“Do you really expect me to believe that little fantasy?”

She'd hoped for surprise, even amazement. She'd gotten boredom. “It's true. She used to meet him on the cliffs near The Towers.”

He gave her a thin smile that was very close to a sneer. “Saw them, did you? Oh, I've heard about the ghost, too.” He drew in more smoke, lazily released it. “The melancholy spirit of Bianca Calhoun, drifting through her summer home. You Calhouns are just full of – stories.”

Her eyes darkened, but her voice remained very controlled. “Bianca Calhoun and Christian Bradford were in love. The summer she died, they met often on the cliffs just below The Towers.”

That touched a chord, but he only shrugged. “So what?”

“So there's a connection. My family can't afford to overlook any connection, particularly one so vital as this one. It's very possible she told him where she put the emeralds.”

“I don't see what a flirtation – an unsubstantiated flirtation – between two people some eighty years ago has to do with emeralds.”

“If you could get past this prejudice you seem to have toward my family, we might be able to figure it out.”

“Not interested in either part.” He flipped open the top of a small cooler. “Want a beer?”

“No.”

“Well, I'm fresh out of champagne.” Watching her, he twisted off the top, tossed it toward a plastic bucket, then drank deeply. “You know, if you think about it, you'd see it's a little tough to swallow. The lady of the manor, well – bred, well – off, and the struggling artist. Doesn't play, babe. You'd be better off dropping the whole thing and concentrating on planting your flowers. Isn't that what you're doing these days?”

He could make her angry, she thought, but he wasn't going to shake her from her purpose. “My sisters' lives were threatened, my home has been broken into. Idiots are sneaking in my garden and digging up my rosebushes.” She stood, tall and slim and furious. “I have no intention of dropping the whole thing.”