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  Dorcas greeted Ambrose with a martini and a smile. ‘‘How was your afternoon?’’

  Ambrose gave her a kiss and took a sip of his martini. Then he walked into the parlor and set the martini glass on the mantel. ‘‘I have to remember that Jeremy’s the guy when it comes to the Internet.’’ He leaned down to give Sabrina a scratch behind her ears before peeling off his red bandana and unzipping his motorcycle jacket.

  ‘‘Problems?’’ Dorcas lounged on the purple sofa and drank from her own martini. She had to admit Ambrose looked good in the jacket and leather chaps. The scooter was what sounded the wrong note in the tune. Now, if Ambrose had a Harley . . .

  ‘‘Tony was running things.’’ Ambrose divested himself of the jacket and chaps and laid them on the red wing chair. Sabrina wound herself between his legs, purring loudly. When he picked up his martini and went to join Dorcas on the sofa, Sabrina followed and settled herself between them.

  ‘‘Tony’s a good kid,’’ Dorcas said.

  ‘‘He’s a good kid, but he doesn’t have Jeremy’s expertise. ’’ Ambrose rubbed Sabrina under her chin. ‘‘I screwed up the MySpace page and deleted some things that Tony couldn’t recover. Jeremy could have done it, I’ll bet.’’

  ‘‘Yes, but Jeremy needed a break.’’

  ‘‘True.’’ Ambrose took another drink of his martini. ‘‘That reminds me. I assume you kept your eye on the beach this afternoon?’’ Relaxing into the cushions, he draped his arm over the back of the sofa.

  She had to tell him. She’d known that from the moment the red kayak had gone bottoms up. ‘‘Yes, I did. Would you like me to refresh your drink before I tell you all about it?’’

  Ambrose lowered his glass and looked at her.

  ‘‘What?’’ She twirled the stem of her glass between her fingers.

  ‘‘I have more than half my drink left. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted me good and mellow before you hit me with the bad news.’’

  Dorcas waved a dismissive hand. ‘‘It was nothing, really. In fact, the whole incident played to our advantage in this matchmaking project, if you ask me.’’

  ‘‘Dorcas . . . ?’’ Ambrose stared at her, eyebrows lifted.

  She cleared her throat. ‘‘I don’t know if you’ve thought this project through, but even if we help Annie and Jeremy get together, that’s no guarantee it’ll turn out well.’’

  ‘‘We never guarantee that, anyway. We don’t interfere with free will.’’

  ‘‘I understand that, but Annie has a great job in Chicago and she considers Big Knob boring. Even if she falls in love with Jeremy, I can’t picture her being happy here.’’

  Ambrose groaned. ‘‘What have you done?’’

  ‘‘Let me get us each another drink.’’ Dorcas grabbed his glass and headed down the hall. Ambrose was going to be furious with her, no matter how she explained things. She couldn’t avoid telling him, but she could procrastinate.

  Moments later he walked into the kitchen. ‘‘I just checked your broom and the bristles are damp.’’

  She poured a generous amount of gin into both martini glasses. ‘‘I did some low flying over the lake.’’

  ‘‘Because . . . ?’’

  ‘‘After what happened, I couldn’t leave them out there to fend for themselves. I had to make sure they were both okay. I’m sure Dee-Dee didn’t mean for that to happen, but—’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  She turned to find Ambrose advancing on her, his silver-gray eyes molten with fury.

  ‘‘Hold on a minute, Ambrose. It’s not what you think.’’

  He paused only inches from her, waves of anger rolling off him. ‘‘Dee-Dee attacked them, didn’t she?’’

  ‘‘No.’’ Dorcas swallowed. ‘‘I . . . sort of asked her to . . . make an appearance.’’

  ‘‘Dear Zeus! Are you out of your magical mind?’’

  ‘‘Listen to me for a minute. Annie’s a reporter. I wanted to give her a reason to stick around beyond this weekend.’’

  ‘‘Precisely. She’s a reporter. What are you going for, bringing the entire team of 20/20 to Big Knob?’’

  Dorcas had acted on impulse, and only later had realized the potential risks, but she wouldn’t admit that to her husband. ‘‘It won’t happen that way. Annie’s too smart to break the story until she’s investigated it thoroughly for herself. I can manage Dee-Dee so that Annie never gets quite enough information to go public.’’

