"Did you do it?" I said almost to myself.

"No."

He kissed my ear. This was what I had wanted to happen from the moment he had called off the wedding. I turned around and let my lips meet his. My kisses with Marc had been schoolgirl, uncertain and strange. But Ryan's mouth, his hands, the feel of his skin, were all familiar to me. He moved on top of me without saying another word.

For much of the night, with a nearly deaf dog snoring on the floor beside us, we made love underneath our wedding quilt. Just as I had dreamed we would.

CHAPTER 24

I woke up to the front doorbell ringing. Ryan was asleep, still half on top of me. The bell rang again. I knew it would be a struggle for my grandmother to answer it, so I jumped up, put on my clothes from the night before and ran down the stairs.

Jesse was standing on the other side of the door.

"You have a visitor." He pointed to Ryan's car.

"My fiance," I said, accidentally leaving out the ex. "He came up last night." Jesse raised an eyebrow but said nothing. "Do you want to come in?" I asked as if nothing strange had happened last night.

He walked through the door and looked around. "Is your grandmother up?"

"I don't know. I just got up. Let me check."

"Oh, you were in bed," he said, surprised. "You're wearing what you wore last night."

"It was the closest thing to me." I was suddenly embarrassed by his attention to detail. "Go into the kitchen. I'll get my grandmother."

In the living room, Eleanor was not only awake but dressed and on the phone. When she saw me, she wrapped up her call.

"Who was at the door?"

"Jesse."

A worried look crept across my grandmother's face. "Nothing else has happened, has it?"

"I don't think so," I said, suddenly anxious at the thought. "How much more could happen?"

She grabbed her crutches. "I'm beginning to wonder that myself."

Barney, looking sleepy and confused, came walking down the stairs and joined us. He sniffed at my grandmother and walked behind her as she hobbled to the kitchen on her crutches. Then he turned his attention to Jesse, who got down on his knees and roughhoused with the old dog. Barney made it very clear he loved every second of it.

I stayed out of the way, making coffee and looking for something I could serve. We had already eaten most of the pies, cakes, casseroles and pasta dishes that friends had brought by, but there were some brownies. Hardly breakfast food, but I put them on the table.

"We're going to have to keep the shop closed for a few days, Mrs. Cassidy," Jesse said as he got up off the floor.

"It was closed anyway," she answered.

"He was remodeling the place?" Jesse asked.

"Expanding," I broke in. "My grandmother is taking over the diner next door."

Jesse looked at me. "I heard that. A big job for Marc." He turned back to my grandmother.

"I don't know," she said. "He did good work around here. Repaired the floor in the dining room last year and that looks nice."

"He loved the old houses," Jesse agreed. "And I know he loved that building your shop is in."

"He was excited about the remodel," I said, and a wave of sadness fell over me.

Jesse nodded and reached his hand out toward mine, but then seemed to think better of it. Instead he took out a small tape recorder and placed it on the table. "I've got very bad handwriting," he said almost apologetically, pointing to the recorder. He turned it on and looked at my grandmother.

"Do you mind if we go over some details from last night?" he asked her.

"No, I'd like to," she said. "I'd like to be able to make sense of it for myself."

He nodded and turned to me. "It would be better if you weren't here."

"I'll be in my room," I said, and got up from the table.

Jesse nodded, turned to my grandmother and asked plainly, "Can you tell me what you saw last night, when you got to the store?"

As she started to talk I stepped back into the hallway. I wanted to check on Ryan. There was no hiding that he was here-that had already been established. But it would be better if Jesse didn't see the cuts on his hand, didn't know about the fights.

I went upstairs and into the bedroom as quietly as I could. Ryan was still asleep, draped across the bed as if he were passed out.

I wasn't sure why I wanted to protect him. Maybe I didn't need to. If Ryan was telling the truth, then he didn't need my protection. The smart thing would have been to wake him up and send him downstairs to tell his story. But what if he wasn't telling the truth?

"Hey." Ryan opened his eyes, a smile creeping across his face.

"The police chief is here to take statements," I said.

"I should get dressed." He jumped up and put his pants on just as there was a knock on the door.

Jesse was standing in the hallway. "Is this your room, Nell?" he said through the open door. I nodded. He walked in, looking around, first at the unmade bed and then at Ryan as he finished dressing. "The fiance?"

"Yeah," said Ryan, and automatically extended his hand. They shook, but Jesse didn't let go. He turned Ryan's hand over and looked down at the bruised knuckles.

"Got into a fight?"

"Yes." Ryan pulled his hand back. "Two, actually. Both with that guy."

"The murder victim?" Jesse asked.

"He was after Nell."

Jesse nodded. "That was his style," he said. "Go after the vulnerable."

"Excuse me?" I interrupted. "The vulnerable?"

"The way I heard it," Jesse continued, "it was over between the two of you." He gestured at Ryan and me. "You came up here to nurse a broken heart, and Marc was helping you with that."

"The way you heard it," I repeated his words, feeling oddly uncomfortable that Jesse was aware of my friendship with Marc.

"It's a small-town, Nell," Jesse said quietly. "That's how I knew about the fight between your… fiance here and Marc."

"Who told you?" I demanded.

Jesse smiled. "That quilt shop is in the center of town. And it has a picture window. Normally there are quilts hanging all over it, blocking the interior. But with those gone, anyone walking down the street can get a clear view of people fighting… or kissing… or anything."

Got it. Jesse, Ryan and everyone in town knew what I'd been up to yesterday afternoon. Suddenly I felt like the biggest fool all over again. I took a deep breath. "Then someone must have seen Marc's killer," I said.

"Afraid not. It probably happened after dark, and downtown is pretty quiet in the evenings," he said. He turned back to Ryan. "Ryan, is it?" Ryan nodded. "First I need to get your fingerprints, then your statement if that's okay?"

Ryan sat on the bed, and Jesse took out what looked like a blank index card and a small inkpad and put it on the dresser. "I'll need to get your prints, to compare against several we found in the shop," he said to Ryan.

Then he put his tape recorder next to them. "And I'll need your statement. Is it okay if we do it here? I assume you wouldn't want to come to the station when it would be quicker, and quieter, here." Jesse looked up at me with a flash of sympathy in his face that made me feel he was trying to save me from being even more of a subject of local gossip. Then his expression changed to an unemotional stare. "You should see if your grandmother is okay."

I was sure that Ryan would tell the same story to Jesse he'd told me last night, but I wanted to hear it again. It was clear, though, that Jesse wasn't going to start asking questions while I was in the room.

I walked out into the hallway. Jesse closed the door behind me. As much as I wanted to lean against the wall and listen in, I knew it wasn't right. Besides, in old houses like this one, the walls are thick. When I tried, all I could hear were indecipherable mutters.