EDEN flung open Jared McBride’s bedroom door. She didn’t care if she caught him in the nude. On the way up the stairs, she’d put strength in her spine, and she wasn’t going to waver in her resolve. “Mr. McBride,” she said, with her mouth in a hard line, “I want you out of my house now. This minute.”
He was sitting on his bed, his arm in the sling on top of the covers, the scratch on his cheek clearly visible. His blackened eye seemed to have grown bigger and darker in the last few hours. If she hadn’t known differently, she would have thought he’d used makeup on it.
“Yes, of course,” he said, then with grimaces of pain, he moved the cover off his legs and slowly got out of bed. “So you think Granville is all right, then?”
“Of course he’s all right!” she snapped. “Contrary to what you’re insinuating, I don’t hurt people who come to my house by invitation.”
He paused, his bare feet on the floor, his sweatpants pulled up to his calf. He had a bandage around his right ankle, and she could see what was clearly the oval pattern of teeth marks on his ankle.
“I meant that you feel sure that there’s no danger he’ll hurt you,” he said softly. “Sorry for spying on you, but it’s the habit of an old policeman. Protection. I knew you didn’t know Granville and he was here alone with you, so I was concerned. You’re a beautiful woman and you wouldn’t believe the things that I’ve seen men get up to when they’re alone with a beautiful woman.”
She knew he was lying; she could feel it in her bones. But no matter what was coming out of his mouth, his wounds were real—and they had been caused by her. As he stood up, the bite on his foot oozed blood. Closing her eyes for a moment, she tried to give herself strength, but it didn’t work. “All right. Get back in bed. You can stay here tonight.”
“No,” he said tiredly. “You’re right. I should get back to my own house. It’s not right that a man should stay here alone with an unmarried woman.”
At that she sat down on the chair by the wall. “Tell me, Mr. McBride, do you lie to everyone or is there something about me that brings out the worst in you?”
“I have no idea what you mean,” he said as he hobbled toward the old dresser. She hadn’t been in this room since the house had become hers, but she saw that Mrs. Farrington’s son hadn’t taken all the good pieces. The chest was pine and looked country, but she knew it was worth a lot of money. For a moment she could see Mrs. Farrington’s smile. She’d managed to save some good pieces from the greed of her son, and Eden wondered what else was in the house.
But first she had to deal with the nuisance of McBride. “I would like to know the truth about what you’re doing here in Arundel. Are you one of those treasure seekers? Are you looking for those lost jewels?”
“Sorry, but I don’t know what you mean.” He was on one foot now, hopping to the chair by the bed where his shoes and socks were.
“You’re no more a fisherman or a hunter than I am. Everything in your house is brand-new, as though you don’t want anyone to know who you are or where you came from.”
“House fire. Burned everything,” he said quickly, and Eden was sure that he was smiling.
“The night I saw you in this house you were snooping around. You weren’t looking for a fuse box. You were looking for something else. I called the electric company and they said that my lights are not on the same circuit as yours.”
“It was a mistake. I thought they were together.” He was sitting on the chair, his hands folded on his lap, and he was looking at her expectantly.
He’s enjoying this, she thought. Cat and mouse. But who was the cat and who was the mouse? “Where’s your table saw? I looked in your garage, and there’s nothing in there but a pickup truck. Brand-new. No table saw.”
“Power handsaw. The deputy must have misunderstood. The circular saw is under the workbench.”
“Shall we go look?”
Ostentatiously, as though in enormous pain, he stood up, using the chair as support. “Yes, of course. Let’s go look now.”
Eden threw up her hands in surrender. “Get back in bed,” she ordered. She knew she was being a wimp, knew that he was exaggerating his pain, but his foot was bleeding, courtesy of her teeth. “I guess you’re hungry,” she said in disgust.
“No, ma’am, I can do without food,” he said meekly as he hobbled to the bed. “But I will take you up on your offer of hospitality for another night, and I promise that I’ll leave tomorrow.”
“Good,” she said, and she left the room.
Eden wanted to kick herself. The man had the ability to make her forget all that she’d planned to say to him. She went downstairs to the kitchen, got the soup out of the refrigerator, and heated a bowl of it. She put leftover salad into another bowl, poured a big glass of sweet tea, then also poured him a glass of wine. He was probably taking pain medications so the wine would knock him out. At least she’d have one night without his snooping.
She carried the tray up to him, cursing herself every step of the way. He was back in bed, his head lolling around as though he were at death’s door. She put the tray on the end of the bed and turned to leave.
“Did you have a nice night?”
“No thanks to you,” she spat at him. Then, in spite of her best intentions, she turned on him. “How could you spy on us like that? Who do you think you are that you can snoop around my house with a flashlight, then lie to the police so that they believe every word you say? Do you know that they made fun of me? I come home to find a strange man in my house, I defend myself, yet I am made a laughingstock in this small town. I will never be able to live this down. Do you know what my life is going to be like because of you? I can’t understand why they believed you and not me.”
When he said nothing, she made her hands into fists and turned to leave the room.
“FBI,” he said, his mouth full.
She stopped where she was, then slowly turned back to him. “What?”