He shrugged. “I’m comfortable.”
She swallowed, her green gaze lingering briefly on his chest. “I’m not.”
Good. “Was there something you wanted, Shelby?”
A stutter of air leaked out of her lungs, her eyes fixated on the bulge building beneath the towel, then she blinked and gave herself a little shake. Girding her loins, he thought, while his own felt as if they’d been cast into hell.
She crossed her arms over her chest, inadvertently plumping her breasts. His dick stirred. “Your help, as a matter of fact, but we’ll get to that in a minute.”
Eli frowned. His help? Help with what?
She bit her lip, paused, piquing his curiosity. “Listen, Eli, I know that my behavior at Micah’s service was...less than warm,” she said haltingly. “And I’m sorry for that. I was a coward and I didn’t want to face you, not after what happened at the anniversary party and then the breakup.” She twisted the cord of her purse nervously around her fingers, tightening until her knuckles turned white. “Guilt is a powerful thing, but it’s no excuse for rudeness.” She hesitated, her gaze tangling with his, her chin firming. “That said, I did come over as soon as you arrived today and asked to speak with you later. I wouldn’t have asked if it hadn’t been important. Then you bailed. And Sally noticed.”
Shit.
“She’d noticed the tension between us at the service, as well, and now she’s worried. I’ll own what happened at the service, but you sneaking away tonight without so much as a ‘Hi, how’ve you been?’ That’s on you, chief.”
Much as he’d love to argue with her, Eli knew she was right and he felt like an ass. In trying to control his rampant lust for Shelby, he’d inadvertently caused Sally worry and anything that heaped more stress onto Micah’s mother was just not cool. He swore under his breath, then passed a hand over his face, suddenly very weary.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh. He looked up and caught her gaze. “That was not my intention.”
“And just exactly what was your intention?”
To avoid you. But he couldn’t very well say that, could he? Still, she knew. He could tell. Her eyes glittered knowingly and the slightest curve of her mouth suggested he hadn’t fooled her at all.
“To get through this,” he finally told her, which was the truth, if not all of it. “With my sanity intact,” he added with a significant grimace. He lifted the bottle to his lips for another pull, winced when the alcohol burned his throat.
Shelby studied him for a moment, her keen gaze holding his, looking for hidden meanings and untold secrets. It unnerved him, that stare. He always got the feeling she was peeking right into his head, plucking the thoughts from the so-called safety of his mind. No one had ever been able to do that. Not any foster family, close friends or even old lovers.
He’d been safe...until her. That’s what made her so dangerous.
“Keeping your sanity presumes your sane,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “Which is debatable.” She paused, her humor fading, and sent him another measured look, one that made him slightly nervous. “As for getting through this, that’s where I need your help.”
So she’d said, and from the suddenly anxious line furrowing her brow and the grim set of her mouth, she was definitely concerned about something. That was rare enough that his antennae twitched. In his experience, Shelby was a lot of things, but Chicken Little wasn’t one of them. She was quick to laugh, quick to cry, quick to anger and quick to forgive. Her feelings, whatever they were, hovered at the ready just beneath the surface. It was one of the things he loved about her. Whatever her response, it was always genuine.
And she was genuinely worried.
He silently offered her the bottle—his peace offering—which she took with a grateful quirk of her lips, then settled onto the couch with a sigh. She picked her end, the one closest to him, where she’d always sat when he visited. Her gardenia scent drifted to him, familiar and stirring.
“What’s wrong, Shelby?”
She smiled sadly. “A better question is what’s right.”
“That bad?”
She looked up at him, her expression grave. “Pretty bad.”
A finger of unease slid down his spine and he arched a brow, silently encouraging her to go on.
He watched her set her shoulders, steel herself then release a small breath. “I’ve been getting anonymous letters since the week after Micah’s funeral.”
He blinked, stunned. What the hell? All senses on alert, Eli leaned forward. “Letters? What kind of letters?”
“Vague, cryptic letters. I hadn’t planned on coming out here tonight, so I didn’t bring them, but they’re just weird.”
“What do they say?”
She pushed a hand through her hair. “Things like ‘I saw you. I know what you did. I’m going to tell.’ And ‘It wasn’t the gun that killed him, it was you. I’m going to tell. How can you live with yourself, knowing what you did? I’m going to tell.’”
Eli felt his eyes widen as shock detonated through him.
“But this last one was the worst,” she continued. She swallowed, the muscles working in her slim throat. Her troubled gaze found his.”‘You deserve to die,’ it said. ‘It should be you beneath that heavy dirt.’”
Jesus. Ordinarily Eli considered himself a pretty good problem solver, but at the moment he didn’t know where to start. He was stunned, reeling. I know what you did? I’m going to tell? It wasn’t the gun that killed him, it was you? You deserve to die? Heavy dirt?
What in the name of all that was holy did this person see and, more importantly, who were they going to tell? Definitely cryptic. Definitely disturbing. His gaze swung to Shelby, whose hand trembled around the bottle. And definitely wrong.
“Have you contacted the authorities?”
