Once Dormant

Blake Pierce

Blake Pierce is author of the bestselling RILEY PAGE mystery series, which includes fifteen books (and counting). Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series, comprising nine books (and counting); of the AVERY BLACK mystery series, comprising six books; of the KERI LOCKE mystery series, comprising five books; of the MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE mystery series, comprising three books (and counting); of the KATE WISE mystery series, comprising two books (and counting); of the CHLOE FINE psychological suspense mystery, comprising three books (and counting); and of the JESSE HUNT psychological suspense thriller series, comprising three books (and counting).

An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Blake loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.blakepierceauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.

Copyright © 2018 by Blake Pierce. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Pavel Chagochkin used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY BLAKE PIERCE

A JESSIE HUNT PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE SERIES

THE PERFECT WIFE (Book #1)

THE PERFECT BLOCK (Book #2)

THE PERFECT HOUSE (Book #3)

CHLOE FINE PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE SERIES

NEXT DOOR (Book #1)

A NEIGHBOR’S LIE (Book #2)

CUL DE SAC (Book #3)

KATE WISE MYSTERY SERIES

IF SHE KNEW (Book #1)

IF SHE SAW (Book #2)

THE MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE SERIES

WATCHING (Book #1)

WAITING (Book #2)

LURING (Book #3)

RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY SERIES

ONCE GONE (Book #1)

ONCE TAKEN (Book #2)

ONCE CRAVED (Book #3)

ONCE LURED (Book #4)

ONCE HUNTED (Book #5)

ONCE PINED (Book #6)

ONCE FORSAKEN (Book #7)

ONCE COLD (Book #8)

ONCE STALKED (Book #9)

ONCE LOST (Book #10)

ONCE BURIED (Book #11)

ONCE BOUND (Book #12)

ONCE TRAPPED (Book #13)

ONCE DORMANT (Book #14)

ONCE SHUNNED (Book #15)

MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES

BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)

BEFORE HE SEES (Book #2)

BEFORE HE COVETS (Book #3)

BEFORE HE TAKES (Book #4)

BEFORE HE NEEDS (Book #5)

BEFORE HE FEELS (Book #6)

BEFORE HE SINS (Book #7)

BEFORE HE HUNTS (Book #8)

BEFORE HE PREYS (Book #9)

BEFORE HE LONGS (Book #10)

AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES

CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)

CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)

CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)

CAUSE TO FEAR (Book #4)

CAUSE TO SAVE (Book #5)

CAUSE TO DREAD (Book #6)

KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES

A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)

A TRACE OF MURDER (Book #2)

A TRACE OF VICE (Book #3)

A TRACE OF CRIME (Book #4)

A TRACE OF HOPE (Book #5)

PROLOGUE

Gareth Ogden stood on the wide beach looking out over the Gulf of Mexico. The tide was out and the Gulf was calm—the water flat and the waves low. He saw a few seagulls silhouetted against the darkening sky and heard their tired cries over the sound of the waves.

He took a puff of his cigarette and thought with a bitter smile …

The gulls sound like they hate this weather too.

He wasn’t sure why he’d even bothered to walk down here from his house. He used to enjoy the sounds and smells of the beach in the evening. Maybe it was just his age, but he found it hard to enjoy much of anything in this muggy heat. Summers were getting hotter than they ever used to. Even after dusk like this, the breeze off the water offered no relieving coolness, and the humidity was suffocating.

He finished his cigarette and ground it into the sand with his foot. Then he turned away from the water to walk back across the waterfront drive toward his house, a weather-beaten structure that looked out over the old road and the desolate beach.

As he trudged across the stretch of sand, Gareth thought of all the repairs he’d had to do on the house after the last hurricane, just a few years back. He’d had to rebuild the big front porch and stairs, and replace a lot of siding and roof shingles, but he’d been lucky that there was no serious structural damage. Amos Crites, who owned the houses on either side of Gareth’s, had been faced with almost complete rebuilding.

That goddamn storm, he thought, swatting at a mosquito.

