“Last night. While you were at the front desk checking in . . . I was closing up the bar and looked into the lobby where you were standing with Bobby. You caught my eye and gave me the signal.”

“What signal?”

“The nod, which meant I was to come up, so I did.”

He didn’t remember that. Was she lying?

She arched a coy eyebrow. “Aren’t you glad?”

“Yes . . .” Was there any other answer?

Leaning on both elbows, she cocked her head, her hair falling over a naked shoulder to brush the top of one breast.

Her smile faded a bit. “You don’t remember?”

He could recall walking into the hotel and still being in a bad mood. His house was a disaster, his computer, laptop, iPad, and phone all missing, compliments of the police; he was under suspicion in Megan Travers’s disappearance, and he couldn’t recall seriously important pieces of his life. He did remember that he’d found Rebecca Travers in his house, though, that and the fact that he’d consumed two—or was it three?—drinks in quick succession had probably contributed mightily to the headache that was pounding behind his eyes.

“Oh. Well . . .” She eased to the side of the bed and actually blushed. “I’ll leave.”

“Look, I’m just messed up.”

“I was hoping to help with that.” She glanced at him but, when she realized he wasn’t going to tell her to stay, reached for her clothes. “I thought maybe I could take care of you while you were recuperating.” She slid into a skimpy bra, then pulled a thong up over her shapely legs before standing and snapping it into place over a perfectly round rump.

She was beautiful.

Gorgeous.

A fact, he was certain, she was very aware of.

“I would’ve stayed with you at your house, or you could have bunked at my apartment.” She tugged a gray turtleneck over her head, then pulled her hair out of the neckline. “You could use some help, someone to take care of you.”

“I’ll be okay.”

She shimmied into a short black skirt. “If you stay here, I suppose.”

“I do have a house.”

She was fastening her hair back into a ponytail. “But I heard it’s a wreck.”

“Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

She glanced at his sling, left on the side of the bed.

“Well, eventually, I’ll be able to handle it,” he said.

“And in the meantime? You lucked out that there was an unoccupied room here, but I checked, and the inn is booked up. Solid. Until the week after New Year’s. So are you going to throw out paying customers to keep this room?”

“Someone will cancel.”