Page 9 of Sucker For You

Monaghan?

“Oh.” She paused halfway through a terrycloth sleeve. “Do. . . do you know Dr. Erin Monaghan?”

“Frizzy?” Another nod, cautious but apparently curious. “That’s my sister. She said I could crash on this couch for a few days, if I needed to. Doyouknow her?”

A simple falsehood might have helped with the anxious churning in her stomach. It might have distracted his gaze. But a lie was still a lie. “I met her tonight.”

“Right,” slowly, appraisingly. Erin’s brother shifted his weight onto his heels, back toward the reef tank. He cocked his head. “In that case, who’s Isabel Wright? And what are you doing in Erin’s beach house—soaking wet?”

Her silk sheath was transparent.

Burning now with humiliation, she dove farther into the robe.

Wes Monaghan was almost certainly naked under his own terrycloth.

If he was, he appeared nonplussed rather than embarrassed when he went on, patting the bulky television beside the aquarium, “I doubt you’re a burglar. You knew where to find the house key, you’re not worried about leaving footprints, and you’re more interested in a fish tank than making a getaway with this very valuable vintage piece. But maybe you’re after the novelty wall clock?”

“I—I’m not—”

“That’s a joke.” He waved off her protest with an expansive gesture, imperiling the tank and its sputtering pump yet again before stabilizing it. Then, suddenly serious, “I just want to know what you’re doing here.”

“I didn’t steal the car outside.”

“I didn’t think you did.”

“No, but. . .” She swallowed.Breathe. Facts. “Ethan loaned his car to me. He gave me this address. Just for tonight. I’ll be gone tomorrow.”

Her lie was by omission only:whyit was that Ethan had offered his car and bungalow to her, when Erin had already assigned the couch to her brother.

“If Ethan offered you his hideaway, you must know him better than Erin.”

She didn’t.

Ethan knew his own brother, however. He’d had this address ready in his pocket. . .

She balled her hands in the bathrobe to hide their shaking. Chase’s ring snagged on the terrycloth. “Um—family.”

“Really.” Wes’s skeptical hum wasn’t a question.

She nodded anyhow, glancing away from his pointed attention and to the clock he’d half-accused her of planning to steal. Shelled and shellacked, the device’s octopus arms pointed not to numerals, but to whimsical suggestions likeSkinny Dip,Lime & Coconut, andTide Pooling. (Skinny-dipping seemed permissible at both two o’clock in the morning and two in the afternoon, while sunset could occur at either eight in the morning or at night.) Currently, both of the clock’s dials were angled towardHigh Tide.

Midnight.

Another day gone. Another twenty-four hours closer to the expiration of her visa, and with it, her eligibility for the Ceretobicin clinical trial—

No.

She wouldn’t relax into beach time, couldn’t let her own clock run out with the tide.

She could still fix this.

She just didn’t know how; renewed nerves roiled hotter and tighter, higher under her ribs. Restlessly—and recklessly, because Wes was still watching her near the reef tank—she reapproached the aquarium. At leastthis, she could fix right now. Given the pump’s sluggish, suckless burping and an ecosystem of slime crawling over the glass, the chamber tubing was likely blockedwith debris. The tank’s protein skimmer and any remaining nitrifying bacteria were clearly inadequate. The stunted coral was suffocating in its gravel and sand bed. She opened the credenza’s drawers to examine packets of expired fish food, a decades-old warranty booklet, and a few bristle brushes. Pipe cleaners. She withdrew one. She reached around the tank to wiggle the tubing loose from a suction ring that alligated it to the pump.

Behind her, Wes drew in a breath.

Surprise? Confusion?

“I’ll be quick, before the coral suffers.”