This had to be some kind of cosmic joke, Merry kept thinking. Of all the people in Jupiter Point, Will Knight would probably be the last man she ever would have connected to StarLord. She would have thought it was some kind of hallucination except for the sharp fizz of champagne on her tongue. That was real. So was the scent of Will's aftershave, something light and spicy, like cedar shavings. His strong, lean body stretched next to hers on the picnic bench.

The more buzzed she got, the more ridiculous the situation seemed. She kept remembering new details and bursting into giggles.

"The tiger lilies! Did you tell Tobias and Ben I like them? But how did you—"

"They asked me, but I was thinking of the other you. I had no idea you liked them too." He shook his head, confusion clouding his gray eyes. "That didn't make sense, did it?"

"None of this makes sense."

"Man, did I have this all wrong. I told my brothers you probably preferred flowers with thorns."

She had to laugh at that. "Touché. I like people to be a little bit afraid of me, if you know what I mean."

"I do. I'm the same way. Makes enforcing the law a hell of a lot easier."

She angled her body toward him. The revelation of this other, softer side of Will Knight was really blowing her mind. "So it's all a front? The big tough lawman act is just for your job?"

"I can't tell you that. You might use it against me." He shot her a sidelong glance filled with amusement. A flutter sparked to life inside her. Attraction, curiosity, interest, desire…a heady mix, on top of the champagne.

"I thought we agreed that we're bound to secrecy."

He laughed and reached for the tray of appetizers Suzanne had left for them. He unpeeled the plastic and offered first choice to her. She smiled to herself. He really was that sweet, thoughtful guy she'd imagined StarLord to be.

"It's not all an act. I am a cop, after all. Also, I was a wild twenty-two-year-old kid in charge of a grieving eight-year-old. He acted out a lot. Sometimes I handled it well, sometimes I had to lay down the law."

"You couldn't just write him a poem?" She winked and selected a cherry tomato and tore the stem off with her teeth. His gaze followed the action.

Okay then. Attraction: mutual.

He cleared his throat. "About that…any chance you can—"

"Nope." She didn't even let him finish. "I love your poems. I think you should publish them."

"Hell no." He filled one of his palms with salted almonds from the tray. "I'm a cop. Do you know how much shit I would get? Suspects would be laughing their asses off."

"You could read them their rights and recite them a poem. It would be glorious."

He glowered at her. "Not happening. I don't write them for anyone to see. It's more like…doodling. Images come to mind, different thoughts, and I work them out on paper. It's private. Not even my brothers have read any of them." He popped an almond into his mouth, as if that was the end of the topic.

She cocked her head at him. Now that his stern-faced facade had cracked, she was fascinated to see what else lived behind it. "You don't like people seeing anything personal, do you?"

He tossed another few almonds in with the first one. Stonewalling by almonds. Then finally, he spoke again. "It's not exactly… I've been in the spotlight. And under a microscope. My whole family went through it. Made me protective."

A chill shivered over her as she realized what he was referring to. "Your father?" she asked delicately.

He shot her a sharp, resigned look. "I guess it's no surprise you've heard about that."

"I'm just surprised it took so long. You have a lot of fans in Jupiter Point."

"But you've never been one of them."

She brushed a crumb off her sweater. "I admit, Deputy Slow-Mo, that we've had our run-ins. We're natural enemies, after all. An officer and a reporter, that's kind of like oil and water. We're adversaries. Just look at the way you keep stepping in the way of me doing my job."

"Hmm." He nodded thoughtfully. "I do see what you mean. Like how I sent you that photo. Police evidence, sent directly to your inbox. Are you sure I'm the enemy?"

She nudged his side with her elbow. "It's true, every once in a while, you do something that makes me think you've turned over a new leaf and crossed over to our side."

He snorted. "That will never happen. I'm about solving crimes and protecting the populace. It's who I am and who I always will be."

"And I can see why." Now that she was putting all the pieces together, it made sense. Often a tragedy changed the trajectory of a person's life. She'd seen it over and over when interviewing crime victims. She squinted at him thoughtfully, imagining a young Will vowing to catch his father's killer.

He waved a hand in front of her face, interrupting her fantasy. "I can see the gears turning, but you're wrong. That's not why I work in law enforcement. I was headed there all along. I just ended up in the first half of Law and Order instead of the second."

