She took a breath and followed his lead, keeping her words mundane. "Both of us?"

"Yes, ma'am." His eyes sparkled, his humor back as abruptly as it had vanished. "Probably the whole town saw you kiss me this morning. We're an item."

"McGrath!" Zoe almost jumped out of her chair but saw his quirk of a smile and stopped herself. "You're kidding, right?"

"You need to be kidded more, Detective. Life's been damn serious for you for too long."

"For you, too, don't you think?"

"Absolutely. That's why I picked Goose Harbor for my vacation."

She leaned back, wiggling her toes inside her heavy socks. "Is it? I don't know, Special Agent McGrath. I don't think Teddy Shelton's told me the whole story about why he's here. But neither have you."

"I haven't known you two whole days," he said. "I haven't told you the whole story about anything."

And he smiled, winked and headed back inside.

Zoe flopped back against her chair, sighed at the porch ceiling, then made herself pour another cup of tea. An erotic, toe-curling kiss, a dunk in the harbor and a million questions had her reeling. Her peppermint-lic-orice tea would calm her down. She didn't need warming up, not anymore.

What could J. B. McGrath possibly be hiding?

She shook her head at the simplicity of her question, because she had a feeling there was nothing simple about her houseguest.

And she knew how insidious the aftereffects of a traumatic experience could be. Her former colleagues in the state police and her father's small, shattered police force in town had all been more than patient with her in the first weeks after his murder. They understood she'd just wanted to find out who'd shot him on an isolated stretch of Goose Harbor coast and why.

It wasn't the wanting that got her into trouble-it was pushing herself, and them, beyond all reason. She'd made a pain of herself, complained about the lack of progress in the investigation, demanded answers to questions she knew they weren't going to answer. She meddled. She didn't believe she was somehow magically better than her former colleagues because her father was the victim, or because the FBI had accepted her as a new trainee-she simply couldn't stop herself.

The last straw was when her criticism of the slow progress of the investigation ended up in the Goose Harbor News. The Boston media picked up the story.

Finally, Stick Monroe had called her over for a visit.

They'd stood in his garden as he'd stirred his compost and read her the riot act. If the FBI found out she was handling this crisis this badly, they'd boot her. She could forget the academy. Kiss her career goodbye. "We all understand," he said. "Zoe, I know it's hard, but it's not your case. If you keep this up, you're going to end up on the wrong side of a jail cell, never mind get dis-invited to the academy and lose friends."

She hadn't cared, not then. It wasn't that she didn't want to-she couldn't step back from the brink of her own need to keep acting, doing, not thinking. She remembered thrusting her chin out at her old friend. "I found him, Stick. I saw his blood mixing with the sand and saltwater. I felt for his pulse. His skin was cool, mot-tled-you know, that bluish-purple marbled effect bodies get-"

"Stop it, Zoe."

"I can't!"

"That's why you need to let CID do their job."

She'd fought tears, felt so out of control, more than she'd ever experienced in her life, even when her mother died-because both her father and her aunt had been there then, anchoring her, absorbing some of her trauma. "Aunt Olivia-if I hadn't told her-"

"She still would have died, Zoe." Stick was patient, firm. "You know that. She knew it. She'd been working on revising her obituary that morning before you arrived."

"I feel so terrible. I've made such an ass of myself."

"No, you haven't. Patrick was a good man. We all miss him. We all hate what happened to him. But it's time to back off."

All the rage and fight had gone out of her as she watched Stick use his pitchfork to turn over rich, black dirt made from scraps from his yard and kitchen, his special worms, his care and time-most of all, time. She didn't say a word. She just stared at that new soil and listened to the birds overhead, felt the warm autumn sun on her back contrasting with the cool breeze coming up from the water. No wonder he'd retired to Goose Harbor. No wonder her father and her great-aunt and her sister had stayed.

Then, still saying nothing, she'd turned on her heel and left. She packed up her car that afternoon and headed south. She stayed in Boston for a few days and bowed out of the FBI Academy. Forget it. She wasn't coming. She contacted people she knew who didn't live in Maine, and within two weeks, she was offered the job as the sole detective in Bluefield, Connecticut.

And now here she was, back again. Her problems hadn't changed. Her father was still dead, her aunt was still dead, and a murderer was still on the loose.

Betsy ate a double-chocolate brownie from Christina's Café as she walked up Ocean Drive to the house where she'd spent two years of her life. If Zoe was there and let her in, it would be the first time Betsy had been into Olivia West's house since her former charge's funeral.

Those awful days last October weren't easy to think about.

Olivia had been a forceful but engaging personality, and her fame had given Betsy's work a certain cachet. She wasn't the caregiver for just any old woman, but the creator of Jen Periwinkle.

Few people were aware, because Betsy kept it to herself, of the generous nest egg Olivia had left her.

Her legs ached. She needed more regular exercise, but Luke's compulsive "physical training" turned her off. As a little private rebellion, she didn't exercise at all. She could feel the effects now as she puffed and coughed after just half a mile. As a girl, she used to see Olivia walking around town at all hours of the day.

Betsy had always imagined she was plotting fictional murders. When she started working for her years later, she discovered that Olivia in fact liked to walk when she was plotting a book or was stuck.

No wonder she'd lived to be a hundred.

Betsy turned up the driveway and surprised herself at the overwhelming sense of sadness she felt being here. Olivia was gone. Her nephew, such a good man, was gone. Really, all of Goose Harbor was still dealing with their loss. But how much more awful for the West sisters to endure two deaths in one twenty-four-hour period. Betsy had watched them scatter the ashes, in separate urns, of their great-aunt and their father into the ocean and thought-I'm not going to put off living anymore. I'm going to have fun. Enjoy my life.

Every day she'd known Olivia West, every day she'd worked for her, Betsy had watched Olivia try to make the best of what she had. She didn't pine for lost opportunities or days past but lived in the moment, the present. Betsy saw that as the key, the answer. She'd promised herself never to forget it. She had to be prac-tical-she didn't have the financial resources of someone like an Olivia West. But that wasn't the point. The point was no more feeling sorry for herself, no more living in the past or the future.

She'd marched herself down to Luke's yacht and made sure he knew she was interested in him. She'd be his nurse. Romance could come later.

And it had. Sort of, anyway.

A leaf-peeping tour bus crawled down Ocean Drive, a string of bumper-to-bumper cars behind it. Betsy noticed J. B. McGrath's Jeep in the driveway next to Zoe's VW and almost turned back. This couldn't be a good development. Zoe needed to move on with her life, not look for reminders of what she'd given up by letting herself get involved with an FBI agent.