Eve: You don’t have to do that. Just give me some…pointers.

Sawyer: Pointers for breaking up public sex?

Eve: Okay, yeah, come over.

He was, no doubt, gunning for an excuse to anyway, so he could spy on his sister firsthand. Speaking of…she picked her way through the crowd in the parlor and tapped Clara on the shoulder. She startled and pulled away from her friend, a look of horror dawning on her face, like she hadn’t realized how cozy she’d gotten.

Eve leaned in and whispered, “Just wanted to let you know your brother’s on his way over.”

Clara scooted away from her friend and shot an intense look at Eve. “You won’t—”

Eve pantomimed zipping her lips, winked, and went back to the base of the stairs to find Sawyer already there. “That was fast.”

“I got off at eight—everything’s wound down outside—and I was just over at Law’s.”

He was indeed no longer in his police outfit. Uniform. Whatever.

He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and those damn jeans. What was it about Sawyer that inspired the coexistence of contradictory states of being? Loose and snug. Hot and cold. Soft and rough. Hate and…not hate.

He gazed up the stairs. “So what are we looking at?”

“Maya saw them go upstairs a while ago. So I guess all the evidence we have is circumstantial.”

“Oh, with them, the evidence always points to one thing.” He mounted the stairs and gestured for her to follow.

She stopped him at the first landing and pointed at the hard hats lined up on the windowsill. “Everyone’s supposed to wear hard hats and steel-toed boots upstairs.”

He grabbed a hat. “We’re going to fudge it with the footwear.” He turned and set the hat on her head. He cocked his head and looked at her for what felt like slightly too long. “How is it that you look good in a hard hat?”

Her cheeks heated. It was like there was a dial that controlled her body temperature, only she didn’t know where it was located. Maybe it was actually a remote control that Sawyer possessed.

They went up one flight, but there didn’t seem to be anyone on the second floor. She pointed to the stairs that led to the third. As they approached the top, he started talking in a fake, singsong way. “Oh, wow, you’ve really made a lot of progress up here.”

They paused, as if by silent agreement, and listened. Sawyer pointed toward the front of the inn. Yep. Art and Jamila were definitely in one of the two front rooms. They probably thought they were being quiet.

They were not being quiet.