by Vanessa Vale
It had started snowing before dawn and hadn’t let up since. At least six inches had fallen, and another foot was expected before the front moved on. The roads, at least this far out of town, had not been cleared. I didn’t give a shit because my truck was huge and had a plow on the front. With my driveway being a half mile long and it snowing all the fucking time, I used it frequently.
“We didn’t have much choice. I didn’t see any handcuffs on her, but I wouldn’t put it past her to have arrested us,” Shane muttered.
There had been no point in staying at the party after Eve left, so we’d both gone home. Me, with a taste of her pussy on my tongue and a raging hard-on that wouldn’t go down, even after I rubbed one out in the shower.
“You could have asked Poppy more about her.”
He turned, glared at me. “This isn’t middle school. I’m not going to ask Poppy about a girl we think is cute. The one thing my sister and I don’t do is talk about our sex lives. If I discover she’s not a virgin, I’ll have to go kill some guys.”
“She’s twenty-four. She’s not a virgin,” I said, slowly shaking my head.
“She’ll be a virgin when she’s sixty and a grandmother,” Shane shot back, making me grin. “Forget about Poppy. I want to talk about Eve.”
“Fine. Eve. The hot detective. You said she was cute? Cute? She could flay us alive with that smart tongue of hers. She’s hot as fuck and that pussy…” My mouth watered at the thought of getting between her thighs again.
Shane groaned. “All I got to do was kiss her. You got your hands on those tits and your mouth on her pussy.”
“I finger fucked her, too.” My dick hardened remembering how wet she’d been. How tight. How she’d rippled around my finger when she came.
“Fuck you.”
I couldn’t help messing with him. “I’d rather fuck her.”
I slowed and carefully steered the truck onto the county road that led south toward my ranch. Since Shane couldn’t leave his forest service vehicle at my house for his days off, I’d picked him up at his cabin. We were headed back to my ranch to collect our snowmobiles, which I kept stored in one of my outbuildings. Our plan was to park at a trail access Lucas Mills had told us about and spend the day in the backcountry. The new snow would make for a great ride.
“She was incredible,” he said. “We have to persuade her to have more than a fling. I want her and not as a quick lay.”
“I only suggested a no-strings relationship because she was scared of more.”
“To make her change her mind through multiple orgasms.”
“Exactly,” I replied.
“The only way that’s going to happen is to get her between us again.”
Sure, I wanted to get more than my finger in her pussy, but I wanted to know her. “I shouldn’t push for more. I’m not a good bet and you know it.”
His head flopped back against the headrest. “Not this again,” he groaned. “Jesus, you’re too hard on yourself. She was into us. Us. Hell, she was into your mouth on her pussy. Not me, not me and a sidekick. Me. You.”
“Whatever. Figures the woman both my dick and my heart wants is a fucking detective. What are the chances of that?”
I’d gone to jail for assault. I’d beat up an asshole who’d been slapping a friend of ours around, and I didn’t stand for that shit. Not when I’d been nineteen, not now. But beating the shit out of a Cutthroat Richie Rich, regardless of the fact that he’d been assaulting a woman, meant I’d gone to jail.
No woman wanted to be with a guy who hit, regardless of who or why I’d done so. It had been ten years since I’d gotten out, and while a woman might like to fuck a convict, that was as far as it went. Especially not a police officer.
I wasn’t too keen on being taken to the ground and handcuffed. If it had been anyone besides a hot, scantily clad woman, I’d have probably panicked. But feeling her thighs squeeze my sides, the heat from her pussy against my lower back, had made me forget everything but how hard she made my dick.
Clearly Eve didn’t know my past, or she’d have kept me in those fucking handcuffs.
No one wanted the long haul with me. The white picket fence and two-point-five kids and a dog. My property was too big for the fence, but the right woman would get a ranch and a dog. And me. And Shane. Hopefully she’d give us a bunch of kids.
