The feel of him, the heat of him, brought a gasp of awareness, reality. She opened her eyes, and he lowered her, pushed her gently back against the door frame. His eyes were as dark as midnight, telling her that she shouldn't mistake his stoic nature for control. He was on the precipice, sweeping his gaze over her, taking in just how aroused she was.

He skimmed his fingertips over her breasts, ignoring her quick breath, and touched her mouth. His was set in a hard line, as if he'd done something he regretted, knew was wrong. "You're a dangerous woman to have next door."

"That took both of us."

He nodded.

"It doesn't have to happen again," she added quickly.

"That's where you're wrong." He kissed her again, lightly, his eyes sparkling with sudden humor. "Cookies?"

"Yes," she said with a grin. "Cookies would be wonderful."

She stopped back at the carriage house to lock up. Distracted over going to dinner next door and her father and Davey not finding the skull, she'd forgotten. It wasn't as if it'd make much difference. Anyone who wanted to get into the place could with little imagination or effort. But there was no point in inviting trouble.

While she was here, she decided to check on Tippy Tail and the kittens, especially with the mother cat being so skittish. Tess slipped into the kitchen, turning on just the outdoor light over the side steps. It provided enough light for her to make out the tiny kittens and their very awake mother. Tippy Tail stared at her with half-closed eyes in that haughty cat-way, but didn't move. Tess shuddered, remembering the gleam of golden eyes last night in the dark cellar.

The carriage house was quiet, and she cast eerie shadows as she moved to the sink. Going back to Boston tonight was the right thing to do, she told herself. She probably hadn't seen a damn thing last night, and she'd kissed Andrew Thorne. She needed to get her bearings. Maybe she wasn't cut out for owning a country house.

She turned on the balky faucet and splashed water on her face. She breathed, leaning over the sink, water still dripping from her face. She could use the warm spring evening, wine and chocolate chip cookies as an excuse for what had happened between them. Take Andrew off the hook, as well. The conditions were ripe for a kiss.

But talk about precipitous, she thought with a long, cathartic sigh. She liked to trust her instincts in her work, but they weren't necessarily reliable when it came to men. With her design work, she would always go with her instincts, see where they led her, because they were grounded in her experience and education, her success. Not so with her relationships. She'd had some good relationships, even if they hadn't lasted, but some notoriously rotten ones, too, especially in the past few years. Now she was more carefree-or supposed to be. Her father and Davey said she'd gone from being too impulsive to too picky. But what did they know?

She dried her face with a paper towel and touched her fingers to her mouth. And smiled. It had been a hell of a kiss.

She glanced back at the cat. "Couldn't you at least give the box in the bathroom a try?"

Maybe the night on her own would inspire Tippy Tail to depart from Tess's camp bed. Tess would be back in the morning. She'd search the cellar and identify what she'd seen that had transformed itself, at least in her mind, into a skeleton. She wasn't cutting and running.

She switched off the lights and went outside, thought about knocking on Andrew's door and taking up his offer of a guest room. But that would be a mistake. She needed to get herself back to familiar territory and process the past twenty-four hours, not set herself up for even more to sort out.

The wind gusted, whistling in the trees. Even in the dark, she could see the white and pale lavender blossoms on the lilac hedge whipping around in the stiff breeze. She shivered and jumped off the steps. Time to clear out.

There was a loud creak and a whomp.

Her heart raced. She stopped, not moving. What the hell was that?

The bulkhead door. She relaxed slightly. Davey must not have secured it properly and the wind had blown it up and back down again. The latch, she recalled, was in rough shape. The thing probably hadn't been used in years.

But what if she was wrong?

She doubled back and unlocked the kitchen door, ran inside and dumped her mason jar of lilacs into the sink. She took the jar with her back outside, slowing her pace. Her eyes were reasonably adjusted to the darkness.

It couldn't be a ghost. Ghosts didn't use the damn bulkhead. They could go through the cracks in the walls. They were ghosts.

She opened her car door, figuring that whatever she did, it would be with a gas pedal under her foot. She set her mason jar on the passenger seat and snatched up her cell phone. Maybe she should just call it a day and get the damn police over here. Tell them she thought she'd seen a skeleton last night, heard something tonight, and let them have a look.

Harley Beckett came through the lilacs, and Tess dropped the cell phone and grabbed her mason jar.

"Was that you I heard?" She slid out from behind the wheel, back onto her gravel driveway with both her jar and her cell phone. "You're lucky I didn't throw my jar at you."

"Back inside." His expression was dead serious, his tone uncompromising. He pointed to the kitchen door. "Go."

Tess didn't move. "Why? What's going on?"

"I heard something. Back inside. I'm not arguing with you."

"It was the bulkhead door. The wooden latch is rotted."

She could see him gritting his teeth. "At least wait in your damn car."

"No. I'm going with you." She proceeded past him into the grass, then stopped, handing him her mason jar. "Here, you're the ex-cop. You'll know how to use this better than I will."

"I'd rather have a.38."

But he took the jar and apparently gave up on convincing her to do what he said, because he pushed ahead of her without a word. They walked through the tall grass between her yard and the lilacs, their fragrant scent overpowering now, strangely disquieting.

As Tess had anticipated, the bulkhead door was unlatched, and another strong gust lifted it an inch or two, then banged it back down again.

"My father and Davey must have left it like this," she said.

Harl eyed her, his expression intense as he apparently considered the situation and her role. He wouldn't necessarily top her list of people she'd want looking after one of her kids. He pointed to her. "Hand me your cell phone."

"Why? You're not calling the police, are you?"

"Haviland, you're a pain in the ass. I don't know what Andrew sees in you. Give me the phone."

She handed it over. "What did you hear? Do you think someone was back here, sneaking around in my cellar?" She took a breath, the taciturn nature of Jedidiah Thorne's descendants enough to unravel anyone. "I'm beginning to think this place is haunted."

"I'm calling Andrew." Using what he had left of his right thumb, he banged out a number. "Thorne? Harl. She's fine. We'll be right over." He clicked off the phone and handed it back to her. "Let's go."

"No way. I'm going back to Boston. It was the wind. I see now where Dolly gets her active imagination, from you and her father."

Harl snatched the cell phone out of her hand, hit redial. "She's arguing. I'll come stay with Dolly. You come here and haul her ass over. My woman-haul-ing days are long gone."

Tess set her jaw. "I'll be gone before he gets here."

She had him, and he knew it. Unless he used physical force, he couldn't stop her. "All right. Good. Go."

"You can't expect me to stick around out here with two strange men-"