Page 39 of The Magic We Made

“I did tell you who I really am,” he insists. “I told your cop friend, too. I’m Ash Merit.”

“Yeah, I know that’s what you said.” I peer past him into the interior of the house. I had been so distracted by the girl when I was in there earlier, I hadn’t had much of a chance to look around. Had he actually painted all the wood trim inside black, and the walls dark gray, or had I only imagined it?

Yep. He did.

“But you also said you’re a financial advisor for a family-run charity trust,” I go on.

“And I am.”

“But you told Meg that Emma Bridle’s family hired you to find their daughter. Since when do financial advisors offerthatkind of service to their clients?”

“Oh, that.” He looks relieved, almost as if he was expecting me to say something else. “It’s kind of a long story. I can explain if you want to come in—”

I’ve already missed my window of opportunity to make an appointment for Daisy with the local vet’s office thanks to this morning’s Ash-related emergency. I even had to reschedule two patients. What difference is another hour going to make, especially if I get the information I’m looking for?

“Thanks. I will.” I brush past him and walk into the living room, slightly encouraged by the fact that he seems so willing to answer my questions. Though that doesn’t mean he’s going to answer them truthfully.

Still, it will be interesting to see what kind of story he cooks up.Somethingis going on with him. I’ve never seen anyone move as quickly as he did when I told him about the girl under his deck. I thought he’d only run out of the house to see her for himself.

Nothing could have shocked me more than the sight of him striding back into the house a minute later with Meg’s limp body cradled in his arms. He held her as gently as he had Daisy the day before. Only today, he wasn’t wearing a shirt, just the black boxer briefs he’d slept in.

Naturally, since we were in the middle of a medical emergency, I wasn’t going to take the time to check out his nearly naked body.

But it definitely registered. Not only on me, but on Jackie, too.

“That boy is hot,” she’d said to me in a low voice outside, raking Ash with her gaze. “You should ride him like a pony.”

When I informed her that Ash is suffering from a delusion that he has a superpower to find things, she’d replied, “Then he should have no trouble finding your G-spot.”

After I gave her a sour look in reply, she said, “Hey, I’m married with two kids. Let me live vicariously through you.”

Fortunately Ash has covered all that masculine bounty in cargopants and a flannel shirt, so I can concentrate on the rest of the details about him I might have missed earlier. Like that his walls truly are painted gray.Darkgray with black trim. What kind of person—who isn’t a college student going through an emo phase—paints the walls of a lake housedark gray?

“Do you have any more of that coffee?” I ask, because I can still smell it.

“Sure.” He goes to the coffeemaker. “Look, I swear, my name really is Ash Merit, and I really am a financial advisor—”

“So explain to me why someone would hire a financial advisor to find their missing daughter.”

“Uh.” He’s shoveling beans into his extremely expensive and complicated coffeemaker. “They didn’t. My boss did.”

“Yourboss? The same boss who owns this house?”

“Yeah. The Bridles are distant cousins.”

“Your boss is related to the Bridles?”

“That’s right.” He presses a button on the coffeemaker, then, as it whirs, heads toward the dining room table, over which hangs a hideous chandelier made out of deer antlers. There’s a laptop open on the table. He sits down in front of it, then pulls out the chair beside his and looks over at me. “Here. I can show you.”

Ash looks sincerely anxious that I see whatever it is he wants to show me, and I can’t deny I’m curious. It has nothing to do with Jackie’s G-spot remark.

So I cross the room and sit beside him at the modern glass table. It’s got seating for eight, the matching chairs sleek with metallic frames but comfortably padded in black suede.

The luxuriousness of my chair is almost enough to distract me from how close I’m now sitting to Ash, who has rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt to get to work on his keyboard. Thishas revealed those same tanned, muscular forearms I saw cradling Meg earlier. They’re without tattoos but lightly covered in dark hair similar to the chest hair I saw peeking from his neckline yesterday, and then today, in all its luxurious glory, when he was shirtless.

I’ve always been a sucker for body hair on men, even though I know it’s purely an unconscious physical reaction to an outward sign of male virility. We’re biologically attracted to those we feel might make good mates, even when, as in the case of Ash, the only signs of compatibility are purely physical. He’s a good-looking guy.

But then, so was Richard.