the inn along with these picturesque little guest cottages on Silver Beach.
In his defense, he had no idea she actually lived in one herself, though. If he had ever heard that little fact, he had forgotten it. Should he have remembered, he would have looked a little harder for a short-term rental property, rather than picking the most convenient lakeshore unit he had found in his web search.
Usually, Elliot did his best to avoid her. Megan always left him...unsettled. It had been that way for ages, since long before he learned she and his younger brother had started dating.
He could still remember his shock when he came home for some event or other and saw her and Wyatt together. As in, together, together. Holding hands, sneaking the occasional kiss, giving each other secret smiles. Elliot had felt as if Wyatt had peppered him with buckshot.
He had tried to be happy for his younger brother, one of the most generous, helpful, loving people he’d ever known. Wyatt had been a genuinely good person and deserved to be happy with someone special.
Elliot had felt small and selfish for wishing that someone hadn’t been Megan Hamilton.
Watching their glowing happiness together had been tough. He mostly had managed to stay away for the four or five months they had been dating, though he tried to convince himself it hadn’t been on purpose. Work had been demanding and he had been busy carving out his place in the Bureau. He had also started the research that would become his first book, looking into a long-forgotten Montana case from a century earlier where a man had wooed, then married, then killed three spinster schoolteachers from New England for their life insurance money before finally being apprehended by a savvy local sheriff and the sister of one of the dead women.
The few times Elliot returned home during the time Megan had been dating his brother, he had been forced to endure family gatherings knowing she would be there, upsetting his equilibrium and stealing any peace he usually found here.
He couldn’t let her do it to him this time.
Her porch light switched off a moment later and Elliot finally breathed a sigh of relief.
He would only be here three weeks. Twenty-one days. Despite the proximity of his cabin to hers, he likely wouldn’t even see her much, other than at Katrina’s reception.
She would be busy with the inn, with her photography, with her wide circle of friends, while he should be focused on finishing his manuscript and allowing his shoulder to heal—not to mention figuring out whether he would still have a career at the end of that time.
LATE-SPRING MORNINGS on Lake Haven were the very definition of heaven on earth.
Megan stood outside the three-story inn inhaling the most perfect combination of scents she could imagine. Freshly turned earth, lilac shrubs and silver-green lavender plants, still several weeks away from blooming but still sending out their luscious aroma from the greenery alone.
If she could bottle that scent, she would make a fortune.
Late spring or not, the early hours before the sun climbed the top of the mountains were still cool. She wore her favorite sweatshirt as she worked on the flower beds around the entrance to the inn. Even in July and August, visitors invariably needed sweaters and jackets in the mornings and evenings, especially at this altitude. Still, the possibility of warmer days was just around the corner.
She had about a million and one things to do this morning but couldn’t resist standing here a little longer so she could embrace this particular moment that would never come again.
Lately, Megan had tried to make a conscious effort to focus on living in the moment, savoring the joy of the now instead of worrying about that to-do list or about the latest crisis among her staff or guests or about the photography exhibit that consumed every waking moment.
To that end, she lifted her face to the sunshine, trying to focus on the warmth on her skin, the music of birds greeting the day in the treetops around the inn, the fragile perfection of a May morning on the shores of a stunning mountain lake.
“You look like you’re either trying to pass a kidney stone or solve the world’s problems. Which is it?”
Megan tried not to sigh as the familiar voice intruded into her moment.
“Good morning, Verla,” she greeted the longtime head housekeeper at the inn, who had been with them for years.
Verla McCracken was in her early seventies but refused to retire. During the year the inn shut its doors to rebuild after a disastrous fire, Verla had busied herself traveling the region and visiting with her grandchildren, but had begged for her job back the moment the inn was ready to reopen.
She was thin and wiry and could probably bench-press a camel.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Megan said conversationally, turning back to the weeding.
“Sure is. The kind of day that makes me want to jump into the lake in my skivvies.”
She did not need that image in her head. Before she could scrub it clean, Verla went on.
“I saw a car parked at Cedarwood Cottage. Our favorite author must have turned up in the night. Should I add the cottage to the cleaning schedule?” Verla asked eagerly.
Though Megan didn’t think she and the other woman had all that many things in common, they both, oddly, found Elliot’s books fascinating. Unlike Megan, Verla had been thrilled that Elliot had decided to make the Silver Beach cottage his temporary home for a few weeks.
Almost against her will, Megan looked past the line of pine and spruce toward Elliot’s place. He wasn’t anywhere in sight, and she couldn’t immediately ascertain whether that feeling in her chest was relief or disappointment.
“I don’t know. His rental contract only calls for twice-weekly housekeeping service, but I can ask if he would like that expanded to daily service.”
“Have you talked to him yet?”
Megan tried not to think about that strange, awkward interaction in the moonlight—or about the bizarre, heated dreams that had kept her tossing and turning all night.
She needed a social life.
“Briefly. He came in last night just before I went to bed.”
“He still as hot as ever?”
Ew. Verla was old enough to be Elliot’s grandmother.
“I can’t say I really noticed,” she lied. “He’s a guest here. That’s all that matters.”
Verla snorted, clearly not impressed by Megan’s somewhat pious response.
As if on cue, Elliot chose that particular moment to come jogging into view along the pathway around the lake. He wore shorts and an FBI T-shirt that clearly showed the man had serious muscles and was, indeed, as hot as ever. He ran with an odd, stiff sort of gait and it took her a moment to realize the cause was likely because his shoulder was still in a sling and he was bracing it somewhat as he moved.
What
