Page 61 of Colton's Last Resort

“No,” he admitted. “Is it possible you missed someone when you gave me the names of staff and guests?”

She shook her head. “No. There’s another set of initials.KB.”

“That’s Kim Blankenship, your guest in Bungalow Seven,” he proposed, “or your horseback adventure guide.”

“Kim Blankenship is in her late sixties. She’s here with her husband, Granger. She built a cream cosmetics empire and is here taking a well-deserved break. And Knox?” Laura instantly rejected that idea. “The private lessons were for guests.”

“Maybe Allison made an exception,” Noah pressed. “Didn’t you say he was flirtatious with her?”

“Yes,” Laura granted. “But Knox is flirtatious with every woman. Even me.”

“Don’t like that,” he muttered.

“Why not?” she challenged. “It’s not like you and I are really...”

As she trailed off, his gaze became snared on her. “Really what? Kissing? We’ve done that. Touching? We’ve checked that box. The only thing you and I aren’t doing right now, Pearl, is sleeping together.”

Her mouth went dry. She forced herself to swallow. “It’s not real.”

His eyes tracked to her mouth before bouncing back to hers. Her body reacted vividly. Her heart rammed into her throat.

She wanted his mouth on hers. She wanted to know what it would be like, she realized, for Noah to kiss her and mean it.Not for show—for himself and her.

She demurred. They wouldn’t be able to uncross that bridge. Once they went to the other side, she wasn’t sure she could swim back to safety. She feared what she would find with him. Fire and brimstone, perhaps? Too much, too hard, too fast?

It sounded wonderful. She reached for it even as she turned away. “Knox Burnett didn’t kill Allison,” she said clearly, walking into the kitchen.

Noah’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “The queen of Mariposa has spoken.”

She reached for a wineglass. “Quentin called me ‘queen.’ Or ‘queenie.’ Sometimes, he just called me Q. Except when he left. Then he just called me a cold hard bitch who would get what was coming to her.” She pulled the cork out of the bottle next to the coffeepot and poured a liberal dose. “Dominic thought I was cold, too—in bed and out of it. Do you want some?”

He didn’t spare the wine a glance. “You never should’ve given those assholes the time of day.”

“But I did,” she said, raising the wine to her lips. She tasted, let it sit on her tongue, then swallowed, swirling the liquid in the glass. “Which makes me either stupid or desperate.”

“It’s simple,” he stated. “Stop dating pretty playboys.”

“Who should I date instead?” She gestured with her wine. “You?”

He cracked a smile that wasn’t at all friendly. “You’d run screaming in a week.”

She lowered her brow. “Why is that, exactly? Do you have pentagrams drawn anywhere on your person?”

“No.”

“Are you mangled?”

“No.”

“Do you keep tarantulas or dance with cobras?”

The lines in his brow steepled and she sensed he was trying not to give in to amusement. “I told you. I don’t have pets.”

“Do you have some sort of fetish most women find offensive?”

“No.”

She shrugged. “Then why would I run from you, exactly?”

---