by Devon Monk
“Tell me Bertie already has judges.”
Jean shrugged. “Who knows. You still have your old skates?”
“No.”
“I do,” Myra said.
“Good job, pack rat.” Jean patted her shoulder. “You might want to loan them to Bertie so she can find some chump to sign up for deliveries. Unless you’d like to do the skating? Rebecca Carver will be doing it.”
At the name of her old high school rival, Myra’s face shut down into a scowl. “What’s she doing back in town?”
“Slumming? Walking around in her Jimmy Choos, despairing about our lack of diamond-coated puppy baths and pills that make you poop gold? What? That’s a real thing. Look it up.”
Myra, who was still head-down on the table, rocked her head back and forth, having given up on the conversation.
“I got nothing,” I said. “I’m out. It’s been a long day and I want some sleep. See you two tomorrow.” I threw a five on the table because even though Piper wanted to comp us our pie and coffee, she deserved a tip.
Myra said something that almost sounded like, “Gold poop pills. Brings a whole new meaning to gold digger.” Jean laughed again.
I left them to it and pushed out into the cool, wet night.
I liked summer. I liked the ever-shifting coastal weather that brought us days of lukewarm fog, or nearly gale-force winds, or crystal clear sunshine stunners that made everything feel right in the world.
And sure, I liked the cool wet of autumn, winter, and spring in Oregon too.
But Thor giving us the middle finger for three months was really getting on my nerves.
“You couldn’t give us one week of sunshine?” I asked as I tromped to the Jeep. “Come on, Thor. You know I’m grateful for your help in finding Cooper. I’m sorry you have to stay away from Ordinary for a year, but think of it this way. At least your power isn’t lost.”
I got in the Jeep and clicked on my seatbelt.
The rain seemed to lighten a little, the drops shrinking from nickel-sized to dime.
Maybe he was listening.
“You lay off the rain for the rest of August and most of September, and I promise we will throw you the biggest welcome home party Ordinary has ever seen when you come back.”
I started the engine and guided the Jeep south toward town. By the time I turned east, navigating the quiet neighborhoods toward the lake, the rain was down to a soft drizzle that finally, finally, stopped.
I let out a long breath. “Thank you. Thank you so much, Thor.”
I drove past the front of Ryder’s cabin, then parked across the street. Moonlight filtered silver down through the clouds. Wow, Thor was going to give us a little break. I hoped he didn’t change his mind in the morning.
Ryder’s truck was in his driveway. Next to it was a sleek sedan with an in-state license plate, but not one I recognized.
Ryder was not only back in town, he also had company.
The memory of his phone call this morning rolled through my head. He had sounded tired, worried, and maybe drunk. He had sounded like he was leaving to do something he might regret.
Kill a vampire?
No. Ryder didn’t know about the creatures who lived, or un-lived, among us.
Had he called because he was worried about returning to Ordinary? That didn’t really make much sense. He lived here.
I studied the low glow coming through the window beside the door, probably light from the living room.
Maybe he had a date.
That thought hit me like a two-ton sledgehammer. Not that there would be anything wrong with him dating. He’d dumped me. We weren’t together. So if he wanted to have a woman over, if he wanted someone else in his life, I should be happy for him.
Okay, not happy, but there were no legal grounds for me to slash his tires.
Maybe the chick’s sedan had expired tags. Maybe it had been used in a bank robbery. Maybe I should go over there and check that out. Because it was my job, not because I was jealous.
I was moments away from running the plates when the porch light flicked on, bathing the front of the house in light.
I killed the engine and ducked down, hoping the night would hide the Jeep. Why hadn’t I parked out of sight of the front door?
Stake out 101, Delaney.
The door opened and two people stepped out onto the porch: Ryder and another man.
Yes! He was with a man, not a woman.
My heart did a leap of joy, which was totally unprofessional.
Ryder stood in the doorway scowling, his arms crossed over his chest. His dog, Spud, sat attentively at his feet.
Just watching Ryder, lit by the light of the porch and shadowed by night, made my heart thump harder. His wide shoulders were muscled from the hands-on approach he took to his business. He might design buildings, but that didn’t keep him from going on-site and swinging a hammer. Those shoulders stretched the tailored lines of his dress shirt so that it was tight at the chest and biceps, but it skimmed his flat stomach.
Even at this distance, his dress slacks drew my eyes to narrow hips and long legs.
Ryder could model those business clothes, and more than one fashion magazine would take him on.
Since I’d seen him naked, I knew more than one underwear designer would take him on too. Those images were not helping me pay attention to what was happening at the porch.
They were talking. Maybe arguing? The man moved, his hand cutting a sharp line between them as if refusing something Ryder had said. He looked angry.
Okay, Delaney, pay attention.
Ryder’s expression had gone flat and unreadable. He waited until the guy was done gesturing, then nodded, a clear invitation for the guy to leave.
The man leaned in a little, his finger pointed at Ryder’s face, then off to the side at nothing in particular, or maybe indicating the neighborhood or town.
Hard to know. With the moonlight shaded by clouds, I couldn’t even get a good look at his face.
