“No. I don’t know. Some kind of crown mold. Must be some kinda bug.”
Crown molding. She smiled at the thought of Will getting closer to his pals.
“He’s at Randy’s, then?”
“Should be. Hey, gotta go. I’ll see you when you get back.”
Next, she called Randy’s but he said Will had already left. He also told her Will was acting really strange and irritable, something she could take with a grain of salt. Randy thought he seemed to be ignoring everyone who crossed his path. And when Randy said he’d never seen Will’s temper so short, she wanted to believe it was because he was miserable missing her.
She tried the stone house and his cell phone, but still couldn’t reach him. She’d told Burns and Alan she would be back late the next day, but she couldn’t wait to see Will. Calling herself every kind of a dependent sissy-needy-clingy-helpless woman, she backed out of her dad’s driveway at one in the morning.
And she did so with a smile.
Chapter 39
The excitement of seeing Will again kept Kelly alert on her drive back to Churchston. With her early return, she hoped she might be able to surprise him in the shower or in bed. He had given her a key to the stone house before she had left.
It felt so thrilling yet perfectly natural when he had given it to her. They had been practically living together in the stone house. Even Eddie had his preferred spot on the loveseat.
When they made love before she had left, she had felt it. Sensed it. Will cares about me. He really does.
It was no mystery to her he had a hard time with his feelings. It didn’t seem fair, but she realized she was battling an old war and it would take time for him to break down his guardedness. Even if he couldn’t say it, his actions had spoken loud and clear whether he wanted them to or not.
Smiling, she tortured herself with ridiculous ideas of a future. She’d definitely clean up the other rooms in the stone house. One would make a great library. And they’d have to do something about the kitchen. It was clean and orderly, the way Will did everything, but the stove was ancient. And it’d be nice to have a little breakfast bar so she could watch him lift on the back patio while she sipped her coffee every morning. Speaking of which, he definitely needed a newer coffee maker.
Her abstract thoughts turned to a list of things they needed for their house. It reminded her of how she had scanned the items for her bridal shower. John had not wanted anything to do with choosing the items, too busy and hectic at the almighty office, even then.
Thinking of the wedding registry had her thinking about marriage. Slight melancholy itched at her as she realized she was planning a future with Will when her ex had been buried the day before.
She didn’t waste time worrying if she was really being rude with such thoughts because fear sharpened her questions.
What if I had been there?
What if John had done something stupid at the office and was bookkeeping for the Mafia?
I would have been with him as his wife in our jointly-owned house—and probably killed, too.
Or what if he had had a secret drug-smuggling operation and I was caught in the violence as a bystander?
“What are you doing here? I never want to see you again—”
Driving along in the dark, Kelly replayed John’s words in her mind. Who had gone to the condo? Who hadn’t he ever wanted to see again?
Gannon said the security camera in the condo lobby showed no visitors who stood out. And the condo owner had reused the feed, only going back in recordings three months.
A friend? Another lover? A pissed-off Mr. Nikki kind of cheated-upon husband? A Medusa? John sounded surprised at the visitor’s arrival. But she rationalized by his words that he had known the person, had dealt with the person before…
“I never want to see you again.”
He yelled those precise words to Kelly when they divorced, ousting her from his life as he started his new one with Sasha.
And what ever happened to Sasha?
Kelly replayed the memory of the recording in her mind and connected the dots. Sasha must have been gone already. Dumped.
“I told Lisa I couldn’t see her anymore either.”
The ‘either’ likely meant Sasha had already gotten the boot.
Sunlight crept over the horizon of the lake when Kelly arrived at the townhouse. She parked on her half of the driveway, tossed her dirty clothes into her apartment, and walked to the stone house.
Will wasn’t there, and neither was Eddie, so she sat on the couch and flipped through early morning infomercials, waiting for him to come back, probably from his daily run. Fidgeting with boredom and anticipation to see Will, she took a shower and went to make pancakes and coffee.
***
Will returned from his run physically beat but mentally awake. One more day. She’ll be home in one more day. He imagined the little box which sat in his dresser and he winced as though he had an ulcer. Rubbing his stomach with one hand, he patted his thigh for Eddie to follow, the dog’s tongue lolling from the exercise. They neared the sliding door and Eddie whined to get in the house.
Will found her inside at the stove, wearing nothing but one of his old t-shirts.
That’s promising.
She probably hadn’t heard his entrance because she had the Drifters on too loud. She stood with her back to him, her hair still messy and damp from a shower. She rubbed her foot against the outside of her calf and he guessed the scar was itching.
Staring at her felt like a dream, not quite unlike the dreams he had of her every night since she left. He blinked the sweat from his eyes.
I dream of Kelly. Not Matt. Not cries from the dead. Not the blast of the bomb. Could Kelly be his future, leaving his dark past in the past? Again, he thought of the damn little box in his dresser.
Is she sad? Still confused? Will her blue-green eyes be warm and feisty and loving or deep in thought with worry?
He swallowed. Why does love have to hurt? Does she still want me? Does she still love me? He knew he wasn’t worthy. He dropped his keys to the coffee table and she turned.