Property values had plummeted since then. He wished he could sell the house and get the hell out of Rushville, but nobody would pay enough for it.

Gareth had lived in this town all his life, and he sure didn’t feel like it had done him any favors. As far as he was concerned, Rushville had been going downhill for a long time—at least ever since the interstate had passed it by. He could remember how it had been a thriving little summer tourist town before then, but those days were long gone.

Gareth made his way through an opening in the slatted wooden sand fencing and walked onto the beachfront road. As he felt the soles of his shoes absorb heat from the pavement, he looked up at his house. Its first-floor windows were lit up and friendly …

Almost like somebody lives there.

Although “living” hardly seemed the word for Gareth’s own lonely existence. And thoughts of happier days—when his wife, Kay, was still alive and they were raising their daughter, Cathy—only made him feel more depressed.

As he walked along the sidewalk leading up to his house, Gareth glimpsed something through the screen door—a shadow moving around inside.

Who might that be? he wondered.

He wasn’t surprised that some visitor had let himself in. The front door was standing wide open and the screen door was unlatched. Gareth’s friends were pretty much free to come and go as they liked.

“It’s a free country,” he liked to tell them. “Or so goes the rumor.”

As he climbed the long crooked stairs up to his porch, Gareth figured the visitor might be Amos Crites. Maybe Amos had come over from where he lived on the other side of town to check out his properties along the beach. Gareth knew that nobody had rented either house for August, a notoriously hot and sticky month around here.

Yeah, I’ll bet that’s who it is, Gareth thought as he crossed the porch.

Amos often stopped by like that to bitch and moan about things in general, and Gareth was glad to chime in with grumbling of his own. He supposed maybe he and Amos were a bad influence on each other that way …

But hey, what are friends for?

Gareth stood outside the doorway, shaking some sand off his sandals.

“Hey, Amos,” he called out. “Grab yourself a beer from the fridge.”

He expected Amos to call back …

“Already got it.”

But no reply came. Gareth guessed that maybe Amos was back in the kitchen, just now getting a beer. Or maybe he was just crankier than usual. That was fine with Gareth …

Misery loves company, as they say.

Gareth opened the screen door and walked inside.

“Hey, Amos, what’s up?” he called out.

A flash of movement caught his peripheral vision. He turned and glimpsed a shadowy form silhouetted against the living room lamp.

Whoever it was rushed at Gareth too fast for him to ask any questions.

The figure raised an arm, and Gareth glimpsed a flash of steel. Something unspeakably hard crashed against his forehead, and then an explosion burst through his brain like shattering glass.

Then there was nothing.

CHAPTER ONE

Morning sunlight was glistening on the waves as Samantha Kuehling drove the police car along the waterfront drive.

Sitting next to her in the passenger seat, her partner, Dominic Wolfe, said …

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Sam didn’t reply.

Neither she nor Dominic yet knew just what “it” really was.

But the truth was, she pretty much believed whatever it was already.

She’d known fourteen-year-old Wyatt Hitt all his life. He could be ornery, just like any boy that age, but he wasn’t a liar. And he’d sounded downright hysterical when he’d called the police station a little while ago. He hadn’t made much sense, but he’d been pretty clear about one thing …

Something happened to Gareth Ogden.

Something bad.

Beyond that, Sam didn’t know a single thing. And Dominic didn’t either.

As she parked the car in front of Gareth’s house, she saw that Wyatt was sitting at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the porch. Beside him was a cloth bag of undelivered newspapers.

When Sam and Dominic got out of the car and walked over to him, the towheaded kid didn’t even look at them. He just kept staring straight ahead. Wyatt’s face was even paler than usual, and he was shivering, even though it was already getting to be a hot morning.

He’s in shock, Sam realized.

Dominic said to him, “Tell us what happened.”

Wyatt sat upright at the sound of Dominic’s voice and looked back at him with glazed eyes. Then Wyatt stammered in a hoarse, frightened voice made worse by the changes of adolescence.

“He—he’s in there, up in the house. Mr. Ogden, I mean.”

Then he stared off toward the Gulf again.

Sam and Dominic looked at each other.