  A muscle twitched in Ambrose’s jaw. ‘‘Sounds as if you didn’t manage her all that well tonight. And you still haven’t told me what happened.’’

  So she did, minimizing the danger of Annie becoming trapped under the kayak and maximizing Jeremy’s heroic response. ‘‘I made sure the kayaks and paddles didn’t drift too far away,’’ she added. ‘‘And now I know more about Dee-Dee’s wave-creating potential. Next time—’’

  ‘‘There will be no next time.’’ Ambrose’s expression remained jungle-cat fierce.

  Although Dorcas wasn’t about to take orders, she didn’t relish going head-to-head with her beloved, either. She preferred persuasion. ‘‘Think about it. If Dee-Dee can keep Annie here a little longer, it’s worth the risk. Those two deserve to fall in love, and I want to do everything in my power to make it happen.’’

  Some of the fierceness left Ambrose’s eyes and he let out a long breath. ‘‘I admire your dedication and I understand how much you want soul mates to find each other.’’

  ‘‘It’s my life’s purpose, Ambrose.’’

  ‘‘I know, but you’re forgetting why we’re here. Our first responsibility is to George, not our matchmaking clients.’’

  ‘‘Yes, but—’’

  ‘‘If you mess around with Dee-Dee and somehow jeopardize George’s presence in the Whispering Forest, I hate to think what would happen, both to George and to us, for causing such a disaster.’’

  Dorcas fell silent. ‘‘You have a point.’’ She hated when that happened, but Ambrose was right about George. They couldn’t allow anything to happen to him. He was their sworn duty at the moment.

  ‘‘I’m glad you admit that. And I hope to hell you really can control that lake monster.’’

  ‘‘Oh, I can. No worries.’’ Dorcas said it with as much confidence as she could muster. She couldn’t have Ambrose doubting her on that score after the way she’d disregarded his warnings about making contact with Dee-Dee.

  Dorcas was glad she’d befriended the lake monster and thought ultimately that would be a good move on her part. But she couldn’t deny that she’d disturbed the contract Dee-Dee had lived with for years. That kind of rigid contract was bound to unravel eventually, but Dorcas had helped the process along.

  Now that Dee-Dee had broken her contract, would she follow Dorcas’s directions to the letter? Probably not.

  Chapter 7

  Jeremy insisted on doing the he-man work of dragging the kayaks up on the sand, but Annie announced that she’d been a Girl Scout for as long as he’d been a Boy Scout. She wanted to help make the fire. Consequently, he left her to dig a pit in the sand while he went in search of wood.

  He didn’t roam far, though, and kept glancing back to make sure she was okay. Fortunately his glasses had held up through the whole ordeal so he could see just fine. He needed to stay alert, because somebody could be out here bent on mischief, and he didn’t want Annie scared any more than she had been.

  Come to think of it, he should have expected some sort of prank tonight. The teenagers who hung out at his café treated him like a big brother. He understood those dynamics. As a kid brother himself, he’d done some horrendous things to ruin his older sister’s dates.

  The seniors were bouncing off the walls, anyway, because of their upcoming graduation. There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Big Knob, and that meant they had to manufacture their own fun. Jeremy and Annie had been handy.

  Reasoning that out helped, but he was still ready to knock some heads to
gether. Maybe tomorrow he’d talk to a few kids and see if any guilty remarks came tumbling out. They needed to know that what had seemed like a harmless joke could have hurt someone.

  When he located a couple of dead branches and dragged them back down to the beach, he found Annie on her hands and knees lining the pit she’d dug with stones.

  ‘‘Nice job,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Thanks.’’ She took another stone from the pile she’d made and tucked it into place. ‘‘I know how to do this, and I have the badge to prove it.’’

  ‘‘I believe you.’’ He started snapping off twigs to use for kindling.

  She glanced up. ‘‘How about the monster story? Do you believe me in that case, too?’’

  He spoke with care. ‘‘I believe someone wanted you to see a monster.’’

