The Welcoming

into the breeze. “I was lucky to have him as long as I did, but there are times—like this—when I can’t help wishing he were here.”
    “Like this?”
    “He loved to watch them,” she said quietly. “Even when he was ill, really ill, he would sit for hours at the window. One afternoon I found him sitting there with the spyglass on his lap. I thought he’d fallen asleep, but he was gone.” There was a catch in her breath when she slowly let it out. “He would have wanted that, to just slip away while watching for his whales. I haven’t been able to take the boat out since he died.” She shook her head. “Stupid.”
    “No.” He reached for her hand for the first time and linked his fingers with hers. “It’s not.”
    She turned her face to his again. “You can be a nice man.” The phone rang, and she groaned but slipped dutifully from the windowsill to answer it.
    “Hello. Yes, Bob. What does he mean he won’t deliver them? New management be damned, we’ve been dealing with that company for ten years. Yes, all right. I’ll be right there. Oh, wait.” She glanced up from the phone. “Roman, are they still there?”
    “Yes. Heading south. I don’t know if they’re feeding or just taking an afternoon stroll.”
    She laughed and put the receiver at her ear again. “Bob— What? Yes, that was Roman.” Her brow lifted. “That’s right. We’re in my room. I called Roman up here because I spotted a pod out my bedroom window. You might want to tell any of the guests you see around. No, there’s no reason for you to be concerned. Why should there be? I’ll be right down.”
    She hung up, shaking her head. “It’s like having a houseful of chaperons,” she muttered.
    “Problem?”
    “No. Bob realized that you were in my bedroom—or rather that we were alone in my bedroom—and got very big-brotherly. Typical.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a fabric-covered band. In a few quick movements she had her hair caught back from her face. “Last year Mae threatened to poison a guest who made a pass at me. You’d think I was fifteen.”
    He turned to study her. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with a silk-screened map of the island. “Yes, you would.”
    “I don’t take that as a compliment.” But she didn’t have time to argue. “I have to deal with a small crisis downstairs. You’re welcome to stay and watch the whales.” She started toward the door, but then she stopped. “Oh, I nearly forgot. Can you build shelves?”
    “Probably.”
    “Great. I think the parlor in the family suite could use them. We’ll talk about it.”
    He heard her jog down the stairs. Whatever crisis there might be at the other end of the inn, he was sure she would handle it. In the meantime, she had left him alone in her room. It would be a simple matter to go through her desk again, to see if she’d left anything that would help him move his investigation forward.
    It should be simple, anyway. Roman looked out to sea again. It should be something he could do without hesitation. But he couldn’t. She trusted him. Sometime during the past twenty-four hours he reached the point where he couldn’t violate that trust.
    That made him useless. Swearing, Roman leaned back against the windowframe. She had, without even being aware of it, totally undermined his ability to do his job. It would be best for him to call Conby and have himself taken off the case. It would simply be a matter of him turning in his resignation now, rather than at the end of the assignment. It was a question of duty.
    He wasn’t going to do that, either.
    He needed to stay. It had nothing to do with being loved, with feeling at home. He needed to believe that. He also needed to finish his job and prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Charity’s innocence. That was a question of loyalty.
    Conby would have said that his loyalty belonged to the Bureau, not to a woman he had known for less than a week. And Conby would have been wrong, Roman thought as he set aside the spyglass. There were times, rare times, when you had a chance to do something good, something right. Something that proved you gave a damn. That had never mattered to him before, but it mattered now.
    If the only thing he could give Charity was a clear name, he intended to give it to her. And then get out of her life.
    Rising, he looked around the room. He wished he were nothing more than the out-of-work drifter Charity had taken into her home. If he were maybe he