She could tell by Dominic’s alarmed expression that this was starting to get real for him.

Sam shuddered as she thought …

I’ve got a feeling it’s about to get awfully real for both of us.

She and Dominic climbed the steps and walked across the porch. When they looked through the screen door, they saw Gareth Ogden.

Dominic staggered backward from the door.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelped.

Ogden was lying on his back on the floor, his eyes and mouth wide open. He had some kind of open, bleeding wound on his forehead.

Then Dominic wheeled back toward the stairs and yelled down at Wyatt …

“What the hell happened? What did you do?”

Feeling a bit surprised not to share Dominic’s panic, Sam touched his arm and quietly said, “He didn’t do anything, Dom. He’s just a kid. He’s just a paperboy.”

Dominic shook her hand off and stormed back down the stairs. He hauled poor Wyatt to his feet.

“Tell me!” Dominic yelled. “What did you do? Why?”

Sam dashed down the stairs behind Dominic. She grabbed the hysterical cop and forcefully pulled him onto the lawn.

“Leave him alone, Dom,” Sam said. “Let me handle this, OK?”

Dominic’s face looked as pale as Wyatt’s now, and he too was shivering with shock.

He nodded mutely, and Sam walked back over to Wyatt and helped him sit down again.

She crouched in front of him and touched him on the shoulder.

She said, “It’s going to be OK, Wyatt. Just take a few slow breaths.”

Poor Wyatt couldn’t follow her instructions. Instead, he seemed to be hyperventilating and sobbing at the same time.

Wyatt managed to choke out, “I—I came by to deliver his newspaper and I found him in there.”

Sam squinted at Wyatt, trying to make sense of this.

“Why did you go all the way up on Mr. Ogden’s porch?” she asked. “Couldn’t you just throw the paper up there from the yard?”

Wyatt shrugged and said, “He gets—got mad when I do that. It made too much noise, he said, it woke him up. So he told me I had to come all the way up onto the porch—and I had to leave the paper between the screen door and the front door. Otherwise it would blow away, he said. So I always went up there and I was about to open the screen when I saw—”

Wyatt gasped and groaned with shock for a moment, then added …

“So I called you on my cell phone.”

Sam patted him on the shoulder.

“It’s going to be OK,” she said. “You did the right thing, calling the police. Now you wait right here.”

Wyatt looked at his bag. “But these papers—I’ve still got to deliver them.”

Poor kid, Sam thought.

He was obviously terribly confused. On top of that, some kind of misplaced guilt seemed to be kicking in as well. Sam guessed that this was a natural reaction.

“You don’t have to do anything,” she said. “You’re not in trouble. Everything’s going to be OK. Now just wait here, like I said.”

She got up from the step and looked for Dominic, who was still standing dumbly in the yard with his mouth hanging open.

Sam was starting to feel a little angry.

Doesn’t he know he’s supposed to be a cop?

She said to him, “Dom, come on. We’ve got to go up there and have a look at things.”

Dom just stood there as if he were deaf and had no idea that she’d spoken.

She spoke more sharply. “Dominic, come with me, damn it.”

Dominic nodded dumbly, then followed her up the stairs and across the porch into the house.

Gareth Ogden was lying spread-eagle on the floor, wearing sandals and shorts and a T-shirt. The wound in his forehead looked strangely precise and symmetrical. Sam stooped down to get a better look.

Still standing, Dominic stammered, “D-don’t touch anything.”

Sam almost growled …

“What do you think I am, an idiot?”

What kind of cop didn’t know better than to be careful around this kind of a crime scene?

But she looked up at Dominic and saw that he was still pale and trembling.

What if he faints? she thought.

She pointed to a nearby armchair and said, “Sit down, Dom.”

Dominic mutely did as he was told.

Sam wondered …

Has he ever seen a dead body before?

Her own experiences were limited to the open-casket funerals of her grandparents. Of course, this was completely different. Even so, Sam felt strangely calm and under control—almost as if she’d been preparing to deal with something like this for a long time.

Dominic obviously wasn’t feeling the same way.

