Friday started out bright and sunny, but by mid-morning, the sky had turned dark. The wind picked up, bringing rain in a gentle fall, exactly what Mrs. Wyndham’s newly planted flowers needed. Liz would have preferred a deluge. She would have kicked off her shoes, gone out into the grass and let it drench her, washing away the edginess and the attraction that was too damn close to becoming something more.

Important.

Real.

Something she didn’t need, didn’t want, wouldn’t have.

Her windows were open, and she was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, the wicker creaking each time she moved. It was a comforting sound, already growing familiar after so short a time. With her laptop balanced on her knees, she checked her e-mail, let her mother know that she’d be home for a visit at the first opportunity, then signed off to face the photograph of Josh that served as wallpaper.

He and Joe were identical, right down to the gleam in their blue eyes and the tilt to their smiles, but she’d never had a problem telling them apart, though it hadn’t been the obvious things like personal style. Josh had been cocky, sure of his appeal, comfortable in denim and leather, while Joe had been the poster boy for career success.

The difference for her had been simpler: Joe attracted her; Josh didn’t.

Josh had been a job. Joe had been…

Off-limits, she reminded herself. And nothing had changed.

Her cell phone trilled, and she glanced at the screen before answering. “Hey, Mika.”

“Are you enjoying the rain?”

Liz rolled her eyes. “Do you have the weather report for Copper Lake called up on your computer?”

“Yes, I do. It’s one of the first things I see when I boot up. Seventy-four degrees and raining. Expected to clear by midnight, with sunshine tomorrow.”

Another of the first things she saw on the computer, Liz suspected, was the same photograph of Josh that she herself was looking at. Mika’s attention, first and foremost, was the case.

While Liz kept having trouble remembering it.

She closed the laptop screen, then set it on the coffee table. “You have anything new for me?”

“Not really. Thomas Smith arrived in Copper Lake yesterday. He made contact with Joe Saldana, who insisted he doesn’t know his brother’s whereabouts.”

Liz had met Smith a few times before her team had removed Josh from Chicago. He appeared more organized crime than prosecutor, a seriously tough-looking guy…who’d attended Milton Academy and Yale before graduating from Harvard Law. He was single, a little too smug for her tastes, and had informed her after one meeting that he would have asked her out if he didn’t have a policy against dating feds. Mika, who’d been at the meeting, too, had given him the look that turned most men to stone, but he’d seemed not to notice. Unusual, because men always noticed Mika.

“He’s staying in Atlanta a few days. One of our people in that office is going to pay Joe a visit. We think it will solidify your story if you’re there at the time, so he’ll coordinate with you first.”

Oh, good. She so liked playing the role of clingy ex-girlfriend who didn’t know when to leave well enough alone.

“Have you been inside his house?”

“Not yet.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Gee, I don’t know. An invitation?” Rising from the sofa, Liz stretched, then padded to the open door. “Why don’t you get a warrant?”

“We can do that, but since you’re living fifty feet away…”

Stepping outside onto the porch, Liz gauged the distance between her cottage and Joe’s. Probably no more than a few inches from fifty feet. Did Mika have a satellite photo of the cottages called up on her computer, too?

“Do you think he would just leave evidence lying around?”

“No,” Mika conceded. “But law-abiding citizens tend to be clumsy in their attempts to protect their loved ones.”

Liz wouldn’t exactly describe Josh as Joe’s loved one. He carried a lot of rancor toward his brother. But blood was thicker than water, family first, blah, blah, blah.

“I’ll see how he feels about company this evening.” It was the action Mika wanted, but it disturbed Liz because she wanted it, too. She would like to see how Joe lived. Was his cottage as bare as her own, or had he truly settled in? Was he messy, neat, in between? Did the lavender house bear any resemblance to the chilly condo where he’d lived in Chicago, furnished by an interior designer and hardly looking lived in?

She would be happier about it if she didn’t have to worry. So far, their time together had been pretty public, but she’d still had erotic dreams last night. Alone? In his house? Good cause for concern.

“Let me know,” Mika said. “And don’t get too distracted.”

“Distracted?” Liz echoed as she sat on the porch floor, the siding at her back.

“I know you had mixed feelings about going to Copper Lake.” Mika hesitated. “I know you had mixed feelings about Joe.”

Which was more astonishing? That Mika was actually getting personal? Or that she’d seen what Liz had been sure she’d kept very well hidden from everyone except Joe? “I don’t know-”

“I was there when you visited him in the hospital.”

Liz squeezed her eyes shut. Josh hadn’t seen anything. His parents had been too grief-stricken to notice. Tom Smith hadn’t said anything, and she was pretty sure he would have. Like Mika, his case came first.

“I’ll stay focused,” she said flatly.

“I’m sure you will. Call me.”

“I’m sure I will,” Liz mimicked after she pressed the End button. She flipped the phone shut with a defiant snap, then heaved a sigh. There were easier cases out there. If she could trade this one…

She wouldn’t. She’d given too much time to it. She’d wound up handcuffed to her bed because of it. She would do her best to find Josh and persuade him to testify, and then she would return to life as normal. The Mulroneys would go to prison, Josh would be in trouble again before she made it home and Joe would know the truth. Would know she’d lied. He would want only to forget, and she would always remember. And wonder.

The day passed slowly, the rain falling ceaselessly. At five, she changed into a short cotton skirt and a scoop-necked tank. She pinned back her curls and put on makeup, earrings and clunky clogs. Her minimal belongings didn’t include an umbrella or a slicker, so after making a phone call, she tucked her cell into her bag, locked up and did the fifty-foot dash to Joe’s porch.

There she shook her hair, thinking with a grin that Elizabeth and Bear, both barking now inside the house, would likely have the same reaction to the rain, then she kicked off her shoes. By the time Joe came around the corner at five-thirty, she was sitting in one of his rockers, legs stretched out, feet propped on the porch railing, damp clothes clinging to her skin.

He didn’t notice her until he was halfway up the steps, bike gripped in both hands. He stopped abruptly and stared at her until something-maybe the weight of the bike or the rain in his face-made him move the last few feet to shelter.

“Hey.” He set down the bike, then removed his helmet. His hair was dry, but it was likely the only part of him that was. His baby-blue T-shirt and jeans hugged him like a second skin, and water sluiced off to puddle at his feet.

The temperature had dropped enough to make wet clothing chilly, but he didn’t look cold. She didn’t feel it. Struggling to sound unaffected, she said, “If you had a car, you wouldn’t have gotten so wet coming home.”

“If I had a car, I’d be part of the problem, not the solution. Do you know how much pollution they put into the atmosphere?”

“Sometimes, though, a bicycle isn’t a reasonable option.”

“Sometimes. Some places. Copper Lake isn’t one of those places.”

He toed off each shoe, kicked them against the wall, then stripped off his socks and stood there, barefooted like her. There was something incredibly appealing about the sight. Apparently unaware that she’d discovered an all-new fascination with bare feet, he said, “Make yourself comfortable.”