Beauty (A Midsummer Suspense Tale) by Asha King Page A

the dark toward the moonlit beach.
    She paused among the tall grass and glanced around. To her left was where the bonfire had burned two nights ago. Sawyer had already been sitting there—he clearly didn’t know anyone. So what brought him there in the first place? Would he have taken a drive, gone for a walk, and just ended up there? He didn’t mention a car—he specifically offered to walk her home. And there was his lack of a coat. So he’d walked too.
    Walking distance meant he was staying around there rather than one of the hotels in town. Private beach house, then.
    She walked unsteadily over sand that seemed to glow white in the moonlight, finding rough trails here and there from other walkers during the day. There were at most half a dozen total beach houses on this side of the lake, probably fewer, but acres stretched between them. Her guess said his had to be a house near the bonfire—without knowing the precise property lines, it was impossible to say which direction to go, but she kept her gaze trained on the sloping hills and looked for light.
    Several minutes later, she found it.
    A handful of lights shone in the windows. And there were many of them—the massive multilevel beach house had huge bay windows, floor to ceiling ones around the side, mostly unobstructed by blinds. It would be gorgeous with the full sun. Bryar stood on the beach and from there she had a view of a wide balcony on the upper floor and part of the lower deck. A high fence ran along one side of the deck with a hot tub tucked in the corner. The porch light was on but no one was out there.
    Around part of the house ran a fence, and she suspected it continued on through the woods as well. It cut around back, barring entry to the main property, but with the house on the hill, it didn’t obscure much of the view.
    This had to be where Sawyer was staying, at least for now.
    She wandered around the beach a bit, glancing back at the house frequently. Even if she wanted to knock, there wasn’t really a place to do so. Probably some kind of intercom or buzzer at the gate, maybe even security, and she wasn’t going calling near midnight.
    Even if I would, what would I say? Hey, I just found out you’re famous. That’s cool. Wanna hang? We can maybe have some totally hot sex. She’d look like a fame-whore. Never mind that she’d liked him just fine without knowing the truth; now any encounter would be awkward and weighted with the baggage of the truth.
    And then there was still the question of the articles she’d read on Brennen’s tablet.
    With a heavy sigh and one more look back at the beach house, Bryar turned and retraced her steps down the beach, heading for her tiny dark little house that might as well have been on another planet from Sawyer’s.
     

 
    Chapter Six
     
     
    Monday afternoon, Bryar ended up confined mostly to the kitchen.
    An actual lineup of people hung around the front of the bakery when she got downtown, and she ducked around the back of the building before they saw her, heading for the kitchen instead. A quick check in with Gina revealed that the shop had been like that all day—seventy percent of the customers were total strangers, people she was certain didn’t live in Midsummer. Probably out of towners, but her expression suggested doubt.
    Media people, she must’ve thought. It wasn’t just the bakery, either, but various shops had been descended upon. Trying to get confirmation that Sean Philip Sawyer was indeed in town.
    At least, Bryar thought, they weren’t really looking for her . Just her connection to him, and pretty quickly people would figure out that no such thing existed.
    Still, it didn’t seem wise to work the main part of the shop yet, so Gina kept her busy in the back. Plenty of the goods were pre-made and just required thawing, so Bryar took out dough and easily prepared basic cookies to keep the front well-stocked. Brennen even hung around to play bodyguard at the doorway between the