“You’re the one she spread her legs for,” he prompted. “You’re the one she wanted.”
I glanced at Shane and gave him snark. “Sure, pretty boy.”
Shane was the guy all the women went after. Dark hair, piercing eyes. Muscles. A quick wit and a quicker grin. Plus he had a movie-star dad, even though the guy was a total fucker. On the surface, that combination was lethal to a woman’s panties.
“Don’t forget, besides being the pretty boy, I’m rich, too. You’re not the only man who’s single,” he countered. “None have wanted me either, at least for more than a quick fuck. So calm your tits.”
I sighed. He was right. I wasn’t the only single guy in Cutthroat. At least I knew where I stood with women. Shane probably had to figure out if his dick was getting sucked because a woman actually wanted to satisfy Shane himself or because she got on her knees to get closer to his father.
“If she’s the one for us, she’ll see me for me, not for the fact that I’m Eddie Nickel’s son. She’ll see you for more than just your record. She’ll understand why. She won’t give a shit. Hell, she’ll think you’re fucking honorable.”
I shot him a doubtful look. Eve might only want sex, but I doubted she wanted to take a felon’s dick for a ride.
EVE
“I want to know why the killer hasn’t been caught. So do Keith and Ellen Mills.”
Anthony Nash, better known as Mayor Nash, stood before our desks, arms crossed over his chest. I pegged him to be in his late fifties, early sixties with salt-and-pepper hair. He was six feet tall, but his ego was much bigger. I doubted he cared that justice was served for Erin Mills as much as the case being closed so he wasn’t known as the mayor who let a murderer roam free.
“It’s one man,” he continued. “There are only so many people in Cutthroat. About half of them are women.”
Each officer had a desk in the large room. Nix and I were the only detectives on the department, and ours were in the corner by the windows. While the mayor scolded us like high schoolers caught out after curfew, the rest of the room was busy with their own cases. Phones rang. A random mix of voices traveled our way. The mayor didn’t care about any of it.
Nix sat at his desk, the chair pushed back so his long legs had lots of room. He was slouched a bit, indicating that while he’d give Nash respect, he wasn’t cowed by the guy.
I leaned a hip against Nix’s desk, and our boss, the chief, rested his shoulder against the entry to his office, which was a few feet away. I’d left the party before Nix, but he didn’t look too rough. I’d never known him to drink hard and assumed he was more inclined to be sober so he and Donovan could take Kit home for a little fun. If he was tired, it would be from that.
As for me, the few hot rum drinks had worn off courtesy of Shane and Finch. I hadn’t driven home—I wasn’t that stupid—but had crashed in Poppy’s guest room. I wasn’t hungover, but I wasn’t eager to be here either. My bad mood wasn’t from the mayor, but from the fact that I’d let two hot cowboys get in my pants. And my head.
I’d tossed and turned thinking about Shane and Finch, about how they’d touched me. How they’d made me come. They’d done everything they said they would, although they’d pushed it at the end. They wanted more. I didn’t. So I walked.
While I listened to the mayor, I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake.
“You’re well aware Dennis Seaborn took up a week of our time,” Nix said.
I turned my thoughts back to the case. The man had turned himself in, confessing to the crime, but it turned out he hadn’t done it.
“As for Erin’s parents, they might want answers, bu
t they’re the ones who messed with the case,” Nix reminded the mayor. “If they hadn’t paid off Seaborn, we wouldn’t have lost all that time.”
The mayor’s jaw clenched.
“They’re not being charged with obstruction of justice only because you told us not to,” the chief reminded him.
Our boss, fortunately, wasn’t into politics. He was close to retirement age but hadn’t checked out yet. He was all for finding out the truth, not kowtowing to the Cutthroat elite. The Mills were in that camp, and they were the ones who’d paid Dennis Seaborn a lot of cash to admit to the murder of their daughter. We assumed it was because of their son, Lucas, and his thin alibi.
