Her eyes went unfocused and she whispered, “Damn.”
Mike’s hand pressed lightly into her stomach and her eyes refocused.
“He called three times,” he explained. “Three times in less than ten minutes. I wouldn’t have answered, honey, but I was worried it was an emergency.”
Her eyes held his but they went soft and unbelievably fucking sweet when she said something that felt unbelievably good to hear.
“I get that you think I care you answered my phone, babe, but I don’t. Got nothing to hide. Just sorry he fed you that bullshit.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he told her and her fast grin came back.
“Did it all the same,” she replied.
Mike moved his hand to the side of her neck as he leaned into her, giving her some of his weight and taking her off her elbows. The instant his weight settled on her, her arms wrapped around him.
“Don’t know it all but this doesn’t seem like healthy behavior,” Mike warned carefully.
“I’m thinking I agree but I’ll be okay,” she assured but Mike didn’t feel assured.
She was confident, that was clear. She was honest and had no problem speaking her mind, even in a confrontation. That was clear too. But she was also a single, five foot six woman. She was not skinny. She had a great ass, great tits and they were abundant in a good way. What they weren’t was packed with power.
So he started, “Dusty –”
He stopped when her arms gave him a squeeze.
“I’m tight with a local cop, Mike,” she told him softly and grinned again. “He’s an anomaly. Married to one of my girls, a good guy who got himself a decent woman. He knows Beau. I get home, I’ll go to their house, have a chat. Give him a heads up. Knowing Hunter, he’ll take some time, find Beau, have a quiet word.” Her arms gave him another squeeze. “That doesn’t work, again, knowing Hunter, he’ll round up a few of his buddies and have another one that’ll be harder to ignore. It’s okay, honey. I’m good.”
Listening to her calm, warm sincerity, speaking about her friends, Mike was pleased and displeased.
He was pleased she had someone she trusted to take her back. He was pleased she had friends she clearly cared about. Just like last night he was pleased to hear her talk about what she did, how much she loved it. She was easy to read. She had a good life she enjoyed living.
But he was displeased she had friends she cared about she trusted to take her back and a good life she enjoyed living.
Because all this was in a small town outside San Antonio.
Twice, he’d assumed wrongly about Dusty. Twice, she proved she was just who she was.
With what happened with Audrey and Vi, he kept reading it wrong and Dusty kept proving she was just who she appeared to be.
It was very early. He was cautious. But that didn’t mean he didn’t like this.
He did. He liked it. What they had. The easiness of it.
What he didn’t like was that they had this morning and then she was gone. Which meant the future of it was up in the air in all new ways.
He had two kids to raise and put through college. Still, he could swing a trip to Texas once, maybe twice a year. He’d been working for The ‘Burg’s Police Department since he graduated the Academy the year after he graduated from Purdue. This meant he’d earned a shitload of vacation. So he had the time, time that wouldn’t cut into his vacations with No and Reesee.
Dusty made her own pottery and was self-employed so she could make time too.
But, this shit worked, there would come a time when he wouldn’t want her going to bed in Texas while he hit the sack in The ‘Burg. And he knew that because his gut was already tight knowing she was going. So, if this went the distance, that time could be soon. And even wary, in less than a day, Dusty had passed test after test so everything was pointing to the fact this could go the distance.
And when it did, one of them would have to give up home. That wasn’t a possibility for Mike. Not for three years. Not until Reesee was in college.
Which meant, they wanted to make a go of it, Dusty would have to up stakes and come home. Home to a place she escaped as soon as she could after graduating high school.
And he didn’t know if she’d be willing to do that.
He’d had a woman not willing to make an important sacrifice to keep them together. And Audrey’s refusal to do so was whacked. Dusty’s would be justified. He didn’t need to be walking, eyes open, into the same fucking thing.
“Hey, gorgeous,” she called softly, her hand lighting on his neck, her thumb moving out to stroke his jaw and his eyes refocused on her. When they did, she asked, “Was it a nice trip?”
