Page 64 of The Hunter’s Affection

Chapter 17

Charlotte leaned back into Torr, his arms encircling her like a warm blanket. If hard, muscular vampires could be said to be blankets. She watched as Toni’s aunt and uncle walked toward them, looking, oddly enough, at her. It struck her at the same moment that Jim had something in his hands—and Toni was looking at it with unmistakable interest.

Something was very wrong. Charlotte stood up straighter as Toni blurted out, “Is that—”

Her uncle cleared his throat, tipping his head toward Charlotte.

“She knows,” Toni said.

That’s when Charlotte realized Birdie and Uncle Jim were in on the big secret. They’d been looking at her like that because they weren’t sure she knew.

“Oh, good,” Birdie said. “Hello, Charlotte, dear.”

Everyone was “dear” to Birdie.

She smiled. “Hi, Birdie. Uncle Jim.”

With that little fact cleared up, everyone turned their attention to the object Jim held, which looked to be a book. Brown leather and really, really old.

Jim lifted it up, his weathered face puckered into a frown. “Found the journal.”

Everyone started talking at once, Charlotte turning to Torr for an explanation.

“Long story” was all he said as Lawrence came around from behind the bar. “I’ll explain later.”

Toni raised her voice above the clamor. “Why don’t we sit down?”

She gestured to the area of the room closest to the vault, the conversation nook where she and Charlotte had sat and talked earlier. It was a cozy spot, two loveseats facing each other across a coffee table, clustered with a few plush chairs.

“Can I get either of you a drink?” Lawrence asked as they all walked over.

Birdie shook her head as if stunned. Charlotte had never seen her like this. Toni’s aunt, a pillar of the community, always appeared so strong. Fierce. In control.

But not now.

In fact, her hands were actually shaking. She and Jim sat down on one of the loveseats, side by side, and Jim held her hand to still it. The journal was still clutched in his other hand.

“Tell us everything,” Toni said.

Jim held up the book. Journal. Whatever.

“Like you know, we already looked everywhere for it. The shop, storage. Our garage at home. And nothing.”

Torr had pulled Charlotte down next to him on the other loveseat, and she sat so close she was nearly on his lap, his arm draped possessively behind her. He barely had to lean down to whisper to her.

“Zach Walsh didn’t break into the shop to steal money. He was trying to find that.” He nodded to the journal. “For his grandmother.”

This was not the time to be turned on, but his breath on her ear did just that. She leaned even closer to him, which was when he kissed her, albeit too quickly, on the cheek.

Birdie started, “When Annabel came to the store—”

“Zach’s grandmother,” Torr whispered.

Charlotte knew who she was. The Walsh family was a prominent one in Stone Haven. The break-in had shocked just about everyone. Certainly Zach Walsh didn’t need the money.

“—I thought hard about her sister’s estate sale. I’d brought back more than one box of items, nothing extraordinary. Then it struck me—we weren’t the only ones to have gone to that sale. The more I thought about that day, I remembered Alan, the owner of Antiques & Collectibles in New Hope took a fairly sizable haul from the Walsh estate sale. So I contacted him—”

“And he had the journal?” Toni sat forward in her seat, clearly impatient for the rest of the story.