Not many people cut down in front of the Frampton house, though. It was a dead end, and in order to turn around they’d have to either pull into the old Frampton place or use Max’s drive as a turnaround.
Not many people had the balls to use Max’s drive. Not many at all.
People around Madison knew Max would call the cops and he just might charge them with trespassing.
Judge Max wasn’t exactly a mean old goat, but he didn’t like bullshit and the unending string of cars was pissing him off.
Standing on the porch, watching as his Mary hummed and pulled up more flowers, he crossed his arms over his chest as he saw yet another car slow at the end of the street. They caught sight of him and sped up. “Damn idiots,” he muttered.
“All these weeds,” Mary said, her voice aggravated and tense. “We’re having so many weeds this year, Max.”
Max shifted his attention to the flowers she’d just uprooted. He’d helped her plant them just a week ago. No help for it now, though. He wasn’t about to see the confusion in her eyes if he pointed it out to her. Instead, he just smiled. “We sure are, Miss Mary. Maybe I should see about getting a gardener or someone out here. Would make it easier on you if you had some help, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, don’t be silly.” She gave him a dark look. “I love my garden.”
So much for that idea. He watched as she pulled up another bunch of flowers and then wiped her hands down the front of her nightgown. He’d asked if she wanted to change into some clothes before she came into the garden and she’d just smiled at him and told him she’d already done that.
Dirt streaked her skinny legs, and her nightgown, the one he’d given her for Christmas a few years back, was most likely ruined. He’d do what he could to get the mud out. Maybe she wouldn’t notice if a few stains lingered.
“Have you had any luck getting Nan to straighten up yet?” she asked.
He dragged a hand down his face. “Not just yet, Miss Mary. I’ll try again.”
Something caught his eye and he stilled, his attention narrowing down on the man standing at the far end of their street, his gaze locked on the Frampton house. Max kept his head turned, like he was still watching his Mary, but all of his focus was on that man.
Much as he was aggravated by the interest in the house, Max couldn’t say he was surprised by it. He wasn’t. Not at all. Madison was, after all, a small town and some people had absolutely nothing better to do with their time than sit around and cook up crazy stories about who or what might have been found down in the old cellar.
Some had nothing better to do than idle by the house and speculate, never mind the fact that it was upsetting the frail old woman at Max’s side, never mind that it was going to ride on the new owner’s nerves something awful once she was allowed back in the house.
Max understood human nature. Sometimes he hated that insight, but he understood it.
Still, he had the weirdest feeling there was something more than morbid curiosity going on just now.
It was there in the intense way the man stared at the house.
Abruptly the man shoved away from the wall and his head slanted toward Max.
Max didn’t let himself react. Instead, he smiled and spoke to Mary, although for the life of him he didn’t exactly recall what he said. Something about the flowers, he thought. She just smiled and nodded.
The man turned away and walked off.
Mentally the judge filed away everything he could about him. Tall, Max thought. Too far away to be exact, but he suspected the man was a decent height. Broad shouldered and he moved well, too well to be an old man, but he looked too comfortable in his skin to be a kid, either. Teenagers and the younger men were often still rather awkward. If Max had to hazard a guess, he’d say the man was in his thirties or forties. His hair had been covered by a brimmed hat, the dark sort, although, again, he’d been too far away to quite make out anything more than the fact that he’d worn a hat with a brim.
So … a white man who wore a hat had stood there at the corner staring at the Frampton house.
Blowing out a sigh, Max tugged off his own hat again and started to twist it in his hands.
“Stop worrying so, Judge,” Mary admonished.
He looked over at her.
“Whatever it is that has you worrying will work itself out.”
Despite himself, he had to smile. How many times over their six decades had she told him just that? Sometimes things had worked out. Sometimes they hadn’t.
But it was a comfort just to hear those familiar words from her.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Adam.”
At the sound of his name spoken by a woman, Adam Brascum did what he normally did under such circumstances. Dick already hard, he rolled over to seek her out, instinctively burying his face in her hair—
Only to recoil.