She matched his gaze for an intense moment and he was too terrified to move.
“What the hell did you do to the eggs? There was a whole dozen when I left.” She looked back at the stove to check on the food. She turned her head to her side to see him and gave him the shy small smile he had missed so much.
“You hungry?”
“You’re asking me if I’m hungry?”
Kelly turned to face him, biting her lip on a smile. Then she ran to him as he walked towards her. She giggled a little and jumped into his arms. Kissing her as urgently as she was him, Will took a deep desperate breath. He’d needed her like he needed air.
They didn’t waste time speaking as he carried her to the bedroom and they lost their clothes. Before they could proceed, Kelly shrieked and ran into the kitchen. “The pancakes!”
Smiling, Will came into the kitchen and scooped her in his arms while she finished swatting at the pancake fire. As soon as the food flames were gone, they moved their heated touches to the bedroom. After a marathon of a shower, they dressed and had an alternative breakfast.
“So, how did everything go?” he said.
She twitched her mouth. “Grant thinks they’re having a boy. His ankle’s fine now, by the way.”
He raised his brows.
“Wade’s not sure if he wants to do the marathon in Colorado next week but if I call him a sissy enough, I’m sure he will.”
He waited still.
“Sean and Finn are thinking about getting Dad a new grill for his birthday.”
He nodded and scratched at his chin. “Uh huh.”
“And Heather is thinking about moving back to second shift because there’s a hot doctor she’s after.” She glanced at him. He held his hand on his knee to resist tapping his foot on the floor.
She cleared her throat. “Dad’s kind of annoyed with me though. He doesn’t lik
e to travel much, but since I’m the one who makes the stupid turkey, they’ll have to come down here for Thanksgiving. Maybe we can turn the room next to the kitchen into a guest room.”
He dropped his fork on the plate as she spun to face the dishes.
It was bait. Her sneaky smartass way of saying something but meaning a whole hell of a lot more. She sees herself in Churchston for the next couple months? In my house? He wiped at the grin on his lips. She was staying, at least for now. It was a start, and for now, a start was good. It was perfect.
He shot to his feet and went for her. She blinked after he assaulted her lips with a long kiss. After he pulled back, he whispered, “There’s no way in hell you’re talking me into painting it pink.”
“Argh!” She slapped his shoulder, tried to squirm away. “It’s maroon!”
“It’s pink,” he insisted as he gathered the rest of the dishes.
Kelly huffed out a breath. “Maroon.”
Will was sure she’d never hear the end of it. Randy had asked for her help and she explained her color choice would make his living room scholarly, like a den.
“It looks like a fermented raspberry.”
“Your artistic flare stuns me,” she said and resumed washing the dishes.
“It’s pink. I’ve got to get going.” He stopped in his step.
Could this sound any more like a sitcom from the fifties? Kiss the lady good-bye and come home singing, “Honey, I’m home”?
The idea of kissing her good-bye as he left for work seemed alarmingly domesticated. His gut tightened at the threat of so much commitment. And so much to lay on the line that she could abandon.
But because she was wearing only a shirt, the good-bye kiss he gave her was longer than he had intended. As soon as she slipped her arms around his neck, letting him slant his lips harder on hers, his fear of commitment waned. Kissing Kelly was something he’d do anyhow and anywhere in the world.
“Aren’t you going to be late?” she asked on the floor some minutes later. He pulled his pants back on and grinned.
“Good thing I’m the boss, huh?”
Chapter 40
The entire first week back in Churchston, Kelly couldn’t stop thinking about John’s death, not of missing him, but the mystery surrounding it. She was an ordinary middle-class woman. Those kinds of things didn’t happen in her life.
In the midst of her thoughts, her daily routines of work continued in town. One morning, her shift at the kayak hut was cut short because Junior was trying to earn some extra money. Lacking any better plans, she agreed to meet Randy for lunch.
Without any explanations, the guys had seemed to understand she was with Will. They must have respected her privacy, because none of them ever asked for details. Even Clay. His endearments of ‘baby’ had suddenly vanished, and he’d stopped flirting, not that his persistence had ever seemed sincere.
If they knew, they weren’t broadcasting the news as gossip.
She sat across from Randy and gave him her most confident, encouraging smile. He was complaining about sales. They had been declining because he was still in his cast and sticking to paperwork instead of showing houses. Femurs took a while to heal, after all.
“There are four houses for sale on my street now.”
“So?” She took a bite of her taco and waved when Clay and Will came in. “Hey.”
“So, they’ve been for sale for half a year,” Randy said. “Nothing’s going to sell in the area after what happened to me. No one wants to live around crime.”
Kelly dismissed him with a wave. “It’s not the end of the world. Crime happens. People know it does.”
“This is Churchston. Crime happens because it’s a tourist town. There are petty thieves and drunken fools. That’s the kind of crime we get around here, and Eric looks away. Eric and Fred haven’t even figured out what happened to me. Not only is it a crime in the neighborhood, it’s an unsolved one.”
