After Dark. Wendy Etherington

at him instead of the light fixture. “So what is it, Aidan? What brought you here?”

      “Penance.”

      If any man besides Father Dominick had said that word, she probably would have laughed.

      But she had no desire to laugh at Aidan. He was deadly serious.

      For a moment, she wondered if the ugly, speculative stories about him were true, but her father claimed it was likely Aidan’s parents had been killed by a mugger, a drug-addled nut who’d gunned down two people outside a restaurant simply for the cash in their wallets.

      Walking toward him, keeping her tone as calm and measured as her steps, she asked, “Penance for what?” He turned his head, but she laid her hand against his cheek and brought him back to face her. “What have you done that you need to make up for?”

      “Nothing. It’s—” He shook his head, and she was sure if he could he’d have taken back the revealing word. “This house is broken. I want to fix it. That’s it.”

      That wasn’t nearly it.

      “I needed a new challenge,” he added, bringing fuel to her blaze of certainty that whatever had hurt him was in no way simple. “Big-city executives—we need a thrill a minute to survive.”

      Liar, she thought, though she nodded. “I’ll bet. Let’s eat. I’m starved.”

      The relief in his eyes was obvious, but she said nothing about it and led the way to the kitchen. While waiting for the pasta to boil, she caught him up on the latest town gossip, involving a salesman from Chicago who’d come into Courtney’s beauty shop last month and, with a disgusting leer, insisted on having the “special hair and massage package.” No doubt, Aidan couldn’t have cared less about the silly story, but since the spotlight was off him, he seemed more relaxed.

      “So, while Courtney’s flustered about how to tell the guy to jump in the lake without sounding rude—”

      “A special talent among Southern women.”

      “—Helen—she’s our local real-estate agent and happened to be in the shop having her hair highlighted—tells the guy that prostitution, with special massages or otherwise, isn’t legal in South Carolina and to get lost.”

      “Helen is the agent my lawyer dealt with about this house?” Aidan asked.

      “Yep.”

      “I heard a lot about her. ‘A tough dame’ was my attorney’s exact quote.”

      “Well, this guy hadn’t heard about Helen. He had the nerve to wink at her and say ‘I hear Realtors around here offer even more exclusive services than the beauty shops.’”

      Aidan winced. “So, did she punch the guy?”

      “Surprisingly, no. She suggested he find his way to I-75 and the topless cafés.”

      “And he accepted that?”

      “Unfortunately not. But Courtney threatened to call my dad if he didn’t move along. So, apparently, the threat of the cops and the intimidating factor of a fiery redhead salon owner in steel-tipped cowboy boots and an annoyed real-estate agent with her hair sticking out in foil highlight packets was more than he wanted to deal with. He ran out pretty quick.”

      “A wise move.”

      Sloan sighed. “If only somebody had been there to record the moment visually. You know, for posterity.”

      “And the amusement of the townfolk.”

      “Naturally.” She smiled, the picture in her mind giving her a pretty good feeling all on its own. “I haven’t laughed so hard since the last time a carload of tourists from Connecticut drove in looking for a tour of the alligator breeding farms.”