I wasn’t close with my family—hell, my father had run off when I was five, and I hadn’t talked to my mother in years. Lucas Mills, though, had to deal with parents who thought he’d killed his own sister and paid a dying man to take the fall. I wasn’t going to share my opinions on them with the mayor. The chief had said it perfectly.
“They’re grieving,” the mayor replied. “Out of their minds.”
They were out of their minds, all right, but not with grief. Nix and I had met with them many times since the murder. They’d emptied Erin’s house within days of her death, and it was up for sale as if she’d never existed.
“The fingerprints are all back from Erin Mills’s house. Everyone’s either been ruled out or cleared. There was no sign of a break-in. She knew the person or let them in voluntarily. The only thing disturbed was the trophy used to bash her head in.”
The mayor tapped his chin with a finger. “What about the roommate?”
“Kit Lancaster?” I asked.
He nodded.
“She was cleared.”
Nash knew all this. His son, Donovan, was dating Kit. Either father and son didn’t get along or Nash didn’t like Kit. Who brought up his son’s girlfriend as a possible murder suspect if he liked her?
He knew the deal. Knew exactly where we stood in the investigation. Every time he asked, the answers were the same.
“Give me something new,” he said.
Nix leaned forward, set his elbows on his thighs. “There is nothing new.”
“So the case is going to go cold? What am I going to tell the town?”
“It is an ongoing investigation,” I said, giving him the political statement he wanted.
The mayor sighed, slowly shook his head, then walked away.
The chief didn’t say anything until the guy was out of the room. “He’s a decent mayor, but he’s a total asshole.”
I stifled a smile. Nix laughed outright.
“Go home,” the chief said, pushing off the doorframe. He grabbed his coat from the coatrack in the corner beside the philodendron. “Unless something new comes in over the weekend, I’ll see you Monday morning.”
He walked off, and I glanced at Nix. We’d been so focused on this case that we’d been doing overtime for weeks. The party the night before was the first time I’d seen Nix in a social setting since the murder. The chief knew we’d followed all the leads we’d had. He knew a case could sit cold for some time before there was a break. We were in that lull now. He knew it. Nix knew it. I knew it. The mayor didn’t believe in lulls, clearly. But there was no thread to follow, at least today. Neither of us needed to be told twice. We left the building and the Mills case behind.
5
EVE
As soon as I got in my car, I called Poppy to let her know my weekend was free.
“We can veg and watch movies,” she said, her voice high-pitched like a fifteen-year-old girl.
She immediately invited me to stay since the weather was supposed to be bad. Snow was already falling and covered the streets, making Cutthroat look like a picture postcard. I would usually ski with the new powder on the slopes, but I felt like being lazy. Snacks, sweats and movies with a friend sounded perfect.
I lived downtown in a little house built for a miner’s family back in the late 1800s. It was tiny, only a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom—which had been added on as a little bump out since when it was originally built, there had only been an outhouse.
I loved the wood floors, the big windows. The cute fireplace. But if we were doing a girls’ weekend, my place was too small. My couch wasn’t big enough for someone to sleep comfortably, and I wasn’t sharing a bed with Poppy.
“I’m taking a nap,” I added, eager to indulge in that daytime treat.
“I can’t believe the mayor let you take a day off,” she said once I was well out of town. Her voice came through the dashboard speakers since my cell was synced with the car.
“He didn’t.” I told her about the meeting, how Nash had left in a huff.
“I want this case closed as much as you, but you deserve a break. I’m not trying to be mean or anything, but Erin’s not coming back. She’d want you to watch movies with me.”
That made me smile. “She would, huh?”
Poppy had known Erin Mills. They hadn’t been friends since Erin had been a few years younger, but they’d traveled in similar circles. The rich circles.