Ryder didn’t say anything. I could see his face thanks to the angle of the porch light and the fact that he was facing the street where I was hidden. He looked controlled, but the clenching of his jaw and something about the angle of his oh-so-relaxed body told me he was furious.
The man turned and I finally got a look at him. Light hair cut high and tight, square face. He was several inches shorter than Ryder, and wore a business suit tailored to his stocky build. I’d put him somewhere in his late forties, maybe early fifties.
From that single wash of light across his face I could tell he was angry too.
I didn’t like him. I don’t know why, but my split-second read on the guy told me he was a jerk.
I’d have guessed he was Ryder’s boss, except Ryder was in business for himself. So maybe this was a big-wig client or an investor? Whoever it was, he got into his fancy sedan and left.
Even though I’d told Myra and Jean that I would stop by and talk to Ryder, now that I was here, I decided it would be better to talk to him tomorrow.
Good thing it was dark and cloudy. He hadn’t noticed me sitting here in the Jeep.
I waited as he watched the man drive away. Then Ryder half turned toward the house.
Just as I was sure he hadn’t spotted me, the cloud cover cleared and shot a beam of neon silver moonlight smack dab down on the Jeep, lighting it up. Lighting me up too.
“Thanks a lot, Thor,” I grumbled.
Ryder noticed the light. Noticed the Jeep. Noticed me.
He paused, his hands clenching into loose fists, as if he were the one who had been spotted instead of the other way around.
I kind of hoped he’d ignore me. I kind of hoped he would just go inside.
He shut the door and jogged down the path to me.
I thought about starting the engine and gunning it out of there.
But that would be unprofessional.
Plus, I hadn’t thought about it until it was too late.
Ryder knocked on the
driver’s side window. “Delaney?”
I rolled down the window. “Hey, Ryder.”
“What are you doing out here so late? Something wrong? Need me at the station? Are Myra and Jean okay?”
See, this was the trouble with Ryder. Even though he was the sort of guy who would date ‘em and dump ‘em, he was also the kind of guy who would reach out to people in need and help his neighbors and coworkers without hesitation.
“They’re fine. We don’t need you at the station.”
He made a little “huh” sound then bent a bit lower, his arm draped across the door frame as he inspected the interior of the car. “So what are you doing out here watching my house, Delaney? Are you watching me?”
Yes.
“No.”
“No?”
“No. I came here to talk to you, but I saw you had someone over and didn’t want to bother you.”
I wanted to look anywhere than at him, but if I looked away he would see the lie on me. Maybe he saw the lie on me now. Maybe he heard my heart beating for him, wanting him.
The wind ruffled his dark hair softly, the shifting gray and blue of moonlight casting him in velvet-edged marble. He was undeniably handsome, eyebrows thickest at the arch over mossy green eyes, nose straight and upper lip delectably heavier than his lower lip.
He looked tired. Lines at the edges of his eyes, across his forehead seemed deeper, and a full day’s stubble spread dark along his jaw.
I wanted to kiss him. To press against his body and be surrounded by his scent, be filled with his warmth. My mouth went dry thinking about it, and other parts of me didn’t care that he’d dumped me.
Would he take me back? Would he want me if I asked him to?
Maybe some of those questions showed on my face. Maybe my need, or my struggle to push my need away, lock it all up with the hope my traitorous heart would not give up, showed through.
Ryder didn’t want me.
He had tried to apologize for how he handled the break up, or maybe for the break up.
Maybe he wanted me a little. But a little couldn’t be enough.
Could it?
His eyes were soft, and his lips curved in a smile that oddly looked sad. “Come inside,” he said, all warmth and need and home. “I’d like...I need to talk to you too. Please come inside with me.”
I shouldn’t. Well, I should talk to him. Ask him if he murdered Sven. Ask him where he had been in the last forty-eight hours. But I knew if I followed him into his house, I wouldn’t want to talk about murder. I wouldn’t want to know if he was involved with Sven’s death or anything else.
I’d just want him.
“We can do this tomorrow,” I said in a thin voice I barely recognized.
His expression fell and I realized there had been something more than sorrow in his eyes. There had been hope.
This didn’t have to be so hard. We had been friends growing up, friends all our lives before our one date and one night together that had not only ended before it had practically begun, but had also almost ended our friendship.
All those years of friendship deserved something didn’t they? A chance?
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go in. It’s freezing out here.”
He stepped back, looking relieved, but only far enough away to let me open the Jeep door.
“Not exactly the warmest summer we’ve had,” he said.
Weather. We were talking about the weather.
I took it back. Our dating hadn’t destroyed our friendship, it had blown it to smithereens and left behind the dust of conversations suitable for strangers over tea.
“Global warming,” I agreed.
He didn’t know Thor was behind our unseasonable storms, because he not only didn’t know Thor was a god, he didn’t know gods really and truly existed.
But I refused to chat about the weather, because really? We were better than that, even at our worst.
“Everything go okay today?” I asked as we walked up the path. “You sounded kind of...off.”
“It went well enough. Sorry about the call, I was...I don’t know.”
I paused at the door, waited. “You were what, Ryder?”
He winced and gave me a look pleading for something. Maybe forgiveness. Maybe patience.
