Page 52 of Moonlit Colorado

“At least we got Dirk Lancaster’s name,” Dane said. “I’ll ask Kip about him. See what I can find out. Maybe Lancaster knew Ms. Scarlet and can give us her real name.”

“Maybe.”

But Lancaster couldn’t have broken into my house. He’d left Silver Ridge weeks ago. He could’ve hired someone, but it was hard to imagine what a rich investor would want with that mask. Whyanyonewould want it enough to steal it.

Dane pushed a few strands of hair from my forehead. “Not too late to tell Chief Landry what you held back about the break-in. Someone else in town might’ve seen Ms. Scarlet. The woman came and went from the resort somehow. She didn’t just disappear.”

I shook my head. “Maybe when we have something concrete to tell him. We don’t even know for sure if the break-in was connected to the grand-opening party.”

“I’ll keep working on it. I’m glad you’re here instead of that house, though. Until we know what the intruder was really after.”

“Aunt Grace, Aunt Grace!”

I jumped away from Dane, his hand falling away from me, just as Maisie dashed across the lobby toward us.

Emma and Ashford were right behind her.

“Crap,” I whispered. My brother wore his usual resting grump face, so I had no idea if he’d seen Dane touching me. Of course, as they approached, Dane strolled casually toward them like he didn’t have a single thing to hide.

Maisie jumped into my arms, and I gave her a hug, holding her against my hip. “I didn’t know you all were coming here today.” I glanced over at Emma and my brother. “Quite the surprise.”

“We wanted to see Dane’s fancy hotel.” Maisie turned her big puppy-dog eyes toward him. “You promised we could come whenever we wanted, didn’t you? And play outside and have treats?”

Dane laughed. “I do remember saying something along those lines. Of course you guys are welcome. It’s great to see you.” He reached for Ashford’s hand, which turned into a bro-hug. Then he gave a one-armed hug to Emma. “Come on. I’ll give you the grand tour, and then we can have some lunch.”

Hopefully I could take the opportunity to get my heart rate to slow down. We hadn’t been doing anything. Yet I felt like my brother had caught me doing something scandalous with Dane.

Maybe because I wanted to.

* * *

“How’re you doing with this whole break-in situation?” my brother asked.

We were walking around the lobby atrium while Dane pointed things out to Maisie. My niece held hands with Emma, but she kept gazing up at Dane with awe like he was Santa Clause or a cartoon character come to life.

Girl, I can empathize.

I glanced over at Ashford. “I texted you this morning that I was fine.”

“Yeah, and if you lost both legs in a wood chipper and your car broke down on the way to the hospital, you would also say you were fine.”

“That’s unnecessarily dramatic. And violent, geez.”

Ashford nudged my arm affectionately. “My point stands. I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Teller said he doesn’t have any leads on who broke in and trashed your room.”

“The kitchen and bedroom too.”

“Exactly. The spaces that you were in.”

So Teller had shared that part too.

Ashford tugged my wrist and made us both stop. “Seriously, Grace. Do you have any theories about who would’ve done that? Because if somebody’s been bothering you, I intend to take care of it.”

I didn’t like keeping things from him. Even though, to be fair, Ashford had kept some pretty major things from me in the past. “You don’t have to beat anybody up right now. Or ever, because I don’t want you doing something stupid and getting arrested. Dane is helping me look into it.”

Ashford’s expression did something funny. “That’s another thing. Since when are you and Dane so close?”

“I can’t hang out with him just because he was your friend first? Are you going to tell me I can’t play with your toys next?”

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