Relief swept through his eyes when he spoke. “I thought we could make it into a sketch in black-and-white with the words ‘The Honeybee Tree’ under it. The double meaning will be our little secret.” He added a wink for good measure. That wink was going to kill me one day. There would come a day when I couldn’t resist that wink, and then things were going to happen that I couldn’t take back, which meant one thing—the death of my heart.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like it. It’s perfect for what I have in mind.”
He did a fist pump and jumped up, grabbed me, and swung me around in the air. “I’m so glad you stuck by my side all these years, honeybee.” He kissed my cheek, then crushed me to him, my toes barely touching the patio blocks as he swayed me back and forth.
“I always thought you were the one sticking by me,” I whispered.
He rested his lips at my ear, his breath blowing a shiver down my spine. “It’s all about perspective, beautiful. I was lucky to run into a tiny little girl on a swing in the park twenty years ago, and she stuck by my side, even when I didn’t deserve her dedication or trust. I know that. I see it. I see it all now. That’s my new perspective.”
CHAPTER 11
I’m going to kill him. No, I’m serious. He’s going to be dead. If I ever find him, that is. When I came down from the shower after lunch, Mathias was gone. There was a hastily written note on the table saying there was an emergency, and he’d be in touch. As of yet, he hadn’t been, and it had been twelve hours. It was damn near one a.m., and he wasn’t answering texts, and my calls were going to voice mail. Gulliver hadn’t heard from him either, which meant he was dead in a ditch somewhere, I was sure of it.
I spun on my heel at the end of the kitchen and paced back to the front door, where I checked for headlights. I’d been doing it for an hour now, and frankly, I was exhausted. How dare Mathias worry us like this! Okay, well, worry me. Chances are Gulliver and Charity were sleeping with no problems. I threw my arms up. “Fine, you know what? I’ll just go to bed. Screw him. He’s a big boy. He doesn’t need his mommy to wait up for him.”
I’d even called his mommy, who hadn’t heard from him either. It was slightly disconcerting because, if nothing else, Mathias was always top-notch with communication. He never left me wondering where he was or what I needed to do for the business each day. Ultimately, that was why I was so worried. This was all too out of character for him.
I paused in the kitchen and drummed on the sink, staring out the window into the darkness. The lake was wicked tonight, the waves high, the water frothy, and the menace real. I hoped he didn’t take a boat out this afternoon to wine and dine someone. He’d be dead in the bottom of Lake Superior by now. I shook my head. I would know if he’d done that because he would have asked me to book the tour.
I shut the light off in the kitchen, decided I could worry in bed just as easily as I could worry down here, and headed for the stairs. I paused, one foot on the first stair, when I thought I heard gravel crunching under tires. I held my breath, waiting, listening until I heard it again. I jumped off the stair, threw the light on, and whipped the door open. Mathias’s Beamer rolled to a stop next to my car, and he climbed out. His shoulders were slumped, the preppy sweater he usually wore tied around his shoulders was nowhere to be seen, and his feet were dragging. Even in the face of all of that, he was still the most handsome man alive. My heart was pounding with relief, and I wanted to get my arms around him immediately.
I ran out and threw myself at him, holding him to me. “Where have you been?” I demanded, remembering to be angry even though I was mostly just relieved. “I’ve been calling for hours.”
He kept his chin over my shoulder for another moment before releasing me and motioning for me to go inside. I skittered into the house and locked the door behind him as soon as he was through it. “You look like hell, Mathias. What is going on?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” His breath puffed out in an air of resignation.
“Try me.” I paused and sniffed. “Is that you? You smell terrible.”
He chuckled, and for a moment the light came back to his eyes. “I know. I can’t even stand the smell of myself. Let me go shower. Do you have anything to eat? I haven’t eaten all day.”
“I’ll make you something while you clean up,” I promised. Mathias jogged up the stairs, and when he hit the landing, I called his name until he glanced back at me. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
He blew me a kiss and jogged the rest of the way up the stairs while I went to the kitchen to throw together some dinner. I leaned on the sink after making him a BLT club and waited for him to return. What was that odor? Fish? I couldn’t decide if it was fish or something else equally foul-smelling. It wasn’t pleasant, whatever it was.
When he strolled into the kitchen a short time later, his hair was damp, not styled in its usual perfect flip, and his eyes were dull. He took a bite of the sandwich before he even sat down. I grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge and poured him a glass. Mathias wasn’t a beer man, but he did love a good pinot. He took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and washed it down in silence until the sandwich was gone, and so were two glasses of wine. I kept pouring them for no other reason than with every glass his tongue would loosen until he was able to talk about the day without hesitation. Something in the way he carried himself told me he would need that tonight.
Mathias pushed the chair back and held his hand out until I slipped mine inside it. He squeezed it with what he probably meant to be reassurance for me, but I knew it was for him. He led me to the room that always made me feel safe and cozy. Tonight, the sitting room was cold when I snuggled into the arm of the love seat, and he started a fire in the old rock fireplace to take the chill out of the air. It might be late June, but it was still cold this early in the morning.
He sat and put his arm around me, tugging me into him and kissing the top of my head. “I’m sorry. I wanted to contact you, but my phone is somewhere at the bottom of the lake.”
“What?” My earlier fear came back to haunt me. “Why were you on the lake? There’s a small craft warning for tonight.”
He ran his fingers through my hair and held me to him. He wanted to pretend it was for me, but again, it was for him. I could feel a slight shiver when he touched me. “I wasn’t out on the lake. I was on a dock and dropped my phone. I only had my personal phone with me. The other ones are upstairs. I’ll have to get a new one. It doesn’t matter.” He waved his hand and took a deep breath while he gazed up at the ceiling. “They found Milas.”
I sat up and took his shoulders. “Where? Is he okay? What was he doing all this time? Where did they find him? Did he lose his communication controls or what?”
The look in his eyes gave me the answer without him even needing to open his mouth. My hand went to my hair. “Where did they find him?”
“On the backside of an Apostle Island. The boat was at the bottom of the lake and Milas was dead inside it.” His voice cracked at the end of the sentence, and he cleared his throat. “They raised the yacht and towed it back to shore.”
“What the hell, Mathias?”
He shook his head, his eyes telling me how hard the past twelve hours had been on him. “They asked me to walk through the boat after they removed his body, to tell them if anything was missing.”
“Which is why you smelled like you’d been deep sea fishing. Were you able to tell the police anything?”
He shook his head and held up his hands. “The problem was, the boat had been underwater, so most everything was gone. I was able to tell them that he’d had renovations done to the boat somewhere because it was upgraded since we’d been on it last.”
