“Me, too. Couple days more.”

She’d said “ours,” he thought as he grabbed some sweatpants.

Maybe he wouldn’t need that filter much longer.

By the time he got downstairs where she had coffee and Cheerios with fresh strawberries, he’d worked out the worst of the stiffness.

“It looks worse than it feels,” he told her.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it. Stop and pick up some arnica gel somewhere. I didn’t think of it before because I’m out. It can help with the bruising.”

He put it on a mental list, went for the coffee. “Where are you working today?”

“Considering this Bingley may actually be a bad guy, I’m going to have Roy and Ralph go over there later this morning, do that maintenance. I’ll go by to see Emily at some point, but I’ve got to start on the north side of the lake. Do you know George Parkison?”

“Sure. He owns some rentals over there, lives in Asheville, but keeps a second home here.”

“That’s the one,” she said as they ate. “Apparently the company he had doing his property maintenance gets a D-minus, so he’s hired us. We’re mowing, mulching, weeding, pruning, and so on. He has four rentals, so that’s a nice new client.”

She smiled over a bite of cereal. “Especially if we charm him into adding in his own place.”

“Bet you do.”

“With the shape the rentals are in, and with sending Roy and Ralph off for a while due to subterfuge, it’s going to take us two solid days. Then I’m hoping Cherylee Fogel, who’s a book club pal of Patsy Marsh, bites on the proposal I gave her yesterday. Apparently, she recently divorced husband number two, is now sitting pretty on a fat settlement from same, and wants to—as she put it—‘reimagine her lakeside cottage, inside and out, top to bottom.’”

“I believe you could give Maureen a run for her money on knowing who’s who and what’s what in Lakeview.”

“People tell me things. Such as Cherylee’s second ex-husband is a cosmetic surgeon—and I can attest, as Cherylee and I were up close and personal, he does excellent work. They lived in Greensboro during their four-year marriage, had the cottage, which is actually a lovely home with a soaring atrium and a summer kitchen overlooking the lake, as a weekend/vacation home. She took up permanent residence almost a year ago, during the separation, got the house and a hefty settlement due to the fact the ex had not one but two lovers on the side.

“One lover found out about the other,” Darby explained as she ate. “They bonded, and together they went to Cherylee. Due to female solidarity, the philandering doctor is now out the lakeside home and all it contains, two BMWs, several pieces of art and antiques, a monetary settlement to the tune of three-point-three million. Not including a separate percentage of stocks and bonds.”

Zane listened, fascinated. “Introduce me, because if she gets married and divorced again, I’d like to represent her.”

Darby grinned. “She says she’s done with marrying, and intends to stick with casual and adventurous sex, at least until she’s ninety.”

“You’re not making a bit of that up, are you?”

“No need. She’s fifty-eight, looks maybe forty—like I said, excellent work. She never had kids, but dotes on a selection of nieces and nephews, has formed a good circle of friends in Lakeview. And after seeing what I did at the Marsh place, looked up my website, saw your water feature.”

Darby polished off her cereal. “She wants one of her own—and canna lilies. She remembers her grandmother’s fondly. And she wants a lot of other things. She told me I was adorable, which is sweet, but even more that she feels strongly about supporting female-owned businesses. If she bites, and I think she will, High Country Landscaping’s going to be rolling right into the fall.”

She took her bowl and, since he’d finished as well, his to the sink. “And one more. She’s thinking about starting a small charitable foundation—that would be funded with her half of the worth of their private plane, not included in that monetary settlement number. I said she might want a local lawyer to help her work that out, mentioned you—along with the disclaimer we lived together. So, you may get a call.”

Delighted, impressed, Zane just stared at her. “I’m seriously crazy about you, in every possible way.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” She came to him, linked her arms around his neck. “I have to ask you for something that feels a little strange to me.”

“Go ahead.”

“I need you to text me when you get to the courthouse. Then again when you get back to your office.”

He laid his hands on her hips. “You taking care of me, darlin’?”

“Apparently. It’s a little out of my usual range of motion, but I need you to text me.”

“Then I will.”

He nudged her into a kiss. Before she drew back, she touched her lips to his black eye, the cut above it, the bruised jaw. “I gotta go. Come on, Zod.”

Breaking free, she grabbed her water bottle, her phone, her cap. “Don’t forget the arnica. Pick up two,” she added, as she strode away with the dog racing ahead of her. “I could use some in my kit.”

He wouldn’t forget, he thought. And believed it was time to bring her flowers again.

She opened the truck door for the dog, lowered his window partway as he wiggled his butt into the seat.

“New job site today, Zod, but same rules apply. No digging, no pooping until you’re taken to a suitable location. No cat and/or other dog chasing,” she continued as she started down the road. “No crotch or butt sniffing.”

He sent her his dreamy-in-love look. “This one’s pretty much straight cleanup,” she told him. “But it could lead to more. If we do a good job, we might get the client to go for some perking up next spring. Gotta think ahead,” she reminded him, and made the turn at the end of the road, then slowed when she saw the car on the shoulder, the hood up.

She pulled up behind it. “Just be a minute,” she told Zod, and stepped out.

“Having some trouble?” she called.

She heard, likely muffled by the hood, what sounded like “Battery dead” in a heavy Spanish accent.

“I can give you a jump,” she began as she walked toward the front of the car, “or—”

She had an instant to see shoes, jeans, the back half of the figure hunched under the hood.

The fist swung up so fast, so unexpectedly, she never saw it coming.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Because he had to move fast, he caught her before she hit the ground. He had the zip ties ready, secured her wrists—just in case—once he’d shoved her into the backseat. Tossed a blanket over her, another just-in-case, though he didn’t have far to go.

In a little over a minute since she pulled up behind his car, he sat behind the wheel again, pulled out. He nearly laughed himself sick as he drove with the radio blaring.

And with it blaring, he didn’t hear the dog, abandoned in the truck, begin to howl.

He had everything ready at the cabin, and forced himself to stifle his humor until he’d parked and taken a cautious look around. Barely sunrise, he thought, pleased. Even the lake was empty.