The Sinner. Kathleen O'Brien

on the fabric swatches. When she spoke, her voice sounded tight. “Don’t what?”

      “I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m quitting. I’m getting out.”

      “You’re…you—”

      The fabric fell to the carpet with a ruffling flutter of color. And then, with a soft exhale of the breath she must have been holding far too long, maybe for eight whole weeks, Karla Gilbert slid to the floor, too.

      Maxim jumped, trying in vain to catch her, assuming the faint was genuine. The Twizzler lamp dropped from his hands. It must have been a delicate glass because, even though the carpet was soft and expensive, the lamp shattered into a hundred red pieces, which sprayed out like jagged icicles of blood.

      The symbolism was a little heavy, Lara thought numbly. The best directors would eliminate it, judging it over the top.

      But whatever it lacked in subtlety it made up for in drama. It definitely got its message across.

      Lara Lynmore, the world’s most selfish, ungrateful daughter, had just broken her mother’s heart.

      “SO, BRYCE, TELL US. What’s it like living in the haunted frat house?”

      Bryce looked over at Claire McClintock, the dark-haired, sad-eyed beauty who had married his brother, Kieran. She was pregnant, very pregnant. All through dinner Kieran had fussed over her as if she were made of moonbeams.

      “It’s okay,” Bryce said with a neutral smile. “A little raw, but it has the virtue of being free and unoccupied.” Abandoned for at least three years, the frat house had been part of his inheritance. He had laughed when he heard about it. Old Anderson McClintock really had owned the entire damn town, hadn’t he?

      Bryce looked around the lovely blue dining room. “It’s definitely not as elegant as this place.”

      He didn’t add that he was surprised to find the McClintock mansion decorated in such good taste. The last time he’d been here, the infamous Cindy, his father’s fifth and final wife, had been in charge of it for five-and-a-half whole months, which apparently had been enough to do some serious damage in the vulgarity department. Bryce wondered who was responsible for the new restraint. Had old Anderson tossed out Cindy’s excesses when he tossed out Cindy herself? Or was this the gentle Claire’s doing?

      Bryce had no way of finding out, of course. He’d been gone for fourteen years. A lot of things happened in that much time. One of the things that had happened was Bryce had lost his right to ask questions.

      In fact, even Kieran’s simple dinner invitation had come as a pretty serious shock. Back when they were kids, and Bryce had been forced by court order to spend the summers in Heyday, the two boys had hardly been close.

      Bryce was four years older, and about a hundred years cockier. He had hated old Anderson, who had divorced Bryce’s mom to marry Kieran’s mother, and he hadn’t bothered to hide it.

      He hadn’t hated Kieran, exactly. He’d actually felt kind of sorry for the kid, who had to live with Anderson all year round, and, after his own mother died, endure the string of bimbo wives, too. However, in Bryce’s older, wiser, estimation, Kieran had been an ass-kissing little dork. As he recalled, Bryce had made the poor kid’s summers pretty rocky.

      And to top it off, old Anderson had died early this year, and in the will, Bryce, who by all rights should have been disinherited like the black sheep he was, had been left a full third of the McClintock estate.

      Bryce could imagine how resentful Kieran must have been when he heard that news. The Sinner, who never went within a hundred miles of Heyday, inheriting equally with the Saint, who had stuck to the old man like a lapdog. Where was the justice in that?

      But to Bryce’s surprise, when he arrived in Heyday a few days ago, after two months in the Bahamas trying to forget the whole Lara Lynmore/Kenny Boggs fiasco, Kieran had called him immediately. He had even offered to let Bryce stay here, at the old homestead. But Bryce had drawn the line at that. He had a lot of nasty memories of this place. And he wasn’t sure how much family togetherness he could actually stomach.

      “But what about the ghost?” Mallory Rackham, who sat to his right, looked genuinely curious. “Have you seen him yet?”

      Bryce transferred his gaze to Mallory, the pretty young bookstore owner who had obviously been invited to this intimate little New Year’s Eve party for his sake. There were only six of them—Kieran and Claire; a smart, sharp-tongued pair of married lawyers named John and Evelyn Gordon; and Bryce and Mallory.

      “Not yet,” Bryce said. “But remember I’ve been there only a week. Maybe this ghost is shy.”

      “Or maybe he’s fiction,” Evelyn Gordon said as she scooped a bite of the pomegranate parfait Kieran’s gorgeous housekeeper, Ilsa, had just put before her. “Teenage frat boys don’t kill themselves because their girlfriends dump them. They just get drunk and have mindless sex with the first thing they see wearing a dress.”

      “Oh, no, he’s real,” Ilsa said suddenly. She blushed, as if aware that, as the mere housekeeper, she probably shouldn’t have spoken.

      John Gordon, who had a mouthful of parfait, glanced up. “Yeah? You’ve seen him?”

      Ilsa shrugged sheepishly. “No. It’s just that when I pass by there, I get…” She shivered. “A feeling.” She looked across at Bryce and put her hand over her heart. “You are brave to stay there, Mr. McClintock, all alone at night.”

      Amazing. He had been in Heyday only four days, and already he’d been invited over for a nice fatted-calf dinner, and now the housekeeper was coming on to him. But she was one damn glamorous housekeeper. If his New Year’s resolution hadn’t been to give up women, he might just have taken her up on it.

      He laughed. “The only brave part is living with the mess. You may be surprised to learn that fraternity boys aren’t big on cleanliness.”

      Oh, man, how dumb could he get? That sounded like a blatant request for a housekeeper. Ilsa’s blue eyes twinkled at him hopefully. She had just opened her mouth to speak again when Kieran gave her a smile.

      “Don’t I get a parfait?”

      Ilsa apologized profusely and then deposited the last crystal goblet in front of Kieran slowly—a little too slowly, Bryce thought. And was he imagining things, or did her breast brush lightly against Kieran’s shoulder? Wow. Apparently Ilsa was an equal-opportunity flirt. Any McClintock man would do.

      And right in front of Claire, too.

      But Claire was leaning back in her chair, trying to get comfortable, ignoring her parfait and equally indifferent, it seemed, to any threat that the gorgeous Ilsa might pose. Even at this advanced, lumpy stage of pregnancy, she obviously didn’t worry that her new husband might stray.

      Of course, watching Kieran watch Claire, Bryce had to admit her confidence was probably justified. No matter who was talking, no matter whose luscious breasts were hovering just above his hands, Kieran’s gaze lingered on his bride as if she were the sweetest parfait of all.

      The rest of the meal was uneventful. Bryce decided Kieran must have briefed everyone on which subjects were off-limits. Anderson himself and all five wives, especially Cindy, the last one. And of course The Highwayman, which Bryce had noticed was playing right now at the new multiplex on Main Street. Guns, stalkers, bodyguards, the FBI, Kenny Boggs and, last but not least, Lara Lynmore.

      Thank God for the weather! Otherwise, they might as well have been mute.

      Actually, that was fairly sensitive of Kieran, Bryce had to admit. Bryce almost hadn’t come home from the Bahamas at all, knowing he’d be forced to rehash the whole ugly mess with everyone he met. Over here, Lara was just big enough to still be news, even after two months. In the Bahamas, almost no one had even heard of her.

      Over there, he hadn’t thought about her at all. Not in the daytime, anyhow. A couple of dreams might have sneaked through now and then, but