Free Cloche and Dagger by Jenn McKinlay

me.
    “What?” I asked.
    “I might have known,” he said.
    “Known what?” I asked. But I didn’t wait for his answer. I was cold and required a piping-hot beverage. “I’m going to make tea. Would you like a cup?”
    “Do you know how to make tea?”
    “No,” I said. “I was hoping you’d offer.”
    I shivered. Although Florida was a damp state, it was significantly hotter than London, and I couldn’t seem to get the chill out of my bones.
    Harrison rolled his eyes and moved to the little kitchenette where he put the kettle on. I figured this was a good chance to get him talking about Viv, so I could determine what exactly their relationship was and see if he knew more than he was saying.
    “So, what did you mean, you ‘might have known’?” I asked.
    “Nothing,” he said. He took the tea tin out of the cupboard over the sink and began to spoon loose tea into the steel infuser.
    “Oh, no,” I said. “You can’t say something like that and not explain it.”
    He looked up from the cobalt-blue teapot into which he’d just put the infuser. He was giving me a slightly annoyed face, and I had a feeling the wine was making me more demanding than charming, but still, I wanted to know what he meant, and I wasn’t above badgering to find out.
    “Oh, come on,” I said. “I’ll just keep bugging you until you tell me.”
    “Honestly, I meant nothing by it,” he said.
    I shook my head, indicating that this was unacceptable.
    “Fine, it’s just that I was worried that you’d be curled up in a little ball of sad and lonely because Viv isn’t here, so I came over here in the pouring rain to check on you and what do I find? You skipping down the street, singing at top voice with your two new best friends,” he said.
    “And that’s a bad thing?” I asked.
    “No,” he said. “It’s not bad. It’s not normal, but it’s not bad.”
    “I get the feeling you don’t like me very much,” I said. “In fact, you seem to suffer from a case of permascowl when I’m around.”
    His lips twitched, but he didn’t smile or laugh.
    “It’s not that I don’t like you,” he said.
    The kettle began to whistle and he turned away as if relieved by the interruption.
    He filled the teapot with hot water and then covered it while the tea steeped. As if done with our conversation, he foraged through the cupboards until he found a canister of McVitie’s Hob Nobs, a rolled oat biscuit with a layer of milk chocolate on it. He put some out on a plate for us to share, and I reached for one, surprised to find that I was hungry.
    “Then what is it?” I asked.
    “What is what?”
    “If it’s not that you don’t like me, then what is it that makes you look so grumpy when I’m around?” I asked. I had a feeling he was being deliberately obtuse, but what the poor man did not realize was that I had staying power.
    “I’m not grumpy,” he growled.
    “So you’re just doing an impression of a grizzly bear for grins?” I asked.
    “We don’t have bears in England,” he said. “And that’s my point. I don’t think you belong here either.”
    “So,
I’m
the bear?” I asked. I was getting confused.
    “Uff!” He let out an exasperated huff and then poured the tea. “That’s not what I meant.”
    “Well, what did you mean?” I asked. I waved my hands at him. “Because this little tap-dance thing you’re doing is giving me a headache.”
    He pushed my cup of tea at me, and I met his gaze and held it. It hit me then just what a handsome man he was. He had changed his clothes from earlier and was now wearing jeans and a forest green crew neck sweater. It made his eyes appear darker and more mysterious.
    “Sorry,” he said. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t think you belong here and you should probably go back to the States as soon as possible.”

Chapter 13

    “Oh, you do, do you?” I asked.
    Now normally, when there is an opinion expressed that is different from mine, I assess