Page 45 of Colton's Last Resort

She squinted at him. “You didn’t know?”

“Allison bought it shortly after I moved in,” he said. “She said it was a replica. But she thought it’d look good in the space. She teased me for never putting anything on the walls. I waited a long time to own a home, and I didn’t want to put holes in the plaster. I put the damn thing up to make her happy.” And it had, he thought, remembering how she’d beamed and clapped her hands when she’d seen it on the wall for the first time. His chest ached at the memory. “What about it?” he asked, wanting to be away from it. There was nothing of his sister here. And yet there was too much.

“The painting’s calledMariposa Lilies and Indian Paintbrush, 1941,” Laura stated. “It...was a favorite of my mother’s.”

Noah made himself study the painting again. This time he shifted so they stood shoulder to shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Mariposas were her favorite flower,” Laura breathed.

“Hence the name of the resort,” he guessed.

She nodded silently. Abruptly, she turned away from him. “I need some air.”

He veered around her quickly. If she cried...here, of all places...he didn’t know how he’d handle that. Opening the door to the back patio, he held it wide.

She didn’t thank him. Head low, she stalked out on long legs.

He gritted his teeth, wondering whether to follow or hang back. Watching, he tried to gauge how unsteady her emotions were.

She crossed the terra-cotta tiles to the railing. Clutching it with both hands, she viewed the sheer drop to the crevasse below. In the distance, the sun slanted low over white-tipped mountains. The clouds feathered overhead, wild with color. Her shoulders didn’t slope. Her posture didn’t cave. She stood tall, another exquisite fixture on the canvas he saw outside his back door.

After a while, she said in a voice that wasn’t at all brittle, “I can see why you picked the place.”

Noah tried to choose a point on the horizon just as fascinating as she was. His attention veered back to her, magnetized. “It was this,” he admitted. “And the quiet. It’s far enough outside the city, I don’t hear the traffic.”

She folded her arms on the railing and didn’t speak. It was as if she was measuring the quiet. Absorbing it.

Quiet strength, he thought. It came off her in waves. He opened himself to it, wishing he could make room in his grief for it. How had she learned to do that—move past it? Or was he supposed to movethroughit?

Was that why he felt like he was losing this race? He had to stop trying to gooverthe grief and go through it?

Somehow, that seemed harder.

He jangled the keys he’d picked up from the counter. “We should get to Allison’s.”

She waited a beat. Then she turned and crossed the tiles to him, placing one boot in front of the other. She gathered her jacket close around her, her breath clouding the air.

As she breezed past, her scent overcame him. He felt his eyes close. Even as he wondered what he was doing, he caught it, pulled it in deep and held it.

It was a classy fragrance, something no doubt with a designer price tag.

He swore it was made to chase his demons.

That was his secret. And he’d take it to his grave.

He shut the door and locked it, promising himself he’d come back to the view when Laura no longer needed him. When she was gone. When he’d found Allison’s killer, put him or her in a cell...if he didn’t kill the person first.

He’d come back here and learn, somehow, to wade through the fallout.

Allison’s one-story house was a little Spanish-style residence across town. Noah had a key to the door on the same ring as his. Silently, he worked it into the lock before pushing the door open.

The lights were out. He switched them on as the door squeaked, echoing across hard floors.

It was the opposite of his place, Laura observed. It smelled faintly of incense. The walls were bright yellow and cluttered with artwork. There were little eight-by-ten paintings, woven dream catchers, and a whole quilt draped on the wall of the dining room. The plush rugs sank under Laura’s boots. As Noah flipped on more lights, Laura caught herself clasping her elbows. There was a hammock hanging in the dining room where a table should have been.

A pair of UGGs sat by the back door.

Noah bent over a table where books were stacked. He went through them one by one.

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