“It isn’t,” she replied all too calmly in a voice that was melodic yet husky with emotion.
Luke fought the urge to roll his eyes, and kept his face bland as he edged closer and took a closer look, certain she was mistaken but willing to humour her for now.
“Shit,” he swore when he realised that she was right. It wasn’t just a shirt. A fleeting glimpse of the back of the dead man’s head, together with a pale flash of a cheek in the water, made him close his eyes in a desperate attempt to prevent a second, more virulent curse.
“You are seriously not having a very good day are you?” he murmured.
He wasn’t averse to seeing, and manhandling, the deceased. He had seen many a good soldier cut down on the battlefields during the war, but he really wished that he wasn’t the one to have to deal with this one. Not when he had work to do to try to locate the pick-pockets who had been right under his nose. Unfortunately, there was nobody else around who could help her deal with this, and he couldn’t leave her just in case she ran away. It was clear from her all too pale cheeks, the trembling in her fingers, and the horror in her eyes that she was terrified and would be next to useless in getting the body out of the river on her own, even if she did summon the courage to try. He suspected that if anything were to frighten her, she would vanish in an instant. If he was stupid enough to try to stop her, she would start to scream like a banshee again and become hysterical to the point that he was forced to do something rash; like kiss her to shut her up. He eyed the luscious curve of her lips and quickly turned away.
“Who is it?” she whispered when she could find her voice. She watched the man search the river for something and wondered what he was looking for because the body was right before them.
Luke shook his head and glared at her. “How should I know?” he snapped. “You seem to be the one who attracts the criminal element around here. You tell me.”
“I have never seen him before in my life. I was just standing here waiting,” she retorted, but then quickly shut up when she realised she couldn’t explain to him why she had been waiting, or who for. It irked her to realise that she didn’t even have a name for the man she was supposed to meet; assuming it was even a man. That thought made her fro
wn, and she quickly set it aside to think about later.
“For who?” Luke landed a glare on her that pinned her to the spot. He hoped that by startling her she would answer before she thought to caution her words. To his consternation, she hesitated for a fraction of a second before she replied far too carefully to be believed.
“For you to come back,” she lied. She mentally apologised for her untruth and struggled to keep guilt from her face as she stared at the handsome stranger as innocently as she could. “He floated down from there,” she added in a desperate attempt to turn the focus of his attention off herself. She mentally winced when she realised how dense she had just sounded. The river only flowed one way. Of course the body would float toward her. It couldn’t float upstream. The man must think her a total imbecile.
“I didn’t see him at first and was about to turn away when I saw the flash of his shirt in the water. He is dead, isn’t he?”
Of course he is. She mentally winced as she watched him roll his eyes. Her annoyance at herself, at him, at this entire situation grew when she witnessed his patronising demeanour. All right, so the man in the river was clearly dead but the handsome stranger didn’t need to be rude about it. Still, she tried hard not to antagonise him right now because she needed his help to decide on the best course of action to take.
“I am sorry. I know I am babbling nonsense but this has just thrown me,” she whispered. “The last thing you expect on a trip to the park is to have a corpse on your hands.”
Rather than answer, Luke studied the riverbank. There was no sign of drag marks which led him to think she was being honest with him about this at least. Although he had questions for her, he set them aside for now so he could focus on getting the body onto dry land. The investigator in him was busy scouring the area for signs of a struggle, or any clues as to where the man came from, or where he entered the water. He was so engrossed in his work he practically ignored her for several long minutes.
“You used that to haul him toward you?” He asked with a nod toward the stick she still held.
She nodded hesitantly and looked cautiously at it.
“May I?” he asked holding his hand out.
“Pardon?” Poppy asked blankly; strangely unable to tear her gaze away from the body in the river.
“Give me that stick,” Luke demanded firmly. He knew she was scared by what she had just found. The distress was barely veiled in those emotion-filled eyes, but he needed her to stay calm for him. His morning had been bad enough as it was. The last thing he wanted was a weeping female on his hands as well as a corpse. “Just give me the stick, please.”
Poppy stared down at the stick in her hand as though she had no idea where it had come from. It took her a moment to gather her senses enough to register what he said. When she did, she gave a physical jerk and practically threw it in his direction.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, praying desperately that he didn’t intend to turn the man over. “You don’t intend to drag him out, do you?”
Luke swore beneath his breath and glared at her. “Well, I don’t think that leaving him where he is will do anyone any good, do you?”
She scowled at the impatience in his voice. “No, but shouldn’t we fetch a magistrate or something?”
“Not until we get him out,” Luke bit out. He didn’t say anything to her but wanted to search the body before the magistrate did.
Poppy wasn’t prepared to give up though. There was something disturbing about the fact that the stranger didn’t seem inclined to summon help. She studied him closely while she tried to decide whether she should trust him after all. Now that she came to think about it, he didn’t appear to be all that shocked to find a dead body in the park. She was a quivering wreck whereas he was calm and controlled as though it was an everyday run-of-the-mill discovery.
“What if we pull him out and someone comes along?” Did he realise just how bad it would look for both of them? If he did it didn’t seem to bother him.
Luke’s patience was starting to dwindle rapidly. “Well, they can go for the magistrate for us then, can’t they?”
He sighed. It wasn’t her he was really annoyed with. Well, not just her. It was more the attraction he felt toward her; attraction that he was struggling to ignore enough to be able to focus on the dead man she had allegedly just found. For some reason he daren’t consider too closely, the thought of her being involved in the dead man’s demise made him want to hit something.
Focus on the body, a stern voice reminded him. He forced himself to turn away.