Unsolved.
It caught her. Staring at the napkin box of the diner, she concentrated.
Unsolved, like John? The similarities were striking. Two violent attacks. No witnesses. No useful evidence. No clues. John dead and Randy left for dead.
Red pepper and tortilla churned in her stomach. But John was in Atlanta and had to have done something bad to deserve it. Randy’s in Churchston and is like an altar boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. The events seemed so alike, but the people were so different. Besides, John was there and Randy is here. What could John and Randy have in common?
“What’s up with you?” Will asked her in the gruff, blank, indifferent tone he used with everyone—not the soft, sometimes goofy voice he relaxed to when he was with her. She found it strange how he seemed to be able to detect her slightest worry the same way she could guess the instant his knee was bothering him.
“Hmm? Nothing. Just thinking.”
***
Junior seemed to be saving up for a new phone or getting Allison a present, because two days later, Kelly once again had rare free time between the kayak hut and the bowling alley. Instead of spending money on food in town, she drove home to have lunch on the beach with Eddie.
Rocking to Van Halen on the way, she cruised along the road, too carefree to worry about her speedometer.
After she passed the patrol car, she grimaced and checked how fast she was going. Eric wasted no time pulling her over. She tapped to the music with her driver’s license and registration in her lap as he slowly walked up to her car.
Going too fast? Yep. Write the ticket so I can get back to it.
He scratched on the ticket pad and Kelly stared back at him.
“You been drinking today?” he said around the toothpick in his teeth.
It was ten in the morning.
“Yep. It’s so roomy in the kayak hut I like to keep a fridge in there for all my margaritas. And then I’ve gotta have space to smoke my joint and relax with my underage lovers.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Say what, now?”
“Will you give me the ticket already?”
He tapped her driver’s license on his ticket book. “Address says Atlanta.”
“Really? I’ll be damned.”
“Law says you need to update the address of your permanent residence after—”
“Did I ever say I’m staying here for good?”
Eric switched the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “I saw the fed talking with you a couple weeks ago.”
“My goodness! You must have twenty-twenty vision! First you can read my driver’s license”—she snatched her card back—“and then you saw me speaking to a real cop.”
“What’s he interested in you for?”
“Give me one reason why I should tell you, you nosy son of a—”
“Merely asking. Seems like funny business is all. You quit your fancy job in the big city and move to our little old town. You get all uppity like you’re a know-it-all about cottonmouths—”
“Adder.”
“Whatever. Then you get all sassy about Randy’s attack. What’s next, Miss Newland? Every time I get a call, you’re in the thick of it.”
“Is there a point to this conversation?”
“Just saying. Churchston was a quiet little town before you showed up. Sure as hell never had the feds poking around.”
“Eric, let me give you a little advice. Until I do something wrong, keep your nose out of my business and pretend to be a real cop, okay?”
Will sped by in his garage truck. Twenty yards up road, he braked then reversed. He stormed out of the cab with a glare at Eric. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What’s it to you, drunk?” Eric ripped the ticket off the pad and handed it to Kelly.
“What are you doing with her?” Will’s fists clenched as he came closer.
“A speeding ticket to frame and hang on the wall.” Kelly waved it in the air and started the car.
“Why? What the hell are you bothering her for?”
Ch
rist, it’s a speeding ticket. Talk about an overreaction.
“I’m not bothering her.” Eric stabbed a finger at Will’s chest. “I’m doing my job.”
“Leave her alone.”
“Will, he gave me a ticket,” she muttered.
“You’re harassing her.” Will looked at her as though he was making sure she wasn’t bleeding.
If he still cares about keeping it under the down-low, he’s really blowing it. “He’s not harassing me, it’s a stupid ticket.”
“He’s picking on you.”
“She was speeding so I gave her a ticket. Why do you care if she gets a ticket, anyway?”
“I’m sick of you acting like you can harass anyone you want.”
“She was speeding.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Will, I was going damn near eighty.” Kelly furrowed her brows, not appreciating his concern. It was possessive, as though she was fragile and couldn’t handle it herself perfectly well.
“When’s the last time your radar was calibrated?”
She groaned. Will’s macho-fierce-warrior-protector act was getting old. She could take her own fights. And she didn’t intend to argue the ticket. She had been flying.
She ground her teeth as Eric left with a warning to stay out of trouble.
Will set his hands on his hips and studied the road before meeting her eyes.
She raised her brows. What the hell was that about?
Chapter 41
Will’s behavior set her in a sour mood at the bowling alley. She didn’t need his protector alpha male crap and his moody attitude. Since she had come back from the funeral he had seemed more distant, more pensive.
In public, yeah, she got it. She could respect his wishes for privacy. But he had seemed extra temperamental with her when they were together, like she was a pain in the ass. Well, she knew she was, but he was, too. It’s why they fit so perfectly together. It made no sense to her, why he seemed to be building walls and getting jumpy at the same time he was more and more passionate and tender when they went to bed. Something seemed to be up his ass, and she imagined it had to be her.
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