He had no clue what she was talking about.
“Pardon?”
“You were miles away, honey.”
He was.
“I’ll be okay,” she assured reading his mood incorrectly. “Hunter is a good guy. You want, I’ll give you his phone number. You can talk to him. See for yourself.”
He stared down at her.
Christ, totally open. One hundred percent.
Still, he took her up on her offer.
“Yeah, I want that.”
She grinned. “Done.” Then she went on, “Best part, you give a shit.” Her head tipped to the side on the mattress and her thumb did a sweep of his jaw as she finished quietly, “Like that, babe.”
Again he stared down at her. Her hair fanned out on the bed. That pink in her cheeks. That soft look on her face.
Fuck, he needed to fuck her. Immediately.
“How set are you on eatin’ those donuts, sweetheart?”
Her eyes flared in that way he felt in his dick. He’d learned last night they did that same exact thing frequently when he had his hands on her, his dick moving inside her. And that flare turned to a blaze seconds before he made her come.
“If you’re offering to help me work up an appetite, since I’m supposed to meet my folks at Frank’s at eleven and I also want to enjoy Frank’s Indiana-wide Famous Pancakes, then the donut orgy can wait. That said, clearly you’ve got your work cut out for you,” she replied.
“A challenge,” he muttered, moving his hands on her and feeling the sexy way her body shifted under him, telling him nonverbally she liked his hands on her.
“You up to it?”
His eyes held hers even as his lips went to her lips.
“Let’s see,” he whispered.
“Awesome,” she whispered back.
His head slanted, hers tilted and Mike set about besting the challenge.
* * * * *
“Hungry?” Mike asked then watched the woman in his arms burst out laughing.
They were outside standing by her rental car. Or, more to the point, he had her pinned against it.
He’d fucked her before donuts. Then they’d eaten donuts and drank cold coffee. Then, with the water pouring down on them, Dusty on her knees in the tub, her fingers wrapped around his hips, she’d very nearly sucked him off before he pulled her up to fuck her in the shower. Out of the shower, she dried her hair and did her makeup after inviting Mike to scroll through her phone and find Hunter’s number. He’d dressed, taken her up on the invitation and programmed it into his phone in order to call her friend later. Then he’d stood in the doorway to the bathroom while she bent over the counter, her sweet ass pointed out, and did her makeup as he programmed all her numbers (cell, home, the “shed” where she made her pieces and gallery) into his phone and he’d programmed his into hers.
When she was done getting ready, they’d made out in bed, going at it like teenagers but before it got too heated, since the time was nigh, he’d stopped it.
They’d made plans. If she was staying, he was at her hotel room to spend the afternoon with her before he had to get home before seven when his kids returned from Audrey’s. If she wasn’t staying, he was following her in her rental to the airport, driving her from the rental place to the terminal and taking her to check in. Then
she’d call when she got home. She’d also call when she figured out when she could come back.
Then they pulled on their coats and he walked her out to her car.
Which brought him to now, holding a beautiful woman in his arms and watching her laugh.
She thought he was a good guy but there were occasions in his life where he’d acted like a dick and knew it. None of them he was proud of.
But he sure as fuck was glad he’d done it the day before.
She sobered but, still chuckling, answered, “Famished.”
“Excellent,” he muttered on a squeeze of his arms and she kept chuckling.
Then her amusement faded, her eyes grew intense and she pressed closer, getting up on her toes, her arms around his shoulders going tighter.
“Sucks,” she whispered. “Totally. Thought it sucked before because I want to be with my family. Totally sucks now.”
He knew what she was talking about. She’d told him she had to get home because there was some gallery showing of her work in Austin next week. She was still preparing. Darrin’s death, as deaths always did, came at a shit time.
He bent his head and touched his lips to hers, saying after he lifted away, “Go and be with your family.”
She nodded.
