Chapter 14
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My saintly hands mustn’t touch broad, bare male back.
August
“This is…something,” Dominic murmurs, occupying my kitchen as he prepares food for our picnic this afternoon.
Perhaps overeager, I’m already ready to go. Bag packed with my towel and sunscreen. Sun hat atop my head. Sunflower-scattered sundress swishing around my ankles, over my bathing suit.
And. Of course. Red skein of yarn in hand.
Though that’s more for the interim, not for the going.
Dominic washes a selection of berries in the kitchen. “How long have you been up?”
“Since a regular time. I’ve been working on all this since book club on Thursday, though.
I just ran out of room in my room, so I had to move it out here.
” It, of course, is an array of cork boards, pictures, note cards, and yarn.
Propped on an easel is my thinking whiteboard, which has all my questions scattered across it.
Questions like:
Does Dominic know me from before that moment at Bear’s?
And, if he does, who would he possibly be?
I don’t recognize him, so that narrows my speculations significantly.
I don’t know that many people. I’ve never known that many people.
He could be someone inconsequential from my school days.
If he really were considered dull or boring growing up, it’s unlikely I’d have paid him any mind, yet I’ve already reviewed my yearbooks, and no one remotely fits.
This second question does of course rest in the assumption that the answer to the first is, yes, he does know me from before that moment at Bear’s, which I have no supporting data for. Any assumptions in a mystery can prove fatal as they run the risk of bending reality to suit them.
I need to return to the facts.
My brother is in on this. That’s a fact.
But, like with all other facts thus far, it does little but breed more questions.
Have they known each other for longer than I realize?
Do I remotely believe there’s any hope that confronting Wynnter will bear anything akin to results? Wynnter is dry, guarded, and brusque. If he doesn’t want me to know something, he’ll lock it up tight, arch an eyebrow, and stare.
If Mirabelle knows anything, she would crack, but I’m not keen on bullying her into breaking her promise, and I’m also not convinced she knows enough to make the bad karma worth it.
Beth…
Beth’s an option.
She’s the least connected player as far as I can tell, so what she knows might be just enough to propel the plot forward without completely ruining my fun.
“Oh dear,” Dominic murmurs, tugging my attention off my tangled web.
I suspect some culinary disaster to greet me when I find him beyond the bar counter, but instead he’s just smiling tenderly my way.
“What?” I ask.
“You’ve come up with something villainous, haven’t you?”
I scoff and cross my arms. “Excuse you. I’m a saint.”
“Mmhm.” He lowers his gaze back to whatever he’s working on. “A little saint, playing amid her murderboards.”
“There hasn’t been a murder, so these can’t be murderboards.” I roll my eyes back to my data. The facts. The speculations I need to find proof for or disregard.
My heart flutters at the sight.
This is…so much fun.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve had this much fun.
“Did you and Wynn set a bed on fire?” I ask. “Like. Intentionally?”
“Nothing like a little bonding arson with my future brother-in-law, right?”
Yes, then.
My goodness.
Dominic is crazy. Crazy like me. Crazy like my family. Crazy, crazy, crazy.
I continue, “And is there a possibility that you paid for the replacement, even though that old guest bed was a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down, and it’s entirely possible someone died in it?”
“Well, to be sure I wasn’t supplied any specific details of that nature… Ironic, though, isn’t it? For someone to have died in the bed that had to die for me to wind up sleeping in a casket?”
“That’s not an answer to my question. The mattress December picked was five thousand dollars.”
“Pocket change for an ancient evil like myself, I’m sure.”
A few nights ago, I reviewed my perfect male lead binder after bringing it home from book club and getting dinner started. While it’s true December dreadfully meddled with many parts of it, the financial security trope was purely my doing.
Dominic might have money.
Which begs a question I don’t usually bother with, considering it’s small talk that feels somewhat invasive, but I say, “Dominic, what do you do for a living?”
“Drink blood.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be so easy.
It wouldn’t be fun at all if it were so easy, though.
