In the next instant, Jared was outside Eden’s bedroom door and knocking on it.
“Come in,” she said.
She was sitting in bed, her face washed clean, reading glasses perched on her nose, and wearing an old, pink nightgown. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything sexier in his life. She didn’t look like a centerfold, but she looked like home, a place where food was in the oven, clean clothes were in the drawers, and the bills were paid. She looked like someone who’d wait up for a man when he was out late. And she’d forgive him when he screwed up. And she’d give him hell at the same time. She looked like a woman who…No, that was it. She looked like a woman. Not a girl, but a woman. He wanted to climb into bed with her and rest his head on her breast. Then he’d turn and touch her lips with his own and—
“You want to get that look off your face, McBride?” Eden said, taking off her glasses. “If I scream, all of the FBI will hear me.”
Her words brought him back to reality. Without asking permission, he sat down on the end of her bed. “Did Granville give you a copy of Mrs. Farrington’s will?”
“Yes,” she said coolly. “It’s there in the bottom drawer.” She motioned toward the big TV cabinet across from the foot of her bed. When he went to it, she said, “Watch out for snakes.”
“Funny,” he said, opening the drawer and pulling out the document. It was in a dark blue folder with Granville’s name on it in gold. “Fancy. Think he sends his stuff off to New York to be printed?”
When he looked back at her, she wasn’t smiling. “Okay, sorry,” he said, then sat back down on the end of her bed. She had to move her foot to keep him from sitting on it. Quickly, he read the document, then closed it. “Just as I thought, you get everything.” He looked at her. “There were no other relatives?”
Eden didn’t answer but narrowed her eyes at him.
With a half smile, he got off of her bed. Turning, he put his hands on the iron footboard. “Do you really and truly think that Granville is innocent in all this?”
“Are you asking me if I think he murdered a woman to get—What exactly was his reason for murdering Ms. Brewster? He didn’t get the jewels, and I’m not even sure she knew they were behind the picture. Only someone familiar with the house and its furnishings would notice that the necklace had been painted onto Aunt Hester’s scrawny neck.”
“And Granville said that he’d spent so much time in that hall that he could draw the wallpaper.”
“If you’re hinting that he might have known, he took a year to find me, so why didn’t he open the painting during that time?”
“Then what? Try to fence some rocks the size of chicken eggs?”
Eden threw up her hands. “So he waited until I got here, then he started courting me so he could get the jewels. If all he likes about me is the necklace, what’s your excuse?”
“I like your left hook,” Jared said, but she didn’t smile. He stuck his hands in his pockets. He knew he should leave. The guys back at the office had probably set a stopwatch when he’d entered Eden’s bedroom. But Jared didn’t leave. “So what are you reading?”
“I happen to be earning a living. Remember that part of my life? My publishing house works on a schedule, and these books need to be edited and returned.”
“So what’s involved in editing a book?” he asked, moving toward her.
“One step closer and I yell for help,” Eden said calmly. “Why don’t you go back to your own room now?”
Jared didn’t move. “Ever hear of a jelly beanie? Cranberry juice, gin, that sort of thing? Jelly beans in the bottom of the glass.”
“Is this some form of seduction?”
“Yeah. I have to get a woman drunk before she’ll go to bed with me.”
Eden looked at him, at his dark eyes and hair, and his statement was so ridiculous that she smiled. “Okay, one jelly beanie. I’m so wound up from the excitement of tonight that I’ll be awake all night. So what did you do with the necklace?”
Jared pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it onto the covers by her hip. “How about if you take everything off, put on the necklace, and wait for me?”
“Hold your breath,” she said, and Jared grinned.
As he put his hand on the door, he said, “Honestly, is there anything I can do to help with those things?” He nodded toward the stack of manuscripts on the floor.
“One of them is a spy thriller, and I hate those things. All that techno-jargon bores me. You wouldn’t want to read it and write a report, would you? My publishing house would love to have an expert’s opinion.”
“On one condition,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “And what is that?”
“That you let me watch your TV while I read.”