I took a turn onto one of the county roads that led to Poppy’s place. The wheels turned, but the car kept going straight, sliding on ice hidden beneath the fresh snow. I swore under my breath. I wasn’t going fast, but there was no chance of stopping. I knew the drill. I didn’t press the brakes and turned away from the turn. That helped a little, but I still slid off the road.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I just slid off the road,” I said, relaxing my fingers around the steering wheel. I took a deep breath, let it out.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine. But I slid about five feet into a ditch.”
I gently set my foot on the accelerator, turned the steering wheel up toward the road. The wheels spun, and I immediately stopped. Putting the car in reverse, I tried again, the other direction. The car moved two feet, but then the wheels began to spin again.
“Yeah, I’m stuck. I’ll need to be pulled out.”
“I don’t have a tow rope, and I don’t think my SUV is powerful enough to pull you out.”
I sighed. I could walk, but it was a few miles still to Poppy’s house. I was nowhere near town, and the backroads were not frequently traveled. My boots, coat and hat would be fine against the cold, but for only so long. Besides, since I’d slid off the road, someone else could easily slide and hit me if I were walking.
“I’ll call a tow truck,” I said, knowing I was safer staying in the car.
“I’ll call Shane,” Poppy offered at the exact same time.
My heart rate kicked up again, this time from the name alone, not a treacherous slide on ice.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said instantly. “I’m sure someone will drive by and be able to help.” Why had I ever thought I could have a fling with them? They’d offered, but I’d accepted. I’d consented to getting a sample. And wow, had they given me a sample.
I wanted more. If the orgasm they’d given me had been from oral sex, I could only imagine a dick-induced orgasm might make me pass out. And there were two of them. Two dicks would probably kill me. But what a way to go.
I’d fooled around, then fled. Yeah, I’d been the one to set the parameters. No relationship. No emotions. Just sex.
I couldn’t do it though. It had been too good. There was something about Shane and Finch, and not their sexual skills, that attracted me to them. I wanted more, and not just sex. I wanted to get to know them.
And that couldn’t happen. Men were assholes. They fled when things got tough. They were mean. They hit. They wanted absolute control. I wouldn’t go back to the woman I was, weak and defenseless. Chad had blamed everything on me. Dinner not being done. A lost sock. The battery dead in the car. Hell, even bad weather. He was a manipulator, an expert in passive aggressiveness. I could never do anything right, and I’d believed him. He’d slowly isolated me f
rom my friends. I’d been in a bad place, a place I swore I’d never be in again.
I couldn’t, wouldn’t go back there.
The threat was real and twice as bad because I was interested in Shane and Finch.
“You’re not waiting for someone to drive by. And I’m sure a tow’s going to take a while. I’m calling Shane… unless there’s a reason why I shouldn’t?” she asked.
I rolled my eyes, wishing she could see me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-huh. You left in a rush, and it was because of a guy. I know it.”
“I’m in a ditch, Poppy, miles from town. It’s snowing. I’m not getting into it now.”
“So there is something between you.” She laughed.
“Poppy,” I groaned.
“Why not talk now?” she countered. “It’s not like you’re going anywhere.”
Internally I fumed. She was right. I couldn’t be the only person who’d slid off the road in this weather. Hardin and Mac had one tow truck, and I had no doubt they were busy today. People in Cutthroat were super nice and stopped if someone needed help. But being in law enforcement made me wary of strangers stopping, especially with a murderer on the loose. I had an option to get out of this predicament, and I was being stupid not to take it.
“Fine, call Shane.”
She hung up without saying goodbye. Not two minutes later, she called back. “They’re on their way.”
My heart did that funny leaping thing again. They were on their way.
“Your party was great,” I told her, trying to steer the convo to something safer than Shane and Finch. “I’ve never been to a bonfire in the winter before.”
“It’s winter forever around here,” she said. “Might as well make the most of it.”
I’d grown up in Colorado and was familiar with winter and snow. But Montana was colder, darker and was buried in the white stuff for months. Besides that, there was no spring, only snow until one day it became summer, sometime in June.
“You left in a rush,” she stated. “It was because of Shane. Right?”