She peered closely at the wound in Ogden’s forehead. It looked a little bit like that big sinkhole that had collapsed under a country road near Rushville last year—a weird, gaping cavity that didn’t belong there.

Weirder still, the skin seemed to be intact—not torn, but stretched into the exact shape of the object that had bashed against it.

It took only a moment for Sam to realize what that object must have been.

She said to Dominic, “Somebody hit him with a hammer.”

Apparently feeling less squeamish now, Dominic got up from the chair and knelt beside Sam and looked closely at the corpse.

“How do you know it was a hammer?” he asked.

Half-realizing it sounded like a sick joke, Sam said …

“I know my tools.”

In fact, it was true. When she was a little girl, her dad taught her more about tools than most of the boys in town learned in their whole lives. And the indentation of Ogden’s wound was the exact shape of the round tip of a perfectly ordinary hammer.

The wound was too big to be made by, say, a ball peen hammer.

Besides, it would have taken a heavier hammer to strike such a deadly single blow.

A claw hammer or a rip hammer, she figured. One or the other.

She said to Dominic, “I wonder how the killer got in here.”

“Oh, I can tell you that,” Dominic said. “Ogden didn’t bother to lock his front door much, even when he was gone. He sometimes left it wide open at nights. You know how the folks who live here along the waterfront drive are—dumb and trusting.”

Sam found it sad to hear the words “dumb” and “trusting” in the same sentence like that.

Why shouldn’t folks be able to leave their houses unlocked in a town like Rushville?

There’d been no violent crime here for years.

Well, they won’t be so trusting now, she thought.

Sam said, “The question is, who did this?”

Dominic shrugged and said, “Whoever it was, Ogden sure as hell looks like he was taken by surprise.”

Studying the wild look on the corpse’s face, Sam silently agreed.

Dominic added, “My guess is it was a total stranger, not somebody from around here. I mean, Ogden was mean, but nobody in town hated him that much. And nobody around here’s got the makings of a killer. It was probably some drifter who’s already come and gone. We’ll be damned lucky to catch him.”

The thought made Sam’s stomach sink.

They couldn’t let something like this just happen right here in Rushville.

We just can’t.

Besides, she had a strong suspicion that Dominic was wrong.

The killer wasn’t just some drifter passing through.

Ogden had been murdered by someone who lived right around here.

For one thing, Sam knew for a fact that this wasn’t the first time something had happened right here in Rushville.

But she also knew that now was no time to start speculating.

She said to Dominic, “You call Chief Crane. I’ll call the county medical examiner.”

Dominic nodded and took out his cell phone.

Before she reached for hers, Sam wiped some sweat off her brow.

It was already getting to be a hot day …

And it’s going to get a whole lot hotter.

CHAPTER TWO

Riley Paige took a long, deep breath of the cool ocean air.

She was sitting on the high porch of a beach house where she, her boyfriend Blaine, and their three teenaged daughters had already spent a week. Down on the wide sandy beach, more summer vacationers were scattered about and others were out in the water. Riley could see April, Jilly, and Crystal playing in the surf. There was a lifeguard on duty, but even so, Riley was glad she had a good view of the girls.

Blaine was lounging in the wicker recliner next to her.

He said, “So are you glad you accepted my invitation to come out here?”

Riley squeezed his hand and said, “Very glad. I could really get used to this.”

“I certainly hope so,” Blaine said, squeezing her hand back. “When was the last time you took a vacation like this?”

The question took Riley slightly aback.

“I really have no idea,” she said. “Years, I guess.”

“Well, you’ve got some catching up to do,” Blaine said.

Riley smiled and thought …

Yeah, and another whole week to do it in.

They’d all had a wonderful time so far. A well-to-do friend of Blaine’s had offered him the use of his place at Sandbridge Beach for two weeks in August. When Blaine invited them to go along, Riley had realized that she owed it to April and Jilly to spend more time away from work, having fun with them.

Now she thought …

I owed it to myself, too.

Maybe, if she got enough practice in this summer, she’d even get used to pampering herself.

