Free Breath of Dawn, The by Kristen Heitzmann

foliage bore the remainder of red and orange leaves, dulled now by the passing light.
    The dry heads of wild flowers rustled as she neared the second of three cabins, larger than the first by maybe a bedroom, but not as large as the third, family-sized. One front window spilled lightonto the porch. She’d approached him for help before, but not in his own place nor asking anything he hadn’t offered.
    Their interactions had run the gamut from playful to shuttered, so there was no way to anticipate her reception. She had to wonder why he’d gone without a word, after the excitement of finding the locket. Maybe Livie’d had an accident or . . . something he couldn’t mention with a quick good-bye. Maybe walking out and slamming doors was his typical departure, though he hadn’t slammed anything this time and the first could have been an accident of his injured hand.
    When she knocked, he called, “Come in.”
    Sure he didn’t realize the knock was hers, she said, “It’s Quinn.”
    After a pause, he said, “Door’s open.” He looked up from his laptop when she entered, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. Sitting on the couch, dressed in a gray V-neck sweater and faded jeans, he could be any guy—but wasn’t.
    “I’m not stalking you.”
    One tiny muscle at the corner of his mouth flickered, but he’d apparently lost his former congeniality. His eyes had a blue blaze she hoped related to whatever he was working on, since the look had teeth.
    “Sorry if I’m interrupting.”
    He didn’t say otherwise.
    “I would have done this at Vera’s but you left.” When he still didn’t answer, she drew a bolstering breath. “It’s about the locket. RaeAnne’s afraid it will be lost in the mail. She can’t come out for it. So I thought you might have a way . . . to . . .” do what regular people can’t . The words formed, but she couldn’t say them.
    “To . . .”
    “Accomplish it?”
    “Don’t you ship things all the time?”
    “Yes! I do. And I would, but there’s the Castaway thing.”
    He frowned.
    “Packages washing onto a beach, being used to open coconuts?”
    He said, “I’m sorry—how is this my problem?”
    She blinked, feeling beyond foolish. “It’s not. But I imagine you get things done in ways the rest of us—”
    “The rest of you?”
    “People who aren’t Morgan Spencer.”
    “Aha.” He sat back. “You’ve been busy.”
    “That first time we met. I wanted to know if your check would bounce, so I searched you.” How did he make his eyes so flat? “And found the business articles and stuff. You know. Your books and the . . . thing you do.” She sounded thirteen. Where was the conspiratorial connection, the easy parlance? Hadn’t they faced a spooky cellar and solved a mystery and—
    “Leave me the locket. I’ll get it to RaeAnne.”
    Deep freeze. “I was going to package it . . .”
    “Leave me the locket.”
    If helping was what he did best, he could work on his presentation. But then, who did she think she was, petitioning someone like him? He could swat her off like a fly, and basically had. She took out RaeAnne’s treasure and set it on the table where his feet rested. A little deeper and she’d make a full bow. She straightened and walked out.

    Morgan watched the door close behind her. Part of him recognized his rudeness, but the rest had felt her in his home like high noon on sunburned skin. He didn’t want to react to her. He’d realized that mistake at Vera’s and scrammed. Then there she was, invading his space, his privacy. She’d searched him? Thought he’d rip her off?
    And yeah she’d interrupted something. His assistant, Denise, had threatened resignation, claiming he could set up an automatic rejection on the corporate Web site if he continued to avoid the high-level consultations that required his on-site involvement. For most of two years, the recession had provided plenty of lower-level rescues he’d handed off to his