Cold River - Carla Neggers [107]
His heart jumped when Hannah came into the front window. She was smiling, laughing. She was so delicate, so vulnerable—and she had fire and grit. She knew from experience that being passive and hoping for the best never worked.
He shuddered as the heat went out of his car. There were those he’d hired and who’d hired him over the past fifteen months who would be anything but passive. They weren’t ones who hoped for the best. They made it happen, and they’d deal with him should he fail.
He’d covered his tracks well, but it would only take one person, one mistake, to undo him.
He had to make certain that didn’t happen.
Then Sean Cameron slipped in next to Hannah in such a proprietary way that Lowell cringed, his stomach twisting in real, not just emotional, pain. Vivian would be disgusted with him and remind him how incompetent he was compared to any of the Cameron brothers.
If she could lust after them, why couldn’t he lust after Hannah?
It was more than lust, Lowell thought as he started his car again. His feelings for Hannah Shay were as pure as any he’d ever known.
They didn’t mean he couldn’t do what he knew he had to do. He understood when a situation demanded caution and restraint, and when one demanded boldness and action.
He headed down Main Street. He would drive up Cameron Mountain Road to the ridge. If anyone saw him, he would say he was looking at the stars. But he wasn’t worried.
No one would see him.
Twenty-Eight
Sean took a bucket of dirty cleaning water from Hannah and dumped it into the utility sink in the back storage room. “The work helps clear my head,” she said as he set the bucket in the sink. She turned on the faucet and filled it with fresh hot water, the steam helping to return some color to her cheeks. “Bowie didn’t stash that money jar. He’s not that subtle. He’d just have smashed it and grabbed the cash.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the leak in the cellar sooner?”
“I didn’t think it was that bad.”
She didn’t protest when he lifted the bucket out of the sink and carried it to the dining room. “Where did everyone go?”
“Home.” He set the bucket on the floor by a back table. “The place is clean. You can dump out this water and—”
“I might as well wipe down these windowsills,” she said, pointing to the riverside windows.
“Does Rose ever join you on cleaning night?” Sean asked.
Hannah shook her head as she grabbed a steaming cleaning rag out of the bucket and suspended it in midair, letting it drip into the water.
“A.J. and Lauren are concerned she’s spending too much time alone.”
“She was upset about your father as it was. Then came that mess in November. It’s a lot.”
“She’ll work her way through it,” Sean said.
“She’s strong, yes. A true Cameron. Granite spines.” Hannah gently squeezed excess water from the rag. She wasn’t wearing gloves. “There could be a man, too, you know.”
He reached for a sponge floating in the bucket. “Do you know something, Hannah?”
She smiled at him. “I know that men can be a problem.”
“Women can’t?”
“Romance, then. Romance can be a problem.”
“Are we talking about Rose, or are we talking about you? If you and Bowie—”
“Bowie’s covered in plaster and cement dust half the time, and he’s more like family than anything else.” She slapped her rag onto a windowsill, scrubbing nonexistent grime. “I’m not falling for Bowie, Sean, and he’s not falling for me. After my mother died, he was security. He helped out. He has his demons. That’s why he stayed away for as long as he did.”
“Maybe he’s back because of you.”
“He’s back because he loves it out on the river, and his place there is the one thing he owns in this world. It’d be hard to sell. He wouldn’t get anything for it—and he doesn’t want to sell it. The hollow wasn’t his problem.” She moved to another windowsill, attacking it with as much fervor. “Scott called Devin and Toby and asked them both about the money jar.”
“Were they any help?”
She shook her head. “They’re just as creeped out by the idea of a killer walking in here under our noses as I am.”
Sean said nothing,