Page 45 of Half the Summer's Night

“Well, when you—helpedme.” She stresses the word. “When you, ah,cleaned upafterward, I thought you were going to—” The glass shakes, making the ice clink. “Take it to the dump? Get rid of the trash completely? But instead you?—”

“I told you, there’s no one here but us.” I clear the space between us so that I’m close enough that I could touch her, if I wanted. Abi gazes up at me, her breath shuddery and soft. She’s afraid, yes. But she’s notonlyafraid.

I wrap my hand around hers and move to set her drink down on the railing. She doesn’t fight me, and I’m glad, because it was mostly an excuse to touch her, and I keep my hand draped over hers as I speak.

“You’re asking why I let the body be found,” I say softly.

Abi sucks in a breath. Then she nods.

I draw my hand up her arm—slowly, cautiously. If she told me to stop, I would. But she doesn’t, not even when she glances down at my gloved hand and bites her lip.

I tuck my fingers beneath her chin and make her look at my killing face again.

“There was an investigation, wasn’t there? Were you asked to autopsy the body?”

“Yes.” Abi breathes out the word like a sigh. She glances out at the darkness again, then says, “And I—I had to fake my report so they wouldn’t?—”

“Good girl.” I slide my hand around to the side of her neck. Even though the leather of my gloves I can feel her pulsefluttering. My cock throbs, stiffening even further. “That’s what I wanted you to do. A test, like I said.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” she says tightly. “If his tox report came back clean, they would have known something was wrong.”

“But it didn’t come back clean.” I stroke along her neck, wishing desperately that I could kiss her again. I refrain, though. “Did they find a name?”

“I found a name,” Abi says stiffly. “His fingerprints were in the system.”

I sense a shift in her emotions then, a flash of anger like a sun flare.

“And?”

“Julian Bernet.”

The name feels anticlimactic. I thought I wanted to know who tried to hurt her, and I do. But the name doesn’t actually tell me that, I realize. I’ve never heard it before.

“Who is he?” I ask.

“I don’t know.” Abi picks up her alcohol, but I stop her before she can take a drink. I want her clear-headed.

“Why do you keep doing that?” she asks me darkly.

I pull the drink away from her. “So when I ask if I can touch you, I’ll know your answer is honest.”

It comes out before I can stop it, something I would never say as Rowan Hanover. But it has an immediate effect on Abi; her body flushes, her lemony orchid scent deepens.

“Why do you want to touch me?” she whispers.

“I told you before,” I say. “You’re beautiful.”

Then I tilt the drink on its side so the alcohol pours into the morning glory twining around the porch lattice.

“But first,” I say. “Tell me about this Julian Bernet.”

Abi gapes up at me, stunned like a deer. Then she blinks and sputters out, “I don’t—he was arrested for breaking and enteringa few years back. That’s why he was in the system. Didn’t serve time. I—” Her voice tightens again. “I spent hours trying to find out more about him,” she whispers. “He’s not from here. He was born in Montana and lived along the West Coast for a while. I don’t understand what he has todowith any of this.”

I cup her cheek in my hand and tilt her face up toward me again.

“Some people are just killers,” I tell her. “Maybe it was random.”

“He was coming after me,” Abi says darkly. “Olivia Pearce, then me? That’s not random.” She hesitates, staring up at my killing face. I can feel something opening up inside her. “Olivia Pearce helped me with something when I was younger,” she says softly. “She helped keep me from going to jail.”