Nora Roberts Land(58)

He walked forward, eating up the space between them. “Sit down. I’ll make the coffee.”

She batted his hands away, guilt making her shake. If her grandpa was right, they might have stopped Jemma from dying. “I’m fine! I can do it.” His intense gaze made her look away. She took a shaky breath. “Maybe they didn’t release the information to protect her family.”

She managed to start the coffee, her mind spinning. He waited for her to sit before turning a chair and straddling it.

“If I didn’t believe my source, I wouldn’t be telling you any of this. Most drug dealers wouldn’t disclose to a journalist that their drugs caused someone’s death. Usually they’d let a bogus autopsy fly.”

“Wait a minute! We don’t know anything was bogus. We only know what the paper said. I know the coroner. He’s a family friend.”

“Hold the fort a minute and listen.” He outlined more of what he knew—and what didn’t add up.

Bile rose in her stomach. So, his source had been concerned about clients visiting the ER, so much so that he’d even asked his dealer about it. That jived with her grandpa’s hunch. She needed to talk with him about all this before she said anything to Tanner. Even if he hadn’t been family, it was still reporter’s courtesy. It was her grandpa’s story.

The coffee brewed in the background, filling the kitchen with its dark roast scent. “So why did your source come forward? What’s his angle?”

Tanner crossed his arms on the top of the chair. “A guilty conscience, I think, and reparation. He was a pawn. He wants the people who laced the drugs to pay for what happened to Jemma.”

“We’d have to prove they were laced.”

“I know.”

She studied his face. She responded to his calm and collected approach, and it made her earlier knee-jerk reaction subside. She could trust this man, and if her grandpa agreed, they could share what they already knew.

“So why are you telling me? A good journalist doesn’t want someone else stealing his scoop.”

He raised his hands like a white flag. “I need your help. I don’t have the same access to things in Dare. You just said you know the coroner. That’s the kind of help I need. People will suspect something the minute I start asking questions. Plus, your paper has access to a lot of information. We can start there without tipping anyone off.”

He was right. Outsiders were not part of the inner circle. She was a Hale. People considered her one of their own.

Plus, his source was exactly the kind of break her grandpa had been looking for.

“So what do you want to do?”

“Well, first, get me the autopsy report. Then, we have to create a cover for our investigation. Otherwise people are going to wonder why we’re spending so much time together. There will be a lot of man hours on this. We’ll need to be alone more often.”

All the ideas racing around in her head stilled. Her heart bounced against her chest like a kid playing jacks with a rubber ball. She knew where he was going with this. Her mouth went dry.

“We’re going to have to pretend we’re going out.”

What? The coffee machine coughed and sputtered, so she pushed back from the table to pour them a cup. When she extended his, the rim dipped.

He covered her hand. “Don’t burn your fingers.”

His touch instantly raised goosebumps across her arm. Damn those stupid pheromones.

“Why can’t we simply say we’re working on an article?” she asked, knowing the answer.

“If we do, people will want to know what we’re working on. We’re two high-powered journalists from New York who just arrived in town. It’ll look funny.”

“I don’t—”

“If we tell anyone, it’s your grandpa, no one else.”

“You’re darn right we’ll tell my grandpa. I just have one question.” She dropped her gaze to his lips before meeting his eyes. “Does this have anything to do with your intentions toward me?”

Those chocolate eyes twinkled. “My intentions? That sounds pretty old school. If you’re curious to know, Meredith, my intentions toward you haven’t changed.”

Well, hello, Mr. Darcy.

Meredith pressed her fingers to her navy cashmere bodice with ivory lace cups. “I told you we could go out on Halloween.”

He rubbed the scar by his lips. “I remember. I can’t stop thinking about that kiss we shared. Have you decided to go out with me exclusively?”

She’d thought about it until she was blue in the face with no resolution. She snorted while her heart beat wildly in her chest. “No.”