Now he felt badly about the way he’d treated her after they’d gotten up. He’d quietly followed her down the stairs while she blearily bumbled her way to the kitchen to start breakfast. She’d opened the back door and stood there for a moment, sucking in her breath and then retreating with a sneeze when the chilly weather outside invaded the room with a blast of air that seemed to penetrate to every corner.
He’d taken his opportunity while she was distracted, darting out before the door shut. Maybe he should have let her know he was going, but that just seemed like more trouble than he wanted to deal with. What was wrong with going outside for a few moments to enjoy the freshly fallen snow? All his life, he’d found it was better to beg forgiveness than to ask for permission.
He hadn’t planned on getting distracted, following a set of squirrel tracks across a neighbor’s lawn. When he realized how far he’d gone—and how much time he’d taken—he’d sprinted across several driveways to get back to Sunny’s house. But by the time he got there, her big car was gone. That was bad. He had a good thing going here, and now his own thoughtlessness was going to leave him out in the cold. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Worse still, his foot was beginning to throb with pain. He hadn’t paid attention while he was racing back to Sunny. Several times he’d skidded on ice or slush. That hadn’t been good. Maybe he’d injured himself on something unpleasant on one of those driveways he’d dashed across.
His pride hurt as much as his foot as he limped, step by unwilling step, around to the back door of the little white house. It wouldn’t be easy, talking his way back inside. But he’d have to do it. Maybe it was the pain, or moving slowly after his brisk run, but all of a sudden, it felt much colder out here. He took a deep breath and then let it out in the most plaintive tone he could manage: “
*
Sunny Coolidge leaned back from her computer keyboard with a grin of triumph, pulling loose the pencil she’d used to hold her wild curls in a topknot and out of her face. The hairstyle probably wasn’t pretty, but it had been effective—sort of like the job she’d spent the entire day tangling with. Except for the occasional e-mail or phone call, she had devoted all her time today to updating the Internet website for the Maine Adventure X-perience, MAX for short.
It never failed. Whenever she upgraded the system, the components never worked together properly. She had to strip things down to the barest basics and then build the system back up again, finding and resolving whatever conflicts had been introduced via new versions of software. Sometimes that process could take days. But after putting it off all week, today she’d managed to score a personal best in wrestling with recalcitrant computer code.
Sunny looked through the big plate-glass window to the street outside. It had already gone dark, and the traffic was sparse, to put it mildly. Just a few cars passed while she watched. But then, nightfall came early in southern Maine at this time of year. That and the winter cold tended to discourage tourists from flocking to the delights of Kittery Harbor in January, February, and March. The busy season usually came in summer, when people sailed along the rocky coasts, or in the autumn, when they came to see the foliage or engage in traditional pastimes such as apple picking. Add in an unseasonable early winter warm spell, and the winter activity fans had gone out west instead of up north. That warmth looked likely to change now, though. Yesterday had brought a little snow, and a lot of talk from local weather forecasters about the threat of a bigger storm on the horizon.
Not that weather concerns had done much to slow Sunny’s tourist business, though. Bargains were something that brought people to the area year-round, and two busloads of shopping tourists had simply pushed up their schedules and started trolling the miles of outlet malls to the north of Kittery Harbor tonight instead of tomorrow morning, just in case a blizzard blew in. Nor had the four couples booking rooms in quiet bed-and-breakfast establishments canceled on her.
Not having anything romantic on the agenda herself, Sunny couldn’t say. Oh, there was a guy she was interested in—smart, good-looking, and he carried a gun. But getting Constable Will Price to notice her “that way” made the toughest systems upgrade seem like child’s play in comparison.