  Putting the last rock in place, she sat back on her heels and ran her fingers through her wet hair. ‘‘If that was a trick, then it was the most professionally rigged stunt in the history of Big Knob. Whoever did it needs to work in Hollywood. Seriously.’’

  ‘‘Another good reason to find out who did it. We can set him or her on a new career path.’’ He cracked a small branch against his knee and hoped he looked manly doing it.

  ‘‘Let me help.’’ She stood and came over to pick up one of the dead branches. Then she cracked it over her knee as neatly as he’d just done. ‘‘Where are the matches?’’

  ‘‘In the kayak.’’ He needed to remember that she’d been a top athlete in school and could probably best him at most things. If he’d imagined that he’d be in charge of the operation and thereby look like a hero, he’d been dreaming.

  ‘‘Since you know where the matches are, why don’t you let me finish this part?’’

  He couldn’t argue with her reasoning, so he laid down the branch he’d been working on and walked, shoes squishing in the sand, back to his kayak. Once there, he unloaded everything—matches, food, wine and blankets. Especially the blankets.

  She had a fire laid in the pit by the time he came back with his load of stuff. He set it down and tossed her the matches. ‘‘I have a couple of blankets,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Damn, I wish you’d mentioned that before. I’m freezing.’’ She struck a match and touched it to the wood. The kindling didn’t catch. She tried another match, and another. ‘‘It’s not catching. Maybe you should use some magic.’’

  What the hell? If it didn’t work, he’d look silly, but they could laugh about it. He pointed toward the fire. ‘‘Abracadabra.’’

  To his astonishment, the fire leaped to life.

  ‘‘All right, Jeremy!’’ She stood and gave him a high five. ‘‘We could have used you at Girl Scout camp. Every time we failed to start the fire with one match, we got a lecture from Mrs. Rhodes.’’

  ‘‘We were supposed to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together. I couldn’t do that, either.’’

  ‘‘But look at you now.’’ Her gaze traveled over him, warm and admiring. ‘‘I’m dying to know how you do that.’’

  Me, too. ‘‘I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.’’ He was beginning to wonder how many things that abracadabra worked for.

  ‘‘Okay. Secret order of magicians and all that. Well!’’ She clapped her hands together. ‘‘I’m ready for one of those blankets. I see we have a pink flowered one and a blue snowflake one. I assume I get the pink.’’

  He’d thought so, too, when he’d packed them. But now that the blanket might be touching her bare skin, he changed his mind. ‘‘Take the blue.’’ He picked it up and handed it to her. ‘‘It’s softer.’’

  ‘‘I’m impressed with a man secure enough to own a pink flowered blanket, let alone wrap himself in it.’’

  Jeremy shrugged. ‘‘It’s a hand-me-down from my family. My mom knew I needed a spare blanket to carry in the kayak and she wasn’t worried about the color.’’

  ‘‘Well, neither am I. Thanks for giving me the softest one.’’

  As he considered what he was about to say, his heart beat faster. ‘‘Listen, about the blankets, I’m not sure what your plan is, but I think it’s counterproductive to wrap them around our wet clothes. In five minutes we’ll be just as clammy as we were before.’’

  ‘‘I had the same thought, unless you have some magic drying charm.’’

  ‘‘I’m afraid not.’’ Even if he did, he wouldn’t use it. The other possibility was too tempting.

  ‘‘Then let’s try this.’’ She picked up one stick with a fork on the end and jammed it into the sand close to the fire. Then she found a second one of about the same length and planted it a few feet from the first. Finally she propped a straight stick across the forks. ‘‘Clothesline.’’

  ‘‘Clever.’’ He gulped. She was way ahead of him.

  She turned and walked away from the fire. ‘‘Don’t look.’’

  ‘‘I won’t if you won’t.’’ He grabbed the pink blanket, walked in the opposite direction and kept his back to her. As he shucked his wet clothes, he could hear her doing the same.

  The sound of her undressing should have, by all rights, given him a boner. But he was so cold that everything was shrinking. He hoped she wasn’t sneaking a peek. She might not understand how cold could affect a guy.

  ‘‘I won’t turn around until you say so,’’ she called out.

  ‘‘Okay.’’ He moved fast as the cold night air hit his testicles. Soon he was draped in the blanket. All he wore besides that were his glasses, still attached to their trusty leash.

