“Mean.” She pouted.
He pinched the tongs in front of her. “You’ll just have to be entertained by me.”
“Well, there are worse things, I suppose.”
He closed the cover on the grill and sat back down. “What am I looking at here?” he asked, picking up the manuscript page again.
She put her beer down and leaned over. “Wallace spotted this. His glasses might be thick, but he’s got a good eye for things. Check out the handwriting.”
He examined it and then flipped the photo over again. “Looks pretty similar to me.”
“Wallace is going to dig into the Palmer family and see if they somehow connect to the Campbells. We’re still coming up dry on Ava Campbell. It’s like she was the first Dedman or something. The mentions of her family say her father was a banker, but short of scouring every census record for six decades, I don’t know how we’re going to track him down.”
“At least this is a lead. There’s got to be some kind of connection to the Palmer sisters if their photo showed up in Aaron Campbell’s study. Speaking of which, I finished Blood on the Moon on my lunch break. Good book, but I didn’t find anything that seemed like it would be helpful. Just a lonely cowboy.”
“I’m almost done with Into the Sunset, and nothing’s struck me as a key to the gold.”
They went through the rest of the box’s contents, poring over pictures of the Campbells and their children and the newspaper clippings that detailed Black Jack McGuire’s death and Samuel Espinosa’s arrest.
Silas pulled the steaks off the grill while Maggie grabbed the potatoes and salad.
They talked while they ate. About Keaton’s endless exploration of the “big house.” About Dayana’s first and only conversation with the apologetic Donald. She’d told him that he was welcome to call and talk to Keaton anytime, but any communication he wanted to have with her would go through their attorneys.
Maggie pushed her empty plate away and sighed contentedly. She glanced around them. “I like your place,” she said. “It suits you.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I’m just coming to the realization that I’ve had eleven houses, and I’ve never decorated one of them for me,” she said, sounding wistful.
“Why not?” he asked, taking her plate and stacking it on top of his own.
“Because they’re not mine. I fix them up to appeal to the broadest audience so I can sell them quickly and move on to the next one.”
“You seem to be doing okay in the furnishings department,” he noted. “Every time I walk through that front door, it looks more and more like a home.” It felt like it, too.
“That’s by necessity,” she said.
“You don’t have to need something just to treat yourself,” he pointed out.
She smiled, picking at the label on her beer bottle. “But what have I done to deserve the treat?”
“You were one of those clean-your-plate-before-you-get-dessert families, weren’t you?” he teased.
Her lips quirked. “Maybe. Aren’t most people?”
“Mama B always preached that, since life was uncertain, you should eat dessert first.”
“Then why did we just enjoy two perfectly grilled New York strips?”
“Because we need the protein to fuel tonight’s bedroom activities. And because I didn’t want my lovemaking to be overshadowed by the aftertaste of Dad’s apple crumb pie.”
She laughed. “I can’t fault your logic.”
He covered her hand with his. “You ever stop and wonder what if life isn’t about earning your way to pleasure? What if it’s enjoying it when it makes itself available to you?”
“Hmm.”
“That was some seriously deep philosophy, and all I get out of you is a ‘hmm.’”
“There’s another problem that arises if I start buying things for me and falling in love with windows and bathtubs and…” She looked at him. “Other things.”
“What’s the problem?” he asked.
“Then it hurts to walk away.” She was watching him, her expression unreadable.
He decided to lighten the mood. “I bet you five dollars that you’re gonna make us do these dishes before we head on into the bedroom for dessert.”
She eyed the plates in front of him. “Well, I do like clean dishes,” she mused. “But I also could use five dollars.”
TeddysMom99: The wrong tile! Maggie is right. This kitchen is cursed!