She shook her head. “At first I just thought it was someone who was angry at me for calling off the engagement. I was rattled, but not too concerned. But as time has worn on and the letters keep coming...” She lifted her shoulders in helpless shrug. “I don’t know what, if anything, they saw, and I don’t know who they’re going to tell. But I can’t risk too much poking around because I don’t want to look guilty of anything and I don’t want Carl and Sally to be further hurt.”
He completely understood, but she couldn’t let this go on. She needed to go to the police, which is exactly what he told her. “I’ll help in any way I can while I’m here, but this is a matter for the police. You need to report this.”
She winced and he inexplicably braced himself. Clearly, there was more. “I agree,” she said. “But it’s too late now.”
“Too late? Why?”
“Because Katrina Nolan came by to see me this afternoon just before I closed and she said that she has a source in Mosul who insisted that, despite the official report, Micah’s gun didn’t misfire while he was cleaning it, that he killed himself. Because of me,” she added, her voice cracking.
Nausea and anger boiled up through him and he pushed to his feet. “Shelby, that’s—”
“She’s working for the local paper, she smells a scandal and she hates me.” Another small shrug. “If I go to the police now and tell them that I’ve been getting these letters, she’ll find out and she’ll dig deeper.”
His eyewitness account stood, but there had definitely been talk—there always was—and, depending on who her source was, this had the potential to get really ugly. And hurtful for the Hollands.
All that lying, all that insistence and his refusal to change his story would be for nothing if she brought that shit here and stirred it up. It would ruin everything, Eli realized, the worst case scenario running through his head. It would devastate the Hollands, taint Micah’s service, spoil the memorial gazebo and everything it would stand for. And for what? A story? From a bitter, jealous woman who couldn’t stand that she’d never been first in Micah’s heart?
He remembered Katrina. She was one of the in-between girls Micah had dated—translate
: disposable—when he and Shelby had initially split. He’d never liked Katrina. She was hard...and sneaky. A bitch.
And to think he’d imagined his biggest problem was going to be controlling himself around Shelby.
“We can’t afford to let her dig, Eli,” she said. “We can’t let her find out the truth.”
The truth? His head swiveled slowly to face her, another blow of dread landing in his suddenly tense belly. Her gaze was sad when it met his.
Sad...and knowing.
Bloody hell. She knew. Of course she knew. And he was a bastard because it was a terrible relief to know that he wasn’t the only one, that he could share the burden.
“The truth?” he asked, not because he needed confirmation, but because it was expected. Because this scene had to play out. Because, while she did need his help, she also needed to share the weight of the secret.
She recognized the ploy for what it was, chided him with her gaze. “You know the truth.”
Yes, he did. But how did she? How could she possibly know?
“He wrote to me,” she confessed in answer to his unspoken question. “He was afraid that I’d blame myself and he didn’t want me to think that it was my fault.” Tears welled in her eyes and she picked at a loose thread on the couch, then lifted her shoulder in a slight shrug. “That was Micah. Protecting me, loving me, thinking of me...till the very end.”
Yes, he had, Eli thought. Shelby had a way of inspiring that sort of devotion. He ought to know...because he was half in love with her himself.
6
LOOKING BOTH RELIEVED and shaken, Eli released a long breath and pushed his hands through his wet hair, making the short, tawny golden waves on top of his head spike in odd angles. He should have looked ridiculous. She swallowed, a barb of heat twisting low in her sex.
He...didn’t.
Shelby licked her lips, struck by the sheer masculine perfection of his towel-clad body. At six foot four, he was tall—a particular turn-on for her—and every inch of that especially large frame was loaded with well-honed, mouthwatering muscle. She’d seen him in swimming trunks in the past, so his bare chest and legs weren’t anything she hadn’t witnessed before. But seeing him in the towel, knowing that it wasn’t actually clothing and could so easily fall off, well, that was another matter altogether.
Though it was wholly inappropriate given the conversation they were having, she found herself fascinated with the width of his shoulders, the delineation of his muscled arms and impressive pecs. The swirls of hair barely dusted his chest, then arrowed low, where a treasure trail disappeared beneath the edge of the towel. An errant bead of water clung to the right of one flat male nipple and she wanted to lick it, taste the saltiness of his skin, slip her fingers along his ribs, play them like a harp. If she played the harp. Which she didn’t, but why would that matter?
Longing rose up inside of her, welled until she could scarcely catch her breath. She could feel it pressing in against her diaphragm, crowding the air right out of her lungs. A hot, steady throb pulsed in the heart of her womb, making her feminine muscles clench and her nipples tingle behind the sheer fabric of her bra. She smothered a whimper, which she considered an improvement, since she’d had to suffocate a wail when she’d first stumbled upon him in the bath. Sweet heaven.
Hard muscle, sleek masculine skin, heavy-lidded golden eyes...
No one had ever affected her like this.
No one had ever made her want to abandon social rules and common conventions, made her want to abandon good sense and sound judgment. She’d never looked at a man and immediately, instantly thought of nothing but white-hot, down-and-dirty, back-clawing, clothes-tearing primal sex. The sort that guaranteed the survival of the human race.
