His Brother's Bride

Chances were someone had seen William Byrd the day before, or at least seen the unfamiliar BMW driving through town. Cooper’s Corner wasn’t that big. A nice car like Byrd’s rental was bound to have been noticed.

Focusing on business took Scott as far as the end of Twin Oaks’s drive. He’d filed all of the current clues in his mind and was in a holding pattern until h

e had something more to assimilate. As it was, speculation could lead him in very different directions and he didn’t want to be heading the wrong way when the right clue came in. That was how detectives didn’t solve cases.

But without the diversion of the case, he had only Laurel to think about. Just having her in the Blazer with him, inhaling that hint of lilacs, created an ache he’d spent the past three and a half years trying to avoid.

“It’s great to see you again.” The words broke free of the restraints he’d put on them, but Scott wasn’t surprised. He was the most self-controlled person he knew—until he was with Laurel London.

It had always been that way, and he hated it. Hated himself for it. He’d spent many fruitless hours trying to figure out why one person, and one person only, in the entire universe could do this to him.

She glanced over at him and smiled. “It’s good to see you, too.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“Oh, it’s nothing against you, Scott, it’s just...”

“I know.”

Sitting there next to him, she had to be aching far more than he was. While the woman he loved was right beside him, still bringing him a measure of exquisite pleasure, the man she loved was dead, gone from her forever.

Because of him.

He’d bet his life she wouldn’t be finding it good to see him again if she knew that.

“Remember that exposé you did about the foster-care system back in high school?” he asked. It seemed prudent to remind himself of the not-so-warm feelings she’d had for him at one time.

“You mean the one you found in my notebook and submitted to the school newspaper without my permission?” she asked, her voice filled with the feistiness that only those closest to her ever witnessed.

“It was damn good,” he said. “Too good to go the way of everything else you wrote.” He jumped right into his side of the familiar argument, feeling more in control by the second.

It was an argument that had never been resolved. And if history was at all reliable, it could easily occupy the few minutes it was going to take to get them to Cooper’s General Store.

“It was highly personal, not meant to be seen by anyone but Paul.”

“It’s not my fault he left it out. My dad read it, too.”

“But he didn’t steal it.”

“I didn’t steal it,” Scott said defensively. “I borrowed it. Your insights were too intensely on the mark to be wasted. People needed to hear what you had to say, not only for your sake, but for all of the other kids who were being shuffled around like you’d been.”

“And that was reason enough to plaster my innermost feelings all over the state without even so much as asking me first?”

“I didn’t plaster them all over the state. I had nothing to do with that,” Scott said, relaxing as the old adrenaline pumped through him. Town was right head. He could see the weathered bronze statue of the Revolutionary War soldier standing guard in the village green, his rifle and bayonet held proudly upright. “I can’t help the fact that Warren Cooper picked up the article.”

“Or that someone sent it to the Boston Globe, too?”

“It wasn’t me,” he told her for the hundredth time.

“I don’t believe you.”

“And I don’t know how to convince you. But I didn’t do it.”

“Who do you think did?”

His gaze shot over to her. It wasn’t a question she’d ever asked before. Did that mean she was actually starting to believe him on this? It had been the only time in their entire eighteen-year history that she hadn’t believed him about something. And this wasn’t the one time he’d lied to her.

He couldn’t let the fact that she was softening mean anything.