Page 59 of Tangled Up In You

"Which I do." Molly put a lemon bar on a plate and handed it to him. "Here you go. If it's great, I will take credit for it."

"Fair enough." He took a bite. As he'd expected, the lemon bar was absolutely delicious. "It's perfect."

"Well, I'm taking one of Lizzie's cupcakes," Brodie said.

"I knew you were my favorite brother-in-law," Lizzie said.

"I'm your only brother-in-law," he retorted as he took one of her cupcakes.

"But not my favorite husband," Chelsea chided. "Traitor."

Brodie gave Chelsea a kiss. "Sorry. My sweet tooth won out. But Lizzie is my favorite sister-in-law."

"Lizzie and I need some sisters-in-law," Chelsea declared. "But our three brothers seem determined to stay single." Her gaze swung to him. "You really should go first, Adam. You're the oldest."

"That doesn't matter."

"Mom says it does."

"She does not say that." As he bickered with Chelsea, he caught sight of a wistful smile on Molly's face, and it reminded him how lucky he was to have siblings. They could all be a pain in the ass, but they always had his back, no matter what. Molly hadn't had that. She hadn't had a lot of things.

But he was impressed that she hadn't let it get her down. She was a positive person. Even with all the bad in her life, she saw the good, which was the opposite of him. In fact, the longer he worked in law enforcement, the harder it became to see the positive side of life. He felt tired just thinking about it. But he was also weary of feeling tired, of being jaded. Maybe he needed to change his perspective.

"Well, I should go," Molly said, as she slipped off a stool.

He couldn't help but notice how pretty she looked in a short, colorful skirt and a sleeveless, tantalizingly sheer top that kept drawing his eyes to her full breasts. He drew in a quick breath, dragging his gaze back to her face, but her soft mouth and sparkling eyes weren't going to stop him from staring. In fact, he thought he could probably look at her for hours on end and it wouldn't be enough time.

"Thanks for coming," Lizzie told Molly, getting up to give her a hug.

"No problem."

He watched as Molly made her way through the crowd's series of hugs, noting that she seemed endearingly and awkwardly touched by the affection.

When she got to him, he didn't hug her, he just said, "I'll walk you out."

He was pretty sure he heard Chelsea mutter something under her breath, but he ignored her and everyone else. He didn't care what they thought.

He followed Molly out of the inn. As they stepped onto the porch, he shut the front door behind them.

She turned to face him. "My car is right there. You don't have to walk me anywhere." She tipped her head to the light-blue Prius that she'd apparently driven from San Francisco. "You should go back and join the party."

"I want to talk to you, Molly."

She looked at him in surprise. "Really? I thought we were trying not to talk to each other."

"This is different. This is business."

Her expression turned wary. "Business? Okay. What's going on?"

"Quite a bit, actually. I spoke to Nina, Phoebe's former manager. She was followed home from the store the night before Phoebe died. A man approached her, threatened her, and then bribed her to give him a key to the store. She told him the alarm system would be on at night, but if he went the next day during lunchtime, both she and Phoebe would be away. They never put the alarm on during the day. Phoebe had a change of heart about lunch and didn't go, which meant she was in the store when Ethan Mercer entered."

Molly stared at him in astonishment. "You're saying that he killed Phoebe?"

"I'm not saying that. I don't know if she saw him or not. But there is a scenario where her heart attack was the shock of their encounter. Or it's possible she died before he arrived."

Molly gave him a long look as she processed that information. "Nina sold the key to Mercer? How could she do that? Did she talk to him again?"

"Nina said she was desperate for money and that she never saw him again. But she was terrified that he might have done something to Phoebe or that someone would figure out what she'd done, so she ran to Florida. She said that Mercer told her he was looking for an item that should never have been sent to Phoebe, because it belonged to the family."

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