His Brother's Bride

“I don’t know what to think.” He was really bothered by Dennis’s absence on top of everything else. He was missing something vital. Something that would make sense out of all four players together. Why had William and Cecilia gone to visit Leslie? He just couldn’t get that to make sense.

Scott’s gut tightened. “What hunches are we the most sure about?”

Laurel glanced up. She hadn’t looked him in the eye all morning. “Cecilia is most likely Leslie’s mother.”

“Right.”

“William was using that knowledge to blackmail her for his half of the company.”

Scott thought about that possibility. “I’ll go with that.”

“Dennis is dating Leslie.”

Was this what they’d left themselves with? Scott wondered. Business talk over cups of coffee with no personal connection at all. Nothing like the intimate conversation they’d had the morning before.

“And Cecilia didn’t let her assistant know that her brother was out of jail,” he said, deciding to leave his bagel. He’d only ordered it out of habit. “I wonder if that means she didn’t know?”

“I wondered that, too,” Laurel said. “But it doesn’t make much sense, does it? He knows she’d help him, and when would he need it more than after ten years of being locked up?”

Scott didn’t have the answer to that.

“Maybe they’re all just having some weird family reunion,” Laurel said, wiping her mouth one last time before throwing down her napkin.

“You ready?” He was tired of sitting there. Tired of watching that damn hand holding the napkin. Taking the bagel to her lips. Wrapping itself around her coffee cup.

And tired of knowing that William Byrd and Cecilia Hamilton were out in the world someplace, most likely needing help that they weren’t getting.

* * *

TALK OF THE CASE didn’t LAST them very long once they were on the road. Laurel tried to get Scott to talk to her about other things. The towns they were passing. The changes she’d noticed in Cooper’s Corner. She’d turned so she was facing him again—not that it did her much good.

He wasn’t looking at her. Laurel knew she was going to have to do something about that. She just didn’t know what.

Staring out the window at the village off to their right, she wondered what it would be like to live there. She thought of the mothers in those houses baking cookies, playing games with their children. Gardening.

“Are you angry with me?” she asked.

“No.”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly,” he replied, staring straight ahead. “I’m not the least bit angry with you,” he said, emphasizing on that last word.

“Who are you angry with?”

“Nobody. Myself, maybe.”

“What have you done to be angry at yourself?”

He shifted, lifting his foot from the gas pedal as he did so. Laurel’s eye was drawn to the movement, to the muscled thigh closest to her.

“I’m not angry.”

“Then why do you sound that way?”

Scott sighed and shook his head. “Now’s not the time.”

If she’d thought it would do any good, she’d have continued badgering him until he was truthful with her. Instead she let the subject drop, promising herself she’d pursue it again later. Hopefully they’d have time to talk that night.