Page 68 of Deep Tide

“Hi.” She set down her piping bag. “What brings you here?”

“Just dropping by.”

Siena was watching them with a curious smile.

“Siena, did you meet Sean at Joel’s wedding?”

“I did not.” She turned to him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sean.”

“Likewise.”

“Well, I’m all done out there.” She grinned at Leyla. “See you in the morning, Ley.”

Siena vanished, leaving Leyla alone in her kitchen with the one man she’d ever known who could turn her knees to Jell-O with a single kiss.

He stepped over to the counter. “Damn, that’s a lot of roses,” he said.

“I’m about halfway done,” she said. “And they’re cherry blossoms.”

He tipped his head. “Okay. I see it now. We get those in D.C. every spring. They have a festival on the Mall.”

“Yes, I know.” She smiled. “This bride is from Virginia, so this is her theme.”

He glanced at the five-tier cake in the refrigerated display case behind her. Leyla had frosted it with buttercream earlier. “So, these go on the wedding cake?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Mind if I watch?”

A little tingle went through her. “Not at all.”

She picked up a flower nail and secured a square of parchment to it with a dab of icing. Then she started a new flower, glad for something to do with her hands. She piped each petal, rotating the nail as she worked.

“I saw that I missed your call earlier,” Sean said.

“Yep.” She added the new blossom to the baking sheet. Each flower had five petals made of pale pink icing, so five hundred petals for the entire cake. It was completely over the top, but so was this bride.

She glanced up, and Sean was leaning against the counter, watching her.

“You didn’t leave a message,” he said.

“Yeah. No, I wanted to talk to you in person.”

She set her bag down and grabbed a towel.

“Everything okay?” he asked, looking worried.

“It has to do with the investigation, so I didn’t want to leave it in a message.”

He looked guarded now.

“You’ve asked me several times whether Amelia had a boyfriend. I gathered it wasn’t just a casual question, so I did some digging.”

His eyebrows tipped up.

“I chatted with one of my baristas this afternoon—a girl who had a lot of overlap with Amelia’s schedule. I asked some questions about boyfriends, and she mentioned something I thought you’d find interesting.” She set the towel down and rested her hand on her hip. “Amelia didn’t have a boyfriend per se in the last year or so, but this spring she went on a couple of dates with a guy from Seattle.”

Interest sparked in Sean’s eyes. “Who?”

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