Page 60 of Unexpected Entanglement

“I was at Cottage No. 2, checking things out. I was…” Rowan skipped the part where she was drooling at Chris. “…leaving when suddenly the step broke under my foot. My whole boot got caught in the hole, and I fell.”

“The step broke?” Alex scrunched her entire face in disbelief.

Oliver turned down the heat under the pot. “Aren’t the cottages new?”

“We completed them last October. Yeah, they’re pretty damn new.”

“Can nine months deteriorate wood?” Oliver asked.

“The winter months can be harsh here, but the cottages were all weather-treated. Wear and tear are common, but this early?” Rowan shook her head.

“How did Chris find you?” Alex asked.

“He just finished swimming, I guess. He must’ve heard me yell when I fell.” Rowan shrugged, but her face involuntarily heated as she recalled him running to her bare-chested and damp.

“Well, good thing he was close by,” Oliver added.

Yeah, good thing.

Chris squatted down in front of the porch steps of Cottage No. 2. The stair treads were solid yellow pine wood with great density and rot resistance—made for harsh weather. He was no expert woodworker, but he’d learned enough that they weren’t supposed to break that easily.

Rowan probably isn’t more than a hundred-twenty, he calculated from when he’d carried her earlier. He remembered thinking she was compact but solidly built. But she couldn’t have broken the tread by simply stepping on it, even if she’d stomped or jumped on it with everything she had.

He examined the broken edges and frowned. Before grabbing the pry bar, he took a few pictures with his cellphone. He carefully took off the fractured tread and set it aside. Good thing Rowan had the forward-thinking to keep some leftover supplies handy in the equipment barn. They were all stored and appropriately labeled. It was easy to grab what he needed to replace the broken step.

By the time he finished, it was after six, but the sun was still shining brightly. He was ready for a shower, a drink, and a meal. He put the tools back into the toolbox and carried them along with the broken tread to the cart. He’d also found Rowan’s cell earlier.

Chris belatedly remembered Rowan's hat when he put his burden in the cargo box of the cart.Where the hell is that hat?

He jogged back to look for Rowan’s hat. It was a mossy green cap from the famous Maine-based outdoor store, so he might’ve missed it lying on the grass. He looked around the patch of grass right in front of Cottage No. 2 and saw no hat.

He pulled the image of Rowan sitting on the grass, facing the cottage after extracting her foot from the hole. Her hat shouldn’t have fallen far from there. He scanned the ground again, double-checking under the steps and shrubs, but nothing.

What’s that?

Chris bent down next to the porch stairs and studied the shrub bed along the front porch.

Is that a boot print?

There was a disturbance in the mulch covering the bed in the shape of a boot. But what an odd place for it.

Chris’ lips went flat into a straight line as he thought of several reasons for the print. Most could be innocent, but Chris’ instinct said otherwise. Nobody they knew had been in these cottages. They mainly had been at the barn or the main house training staff.

Still unable to find the damn hat, Chris walked back to the cart after taking pictures of the print. Instead of driving back to the house, he steered the cart to the next cottage. Systematically, he checked all the other steps and scanned for any oddities around the other structures.

If there were other vandalisms, he wanted to make sure he found them before someone—Rowan, in particular—got hurt again.

nineteen

Nine days to the wedding

Kieran was on his haunches, studying the broken tread Chris had pulled off the Cottage No. 2 steps. He looked up and stared at Chris for two beats before getting back on his feet.

Chris glanced at Rowan standing next to him. She followed her brother’s movement intently but hadn’t commented since they had convened in front of the cottage. They had discussed the possibility of a saboteur at dinner last night with Alex and Oliver, but Rowan didn’t completely buy the theory. She’d wanted to hear Kieran’s thoughts on it.

Kieran moved on to the partial boot print and again stayed silent.

“What do you think?” Chris asked after seconds passed by.

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