to the best advantage. Piper, on the other hand, appeared genuine. Sweet and kind. And sexy as hell.
He considered himself lucky he had chores to keep his mind off where it didn’t belong.
The wind had shifted to the north, bringing a chill. He brought the horses into the barn first, making sure they were snug in their stalls. Then he rounded up his goats and put them all in one stall. After they’d all been fed, he refilled the watering troughs and left them bunkered down.
Before heading in, he grabbed a bundle of firewood to take inside with him.
Piper sat where he’d left her, legs tucked up under her, pad and pen in hand.
“No luck so far,” she announced, then eyed him. “What do you have there?”
“A cold front is coming in. They’re predicting the first freeze of the season,” he said, dropping his load on the brick hearth. He went outside for one more. She watched him as he placed his load in the small stack.
“Are we going to have a fire?”
He had to grin at the hint of excitement in her voice. “Sure, why not? The forecast says it’ll drop down to around 25 degrees. Definitely fire-in-the-fireplace weather.”
She grinned back. “Can you light it now?”
Momentarily captivated by the way her smile lit up her heart-shaped face, it took him a second to formulate a single-word answer. “Sure.”
Once he had a nice blaze going, he straightened. The orange glow from the fire bathed the entire room—and Piper—in a warm, mellow light.
He was suddenly aware of exactly how cozy—or to borrow her word from before, intimate—a simple thing as a fire on a cold winter’s night could be.
Only if he let it.
“Now, the only thing that could make this more perfect would be a cup of hot cocoa,” she sighed. When she wrinkled her nose at him, he knew he was in trouble.
“I bet I have some instant cocoa somewhere,” he managed. “Let me go see.” And he beat a hasty retreat from the room.
Once in the brightly lit (and non-cozy) kitchen, he gulped in air. What the hell? It wasn’t like he’d never had a woman over his house before. He’d had more than a few girlfriends here since he’d bought the place. Just none of them had ever affected him the way Piper did.
Which