Page 21 of Born for Starlight

"He's still in Jasper Creek?"

"Weeks now. He’s staying at that dreadful LeeHy motel on purpose, if you can believe that.” Bonnie sipped her own coffee, entirely too pleased with herself. "He's been helping Jase with something at work."

"Bonnie." Jase's voice had an edge of warning in it now.

"What? I'm just saying he's around. It's not a secret."

"It's not relevant."

"Angelica's face says it's a little relevant."

"My face says nothing." I knew that was true. I knew I hadn’t given anything away, but unfortunately Bonnie had a woman’s instinct, and she’d noticed Matthew’s shoulders.

"Yeah, and even Matthew thinks Brazil's a shitty idea," Jase muttered, more to his coffee than to either of us.

That stopped me in my tracks.

"Matthew has an opinion about my trip to Brazil?"

Jase's eyes came up fast, and for just a second I caught a startled look on his face. He’d realized he'd said more than he’d meant to.

"Everybody's got an opinion about your trip to Brazil," he said, too quickly. Yep, he knew he’d messed up. “Forget I said anything about Matthew.”

"No way. Why in the world would you be talking to him about me?"

"We don't talk about you."

"Jase."

"We talk about the case we’re working on and sometimes your name comes up. In passing. Like anybody's name comes up in passing. We talk about… Uhm… Ruby at the coffee shop."

“Really?” Bonnie asked. “What did you talk about?”

“I forget.”

“Liar.”

He stood, gathering his coffee mug and started walking. "I've got to go check on the ceiling fan situation before Lachlan thinks getting a ladder is a good idea."

"Well," she said. "That was interesting."

I didn't answer. I was too busy considering that Matthew Grainger had never left Jasper Creek. That he had been here the whole time I was two thousand miles away being lectured by my own family. Comfortable enough with Jase to chime in with his own opinions about me.

What the hell?

Bonnie smirked. “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”

“Nope.”

“Jase isn’t the only Drakos who’s a liar.” She grinned.

Chapter Eight

I had the corner booth to myself, same as every morning, coffee black and the cinnamon roll not yet touched, when Little Grandma got off her chair next to the hostess stand and made her way over to me, like a guided missile. A slow one.

Shit.

"Move your coffee cup over," she said. "You're taking up a whole table for one man and a plate."