been known to shut the café if her son’s school needed a parent volunteer and she didn’t have staff to manage the café while she was gone. She’d no doubt bestow the same maternal attention on the child she was currently carrying.
For Josie, her life was complete. She felt no need to ever leave this small town.
Anahera couldn’t be more different. Not only had she left Golden Cove to carve out a life so unique that many here would never understand it, she had a hardness to her that Josie would never have. Anahera, Will thought, knew more about the dark side of human nature than her friend could even imagine.
“I’ll be sure to thank her,” he said after rubbing his hair to some semblance of dryness. “I don’t suppose you have a heater out here?”
Arms folded over the thick cable knit of her chocolate brown sweater, Anahera leaned against the edge of the doorway into the cabin proper. “Townie. Soft as they come.”
“That’s me. Can’t do anything without my fluffy slippers and cup of tea.”
Anahera laughed as she walked into the cabin, the sound unexpectedly husky. When he followed, still using the towel in a vain effort to dab himself dry, he found the place warm and snug. A fire crackled in the fireplace, a pile of logs stacked to one side of it. “Did you get the chimney cleaned?”
“Are you always this way?” Anahera asked. “Annoying?”
“It’s my job. And if you burn down this place, I’m the one that’s going to have to do the paperwork.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. And yes, the chimney’s fine. My mother taught me how to take care of that myself.”
Will looked around the room, taking in the cleanly swept surfaces, the old wooden table that stood neatly in one corner, two rickety chairs tucked in underneath. There was no bed, which meant there had to be more to this place than met the eye. “You have another room?”
Anahera used her thumb to point over her shoulder. “Facilities down that way,” she said, misunderstanding the reason for his question. “I don’t have anything for you to change into.”
“I’ll dry out.” To make that go faster, he took off the gray shirt he was wearing over a white T-shirt and, dragging one of the chairs close to the fireplace, hung the shirt on the back. While his jeans would no doubt remain heavily damp until he made it home, his lightweight tee should dry quickly enough.
Deciding he needed to wash his hands, he walked down the small hallway hidden behind the kitchen area and found himself facing the partially closed door to another room. Prior to that and on the right were the toilet and shower. On the left was the open door to an empty room that had probably been Anahera’s mother’s bedroom.
He was more interested in the other bedroom. It boasted a bed, from what he could see, and not much else. And Anahera isn’t a suspect, he reminded himself when his brain began to scan automatically for signs of trouble. He supposed that, technically, she was as viable a suspect as anyone in Golden Cove, but she had no motive that he could see. She’d returned only days earlier and he was beginning to get the feeling that whatever had happened to Miriama, it had to do with the town—and with secrets.
28
Stepping into the bathroom, he washed off the traces of black grit that had sunk into the lifelines on his palms, probably while pushing Vincent’s sedan off the road.
When he examined his face in the cracked mirror above the sink afterward, the man who looked back at him had a haggard edge to him, dark stubble having appeared on his jaw and his cheeks still a little sunken. “You’ll never be a poster boy, Will.”
The scent of coffee was warm in the air when he returned to the living room.
“Have you eaten?” Anahera asked from where she stood at the compact kitchen counter that ran along the back wall.
Will shook his head. “I’ll grab toast when I get back home. We should talk over what you heard tonight at the volunteer meeting.” Will didn’t know Anahera, but he’d run her the day she arrived; it was only prudent to find out if the town’s new resident had a record. The last time a prodigal had returned to Golden Cove, he’d turned out to be a drug dealer who hadn’t quite left his old life behind.
He’d abandoned his plans to