Scratchy and stiff with gunk and gel. His erection died and he opened his eyes, trying to figure out what in the hell was going on.
“Come on, Adam. Get up.”
Okay … this wasn’t coming together for him. He had his hand cupping the breast of the woman lying in front of him. But the voice had come from behind him. So unless she could do a ventriloquist thing …
Well, it was possible he’d gone to bed with two women. He’d done that a few times, but not in recent memory.
A finger poked his shoulder.
Turning his head, he found himself staring up at Sybil Chalmers. A slim black brow arched as she met his gaze. “Come on,” she said again. “I’m getting ready to wake Layla up, and trust me, you don’t want to be here when that happens.”
Layla …
He ran his tongue over his teeth as he sat up, trying to recall just how he’d come to be here. It had been late. He’d been shutting down the bar. Fuck, he hadn’t gone and had a drink, had he?
But even as he asked himself that question he knew the answer. Yeah, his mind was a fuzzy mess, but he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in close to a week and he’d been awake for more than forty-eight hours before he finally crashed. He was just exhausted.
The past few nights had been worse than most, too. For the longest time, Adam had dealt with the sleeplessness in one way. By burying the slithering shame, the ugly whisper of self-reproach and the misery by crawling into a bottle. He wasn’t the only man who’d done it, and he knew he was far from the last. But his days of drowning his miseries in booze came to a stop over a decade ago, as he stood at the foot of two graves while snow fell softly around him. He’d sworn, then, he’d never have another drink. A promise given too late, but it was all he could do.
He’d found another vice, though. A softer, sweeter one, but a vice no less. Instead of reaching for a bottle in the dark of the night, he reached for a woman.
But why in the hell had he reached for this woman?
Layla Chalmers … of all people.
Blowing out a breath, he pushed up onto his elbow to study the woman in question. Sybil could be yanking his chain.
But no, he was in bed with Layla and they were both naked. Worse, he had scratches gouging up his back and she had bruises on the one wrist he could see.
If he ever wondered about his sanity, he’d just proven without a shadow of a doubt he had none. The woman was snake mean, teetering near crazy.
Of course, the way things had been going the past couple of days he’d been in the snake-mean, crazy area himself. Head fucked up to hell and back, nightmares tearing through him even though he wasn’t sleeping.
Lana. They finally found her.
Squeezing his eyes closed, he pushed that thought out of his head. He’d worry about Lana, the old mausoleum of a house, all of that, once he was out of here.
Dragging a hand down his face, he glanced around, looking for his clothes.
He spied his jeans in a tangle, tossed over the foot of the bed. He stood up, towering over the woman who stood just a few feet away. Sybil averted her head.
A few m
inutes later, after he dragged the zipper up, she looked back at him, tipping her head back to meet his gaze. The look on her face had him feeling like a schoolboy who’d been caught cheating off the smart girl’s paper. Adam cleared his throat. “I … ah, is Layla staying here again?”
I don’t really remember coming here. Falling into bed with her. Not much of anything.
“Mama left the place to both of us,” Sybil said, shrugging.
He studied her face, trying to figure out just what was wrong, and something very well was. If there was anything he knew, it was women. Just then, he could see the temper all but sparking in Sybil’s eyes. She might as well be breathing fire.
“Did I cause a problem?”
A faint smile canted up the corner of her mouth. “Not really. You’re just in the way. Although, damn, Adam, if you had to get laid, couldn’t you—”
A muffled groan came from the bed, and two seconds later Layla shouted, “Can’t you two shut the fuck up?”
“Keep your voice down, Layla,” Sybil said, her voice icy. “Drew is upstairs sleeping and he’s sick.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
Adam grimaced as shame and disgust twisted through him. Drew was Layla’s son, although the kid might as well be Sybil’s. She was the one who took care of him, and for the most part, unless Layla was really feeling mean, the boy stayed with his aunt. Sometimes, though, Layla decided to jerk the boy and her sister around by playing mama for a few days, which made all three of them miserable.