With a sigh, she drew up one knee and rested her chin on it. "I love that show."

"So do I."

"Well, I guess maybe we're not complete opposites."

"No comment," he answered dryly.

She burst out laughing. Another thing they had in common—sense of humor. When Will relaxed, like now, with the last sunlight reflecting in his gray eyes, he was pretty irresistible.

"I can think of a few things we have in common," he added. "We both work hard. My brothers say I work too much. They worry about me."

She tipped champagne to her mouth. "Oh, I'm a hopeless workaholic. I don't even use my vacation time unless it's for a story. I've been that way since junior high."

"What got you into journalism?"

She gave him a searching look, but detected nothing beyond sincere curiosity in the question. "Well, I got hooked early on. I always had a foot in two worlds. I lived in a low-ish income neighborhood in New York with my mother, but we had money from my father that went toward my education. I took a subway every day to a private school uptown. I knew how to blend, no matter where I was. Anyway…"

Jeez, she was getting off track. Will's attentive manner made her want to tell him all sorts of personal stuff.

"When I was fourteen, a reporter came to our neighborhood investigating a story about landlord abuses. But no one wanted to talk to him because they were afraid they'd get evicted. They didn't trust him to protect their names. So I helped him out. I interviewed people, I took photos for him, I got him copies of the illegal notices people were getting. The story was published in the New York Times and it was the most incredible feeling. And it worked—repairs started happening that never did before. And it was all because someone came and shined a light on a problem. After that, I knew I had to be a reporter."

She paused to take a breath.

"Don't stop. Tell me more. What's your mother like?"

"She's a singer. She's fierce. She never babied me. I had to stand on my own two feet, which is how I liked it anyway."

"She sounds impressive."

Any compliment about her mother always made her glow. "She is. We're still close, but she's on tour right now in Japan, along with my stepfather. He's her manager, we both took his name when they got married, that's where my last name 'Warren' comes from. You know, she could have used that money from my bio-father for herself, but she kept it for my education instead. That's one reason I work so hard. She sacrificed for me and I don't want to let her down."

"Jupiter Point's best reporter? Not likely."

She smiled, then shifted the tone of the conversation to something lighter. "You know what I want to do? I want to go back through all the StarLord messages and reinterpret them based on what I know now."

"Yup, a few little tidbits are coming back to me."

The evil gleam in his eye told her exactly what he was referring to. She changed position so she sat on her knees and heels and swatted him on the arm. "How much will it take for you to delete some of my messages and forget you ever saw them?"

He laughed, fending her off easily. "Bribing an officer of the law?"

"Totally justifiable."

"What's the problem?" he teased. "There's nothing wrong with being an independent woman in charge of her own sexuality."

The word "sexuality" shifted the atmosphere between them. Her throat tightened and her lower belly clenched with excitement.

"Yes, but I told that to StarLord, not Deputy Will Knight."

"You know me. I don't tell secrets. I'm the king of 'no comment.' It's one of the things you don't like about me."

The secrets part was true. As for the rest of it… "I never said 'don't like.' That's not an accurate quote."

They smiled at each other. The last light from the sinking sun kissed their faces. The moment seemed to last forever, the two of them wrapped up in the spell of the whispering ocean breeze, the deepening dark. She had the sense of being perched on top of the world here in this mountaintop gazebo with a man who kept revealing new layers.

She wrenched her gaze away before things got too intense. "Sunset," she reminded him.

They both watched the sun's last glimmer of goodbye. A star winked into visibility, like Tinkerbell coming out to play. Merry was acutely aware of Will next to her, as if her body was communicating with him on a level her mind didn't quite grasp. Her heart kept skipping to a different rhythm, the little hairs on her arm prickled. Her mouth went dry, her throat tight.

Looking out at that far horizon, where the last streaks of persimmon and violet shimmered, time shifted. The world suddenly felt both bigger and more expansive than she'd ever imagined, and at the same time, cozier. More intimate. As if she was perfectly safe right now, and forever. As long as Will sat by her side.

She shook off the impossible thought. Their weird relationship hadn't gotten any less strange because they now knew they'd been communicating intimately for months. In fact, it was stranger.

"We should probably talk about what happened before," she said reluctantly. "At your place. After the tranquilizer gun."