“I mean, what schemes have resulted in your amassing of such monumental wealth? You do live in a castle, after all. A castle shrouded in glamour and dark forests. How did you afford the land?”
“It sounds like magic afforded me the land, does it not?”
I suppose. But that solution feels much too cheap.
I come out and say it. “Are you rich?”
“What is rich?”
“Could you afford a yacht?”
“Who says I don’t have several?”
“Boat maintenance is stupid expensive, even for vessels on the smaller side. I wouldn’t mind having jet skis to bring to the lake, though. Are you jet ski rich?”
“Jet skis are comparable in price to many low- and mid-tier boat options.”
Wow.
Only a rich person would know that, I’m sure. Or…is that just boy knowledge? At one point or another, most boys probably look up the cost of boats and motorcycles and trucks. Don’t they?
I’m getting stuck in assumptions again; I need proof.
So I text my brother.
Me: How much does a boat cost?
A minute passes, and he sends me a web browser screenshot with the answer.
Right. I forgot. My brother is useless. He’s a humble jack of all trades, and he will inevitably find the easiest and quickest solution to anything, especially questions I could feasibly google myself.
Blinking, I glance upward and see the hat I’m wearing. The hat Dominic bought me to go with that fancy Ralph Lauren dress.
A couple hundred dollars…isn’t proof of anything.
I emptied my savings on a casket with very little prompting, and I’m not anywhere close to wealthy.
Anyone with a credit card could manage what he has thus far.
Besides, what if he is wealthy? That would complicate things, because why in the world would someone rich want or have anything to do with me? How would our paths have crossed?
Rubbing my face, I sag.
“Exhausting yourself yet?” he asks.
I mutter, “Being a detective is harder when I’m not being controlled by an all-knowing author and being led through a handful of clues toward the correct solutions…”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” He leaves the kitchen and offers me a slip of warm sugar-and-cinnamon-coated dough. “Snack?”
My brow arches. “Are you…baking something?”
He nibbles his own piece, murmuring around it, “Such a thing might be deduced.”
“What are you baking?”
“Dragon fruit pie.”
I blink. “Dragon…fruit…pie?”
“With an assortment of other berries.” He finishes his scrap of crust trimmings. “It’s a very summer taste. For my very summer girl.” He blips the floppy rim of my sun hat and regards me coolly. “I wonder…” His gaze trails to my neck. “…if you taste like summer, too.”
Heat scores my cheeks as I stuff the treat in my mouth, grab a note card, and scribble RICH onto it before slapping it to my corkboard with a pin. “Ain’t no middle classer buying dragon fruit for a pie,” I state—basically Sherlock Holmes.
He chokes back a laugh. “Well. Of all the things to out me.”
My attention piques. “Is that a confirmation?”
“I wonder.”
“If you’re rich, are you going to start introducing obnoxious displays of wealth into this story?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe if you give me a corrected binder, that hasn’t been tampered with, I’ll consider whatever it says and make it happen.”
A…corrected binder? Full of all my actual heart’s desires? To give to a man who has proven more than pliable where it concerns the fulfillment of my wishes?
What a tempting idea.
“Also,” he says while I’m still trying to run the pros and cons on his previous statement, “just so I can adjust my expectations for this afternoon, I assume slathering each other in sunscreen was a December trope?”
I shudder. “Well, obv…” I stop. I think. I consider. My head tilts as I peer at Dominic’s body, attempting to take in the things his clothing hides. Do I want an excuse to touch him without a lascivious pretext? Would covering him in sunscreen be lascivious?
Yeah, probably. Definitely, rather. There’s no way it wouldn’t be.
And…yet…
I lift my finger and twirl it. “Turn around.”
He obliges, silently, and my breath catches as I behold his back.
Broad, broad, broad.
It’s only going to be the two of us together at the lake today. No one else could possibly assist in our sun protection. We either swim in t-shirts…burn…or participate in improper acts of touchy-feely.
“What are you thinking, my sweet little lotus blossom?” he asks.
Blowing out a breath, I say, “Option A. T-shirts.”