"I was thinking I'd imagined it. When you didn't see anything, I hoped that was the all-clear."

"Oh, thanks. Set me up for a goddamn heart attack. Plumber drops dead on top of skeleton. Real nice. You should have said, ‘Davey, Pop, you mind looking over in that corner there, make sure I didn't see a skeleton last night after all?'"

Tess ate more of her stew. He had a point. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"I know I'm right, and the hell you're sorry."

"It was an awkward moment."

"Tess, getting a piece of meat stuck in your teeth is an awkward moment."

"Davey, okay, I get your point."

She frowned. Something had caught her eye at the back of the pub. A movement, a reflection. She spun around on her stool.

"Damn."

Andrew Thorne was at a table at the far end of the bar. He had his back to the wall, in the shadows.

Tess stiffened and glared at her father. "Why didn't you tell me he was here?"

"Who?"

"Who, my foot. Andrew Thorne. My neighbor."

"He's here? Oh, yeah. I didn't recognize him."

Tess breathed in through her nostrils. It was a bald-faced, unabashed, deliberate lie, and he didn't care if she knew it.

He scooped ice into a glass. "You don't tell me things, don't be surprised I don't tell you things."

"This is not a time for fair play's turnabout, Pop. I trusted you!"

He leveled a fatherly gaze on her and didn't say a word.

"Got what you deserved," Davey muttered, sipping his beer.

Tess jumped off her stool, heat rushing to her face. She pushed past the students and kicked an out-of-place chair on her way to the back of the bar. She pushed up her sleeves. She was still in her work clothes, hot, her skin suddenly hypersensitive.

Andrew had an empty beer glass and bowl of stew in front of him. He looked up at her, his eyes very blue, steady. He leaned back in his chair with a confidence she wouldn't have expected from him being so deep into her own turf.

She wanted to throw something. "What do you think you're doing?"

He kept his eyes on her. "Having a beer and a bowl of stew. I hear the clam chowder's excellent, too."

"Earlier." She'd barely stopped for air, could feel her hand touch the corner of the table, uncontrollable energy surging through her. "At Old Granary outside my office. What were you doing there?"

He stretched out his long legs, eyes, that amazing blue color, still pinned on her. She wasn't sure he'd even blinked. "Checking out John Hancock's grave."

"Bullshit, you were spying on me. Why?"

He shrugged. "Because Ike Grantham gave you the carriage house next door."

"He didn't give it to me. I earned it."

"And because you say you found human remains in the cellar."

Her breathing was shallow, rapid. She could taste the dirt and the dust from that night, see the skull, its yellowed teeth.

She spun around and yelled to her father, "Pop, throw him out."

"You don't like him, you throw him out."

Davey had turned around in his stool, his back against the bar, a smirk on his face as he watched the show-which only further infuriated Tess.

She flew back around at Andrew, her hand still on the corner of his table. "Get up, Thorne. You have no business being here. If you wanted to check me out, you should have come up to my office and knocked on my door. You should have asked me to take you here."

His eyes narrowed, fine lines at their corners, a muscle working in his jaw. "I have a six-year-old daughter, Tess. I'll do what I have to do to make sure you're not a threat to her."

"Get out."

He folded his hands on his flat middle and didn't move.

Tess knew she was out of control, didn't care. This was her father's pub, her space. Andrew was insinuating himself into her life, deliberately trying to throw her off balance because he didn't trust her. Or because he had something to hide? Possibilities came at her. Damn, she'd stepped on a hornets' nest all right, and now they were mad and swarming.

She lifted the table with one hand and pulled it away from him. He remained in his chair, but his eyes had darkened noticeably. Tess didn't care. She picked up an empty chair and flung it. It toppled over, and one of the university students said, "Hey, what's going on?"

"A brawl," Davey said. "Stay out of it."

Andrew didn't say anything. He unclasped his hands and calmly scratched the side of his mouth.

Tess kicked over the second unoccupied chair at his table, then picked it up and slammed it back down on the floor. Days of frustration, tension and lack of sleep were taking their toll, and she wanted release. She'd seen a brawl or two. She wanted to bust up the place, get some kind of reaction out of Andrew Thorne.

She grabbed his stew bowl and threw it against the wall. The pottery was so thick, it broke only into two pieces.

"Jimmy," Davey said, "you keeping track of the damage? It's going to add up."

Andrew kept his gaze pinned on Tess. It was kissing him, too, she realized, that had her out of control. Her reaction to him. Physically, emotionally. She'd tried to pass it off on the odd weekend in Bea-con-by-the-Sea. She'd told herself when she saw him again, it wouldn't be there, this over-the-top reaction to him.

But it was. Even staring down at him from her fourth-floor window, she'd felt it.

"We need to talk," he said calmly.

She took a swing at him, figuring he was inert, but one hand shot up with lightning speed and caught her by the wrist before her fist could connect with his jaw.

He moved easily to his feet. "Calm down."

"There is nothing a woman hates more than being told to calm down."

"Tess."

The feel of his hand on hers was like a hot brand. She couldn't breathe. "Let go of me."

"Not until you promise not to punch me."

He'd done this before. Bar brawls. He wasn't just a North Shore architect.

"Hey, Tess," Davey said. "You've got to learn to pick your fights. The guy's got height, weight and experience on you."

Fury boiled up inside her, and she leveled her foot at Andrew's shin and let loose, catching him off balance. He swore. She slipped out of his grip and spun off toward the door.

He grabbed her by the elbow just as she was stepping over Davey's feet. "Tess, I said, we need to talk."

"No, we don't."

She snatched up Davey's fresh beer with her free hand and let it fly, its contents catching Andrew in the face and spewing over three dusty construction workers who'd just walked in. "Hey! What the hell?"

The place erupted. It was as if her temper and bad mood were contagious. Andrew was forced to drop her wrist in order to defend himself against a beefy man who thought the beer was his doing.

Seizing her opening, Tess jumped on Andrew's back with the blind hope of summarily tossing him out of her father's bar. She could have left. She could have gone on her way and let Jimmy Haviland and Davey Ahearn deal with Andrew Thorne. But the chance to throw him out herself was too good to pass up. This was her place. This was where she was safe. This was sacred ground. He had no business spying on her anywhere, but especially not here. She felt violated, invaded.

He didn't budge, instead reaching one arm around in back of him and sinking his grip into her thigh. "Tess, damn it!"

When she reached for Davey's stew bowl, her godfather rolled off his stool and peeled her off Thorne. "Take a swing at me, Tess, and I'll pop you in the chops."

Jim Haviland came around in front of the bar. "Okay, if I were Ben Cartwright, I'd fire my shotgun in the air, but I'm not. So, everyone, shut the hell up and sit down."

They complied, and he handed out brooms, dustpans, dampened bar towels and a round of beers, on his daughter.

She was unchagrined, but refused to look in An-drew's direction. He was standing behind her, breathing fire now. That was something. At least she'd penetrated that cool Yankee control.