by Vanessa Vale
They’d both lose their jobs. Their careers. Cutthroat was a small town in the middle of Montana. They weren’t going to find another police department for at least fifty miles or more. And the nearest DA’s office was probably in Helena.
I considered all of that as I worked, as I listened to the gossip, deflected the most piercing of questions. My heart ached, because I’d almost gotten over the idea of Nix and Donovan being in love with each other. When that had been cleared up, I’d had hope that it could actually work between us.
Hope. Fuck, that could destroy anyone. And all that I had for the three of us to be together was crumbling.
I loved them. I loved them enough to let them go because I only wanted what was best for them. Obviously, it wasn’t me.
The lunch rush had tapered off when the mayor came in, took the corner booth in my section. I knew him because it was a small town and he was involved in the community, but also because he was Donovan’s dad. We’d just never been face-to-face before. Until now.
I set the menu on the table in front of him. “Hi there. Can I get you a drink while you look over the menu?”
Anthony Nash looked up at me and gave me his signature smile. He and Donovan looked so alike that it was easy to picture what he would look like in thirty years. When Donovan smiled at me, I felt it clear to my toes. It was genuine. Warm. Hot.
The mayor’s smile was fake, pasted on because it was what he did. He needed to be friends with everyone in town who could vote. He was good, I’d give him that, but perhaps it was because I had the real deal from his son that I could spot the difference.
“I’ll have a slice of Dolly’s coconut cream pie and a cup of coffee.”
I picked the menu back up and nodded. “You got it.”
I returned with both a few minutes later.
“Thank you, Kit.”
I paused when he said my name.
“Yes, I know who you are.”
“That makes us even then,” I replied.
He laughed then. “I can see why Donovan likes you.”
I stilled. “Excuse me?”
“There’s nothing wrong with having a little fun.” His gaze dropped from mine and raked over my body. Even though I was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, I felt naked. I took a step back. “Fucking two men. It’s always the quiet ones who are the wildcats.” He glanced up at me, that creepy smile back in place.
“Maybe I underestimated you.” He looked me over again. “Fucking the detective and the prosecutor? Witness tampering. Possible evidence tampering. Conflict of interest. So many ways for you to get off scot free.”
I should have turned and left, but it was as if my feet were bolted to the floor.
“Nix is not my problem, but Donovan? He’s my boy. Scratch your itch with someone else.”
His crass words were a direct hit to my already weakened emotions. But I wasn’t going to let him see that. No fucking way would I let him know he was wounding me. Destroying me.
He was just like the Mr. and Mrs. Mills, making assumptions and protecting their children, as if I were going to destroy them. It was any wonder Erin, Shane and Donovan had turned out as well as they had.
Before I could even think of a response, he continued.
“Donovan’s going to be DA. He’s got all the backing he needs to be a success. But you? You’ll destroy him.” He leaned forward. “Do you want that? To ruin his chances at a career for a little dick?”
I sucked in a breath at his words, finally getting myself together to step back again. “Enjoy… enjoy your pie.”
I fled, went straight through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Leaned against the wall. God, I couldn’t stop shaking. The mayor knew about me with Nix and Donovan. Knew we’d been together the past two nights. If he knew, who else did? And the things he said. Did Nix and Donovan think I was with them so that I could get away with murder?
“You all right, hon?” Dolly eyed me as she walked by with a box of creamers.
“Can you handle table three for me?” I asked. No way was I getting near Mr. Nash again.
She frowned, looked me over. She hadn’t missed all the whispering and gossip. “Sure.”
When she left me alone again, I remained to hold up the wall. It was over with Nix and Donovan. While Anthony Nash was a total asshole, he was right. I would bring Donovan down. Nix, too. I’d been thinking that all along, but had avoided it because I hadn’t wanted it to be true. I had nothing to do with Erin’s murder, but that didn’t matter. They didn’t know who did and that meant they had to follow the rules.
Fucking me didn’t follow those rules.
But now, with an enemy in the mayor, I didn’t stand a chance. I could ruin Donovan. And Nash.
No, not could. Would.
Tears filled my eyes and I wiped them away with the back of my hand. I couldn’t break down here. Everyone was watching me, assessing my guilt.
I knew what I had to do. Pushing off the wall and getting back to work, I had no choice but to move forward. Alone.
11
NIX
“Any word from the lab?” I asked Miranski as I walked by her desk. She’d just hung up her phone and glanced up after she scrawled something on her familiar notepad. Our desks were tucked in the back corner of the main police floor.
For the past two hours, I’d been at Erin Mills’ house with the head of the crime scene team. She’d confirmed that they’d collected everything they needed and the house could be returned to the Mills family. Since all of Kit’s things were still in the guest bedroom, I left an officer there to ensure her things weren’t thrown out. After Keith Mills’ scene the day before in the lobby, I wouldn’t put it past him to fuck with her.
“They’ll have everything for us at two,” she said. “Nix.”
I stopped and turned to face her. “This was dropped off for you.”
