“Here.” Cybil stroked Quinn’s cheek. “This’ll help.”

“What is it?”

“Tea. That’s all you have to know. Come on, be a good girl.” She held the mug to Quinn’s lips. “Your mother has an amazing collection of homemade teas, Fox.”

“Maybe, but this tastes like-” Quinn broke off when Joanne walked in. “Ms. Barry.”

“That blend tastes pretty crappy, but it’ll help. Let me have her, Cal.” Brushing Cal aside, Joanne took his place, then pressed and rubbed at two points at the base of Quinn’s neck. “Try not to tense. That’s better. Breathe through it. Breathe the oxygen in, exhale the tension and discomfort. That’s good. Are you pregnant?”

“What? No. Um, no.”

“There’s a point here.” She took Quinn’s left hand, pressed on the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. “It’s effective, but traditionally forbidden for pregnant women.”

“The Adjoining Valley,” Cybil said.

“You know acupressure?”

“She knows everything,” Quinn claimed, and took her first easy breath. “It’s better. It’s a lot better. Down from blinding to annoying. Thank you.”

“You should rest awhile. Cal can take you upstairs if you want.”

“Thanks, but-”

“Cal, you ought to take her home.” Layla stepped forward to pat a hand on Cal’s arm. “I can ride into the office with Fox. Cybil, you can get Gage back to Cal’s, right?”

“I could do that.”

“We haven’t finished,” Quinn objected. “We need to move on to part two and find out where she put the journal.”

“Not today.”

“She’s right, Blondie. You haven’t got another round in you.” To settle the matter, Cal picked her up off the couch.

“Well, hard to argue. I guess I’m going. Thanks, Ms. Barry.”

“Jo.”

“Thanks, Jo, for letting us screw up your morning.”

“Anytime. Fox, give Cal a hand with the door. Gage, why don’t you take Cybil back, let Brian know everything’s all right? Layla.” Jo put a hand on Layla’s arm, holding her in place while the others left the room. “That was smoothly done.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You maneuvered that so Quinn and Cal would have time alone, which is exactly what they both need. I’m going to ask you a favor.”

“Of course.”

“If there’s anything we can or should do, will you tell me? Fox may not. He’s protective of those he loves. Sometimes too protective.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Can’t ask for more than that.”

Fox waited for Layla to join him outside. “You don’t have to go into the office.”

“Cal and Quinn need some space, and I’d just as soon be busy.”

“Borrow Quinn’s car, or Cybil’s. Go shopping. Do something normal.”

“Work is normal. Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“I’m trying to give you a break.”

“I don’t need a break. Quinn does.” She turned as Cybil and Gage came out. “I’m going to go into the office for the day, unless you need me back at home.”

“I’ve got it covered,” Cybil told her. “Other than logging in this morning’s fun and games, there isn’t much else to do until we find the journal.”

“We’re putting a lot of stock in a diary,” Gage commented.

“It’s the next step.” Cybil shrugged.

“I can’t find it.” Fox spread his hands. “Maybe she wrote them, maybe she wrote them here-it seems clear she did. But I lived in this house and never got a glimmer. I went through it again last night, wide open. Walked around inside, out, the old shed, the woods. I got nothing.”

“Maybe you need me.”

His eyes latched on to Layla.

“Maybe it’s something we need to do together. We could try that. We’ve still got a little time now. We could-”

“Not now. Now while my parents are here in case… of anything. They’ll both be away tomorrow, all morning.” Out of harm’s way, if there was any harm to be had. “At the pottery, at the stand. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Fine with me. Well, cowboy.” Cybil gestured to Quinn’s car. “Let’s ride.” She said nothing else until she and Gage were inside, pulling out ahead of Fox’s truck. “What does he think might happen that he doesn’t want his parents exposed to?”

“Nothing’s ever happened here, or at Cal’s parents’ place. But, as far as we know, they’ve never been connected before. So who the hell knows?”

She considered as she drove. “They’re nice people.”

“About the best.”

“You spent a lot of time here as a boy.”

“Yeah.”

“God, do you ever shut up?” she demanded after a moment. “It’s all talk, talk, talk with you.”

“I love the sound of my own voice.”

She gave it another ten seconds of silence. “Let’s try another avenue. How’d you do in the poker game?”

“Did okay. You play?”

“I’ve been known to.”

“Are you any good?”

“I make it a policy to be good, or learn to be good, at everything I do. In fact-”

As she rounded the curve, she saw the huge black dog hunched in the middle of the road a few yards ahead. Meeting its eyes, Cybil checked the instinct to slam the brakes. “Better hang on,” she said coolly, then punched the gas instead.

It leaped. A mass of black, the glint of fang and claw. The car shuddered at impact, and she fought to control it with her heart slammed in her throat. The windshield exploded; the hood erupted in flame. Again, she fought the instinct to hit the brakes, spun the car hard into a tight one-eighty. She prepared to ram the dog again, but it was gone.

The windshield was intact; the hood unmarred.

“Son of a bitch, son of a bitch,” she said, over and over.

“Turn around, and keep going, Cybil.” Gage closed a hand over the one that clamped the steering wheel. It was cold, he noted, but rock steady. “Turn the car around, and drive.”

“Yeah, okay.” She shuddered once, hard, then turned the car around. “So… What was I saying before we were interrupted?”

Sheer admiration for her chutzpah had a laugh rolling out of him. “You got nerve, sister. You got nerves of fucking steel.”

“I don’t know. I wanted to kill it. I just wanted to kill it. And, well, it’s not my car, so if I wrecked it running over a damn devil dog, it’s Q’s problem.” And at the moment, her stomach was a quivering mess. “It was probably stupid. I couldn’t see anything for a minute, when the windshield… I could’ve run us into a tree, or off the road into the creek.”

“People who are afraid to try something stupid never get anywhere.”

“I wanted to pay it back, for what it did to Layla yesterday. And that’s not the sort of thing that’s going to work.”

“It didn’t suck,” Gage said after a minute.

She laughed a little, then shot him a glance and laughed some more. “No, now that you mention it, it really didn’t.”

Seven

FOX’S FRIDAY SCHEDULE DIDN’T GIVE HIM MUCH time to think, or to brood. He went from appointment to meeting, back to appointment and into phone conference. At midafternoon, he saw a clear hour and decided to use it to take a walk around town to give his brain a rest.

Better yet, he thought, he’d walk up to the Bowl-a-Rama, grab a few minutes with Cal. He’d get a better sense of how Quinn was doing, how they were all doing if he talked with Cal.

When he stepped into reception to tell Layla, he found her talking with Cal’s great-grandmother Estelle Hawkins.

“I thought we were meeting at our usual clandestine rendezvous.” He walked over to kiss her soft, thin-skinned cheek. “How are we going to keep our secret affair secret?”

“It’s all over town.” Essie’s eyes twinkled through the thick lenses of her glasses. “We might as well start living in sin openly.”

“I’ll go up and pack.”

She laughed, swatted at him. “Before you do, I was hoping you’d have a few minutes for me. Professionally.”

“I’ve always got time for you, in any way. Come on back. Layla’s going to hold my calls.” He winked at her as he took Essie’s arm. “In case our passions overwhelm us.”