Page 31 of Dead Man's Alibi

“Um, what about me?”Jill replied.

“You use the writer angle.No one in Livingston or Bozeman is going to know your connection, and we won’t be using it anyway.”She took a bite of the biscuit and chewed.“You call both departments and then see who you can get to talk to you about who a person would go to if they were worried about harassment.”

Jill didn’t exactly jump at the chance.

“It doesn’t have to be Jill,” Nate supplied.“It doesn’t have to be anyone.Maybe—”

“No, I’ll do it.”Jill nodded, as if convincing herself.“It’s just a phone call.”

It made Nate uncomfortable.All these people rallying around doing thingsforhim.It felt like… it felt like…

Well, he didn’t know what the hell it felt like except wrong.Because the only time in his life when he’d had help had been before his mother had died, and he didn’t like to think about that time atall.

A phone trilled, clearly coming from Jill’s bag.

“Sorry,” she murmured, but she pulled the phone out and an expression of worry crossed her face as she answered quickly.“Is everything okay?”Her shoulders immediately slumped in some kind of relief as whoever was on the other end spoke.

When she ended the call, she let out a long breath.

“That was Grandma.She wants Cal and Nate to come up to the cabin, if you can.”

Chapter Eleven

The Harrington Cabin

Jill was workingreally hard to pretend that entire conversation with Cal this morning hadn’t embarrassed her.

Part of it had been exhilarating.To be direct and not worry she was offending anyone.She’d once been more likethatperson than a woman always tiptoeing around, worried she might say the wrong thing.

In so many ways, she’d fallen in love with Montana, but maybe it hadn’t always been goodforher.

She didn’t want to go back to the person she’d been back in Boston.Not really.That Jill had been antsy, lonely, even with so many people around her.She’d been direct because she’d been… searching for something.Looking back, Jill thought she’d known all along she didn’tfitin that world.She just hadn’t known what to do with that feeling.

Then, Marietta had fallen into her lap.Here was the community she had always wanted but hadn’t known how to build.Something small but real and important.Maybe some bad habits and hiding had come with that, but this was still where she wanted to be.

But she did miss thepromiseBoston held, with all its people.That someday she might meet that special person to build a life with.

It wasn’t like she had daydreams about Cal Bennet being that special person… exactly.It was just that the little flutters of attraction and chemistry and the way he looked at her reminded her she didwanta special person.A life partner.Atsomepoint.

And it worried her that she’d never find that here.

“Yeah, your romantic life isrealimportant right now, Jill,” she muttered to herself disgustedly as she pulled Grandma’s truck to a stop in front of the cabin.

Cal pulled his SUV in behind her.

She got out of her truck the same time Cal, Nate, and Sam piled out of his car.

That moment before Sam and Nate had arrived at the diner had been… awkward.That awkward hadn’t really gone away.Jill didn’t know how to make it go away.Cal had never beenawkwardaround her before.Even when they’d first been getting to know each other, and he’d been dealing with realizing he had traumatic amnesia, awkward hadn’t been in his arsenal.

Had she really made Cal Bennet so uncomfortable with direct talk about dating that he was going to beweirdnow?

Jill felt the strangest mix of embarrassment and triumph over that and didn’t know what on earth to do about it.So she simply walked forward and opened the front door of the cabin, leaving it open for everyone else to come in behind her.

Grandma was in the kitchen making coffee in her old-fashioned percolator but turned immediately as everyone entered.

“Strangled,” Glenda said triumphantly.

Jill only blinked.The word didn’t quite make sense in any context she could think of.