It belonged to Taryn’s landlords, the outdoor faucet located under the stairs that led up to their main floor. The courtyard was cast in shadows, chilly and still, the autumn flowers a cheerful counter to the fading light—and her own mood, she thought, getting a dribble of the extra-cold water from the hose on her pant leg. She didn’t care. She needed to cool off, relax and pull herself together after telling Scoop her story. Had she really given him that little kiss on the cheek? “Gad,” she said, dragging the hose back under the stairs. “What were you thinking?” She shut off the faucet and wound the hose into an ancient-looking pot. She knew exactly what she’d been thinking. Here was a solid, physical, intelligent man who wasn’t as rigid and rules-bound as she’d expected—who was self-controlled without being controlling. And here was she, an archaeologist fresh from postdoctoral work in Ireland, a woman who’d taken him to a grisly scene of death and who now had told him about a horrible experience in her life—one that her own family didn’t know about.
