Page 53 of Welcome to Murder Week

“Childish.”

“Ballsy.”

“But not entirely outlandish.” Dev puts out his palm, flat, like he’s displaying something. I open my palm and touch it to his, lightly tapping against it a few times, watching only our hands. And then he wraps his hand, large and warm, around mine and holds on. This time, I don’t turn it into a handshake. I look at him through the strands of hair dancing across my face.

I know so little about this man. But up here on the top of the world, I’m willing to leap, and not only because I know I’ll never see him again after the weekend. It’s something else, something undefinable and unfamiliar. I move my face barely an inch toward him and sense he has done the same. Or is it the wind? And then with two fingers, he pushes my hair to the side.

“May I…” he whispers.

I nod so slightly it’s almost a quiver and, slowly, he brings his lips to mine. It’s a light kiss, but the sense of him runs through my every vein. We pull away, then let our foreheads touch. We kiss again, and it’s not just a good kiss but a happy kiss. We are kissing and smiling. We are smile-kissing, which I didn’t even know was a thing.

“This makes no sense,” I whisper.

“None whatsoever.” Dev’s hand is on my neck, his fingers in my hair.

I lean in again and close my eyes. Above, I sense gliders drifting across the sky, banking away from the moors in unison, like swallows.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

When Dev drops me off, he asks if I’ll come by the bar tonight.

“For another Hanky Panky?” I am ridiculous.

“If that’s your fancy, but I do make other cocktails too,” he says, twirling a strand of my hair around his finger and pulling me gently toward him.

Oh my. It could be his accent, but when he says things like this, I think he’s clever and sexy and not using a well-worn line. It doesn’t seem rote, or slick, or sleazy. It feels honest. It doesn’t really matter though. Whether we share a few kisses or a few nights, in less than a week there will be a very big ocean between us. Which is probably why I’m leaning into it so easily.

“I have to go. I told my cottage mates I’d be back around three. I’d hate to disappoint them.”

“You hardly know them.”

“I hardly know you.”

“Excellent point.”

“I should go.”

“Right.” He pushes my hair back over my shoulder.

“We’re going to visit Tracy’s flat,” I say. “To search for clues.”

“Okay, Sherlock, off you go.”

“Off I go.” I turn to unlatch the door, but then turn back. “Can we—”

But before I ask, he’s kissed me again.

I stop at the cottage door to catch my breath. Inside, Amity and Wyatt are at the kitchen table. The minute Amity looks at me, I can tell that her romance radar is up.

“Looks like it was a strenuous hike,” she says, smiling. “You’re quite flushed.”

“Quite radiant.” Wyatt is grinning too.

“Do you know when Brits say ‘quite’ something, they mean the opposite?” A deft change of topic. “I had no idea until Dev filled me in on the way to Hathersage. I happened to mention that our pub lunch yesterday was ‘quite good’ and he said, ‘That bad?’ Turns out a lot of what they say does not mean what we think it does. If you give a Brit a piece of helpful advice and they say, ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ they pretty much mean there’s no effing way they’re doing that. ‘Very interesting’? They mean ‘What a total bore.’ It’s quite confusing—and I mean that in the American way.”

“How extraordinary,” Amity says, still looking at me like I’ve got the proverbial lipstick on my collar. “It’s like every day is opposite day.”

“So when Germaine said that Roland Wingford was ‘quite instrumental’ in developing the story for this mystery, what did she really mean?” Wyatt asks.

---