“Text me or phone me,” he ordered.
She nodded again.
“Now kiss me,” he finished, her eyes flared in that way he liked so fucking much, she pressed deeper and did as she was told.
He took over, lost control and they went at it like teenagers, out in the cold, Mike pressing a beautiful woman against the side of a rental car in the parking lot of a hotel in his hometown.
Then he tore his mouth away, kissed her forehead, opened her door, deposited her ass in the driver’s seat and stood, arms crossed on his chest, eyes glued to her car watching her hand moving from between the seats in a wave as she drove away.
He did this grinning.
* * * * *
Debbie Holliday sat in her rental car staring at the couple who had been standing in each other’s arms talking then the woman was laughing then they were making out.
As in making out.
In other words, going…fucking…at it.
Her sister and her ex-fucking-boyfriend.
“Seriously?” she asked the interior of her car, her voice vibrating with fury. “Seriously?” she hissed.
She’d come by before her conference call to make peace. Her mother had spilled last night that Dusty was in town. She knew this because Mike already told her. She didn’t know the whole fucking family knew all about it.
Right after her mother told her, her father gave her a lecture that he’d lost a son, his wife had too and both his girls had lost their brother. They didn’t need discord. They needed harmony.
It sucked but Dad was right. So Debbie bit the bullet and decided, unlike her little fucking sister who’d holed up in a hotel room and hidden, to do the right thing. Olive branch. Make peace. Give Mom, Dad, fucking Rhonda (who wouldn’t even know, she spent so much time sniveling) and the boys time with all the family together.
And doing the right thing, this was what she got.
Darrin was dead and somehow her little fucking sister was banging her ex-boyfriend and standing out in the parking lot fucking laughing.
Debbie hated it that all her life, even when Dusty went off the rails and exposed the bitch within, that her Mom sang her sister’s praises. “Look at this,” she’d crow, pointing at some bullshit Dusty had scribbled with a crayon like it was Picasso who had held that freaking crayon. “Listen to her, she sounds like an angel,” Mom would whisper reverently anytime Dusty had a solo in church or at the high school.
And Debbie hated it that all her life her Dad would grouse good-naturedly, “My Dusty-girl, such a rascal,” when Dusty would do something sassy or be what everyone but Debbie thought was adorably mouthy. And she hated it when Dad took Dusty and Darrin out to walk through the rows of corn and share his farmer wisdom. “My boy will carry the legacy, but even if he doesn’t, my girl will,” he’d boasted only for Dusty to take off like a shot after high school, proving him wrong. Did he care? No. Instead, years later, he’d brag about her fucking pottery like she didn’t make big, over-priced plates but like she cured fucking cancer.
Did either of them brag about the fact that Debbie made six figures, won the DC Woman in Law award twice and was asked to lecture all over the fucking country? No. All she got from Mom was, “Uh…honey, are you sure he didn’t do it?” when she’d defended that (alleged) rapist who was all over the papers. Admittedly, she had serious suspicions he did do it but she couldn’t share that and it didn’t matter anyway. All she could say was, “Everyone’s entitled to a defense, Mom.” To which her mother mumbled, “All right, Debbie.” And to which her father, much later when they were all in The ‘Burg visiting, said under his breath when he thought she couldn’t hear, “Yeah, entitled as long as they can pay the bills and that guy was a millionaire who thought his shit didn’t stink and he could do anything. Guess Debbie proved that right.” This after they’d talked, or she did, since Darrin, Rhonda, Dad and Mom didn’t say a word, about how she got him off.
And Debbie hated it all her life that Darrin took Dusty’s side all the time. “She’s our little sis, Deb, we gotta look out for her,” Darrin would say but he was full of shit. He, just like everybody, thought the sun shone out of Dusty’s ass. They grew older, Debbie had to watch as her brother and sister grew even tighter. She knew Darrin and Dusty talked all the time. She knew his kids preferred their Aunt Dusty’s presents and her company. She knew that half the times Darrin called Dusty or Dusty called Darrin, Rhonda would get on the phone and jabber Dusty’s ear off about some stupid fucking shit.