Adam didn’t like to think that he’d slept with Layla when she had her son not all that far away.
Generally, Adam avoided women with kids for that very reason. What in the hell had he been thinking?
You weren’t. Your dick was in charge. Again.
This was a new experience. He’d never quite been in this situation before, but then again, he was usually smart enough to steer clear of Layla. “I’ll get out of your hair, Sybil. Ah … we didn’t wake the kid up, did we?”
She graced him with a faint smile. “Nothing wakes up that boy once he’s out, thank goodness. Especially if he’s feeling bad.”
Adam nodded, feeling awkward and out of place. “Okay. Good. I’m … uh. Hell, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She shook her head. “He’s not your responsibility, Adam. But … it’s sweet of you.”
Sweet. Shit. If there was anything Adam wasn’t, it was sweet. But he wasn’t going to tell Sybil that. Maybe Layla was snake mean, but Sybil was knife sharp and he wasn’t feeling awake enough to cross swords with her. Besides, he needed to get the hell out of here so he could do a sanity check. Looking around, he spied his shirt and shoes over closer to the door. He went to take a step and something crinkled under his foot. Relief punched through him when he saw the condom wrappers littering the floor. At least he hadn’t been that far gone.
He scooped them up and moved into the bathroom. When he saw the used rubbers in the little trash can, it only added to the relief he felt. One less worry off his shoulders.
Moving back into the bedroom, he shoved his feet into his shoes and grabbed his wallet and phone. When he went to pick up his shirt from the floor, something caught his eye.
A little plastic Baggie.
Swearing, he snatched it up and turned around just in time to see Layla sitting up. “Yours?”
“Too fucking early for this,” she said, her voice scratchy. Then she smiled, but it didn’t have much of a punch just then—she hadn’t washed off her makeup from last night. Last night, she had looked sexy as hell. She always did. But now? Hell. All the gel, hair spray and sweat had combined to create a unique effect on her hair. Her gaze dropped to his crotch. “Why don’t you come to bed and we can discuss better things?”
He threw the bag at the bed. “How about we discuss the drug test you’ll pass before you can come back to work at the pub? I told you when I hired you—I’ll give a person a chance, I don’t care if they have a record, but if you use when you work for me, you’re done. I meant it.”
Her face went red and angry. “You hypocritical son of a bitch!”
Ignoring her, he looked at Sybil. “I’ll see you around, Sybil.”
“Hmmm.” She was too busy staring at her sister, her eyes glittering, cold and angry.
As he headed out the door, his phone chimed and he was almost glad to see the name on the display.
Got time for breakfast?
Hell, yes.
There weren’t many reasons Noah would be texting him this early. A bad night. If Noah had had a bad night, that would be enough to distract Adam from his bad night.
Maybe.
* * *
“You look rough.”
“Be honest, Preach.” Adam dropped into the seat across from Noah with a snort. “I look like shit.”
A smile tugged at Noah’s mouth. “You look like you’ve had better days. Better nights.”
Closing his eyes, Adam braced his elbows on the table and tried to block the morning from his memory. The night wasn’t much more than a blur. He was used to the sleep issues. They were getting worse, though. When he was this tired, yeah, he lost some time. Never like this, though.
Yesterday had felt surreal. He’d been running on empty for the past few days. By the time yesterday rolled around, he’d been worse than empty, if such a thing existed.
He hadn’t hit rock bottom. He’d blasted right through the rock and kept on going. Hearing the news about the house, about the body—
It ripped his world open, all over again.
Dread and despair and grief all but choked him. They’d found her.
Keeping his hands away from the bottle yesterday had been the hardest thing he’d done in a very, very long time. He’d managed it, barely. He had only the vaguest recollection of shutting down the pub last night.
His brain had done a total disconnect on him.