  In theory this concept had sounded sexy—both of them naked and loosely wrapped in soft blankets. That was before he’d decided to give her the blue one, leaving him looking like Chief Pretty-in-Pink.

  But at least he was warmer, and maybe, once they were settled beside the fire and his privates had returned to their normal size, he wouldn’t feel so ridiculous. ‘‘Ready,’’ he said, and turned around.

  She stood on the opposite side of the fire, her bare feet scrunched into the sand and the rest of her covered from neck to ankles in the blue blanket he used on his bed all winter. Her hair looked as if she’d been in swimming and hadn’t bothered to comb it out. Seeing her like this, mussed and naked except for the blanket, his blanket, was more arousing than he ever could have imagined.

  She was a present ready to be unwrapped, and he was more than ready to do that. He couldn’t assume that she had similar thoughts, but she had come up with the clothesline idea, so they might be on the same page.

  No question the plan was logical and practical. But there was serious subtext. He wondered if she realized that or if she thought they would simply dry their clothes by the fire and put them back on with no hanky-panky in between.

  She leaned down to pick up two bits of fabric and almost lost her grip on the blanket. ‘‘Whoops. You’d better turn around again until I get my clothes draped over the clothesline.’’

  ‘‘Sure.’’ He turned, and imagined he looked even sillier from the back. A blanket-wrapped woman was one thing. You pictured her throwing it off with a seductive smile. A blanket-wrapped man . . . not so much.

  ‘‘There,’’ she said. ‘‘Now I’ll turn around while you hang up your clothes. I tried to leave you plenty of room.’’

  Picking up the wet, sandy clothes he’d left in a heap, he faced the fire and her makeshift clothesline. Sure enough, her bra and panties were black and lacy. She’d put them very close to the flames.

  ‘‘I hope your underwear doesn’t catch fire.’’

  She laughed. ‘‘That would take some explaining back at the Winston house. But it would be a great story for my grandchildren, wouldn’t it?’’

  It would, which generated thoughts he had no business having. Until now, he’d been living for the moment, hoping he could fulfill his fantasy, if only for one night. But Annie was more than a one-night stand to him.

  And that was his deep, dark secret—he wanted her on a forever basis. He wanted to be the father o
f her children, the grandfather of her grandchildren, the great-grandfather of her great-grandchildren, and so on through the ages. Wasn’t ever gonna happen, but he wanted it, anyway.

  ‘‘Jeremy? Are you finished hanging your clothes? I’m ready to cozy up to that fire.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, right. Almost done.’’ He started flinging his clothes over the stick and managed to knock it, along with her underwear, into the sand.

  That meant picking up everything, including the delicate bits of black lace that had touched the areas he most wanted to touch, too. The cold air no longer had an effect on the family jewels. As he brushed the sand off her bra and panties, his penis rose to the occasion. Maybe he should just hang his briefs on that and be done with it.

  Eventually he managed to balance his clothes and hers across the stick without knocking everything over. Then he stood and wrapped himself in the pink blanket. Because one part kept protruding, he decided to sit down and hide that bad boy under the folds of the blanket.

  ‘‘All set.’’ The wine and plastic bags filled with food and utensils were within reach, so he pulled them over and located the wine opener. Then, in an act of brilliance, he took off his glasses and tucked them in one of the plastic bags.

  If he and Annie got cozy, he didn’t want to have to deal with taking off the glasses. Yesterday he wouldn’t have been thinking that far ahead. Tucking a couple of condoms in the bottom of the open package of napkins wouldn’t have occurred to him, either. Today it had.

  She settled down beside him, her left knee close to his right, but not quite touching. She brought the scent of the lake and a faint floral fragrance with her. ‘‘Now, let’s see who gets voted off the island.’’

  Her nearness and her nakedness under the blanket worked on his imagination, but he was determined to play it cool. ‘‘I promise you, my kayaking trips are never this scary.’’

  ‘‘Then it must be my fault.’’

  ‘‘No way.’’ He used the weight of the wine bottle to hold the blanket in place as he worked the cork loose. The naked-in-a-blanket routine was more awkward than he’d anticipated.