Free Kiss the Moon by Carla Neggers Page A

think about what in hell he was doing, or why. He’d never known his uncle. His father hadn’t asked him to come here. Now he’d rented a room at a charming country inn for three nights.
    But he knew he wasn’t staying because of Colt or Frannie—he was staying because of Penelope Chestnut. She intrigued him, and he had an odd, possibly unreasonable sense that she was in trouble, perhaps more than she knew. It was the sort of sixth sense he’d come to rely on before his ignominious return to New York and a desk on Wall Street. He could be dead, flat wrong, just as he had been when he and Hal Strong had embarked upon their most exciting and ultimately final adventure, no sixth sense telling him they never should have left Melbourne, that danger and death awaited them in the mountains of southwestern Tasmania.
    “So, you could be full of shit,” he said aloud, breaking the spell.
    He could. Penelope Chestnut’s only trouble might be him.
    The energy required to weave her tale about the turn-of-the-century dump and the snow obliterating her tracks had probably led her to miss her fuel check in her preflight. She was distracted. The truth was seldom simple but at least it was easier to remember.
    He wandered into the bathroom, where the morning glory theme continued. Thick, soft white towels and a big, gleaming tub beckoned. He settled for splashing cold water on his face. He noticed little blue soaps and bottles of locally made lotions. When he traveled, he was used to pitching a tent.
    The phone rang. Grateful for the distraction, he returned to the bedroom and picked up.
    “You’re in Cold Spring,” his father said. “Why?”
    The abrupt tone didn’t offend Wyatt. His father prided himself on his self-control and would bury any strong negative emotion under an abrupt, even cold manner. “Jack must have arrived. Obviously he’s reported back to you.”
    “I like to know where my son is.”
    “Well, you’ve found me.”
    His father inhaled sharply. He wouldn’t yell at his son the way Lyman Chestnut had at his daughter. Open confrontation wasn’t the Sinclair way. “How long are you staying?”
    “I don’t know.” He decided, at that moment, not to tell his father about his dealings with Penelope Chestnut and his sense she was in over her head. “Father, Colt was your brother—”
    “Yes, he was. I knew him, Wyatt. He was a person to me, not an adventure. This woman has withdrawn her story. Let Jack figure out why. He’ll tie up loose ends and make sure her story checks. That’s his job.” Not yours, was the unspoken rest of the sentence.
    No more details were forthcoming for the meddling son. Wyatt said hello to his stepmother, and to Ellen and Beatrix, who begged him to fly down for the weekend and take them snorkeling. They were on school holiday, and he promised to see them when they got back to New York—he’d do whatever they wanted. The rascals were his soft spot, and they knew it.
    When he hung up, he stood in front of the window and looked across the lake toward the mountains. It was dusk, quiet, still. His father and uncle had roamed this area as boys with their father, the imposing, exacting Willard Sinclair, who’d died when Wyatt was fourteen. They’d gone swimming, fishing, mountain climbing, camping. He knew from his father that, despite their age difference, the brothers had been close, relishing their time together.
    After Colt ran off with Frannie Beaudine, Willard Sinclair refused to let his younger son return to the New Hampshire lakes region. Willard became increasingly difficult in his grief, his surviving son never able to make up for the loss of his firstborn, never able to be the bright spark in his father’s life that Colt had been.
    Wyatt had sensed all this, pieced it together over the years through observation, overheard fights between his father and one wife or another, his own conversations with his dying grandfather. Always, always he came away with the