It didn’t occur to Debbie that Darrin had tried the same with her the minute she went to Notre Dame and kept trying it even through law school. It didn’t occur to her that she blew him off because she was busy studying or she had better shit to do so he stopped.
All she knew was Dusty and Darrin Holliday were closer than close, tighter than tight and that just grew deeper as they grew older and, as ever, Debbie had no part of it.
Staring at Mike staring after Dusty’s car driving away, Debbie Holliday decided this was it. She was done. This was the end.
Because fucking Dusty had pulled her bullshit antics over two fucking decades before, cozying up to Mike, getting in his face, getting in both their space and Mike was a good guy. But Debbie knew he wasn’t putting up with her little sister because he was a good guy. He was putting up with her sister because, just like everybody, he fell for her shit.
And Debbie hated it way back when and, seeing what she’d just seen, she seriously fucking hated it now.
Debbie Holliday wasn’t stupid. She knew Mike Haines was the best thing she’d ever had. She knew it then and she gave it up because she wanted out of that nowhere town. But Mike made it clear, even back in high school, he was a small town guy, he was a hometown guy and he wasn’t going anywhere. So he broke it off and she let him, giving him up to get what she wanted.
And Dusty, just like fucking Dusty, slid right in to take away what was Debbie’s. It might have taken her twenty years but she did it.
And she used Darrin’s death to do it too.
What a bitch.
And Mike, God, she thought, years ago, he’d seen through Dusty’s bullshit when she went all grunge or goth or whatever the fuck it was. But, apparently, just like everyone else, she’d pulled the wool right over his eyes. Fuck, a cop, and he still didn’t see.
Debbie understood, rationally, that she had no intention of going there. Yes, if Mike had walked through the door she opened the day before, she would have been at his house like a shot to enjoy him and that tall, delicious body of his so she could forget all the shit swirling around her. Hell, he’d been a fantastic lover even as a teenager. Maybe not in the beginning but, seriously, even as a boy-man, he learned quick how to use his mouth, his h
ands and better parts of his body. And even as a boy-man he was driven to make sure she got something out of it too. Again, maybe not in the beginning, but he learned that quickly too and she let him. If he’d walked through that door yesterday, she knew nothing could come of it. She was going back to DC and she’d never, ever call The ‘Burg home again.
But that didn’t mean he was open to Dusty.
Debbie sat in her parked car and watched Mike walk to his dark blue Chevy Equinox vaguely thinking he needed to trade up. She didn’t know cars very well but it appeared his was at least two years old. She thought this as she thought not so vaguely that he’d never lost that sexy as fuck loose-limbed, masculine grace he’d had since high school.
Then she watched him swing in.
Then she watched him drive away.
Then she sat in her car, seething.
Her little sister.
Her fucking little sister.
Jesus, some things never changed.
Even the shit that should.
She switched on the ignition and drove back to her childhood home that she knew was now empty because her family was having brunch with her fucking little sister and she did this to take her Sunday conference call.
* * * * *
Mike pulled the Frisbee from his golden retriever, Layla’s mouth and set it to flying.
She ran after it, her paws crunching through the soft white blanket of flakes, sending out tufts of snow.
It was fucking freezing but his backyard was the size of a postage stamp and his dog needed room to run. So he’d taken Layla to Arbuckle Acres Park. He knew she didn’t feel a thing except extreme excitement Dad was taking her on an outing and bringing the Frisbee with him.
With a gloved hand, he reached into his back jeans pocket and pulled out his phone. Layla came back with the Frisbee, waited until his fingers were curled around it then let it go.
Mike let it fly.
She ran and he scrolled down to Hunter Rivera’s name in his phonebook and hit go.
It rang twice then, “Rivera.”