She’d wanted him before—felt that increasingly insistent pull before—but never more strongly than she did now. Because Micah was gone? she wondered. Because, theoretically, nothing stood in the way? She didn’t know. She only knew that the intensity of it shocked her...shamed her, considering what she was here to talk about.
Her former fiancé. His best friend.
Her gaze bumped into his. It was hot, his pupils dilated, darkening the gold, deepening the green. A muscle ticked in his tense jaw, jumping spasmodically, interrupting the otherwise smooth planes of his face. She imagined a cable between them, crackling with electricity, drawing them closer and closer together.
He turned abruptly and walked to the window, purposely putting some distance between them, she knew, torn between being thankful that he had the strength and saddened because a part of her wanted him to snap the way he had the night of the anniversary party.
It had been rare, that momentary loss of control. A sight to behold, all that passion simmering just beneath the surface.
Because Eli Weston didn’t let himself lose control. He always kept his head and did the right thing. How odd that the thing that she most appreciated about him was the one thing she wished he’d abandon right now.
“When did he write to you?” he asked without turning around. His voice was even, but an undercurrent of...something...resonated all the same.
“The letter was dated October 12th, but I didn’t receive it until the 22nd.”
Eli turned and shot a look at her over his shoulder, a frown clouding his brow. “But that was—”
“Several days prior to his death, I know,” she finished. Shelby hesitated, choosing her next words carefully. “I...I don’t know what he waited for, Eli—the right moment or the nerve to do it, or maybe to decide how he was going to do it—but his mind was made up and I don’t think anything anyone could have said to him would have changed it.”
Eli shook his head, his nostrils flaring. “I should have acted sooner,” he said. “I should have forced him to get—”
Shelby hung her head and chuckled softly, tears pricking the backs of her lids. “He said you’d say that,” she told him. “That you’d second-guess yourself, but that ultimately you’d see the truth, that you had a way of looking past the bullshit and seeing what was real.”
Eli’s lips quirked tiredly and a small bark of laughter rumbled up his throat. “Maybe so, but not in this instance. Bastard,” he mumbled under his breath. “Wish he’d sent me a damned letter.”
“Would you like to read mine?” she asked him, surprising herself. But he was the only person she’d ever be able to share it with and if reading it lessened any perceived guilt on his end, then all the better.
Eli glanced up, seemingly startled, his gaze darting to hers. “You don’t think Micah would care?”
Shelby considered her response, then shook her head. “Ultimately, no. He wrote me so that I wouldn’t blame myself, and he made sure that it was you who found him.” She lifted a shoulder. “If that’s not trust, then I don’t know what is.”
He stilled, his expression fixed, but stark. It was obvious that he’d never connected that particular dot and Shelby’s heart ached for him. What the hell had he been thinking all these months? How much did he blame himself for what happened? Better still, how much could she have spared him had she simply summoned the nerve to face him at the service?
He finally nodded. “I’d like to read it, if you’re sure you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Why don’t you drop by my house tomorrow evening after dinner? That would give you a chance to read all of the letters.”
Though she knew that he would help her, if for no other reason than to protect the Hollands, he still hesitated and that hurt. She felt her shoulders droop and she let go a small breath. Was it always going to be like this between them? Shelby wondered. One step forward, two steps back?
He nodded, his face passive. Stoic. “That sounds like the best place to start.”
It was really their only place to start, but she didn’t see what good pointing that out would be. “In the interim, I think you should avoid Katrina. The longer you can stall her, the better.” The idea of thwarting Katrina lifted her mood considerably.
Eli’s eyes rounded. “Oh, I have no intention of avoiding her.”
Shelby blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m not going to avoid her,” Eli repeated. So she had heard him right. Damn.
“Why not?”
“Because, in the first place, if I’m the go-to source and I can shut this whole ‘investigation’ down with a single conversation, then that’s the most expedient option.”
A well-reasoned, sound argument, Shelby thought. But she still didn’t like it.
“Second, if a simple conversation isn’t going to shut her up, then I need to find out what she knows—or what she thinks she knows—and I need to get her to name her source.”
“She’s not going to give that up,” Shelby told him. “She’s horrible, but she’s not stupid. I’m not even convinced that she’s got a source. It’s entirely possible that she’s just trying to stir up shit.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and inclined his head. “If that’s the case, then we need to know that, too. Regardless, I’m not going to be able to avoid her.”
He was right, she thought, grimacing. Balls.
Eli’s lips slanted marginally. “You really can’t stand her, can you?”
She couldn’t, but it was more than that. She couldn’t stand the thought of her using Micah’s own friend to ruin his memorial and hurt his family, couldn’t stand the thought of her flirting with Eli, touching him in any way or sharing so much as a smile with him. She could practically feel her nails growing, preparing to scratch. It was ridiculous. Eli wasn’t hers, dammit. Still...
Shelby merely shrugged, tamped down her irritation. “What’s there to like?”
His eyes twinkled, the first real light she’d noted since he’d gotten back into town today. “Not much, from what I’ve observed.”
The Rule-Breaker Page 6