When they’d arrived, Riley had been startled at how elegant this place was, an attractive house raised on pilings and with a wonderful view of the beach from this porch. There was even an outdoor pool in the back.

They’d gotten here just in time to celebrate April’s sixteenth birthday. Riley and the girls had spent that day shopping fifteen miles away in Virginia Beach, and they’d visited the aquarium there. Since then they’d barely left this place—and the girls seemed to be anything but bored.

Blaine gently let go of Riley’s hand and got up from his chair.

Riley grumbled, “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

“To finish getting dinner ready,” Blaine said. Then with an impish grin he added, “Unless you’d rather go out to eat.”

Riley laughed at his little joke. Blaine owned a quality restaurant back in Fredericksburg, and he himself was a master chef. He’d been making wonderful seafood dinners ever since they’d gotten here.

“That’s out of the question,” Riley said. “Now go straight to the kitchen and get to work.”

“OK, boss,” Blaine said.

He gave her a quick kiss and went on inside. Riley watched the girls romping in the surf for a few moments, then started to feel a little restless and considered going inside to help Blaine with dinner.

But of course, he’d only tell her to come back out here and leave the cooking to him.

So instead, Riley picked up the paperback spy novel she’d been reading. She was too mentally fuzzy right now to make much sense of the elaborate plot, but she was enjoying reading it anyway.

After a little while she felt her whole body twitch, and she realized that she’d dropped the book at her side. She’d fallen asleep for a few minutes—or had it been longer?

Not that it really mattered.

But the afternoon light was waning, and the waves were curling a bit higher. The water looked a little more threatening now that the relentless tide was coming in.

Even with the lifeguard still on duty, Riley felt uneasy. She was about ready to stand up and wave and call out to the girls to tell them it was time to get out of the water, but they seemed to have already come to the same conclusion on their own. They were up on the beach building a sandcastle.

Riley breathed a little easier at their good judgment. At times like now, when the ocean took on a more ominous hue, it occurred to Riley that it wasn’t really a place where humans could ever quite belong. Some denizens of the deep were capable of terrible violence—at least as brutal and cruel as the human monsters she hunted and fought as a BAU investigator.

Riley shuddered as she remembered how she’d sometimes had to protect her family against those human monsters. They had been formidable enough. She knew better than to imagine she could ever contend with the monsters of the deep.

Riley’s last case had been a full month ago—a string of violent knife murders of rich and powerful men, perpetrated in posh and elegant homes down in Georgia. Since then her professional life had been unusually quiet—and somewhat boring, really.

She’d been updating records, attending meetings, and giving advice to other agents about their cases. But she’d enjoyed giving a couple of lectures to students at the FBI Academy. As a seasoned and even rather celebrated investigator, Riley was a popular lecturer, at least when she was available.

Seeing those young, aspiring faces in the classroom reminded her of her own early idealism, back when she was a trainee in the Academy. Then, she’d been hopeful about the prospect of ridding the world of evildoers. She was a lot less hopeful now, but she was still doing her best.

What else can I do? she asked herself.

It was the only work she knew, and she knew she was very good at her job.

She heard Blaine’s voice calling out …

“Riley, dinner is ready. Get the kids.”

Riley stood up and waved, shouting “Dinner!” at the top of her lungs.

The girls turned away from their sandcastle, which had become quite elaborate, and they dashed toward the house. They ran underneath the porch where Riley was sitting and to the back of the house, where they could take a quick shower by the swimming pool.

Before she went inside herself, Riley stood by the railing and saw that the girls’ sandcastle was already getting nibbled away by the rising tide. Riley couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit of sadness about that, but she reminded herself that was normal for castles made of sand.

She’d hardly spent any time at the beach when she was younger. She just hadn’t had that kind of a childhood. But from watching the girls playing during the last few days, she knew that part of the fun of building sandcastles was knowing they’d get washed away.

A healthy life lesson, I guess.

She stood watching the sandcastle vanishing into the water for a few moments. When she heard the three girls galloping up the stairs in back, she walked along the porch around the house to meet them.