She held up a white envelope. I took it from her and saw my name written in neat handwriting on the front. “Thanks. Can you get in touch with Kit Lancaster and tell her she can get her things out of the Mills’ house?”
I could have called her myself about this since it was police business, but I didn’t dare. I wanted to hear her voice, which made me completely pussy whipped. I didn’t dare, though.
“Sure.”
I went to my desk, sat down and ripped open the envelope. I popped right back up when I read the note.
I’m sorry, Nix. It’s not going to work out between the three of us. I know you said forever, but two days is all we get. Don’t try to change my mind. It will only make things worse for you and Donovan.
Kit
“Hey, where are you going?” Miranski asked as I strode by.
“DA’s office,” I said.
“Don’t forget the lab at two,” she called as I cut through the other desks. I raised my hand in acknowledgement, but my mind wasn’t on the case. It was on Kit, on what she wrote.
I didn’t believe a word of it. She was in with us. All the way. I’d seen her when I said we wanted to marry her. Surprise, definitely. But she’d also been happy about it. She wanted forever. From what I’d heard of Erin Mills, the info Miranski had collected, she’d worked through quite a number of men in Cutthroat. I didn’t really give a shit if she had a different guy in her bed every night. A woman could do whatever the fuck she wanted. But Kit wasn’t like that.
She wasn’t a one-night stand woman. She wanted forever. Hell, she’d wanted it with us and have even left town to let Donovan and I be together. As I tugged open the door on my SUV, I rolled my eyes. Me and Donovan in love. I dialed his number on my cell.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Office,” he replied.
“Meet me out front in five minutes.”
I hung up, turned the key in the ignition.
We weren’t in love with each other, we were in love with Kit.
And now she was dumping us.
I drove to the city building and pulled up at the curb. Donovan
climbed in. He had on a tie, which meant he had to be in court. He looked at me, knowing something was up.
I handed him the note. He scanned it. Cursed.
His eyes met mine. “She’s protecting us.”
“The murder investigation,” I said, as answer.
He nodded. “Has she been cleared yet?”
“Miranski confirmed she got a lottery ticket at the convenience story at eleven ten. It fits with Kit’s statement that she got home—back to Erin Mills’ house—around eleven thirty. That means Erin was still alive then.”
“No time of death yet?”
“The coroner only offered a four-hour window. After midnight.”
“Fuck.”
“The killer’s going to be found and this will all blow over.”
“Except we’re the prosecutor and detective for the case. Our asses are on the line.”
“I’m not letting this get in the way of making her ours,” I said. “We’ve waited long enough. She had nothing to do with it.”
He ran a hand down his face. “I know it. You know it. But there’s no evidence to prove it.”
“Yet.”
“Yet,” he repeated.
I slapped my hand on the steering wheel. “Why the fuck can’t we have the woman we want? Why can’t it be fucking simple?”
He didn’t reply. “Let’s go talk to her.”
Now he was talking.
I put the SUV in gear and headed toward the diner. I had to assume she was working. “Being with us, she’s going to learn that we protect her.”
KIT
I knew they wouldn’t let it go. Knew the note wouldn’t have given them the answers they needed. There weren’t any answers, none that any of us wanted to hear. None that would let us work out.
I couldn’t let them lose everything. I knew what it was like, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I wasn’t worth it.
When I saw the SUV pull into the parking lot—thank god I’d been doing a pass for coffee refills—I practically ran back to the coffee machine and set the pot down. Dolly came out of the kitchen and I walked right up to her, blocked her path toward the pie case.
“You have to cover for me.”
She frowned. “What?”
I glanced over my shoulder, saw Nix and Donovan headed toward the entrance. God, they looked good. Big, brawny, serious. And pissed.
Her gaze flicked behind me.
“I broke up with them.” She knew who.
“What? Why?”
The answer would take much longer than the twenty seconds before they came into the diner.
I grabbed her hand, squeezed it. “I’m not here. Please, Dolly.”
I didn’t give her a chance to say no, just dashed behind the counter before they could see me and sat down on the floor, tucked my knees up.
Dolly came over to me, then stared down at me as if I’d sprouted a second head.
“Please,” I begged. I couldn’t face them or talk to them. It would be too hard to push them away, to do the right thing. The diner was the Grand Central Station of Cutthroat, and I wasn’t going to have my love life front and center for everyone to see. To talk about. They could talk about me all they wanted, to spread idle gossip about my involvement in Erin’s murder. I wouldn’t drag Nix and Donovan into it.
That was the reason I’d left them in the first place.
Perhaps she could sense how frantic I was because she turned and faced out into the restaurant. I could see her arms moving, probably wiping down the salt and pepper shakers to appear busy.
“Gentlemen, you’re looking mighty handsome today.”
They were there. Right there on the other side of the counter. I wanted to pop up and throw myself at them. Have them wrap their arms around me and hold me and tell me everything was going to be all right.
“We’d like to talk with Kit.”
I heard the deep tone of Nix’s voice and my nipples went hard.
“She’s not here,” Dolly replied.
“Her car’s in the lot.”
Shit, it was.