As he sat there, vague memories of Layla managed to work free. Her mouth. Her hands. That violent despair he’d felt breaking free. Those memories sharpened, clarified.
Pressing the heel of his hand against his eye socket, he groaned. “I think I fucked Layla in the alley by the bar last night. I know I fucked her back at her place. More than once.”
Silence dropped between him and Noah.
As it stretched on, Adam made himself look back at Noah.
The man’s gaze was unreadable. Not cold or hostile or anything, just … not readable. “Were you drinking?”
“Nah.” He laughed a little. “That’s supposed to be my line anyway, isn’t it?”
Noah sighed. “We’re past the sponsor thing these days, Adam. We’ve been friends a lot longer than anything else.”
Friends. Adam lowered his gaze to study the tabletop. Yeah. They’d been friends … of a sort. Under the table, he closed his hand into a fist, forcing out the unwelcome thoughts that always lurked just at the edge of his memory.
Feeling the calm, measuring weight of Noah’s gaze, Adam continued to stare at anything and everything but the other man.
“So what happened?”
Adam closed his eyes and dug the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. The headache remained, pounding through him in slow, nauseating waves that just would not let up. He’d almost cut out the grey matter from his skull if it would make the pain go away. “Look, you’re the one who asked me to meet. Why don’t we talk about whatever’s bugging you instead of my unending stupidity, okay?”
“Well, you’re the one who brought it up.”
Adam dropped his hands, a sneer curling his lip. “Now I’m saying drop it.” Something mean and angry twisted through him and he thought maybe, just maybe, letting loose some of the violent anger he could feel tearing through him might be the ticket. Even if it didn’t help kill the rage, if he hurt all over maybe his head wouldn’t seem so bad in comparison. Directing a glare at Noah, Adam tried to ignore the shame and disgust chewing at him.
Fighting with him isn’t going to make you fee
l better about this.
“Look, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine,” Noah said, shrugging, looking down at his coffee. If he was aware of Adam’s rapid-fire shift of thoughts, he showed no sign.
“Hell, you asked. Might as well tell you. You probably need the fantasies, boring as your life is. I fucked Layla last night. We went out into the alley. I pulled her skirt up and fucked her silly.” He waited a beat and then asked, “Sorry, Preach. I’m being a crude bastard, aren’t I? It’s been a while since you had any action, too. I probably shouldn’t remind you.”
“Well, if sex has you this cranky, maybe you should cut back on the action, too,” Noah said, refusing to rise to the bait. He lifted his coffee cup to his lips, eyes narrowed on Adam’s face. “Especially if you’re getting to the point that you’re now sleeping with women you don’t particularly like.”
“You don’t have to like a woman to screw her, buddy. But you already know that … from experience, even. You fucked Layla more than once and you don’t like her any more than I do.”
Noah just lifted a brow. “So are we moving on to the mudslinging round already?”
Shit.
Tearing his eyes away from his friend’s face, Adam folded his arms over his chest and stared out the window of the crowded diner. He needed to get the hell out of here. They were in a quieter corner, but sooner or later it wouldn’t matter. Somebody would hear him, somebody would get involved and then things would really spiral out of control.
“You maybe want to tell me what’s really getting to you?”
Adam closed his eyes. “Nothing, man. Hell. I’m sorry. I’m being an ass, but I don’t need to take it out on you.”
“Sure you do.” Noah shrugged. “If you don’t take it out on me, you take it out on somebody else, or yourself. It just gets uglier from there.” He leaned forward. “If you really need to take a swing at somebody, we can have a go, but I’d rather not do it in here. Wouldn’t be very good for business.”
Amused despite himself, Adam smiled. “Aw, hell. I dunno. You break it, you rebuild it. If people aren’t eating lunch here, that’s more business for me down at Shakers during lunch, right? Works for me.” Dragging a hand down his face, he shook his head. “Hell. You’re right. I’m spoiling for a fight. Sorry. I’m just in a mood, that’s all. What in the hell was I thinking?”
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