One was Blaine’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Crystal, who was April’s best friend. Another was Riley’s newly adopted fourteen-year-old daughter, Jilly.

As the three giggling girls started making a dash to their bedroom to change out of their bathing suits for dinner, Riley noticed a small cut on Jilly’s thigh.

She gently took Jilly by the arm and said, “How did this happen?”

Jilly glanced at the cut and said, “I dunno. Just got clumsy, I guess. Bumped it into a thorn or something else kind of sharp.”

Riley stooped to examine the cut. It wasn’t at all bad, and it was already beginning to scab over. Still, it struck Riley as odd somehow. She remembered Jilly having a similar cut on her forearm the day they’d come out here. Jilly had said that April’s cat, Marbles, had scratched her. April had denied it.

Jilly drew back from her—a little defensively, Riley thought.

“It’s nothing, Mom, OK?”

Riley said, “There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom. Put some disinfectant on it before you come to dinner.”

“OK, I’ll do that,” Jilly said.

Riley watched as Jilly ran after April and Crystal to the bedroom.

Nothing to worry about, Riley told herself.

But it was hard not to worry. Jilly had been living with them only since January. When Riley had been working on a case in Arizona, she’d rescued Jilly from desperate circumstances. After some legal and personal struggles, Riley had finally been able to adopt Jilly just a month ago, and Jilly seemed happy with her new family.

And besides …

It’s just a little cut—nothing to worry about.

Riley went to the kitchen to help Blaine set the table and put dinner on. The girls soon joined them, and they all sat down to dinner—delicious fried flounder filets served with tartar sauce. Everybody was happy and laughing. By the time Blaine served cheesecake for dessert, a warm, pleasant feeling was coming over Riley.

We’re like a family, she thought.

Or maybe that wasn’t quite right. Maybe, just maybe …

We really are a family.

It had been a long time since Riley had felt like that.

As she finished her dessert, she thought again …

I could really get used to this.

*

After supper, the girls went back to their bedroom to play games before going to sleep. Riley joined Blaine on the porch, where they sipped glasses of wine as they watched night setting in. The two of them were quiet for a long time.

Riley basked in that quietness, and she sensed that Blaine did too.

She couldn’t remember having shared many easy, comfortable, silent moments like this with her ex-husband, Ryan. They’d pretty much always either been talking or deliberately not talking. And when they hadn’t been talking, they’d simply inhabited their own separate worlds.

But Blaine felt very much a part of Riley’s world right now …

And a beautiful world it is.

The moon was bright, and as the night grew darker, stars were appearing in huge clusters—almost unbelievably bright out here away from the lights of the city. The dark waves of the Gulf reflected the light of the moon and the stars. Far away, the horizon grew blurry and finally disappeared so that the sea and the sky seemed to blend seamlessly together.

Riley shut her eyes and listened for a moment to the sound of the surf.

There were no other noises at all—no voices, no TV, no city traffic.

Riley sighed a long, deep, happy sigh.

As if answering her sigh, Blaine said …

“Riley, I’ve been wondering …”

He paused. Riley opened her eyes and looked over at him, feeling just a twinge of apprehension.

Then Blaine continued …

“Do you feel like we’ve known each other for a long time, or just a short time?”

Riley smiled. It was an interesting question. They’d known each other for about a year now, and they’d declared themselves exclusive about three months ago. During all that time they’d become very comfortable together.

They and their families had also been through moments of harrowing danger, and Blaine had shown amazing resourcefulness and courage.

Through it all, Riley had come to care about him, trust him, and admire him.

“It’s hard to say,” she said. “Both, I guess. It seems like a long time because of how close we’ve gotten. It seems like a short time because … well, because I’m sometimes so amazed at how fast we’ve gotten so close.”

Another silence fell—a silence that told Riley that Blaine felt exactly the same way.

Finally Blaine said …

“What do you think … should happen next?”

Riley looked into his eyes. His gaze was earnest and inquisitive.

Riley smiled and said the first thing that popped into her head. “Why, Blaine Hildreth—are you proposing to me?”

Blaine smiled and said, “Come on inside. I’ve got something to show you.”