“She took the van to the mega store. We’re out of paper towels for the bathrooms.” Dolly was an impressive liar. “You’re not going to hurt my girl, are you?”
What was she doing? My mouth fell open and I gave her ankle a whack.
“That’s the last thing we want to do,” Donovan said.
She must have been satisfied with that, because she switched topics. “Any updates on the murder?”
“We can’t comment about an open case,” Nix said.
“Why not? Everyone else is,” she countered, referring to the non-stop gossiping among the patrons. “Some people are saying Kit did it.”
No one spoke for a moment. “Kit didn’t kill Erin Mills,” Nix told her. His voice was even deeper than usual.
“You’ve cleared her then?”
I held my breath.
“Not yet. The other detective should have called her, let her know she can get her things from Erin’s house.”
“I’ll be sure she knows.”
“Make sure she stays somewhere safe tonight,” Donovan told her.
“If you weren’t saying that because you’re worried about her, I’d call you out for sassing me, young man. She’ll stay with me and Clyde until she can find something.”
“Thank you,” Donovan murmured.
“You want to be with Kit, then clear her.” Dolly’s tone was one I knew well. It was her don’t fuck with me voice.
“Yes, ma’am,” Donovan replied. “When you see Kit, tell her we stopped by.”
“Will do.”
Thirty seconds later, Dolly turned, set her hands on her hips and looked down at me. “What did you do to those two? They looked fit to be tied.”
I assumed they were gone and pushed myself off the floor. “I broke up with them.”
She pursed her lips, studied me. “You never could do anything the easy way.”
That was for damned sure.
“Those men love you.”
My heart leapt at her words. Did they? They hadn’t said as much, but it had been two days. I knew how I felt, but them? I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t. It would hurt too much. I shook my head and she held up her hand.
“They do. I know why you did it, why you pushed them away. I wish you could get what you want for once. And if it’s two sexy mountain men, then so be it.”
I tried to smile, but it was hard. My heart walked out the door with Nix and Donovan. “Me, too, Dolly. Me, too.”
12
DONOVAN
Two nights with Kit and I couldn’t sleep without her. My bed felt empty without her in it. I eased my hard dick in the shower with my hand, but it wasn’t the same as her hot pussy and my balls were still blue as fuck. I wanted her. Needed her.
I glanced at my unmade bed, remembered what the three of us had done in it the other night.
It wasn’t just the sex with her I craved, but her smile. Her softness that smoothed all of my rough edges. She was light where I was dark. I could sound like a fucking poet, but she was everything.
She’d been all in, been right there with us in this relationship. We hadn’t lied, hadn’t played any games. Only two days together, but the thing between the three of us had been simmering for over a year. Longer than that even. What kid saw a girl across the school and wanted her forever?
Me.
Nix, too.
It had taken for-fucking-ever to get to this point. When we’d told her we wanted to marry her, we’d meant it.
This fucking case was ruining everything. Sure, I sounded petty thinking about my love life when Erin Mills was on a slab in the morgue, but what Nix and I had with Kit had nothing to do with the case, with what happened to Erin.
I put my empty coffee mug in the sink, turned off the kitchen light.
Fuck, the case was ruining everything. The one line of Kit’s note, it will only make things worse for you and Donovan, told me all I needed to know.
<
br /> She was sacrificing herself for us. That wasn’t how this was going to work. No fucking way. Our girl didn’t get to decide shit like that all on her own. She didn’t get to decide what I did with my job, what Nix did with his. Yet, she had.
I grabbed my keys and headed out of my apartment. Nix leaned against his SUV out front.
“You look like you slept as well as I did,” I grumbled, walking up to him.
His hair was a mess, as if he’d run his hands through it and dark circles were beneath his eyes. It went unsaid that while we’d spent two nights in bed with each other—naked—it had been because of Kit. For Kit. With Kit. I had no interest in Nix. I didn’t play for that team. We had a shared interest in our woman. Making her happy, keeping her happy. And since two dicks were in her playbook, we stripped down and gave her what she wanted.
“You slept?” he asked, taking a sip of his to-go cup of coffee. “This isn’t going to work.”
“What isn’t?” I practically growled. If he was going to agree with Kit, he was going to be sporting a black eye.
He held up a hand. “Hear me out, fucker. She broke up with us to protect us.”
“Yeah,” I said, waiting for something I didn’t know. I was surly as fuck and didn’t have time to wait for him to get his ass in gear.
“We should be together, no matter what.”
That, I agreed on.
“But she’s trying to protect us,” I said. “Our jobs.”
“Exactly. We’ve known all along that being with her while working the Erin Mills case was not a good idea.”
“But we did it anyway,” I added. “Why should it tear us apart? It’s not fucking fair.”
Nix smiled, let it fall away. “This isn’t kindergarten. I think Miranski has an idea about the three of us, but she hasn’t let on. If my boss found out through channels… he’d shit a brick.”
I could imagine. “There’s epic conflict of interest on my part. Any case against Kit could be thrown out because of impartiality alone.”
“Which is why we shouldn’t be together,” he replied.
“Fuck that.”
