Page 16 of Lost in the Moonlight

I hesitated for a beat too long, and it was clear to everyone I didn’t want to say. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed exactly about my visits to the cemetery, but I also understood it wasn’t a normal hobby. After we’d buried my dad, I’d become fascinated, maybe even slightly obsessed, with the wording on the tombstones. That had turned into an interest in the artistry of them and then into a desire to make sure the people there were remembered in some way. That their life had meaning. The gravesites without flowers were the ones I gravitated to the most. Names I looked up on the internet. Lives I tried to imagine. A whisper in the dark that said,“You weren’t forgotten.”

“I was on my way to work,” I finally said.

“He was on your street? Stalking you?” This hadn’t calmed Hector down the way I’d thought it would. He twisted away from me, heading for the old-school landline hanging on the wall near the cappuccino maker. “That’s it. I’m calling Dexter.”

“Hector, please!” I begged, and maybe it was the unusual desperation in my voice that made him stop. “I can’t talk to Detective Muloney. It needs to be forgotten.”

Even though the Marshals pretty much left us on our own now that we weren’t in active protection, if a police report was filed, it might flag in their system, and they might scurry back into our lives. They might make us move all over again. I didn’t think Mom would make it through another recreation of our lives. The first one had taken almost everything she had. It wasn’t just losing Dad. It was the fact she’d lost everything. Everything but me. And even though we’d had each other, neither of us had been the same for a really long time.

I couldn’t do that to her again. And I was happy baking. If we were relocated, would they make me give up my career likethey’d made Mom give up her nursing? Would I ever be able to bake professionally again without fear that it would tie back to this version of me who’d lived to bake? That thought nearly stole my breath. It was scarier than being caught in Poco’s grip. A cold sweat broke out along my neck.

Still, I forced a smile, knowing from experience if I kept it long enough, I’d actually feel it, while I underplayed the events of this morning. “It was nothing, really. Lincoln didn’t hear the entire conversation. Everything is fine.”

Lincoln stepped up to the counter, and when I risked looking at him, anger had returned to his eyes. The same anger I’d seen when he’d stepped up to defend me, but I couldn’t help it. I shook my head at him, pleading with him in a different way than I was with Hector.

A timer went off in the kitchen—the second batch of the Mexican brownie scones ready.

Hector looked from my forced cheerfulness to Lincoln’s glowering face, and his hand dropped away from the phone. “I don’t want you alone with him ever again. If he comes into the shop, and you’re at the counter by yourself, I want you to get me or Shay or whoever else is here.”

“Deal,” I said quietly.

“I’ll get the timer,” he said, tilting his head toward Lincoln. “You get him one of those scones he was waiting for. It’s on the house. I won’t take money from someone who defended you.”

Then, he disappeared behind the swinging door, and I turned back to the display case with a mix of emotions flowing through me. Frustration that Lincoln had inserted himself into this. Panic at the thought of the Marshals getting involved. Warmth from Hector’s protective love. And over the top of itall, that heated zing of attraction as Lincoln’s eyes watched me putting a scone into a paper bag.

Had I really thought this spark would disappear if we met again simply because a counter was between us? Did this kind of lure ever go away? I wouldn’t know because I hadn’t had enough experience with it. But the attraction I felt didn’t change the impossibility of chasing it. Didn’t change my aggravation at Lincoln telling Hector about this morning. I hadn’t even been sure I’d tell Mom, and I told her practically everything—I mean, as long as it didn’t threaten her safety or send her back to those first awful days of depression.

I pushed the scone across the counter to Lincoln and met his penetrating gaze, surprised to find his face was now completely shuttered. The anger I’d seen moments before was put away behind a blank façade—a stunningly handsome one.

He was his own work of art.

Not only gorgeous, but kindhearted. Sure, he’d interfered, but it had been out of consideration. Out of worry. So, when I finally spoke, it was with a gratefulness I hadn’t felt just seconds before. “Thank you again for helping me this morning. But everything is fine.”

I accompanied the words with a beam I hoped was reassuring. One he didn’t return.

When he spoke, his tone had a surliness that tried to bite at me. “I obviously don’t know you very well, but I didn’t get the impression you were stupid.”

I could have been offended by his taunt, but instead, I was overwhelmed with the same desire I’d had earlier to soothe away his ruffles until nothing was left but joy. The absurdity of my thoughts as much as the strangeness of the president of theUnited States’ son sticking up for me had me letting out a huff of air, half chuckle and half annoyance.

His intense gaze narrowed on my mouth.

I had the distinct feeling this man could easily tear away my layers if I let him. I was uncomfortable at what he’d find, even while I longed for him to do it. To find themeburied deep inside. Not the cheerful baker Willow, nor the terrified teenager Wendy, but some amalgamation of them. Something more. Someone he’d find worth holding on to regardless of the risk that came from wanting her.

Too bad I couldn’t even let him try.

The sooner I severed the bond tying us together since the cemetery the better.

“I know Poco isn’t a nice guy,” I told him with a shrug. “But I also know he won’t do anything serious enough to draw police attention to Tall Paul’s business. So, he’ll drop it.”

“You have a lot of experience with criminals that tells you this?” Lincoln asked, and I could hear the disbelief but also the disappointment in his tone.

It took a practiced effort to prevent a dizzying slew of ugly images from my last tangle with criminals from taking over, but I did it. I did it and increased my smile to full wattage. “No experience. I’ve just lived in Cherry Bay long enough to know what’s what.”

The tension in the air was much more than just that enticing pull of desire. Frustration brewed as we stared at each other in an unspoken dare. Who would back down first?

He dragged his hand through his hair, that wayward lock falling gently back over a brow, and I noticed his fingertips were black. Ink or chalk or something similar, and it reminded me hedidn’t just own an art gallery in D.C., but that he was an artist himself.

“You were drawing?” I asked.

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