“I was missing you.” That, said so low and soft, it was like a feather against my spine. “And I thought...and I thought maybe hearing your voice...” He shrugged one shoulder, whatever words he’d been about to say gone.
My heart gathered up those words like a bee did nectar. But my mind was still giving that clear thinking thing a try.
“You asked me if I was naked.”
“You thought I was drunk.”
“Well?”
“It was eight o’clock in the morning.” He reached over and shoved the door, springing it open. “I was not drunk.”
“You could have been.”
“In what time zone?”
“The drunk one.”
He snorted and shut the door behind us. I was standing in Ryder’s house, with Ryder.
Last time we’d been here, one of us had been naked.
That one of us had been him.
My mind wandered over the memory of his body, his hard muscles, the sepia Leonardo da Vinci hand proportion sketch tattooed on his shoulder, the stars and artist’s compass on his hip.
“I had just finished a meeting. Investors on a project in Seattle. Coffee?”
“It’s a little late for coffee.”
He took three quick steps forward. “Who are you and what have you done to Delaney?” He pressed the back of his hand on my forehead as if checking for a fever.
The warmth and pressure of that contact pulled a small gasp from me.
He was smiling, gazing down at me, so close I could smell his cologne worn and thickened by a long day against his skin, but made all the better by his unique scent mixed into it.
His eyes crinkled at the corners, laughter dancing in their depth.
“I’m right here,” I breathed.
The glint of humor shifted, grew into something else. Heat. Desire. Need.
His hand hovered, drawing fingers that gentled across my forehead, down my temple, then dragged along my jaw and slipped around to the base of my head. Fingers stroked my hair which was falling free from the hasty pony tail I’d put it in hours ago.
His gaze searched mine, asking.
I didn’t know what I answered, but he tipped his head, angling his mouth nearer, nearer mine. I kept my eyes open for as long as I could.
“Delaney,” he whispered, his breath warm across my lips.
I leaned, lifted, reached, just that fraction of an inch so that our mouths met.
Distantly, I felt his free hand slide around my waist. Distantly, I felt my hands skim across his ribs, my palms flattening on the wide, smooth planes of his back.
What I felt, what my whole world seemed to center on, where I began, where I ended, was that kiss.
Gentle at first, the kiss was warm, sweet. An embrace that sent a shiver across my skin.
Wild thoughts that this one, spare, aching touch would be all Ryder wanted to give trampled through me. And right on the heels of that was my logical mind yelling that this wasn’t what I wanted. Wasn’t what I’d said I wanted.
I wanted space. I wanted time.
Away from Ryder.
Didn’t I?
He’d dumped me. No, that wasn’t the worst part.
He’d left me. Walked away when I was bleeding, hurting, and vulnerable in a hospital room.
But even then, even when he had been telling me that he didn’t want to be with me, hadn’t he looked sad? Maybe even conflicted and torn up about his choice? Maybe that wasn’t what his heart wanted, it was what his mind wanted.
And he’d listened to his mind.
Just like I should be listening to mine.
Or not, my traitorous heart said.
Feel, my heart urged. Feel him.
Ryder shifted the angle of his mouth against mine, the tip of his tongue skimming gently at one corner of my mouth, then up, zinging warmth through me, dragging along the crease of my lips, asking for entrance, asking for me, asking for me to feel again.
I opened to him, a small sound slipping from my throat as his tongue plunged into my mouth, licking and tangling with my tongue, sucking, drawing me closer to him as he sank into me with promises of what we could be. What we could do.
Promises of us.
I lost myself to the sensations, a burring warmth building as his tongue, his mouth reminded me of what we had been together, how well our bodies had fit, how one touch from him struck a fire so deep within me, it burned my soul down to ashes, and somehow made it whole again.
I could lie to myself all I wanted. The real reason I didn’t want to be around Ryder wasn’t because I was angry at him for breaking up with me. Well, okay, yes, I was angry, but there was more.
I didn’t want to be around Ryder because when I was near him, I didn’t want to be anywhere except with him. When he was close to me, it felt as if a piece of my life snicked into place.
We might have only gone out on one date, but I’d known him my entire life. And he had known me. All the places where our years of friendship had planted roots had grown into something more. Something that friendship wasn’t enough to contain.
He shifted again, his hand dropping lower to my hip, then his palm pressing against my butt, pulling us hip-to-hip. My hands followed his lead, and I rubbed one palm over the smooth material of his slacks. I could feel his very physical reaction to that, to me.
He wanted me. He wanted us. His words might say one thing, but his body couldn’t lie.
And it was at that moment that my brain finally wrestled my heart to silence.
Ryder’s blood was on Sven. Ryder might be a murderer or an accomplice to murder.
I might be kissing a murderer.
Crap.
I stepped back, stepped away, my hands lifting from the heat of him, from the strength of him as I put several paces between us.
He stayed where he was, for a long, long pause, breathing. We were both busy just breathing. Then he slowly lifted his head and straightened his back and shoulders. I kept my gaze on his eyes, no, that was no good. His eyes were glassy with need, his pupils wide. Lips were no better, they were wet and slightly swollen from the kiss.
