“It’s not time quite yet.” They were driving to her dad’s property in Hartwell to investigate the first clue. She knew every mile, farmhouse, and sign of this route.

“A blue sedan has been behind us for a while. I just want to make sure it’s not following us.”

“Okay.” Finley twisted in her seat. She had to squint to see the sedan.

Luke slowed, exited, and pulled up to a stop sign.

The sedan continued on, zooming past.

“I guess the sedan wasn’t following us,” she said.

“I guess not.”

He waited a bit, then merged back onto Highway 51.

She’d noticed him checking his rearview and side mirrors often. She appreciated his vigilance. She did. At the same time, it seemed slightly over the top.

Ten minutes later, they passed over the boundary onto Sutherland land, the land that had nurtured her childhood.

Emotion took root in her belly and expanded outward, building pressure. She was coming home. But the man who’d made this her home wouldn’t be here.

She bumped around on the old-fashioned seat of Luke’s truck as he drove them along the familiar winding dirt road. The warm temperatures of last weekend had plunged almost enough to convince today’s drizzle to turn to snow. The sky hovered close, the gray color of dove feathers.

They rounded a bend, ascended slightly, and then the house came into view. It was low-slung and linear, positioned on a wooded plateau.

“When was the house built?” Luke asked.

“In the early fifties. It needed a lot of work when Dad bought it. He renovated it before I was born.”

“How many acres are there?”

“One hundred. With lots of lakeshore.”

Moments later, Finley unlocked the front door and they stepped inside. Raw, frigid air greeted them. It smelled of dust and loneliness.

Finley switched on lights, turned the heat on, then faced Luke.

He seemed impervious to the cold or, really, to any other stimulus that affected lesser mortals. Hunger. Worry. Family. The need for love.

Brown-gold starbursts surrounded his pupils, sending flecks into his green irises. His face—the serious lips, the straight nose, the creased forehead—still reminded her of an Italian prince. But the rest of him—the clothing he wore like armor, the tense posture, and the unruly hair destined to make women yearn to run their fingers through it—was all pirate.

A pirate prince. Her employee was a pirate prince.

How long had she been staring at him? She cleared her throat. “This is the setting of the photo included with the first clue.” She indicated the furniture captured in the picture. Everything was exactly as it had been then, except that the shades of red, brown, and beige in the antique rug had mellowed.