Heron's Cove by Carla Neggers

room to maneuver. He would trust her judgment. It was one reason she was on his team in Boston.
    Colin?
    He would want answers, and he would want them now.

8
    COLIN DRAGGED HIS kayak up from the water and threw it into the back of his truck parked behind the old captain’s house that Frank and Rosemary Donovan had transformed into an inn. They had painted the rambling Victorian a fresh white, with black shutters, a yellow door and flower and vegetable gardens that kept them busy even when guests were few and far between. Colin had promised to join Mike in helping to get the place ready for winter. His mother had made a crack about expecting him to head off to Washington again at any moment, but he let it go. His father had kept silent.
    An hour on the water had cleared his head and worked out any remaining stiffness from his fun and games in Fort Lauderdale. His night with Emma had done most of the job.
    Emma, Emma.
    Just as well she hadn’t come to Sunday lunch with his family. Over roast chicken, acorn squash and the last of the garden spinach, he had learned that she had volunteered to bake pies for St. Patrick’s bean-hole supper. Two apple pies and one Irish-style rhubarb crumble.
    “Volunteered” could mean she’d been asked and had said yes, but Colin had to acknowledge his mixed feelings about what she had been up to while he was away. On the one hand, he hadn’t wanted her to be alone. He wanted her to feel welcome in Rock Point. On the other hand…muffins for his folks? Pies for the church?
    It all felt a little too fast.
    Either that, or his family and friends in Rock Point were sucking her in, checking her out, testing her, using her to push him out of the undercover work they all knew he did.
    He checked his cell phone and saw Emma and Yank both had called.
    Her late-night tip from her unnamed source and now this Russian jeweler.
    No wonder he was unsettled, questioned what was going on with her—what he had gotten into when he had fallen for her.
    And what he had gotten her into. The men he had escaped when he dropped into the dark, warm waters of the Fort Lauderdale Intracoastal wouldn’t hesitate to kill him on sight if they found him again.
    He had to find them first.
    Kevin wandered out from the inn. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you plant tulip bulbs. Mike’s got that covered. Mom bought five hundred bulbs. That has to be more than the deer can eat.”
    “Mike’s going crazy, isn’t he?”
    “He needs to get back to the Bold Coast. He doesn’t mind helping out, but you know how he is. He can only take so much civilization. He came down here because he was worried. We all were. Even Pop was getting nuts.”
    Colin grabbed his dry pack and tossed it into the back of his truck with the kayak. “I know,” he said, abandoning any pretense with his youngest brother of a desk job in Washington.
    Kevin looked out at the small inlet, yellowed marsh grasses giving way to a tumble of rocks, then rippling blue water. “You can’t do this again. We know what you do. Next time—”
    “No guarantees there’ll be a next time, Kevin.” Colin went around to the front of his truck. “Matt Yankowski has me on his team in Boston now. I could be at a desk for real.”
    “It wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” Kevin muttered, turning from the view. “I just got a call. A luxury yacht arrived in Heron’s Cove this morning. The owner is a Russian tycoon. Dmitri Rusakov. Know him?”
    Colin went still. “The name. I don’t know him personally.”
    “What about Emma? Is Rusakov a Sharpe client?”
    “No idea.”
    Kevin paused as if he were assessing Colin’s response and the slight edge in his voice. “Rusakov’s yacht is sitting about fifty yards from the Sharpe place. Thought you’d want to know.”
    Colin opened the driver’s side door of his truck. “Thanks, Kevin.”
    His brother narrowed his eyes. “Keep me in the loop.”
    “As soon as I get in it myself,” Colin said.
    He