The Collector by Nora Roberts

ought to serve beer at your place.”
    â€œIt’s a bakery, Ash.”
    â€œWhat’s your point?”
    With a laugh, Luke sampled his own beer—something called Hops On Down. “I could rename it Brioche and Brew.”
    â€œNever an empty table. I appreciate today, Luke. I know you’re busy frosting those cupcakes.”
    â€œNeed a day away from the ovens now and again. I’m thinking about opening a second place.”
    â€œGlutton for punishment.”
    â€œMaybe, but we’ve been kicking ass the last eighteen months, solid, so I’m looking around some, mostly in SoHo.”
    â€œIf you need any backing—”
    â€œNot this time. And I couldn’t say that, or think about expanding, if you hadn’t backed me the first time. So if I start up a second place and work myself to an early grave, it’s on you.”
    â€œWe’ll serve your cherry pie at your funeral.” Because that made him think of Oliver, he drank more beer. “His mom wants bagpipes.”
    â€œOh, man.”
    â€œI don’t know where she gets that, but she wants them. I’m setting it up because I figure if she gets them she won’t think about a twenty-one gun salute or a funeral pyre. And she could, because she’s all over the map.”
    â€œYou’ll make it work.”
    And that was practically the family motto, Ash thought. Ash will make it work.
    â€œEverything’s in limbo until they release the body. Even then, even when the funeral’s done and over, it’s not over. Not until we find out who killed him, and why.”
    â€œThe cops might have a good line on that. They wouldn’t tell you if they did.”
    â€œI don’t think so. Waterstone’s wondering, at least in some little corner, if I did it. He doesn’t like the serendipity of me and Lila connecting.”
    â€œOnly because he doesn’t know you well enough to understand you need the answers—because everyone else asks you the questions. I’ve got one. What’s she like, the Peeping Tammy?”
    â€œShe doesn’t think about it that way, and you get it when she talks. She likes people.”
    â€œImagine that.”
    â€œIt takes all kinds. She likes watching them and talking to themand being with them, which is odd because she’s a writer and that has to mean a lot of solo hours. But it goes with the house-sitting thing. Spending her time being in someone else’s space, taking care of that space. She’s a tender.”
    â€œA tender what?”
    â€œNo, she tends. Tends to people’s things, their place, their pets. Hell, she tended to me and she doesn’t even know me. She’s . . . open. Anyone that open has to have gotten screwed over a few times.”
    â€œYou’ve got a little thing,” Luke observed, circling a finger in the air. “She must be a looker.”
    â€œI don’t have a thing. She’s interesting, and she’s been more than decent. I want to paint her.”
    â€œUh-huh. A thing.”
    â€œI don’t have a thing for every woman I paint. I’d never be without a thing.”
    â€œYou have to have some thing for every woman you paint or you wouldn’t paint them. And like I said, she must be a looker.”
    â€œNot especially. She’s got a good face, sexy mouth, about a mile of hair the color of the dark chocolate mochas you serve in the bakery. But . . . it’s her eyes. She’s got gypsy eyes, and they pull you in, they contrast with this fresh, open sense.”
    â€œHow do you see her?” Luke asked, knowing just how Ash worked.
    â€œRed dress, full skirt, mid-spin, gypsy camp, with moonlight coming through a thick green forest.”
    Idly Ash took the stub of a pencil he always carried out of his pocket, did a quick sketch of her face on a cocktail napkin.
    â€œRough, but close.”
    â€œAnd she’s a